Which civilization was the first to tax?
Our first record of taxation dates back 5,000 years to ancient Egypt. Before they were even using coined currency, the Pharaoh collected a 20 percent tax on all grain harvests. Julius Caesar implemented the first sales tax, and his great nephew slash adopted son, Caesar Augustus, instituted a direct income tax.
Ancient Rome administered a sales tax. Julius Caesar was the first to implement a sales tax: a 1 percent flat rate that was applied across the entire Empire. Under Caesar Augustus, the sales tax was 4 percent, closer to a rate we see today in many U.S. state sales taxes.
FIRST LAW ON TAXES
The Sumerian civilization created the first known legal codes with articles about taxes. For example, the laws of the king Lipit-Ishtar, who ruled in the 20th century BCE, include an article about consequences for non-payment of taxes.
The world's earliest known system of taxation emerged in Egypt at the dawn of civilization itself, around 3000 B.C.E., when the First Dynasty unified Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt. Ancient Mesopotamia soon followed suit.
One of the first recorded taxes on income was the Saladin tithe introduced by Henry II in 1188 to raise money for the Third Crusade. The tithe demanded that each layperson in England and Wales be taxed one tenth of their personal income and moveable property.
The British government, however, imposed a variety of taxes on the colonists. These included a head tax, real estate taxes, and the infamous tea tax that led to the Boston Tea Party. After the Revolutionary War, the Constitution gave Congress the power to impose taxes and other levies on the general public.
The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.3 percent.
The Sumerians, in their great wisdom, chose not to burden their people with a system of taxation. As such, Sumerian society flourished (unless, of course, you were a slave or non-Sumerian). It was not until the rise of the Egyptian dynasties, in the third millennium B.C., that humanity was cruelly saddled with taxes.
What technology did Mesopotamia develop? Mesopotamians developed many different technologies which were firsts for their period of time. For example, Mesopotamians were the first to use the wheel, the plow, the chariot, the weaving loom, irrigation systems, and written language.
Ancient Egypt was one of the first civilizations to have an organized tax system. It was developed around 3000 B.C., soon after Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt were unified by Narmer, Egypt's first pharaoh. Egypt's early rulers took a very personal interest in taxes.
Did the Romans invent taxes?
Ancient Rome administered a sales tax. Julius Caesar was the first to implement a sales tax: a 1 percent flat rate that was applied across the entire Empire. Under Caesar Augustus, the sales tax was 4 percent, closer to a rate we see today in many U.S. state sales taxes.
To help pay for its war effort in the American Civil War, Congress imposed its first personal income tax in 1861.
The ancient Egyptians were pioneers in architecture, medicine and mathematics. They invented the calendar, ways to measure distances, improvements in irrigation, medical surgery and also applied their knowledge to architecture. They were experts in preserving the dead and mummification.
On July 1, 1862, President Lincoln signed the second revenue measure of the Civil War into law. This law levied internal taxes and established a permanent internal tax system. Congress established the Office of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue under the Department of the Treasury.
CNBC's Robert Frank reports on Elon Musk's tax bill which is the largest in history. Musk will pay a total of $12 billion for 2021.
Economic Instability: Governments would be forced to print more money or seek external loans to cover their expenses, leading to hyperinflation and economic instability. This, in turn, could result in a lower standard of living for citizens and increased unemployment.
Before an income tax was established, the majority of funds given to the federal government derived from tariffs on domestic and international goods.
Origin. The roots of IRS go back to the Civil War when President Lincoln and Congress, in 1862, created the position of commissioner of Internal Revenue and enacted an income tax to pay war expenses.
Before the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1788, the federal government lacked the power to raise revenue directly. Even after the Constitution was ratified, federal revenues came mostly from tariffs and excise taxes.
Who Does Not Have to Pay Taxes? Generally, you don't have to pay taxes if your income is less than the standard deduction, you have a certain number of dependents, working abroad and are below the required thresholds, or are a qualifying non-profit organization.
Which billionaires did not pay taxes?
The ideal is to owe zilch. If that sounds impossible to achieve, just look at the leaked tax returns of the wealthiest Americans that nonprofit news site ProPublica analyzed in 2021: Over several years, billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Michael Bloomberg, among others, paid no federal income taxes at all.
Two-thirds of the list paid less tax in 2023 than in the year before, it said. Originally from Moscow, financial trader Alex Gerko topped the index, followed by former Formula 1 chief executive Bernie Ecclestone, while the boss of gambling firm Bet365, Denise Coates, came in third.
Writing, laws, cities, and science—these and other innovations were devised by the enterprising peoples living in Sumer, the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, some 5,000 years ago. The foundations of human civilization first flowered in the fertile lands between the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers.
In these territories, people paid taxes in grain and money, and fulfilled other obligations to maintain the army and navy. Egypt's population was subject to civil conscription, primarily imposing obligations to cultivate royal lands and repair the irrigation system.
Taxes in Ancient Egypt
For most of the history of ancient Egypt, the Egyptians did not have a currency in the same way we have one today. There was, however, still a government, headed by the Pharaoh, that taxed the public. Without a currency, taxes were collected in kind, in the goods produced by regular Egyptians.
