Blog

60 AD – Urine Tax

2 January 2018

Strange as it may seem today, in Ancient Rome, urine was a valuable commodity. It was collected from the cesspools where the lower classes of society emptied their small pots, and the public toilets which the upper classes used, and recycled. The Roman’s used the urine to bleach/clean clothes, make leather soft, dye clothes, make…

Read More »

123 BC – Tax Farming

27 December 2017

Tax farming was originally a Roman practice set up by Gaius Gracchus in 123 BC whereby the burden of tax collection was reassigned by the Roman State to private individuals or groups.  The tax collectors were known as publicani. The best known is Matthew the Apostle, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, who was…

Read More »

First Income Tax – Egypt 3,000 BC

19 December 2017

The first income tax is generally attributed to Egypt where the Pharaohs collected taxes from their citizens. There is documented evidence of a biennial event, the ‘Following of Horus’, no less than a royal tour when the pharaoh appeared before his people and collected taxes. Egyptians did not have coined money, so their taxes were…

Read More »

6,000 BC – Labour Obligation Tax

12 December 2017

Under the Bala Tax, Mesopotamia taxed almost everything – livestock, grains, handicrafts, funerals, etc. The most burdensome tax though was the Labor Obligation. This was also called the ‘going’ or ‘burden’ in Babylonian languages. Under the Labor Obligation Tax, a free man, the head of his household, owed the government several months’ of labour service…

Read More »

Ur III Dynasty of Mesopotamia | Bala Tax 6000 BC

5 December 2017

Mesopotamia is a historical region covering the Tigris–Euphrates river system. The region corresponds to most of Iraq, Kuwait, the eastern parts of Syria, and regions along the Turkish-Syrian and Iran–Iraq borders. Mesopotamia is the birthplace of some of the most important developments in human history, including the invention of the wheel, irrigation systems, the planting…

Read More »

A Window Tax Was Introduced in 1696

28 November 2017

The window tax was a property tax based on the number of windows in a house. It was designed to impose tax relative to the prosperity of the taxpayer, with the logic being that the rich had bigger houses with more windows, so should pay more tax than the poor (with fewer windows). The tax…

Read More »

A Tax on Beards Was Introduced in 1535!

21 November 2017

A beard tax is one of several taxes introduced throughout history on men who wear beards. In 1535, King Henry VIII of England (who wore a beard himself), introduced a tax on beards. The tax was a graduated tax, varying with the wearer’s social position. Although there are contemporary documents evidencing that beard-pulling was a…

Read More »

Income Tax General Anti Avoidance Rules

15 November 2017

The general anti-avoidance rules contained in Part IVA of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 (Cth) (‘Part IVA’) may be applied by the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to deny a taxpayer the tax benefit of a scheme they have entered into. The key features of Part IVA include the following: Is there a scheme? Has…

Read More »

The Most Common Illegal Business Tax Avoidance Strategies

8 November 2017

The top 8 illegal business tax saving strategies are:   Illegal cash economy – The ATO estimates about 1.6 million businesses (mostly micro and small businesses with an annual turnover up to $15 million) operating across 233 industries are part of the illegal cash economy. Tax Justice Network spokesman, Mark Zirnsak, said the ATO’s data…

Read More »

The Most Common Illegal Employee Tax Avoidance Strategies

1 November 2017

  The top 7 illegal employee tax saving strategies in Australia are:   Employees or contractors not declaring cash wages. Not reporting capital gains on the sale of shares or property. Not declaring interest, dividend or rental income. Not declaring overseas income like wages, capital gains, rent, etc. Claiming private expenditure as a work deduction…

Read More »

Similar posts you may like

"You’d be stupid not to try to cut your tax bill and those that don’t are stupid in business"

- Bono: U2