What was the difference in taxation amounts before and after the American Revolution?

Upvote:0

It was very different from place to place. In some locations taxes were non-existent. In others, they were heavy and burdensome. Generally speaking, the closer you were to valuable farmland or colonial centers like Philadelphia or Charlestown, the higher the taxes were.

In general, taxes rose dramatically after the war as the various governments of the former colonies struggled to pay debts and operate without help from England. There was even an armed uprising, called the Whiskey Rebellion, in reaction to one of the many multifarious taxes that were imposed after the war. Another violent uprising against taxation and government policies around the same time was Shay's Rebellion in Massachusetts. One of the more comical taxes of the time was the "Batchelor's tax" imposed on young, unmarried men to punish them for not marrying.

Upvote:1

There was no power under the Articles of Confederation to lay any direct tax on the people immediately following the American Revolution. That power was not granted until the Constitution was written about a decade later (depending on if we're measuring the times by the writing or the ratification).

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