University of British Columbia Press
Give and Take
The Citizen-Taxpayer and the Rise of Canadian Democracy
Distributed for University of British Columbia Press
Give and Take
The Citizen-Taxpayer and the Rise of Canadian Democracy
A book about tax history that’s a real page-turner? Give and Take is full of surprises. A Canadian millionaire who embraced the new federal income tax in 1917. A socialist hero who deplored the burden of big government. Most surprising, twentieth-century taxes have made us richer, in political engagement and more. Taxes make the power of the state obvious, and Canadians often resisted that power. But this is not simply a tale of tax rebels. Tillotson argues that Canadians also made real contributions to democracy when they taxed wisely and paid willingly.
Table of Contents
1 Talking Tax
2 We, the Taxpayers
3 Our Conservative Tax Structure
4 Resistance in the Interwar Years
5 Taxation at the Edges of Citizenship
6 Honour, Confidence, and Federalism during the Depression
7 Warfare, Welfare, and the Mass Income Tax Payer
8 New Publics and the Tax Man in the 1950s
9 Poverty, Bureaucracy, and Taxes
10 Reform, Populism, and the Presence of the Past in the 1960s
11 Self-Interest, Community, and the Evolution of the Citizen-Taxpayer
Appendix: Tables
Notes; Bibliography; Index