Taxes

From: mr happy <ajbehan_at_tcd.ie>
Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 09:59:30 +0000 (GMT)


> From: ns10005_at_cam.ac.uk (Nigel Smith)
> 40-60% of all Nazerene agricultural and fishing production went as
> tax to the Romans.

The Tokugawa shoguns took 2/3 of all rice produced in Japan. Mind you their revenue collectors had a saying that peasants are like soya beans... the harder you squeeze them the more you get out.

> But Orlanthi farmers can probably achieve better yields than their Nazerene
> counterparts, so a kilo-to-kilo comparison may bring taxes down to 30-50%
> (and then the temple takes another 10% as tithes...)

Which is why you tax them 70% because the 30% left is more than enough to survive.

There's a theory that the reason the barbarians "took over" the Roman Empire is because the overstretched bureaucracy licensed individual barbarians in the army to collect tax from specific recalcitrant tax payers in lieu of wages. The barbarian soldiers apparently live in towns but occasionally they went out into the coubntryside to menace their personal tax-payers.


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