CHA Reads 2019 Banner

Heather Green defends Shirley Tillotson’s Give and Take: The Citizen-Taxpayer and the Rise of Canadian Democracy. 

I must (shamefully) admit that when I first cracked open Give and Take: The Citizen-Taxpayer and the Rise of Canadian Democracy, I did not have high expectations for a gripping read. I mentally prepared myself for dry recounts of numbers, a chronology of changing legislation, or a tally of taxation debates among privileged white men. As an environmental and Indigenous historian, I thought I would be out of my element. To my surprise, however, I found myself entrapped in an entertaining and readable narrative that incorporates the history of federal income tax into the wider history of Canada’s struggle to define itself as a nation.

 

In Give and Take, Shirley Tillotson traces the first fifty-five years of the federal income tax, beginning with its implantation in 1917, to its modern roots in the 1940s, and ends with an analysis of tax reform in the 1960s, arguing that tax history is also the history of democracy in Canada; changes in tax practises resulted in changes in the norm of political engagement, primarily by allowing for increased engagement from a wider demographic, thus contributing to democratisation of Canada. While her primary focus is federal income tax, she also examines a wide array of other taxes to understand how tax culture more broadly interacted with Canada’s civic culture.

Tillotson covers a lot of ground in Give and Take– more than I can touch on in this overview. The book is divided into three general sections. The first section focuses on the early years of federal income tax implementation in 1917 to its first amendment in 1926. Federal income tax was introduced as a wartime measure during the First World War and, as such, was expected to be temporary. According to Tillotson, the participants in shaping this first rendition of the income tax included primarily wealthy, property-owning men: politicians, lawyers, and industrialists such as Izaac Walton Killam. Though the creation of the first income tax was not a democratic process, those excluded still voiced concerns. In particular, Tillotson examines the responses of farmers’ concerns with unfair income tax enforcement. In this section, she also compares Canadian and American ideologies about taxation and suggests that wealthy Americans saw Canada as a tax haven.

In the second section of the book, Tillotson further examines the class and racial dynamics of tax resistance during the Depression, and the reformation of taxes in 1943 and 1944 which largely reshaped taxes from an individual to a social responsibility and good. During the Second World War, more Canadians became taxpayers to support the war budget, and with paying taxes came a belief that taxpayers had the right to shape the ways in which their money was spent. More citizens speaking out, or acting in response to taxation, increased the level of democratic participation the average Canadian played in shaping Canada’s fiscal, social, and moral direction. However, the higher percentage of taxpayers at this time also led to a rise in the level of tax avoidance, evasion, and resistance. Tillotson uses many specific examples to argue that tax resistance did not come from only one political community (nor did tax support). Supporters of the income tax argued that paying taxes was a patriotic duty and was an aspect of being an honorable citizen. Much of this rhetoric was aimed at financing the war effort, but some men – like millionaire liquor merchant Senator Larry Wilson – also argued that paying taxes was an expression of care for the poor in the Depression era (142).

This section, in my opinion, was the strongest in connecting taxation with democracy, as Tillotson provides richly detailed examples of new questions about democracy, tax, and justice that emerged in the interwar period. For example, she highlights the wrongful assumption that the taxpayer was a voter and full economic citizen. Not everyone who paid taxes had full citizenship and Tillotson discusses this issue in terms of Indigenous peoples, racialized groups, the urban poor, and some women. In chapter five, Tillotson argues that taxation was a method of “expressing racialist views of the proper citizen” – views entwined with ideas of whiteness – and forced questions about political rights and inclusion (118). Indigenous and Chinese tax protestors threatened to (or actually did) withdraw their labour, as did women working in munitions factories (181); and often, these actions, or threat of action, led to tax amendments in response to citizen complaints.

The final section examines the “new publics” of citizen-taxpayer in the postwar period. She argues, in the 1950s, the most significant “of the new tax publics were the numerous low-income payers of income tax” (212). But the 1960s also saw new demographics of “the public” including people of color, Indigenous peoples, and other identity communities (such as age, sexuality, and the disabled). In this period, the system of taxation expanded into a new bureaucratic structure including tax advisors, accountants, and lawyers, tax inspectors and tax courts. Prior to the postwar years there was not enough work to support these tax professions. The new norm of paying taxes was represented by the fact that tax evasion was now criminalized and punishable. To end this section, Tillotson examines responses to the Benson White Paper in 1969. The White Paper called for public opinion to a nation that now expected to be heard (289). To get a sense of how the citizen-taxpayer felt about taxation, Tillotson examines letters submitted to various government departments from Canadians, particularly those living in poverty adversely affected by income taxation. In using these personal letters, Tillotson gets to the heart of the emotion involved in taxation and brings the human story of Canadian taxation to light.

Tillotson states that her goal was to place the human into tax histories and in this she certainly succeeds. She proves that taxation was about more than revenue, money, and politics, but that tax decisions were made with moral underpinnings and sociocultural influences. Through the study of tax, Tillotson engages in a broader history of Canada. Tax was a class issue, a gender issue, a race issue. Taxes have played a role in the ways in which Canadians have negotiated their civic identities in relation to their other identities of class, race, and gender. Tax debates conjured ideas of creating a universal nation-wide community with shared values, but it also brought to light deepening divisions within Canadian society. The history of tax reform in Canada traces the movement of taxation from that of concern of the elite into a more democratic process. Since the 1920s, there has been a slow incorporation of diverse voices in tax talk (291).

There are many strengths that merit Give and Takeas the 2019 winner of the CHA book prize, but three are worth emphasizing. First, this book is intricately researched in the themes of taxation, citizenship, and democracy. It is of no doubt that Tillotson firmly grasps the intellectual and theoretical questions that she grapples with throughout this work. But even more impressive is her ability to convey these complex ideas to her audience in an accessible manner. She is transparent in her research approach and her sources early on in the work. Of particular note is her ability to engage in a wide range of primary sources to get at the opinions and perspectives of Canadians from both “below” and “above”. She includes images of Victory Bond campaign advertisements and political cartoons which capture some of the public opinions about taxation. She extensively draws on government documents, but more importantly, she draws on newspaper editorials and personal letters from Canadian citizens which highlight both the logic and the emotion of taxation negotiation. These letters found among the files of various government departments highlight how fundamental taxation was to daily life. In making use of an extensive range of sources, Tillotson is able to draw on specific examples of the negotiation between government and citizen and to engage her readers in a social and cultural history of Canadian taxation and democracy.

Second, Give and Takechallenges our thinking about Canadian democracy. On the most basic level, her work challenges the image of Canadians as passively loyal to government and law. It also challenges the notion that taxes are dictated from above and that citizens are powerless to tax laws. Canadians of all backgrounds challenged, resisted, and shaped taxation. Tillotson poses questions about power. Yes, the government held power, but so too did the taxpayer, and in exerting their power through resistance, compliance, or debate, they engaged in democratic life in Canada.

Third, this book sets the groundwork for new questions in studies of democracy, of tax histories, and of Canadian history more broadly. Tillotson provides much intellectual food for thought and scope for the imagination. I left her book curious about how tax histories of Canada might look differently if focused specifically on ethnicity for example. Tillotson does engage with aspects of gender, race, and region, but she also points out that there is much work to be done on tax histories. The content, research, and writing of Give and Take provides inspiration to other scholars to continue this work in new ways.

Give and Take has relevance to Canadians today. Tax talk is not only part of the past, but is very much an ongoing conversation and negotiation between government and Canadian citizens. Just as taxpayers expressed their opinions about taxes in the past, we continue to do so today – the screenshots below from Twitter on May 13 this year are an example of such public tax debate. Tillotson leaves her readers with the understanding that taxation and citizenship were (and are) critical to Canadian democracy and justice. In short, she demonstrates that tax talk is the work of democracy (18). A book about tax that does all of the above and is also humorous, engaging, and speaks to the wider history of Canada’s democratic development is deserving of winning this year’s CHA book prize.

taxes tweet screenshot

taxes tweet screenshot

 

Image of Heather Green.Heather Green is a postdoctoral fellow with the Wilson Institute in Canadian History at McMaster University and a Fulbright Canada Visiting Research Scholar with the Department of American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona. She will take up an appointment as associate professor in the Department of History at St. Mary’s University in July 2019. Her research interests include environmental and Indigenous histories, Northern history, mining and resource development, environmental tourism, sport hunting, and health.

Don’t forget to check back tomorrow for Jessica DeWitt’s defence of Joshua MacFayden’s Flax Americana: A History of the Fibre and Oil that Covered a Continent! See you then!

 

Don’t forget to check out the other posts in the series:

 

Liked this post? Please take a second to support Unwritten Histories on Patreon!