Notes on Taxation

So I'm writing a policy paper on corporate income taxes. Just a couple of notes as I write this. Although my paper is on corporate income tax, these notes are specifically about the personal income tax history.

1. When the early colonial Americans were taxed unfairly, they dressed up like Indians and dumped the tea into Boston Harbor. Why are we not dumping gasoline into Boston Harbor ? Or Utah Lake?

2. It was very common to have excise taxes on items like tobacco, liquor, or snuff back in colonial days. For example, Pennsylvania imposed an excise on liquor sales partly "to restrain persons in low circumstances from an immoderate use thereof." Now why is putting a high tax on cigarettes a bad thing???

3. Taxes were never used to redistribute wealth. Thomas Jefferson said:
 

To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." So Obama is like the anti-Jefferson.

4. A flat income tax was the first enacted in 1894. I think they had it right the first time.

5. After the stock market crash in 1929, the Great Depression ensued and what did the government do in 1932? Raise taxes. By 1936 the top rate was up to 79%!!! Of course, raising taxes didn't end the depression, it lengthened it. Now which candidate today wants to raise our taxes again during economic turmoil????

All right. I can't handle this anymore. I need to get back to writing my paper.