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Wednesday, December 27, 2000 Taxes Now & Then In the United States today, most of us have a once-a-year worry date, April 15th, to occupy our minds and force us to devote our attention and efforts to this summons, or suffer what could be very bad consequences. Income Tax time as governed by the Internal Revenue Service of today is a far cry from time gone by, but serves the same purpose. Taxes were being collected in America when the colonies first settled in America. Our English ancestors left stories of being taxed as far back as the 16th century. Then, as in the United States until the Great Depression of the 1930's, the sweat and work of farm life shaped the lives and habits of the people working the land and the crops of that land, governed the people’s time and life, forcing them into daily and seasonal schedules. Farm Labor was the foremost occupation and so laid the pattern for our beginning America. I read somewhere that we were, today, "only three generations from the plow." The Fall of the year season and farm schedule meant gathering the crop and produce that hard work and planning had produced and had to be saved. Once gathered, the land had to be worked to prepare for the next year’s planting and harvest. This season of the year also had a good and bad side. There was the end of the constant work on the land for a while and the anticipation of fine feasts of pork, beef, fowl of all kinds, which could be eaten or preserved during the cold of the winter. The Christmas and New Year dates could mean social life and religious celebrations. This month of December of our English ancestors also meant tax time. In the book "Lost Country Life" by Dorothy Hartly, an account of our English forefathers, she states that King James 1st was one of the rulers who decided that "a vice that generated revenue was not a vice" a trait in "rulers" that prevails today. A 16th Century political poem says "Then comes the tax collector, full of pomp and boast. Give me silver, it is written in my tablet as thou knowest. More than my true tax he takes before he goest; he then demands my chicken for his dinner roast." This sounds to me exactly like our April 15th annual Income Tax Day, four centuries later. In the Hart Addison historical papers there is a copy of the annual statement of the receipts, disbursements and accrued indebtedness of Montgomery County for the last half of the year 1886. The figures for July 1st to Dec 31st, 1886 are: Receipts-$2336.98, disbursements $3153.21, indebtedness for the year $6263.72 deduct receipts for year leaving Montgomery County in debt without assets for the year 1886 of $3112.51. I note that the sole tax payer for the year of 1886 in Montgomery County was the town of Montgomery claim to fame C.B.Stewart. He paid $37.04 on July 1st, $27.66 on July 5th, $31.24 on October 2nd, $100 on November 17th and $1326.75 on December 13th 1886. To repeat this leaves Montgomery County in debt for $3112.75 without assets. C.B. Stewart was the only tax payer. There are many records of a great depression before the noted one of the 1930's. This was the farming depression that started around 1920, the boll weevil destroyed the farmers only money crop. There was no money to pay taxes and many families lost their land and homes to insurance lenders, to banks and mortgage companies, such as the Federal Land Bank, for unpaid taxes.Many people died with a bitter hatred for those who foreclosed on them. It seems the only change in the tax story since the 16th century is there now is money to pay taxes with and there are jobs to get the money for taxes and in most cases a little left over for such things as pleasure and waste. The following is a modern day gripe about taxes. A Cowboy’s Lament "His horse dropped dead and his mule got lame. He lost six cows in a poker game. Then a hurricane came on a summer day. An earthquake came and when that was gone and swallowed up the land his home was on. The tax collector came around and raised his taxes on the hole in his ground." Part II next week |
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©Montgomery
County News, 2004 |
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