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In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes. The now famous words by Benjamin Franklin, quoted in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy in 1789, touched on two of humanity’s biggest heartaches: dying and having to fork over your hard-earned money to SARS.

But taxation is nothing new, so any possible argument we can muster against paying our dues has been made for thousands of years. So instead of crying about tax, perhaps some history on the subject can act as a salve to soothe our bleeding pockets. After all, misery loves company, and this is one misery that has been shared through the ages as much as death.

The word ‘tax‘ first appeared in English in the fourteenth century and stems from the Latin word taxare, which means ‘to assess’. Initially, English used the comparable word ‘task’, and for a time, the terms ‘task’ and ‘tax’ were interchangeable, with the first referring to effort and the latter to money.

The term ‘tax’ then came to mean something tedious or difficult (sounds about right), so words like ‘duty’ were adopted to make it sound more appealing. Political spin has, after all, as long a history as taxation, and neither is going anywhere soon.

China, which has one of the longest of all written records, was the first to create a ‘bureaucracy’ to collect and administer taxes, which was used to establish the Empire. In Egypt, the Pharaoh’s scribes were charged with raising funds in any way practical, including taxes on household cooking oil. This ‘oil tax’ was also the first-ever recorded instance of tax avoidance as primitive audits revealed subjects were recycling oil in order to avoid paying the tax.

The Pharaohs even claimed divine rights to their share as supported by The ‘Book of Genesis’ in The Bible, which suggested that a fifth of all crops should be given to the Pharaoh.

Ancient Greece soon imposed eishpora on their citizens to pay for wars, which were numerous at the time. Once a war was over, however, any surplus eishpora had to be refunded. Perhaps the first recorded tax refunds?

Rome ran with the tax idea and Julius Caesar introduced a 1% sales tax while Augustus eventually instituted an inheritance tax to provide retirement funds for the military. Human bondage however remained the most lucrative form of tax for both Greece and Rome.

Political taxes were soon coining it for governments of the day, so the religious institutions quickly jumped on the bandwagon by implementing a ‘tithe’, or a tenth of what the faithful produced, usually paid to the Church in kind. Islam eventually introduced the ‘Islamic Tax’, the khums, or ‘one twentieth’, which was far better than the tenth of the Christians at the time.

India took on the jizya, and the Aztec, Olmec, Maya and Inca cultures claimed their fair share with the terrifying-sounding ‘ritual observance’, while Hindus and Buddhists sustained their temples and monasteries with contributions of time, skill and resources from the faithful.

Taxes were off to the races, and soon everything from beards, boots, beehives, candles, nuts, hats, horses, chimneys, and water were taxed – mostly thanks to ‘The Great’ Tsar Peter of Russia who used tax to establish the Red Empire.

More modern systems of taxation soon followed the expansion of imperial Europe, together with towns and cities, where tribute in kind was less useful, and cash became the currency of choice. But handing over cash is always harder, and in 1629, a dispute between the British Parliament and King Charles I eventually led to civil war.

The fight against taxes began and even fuelled the French Revolution between 1789 and 1799. This revolt against taxation levied by imperial Britain also fuelled the formation of the United States, but by then, no state could operate without taxes, and so, to skip ahead a few centuries, it remains as certain as death until today.

Governments all over the world have over the centuries implemented all kinds of strange taxes, and whether we like it or not, society can not function without some sort of tax system in place. It sucks, but it has done so for everyone since the time of the Pharoahs.

If you are a ‘labourer’, the 8th of July 2024 will once again mark the time when you will have to pay your ‘duty’. We suggest getting in touch with Galbraith Rushby to help you manage your contributions. From compliance to planning, VAT consulting and employee tax, leave it in their expert hands to ensure you’re paying the right tax, at the right time.

These days, even the Aztecs ‘ritual observance’ seems benevolent compared to SARS, so get it right.

[source:sataxguide]