Daylight Robbery

byDominic Frisby, Dominic Frisby (Read by)

How Tax Shaped Our Past and Will Change Our Future

Brought to you by Penguin.

For most people, tax is something we pay, simply because we must. We seldom think much more about it, in fact, tax is something we'd rather forget.

But the reality is that tax is the key to power. No government can survive without tax revenue - it is the fuel that every state, large and small, runs on. Many of the problems we face today, not least the enormous wealth gaps between rich and poor and between generations, can be traced back to our systems of tax. If you tax windows, many will sacrifice their daylight. If you tax cigarettes, some people will choose not to smoke, others will take up smuggling. Tax companies too much and many will relocate off-shore.

In Daylight Robbery, Dominic Frisby will offer an alternative vision of a system that is as old as civilization itself. It will take you on a whirlwind journey through the history of taxation, from the Ancient Mesopotamia right up to the present day, explaining the key dynamics of taxation around the world and arguing that governments are going to have to radically change who they tax and how if they are to succeed in the future.

With dazzling clarity, Frisby illuminates just how much of history is explained by arguments over tax, from Magna Carta to the American civil war to today's political debates. This entertaining, surprising, contrarian book is a tour de force

Matt Ridley, author of The Evolution of Everything

About Dominic Frisby

Dominic Frisby is, unusually, both a financial writer and a comedian. For twenty years, he has a written a weekly blog column for Moneyweek about gold, while his Substack, The Flying Frisby, ranks among the UK’s top financial reads. He’s delivered a slew of ‘lectures with funny bits’ on everything from taxation to mining to weights and measures, as well as hosting two financial comedy shows for BBC Radio 4, More Money than Sense with Andy Zatzman, Shazia Mirza and Paul Sinha and Damned Lies with Sir David Spiegelhalter. His previous books, Life After the State, Bitcoin: The Future of Money? and Daylight Robbery, all tackle big ideas about money with both wit and clarity.
Details
  • Imprint: Penguin Business
  • ISBN: 9780241440834
  • Length: 528 minutes
  • Price: £13.00
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