What do Taxes look like?

[Quertus]

I thought about posting this in the 3e forum, as it is likely to have the best answers… but it's also the system where I arguably care *least* about the answer.

So, it's probably easy to Google an answer for many modern nations for tax rates (I believe I once heard roughly 50% as an estimate for socialist nations), population, and average income.

But what about a medieval nation (not unlike D&D)? Or a futuristic one (like Star Wars)? What kind of funds are we looking at here, per capita?

And where does that money go? How much would a nation save by not feeding an undead army? By not paying an undead army? By not needing infrastructure, like roads? By having "trustworthy" or even "perfect" accounting / efficiency? How much would it cost to increase their military? Their education? To upkeep droids?

And, of course, given my example questions, are there any *existing* systems which provide a good abstraction for handling such issues (in a transparent enough way to handle even radically different baseline assumptions, like "Borg collective")?

[False God]

I mean, ultimately you're asking a question that there is no clear answer to, that the lore (like Star Wars) simply ignored, and that could have many different effective answers depending on the size of the nation, the needs of the nation, the wants of the nation, and the attitude of the nation (oppressive, collective, laissez-faire, etc...).

Keep in mind that if you are googling for answers, sold percentile numbers are not likely representative of "income tax". They are representative of the taxes that people pay across the board. Food taxes, gas taxes, income taxes, goods and service taxes, so on. Income tax may be 25%, but the impact of the other taxes represent an effective average total tax of 50%.

There's a reason the budgets and tax codes of major nations can be hundreds if not thousands of pages long.

[Imbalance]

It's sorta this star...fish, with four legs, one of which is square...ish...

Oh...taxes...

That's going to be some form of tribute levied by the ruling class and collected by corrupt officials backed by extortionate thugs if in a medieval fantasy setting or directly siphoned credits in a futuristic one.

[Tanarii]

I generally use the Karameikos standard by default: 25% income tax & 5% sales tax. IIRC it's supposed to be assessed quarterly but I change that up depending on how fast the PCs have cash come in.

I've had a few games go off the rails over the years due to tax avoidance issues. Even had one where it resulted in the players ruling a criminal empire instead of delving into the underdark as planned.

Plus the 10% tithe of course. If someone wants to declare their PC an atheist in most worlds, that carries its own set of problems.

[Satinavian]

I thought about posting this in the 3e forum, as it is likely to have the best answers… but it's also the system where I arguably care *least* about the answer.

So, it's probably easy to Google an answer for many modern nations for tax rates (I believe I once heard roughly 50% as an estimate for socialist nations), population, and average income.

But what about a medieval nation (not unlike D&D)? Or a futuristic one (like Star Wars)? What kind of funds are we looking at here, per capita?

And where does that money go? How much would a nation save by not feeding an undead army? By not paying an undead army? By not needing infrastructure, like roads? By having "trustworthy" or even "perfect" accounting / efficiency? How much would it cost to increase their military? Their education? To upkeep droids?

A medieval "tax rate" would be far far lower. 10 to 20 percent are not far off. But at the same time far more of the average income would go to necessities of life like food because everything needs more work with medieval technologies. So even such a small tax rate can seem high and people might struggle with it.
At the same time, a feudal gouverment is eytremely cheap but does not provide a lot of things we expect from a modern gouvernment.

Considering those points, savings through magic in a feudal gouvernment would not actually make that much of a difference because feudal tax is so low in the first place. However applying magic to the tax base would make a ridiculous game-changing difference.

To illustrate :

assume 10 peasant families can feed themself and 2 non peasant families. Now you exchange the half of all non peasant jobs with maintenance-less undead and and you can now provide for 1 additional job for each 10 peasants. Nice, but not that much of a deal.

Now use magical green revolution instead and say that with magical fertilizer and magical farm equippment 1 peasant family can feed 5 non-peasant families (still far less than modern agriculture can.) Suddenly your non farm related economic capabilities are stronger by a factor of 25. That means, you can have 25 as many soldiers, scolars, builders, administrators etc. You will probably ditch feudalism and use proper bureaucrats and full-time soldiers instead, likely make schools for the whole population and do a lot of other stuff with all that power.

[Anonymouswizard]

But what about a medieval nation (not unlike D&D)? Or a futuristic one (like Star Wars)? What kind of funds are we looking at here, per capita?

For medieval or other period settings I tend to assume tax regulations miss mercenaries because the authorities are more concerned with taxing goods. Plus the people hiring adventurers are normally the ones paying them, they just pay thrir mercenaries a little bit less and count that as tax. Exact rates if they come up tend to be around 10% taxation, 10% donations to religious institutions.

For futuristic settings I assume electronic banking and payment, plus limited AI used to calculate and automatically pay owed tax. The reward values the players are given are post-tax, which ranges from 0-50% depending on the amount they earn and the local politics (and let's not go down that route). In my settings if you own a ship the cost of paying for maintanance per head tends to push you into higher tax brackets.

Automation, whether magical or technological, could or could not have a massive effect. It really depends on what you're automating and how much.


The only setting I know of that really bothers to mention taxation without it being a source of oppression is Lensman, and due to the politics and resources at play the levels are at maybe a couple of percent (I forget the exact figure as it's been a while since I read the book, the government still has enough of a surplus that they let unattached Lensman have the rightsa to rare mineral deposits they discover).

[The Random NPC]

I remember reading something that said medieval taxes weren't percentage-based. So if you were a blacksmith, your taxes would be like 10 swords, a barrel of nails, and 200 arrows per year. It also said many blacksmith's wives would learn the simple smithing to take care of the tax obligation.

[Beleriphon]

Depends. In D&D which is vaguely late medieval to early modern then taxes could be person (a head tax), per acre of land (property tax), per item (a sales tax), or just about anything else somebody could think of to extra money from the populace. It was probably collected in food/grain rather than coin since most farmers didn't deal in hard currency but they had food. And it wouldn't be a percentage, it would be a hard number of bushels or whatever. So if the farmer had a crappy yield this year they still owe Lord Takeyourstuff however many bushels of grain, regardless of their own subsistence needs. If Lord Takeyourstuff is a good lord he'll let it slide until next year because dead peasants don't pay taxes in the long run, if Lord Takeyourstuff is a bad lord well that's where Robin Hood comes in.

At higher levels taxes might be levied to a lord in days spent on campaign, which could be offset with coin or food.

For modern stuff taxes are as complex as modern taxes are. Star Wars the Trade Federation could be paying a 0.5% corporate tax rate to Naboo and they get pissed because it goes to 0.55%. Because the Trader Federation are jerks.

[Silly Name]

For feudal societies, you are unlikely to find data on income tax or the like because it didn't exist as we understand it.

For example, in feudal Europe one way the peasantry was "taxed" by their lords was through corvée, meaning they worked "for free" for a certain number of days a year. Another was giving the lord a percentage of what they produced (wheat, flour, etc), usually expressed as X tenths or twenties, or as a fixed number of goods to provide.

Nobles, on the other hand, could be "taxed" by being expected to provide a certain number of armed men, archers, knight and so on for the king's military campaigns. And, of course, they were also expected to fully provide for the king and his court whenever they visited (many feudal rulers didn't have a stable capital city).

And, of course, the actual method of taxation varies depending on period and place. Feudalism wasn't an unitary system that worked the same everywhere or that never changed. If you move to Renaissance Italy, coin circulated a lot more and there were even banks! So that changes how thing work and the way nobles and rich people are expected to contribute to the city.

[Telok]

Also the feudal periods in areas with economically significant trade saw a fair amount of tolls associated with bridges, roads, canals, gates, and docks. Essentially anywhere that bottlenecked you cound set a guard and collect a tax. What was taxed, who was taxed, and what it was used for all varied.

In some places it could be by horse/oxen/axle (merchants & wealthy) and the proceeds go mainly towards road/canal upkeep & keeping banditry down. A lord could give a ferry crossing to a vassal and require it to be defended, maintained to support & transport 100 horsemen at any time, and be a decent sized depot/fortification during wars, plus succor & support to anyone with a letter from the lord. A town could place a consumption tax at the gates based on how wealthy you looked plus assessing a "peace tax/bond" for weapons or armor.

Historically some places taxed based on building ground floor square footage or on the number of glass windows. Some places citizenry (even peasants, which means different things in different times & places) could be "taxed" with keeping arms & armor plus being part of a militia. The people governing often taxed what was nailed down in some fashon and "who pays" just worked it's way around in prices & trade. But access & permission could be taxed too. Letters or liscenses letting someone buy/sell particular goods, exempting them from tolls, or even just being allowed to pass through an area, were a thing to be bought/rewarded.

[Mastikator]

The way I run taxes in my game (scifi) is simply that whatever the players buy, they buy at 100% price. Whatever they sell they sell at 50% price. The difference represents taxes.

Edit- the reason I do it in this reductive way is that any extra amount of book keeping would not make the game more interesting, but it would drag it down. Pacing is just as important as verisimilitude.

[Telok]

The way I run taxes in my game (scifi) is simply that whatever the players buy, they buy at 100% price. Whatever they sell they sell at 50% price. The difference represents taxes.

Edit- the reason I do it in this reductive way is that any extra amount of book keeping would not make the game more interesting, but it would drag it down. Pacing is just as important as verisimilitude.

Reminds me, in one sci-fi game a pirate station had an "air tax". When a ship docked they paid a bunch of money to an account. People coming & going from the ship were tracked. A set amount per person per minute was subtracted from the account. If the account hit zero the cyber-slave "peace enforcement" guards got transmitted pictures of the offening ship's crew and started shooting to kill. Weirdly, despite how public and abusable the system was, the PCs never did anything but keep paying up.

[PhoenixPhyre]

The way I run taxes in my game (scifi) is simply that whatever the players buy, they buy at 100% price. Whatever they sell they sell at 50% price. The difference represents taxes.

Edit- the reason I do it in this reductive way is that any extra amount of book keeping would not make the game more interesting, but it would drag it down. Pacing is just as important as verisimilitude.

I have something similar for adventurers. Those fixed PHB prices? Those are widespread "adventurer pricing", run by the Adventurer's Guild (the organization that monitors and enforces adventuring laws). That's the prices they've guaranteed that they'll buy/sell those items to merchants at. This way, the extra goes as profit to the guild, and they cover any shortfalls. Other than that, adventurers don't get taxed much. Each nation handles its own taxes (on non-adventurers) differently--

Wyrmhold sets a levy on the clans and tribes that make it up every year; they extract that in coin or goods however they choose.

The Serpent Dominion has a more feudal take, with chains and hierarchies of payment.

Asai'ka has a temple tax, plus protection money to the Benevolent Organization.

Etc.

[Asisreo1]

I thought about posting this in the 3e forum, as it is likely to have the best answers… but it's also the system where I arguably care *least* about the answer.

So, it's probably easy to Google an answer for many modern nations for tax rates (I believe I once heard roughly 50% as an estimate for socialist nations), population, and average income.

But what about a medieval nation (not unlike D&D)? Or a futuristic one (like Star Wars)? What kind of funds are we looking at here, per capita?

And where does that money go? How much would a nation save by not feeding an undead army? By not paying an undead army? By not needing infrastructure, like roads? By having "trustworthy" or even "perfect" accounting / efficiency? How much would it cost to increase their military? Their education? To upkeep droids?

And, of course, given my example questions, are there any *existing* systems which provide a good abstraction for handling such issues (in a transparent enough way to handle even radically different baseline assumptions, like "Borg collective")?

If its futuristic, they'd be in the form of income taxes and sales taxes. There wouldn't be a tax collector every month, they'd just take things through the system.

If its medieval, taxes aren't money at all. It'd be the produce they create (well, assuming its a farming village or something). They'd tax a certain amount of pounds every season, or they'd tax a percent weight of all your produced agriculture (more consistent but less practical). In cities, there'd be tax collectors going business-to-business and door-to-door and also be fairly aggressive when it comes to having taxes paid on time or taking possessions (sorta like the IRS but more pissy).

[Pauly]

For medieval periods income taxes weren’t paid, the i frastructure and bookkeeping for it didn’t exist.

The major source of regular income were taxes in commerce. Fees to use roads, fees paid per unit of goods. It’s also the source of the term “robber baron” which refers to barons in the Holy Roman Empire who would set up toll booths at bottlenecks on nominally free roads.
Which is why smuggling was such an important way of life.

For emergencies a tax would be levied. For example each Duke pays 10,000 gold, each lord pays 1,000 gold and each Baron pays 100 gold. Squeezing the orange too much leads to Runnymeade, so kings were loathe to squeeze too much.
More common was obligatory service. Working classes would provide labour for civil purposes, and larger organizations/minor rulers would be levied for military manpower.
Kings could defray their expenses by visiting their subjects who by hospitality obligations would have to feed and maintain the the King’s entire retinue for the duration of the visit.

Wars were also a source of income. Looting enemy kingdoms of their goodies. Elizabeth I of England is remembered as “the Pirate Queen” in Spanish because this was her preferred method of filling her chancellory.

Generally speaking royalty in the middle ages were much less wealthy than commonly depicted in fiction and RPGs.

[Tanarii]

For medieval periods income taxes weren’t paid, the i frastructure and bookkeeping for it didn’t exist.

Asset tax then. That seems like a natural extension of a property tax once towns with wealthy merchants started cropping up, extending it to all valuable assets, not just land.

[Pauly]

Asset tax then. That seems like a natural extension of a property tax once towns with wealthy merchants started cropping up, extending it to all valuable assets, not just land.

As I understand it, it was more a rank tax, which is also a de facto land tax. Your real estate i,e, the fixed immovable part of your estate, not the part that can be moved or hidden.

Merchants were taxed on the movement of goods, either by tolls or by duties.

[False God]

Asset tax then. That seems like a natural extension of a property tax once towns with wealthy merchants started cropping up, extending it to all valuable assets, not just land.

The infrastructure and bookkeeping still didn't exist. What is an "asset"? Who gets to define it? How granular is the system? Where are the documents kept? Who counts the assets? How often are assets counted? How do asset counters get from A to B?

There is a level of bureaucracy to taxation that simply didn't exist in the medieval time period.

Which is why so often taxes were seemingly random or punitive. How much was taken wasn't a matter of mathematical calculation based on a variety of closely analyzed variables, but on whims of lords or those tasked with taxation enforcement. This is made worse by the people of the land simply not understanding why they were being taxed. They often saw no benefit from it, only a loss of time, product and money. There was no book they could read to see if they were being taxed "properly", heck, they probably couldn't read.

There's a reason the peasantry revolted time and again. Unfair, random, punitive systems with poor enforcement and no clear rules are typically taken poorly to even by the most simple of folks. The taxes may seem reasonable or necessary from a top-down point of view, but the people in charge often had little knowledge and even less involvement with the taxation process. And said process was again, deeply flawed for a variety of logistical, social and economic reasons that weren't solved for hundreds of years.

[Bugbear]

Well, D&D is not not much of a feudal system...it's a lot more closer to 17th century America. Most citizens are 'freemen', there is no government social support system, no real law enforcement beyond a few miles of a city or town, lots of tree trade, lots of taverns, and so on.

There is noting like Income tax...simply put, few people have 'regular income' anyway. Plus people are very spread out and keeping track of people is nearly impossible.

Any tax, or any payment for anything, could often be payed in goods and services as there was little money (and the world does not have 100 trillion gold coins).

Most early taxes were for government services. These included issuing court papers, keeping records, arresting and punishing criminals, and issuing licenses. Some of that payed the offical, and the rest was for roads and schools.

The most common tax was the straight up Wealth Tax: if you had money you payed a tax on it. And the poll tax....if you wanted to vote, you had to pay the tax.

Import and export taxes are common, but only for high value items.

Most of the rest of the taxes were on individual things: A chimney tax to pay for a fire patrol for example. And things like the infamous Stamp Tax, a tax on any written document.

The vast, vast, vast majority of what we might call "public works" today were done by private individuals. A guy with money would build a bridge over a river.....and then charge a toll tax for anyone to use it. Eventually lots of local governments picked up this idea.

[MoiMagnus]

For ancient/medieval settings, there are three main ways to handle taxes that I know of:

(1) Time-base taxes. Everybody owns one month of work to the state per year, either of their own work (artisan), or as worker for public projects (or soldier at war). This is well adapted for centralised government, though taxes that do not rely on money can but the government in a tight situation in case of unexpected wars.

(2) Feudal taxes. The king taxes its vassals. Vassals tax their own vassals. Etc down to farmers. Taxes are more land-based, and are part of the vassal contract, and are quite similar to the tribute that one would give to a possible invader for them to not invade you. Taxes on trading and merchant are pretty arbitrary and variable (taxes on bridges or travel, etc) as wealth is still assumed to be generated by land, not by trading. Developed cities can locally have a more modern tax system.

(3) Specialised economy. This is mostly viable for city-states. The state itself is granting a service they have a quasi monopole of, and which is recognised and paid for around the world (like religion, or some unique luxuries or strategic resource).

Note that in a medieval fantastic universe, tax bureaucracy is made much easier if the tax collectors have access to circle of truth.

[Martin Greywolf]

Every time you see a tax comparision, be assured that things are left out of it. Sure, your income and property tax are such and such, but what about healthcare? It's something you need to buy no matter what, so universal healthcare state will tax you for it, while one without it will make you pay for it as if it was a product. You are still left with the same amount of money in the end, even if tax numbers do not match.

Now, for medieval taxes. Pretty much all of you are wrong on some if not all counts.

Who taxes you

Pretty much everyone. One village will usually pay taxes to the owner of their land, to the local church and to the nearest city with market rights. This assumes stable situation, and if that isn't true and several nobles claim they own the land, your village is in the wonderful position of paying their taxes several times - or having them taken if they refuse.

How often are taxes paid?

Depends on the industry. Farmers will be taxed at harvests, of which there are several during the year. Livestock will be taxed for religious holidays and before winter, lumber will be taxed by taking a share of the profits, as will mining. Trade is taxed through tolls, collected at toll stations (most often at bridges, towns and mountain passes), some of which may well be illegal, and if you want to sell your goods in a city, you will have to pay up more as well.

These are all standard taxes, in addition to those, everyone with jurisdiction (e.g. king, noble, church official) may well decide to levy a special tax for something like getting married, war breaking out or building a new castle or bridge.

What form do taxes have

Every kind of stable tax usually has a tradition of what is in it. Produce from farms, eggs, chickens, pies, portion of mined ore and so on are common - but so is cash. Property taxes especially are often paid in cash, and a lot of taxes in towns and cities are as well.

Trade taxes are either done in cash or by taking a portion of your goods, and sometimes by forcing you to sell a portion of your wares in the city itself.

Craftsmen taxes are paid mostly in cash, although you do see a provision of "the blacksmith will come to shoe my horses on these days of the year" in addition or instead of it. Special taxes for craftsmen are cash only if the craftsman's craft isn't useful to what you're doing - if you're building a castle, carpenters and masons will be taxed by coming to work on your castle.

Final taxation form to mention if the training and outfitting of troops - this can get very, very expensive, but at least you can use them as city guards when the folks in charge don't need them.

When not to demand special taxes

Good rulers tend to avoid the special taxes whenever they can - a carpenter is likely to work hell of a lot better if you're pying him for that castle he's building. That said, necessity or greed get the better of people all the time.

Mercenary taxes

Mercenaries often have homes and families and are paying taxes as part of that.

If they don't, they are almost free of first-hand taxation, although they will put their money into the local economy the fun way (via inns and houses of ill repute) none the less. What is taxed, in a sense, is theeir loot. Medieval soldier pay is kinda low - sure, you have free room and board, but still - and the expectation in offensive wars is that you will plunder and supplement your income. This also happens to motivate you to perform better in the whole stabbing of people area.

This plunder is, in organized armies and outfits, usually pooled together and everyone gets their share - and some of that share goes to the guys in charge, which makes it a kind of a tax, if you think about it.

So what is the total medieval tax rate?

Really, really depends, but about 30-50%. This is... pretty comparable to modern taxes, actually, with USA hovering slightly under 30% and France reaching almost 50% if we look at tax revenues vs GDP.

Problem is, once you start to pay one tax several times because both Ottomans and Habsburgs say your village belongs to them, that number kind of skyrockets.

Historical examples

Now for some medieval tax thingies. Square brackets containt my comments.

Spoiler: Privileges of Trnava, 1268

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For every 100 settlements, they will most nobly outfit a soldier in full panoply of war.

Spoiler: Privileges of Banska Bystrica, 1255

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Next they will pay tenth part from the gold mines, and from silver and other metals are compelled to pay eighth part.
[...]
It is our wish they are freed from paying property taxes and other tithes.

Spoiler: Tax records of the town of Presov

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The stable tax for towns of Prešov, Sabinov and Veľký Šariš was 150 hrivnas of silver in three predetermined days as dictated by 1299 privileges. From 1347 onwards, the division of this sum was Prešov with 54 hrivnas, Veľký Šariš 53 and Sabinov 43.
[...]
This tax could be lowered or nullified if the economic situation in towns was bad, sometimes even for several years, and this tax could be kept inside the cities and used for construction of walls and other structures as well.
[There is a lot more info in this particular work, but I'd have to translate it and... I don't wanna, I just woke up, leave me alone]

Spoiler: Hungary’s Castle Defense Strategy in the Aftermath of the Mongol Invasion (1241–1242)

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[discussing building of a massive number of castles]
This relates to Béla’s strategy. Regardless of how it ideally would be carried out, it was difficult to build castles in the
east-central parts of the country simply because there were not many people to provide the pre-requisite taxes and labour
required for such projects; the distribution of castles in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Hungary could, to some extent,
represent which areas had a healthy population and economy after the war and subsequent famine. Fügedi noted the
distinction between the “enthusiasm” of nobles who were granted incentives to build castles, increasing their own power
vis-à-vis the monarch, and the ordinary populace whose frustration at bearing the labor and tax burden sometimes comes
through in the extant records (Fügedi 1986: 52–53).

Spoiler: A ROYAL FOREST IN MEDIEVAL HUNGARY

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In 1212 Andrew II confirmed the ownership of this property and designa-
ted its boundaries. The last part of the document states that the property contains a further
15 villages, which were not under his judicial authority. However, the monarch gave him
the right to the royal tax (tributum). Every household in these villages had to annually
pay him the so-called forest tax (pro tributo silve) in the form of one oko (about 54 litres)
of grain, two hens and five pieces of cloth. This was a specific payment collected from
the royal property in the furthest part of the County of Szabolcs near the river Tisza.

Spoiler: Golden Bull, 1222

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Tenths [a tax where they take one tenth of whatever it is they are taxing] shall not be taken in silver, but rather paid in wine and grain, and if the bishops were to protest, we shall not support them.

There is also Medieval Trade and Finance by M.M. Postan, but it has no proper summaries and it is a dense enough book to put me to sleep, so I shall spare you.

[Brother Oni]

The infrastructure and bookkeeping still didn't exist. What is an "asset"? Who gets to define it? How granular is the system? Where are the documents kept? Who counts the assets? How often are assets counted? How do asset counters get from A to B?

There is a level of bureaucracy to taxation that simply didn't exist in the medieval time period.

The earliest medieval era taxation record I know of, is the Domesday Book completed in 1086 in England. While ostensibly a census, the census was taken so that William I knew how much he could tax his new country; for example County Durham is missing from the Domesday book as it was the exclusive right of the Bishop of Durham to tax it.

Older forms of taxation exist, like the corvee (unpaid labour by peasants on the lord's land) and tithes, which date back to First Dynasty of Egypt (~3000 BC), book keeping existed to ensure who paid and who hadn't and receipts on papyrus and limestone flakes have been recovered and documented. This tax receipt has been dated to the 22nd July 98 BC.

Off the top of my head, the taxation system was also well documented in the Northern Wei Dynasty of China (4th - 6th Century AD) - in fact, taxation was why Hua Mulan (of the Ballad and pop culture fame) went to war instead of her father (conscription to the state instead of paying taxes).

[Tanarii]

As I understand it, it was more a rank tax, which is also a de facto land tax. Your real estate i,e, the fixed immovable part of your estate, not the part that can be moved or hidden.

Merchants were taxed on the movement of goods, either by tolls or by duties.

Understood. I wasn't trying to be historical, but instead going with a logical extension in a way that it would affect PCs that make their fortunes by tomb robbing for ancient coins and treasures.

The hidden wealth thing hadn't occurred to me, but that'd certainly explain why "count up and value everything you own then tax a fraction of it" wasn't a very popular historical method.

Edit: regarding toll taxes on trade ... they're why everything was shipped. There is the classical trope that it was impossible to get ship building timber across Europe by land, despite plenty of canals in some areas in the later renaissance period.

Not to mention that D&D isn't really that medieval.

[KineticDiplomat]

This one of those ones where you can “just make it up”. If you want a scholarly answer, Seeing Like A State has several hundred pages on how a government assesses and implements metrics, taxation being a prime one, and The Great Leveler says a lot about how excess productivity gets routed around in a society.

So, why just make it up? Because despite the late medieval trappings, D&D land is not really designed to be a consistent economic and political world, its meant to hang adventures on. Even the gentlest poking is going to rip gaping holes in how society works, so you’re building a house on sand if you try to “realistically” say how this would work out. Quicksand.

That said, if you want a go anyhow: for a whole lot of human history, there wasn’t much in the way of excess productivity. The biological poverty line of calories was a chief concern. And woe be to the monarch even in the early Industrial Age who thought otherwise...

As a point of comparison, during the thirty years war it would take between 2-4 farms (I saw one estimate of that at 143 people) to keep one infantry soldier in a Swedish regiment. That is one guy with a uniform, a musket or pike, and nothing particularly exciting about him. The Romans, with functionally all of civilized Europe, North Africa, and a good chunk of the Middle East never got past half a million men - including auxiliaries- in their army and usually it was much smaller. By the time a farmer feeds himself and his family, the miner gets fed, the blacksmith gets fed and a bit of niceness, and on and on...the raw calories needed to equip and sustain a soldier represent a vast investment in an era of muscle powered agriculture. “Snap your finger and soldier” would be such a departure from this that it’d be an Outside Context Problem. Basically the only limit on how crucifyingly powerful it would be versus a renaissance strategic outlook is based on whatever limits you as the GM felt like imposing.

Then we get to the actual manner of taxation. As related to the above, how you tac changes as excess productivity changes. As that goes up, people have more to give and the practical cost of taking it from them - how much does your tax apparatus cost - goes down relative to the overall production in society. The upper limit for this that we seem to have reached in modern society is a psychological one. After around 50%, evasion by all means skyrockets even if it would be more economically rational to pay. There is something in our brains that outright rebels at that point. So for you, again, this becomes an OCP for medieval-trappings land. The level of productivity actually on the table is so vastly different from the world of farms and dukes that you can more or less say whatever you want.

[Cluedrew]

To Quertus: What are you planning on doing with this? I could try to repeat every semi-credible factoid about early taxes I've heard (most have already been said) but I don't really know where you are going with this so I don't know what to focus on or how to frame it.

Or even what ideas to make up and suggest because my gut is just telling me you aren't going to be playing an actual historically accurate game.

On Taxes in Kind: I believe the formal name for taxes paid in labour of your trade or the goods you produce is taxes in kind. This is the only one I remember that hasn't come up yet. Has anyone mentioned that ancient romans used broken pottery as receipts yet?

[SandyAndy]

So, this will have to be for a low-magic setting. But here are some facts about ancient and medieval tax systems.

Taxes weren't usually levied on individuals, but realms. The King would not tax the peasant farmers of the Barony of East Tiddlywinks. Rather, he would demand a certain amount of gold, military capability, and often grain from the Baron who would gather those things from around his realm.

Peasants would not usually pay monetary taxes. Most peasants never had any money, so they would pay something like 10% of the food from their harvest to the local lord and have the rest to themselves. For most of history, food production was so small that even a 10% tax on it was considered extreme. Malnutrition and starvation had to be balanced against the lord's need to maintain his forces and stronghold.

Lower class craftsmen would have produced a but of their own food but mostly bartered their work for what they needed. This also applied to taxes; instead of paying a certain measure of grain they might be expected to provide a certain amount of goods to their liege. For example, a potter might have to send a dozen clay pots to the castle every month and the blacksmith might have to spend one day a week shoeing the lord's horses.

Wealthier merchants and craftsmen would have different taxes. They would be freemen and so not obliged to pay tribute/taxes as a vassal. But they would have to pay property taxes. If they own a shop or a house then they would have to pay money for the privilege of occupying the lord's land.

Special taxes would often be levied in order to raise money for specific projects or to encourage certain behaviors. Maybe you need to pay a silver piece to cross a bridge. Or the Baron has levied a tax on crossbows or wagon wheels. Many medieval jurisdictions had taxes on windows. These are the kind of excises that lead to unrest because they feel targeted and often raise the levy higher than what can be afforded.

There were also privileges and taxes associated with class. Nobles obviously has special privileges and also special obligations. Scholars and clergy were often exempt from local taxes and obligations, owing their fealty to their school or church. Freemen/Yeomen had their own class as did peasants and serfs. Each of these classes had obligations to the other classes (called estates in the medieval world) and each had privileges afforded to them by the legal system.

This was more common in the ancient world but often a kind of pseudo-corporation would be hired to collect taxes. The government would take the highest bid and the corporation would keep any excess taxes they collected from the area assigned. This was less common in the medieval world where an overlord would collect his duties directly from the vassals.

Those are just some things to consider. If you just take one or two of those factors and use them to build your tax system then your world will feel pretty lived-in. A lot of them can also be used as plot hooks for adventures. I could do a whole other post on modern, pseudo-victorian, and futuristic taxation but it doesn't really fit with this post.

[jayem]

To Quertus: What are you planning on doing with this? I could try to repeat every semi-credible factoid about early taxes I've heard (most have already been said) but I don't really know where you are going with this so I don't know what to focus on or how to frame it.

Or even what ideas to make up and suggest because my gut is just telling me you aren't going to be playing an actual historically accurate game.

On Taxes in Kind: I believe the formal name for taxes paid in labour of your trade or the goods you produce is taxes in kind. This is the only one I remember that hasn't come up yet. Has anyone mentioned that ancient romans used broken pottery as receipts yet?

Somewhere in the messy boundary between taxes and rent, but each Virgate (30 Acre) had to provide 104 days of service (I'm not sure how that fits in the big picture). Interestingly IIUC Christmas and Easter are 'returned' ("Quitences"). These are accounted (in at least one case) as "Works".
There are also a lot of funny things, there are payments to not be Reeve, Court-Judges expenses are covered on the ground.
Custom payments include Hens and Eggs.

[farothel]

In medieval times the taxes of peasants were mostly in goods (a percentage of the harvest or a number of crafted items). That was paid to their lord.
I also remember they had an extra tax of 10% of their harvest to the church. I'm not sure what it's called in English.

If you want to have a tax system in a roleplay, check out Legends of the Five rings. There they have a full tax system in one of the books (can't immediately remember which one) which can probably be adapted to other systems.

[Faily]

I don't really care much for thinking about taxes in games. I play RPGs for escapism, not reminders of my daily life.


Have had some encounters with it in gaming though. Briefly on adventures, and with managing a realm (using Pathfinder's Kingdom rules)... and in the latter case I just put it at the lowest rate possible and don't think too much about it again.

[Beleriphon]

Off the top of my head, the taxation system was also well documented in the Northern Wei Dynasty of China (4th - 6th Century AD) - in fact, taxation was why Hua Mulan (of the Ballad and pop culture fame) went to war instead of her father (conscription to the state instead of paying taxes).

That was fairly common in the medieval period of Europe as well. Pay some cash or provide men to go to war. Your choice.