Who was the first person/government to impose a tax, what what kind of tax was it?

Answer 1

Hey Victor,

There was a cave man named Grog, he had a big cave. When the other cave people wanted to live with him, he charged them 2 spear heads, and 2 animals to eat each week. Oh, sorry that is the story of Rent.

"Taxes have been around for a long time. They are the main way people pay for their government. Or, to look at it another way, taxes are the main way that some powerful men and women force less powerful people to give them stuff. Taxation is when some powerful person or group decides that all the people should pay some amount of stuff, or money, to the government, and uses the army or police to collect from people who do not pay. One way of taxing people is called a head tax, or a poll tax (from the Latin word for head). The government says every person has to pay a certain amount, the same for everyone. Sometimes women or children pay less than men do (why would that be?). Sometimes you have to pay for your sheep or cows by the head too. This makes it easy to see how much somebody should pay. Rich people pay the same as poor ones. But it is harder for poor people to pay it.

Another way of taxing people is by taking a percentage of whatever they have. That is harder to figure out, because people may not know or may not tell you how much they have, but rich people pay more than poor people, so it is easier for the poor to pay it.



In the ancient world, there were two main methods of paying your taxes. One way was called "in cash", which means paying in actual coins, gold or silver or bronze. Some people paid their taxes in cash. Other people paid their taxes "in kind", which means they paid in wheat, or chickens, or olive oil, or whatever they were producing on their farm."

Answer 2

The origin of taxation is lost in history, but we can be certain that every civilization taxed its people. Government is not all bad, as the first answer to your question implies. In Egypt and Mesopotamia, much tax revenue went into expanding and maintaining the irrigation systems (this was also true in China and the Americas). The surplus crops generated by these advanced techniques excited envy in the barbarian neighbors of the civilizations in question. To defend themselves against constant raiding, civilizations developed the professional warrior caste.
People paid taxes long before there was money. It was paid in two different ways - in kind (grain, produce, manufactured articles, cloth, etc.) and in free labor. A donation of land could also be considered payment of a tax.
Even Native American tribes collected a tax - a fee from traders passing through their territory.