So I was looking for figures on how much the colonists were taxed (through the various acts passed by parliment) prior to the revolutionary war. The only figure I could find was a sixpence annually from wikipedia. I then looked for the wage rate of a colonist prior to the revolution and found that the average annual income for a wage earner was £32.5 So the annual tax would only be 1/1300th of the income of a wage earner. Is this accurate? It seems rediculously low.
I don’t think direct income taxation was the primary source of government tax revenue. You will probably need to look at tariffs, and tax stamps (if that is different from a tariff, IDK).
I’m pretty sure parliment never levied an income tax. I’m just curious how much of colonists income ended up being taxed, so I can compare it to modern tax policies.
Enough to start pulling triggers
As far as I know, the first income tax was levied by Lincoln during the War of Secession, and then the 16th amendment, passed in 1913, gave congress the power to “lay and collect taxes on incomes”.