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Reasons for the French to be revolting? :-
Unfair tax on tea may have triggered the "little local difficulty" between the US and Britain, how about this little tale?-
In 1748 the French State imposed a tax of 58 livres on a 3 livre box of salt! Only the poor paid taxes, the middle classes and the rich paid absolutely nothing. Smuggling became rife and to halt it, Louis, the Sun King ordered draconian punishments. Caught near Mayenne with a bag of salt, Sébastien Paturel, a 20 year old native of my commune ( pop 290), was convicted and sentenced to 3 years hard labor. Branded with a red-hot iron on his forehead, he was force-marched rivetted in heavy chains and weights to Marseilles, where he endured a horrific period in the galleys as an oarsmen, then was shipped to a grim prison at Brest where the work was de-barnacling ships bottoms. Rebranded with "liberté", he was eventually released in 1751 and walked home. He married in 1753 at our church, and had several children. He died in 1790 aged 62. He has descendants. For his story in full, (unfortunately in French), Google 'Images' then Sebastien Paturel and click on a one of the paturel pics.
I researched this after finding a peculier chain and a crude iron weight at a junk sale, and my good friend Georges pointed me in the right direction....
Sobering reading when put in context to VAT on nails!
Oh, and my house is on the 200 year old map!


Alan

Yep. Or if it's for business use and you're a VAT-registered business, of course, in which case you claim the tax back (but charge it your customer if you're selling the nails on to him).

Alan,

58 livres on a 3 livre item? Sounds like British gasoline......

Paul, the irony is that Louis eventually got himself in an immense financial black hole by secretly funding the American Revolution! Since the poor were already taxed to the point of starvation, he asked the rich and the bourgeois to contribute a small amount in tax. It was their violent protests against being taxed, and not that of the poor, which triggered the revolution.
As to gasoline, did you know that a petrol station owner has to pay all the VAT on fuel when it's delivered, not after it's sold? A friend of mine used to pay out over £15,000 in VAT before he sold one gallon. When he tried to argue the unfairness of this, the Waffen SS VAT Squad, ( Not a joke, these people really do have more power than the Gestapo had ), arrived at his premises and demanded immediate payment or they would sequester all his trucks, cars, works tools and the contents of his auto-trade shop. Needless to say, small operators went out of the petrol trade PDQ.

Alan