the.com/tax
The price of civilization, billed annually with no opt-out and surprisingly little applause.
means A compulsory charge levied by a government on income, goods, activities, or property to fund public spending.
from From Latin 'taxare,' to assess, appraise, or handle — itself a frequentative of 'tangere,' to touch (the same root that gives us 'tactile' and 'tangent'). The word came into English through Old French 'taxer' around the 14th century. So a tax is, quite literally, the state reaching out to touch your purse and 'assess' what's inside — a fitting genealogy. The related word 'task' shares the same Latin parent, which says something about how both feel.
- oldest record
- Egyptians taxed cooking oil 5,000 years ago
- weird levy
- England once taxed windows, sparking bricked-up homes
- beard tax
- Peter the Great charged Russians to keep facial hair
- income debut
- Britain's income tax was a temporary war measure
- tax code
- US version dwarfs the Bible in length
french revolution — abolished feudal tax system in 1789, sparked by resentment of unequal taxation
boston tea party — december 1773 protest against british tea tax, catalyst for american independence
panama papers — 2016 leak of 11.5 million documents exposing tax avoidance schemes by global elites