Event

The Stamp Act of 1765 required American colonists to pay a tax on every piece of printed paper they ...

The Boston Tea Party occurred on December 16, 1773, when American colonists dumped 342 chests of Bri...

The Whiskey Rebellion of 1791 to 1794 was a protest against the first federal excise tax in the Unit...

Magna Carta, signed in 1215, limited the power of King John to impose taxes without consent. Clause ...

The first US federal income tax was enacted in 1861 to fund the Civil War. The Revenue Act of 1861 i...

The 16th Amendment to the US Constitution, ratified in 1913, gave Congress the power to lay and coll...

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 created the central banking system of the United States. While not a...

The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, signed by President Reagan, was the largest tax cut in US his...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was the most significant US tax reform since 1986. The act reduced...

The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Rec...

The value added tax was invented by French economist Maurice Lauré in 1954. VAT is a consumption tax...

The Goods and Services Tax launched on July 1, 2017, was the largest tax reform in Indian history. G...

The window tax was introduced in England in 1696 as a property tax based on the number of windows in...

The gabelle, or French salt tax, was one of the most hated taxes in history. Instituted in 1341, the...

The British salt tax in India prohibited Indians from collecting or selling salt, forcing them to bu...

The poll tax, or head tax, was a fixed tax per person regardless of income. The poll tax of 1381 hel...

India is the second largest tea producer in the world. Tea has historically been taxed through GST a...

Al Capone was Americas most notorious gangster, running a vast criminal empire in Chicago during Pro...

Leona Helmsley, known as the Queen of Mean, was a New York hotel magnate. Helmsley was convicted of ...

Actor Wesley Snipes was convicted of three misdemeanor counts of failing to file federal tax returns...

The Swiss Banking Law of 1934 made it a criminal offense to reveal bank client information. This sec...

The Panama Papers were 11.5 million documents leaked from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca in...

The Pandora Papers, leaked in 2021, were 11.9 million documents from 14 offshore service providers. ...

The European Commission ruled in 2016 that Ireland had given Apple illegal state aid through favorab...

LuxLeaks was a scandal involving 28,000 pages of leaked tax rulings from Luxembourg. The documents r...

Sweden introduced the worlds first carbon tax in 1991, initially at 27 per ton of CO2. The tax was p...

Australia introduced a carbon pricing scheme in 2012 under Prime Minister Julia Gillard. The scheme ...

Ireland developed one of the most successful low tax regimes in the world. The corporate tax rate wa...

Bermuda has no corporate income tax, no capital gains tax, and no withholding tax. This makes it one...

The Cayman Islands has no direct taxes. There is no income tax, corporate tax, capital gains tax, or...

The Laffer Curve is a theoretical representation of the relationship between tax rates and tax reven...

The Haig Simons definition of income, developed by economists Robert Murray Haig and Henry C Simons ...

Estonia became the first country to introduce a flat tax in 1994, setting a single rate of 26 percen...

Russia replaced its progressive income tax with a 13 percent flat tax in 2001. The reform was dramat...

Property taxes are among the oldest forms of taxation. After the Norman Conquest of England in 1066,...

Tallage was a royal tax in medieval England levied on towns, cities, and royal demesne lands. Unlike...

Danegeld was a tax collected in Anglo Saxon England to pay Danish invaders to stop raiding. The firs...

The corvee was a tax paid in labor rather than money. Subjects were required to work for the state f...

Customs duties, or tariffs, are among the oldest forms of taxation. The Venerable Bede recorded cust...

Stamp duty was introduced in England in 1694 to pay for the war against France. The tax was charged ...

Excise taxes are taxes on specific goods produced or sold within a country. The US excise tax on whi...

The US federal estate tax was enacted in 1916. The tax is levied on the transfer of property at deat...

The US capital gains tax was established in 1921, setting preferential rates for long term capital g...

The US corporate income tax was enacted in 1909 as a 1 percent excise tax on corporate income. The t...

Sin taxes are excise taxes on goods considered harmful, primarily tobacco, alcohol, and gambling. To...

Mexico implemented a tax on sugar sweetened beverages in 2014, setting a 1 peso per liter tax, appro...

Sales taxes in the United States are imposed by state and local governments. The first state sales t...

British income tax was introduced by Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger in 1799 to fund the Nap...

Tax treaties, also called double taxation agreements, prevent the same income from being taxed by tw...

China introduced VAT in 1984, initially applying it only to certain industrial goods. VAT was gradua...

Digital services taxes, or DSTs, are taxes on the revenue of large technology companies. The UK intr...

The global minimum tax, agreed by over 140 countries in October 2021, sets a 15 percent minimum effe...

The Double Irish Dutch Sandwich was a tax avoidance structure used primarily by US technology compan...

The OECD Base Erosion and Profit Shifting project was launched in 2013 to address corporate tax avoi...

Transfer pricing is the setting of prices for transactions between related parties within a multinat...

The US tax filing season runs from January to April 15 each year. Approximately 160 million individu...

The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, enacted in 2010, requires foreign financial institutions to ...

The Common Reporting Standard, developed by the OECD in 2014, requires participating countries to au...

The European Union VAT system was established by the Sixth VAT Directive in 1977 and modernized by t...

Australias Goods and Services Tax was introduced on July 1, 2000, under Prime Minister John Howard. ...

Canadas Goods and Services Tax was introduced in 1991 at 7 percent by the Mulroney government. The G...

UK inheritance tax, currently at 40 percent on estates over 325,000, was introduced in its modern fo...

France introduced the Impot de Solidarite sur la Fortune, or wealth tax, in 1981 under President Mit...

Spain has had a wealth tax since 1977. The tax applies to net wealth over 700,000, with rates from 0...

Property taxes in the United States are levied by local governments, primarily counties, municipalit...

California Proposition 13, passed in 1978, was a landmark property tax limitation. The initiative ca...

The Earned Income Tax Credit, enacted in 1975, is a refundable tax credit for low to moderate income...

The Child Tax Credit was enacted in 1997 at 400 per child. The credit was gradually increased over t...

FICA, the Federal Insurance Contributions Act tax, funds Social Security and Medicare. The Social Se...

Self employed individuals pay both the employer and employee portions of FICA, totaling 15.3 percent...

State income taxes vary dramatically across the United States. Wisconsin was the first state to impl...

Amazon famously paid no federal income tax for years despite generating billions in profit. In 2017 ...

In 2012, Reuters revealed that Starbucks had paid just 8.6 million in UK corporation tax over 13 yea...

The Diverted Profits Tax, commonly known as the Google Tax, was introduced in the UK in 2015. The ta...

The tax protestor movement in the United States argues that the federal income tax is illegal, uncon...

April 15 has been the deadline for filing US federal income tax returns since 1955. Before 1955, the...

Refund anticipation loans, or RALs, were short term loans secured by a taxpayers expected refund. RA...

The IRS Free File program was created in 2002 through an agreement between the IRS and the tax prepa...

The US tax gap is the difference between taxes owed and taxes collected on time. The IRS estimates t...

The UK mansion tax was a proposed annual tax on properties worth over 2 million, advocated by the Li...

FATCA went into effect in 2014 after a four year implementation period. Foreign banks invested billi...

The taxation of cryptocurrency varies by country. In the US, the IRS classified cryptocurrency as pr...

NFTs create complex tax issues. Buying an NFT with cryptocurrency triggers a capital gains event on ...

The Roman tax system evolved significantly over the Republic and Empire. During the Republic, Rome r...

The Domesday Book was commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1085 and completed in 1086. The surve...

Scutage, or shield money, was a tax paid by knights in lieu of military service. Under the feudal sy...

Islamic taxation is based on two main taxes. Zakat is a mandatory charitable contribution, typically...

The Ferme Generale was the tax farming system of pre Revolutionary France. Tax farmers, or fermiers,...

The hut tax was a per household tax imposed by European colonial powers in Africa. The tax forced Af...

The Stamp Act Congress met in New York City in October 1765, bringing together delegates from nine c...

The Tea Act of 1773 was passed by Parliament to bail out the British East India Company. The act gav...

The Tariff of 1828 was a protective tariff that imposed high duties on imported goods. Southern stat...

The Morrill Tariff of 1861 was a high protective tariff passed just before the Civil War. The tariff...

The Smoot Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 raised US tariffs to their highest levels in history. The averag...

The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was signed in 1947 by 23 countries. GATT established a fr...

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows the US to impose tariffs on countries that engage in unf...

Inflation acts as a hidden tax. When governments print money, the resulting inflation reduces the pu...

The land value tax, advocated by economist Henry George in his 1879 book Progress and Poverty, taxes...

The FairTax is a proposal to replace all US federal taxes with a 23 percent national sales tax on al...

British Columbia introduced the first revenue neutral carbon tax in North America in 2008. The tax s...

A Pigouvian tax, named after economist Arthur Pigou, is a tax on activities that generate negative e...

The Robin Hood Tax, also called the financial transaction tax or Tobin tax, is a proposed small tax ...

The tampon tax refers to the application of sales tax or VAT to menstrual hygiene products, which ar...

Central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, create new tax issues. Unlike cash, CBDC transactions cou...

Irelands low corporate tax rate began in 1956 when the government offered a zero tax rate on export ...

Singapore developed as a tax haven alongside its growth as a financial center. Singapore has no capi...

The Netherlands is one of the worlds most important tax havens, though it is rarely labeled as such....

Tax compliance burden refers to the time and money spent by taxpayers to comply with tax laws. In th...

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 provided 80 billion in additional IRS funding over 10 years. The...

In 2017, the IRS awarded Equifax a 7.25 million contract to help verify taxpayer identities. This wa...

The Tax Reform Act of 1986 was the most comprehensive US tax reform of the 20th century. The act was...

The STOCK Act of 2012 prohibited members of Congress from using nonpublic information for personal i...

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr wrote in Compania General de Tabacos v Collector of I...

Tithes were a tax of one tenth of agricultural produce paid to support the church. The tithe system ...

The hearth tax, or chimney money, was introduced in England in 1662 by Charles II. The tax charged 2...

Modern German income tax was established by the Miquel Tax Reform of 1891, named after Finance Minis...

Malaysia introduced GST at 6 percent in 2015 under Prime Minister Najib Razak. The tax replaced the ...

Brazil has one of the most complex tax systems in the world. The Brazilian VAT system includes ICMS ...

New Zealand imposed a poll tax on Chinese immigrants starting in 1881. The tax charged 10 pounds per...

Canada imposed a head tax on Chinese immigrants starting in 1885, after Chinese workers completed th...

The Stamp Act required colonists to purchase stamped paper for legal documents, newspapers, and play...

The Sugar Act of 1764, officially the American Revenue Act, was the first tax imposed on the America...

The Townshend Acts of 1767 imposed duties on glass, lead, paint, paper, and tea imported to the colo...

The Coercive Acts, called the Intolerable Acts by American colonists, were passed in response to the...

Before the Tea Act, colonists smuggled an estimated 5.6 million pounds of tea annually from Holland ...

Shays Rebellion was an armed uprising in Massachusetts in 1786 and 1787. Farmers in western Massachu...

Fries Rebellion, also called the House Tax Rebellion, occurred in Pennsylvania in 1799. German Ameri...

Resistance to the whiskey tax was particularly strong in western Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Tenness...

South Carolinas nullification of federal tariffs in 1832 was the most serious challenge to federal a...

The Sons of Liberty were organized in 1765 to resist the Stamp Act. The group was founded in Boston ...

The Boston Tea Party targeted three ships carrying East India Company tea: the Dartmouth, the Eleano...

The California tax revolt of 1978 was led by Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann. Their initiative, Proposit...

The Tax Reform Act of 1986 was signed by President Reagan on October 22, 1986. The act was the resul...

The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, signed by President Clinton, raised the top individua...

President Kennedy proposed a major tax cut in 1963 to stimulate the economy. The Revenue Act of 1964...

The Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 provided tax rebates to approximately 130 million American househo...

The payroll tax cut of 2011 temporarily reduced the employee portion of the Social Security tax from...

Tax loss harvesting is the practice of selling investments at a loss to offset capital gains and red...

The Research and Experimentation Tax Credit was enacted in 1981 to encourage corporate research spen...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 capped the state and local tax SALT deduction at 10,000. Previousl...

Opportunity Zones were created by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 to encourage investment in low i...

The IRS Whistleblower Program pays informants who report tax evasion. The program traces its roots t...

Panama has been a tax haven since it began registering ships in 1919. The Panama Canal made Panama a...

The British Virgin Islands is one of the worlds leading offshore incorporation jurisdictions. BVI ha...

One of the oldest tax treaties still in force is between the Netherlands and its former colony Surin...

The US gift tax was enacted in 1924 to prevent taxpayers from avoiding the estate tax by giving away...

The generation skipping transfer tax GST was enacted in 1986 to prevent families from avoiding estat...

The Qualified Business Income deduction, also known as Section 199A or the pass through deduction, w...

The Net Investment Income Tax NIIT was enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and took e...

Tax amnesty programs allow delinquent taxpayers to come forward, pay back taxes, and avoid penalties...

The US tax withholding system was introduced by the Current Tax Payment Act of 1943. Before withhold...

The Alternative Minimum Tax was enacted in 1969 after Treasury Secretary Joseph Barr revealed that 1...

The Earned Income Tax Credit has one of the highest improper payment rates of any federal program, e...

IRS impersonation phone scams became a major problem starting around 2010. Scammers call taxpayers c...

Tax identity theft occurs when someone uses a stolen Social Security number to file a fraudulent tax...

The battle over free tax filing in the US has been ongoing for two decades. In 2002, the IRS created...

While not a tax case in the traditional sense, Stanley v Illinois 1972 established important princip...

Taxation appears throughout the Bible. In Genesis, Joseph imposed a 20 percent tax on grain in Egypt...

The European Union has pursued tax harmonization since the 1960s. The EU VAT system is the most harm...

Tax exempt organizations in the US include charities, religious organizations, educational instituti...

Germany collects a church tax Kirchensteuer of 8 to 9 percent of income tax for members of recognize...

Scandinavian countries have various forms of church tax. In Denmark, the state Lutheran church is fu...

Form 1040 is the standard US individual income tax return. The first Form 1040 was introduced in 191...

During the Civil War, Congress enacted the first federal income tax in 1861, but it was largely unco...

Estonia has one of the worlds most efficient tax systems. Tax filing takes an average of 5 hours per...

Pre filled tax returns are used in 36 countries, including Estonia, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway...

IRS Direct File launched as a pilot program in 12 states for the 2024 filing season. Direct File is ...

Italy has one of the largest tax gaps in the developed world, estimated at approximately 90 billion ...

Greece has one of the highest tax evasion rates in the EU. The Greek tax gap was estimated at approx...

VAT carousel fraud, also called missing trader fraud, exploits the zero rating of intra EU trade. A ...

Cigarette tax evasion is one of the largest forms of tax crime globally. High cigarette taxes create...

Fuel tax evasion costs governments billions annually. Common methods include using untaxed agricultu...

Luxembourgs tax haven status dates to the 1929 holding company regime, which exempted holding compan...

US states compete for businesses and residents through tax policy. States without income tax, like T...

Amazon announced its second headquarters, HQ2, in 2017, inviting cities to compete with tax incentiv...

In 2017, Foxconn announced a 10 billion display factory in Wisconsin, promoted by President Trump an...

Universal basic income would replace many social programs with a cash payment to every citizen. Fund...

Negative income tax NIT was proposed by economist Milton Friedman in his 1962 book Capitalism and Fr...

The Haig Simons definition of income provides the theoretical benchmark for comprehensive income tax...

Tax expenditures are revenue losses from tax deductions, credits, and exclusions. The concept was de...

Alcohol taxes are among the oldest sin taxes. In 1600, England imposed taxes on beer and ale. Alcoho...

The UK Soft Drinks Industry Levy, commonly called the sugar tax, was introduced in 2018. The tax cha...

Plastic taxes aim to reduce plastic waste and encourage recycling. The UK Plastic Packaging Tax, lau...

The Netherlands faced massive farmer protests over nitrogen emission regulations. Dutch courts ruled...

The EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism CBAM started its transitional phase in October 2023. CBAM ...

Tourist taxes are levied on visitors to fund tourism infrastructure and manage overtourism. Venice i...

Norway has a wealth tax of approximately 1 percent on net wealth over 1.7 million NOK for individual...

Argentina has a personal assets tax on net worth. The tax was introduced in 1991 and has been modifi...

Japan has the highest inheritance tax rate in the world, with a top marginal rate of 55 percent on l...

The US estate tax, nicknamed the death tax by opponents, has been politically contentious since its ...

The debate over taxing unrealized capital gains intensified in 2021 when Senator Ron Wyden proposed ...

Buy borrow die is a tax avoidance strategy used by ultra wealthy Americans. The strategy works as fo...

IRS audit rates have declined dramatically since 2010. The audit rate for individual taxpayers fell ...

IRS customer service reached its worst point during the COVID pandemic. In 2022, the IRS answered on...

Property tax assessments in the United States have been found to systematically over assess low valu...