Making the modern American fiscal state : law, politics, and the rise of progressive taxation, 1877-1929 / Ajay K. Mehrotra, Indiana University.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mehrotra, Ajay K., 1969- author.

Series:

Cambridge historical studies in American law and society.

Cambridge historical studies in American law and society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Taxation--United States--History.

Taxation.

Fiscal policy--United States--History.

Fiscal policy.

Taxation--Law and legislation--United States--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvi, 429 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

At the turn of the twentieth century, the US system of public finance underwent a dramatic transformation. The late nineteenth-century regime of indirect, hidden, partisan, and regressive taxes was eclipsed in the early twentieth century by a direct, transparent, professionally administered, and progressive tax system. This book uncovers the contested roots and paradoxical consequences of this fundamental shift in American tax law and policy. It argues that the move toward a regime of direct and graduated taxation marked the emergence of a new fiscal polity - a new form of statecraft that was guided not simply by the functional need for greater revenue but by broader social concerns about economic justice, civic identity, bureaucratic capacity, and public power. Between the end of Reconstruction and the onset of the Great Depression, the intellectual, legal, and administrative foundations of the modern fiscal state first took shape. This book explains how and why this new fiscal polity came to be.

Contents:

Part 1: The old fiscal order. The growing social antagonism: partisan taxation and the early resistance to fiscal reform

Gradual demise: modern forces, new concepts, and economic crisis

Part II: The rise of the modern fiscal state. The response to Pollock: navigating an intellectual middle ground

The factories of fiscal innovation: institutional reform at the state and local level

Corporate capitalism and constitutional change: the legal foundations of the modern fiscal state

Part III: Consolidating the new fiscal order. Lawyers, guns, and public monies: the U.S. Treasury, World War I, and the administration of the modern fiscal state

Paradox of retrenchment: postwar republican ascendancy and the resiliency of the modern fiscal state.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-107-42572-7

1-107-42340-6

1-107-42027-X

1-107-41765-1

1-107-42163-2

1-107-35826-4

OCLC:

864899994