The Transfer of Tax Ideas during the ‘Reverse Course’ of the US Occupation of Japan

Abstract

Imperial nations have often attempted to transplant ideas about taxation in the soil of less powerful societies. Historians are well aware of how the expansion of empires, both formal and informal, has spread institutions of private finance.¹ But less well understood is how imperial expansion spread, or at least attempted to spread, ideas of public finance, including taxation. This essay seeks to help launch an exploration of this phenomenon in the context of the history of the economic and political expansion of the United States, especially during the period following the Second World War. The transfer of tax ideas may have been an important aspect of reconstruction of international economic institutions and programmes that the United States undertook in the wake of the Great Depression and the Second World War.² This essay explores the transfer of tax ideas associated with one important aspect of this reconstruction ‑ the American occupation of Japan (1945‑52). The essay undertakes this exploration through an in-depth study of government decision making, including the ideas of key policy-makers, both American and Japanese, during the occupation.