War Taxes Research Articles

Rallying Fiscal Patriotism: War Taxes in the Contemporary World

Constituting a central historical link between war and long-term fiscal capacity, war taxes are generally perceived to be a thing of the past. This article corrects the picture by presenting new, global data on war taxes, 68 in total, introduced between 1960 and 2020. Far from having been abandoned, war taxes have remained a crucial war-time fiscal instrument, leaving long-term imprints on tax systems across the contemporary world. Serving the twin imperatives of revenue maximisation and generation of taxpayer consent, I argue that the use of war taxes is conditioned by the relative intensity and the perceived legitimacy of a war, be it civil or inter-state. The proposed logic aligns with case evidence, further supported by macro-quantitative analysis. The results speak to the large literature on war and state-building, challenge the standard disintegrative view of civil wars, and provide new empirical insights into the political economy of conflict-affected countries.

Géza Pálffy. Hungary between Two Empires 1526–1711.

Géza Pálffy. <i>Hungary between Two Empires 1526–1711</i>.

India's Goods and Services Tax: A Unique Experiment in Cooperative Federalism and a Constitutional Crisis in Waiting

It has long been argued that federal countries, especially those with strong subnational taxing powers, might face difficulty in implementing a federal value-added tax (VAT) because of coordination issues involved, and therefore might be reluctant to adopt one. This article provides insights on how VAT structures are evolving in federal systems, where different tiers of government have separate (and sometimes overlapping) taxation powers. While the author focuses mainly on India's recently enacted goods and services tax (GST), he also offers a comparative perspective, with reference to the GST/VAT systems in Canada, Brazil, and the European Union, thus adding to the hitherto limited body of scholarly work on VAT coordination in federal jurisdictions. The GST is arguably India's biggest tax reform in several decades. Introduced primarily to create a unified national market and bring an end to tax wars and economic distortions, the tax reform's chief slogan was "GST—one-nation-one-tax-one-market." This article takes a closer look at a unique institutional design feature of the Indian GST—a centre-state body called the GST council. What makes this body unique is that it is envisaged as functioning on the principles of cooperative federalism. But can a concurrent tax system, whose very survival is based on cooperative federalism, guarantee a unified national market? If yes, for how long? The author highlights the role of the GST council in market integration and explains why the council has succeeded on several fronts while failing on others. He also addresses an unresolved constitutional issue that could affect the GST council's ability to function as the fulcrum for cooperative federalism—namely, the question of whether its decisions are binding. The uncertainty surrounding this issue could lead to a constitutional crisis if one or more states decide to opt out. The author discusses four possible ways to deal with this impending crisis.

Taxes, Wagenburgs and a Nightingale: The Imperial Abbey of Ellwangen and the Hussite Wars, 1427–1435

Drawing upon unpublished financial accounts, this article sheds new light on how an ecclesiastical institution in southern Germany navigated the tense military and political environment of the Holy Roman Empire during the Hussite wars. The accounts of Ellwangen Abbey offer a compelling window into how its community dealt with a series of military, economic and diplomatic challenges – from raising extraordinary war taxes and hosting the visiting emperor-elect, to equipping its own military contingent – encouraging a reassessment of the burdens borne by ecclesiastical foundations during the Hussite era and offering new perspectives on how holy war impacted on daily life in smaller communities in Central Europe.

Digital Service Tax in the European Union and Turkey Practice

The development of information and communication technologies has led to a serious transformation in the economy. Before this change, which accelerated with the 21st century, the economy was based on brick and mortar trade, while today it is increasingly based on bit and byte technology. This situation has caused the system to not work properly as the tax system is based on concrete and physical jobs. International organizations such as the OECD, IMF and EU are working towards joint action since unilateral measures taken by states may cause tax wars. Hovewer, it is difficult to reconcile countries with very different interests in a common solution. In this study, the Digital Services Tax (DST) proposed by the EU to implement interoperability between EU countries as a temporary solution, was examined and the Digital Services Tax reflections in Turkey was interpreted. Unilateral taxes have begun international tax wars, even though they are still in their infancy. While the majority of states recognize the necessity of a fundamental and long-term solution, they are introducing new types of taxes or taxation methods to protect their taxation rights. The Digital Service Tax is one of them.For Turkey, rather than short-term applications, it is recommended that the tax system be made compatible with digital technologies. The process of enacting Digital Service Tax has been criticized is being too fast and The Digital Services Tax does not have an independent code. It is stated in the doctrine, as cited in this study, that the tax rate is much higher than the EU examples. How to ensure compliance with taxation has been put forward as an important problem. The imposition of internet access restrictions on digital service providers that do not comply with taxation by executive decision has been identified as an advanced legal study. As a result, it is concluded that regulatory impact analysis of the Digital Services Tax Code is unsatisfactory in Turkey.

Extreme Violence and the 'British Way': Colonial warfare in Perak, Sierra Leone, and Sudan by Michelle Gordon

Reviewed by: Extreme Violence and the 'British Way': Colonial warfare in Perak, Sierra Leone, and Sudan by Michelle Gordon Amina Marzouk Chouchene Extreme Violence and the 'British Way': Colonial warfare in Perak, Sierra Leone, and Sudan By Michelle Gordon. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020. Michelle Gordon's Extreme Violence and the 'British Way' examines three cases of colonial violence that occurred in the second half of the nineteenth century: the Perak War in Malaya (1875–76), the Hutt Tax War in Sierra Leone (1898–99), and the Anglo-Egyptian War of Reconquest in Sudan (1896–99). The book pays close attention to these "small wars," which are "often forgotten or ignored" (3). By relying on various "colonial" sources such as British parliamentary papers, the personal accounts of the soldiers who fought in these wars, and newspaper articles, Gordon argues that "violence or the threat thereof were at the core of the British Empire" (1–2). In this respect, Gordon's major argument does not seem to offer something substantially new or different to an apparently well-worn historical subject. Numerous historians including Taylor Sherman, Mark Condos, Amanda Nettelbeck, Philip Dwyer, Elizabeth Kolsky and others have already highlighted the ubiquity of British violence in various colonial settings.1 Nevertheless, Gordon's book has the potential to add to the growing body of scholarship by dealing with lesser-known cases of British colonial violence and highlighting their genocidal potential. Drawing on the insights of genocide studies, Gordon emphasizes that the British were constantly ready to use extreme violence in order to maintain British colonial control over the indigenous people and pre-empt future acts of resistance. The use of "divide and rule" tactics, looting, a disregard for international standards of warfare, the use of collective reprisals on civilians, scorched earth policies, and starvation tactics on combatants and noncombatants represent some of the methods of extreme violence used to forestall any possible threats to British power and prestige. Interestingly, the author persuasively pinpoints that extreme acts of violence were, in many cases, committed by British soldiers who were profoundly influenced by conditions on the ground. The book focuses as well on the tensions that marked the relationship between the Colonial Office and the "men on the spot" and how the actions of the latter contributed significantly to the outbreak of conflicts and the escalation of violence. This is particularly evident in the case of Perak and Sierra Leone. For instance, the decisions of the governors, Lieutenant-General William Jervois and Colonel Frederic Cardew, contradicted the moderate approach of the Colonial Office. Nevertheless, Gordon carefully and rightly notes that although the Colonial Office frequently favored a softer approach of colonial control than "the men on the spot," measures of extreme violence "continued with little action from London" as "the main objective remained the maintenance and expansion of the British Empire" (305). The book helps us also to understand the commonalities among the three wars, which seem to be wholly distinct and separate cases of colonial warfare. Although the extent of opposition the British faced was different in each case, the British used extreme violence. Moreover, in the three cases of colonial warfare, racial prejudices fuelled British colonial violence and justified it. The Indigenous people were cast in a negative light. They were considered "inferior" and "barbarians." As a result, they were punished and they were seen as undeserving of "civilized methods of warfare." This means that "the logic of difference" or what Partha Chatterjee calls "the rule of colonial difference dictated and justified techniques of violence."2 Moreover, and equally importantly, the three wars demonstrate that collective punishments were very common. They were meted out even to noncombatants. Certainly, Gordon's book challenges the recent celebratory accounts of the British Empire, which has become much more pronounced during the Brexit campaign and even after. It refutes the nostalgic view of an exceptionally British moderate approach of colonial violence that distinguishes it from other ruthless imperial powers such as Germany. In other terms, the book debunks what historian Kim Wagner identifies as a "sanitized account of the British Empire"3 by dealing with instances of colonial violence that are considered an unworthy subject of historical research...

Estudo sobre o imposto sobre propriedade territorial urbana cobrado nas capitais brasileiras: análise da legalidade e forma de cálculo

O Imposto Predial e Territorial Urbano (IPTU) consiste em um tributo que tem fundamento de validade na Constituição da República Federativa do Brasil de 1988 (CF-88), que incide sobre a propriedade urbana, cabendo aos entes municipais legislar, cobrar e fiscalizar esse imposto. A Constituição, ainda, afirma, no artigo 156, que o imposto poderá ser progressivo em razão do valor do imóvel e ter alíquotas diferentes de acordo com a localização e o uso do imóvel. Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo realizar um estudo comparativo para identificar as características dos critérios de avaliação do rendimento e da progressividade das alíquotas utilizadas pela legislação das 27 capitais brasileiras, sendo 26 dos estados e da capital do Distrito Federal. Foi realizada pesquisa exploratória devido ao processo investigativo e descritiva pelo fato de descrever as características da amostra, além disso, pesquisa documental com base na legislação federal e na legislação das capitais brasileiras. Ao final, identificou-se os diferentes critérios para definição das alíquotas e se as prefeituras atendem à progressividade. Este estudo contribui para despertar o interesse do contribuinte municipal em analisar à questão tributária, demonstrando aspectos legais, além de destacar a necessidade de regulações claras federais para evitar ou minimizar guerras fiscais.

An elementary model of export tax war

In this paper, the author uses a generalized version of Kennan and Riezman (Int Econ Rev 29(1):81–85, 1988) trade war model with Stone–Geary preferences, where countries can choose between a Nash tariff or an export tax. Three scenarios emerge from this setting, namely: the standard tariff war, the export tax war and a mixed scenario—“the tariff-export tax war”—where one country applies a Nash tariff, while the other imposes an export tax. In this setting, countries derive their market power not only from their relative endowment size, but also from their subsistence consumptions. As a consequence, a large country does not necessarily win a trade war if it has a substantially higher consumption requirement than the small country. This finding explains why large economies sign trade agreements with small counterparts that prohibit the use of tariffs and export taxes.

The Globar War: The EU’s Apple Tax Case

AbstractIt is often said that globalization is just a new form of war between nations; an economic war. It is also a tax war; fiscal policies are a central point of the competition for territories’ attractiveness (ROUGÉ et CHOPOV 2016). But the global tax war is not only another form of interstates conflict; it is also a brand new kind of war between global firms and state to share the burden of civil society. The aim of this paper is to clarify what is at stake in this war to be able to fight it.

Borrowing Support for War: The Effect of War Finance on Public Attitudes toward Conflict

How does the way states finance wars affect public support for conflict? Most existing research has focused on costs as casualties rather than financial burdens, and arguments that do speak to the cost in treasure either minimize potential differences between the two main forms of war finance—debt and taxes—or imply that war taxes do not dent support for war among a populace rallying around the fiscal flag. Using original experiments conducted in the United States and the United Kingdom, we evaluate the relationship between war finance and support for war. We find that how states finance wars has an important effect on support for war and that the gap in support resulting from different modes of war finance holds across the main democracies engaging in conflict, regardless of the type of war or individuals’ party identification. The findings have important implications for theories of democratic accountability in wartime and the conduct of conflict, since borrowing shields the public from the direct costs of war and in turn reduces opposition to it, giving leaders greater latitude in how they carry out war.

The Tax War on Poverty

In recent years, the war on poverty has moved in large part into the tax code. Scholarship has started to note that the tax laws, which once exacerbated the problem of poverty, have become increasingly powerful tools that the federal government uses to fight against it. Yet questions remain about how this new tax war on poverty works, how it is different from the decades of non-tax anti-poverty policy and how it could improve. To answer these questions, this Article looks comprehensively at the provisions that make up the new tax war on poverty. First, this Article examines each major piece of the tax war on poverty. The Article looks at its mechanics of each, its political history and its effectiveness at addressing poverty. Second, this Article analyzes the tax war on poverty as a whole, identifying commonalities across its different provisions and highlighting its distinctive features. Third, this Article proposes ways that the tax war on poverty could be more effective. In particular, this Article examines how tax lawmakers and tax lawyers could approach this task. In so doing, this Article conceptualizes tax law as the new poverty law and proposes a growing role for public-interest tax lawyers.

Der Erzkanzler im Religionskrieg: Kurfürst Anselm Casimir von Mainz, die geistlichen Fürsten und das Reich, 1629 bis 1647 by Franz Brendle (review)

Reviewed by: Der Erzkanzler im Religionskrieg: Kurfürst Anselm Casimir von Mainz, die geistlichen Fürsten und das Reich, 1629 bis 1647 by Franz Brendle David Parrott Der Erzkanzler im Religionskrieg: Kurfürst Anselm Casimir von Mainz, die geistlichen Fürsten und das Reich, 1629 bis 1647. By Franz Brendle. [Reformationsgeschichtliiche Studien und Texte, Band 156.] (Münster: Aschendorff Verlag. 2011. Pp. xiv, 578. €59,00. ISBN 978-3-402-12802-2.) The career of Anselm Casimir Wambold von Umstadt, archbishop of Mainz from 1629 to 1647, has attracted little historical attention. Yet as highest-ranking of the prince-electors and as Imperial chancellor for a large part of the Thirty Years’ War, he played a distinct role in a key series of political and military events within the Holy Roman Empire. Brendle’s substantial and scholarly biography thus fills a large gap in our knowledge of an important but neglected figure; but the book is no less a significant re-evaluation of the character and stance of the “Catholic Party” within the Empire, which has been all too easily conflated with Bavarian political and military concerns. As Imperial chancellor, Anselm Casimir directed a large part of the Imperial constitutional and legal machinery, was a key figure in coordinating Catholic policy in the Empire, and enjoyed a high degree of influence with the emperor. The new archbishop was elected in the midst of the debate over the forcible re-catholicization of all ecclesiastical territory that had been acquired by Protestant princes since the 1555 Peace of Augsburg. Anselm Casimir led the Catholic princes in supporting the initial imposition of the 1629 Edict of Restitution, but soon distinguished himself as a moderate, anxious to compromise over its enforcement and prepared to negotiate with the Protestant Electors (above all, with John George of Saxony) in the hope of achieving a peace settlement in the Empire. This overriding concern to achieve a settlement led Anselm Casimir to join the Electors’ fatal call to dismiss the Imperial generalissimo Wallenstein, and he personally coordinated the pressure on the emperor at the Diet of Regensburg to achieve [End Page 362] this objective. His leading role at the Diet gave him a considerable reputation and allowed him to press for an Imperial settlement, but the Swedish invasion of North Germany radically transformed the situation. Following the victory at Breitenfeld in September 1631, the troops of Gustavus Adolphus spilled out into the Rhineland; Mainz was occupied and became the center of Swedish military operations for the next four years. While his territory was garrisoned and subjected to massive war taxes, the archbishop was driven into exile. From Cologne, Anselm Casimir conducted extended but fruitless negotiations with France in the hope that diplomatic pressure might persuade the Swedes to accept the French “protection” of his bishopric. Following this failure, the archbishop made a final and definitive shift of alliance over to the emperor, bringing both his territorial resources and his constitutional standing with the other Catholic states directly into the emperor’s service. This overt alliance with the Habsburgs weakened his influence as Imperial chancellor in the negotiations for a peace settlement in the Empire at Pirna, then at Prague. The Swedish pulled out of Mainz in 1635, but when France declared war on the Habsburgs, Mainz was again threatened. It was not until January 1636 that Anselm Casimir finally re-entered his episcopal city. The new phase of the war opened by French intervention and the resurgence of Swedish military pressure ensured that the Imperial chancellor remained at the center of political maneuvers within the Empire, but as a virtual client of the emperor. The final, shorter section of Brendle’s study concerns this later period, which Anselm Casimir began as cheerleader for the pre-election of the future Ferdinand III as Holy Roman Emperor in 1636. Although once the Westphalia negotiations opened, he again demonstrated tenacity in arguing against Catholic intransigence and for compromise with both German Protestants and external powers. This did not prevent Mainz being occupied again by the French in 1645, leading to the second exile of the archbishop, who died in Frankfurt in October 1647. This is an excellent and comprehensive study, which...

Political Parties at War: A Study of American War Finance, 1789–2010

What determines when states adopt war taxes to finance the cost of conflict? We address this question with a study of war taxes in the United States between 1789 and 2010. Using logit estimation of the determinants of war taxes, an analysis of roll-call votes on war tax legislation, and a historical case study of the Civil War, we provide evidence that partisan fiscal differences account for whether the United States finances its conflicts through war taxes or opts for alternatives such as borrowing or expanding the money supply. Because the fiscal policies implemented to raise the revenues for war have considerable and often enduring redistributive impacts, war finance—in particular, war taxation—becomes a high-stakes political opportunity to advance the fiscal interests of core constituencies. Insofar as the alternatives to taxation shroud the actual costs of war, the findings have important implications for democratic accountability and the conduct of conflict.

The Brazilian ``Tax War''

This article tests for horizontal tax competition in the value-added tax (VAT) for a sample of Brazilian states in the period 1985-2001. The states have considerable autonomy over the VAT and often use it as an industrial policy tool. The empirical findings, based on the estimation of a tax reaction function in an error-correction setup, confirm that the states react strongly to changes in their neighbors' VAT code, especially those that belong to the same geoeconomic region. Also, there is a Stackelberg leader among the states, with the remaining jurisdictions responding strongly to its policy moves. There is no co-occupancy of tax bases among different levels of government and hence limited scope for vertical externalities in tax setting. But the fact that the federal government shares with the states part of the revenue of its more elastic taxes, such as the income tax, appears to affect the opportunity cost of horizontal tax competition.

Technology and "Reel Patriotism" in American Film Advertising of the World War I Era

Technology and “Reel Patriotism” in American Film Advertising of the World War I Era James Latham (bio) "We can now see, through the looking glass of several decades, that both war and Hollywood thrive on illusion." —Robert S. Sennett Advertising and publicity are forms of commercial speech that function powerfully to motivate movie-going and shape our understanding of films.1 In fact, at times, advertisements are more memorable, more evocative, and more widely seen than the films they promote. While historians have studied the production and exhibition of war-related films, they have paid much less attention to how these films were sold to the American public. The promotion of war-related films, specifically the advertisements that announced them to consumers, conveyed cultural meanings of patriotism, the national identity of Americans and her enemies, and the reasons why the country was at war and why the public should contribute to it. Advertising for American films from World War I did more than simply tout movies. This case study of seven advertisements reveals the ideological power of what Christian Metz once described as cinema's "third machine: after the one that manufactures the films, and the one that consumes them, the one that vaunts them, that valorizes the product."2 Most of these advertisements promoted films exhibited in the latter years of World War I, when the United States and its film industry were fully engaged in the war; other ads emphasized certain issues that were of special concern to exhibitors, such as war taxes on theater admissions.3 WWI era advertisements for war films created rich rhetorical forms with words and images that could evoke primal fears or modern optimism. Technologies were deployed in ads to encourage exhibitors to book movies and the public to see them. World War I marked the introduction or modernization of the submarine, machine gun, tank, airplane, artillery, radio, and chemical weapon. These technologies transcended conventional limitations of space and time to deliver destruction to distant military or civilian populations. They created lasting physical and emotional damage on an unprecedented scale. Film promotion both familiarized audiences with these technologies and used them rhetorically to signify the relative power of combatants and the righteousness of the Allied cause. When, for instance, ads showed Americans with one of the new weapons technologies they were portrayed as effective and morally justified; however, when a German wielded a machine gun, he was inept or evil. In addition to new technologies, film promotion depicted more conventional and even primitive weapons, such as knives and clubs, sometimes staging allegorical scenes with figures like Uncle Sam and Kaiser Wilhelm II. These condensed the war into a dramatic conflict between two familiar combatants and alluded to the great historical significance, or the putative ancient animosities, in this struggle between democracy and the tyranny of the evil "Hun." Film promotion even depicted non-military technologies being used as weapons, such as mechanical presses that squeezed the Kaiser to death. Thus, images of technology in ads often went beyond the literal content of the films they promoted, as is typical with advertising—a practice prone to hyperbole and playing upon the emotions and imaginations of consumers.4 Like the films they promoted, advertisements functioned to rally support for the war effort and to exploit the conventional movie attraction of technology as spectacle. War film promotion also valorized the medium of cinema, itself a modern form of communication and a powerful technological weapon that served "our" interests. Ads touted the capacity of cinema to provide news or spectacular images from the war with greater verisimilitude than any other medium. They vaunted cinema's ability to advocate the war effort—how cinema could portray the leaders, heroes, villains, and victims of the war in ways that served government interests. Cinema was likened to weapons such as the machine gun, with the information and persuasive content of film images being as powerful as bullets in combating the enemy. Ads also touted cinema as a respite from the war, providing escapist entertainment that rejuvenated war-weary spirits. As providers of this powerful new medium, local exhibitors were encouraged to see themselves not simply as merchants but as actively...

Encumbered Cuba: Capital Markets and Revolt, 1878–1895

Encumbered Cuba: Capital Markets and Revolt, 1878–1895

The Great Tax Wars. By STEVEN R. WEISMAN.

<i>The Great Tax Wars</i>. By STEVEN R. WEISMAN.

The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln to Wilson—The Fierce Battles Over Money and Power that Transformed the Nation

The Great Tax Wars: Lincoln to Wilson—The Fierce Battles Over Money and Power that Transformed the Nation

The great tax wars

The great tax wars

Local Fiscal Strategy to Retain Heterogeneous Firms

This paper is about the strategy of retaining unobservably heterogeneous firms attracted by unobservably valued outside alternatives. We prove that differentiating taxation and public good fiscal packages within one’s own locale dominates offering the same packages to all firms. We rationalize the full range of observed practice by considering more than one type of firm, more than one type of fiscal instrument, and all kinds of utility in alternative locations, under asymmetric information. Mobile agents can earn rents under some conditions, and immobile agents earn rents under others. Ways to minimize budgetary exposure in tax wars and effects on the composition of local economies are discussed.