People may refer to taxes as a bad thing, but in the late eighteenth century, taxes were good, in a way. If it wasn’t for taxes and restrictions, America might not be as it is now. The British being short on money from fighting the Seven Years’ War with France and the Indian’s, so they wanted to raise money to pay off their enormous debt. They looked at the Colonies in America as a way of doing this. They started to impose taxes on the colonies to recuperate some of that lost money. The taxes they imposed on the Colonies are the Stamp Act, The Sugar Act, The Intolerable Act, and the Tea Act. At the time, these taxes were detrimental to the Colonies, so they fought back to the British Empire, and wrote the Declaration of Independence. This was the official document that started the split from British control and the …show more content…
They renewed the Act in 1764 with some provisions which was in their favor. At a quick glance at the tax, it looks like it would favor the Colonies because it went from six pence per gallon to three pence per gallon on molasses. But, before the law was rewritten, the Colonies were smuggling their molasses from the French West Indies to avoid paying the tax which made it cheaper than the products coming from Britain. Since the colonies were not paying the tax, the products from the French was much cheaper than the products from Britain. Along with the tax the British also mandated that the Navy enforcement the new tax and stop the illegal smuggling of sugar and molasses from the French. The British also made stricter punishments for people caught smuggling. The punishment being, once caught, you were not entitled to a trial by jury but from only a judge. This made the punishment for smuggling much stricter than before. This was done to motivate the people to stop smuggling and buy their products from the
Parliament decided that the colonies should help pay towards the cost of the recent war debt and for future defense. The first step towards this was the Revenue Act of 1764, generally referred to as the Sugar Act. The Sugar Act was also known as “an Act with Teeth,”(Mass Historical Society) symbolizing that it was an act with depth or of importance. The Act itself was divided into two sections. First, it was intended to raise money from trade between the British colonies in America. It levied import duties on a list of raw materials including: sugar, coffee, indigo, wine, rum, lumber, and various cloths. The Sugar Act made the Molasses Act of 1733 perpetual. Although it cut the tax on molasses in half, from sixpence to threepence per gallon, to discourage smuggling and to make the tax attractive. Second, the Act revamped and reinvigorated the customs service, which managed the collection of these import duties. For the first time, colonists argued that Parliament was depriving them of a fundamental constitutional right to have these goods duty free.
Within the colonies, economic elements influenced the British to generate taxes on the colonists in order to bring in additional revenue to cover their war debt. Some of these taxes that were put in place include the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act, the Tea Act. All three of these acts forced the Americans to pay a tax on everyday goods. Whereas Americans viewed the new tax on sugar and other imports as a burden and violation of their rights, for the British, the taxes were a modest imposition necessary to pay for the cost of eliminating the French from North America and administering the colonies (Keene, 101-102). As a result of their two different views on the taxes, the Americans and the British were set up to have conflicts. Because of their
Taxes were not fair to the colonists. A tax is money that people pay to their government in return for service. One of the taxes is the sugar act. The sugar act taxed coffee and
The taxation of the colonists was very important to what would eventually be the American Revolution. The people of the colonies were finally united, though they have not called for an army to be made or haven’t talked about independence, they are starting to come together, and make their differences blur.
During the Boston Tea Party, Great Britain taxed American citizens due to large expenses of an unnecessary war (Document B). Though taxes are justified, the method in which the policy was enforced was not necessarily friendly to the American citizens. The British Parliament met together and decided to tax Americans, thus coining the phrase, taxation without representation. American citizens were disappointed to be taxed without a say in the processes. In addition to tea taxes, Americans were also taxed on sugar (Sugar Acts) and any official documents (Stamp Act), thus creating a huge burden on the economics of the American people. Thus, the American Revolution changed American society by easing the burden on American economics and allowing American individuals to represent themselves when addressing issues and creating policies to tax others. Furthermore, when the United States had freedom to trade with other nations, its economic began to prosper due to the increase in land and in raw materials, in which the nation could trade to the rest of the world without the control of the British (Document
After the French and Indian War ended in 1763, Britain had a huge debt that had to be paid. Unfortunately, the war had been a long and costly one and had taken it's toll on Britain's finances. In an effort to make up the debt Britain's Parliament began passing laws by placing taxes on goods purchased by the colonists in America. First, there was the Sugar Act in 1764, and then the Stamp Act the following year, as well as a variety of other laws enforced to get money from the colonists. Naturally, the colonists were not pleased with Britain's control and taxation. The colonists felt that they should not be held accountable for the debt and should not have to pay the taxes. The colonists felt that since Parliament was elected by people living in England and they did not take part in voting for members of Parliament then Parliament did not have the right to take their money by imposing taxes.
The Sugar Act On April 5, 1764, the parliament of Great Britain passed a law that set a tax on molasses and sugar imported into the colonies as a means of increasing the profit earned from the colonists. The purposes of the sugar act were to decrease the tax on molasses from 6 to 3 pence per gallon, but the new tax was collected by the British military, establish admiralty courts for tax violators, stop the colonist from trading with non-British suppliers, and reduce the amount of people that avoided paying taxes, increasing the tax on other foreign goods. The colonist did not like the sugar act because there were experiencing financial difficulties at the time and it was taxation without representation. The English’s policy of Salutary Neglect
The sugar act and the molasses act of 1764, was when the merchants had to pay tax of sixpence per gallon on importation of foreign molasses and sugar. Since a lot of molasses crossed over the sea they had to pay lots of taxes. And the british forced the colonists to buy their goods so they had to pay the tax. Then the colonist started boycotting some british goods and other people just did not pay taxes. Then the colonists smuggled the goods into the colonies. So the british didn't want them smuggling and boycotting the goods. So then they lowered the taxes to threepence so the colonists would pay the taxes. Then they made more goods to be taxed sense they lowered the taxes.
This henceforth said that it was right for the Colonists to be taxed unfairly. This tax was supposed to help the East India Company which was hurting because of the surplus of unsold tea (The Tea Act). The passage of the Tea Act led to colonial resistance and protests that paved the way for the fight for independence from Britain. The colonies revolted against it, of course, but the British once again responded by passing another act. Boston Tea Party, was biggest retaliation on the colonies’ part (The Tea Act).
After the French and Indian war the British went into a lot of debt. They had to pay all the people back that supplied them with good and ammo. They started to tax the colonists because they thought that they should pay some of the debt. The colonists really didn’t like British taxing them and they started to revolt. Here are a couple of the acts that imposed taxes on the colonists.
Two of the major events prior to the American Revolution were the enactment of the Sugar Act of 1764 and the Stamp Act in 1765. Both were designed to increase British tax revenues. The American colonies could handle these new taxes, however, the colonists began to question question whether Parliament had the right to tax the colonies.
The British impose taxes onto the American colonists to pay of their debt from the war. When the British force these taxes onto the colonists, it makes them feel as if all their efforts towards freedom were for nothing. Colonists left Britain to hopefully escape British control but the British wouldn’t let them have their freedom.
This act was an extension of the Molasses Act (1733), which was set to expire in 1763. The Sugar Act was created by Great Britain to help deal with the financial outcome of the Seven Year War. The British had won the war but the cost of their victory had left them in huge debt. They had to figure out some way to pay off the debt, so they taxed colonists on sugar, coffee, wine, indigo, etc. The British government did not ask permission from the colonists to do this. Most Colonists were angry that the British Government took this into action without permission. The colonists didn't like that they were being controlled by the British. England did not care how the colonists felt about the Sugar Act because England had to pay off their debt from the war. The Sugar Act was very intense, because most colonists could not afford to be taxed on these necessities. Most colonists would smuggle these items, due to the taxation. The Sugar Act of 1764 was not a good part of the road to the American Revolution, but it was a very important event, which lead the even more terrible events, like the Boston
The British were enforcing these laws and tried putting an end to smuggling. Trading had to be done through the British. The act decreased the profit of those merchants in the colonies. Those colonists who were caught
Eighteenth-Century War, mainly the French and Indian war, cost a fortune. The British in England paid taxes to help balance the country’s obligations, even though fewer profited as specifically from the British triumph did their counterparts in the American colonies. British troops had a greater opportunity to observe colonial life and officials stationed in or visit the colonies during the French and Indian War. Parliament launched a three-prong program to establish order. Basically, Britain’s policymakers trusted they were justified from the fact that they saw that the colonies were too much and afterword they began needing to tax however it was past the point where it is possible to attempt to change the colonies. The Americans got away from British ways of life at the point they had individuals living there who were born there and had never at any point been to Britain to know anything about