Brooks Reviews Tillotson's The Citizen-Taxpayer And The Rise Of Canadian Democracy

Kim Brooks (Schulich School of Law), Canadians Can Be Unruly, See For Yourself (JOTWELL) (reviewing Shirley Tillotson (Dalhousie University), Give and Take: The Citizen-Taxpayer and the Rise of Canadian Democracy (2017)):

Some of my favourite tax scholarship steps outside technical detail and speaks to how tax systems promote or are informed by higher-order values. So, I welcome Shirley Tillotson’s magnificent and richly researched new book on the era between the enactment of Canada’s federal income tax law in 1917 and its heady 1960s reform period, which saw taxpayer-citizens actively debating the contours of democracy through the vehicle of tax reform. At its heart, the book is about what we can learn about democracy from our engagement with taxation and how our democracy can be enhanced when we find ourselves talking about taxes over coffee. ...

Tillotson’s book is a fine contribution to tax and social history. If you are an American wondering how tax dialogue works in the big piece of land to the North, it’s well worth your time.