"No taxation without representation" was a rallying cry for advocates of American independence from Great Britain in the eighteenth century. The American colonies were obligated to pay taxes to London, yet had no representatives in Parliament, and felt therefore that they were being forced to fund a government into which they had no input. A slightly different version, "Taxation without representation is tyranny", is attributed to James Otis.
In modern times, the phrase "Taxation Without Representation" appears on the automobile license plates of Washington, DC, to protest that city's lack of representation in the United States' House of Representatives and Senate (although the district does have a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives who can sit on committees and participate in debates). An effort to put the phrase on a redesigned DC flag has not yet come to fruition.
British Prime Minister John Major used a modified version of the quote, with the order reversed, in October 1995, when at the United Nations' 50th Anniversary celebrations he said, "It is not sustainable for states to enjoy representation without taxation," in order to criticise the billion-dollar arrears of the USA's payments to the UN.[1]
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