Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2021/01/28/a-tax-on-beards-and-other-strange-revenue-enhancement-schemes.html
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Interesting to note a few forms of those schemes still exist today. In addition to taxes, some municipalities use fees and fines for “revenue enhancement.” My favorite weird one was patrols looking in people’s yards for unlicensed dogs. TPTB figured the amount of the fines to be collected justified the effort of police cars driving through every street in town at various hours to identify scofflaws.
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Beard tax? For shanties, that’s just the price of admission.
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For hipster barristers that would be a slap in the face - all be it softened by the lush waxed beard. Lets hope neck and sleeve tattoos don’t get taxed otherwise who will we be able to trust to make the perfect macchiato?
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I missed the memo they gave up lattes for law. 
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Made me think of the window tax here in England…
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The UK has a “bedroom tax”, though It’s actually a penalty for those who have subsidized housing and have an unoccupied bedroom, in spite of the fact that there aren’t necessarily any alternative homes to relocate to.
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For years I believed New Hampshire had a “scenic view” tax, mainly as a way to milk out-of-staters who owned ski chalets and vacation homes. However the apparent reality is just that localities will value a house with a scenic view more, so they pay more property tax.
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I like this one:
5. ENEMIES
When Oliver Cromwell ruled the British Isles as Lord Protector (1653 to 1658), he had a problem with pesky Royalists. To keep them in check, he needed to raise militias. To pay for the militias, he came up with a novel solution: He would tax his enemies. He slapped a 10 percent income tax, known as the “decimation tax,” on the Royalists, arguing that it was entirely justified. After all, the militia wouldn’t need financing in the first place were it not for the conspiratorial Royalists.
Can we just tax all the war hawks to pay for military spending? Can we tax Cruz and Hawley and the gang to pay for repairs to the Capitol and the national guard deployment? I’d be down with that.
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law of unintended consequences would be “hey we’re paying for this army, we’d sure better use it.”
( what’s that you say? that’s already the case? ahhhg! )
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