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Historically, in many countries, a contract needed to have a stamp affixed to make it valid. The charge for the stamp was either a fixed amount or a percentage of the value of the transaction. In most countries the stamp has been abolished but stamp duty remains. Stamp duty is levied in the UK on the purchase of shares and securities, the issue of bearer instruments, and certain partnership transactions. Its modern derivatives, stamp duty reserve tax and stamp duty land tax , are respectively charged on transactions involving securities and land. Stamp duty has the effect of discouraging speculative purchases of assets by decreasing liquidity. Taxes on currency transactions are known as Tobin taxes.
Some believe that inheritance taxes do not have any harmful effect on the economy and may even be beneficial as they encourage consumer spending by the elderly. However, they are also believed to discourage productivity and to disrupt the continuity of family-owned businesses.
See also: allodial, death tax, estate tax, Pigovian tax
Main article Wealth (Net Worth) Tax
Some country's governments will require declaration of the tax payers balance sheet (assets and liabilities), and from that ask for a tax on net worth (assets minus liabilities), as a percentage of the net worth, or a precentage of the net worth exceeding a certain level. The tax is in place for both " natural" and in some cases legal "persons".
Political authority has been used to raise capital throughout history. In many pre-monetary societies, such as the Incan empire, taxes were owed in labor. Taxation in labour was the basis of the Feudal system in medieval Europe. King Solomon of the Old Testament pointed to the need for taxes to be applied for civil purposes (1 Kings 4:7; 9:15; 12:4), and these amounts were increased during times of foreign occupation.
In more sophisticated economies such as the Roman Empire, tax farming developed, as the central powers could not practically enforce their tax policy across a wide realm. The tax farmers were obligated to raise large sums for the government, but were allowed to keep whatever else they raised. The early Christians of the New Testament including Jesus supported the payment of taxes. "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's". It is even recognized as a duty whether as a "telos" on merchandise or travellers (Matt. 17:25), an annual "phoros" on property tax (Luke 20:22;23:2), a "kensos" or poll tax (Matt. 22:17; Mark 12:14, or the tribute money of a temple-tax (Matt. 17:24-27).
There were certain times in the Middle Ages where the governments did not explicitly tax, since they were self supporting, owning their own land and creating their own products. The appearance of doing without taxes was however illusory, since the government's (usually the Crown's) independent income sources depended on labour enforced under the feudal system, which is a tax exacted in kind.
In monetary economies prior to fiat banking, a critical form of taxation was seigniorage, the tax on the creation of money. Seigniorage has been replaced by central banking.
Other obsolete forms of taxation include:
Some principalities taxed windows, doors or cabinets to reduce consumption of imported glass and hardware. Armoires, hutches and wardrobes were invented to evade taxes on doors and cabinets.
Today the most complicated taxation-system is the German one. Three quarters of world's taxation-literature refers to the German system. There are 118 laws, 185 forms and 96000 regulations (only one comment to taxation covers 2671 pages). The administration needs 3.7 billion Euro only for taking the income-tax.
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