Some Tax Time Humor

Monday, April 15, 2013

tax

Sir Smiley here after a long hiatus- just in time for TAX DAY!! Please forgive my light hearted attempt at humor today, as we all work through Tax Day 2013.

Many Americans think that taxes are too high and some think they should be raised but for today, I thought we would simply focus on the top 10 DUMB TAXES in history! We truly are lucky to be Americans and it feels good to contribute but imagine having to deal with these 'over the top' taxes!!

If you would like to read the entire article- VERY FUNNY -please follow the link at the bottom of today's Blog!
Let the laughing begin.

  • No. 10 The Beard Tax
    There's supposedly a goatee tax on the books in Massachusetts, but goofy, archaic state laws are often mere urban legends. Luckily, history has more than one beard tax up its sleeve, and for that we have Peter the Great to thank. Peter gets called everything from "radical" to "absolutely nuts" depending on who you ask; his beard tax certainly seems to place him squarely in the latter column.
  • No. 9 The Dealing-Illegal-Drugs Tax
    It's hard enough to get law-abiding people to report under-the-table income on their tax returns, so it's a little mystifying when the Internal Revenue Service expects people to actually implicate themselves in crimes just for the warm feeling of satisfaction you get from filing a comprehensive tax return.
  • No. 8 The Slave Emancipation Tax
    Ancient Rome employed a particularly mean little tax referred to as a manumission tax, which was essentially a tax on not being a slave anymore. In some cases, this applied to masters who'd chosen to free their own slaves, in which case the tax wasn't really all that bad (guys wealthy enough to own slaves could probably afford to pay a one-time tax on emancipating them).
  • No. 7 The Disagreeing-With-The-King Tax
    One of the time-honored measures taken by rulers who like it when things go completely awry is to tax the hell out of your enemies and hope they put up with it.
  • No. 6 The Existence Tax
    The very concept of a poll tax is as straightforward and unwelcome as pain-in-the-ass taxes can get: Instead of being taxed on how much you make or what you buy, a poll tax is what you owe a government simply because you had the audacity to be alive.
  • No. 5 The Nobel Prize Tax
    Yes, Nobel Prizes are taxed by the IRS. It may seem especially villainous that an entity designed to take everyone's money even demands its fair share from those who, in the words of Alfred Nobel, "have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind," but hey, Pulitzers and other prizes are taxed as well.
  • No. 4 The Being-Foreign Tax
    Taxes levied specifically against foreigners and immigrants are not all that unusual, even up through the 20th century. Canada started taxing Chinese immigrants in 1885 and didn't stop until 1923.
  • No. 3 The Hearth Tax
    When you're a monarch who's strapped for cash and you've already tried to tax property, goods and people, the only thing left to do is start picking random parts of structures and taxing those too.
  • No. 2 Danegeld
    History is filled with instances of countries paying pain-in-the-ass taxes to other (scary and violent) countries, and it has its share of war-related taxes, but the Saxons pretty clearly knew what they were getting into when they began paying the Danegeld. It's right in the name. This was a tax on not being killed by Danes.
  • No. 1 The Salt Tax
    Yes, salt. Harmless, innocuous salt.

    Unlikely as it may seem, it turns out that taxing salt has been one of the most unthinkably problematic ideas in history. Salt taxes were partially responsible for the fall of the Chinese empire, the French salt tax (the gabelle) helped precipitate the French Revolution and Gandhi himself marched in an anti-salt tax protest in 1930. In doing so he galvanized a burgeoning Indian independence movement, and that specific march inspired the future philosophies of Martin Luther King, Jr.
    So, if you're looking for a nice, quiet tax that won't rock any boats, taxing salt is probably not very wise.

    Read more: http://www.askmen.com/top_10/entertainment/top-10-pain-in-the-ass-taxes-in-history_10.html#ixzz2QUaVjVUr

I hope this amusing article has taken your mind off of your tax burden- even if for just a moment!
Sir Smiley OUT!

Sir Smiley 4/15/2013