the.com/taxation
civilization's subscription fee, billed annually, cancellation prohibited, complaints department staffed entirely by accountants.
means The system by which a government compels citizens and businesses to pay money to fund public spending.
from From Latin 'taxare,' meaning to assess, appraise, or handle — itself a frequentative of 'tangere,' to touch. So at its root, to tax is to 'touch' something repeatedly in order to value it, which feels uncomfortably apt. The word reached English through Old French 'taxer,' and 'taxation' arrived in the medieval period to name the act of levying such charges.
- oldest record
- Egyptians taxed cooking oil 5,000 years ago
- window tax
- Britain taxed windows; people bricked them up
- beard tax
- Peter the Great charged Russians for facial hair
- tea spark
- a tax revolt founded the United States
- urine tax
- Rome taxed pee collected for tanning
boston tea party — 1773 protest where american colonists dumped 342 chests of tea into boston harbor to oppose british taxation without representation
magna carta — 1215 english charter that first limited a monarch's power to tax arbitrarily, signed by king john
french revolution — 1789 uprising partly triggered by france's oppressive taxation system and debt crisis under louis xvi
panama papers — 2016 leak of 11.5 million documents revealing how the wealthy use offshore accounts to avoid taxation