Government Once Taxed Urine, Beards and Heads: Violators Were Imprisoned
Taxes have long been associated with levies on income, vehicles, land, buildings, or transactions. However, throughout history, governments have imposed taxes on objects that sound absurd.
Urine, beards, and even heads and fingernails have been subject to levies in various places and eras.
One example occurred during the Roman Empire under Emperor Vespasian, who ruled from 69 to 79 AD. At that time, people’s urine became a taxable object.
The levy was not without reason. Urine contains ammonia, which had economic value at the time. Ammonia could be used to clean dirt and oil from clothing, as fertiliser, and even to help whiten teeth.
Roman society collected urine from public toilets. The urine was then bought and sold for various purposes.
When transactions occurred, the government imposed a tax on the purchase of urine. The policy naturally sparked controversy. Vespasian’s son, Titus, was said to be disgusted by the policy. To him, foul-smelling urine was being turned into a source of government revenue.
The story of strange taxes later emerged in Russia. During the reign of Peter the Great around 1698, Russian men who wished to keep their beards were required to pay a tax. The amount of the levy was also differentiated based on social status.
The higher a person’s status, the greater the tax they had to pay to keep their beard.
The policy was linked to Peter the Great’s efforts to modernise Russia and encourage its people to follow Western European styles. However, the beard tax was eventually repealed in 1772.
If one assumes that taxes on body parts only occurred abroad, that assumption is mistaken. In Batavia (now Jakarta) in the 17th century, the colonial government also imposed levies targeting the Chinese population. One of these was the head tax.
Historian Mona Lohanda in Sejarah Para Pembesar Mengatur Batavia (1996) recorded that Chinese men aged 16 to 60 were required to pay a tax of 1.5 real per head.
Those who did not pay could face legal consequences. Not only heads, but fingernails were also used as a basis for levies.
Alwi Shahab in Robinhood Betawi (2002) noted that the fingernail tax usually targeted the wealthy. At that time, some rich people had a habit of letting their fingernails grow long.
That habit then became the basis for the government to impose a tax.
Resistance to this levy also occurred. Benny G. Setiono in Tionghoa dalam Pusaran Politik (2008) recorded that Chinese people who refused to pay could be sentenced to eight days in prison and fined 25 guilders.
To remind the public of their payment obligations, government representatives placed flags in several locations. When the flags were visible, the Chinese community knew it was time to pay the tax.
However, the tax was not imposed on the entire Chinese community. Peranakan Chinese and Chinese Muslims were exempted from the levy. The head tax and fingernail tax then persisted until around 1900. After that, both levies were converted into a form of income tax.
This history shows that past forms of taxation could be very different from modern taxation systems. Governments once sought sources of revenue from things with economic value, societal habits, and even a person’s identity or physical condition.