The Rosetta Stone to the US Code: A New History of Taxation

This series of lectures by tax historian Charles Adams—based on original research—illuminates episodes in light of the tendency of government to tax beyond the point where people will tolerate. This is the fascinating story of how taxes have shaped history.

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Charles Adams
Adams begins this session with facts about taxation being the basis of the Civil War, not slavery. If the British had not taxed the colonies, the colonies would have remained with Britain and slavery would have been ended when Britain ended it. The thousand year history of the Romans covered...
Charles Adams
Adams begins with a few tidbits: taxation problems caused the end of Egypt and the taxes that the Greeks put on the Jews were an excessive one-third. Sulla of Rome created special tax agents, essentially IRS agents, to collect taxes. Cicero felt that the era of chaos made a military dictatorship...