A situation in which a government imposes taxes on a particular group of its citizens, despite the citizens not consenting or having an actual representative deliver their views when the taxation decision was made. This situation was one of the triggering events that spurred the original thirteen American colonies to revolt against the British Empire.

During the 1760s, American colonists were not satisfied at the fact that all taxation related decisions were made by people living across an ocean, unaware of concerns in their colony. Colonists sought to challenge the status quo, which lead to a full blown revolution where the colonies fought the British empire for its own independence to have a right to govern its own affairs.