loosely organizes a treasure trove of anecdotes about tax systems, trivia, and events around the world and throughout history …. In many respects the book, which endeavors to include stories about any type of tax, in any type of tax system, in any … adaptation of tax systems – but the book’s main contribution is in taking readers on a raucous ride through tax history that will …

world and across the ages Governments have always struggled to tax in ways that are effective and tolerably fair. Sometimes … they fail grotesquely, as when, in 1898, the British ignited a rebellion in Sierra Leone by imposing a tax on huts-and, in … repressing it, ended up burning the very huts they intended to tax. Sometimes they succeed astonishingly, as when, in eighteenth …