What’s that saying? Only death and taxes are the only constants in this life, but also that taxes are the only one which constantly goes up.
As it so happens, one of the oldest complaints about taxation has been found. I quote:
Inscriptions revealing complaints about high taxes from 1,700 years ago have been found during the excavation of the ancient city of Rhodiapolis in Antalyàs Kumluca district, daily Today's Zaman reports. "In addition to many historical artefacts, we uncovered some relics concerning the social life of the people during the excavation", Nevzat Cevik, head of the archaeology department in Akdeniz University, said, adding that " we found a tablet written by a messenger describing that the people was complaining of high taxes; the tablet was sent to the emperor to request a discount". "
When we consider that people wanted sales tax and income tax rates to be lowered, we can infer that toward the A.D. third century the people of Rhodiapolis could not pay their taxes", the scientist said. Noting that the people of Rhodiapolis wanted Roman Emperor Septimius Severus to lower taxes, Kizgut declared that "The emperor gave the green light and promised the messenger that taxes would be lowered. Upon his return to Rhodiapolis, the messenger informed the leader with great joy and in his honor, an inscribed stele was erected in the agora"
more things change, more they remain the same. Perhaps we should send messengers to Gordon Brown asking to reduce the tax burden. Fat chance of that happening, watch us all turn into squeaking pips.
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