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Edited by Korinna Schönhärl,
Gisela Hürlimann and Dorothea Rohde
Histories of Tax Evasion,
Avoidance and Resistance
Tax evasion, tax avoidance and tax resistance are widespread phenomena in
political, economic, social and fiscal history from antiquity through to medi-
eval, early modern and modern times. This book shows how different groups
and individuals around the globe have succeeded or failed in not paying their
due taxes, whether in kind or in cash, on their properties, or on their crops.
It analyses how, throughout history, wealthy and poor taxpayers have
tried to avoid or reduce their tax burden by negotiating with tax authori-
ties, through practices of legal tax avoidance or illegal tax evasion, by filing
lawsuits, seeking armed resistance or by migration, and how state authori-
ties have dealt with such acts of claim making, defiance, open resistance or
elusion. It fills an important research gap in tax history, addressing ques-
tions of tax morale and fairness, and how social and political inequality was
negotiated through taxation. It gives rich insights into the development of
citizen-state relationships throughout the course of history. The book com-
prises case studies from Ancient Athens, Roman Egypt, Medieval Europe,
Early Modern Mexico, the Ottoman Empire, Nigeria under British colo-
nial rule, the United Kingdom of the early 20th century, Greece during the
Second World War, as well as West Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and the
US in the 20th century, including transnational entanglements in the world
of late-modern offshore finance and taxation. The authors are experts in fis-
cal, economic, financial, legal, social and/or cultural history.
The book is intended for students, researchers and scholars of economic
and financial history, social and world history and political economy.
Korinna Schönhärl is the Heisenberg-Professor for Modern History at
Paderborn University.
Gisela Hürlimann is Professor of History of Technology and Economic
History at the Technical University (TU) Dresden.
Dorothea Rohde is Lecturer of Ancient History at the University of
Bielefeld.
Financial History
Edited by Farley Grubb and Anne L. Murphy
Money, Politics and Power
Banking and Public Finance in Wartime England, 1694-96
Richard A. Kleer
Regulation of the London Stock Exchange
Share Trading, Fraud and Reform 1914–1945
Chris Swinson
Monetary Plurality in Local, Regional and Global Economies
Edited by Georgina M. Gómez
Share Trading, Fraud and the Crash of 1929
A Biography of Clarence Hatry
Chris Swinson
The Origins of Modern Banking in Spain
Monetary Plurality and Local Monopolies
Edited by Carles Sudrià and Yolanda Blasco-Martel
European Investment in Greece in the Nineteenth Century
A Behavioural Approach to Financial History
Korinna Schönhärl
A History of Public Banking in Portugal in the 19th and 20th
Centuries
The Caixa Geral de Depósitos
Pedro Lains
Histories of Tax Evasion, Avoidance and Resistance
Edited by Korinna Schönhärl, Gisela Hürlimann and Dorothea Rohde
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
series/FINHIS
Histories of Tax Evasion,
Avoidance and Resistance
Edited by Korinna Schönhärl,
Gisela Hürlimann and
Dorothea Rohde
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Korinna Schönhärl, Gisela
Hürlimann and Dorothea Rohde; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Korinna Schönhärl, Gisela Hürlimann and Dorothea
Rohde to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of
the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.
com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-
Share Alike 4.0 license.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Schönhärl, Korinna, editor. | Hürlimann, Gisela, editor. |
Rohde, Dorothea, editor.
Title: Histories of tax evasion, avoidance and resistance / edited by
Korinna Schönhärl, Gisela Hürlimann and Dorothea Rohde.
Description: 1 Edition. | New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. |
Series: Financial history | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022035182 (print) | LCCN 2022035183 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032366739 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032366746 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003333197 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Tax evasion.
Classification: LCC HV6341 .H67 2023 (print) | LCC HV6341 (ebook) |
DDC 364.1/338--dc23/eng/20221020
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022035182
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022035183
ISBN: 978-1-032-36673-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-36674-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-33319-7 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003333197
Typeset in Bembo
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
Contents
List of tables and figures viii
Contributors ix
Acknowledgments xv
The Ability and Intention of Not Paying
Taxes in History: Some Introductory Observations 1
KORINNA SCHÖNHÄRL, GISELA HÜRLIMANN AND DOROTHEA ROHDE
PART I
Negotiating Lower Taxes, or No Taxes at All 17
1 Tax Evaders in Classical Athens? Attacks and
Strategies of Defence in Attic Oratory 19
LUCIA CECCHET
2 The Alcabala Sales Tax Administration: Avoidance
Strategies in Bourbon Colonial Mexico (1723–1754) 37
RODRIGO GORDOA DE LA HUERTA
3 Imperial Taxation and Local Agency: Tax Avoidance
and Tax Resistance in Seventeenth- and
Eighteenth-century Germany (Saxony and Thuringia) 51
RACHEL RENAULT
PART II
Resisting and Opposing Taxes 69
4 Not Paying Taxes in Roman Egypt 71
KERSTIN DROß-KRÜPE
vi Contents
5 “Taxing” the Tribes in the Ottoman Empire:
The Case of the Tribes of Mutki (1839–1908) 84
YENER KOÇ
6 Tax Evasion as a Means of Resistance in
Occupied Greece, 1941–1944 99
VASILIS G. MANOUSAKIS
7 Women’s Protests against Colonial Taxation
in the Eastern Provinces of Nigeria 115
DANIEL OLISA IWEZE
PART III
Avoiding Tax Avoidance: Counter Strategies
by State Authorities 135
8 Verbally Resisting Taxes in Medieval England:
Arguments, Anger and the (In)Ability to Prevent
Tax Avoidance in the Reign of Henry III 137
CHRISTINA BRÖKER
9 How to Create a Taxpaying Spirit: A Transnational
Examination of an US American and a Western German
Tax Education Film in and after World War II 154
KORINNA SCHÖNHÄRL
10 “Exceptional” Tax Amnesties: A Common Swiss
Way of Fighting Tax Evasion in the Twentieth Century 168
ANIKO FEHR AND SYLVAIN PRAZ
PART IV
Sparing the Rich and Companies from Taxation? 185
11 “There Is No Wrongdoing in Avoiding Taxes”:
The Land Union’s Tax Resistance in
Great Britain (1900–1930s) 187
ANNA GROTEGUT
12 Populist Ambivalence to Tax Evasion: The 1962
Campaign against Dividend and Interest Withholding
in the US 203
STEVEN A. BANK
Contents vii
13 “I Am a Professional Tax Evader”: Multinationals,
Business Groups and Tax Havens, 1950s to 1980s 221
BORIS GEHLEN AND CHRISTIAN MARX
14 Tax System Credibility vs. Banking System
Reputation?: Tax Evasion from Sweden to Switzerland
in the Early 1970s 240
THIBAUD GIDDEY AND MIKAEL WENDSCHLAG
Personal Names Index 257
Subject Index 259
Tables and Figures
Tables
6.1 Greek state revenues: budgeted receipts of each category
as % of total revenue 102
6.2 Greek state revenues: actual receipts as % of budgeted
amounts 103
6.3 Percentages of actual receipts from direct taxation
in relation to estimated revenue from direct taxation 103
14.1 Number of currency crimes reported and cleared
from 1967 to 1979 by the Swedish authorities 247
Figures
7.1 Map of the Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria 1929 117
7.2 Map of Events – Women’s War, 1929 125
Contributors
Prof. Dr Steven A. Bank is the Paul Hastings Professor of Business Law at
UCLA School of Law. He has taught Federal Income Taxation, Business
Associations, and a variety of related courses. Professor Bank’s primary
area of research generally explores the taxation of business entities through
the lens of legal and business history. He has published numerous articles
and chapters in the fields of business taxation, tax policy and tax history
and has authored or co-authored several books, including Anglo-American
Corporate Taxation (Cambridge University Press, 2011), From Sword
to Shield: The Transformation of the Corporate Income Tax, 1861 to Present
(Oxford University Press, 2010), and War and Taxes (Urban Institute Press,
2008) (with Kirk Stark and Joseph Thorndike).
Christina Bröker is a Research Assistant at Paderborn University. She
studied history at RWTH Aachen University and graduated with a
master’s degree in 2017. Her master’s thesis examined the relationship
between King John (1199–1216) and his half-brother William of Salisbury.
Her PhD thesis focuses once again on English history with the working
title “Grim Look and Teeth-Gnashing. Conditions of Constructing
John and Henry III’s (emotional) Behaviour in Chronicles and Letters
(1199–1272)”. The thesis combines her general research interests in
English history, royal history and the history of emotions. Since 2017, she
has been working on her PhD at the University of Regensburg where she
was a Research Assistant. To further develop this research, she received a
PhD scholarship from the German Historical Institute in London in 2021.
Dr Lucia Cecchet is Assistant Professor in Greek History at the Department
of Historical Studies of the University of Milan, which she joined in
2021 after working at the Universities of Mainz, Zurich, Trento and
Heidelberg. She is interested in the social and cultural history of the
Greek world from the classical to the imperial period, with a focus on
poverty and citizenship. Her most recent publications include the books
Poverty in Athenian Public Discourse (Steiner 2015), Citizens in the Graeco-
Roman World (with A. Busetto, Brill 2017), The Ancient War’s Impact on
the Home Front (with Ch. Degelmann and M. Patzelt, Cambridge Scholars
