Export Taxes

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EXPORT TAXES

EXPORT TAXES were used by the American colonies and England to raise revenue. However, some delegates at the Constitutional Convention (notably Charles Pinckney of South Carolina) disapproved of the practice because the ease with which the government could raise money by taxing exports would tempt it to select the large-scale exports of a few states for taxation, with subsequent inequity. Consequently, the power to tax exports was prohibited in the Constitution (Article I, Section 9) by a vote of 7 to 4. By Article I, Section 10, the convention also withheld this power from the individual states.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Matson, Cathy D. A Union of Interests: Political and Economic Thought in Revolutionary America. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1990.

Frank A.Southard Jr./a. r.

See alsoColonial Commerce ; Constitution of the United States ; Taxation ; Trade, Foreign .

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