Taxation in Colonial America examines life in the thirteen original American colonies through the revealing lens of the taxes levied on and by the colonists. Spanning the turbulent years from the founding of the Jamestown settlement to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Alvin Rabushka provides the definitive history of taxation in the colonial era, and sets it against the backdrop of enormous economic, political, and social upheaval in the colonies and Europe. Rabushka shows how the colonists strove to minimize, avoid, and evade British and local taxation, and how they used tax incentives to foster settlement. He describes the systems of public finance they created to reduce taxation, and reveals how they gained control over taxes through elected representatives in colonial legislatures. Rabushka takes a comprehensive look at the external taxes imposed on the colonists by Britain, the Netherlands, and Sweden, as well as internal direct taxes like poll and income taxes. He examines indirect taxes like duties and tonnage fees, as well as county and town taxes, church and education taxes, bounties, and other charges. He links the types and amounts of taxes with the means of payment--be it gold coins, agricultural commodities, wampum, or furs--and he compares tax systems and burdens among the colonies and with Britain. This book brings the colonial period to life in all its rich complexity, and shows how colonial attitudes toward taxation offer a unique window into the causes of the revolution.

Product Description: Fixing Russia's Banks documents how Russia's financial system is built on what Michael S. Bernstam and Alvin Rabushka call ersatz banks. These inferior imitation banks have served largely as tools of the government to redistribute public funds to favored firms...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Offers predictions for Hong Kong as its sovereignty and administrative responsibilities transfer from the United Kingdom to mainland China on July 1, 1997 (view table of contents)

Argues that a flat tax of nineteen percent would raise the same revenue as the present income tax, while encouraging savings and investment

Product Description: This new and updated edition of The Flat Tax sets forth the flat-tax plan developed by Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka, senior fellows at the Hoover Institution, who believe it is the most fair, efficient, simple, and workable plan on the table...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This book demonstrates that because the United States is enmeshed in a complexity of regulations, government debt, bureaucracy, and taxes does not mean that these policies cannot be reversed. They have been before. Rabushka describes an earlier reversal of mercantilist claims by a growing group of influential politicians influenced by Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations...read more

Product Description: This new and updated edition of The Flat Tax sets forth the flat-tax plan developed by Robert Hall and Alvin Rabushka, senior fellows at the Hoover Institution, who believe it is the most fair, efficient, simple, and workable plan on the table...read more

Discusses the need for the reform of the federal tax system and recommends that all income be taxed at a uniform rate

A depiction of the development of the property tax limitation movement in California describes the impact on the state of Proposition 13 and other measures that reduced taxes

Argues that the majority of senior citizens today live happily and comfortably and resent bureaucratic attempts to label them as helpless and in need of special care and asserts that government spending must be redirected to areas where older Americans really need it

Product Description: The essays in The United States in the 1980s, written by a group of renowned and widely respected specialists, are a major contribution to a balanced discussion of the choices that lie ahead. The authors analyze the central issues, describe the policy options open to the country, and recommend specific courses of action to deal with or mitigate the problems confronting the United Statest—in recognition of the fact that the major problems of the new decade "are interrelated, that no problem can be resolved in isolation, and that different perspectives can contribute to a clearer and more balanced understanding of the problems that are often viewed as separate from one another...read more

Product Description: This book reports on a three-year study of public housing tenants and their evaluation of public housing in Wilmington, Delaware.