A taxing history of humanity

By Sam Ewing

If you think taxation with representation is a gargantuan headache these days, just consider how rough taxation without representation used to be.

People have been taxed, some scholars say, since prehistoric times. They believe, for example, that early humans were forced to surrender a high percentage of both the meat and animal skins from their hunting to a primitive tribal chief. The latter claimed such tribute because he was the strongest, and probably the meanest, member of the community.

History also records taxation terrors of ancient Egypt. The paintings on the wall of an Egyptian tomb more than 4,000 years old tell a grim story. They depict a tax collector for the mighty Pharaoh Cheops holding one unfortunate culprit by the scruff of the neck and beating him to force him to dig deeper into his loincloth. The taxpayer's agonized face peers out from the wall of the tomb in warning to those who fight the system. Everyone paid, no exceptions.

Although money was not used in that long-ago era, peasants were expected to dedicate time, foodstuff, or wine to the pharaoh. But if a peasant was short a few bushels or could pay nothing at all, pharaonic justice often proved heavy-handed. Penalties exacted by government tax gatherers, for instance, included everything from confiscating the debtor's oxen to seizing the entire family and throwing the peasant, screaming and struggling, into the Nile as a meal for crocodiles.

The tax systems of ancient Persia, Babylonia, Greece, and Rome were equally unfair. Taxes, levied heaviest on peasants and small landlords (sound familiar?), usually amounted to one-third to one-half of a person's total income. Furthermore, tax evaders were sold as slaves by the thousands. One Greek philosopher was banished forever from his homeland when he stated publicly, "Taxation is the most common means adopted by this government to prevent its citizens from hoarding."

The luckless inhabitants of 16th-century Dubalhati, India, were so poor that even the most heartless tax collectors could find nothing to take from them. When the ruling monarch, Emperor Akbar, was told of this nonpaying community, he asked if anything at all — no matter how worthless — was produced there. A fact-finding committee sent to the town determined that the polluted adjoining river swarmed with a peculiar breed of inedible fish. Hearing this, the emperor immediately decreed that the town be levied a tax of 20,000 fish per year.

For the next two centuries, just before the tax deadline, the entire population of the poverty-stricken town gathered a smelly, wriggling, writhing mass of the worthless fish. This gigantic mass was transported to the Imperial Treasury in Delhi, where the tax collector and his assistants, holding their noses, had to count them — and destroy them.

Though many things caused the cataclysmic political and social upheaval of the French Revolution (1789-1799), exorbitant taxation of the peasantry is often cited as a major factor. Indeed, Marie Antoinette, Queen of France and wife of Louis XVI, practically bankrupted the country with her extravagance. And to keep the free-spending queen in boundless luxuries, the king's men rode through the countryside stripping citizens of money and property.

A tale is told of a bold innkeeper who, when ordered by a royal tax collector to "pay your taxes with a smile," replied, "I should love to, monsieur — but King Louis demands gold." For his Henny Youngman-type of one-liner, the unfortunate fellow was run through with a sword.

Historically, though, the British have led the field in going for the last drop of taxpayer blood. During the 45-year reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603), for example, the English discovered a welcome source of revenue in beards. Since whiskers were in vogue, the queen's treasury soon bulged with gold sovereigns extorted from subjects with hairy faces.

Sidney Goff, a popular and clever writer who in spite of his sizeable income was always in debt and delinquent in paying taxes, sat one day in a barber shop waiting to have his magnificent beard trimmed. But when a royal tax collector entered the busy shop and saw Goff, he angrily demanded the money owed as tax on his beard. The writer quietly begged him not to make a scene.

"Certainly," the tax man said, pleased at the prospect of at last getting money from the notorious deadbeat. Goff then made the barber a witness to the agreement, and whispered further instructions. While the queen's representative read a paper, the writer was lathered and worked over. Finally, Goff stepped out of the chair, but his beard had been shaved off.

"As you can see," he told the flabbergasted tax man, "no beard has been trimmed and brushed. Therefore, according to our arrangement, I have not taxes to pay. Good day, my dear fellow." Goff left the shop and the frustrated tax collector behind. And he went clean-shaven for the rest of his days.

Soap, unknown to ancient civilizations as a means of washing the body, was used for centuries only to clean clothing. When at last soap found its way into the bath, it was used strictly for medical reasons. For instance, Greek physicians recommended it for the treatment of elephantiasis and other diseases.

During the Middle Ages, however, soap slowly evolved into a product for personal hygiene. Our old friend Elizabeth I enjoyed a bath each month, while lesser folk bathed once or twice a year, if at all. By 1712, when average people began to use soap more frequently, the British government declared the product a luxury and placed a hefty tax on it.

A comic bit in a London music hall sketch poked fun at the tax, and it always drew guffaws and applause from the tax-weary audience. "Excuse me, sir," an attractive young woman said to a Cockney sailor, "do those tattoo marks wash off?"

"Can't say, me-lady," he replied. "I can't afford to take a bath. Taxes, you know."

Finally, though, public pressure forced the government to abolish this tariff on cleanliness in 1853.

But, as every school-age child learns, Great Britain lost its most valuable possessions because King George III insisted on enforcing taxes in America. In fact, the events that led to the American Revolution began with a tax bill, the Stamp Act, passed by the English Parliament in 1765. The act decreed that a revenue stamp was to be affixed to everything sold in the Colonies, including newspapers and legal documents.

As a result, the king's revenue agents, appointed to sell the stamps, were quite unpopular. Angry mobs often sacked their homes as well as tarred and feathered them. A tax on tea, the last straw with colonists, brought about a boycott of British imports, the organization of a Revolutionary army, and, ultimately, the formation of the United States of America.

Income tax was first imposed for a few years in the United States to help finance the Civil War. Then, in 1913, the federal income tax was introduced as a "temporary" measure. It has, however, been with us ever since.

Americans can still go to jail for tax evasion or the willful refusal to pay. Oddly enough, though, the middle-income taxpayer is in more danger of going to federal prison than the millionaire -- and not just because the rich man can afford to hire the best lawyers. Judge and jury are likely to believe a multi-millionaire when he says he forgot an amount of, say, $900,000. But who's going to believe that a family earning $40,000 a year really forgot to include $5,000 in its tax return?

Kids learn before they can read that there's a tax on most everything. Boys and girls now get Social Security numbers before they can walk or talk.

Indeed, America truly is a land of opportunity -- everyone can become a taxpayer. Welcome to the club!