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By the middle of the 11th century in the town of Coventry, England, the local townspeople had spent years under the oppressive regime of their ruler, Leofric of Mercia. Leofric taxed his people heavily… which was commonplace in the Middle Ages. Feudal barons were extremely creative in taxing trade and commerce, demanding egregious
You would think New Jersey would have learned its lesson… Two years ago, New Jersey’s richest resident – hedge fund billionaire David Tepper – decided to move himself and his business to Miami Beach. Tepper, who personally earned more than $6 billion from 2012-2015, was tired of paying New Jersey’s top income-tax rate
In 1873 during the administration of Ulysses S. Grant, the government abolished its income tax. Aside from a single episode in 1894, there would be no income tax in the United States of America for nearly 40 years. It was during this period that the United States emerged as the largest, most powerful
By the end of the 3rd century AD, the finances of ancient Rome were in terminal crisis. Years and years of debasing the currency had resulted in severe hyperinflation– a period of Roman history known as the Crisis of the Third Century (from AD 235 through AD 284). During the time of Julius
Puerto Rico won’t repay any of its $72 billion of debt until 2022… The US territory declared bankruptcy last May. A combination of a shrinking population, bloated pensions and a job crisis (in 2006, the US government repealed tax incentives that attracted manufacturers to the island) caused Puerto Rico to go broke. Even
[Editor’s Note: As we’re coming up on the end of the year, we thought it would be appropriate to republish some of our most popular articles from 2017. Today’s was originally published on April 24] In a poll conducted a few days ago by NBC News / Wall Street Journal, a record 57%
In a move almost destined to prove that laws and policies have absolutely zero meaning, the European Union released a list of “tax havens” last week… with a massive, giant, highly conspicuous omission. The blacklist contains the names of the usual suspects– Panama, United Arab Emirates, etc., along with a few additions like
On October 3, 1913, US President Woodrow Wilson signed the Underwood-Simmons Act into law, creating what would become the first modern US income tax. The legislation (at least, the income tax portion) was only 16 pages and imposed a base tax rate of just 1%. The highest tax rate was set at 7%–
My friend Adam (not his real name) lives in Puerto Rico and sent me a startling update… Adam and his family evacuated the island for the hurricane, but he’s been in close contact with his friends who stayed on the ground. And the situation is bad. According to his contacts on the ground,
In the spring of 1871 after a miserable defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, Paris plunged into a major crisis as local citizens revolted against the government. Financial markets went berserk as a result, and the prices of French government bonds plummeted. There’s an old story that an heir to a large fortune came
In 353 BC, as violent class warfare broke out across ancient Greece, one wealthy Athenian lamented in his journal, When I was a boy, wealth was regarded as a thing so…admirable that almost everyone affected to own more property than he actually possessed. Now a man has to be ready to defend himself
This is the very first article I’m writing to you on the brand new Macbook Pro that I just purchased here in Hong Kong. It’s the fully loaded version with 16GB of RAM, a 1 TB SSD hard drive, and 3.5 GHz i7 processor. Given that I actually run Linux on may laptop
On October 22, 1986, the world was an entirely different place. The Soviet Union still loomed, as did the threat of nuclear annihilation. Most people had no idea how to use a computer, let alone even heard of the “Internet” (which at the time was still a military communications project.) Hardly anyone had
On the plane ride back to Chile last night, I was sitting next to a particularly chatty woman who wanted to know my whole life story and what I was doing in Mexico. I played along and explained to her that I had been on a cruise for the past week speaking at
In the late in the 5th century BC, the government of ancient Rome came up with a new idea that has lasted for thousands of years. I’m not talking about their roads, republican form of government, or water sanitation. Their bold idea was to start paying retirement benefits to Roman soldiers. This was
