What do Taxes look like?

[Beleriphon]

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.

That's interesting. I never thought of that. A pre-industrial society, hell a pre-crop rotation society, can't have armies over a certain size because they can't feed everybody involved in equipping the army along with the soldiers.

I suppose that's why we can have such massive non-food related industries. It only realistically takes one person to run a gigantic grain farm when using modern equipment.

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.

I helps if in a medieval like setting you can just roll up and take what is owed. That's very much more of a loan shark vibe. I have a hard time imagining the IRS sending armed thugs and beating dollar bills out of somebody.

[jayem]

That's interesting. I never thought of that. A pre-industrial society, hell a pre-crop rotation society, can't have armies over a certain size because they can't feed everybody involved in equipping the army along with the soldiers.

I suppose that's why we can have such massive non-food rel

The other way was to time your wars for the seasons (I think there's an argument that Trojan war had elements of this).
Related there was an effective natural tax of 1/2 (going down to 1/4) of your crop being needed to plant next years crop.

(what slightly baffles me with that is given this just how relaxed they were about H&S, I know to some extent some of the costs are externalised)

[KineticDiplomat]

As an aside re: the IRS or other state based agency. Ultimately they can. They can seize your assets and jail or otherwise punish you via the state. States do it very politely and - in the west at least - with a legal process that we think of as fair, but ultimately they are the legitimate employers of coercive power. Occasionally someone tries to buck this and finds out there’s iron in there after all.

E.g. a major search engine company that will remain unnamed tried to tell France that they wouldn’t comply with certain regulations because they were supposedly technically impossible and morally wrong in the company’s eyes. France informed them that was fine, it was still the law, and every time a French citizen searched without those changes they would fine that company and start seizing assets based in France to pay those fines. Wouldn’t you know it, it wasn’t technically impossible or too morally onerous to make those changes after all...

[Brother Oni]

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

Except the organisation was completely different and there wasn't any choice in whether men or money was provided. Broadly speaking, the Northern Wei followed the draft service system (chaiyi fa).

At anything below the county level, state bureaucracy was terrible, so they left the organisation at the local level. Villages were subdivided into administrative blocks of 110 households called a li. A li was further subdivided into blocks of 10 households called jia, based on their tax bracket (high, middle or low). One jia, usually the richest, would be designated the administrative jia and each household would do a year's shift handling the admin duties required. The other 10 jia would take turns spending a year performing the levy labour, so collection of taxes, providing men, etc, but weren't otherwise required to pay taxes. On their 'off' years, a jia would have to pay taxes, but weren't obligated to perform service except for military conscription.

Of note is that the 'on duty' jia could render any sort of services as required by government, from the county level, all the way up to the imperial government; they were used for any and all roles required, such as doormen, guards, messengers, cooks, patrolmen, jailers, stable grooms, warehouse receiving men, canal watergate operators, and clerical assistants. This wasn't confined to the jia’s home region, but to wherever the government needed a vacancy filled.

A similar sort of system was in place for military conscription, with 2 able adult males from a jia being required to form a 'small guard unit'. Five of these small guard units formed a "large guard unit" and 5 large guard units formed a Superior Guard. These guard units typically performed militia duties (nightly patrols, stopping banditry, capturing rapists/murderers/arsonists, that sort of stuff), but all the other households not eligible for guard unit, were eligible for being called up as auxiliaries.

It's also important to note that the Northern Wei wasn't really a 'proper' Chinese dynasty (eg Han, Tang or Song) as those had a much different system for dealing with invading barbarians, which I can't get into on this board.

[Beleriphon]

As an aside re: the IRS or other state based agency. Ultimately they can. They can seize your assets and jail or otherwise punish you via the state. States do it very politely and - in the west at least - with a legal process that we think of as fair, but ultimately they are the legitimate employers of coercive power. Occasionally someone tries to buck this and finds out there’s iron in there after all.

Sure, but its not like its the first response of the government to just roll up and take your stuff.

E.g. a major search engine company that will remain unnamed tried to tell France that they wouldn’t comply with certain regulations because they were supposedly technically impossible and morally wrong in the company’s eyes. France informed them that was fine, it was still the law, and every time a French citizen searched without those changes they would fine that company and start seizing assets based in France to pay those fines. Wouldn’t you know it, it wasn’t technically impossible or too morally onerous to make those changes after all...

I'm still not clear on how they managed that since as far as I know such search engine company doesn't own any assets in France. It would be like the France deciding I owe them money, under whatever legal standard they have, and expecting to collect. I mean if I never go to France what are they going to do?

[snowblizz]

I'm still not clear on how they managed that since as far as I know such search engine company doesn't own any assets in France. It would be like the France deciding I owe them money, under whatever legal standard they have, and expecting to collect. I mean if I never go to France what are they going to do?

How do you make revenue when you provide a free service? You charge someone for it. In this case the privilege of better visibility. Who are going to be paying for that? Local companies because your whole spiel is you can provide a very accurate breakdown of a target customer. Where do local companies pay those fees? To a local bank, because that was more convenient than forcing them to make a international moneyorder (also these can easily be blocked). And hey presto, local asset that can be seized.

Furthermore if you want to talk to and sell to local companies you likely need a local branch because understanding a foreign culture is hard and you wanted to make the most money. Now there is another type of local asset that can be seized. And like this it goes on.

France may decide you owe the money, and you are right, if you never go there what can they do? However, your grand-tante just gave you a large legacy to inherit, that crux is you have to visit France to pick it up. And no, it will not be sent to you. This is the situation as it usually goes.

In other words, any international company doing business internationally will have a number of local assets because that's just more convenient if you aren't specifically looking to skirt local laws. And even then be prepared to find that "no monies for you" is going to be the end result.

[KineticDiplomat]

In this specific case, the company owns 3 local training hubs, an AI research center, and a 1,000 employee administrative office in France, and has contracts valued in the billions with French companies.

[Quertus]

Thanks to everyone for so many amazing posts! This is part of why I love the Playground so much.

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.

Not unlike difficult terrain, I realized that "taxes" was something that I… underutilized in my games. And I figured that there was a lot about how taxes were handled throughout history, and how they theoretically could be handled in various settings, that I simply didn't know.

Boy did I ever underestimate just how much I didn't know!

So, what I'm going to do with it… is be able to *do* things with it! It's like a whole new color I can paint with now.

It's also important to note that the Northern Wei wasn't really a 'proper' Chinese dynasty (eg Han, Tang or Song) as those had a much different system for dealing with invading barbarians, which I can't get into on this board.

I'm not gonna be able to sleep if I don't at least *ask* - *why* can't you discuss it here? Political? Religious? Sexual? More graphic than Vlad the Impaler?

I'm struggling to imagine what kind of tax would violate forum rules… or, rather, what *category* of forum rules could possibly be violated by discussing taxes.

[LordCdrMilitant]

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")?

Taxes are a substantially complicated subject [and can be further complicated in a D&D medieval world].

You might have different rates on a lot of things [IE: property, heads of livestock, capital gains, etc], and in a semi-feudal society like a D&D world some part of your taxes might be owed in things other than money.


In D&D games, I usually assume my players pay no taxes on adventuring spoils. The basic logic is that tax collectors had a hard enough time determining how much you owed on the other things they taxed [like counting windows in a house for example], adventuring spoils are incredibly liquid, and record-keeping isn't remotely at modern standards, therefore while the state/their liege would dearly like to tax them on their spoils, it would be essentially impossible to assess or enforce. [Not that they won't try of course, but things like generous donations of part of it to your liege can grease the gears enough to get them to try less hard.]
Other things are taxed if I feel like it and it's relevant.

In my Sci-Fi games, I usually assess an amount in taxes, usually informed by a percent of what they made in money and have in expensive items [like spaceships] but mostly made up by me on the spot. Developing a tax code isn't my job as a GM.



As a side note, in a game I play in, various characters have either had to pay taxes, or in my case, collect taxes and set tax rates, so that's been neat.

[Brother Oni]

So, what I'm going to do with it… is be able to *do* things with it! It's like a whole new color I can paint with now.

Here's a little titbit for you - because the administration for government service was done at the local level, the people calling up Father Hua would have been his neighbours or other people local to the area, and would have known that he had a dodgy knee and no sons, so they would have shuffled him off to a nice cushy, but still necessary job, like clerk or jailer.

Therefore unlike the original Disney version where Mulan was trying to save save her father out of filial piety, in the 'real world' version, Hua Mulan headed willingly into an active warzone because she wanted fight and kill people (and in the original Ballad, it's implied that she went with her parents' blessing as the Northern Wei were very much more gender equal than other Chinese dynasties who were more into feet binding their girls).

I'm not gonna be able to sleep if I don't at least *ask* - *why* can't you discuss it here? Political? Religious? Sexual? More graphic than Vlad the Impaler?

I'm struggling to imagine what kind of tax would violate forum rules… or, rather, what *category* of forum rules could possibly be violated by discussing taxes.

Military conscription for a 'proper' Chinese dynasty was different to that I've outlined above as their foreign policy for dealing with barbarians was different to drafting their own citizens as soldiers.

Unsurprisingly, discussing ancient Chinese dynasty foreign policy falls under the no-politics rule of the board.

[Nifft]

Taxes are for peasants and other people you can threaten with your knights.

PCs very quickly reach a level where that threat is not relevant, and thereafter the PCs tend to interact with nobles and local governments by giving gifts in trade for favors, rather than paying taxes.

Tolls and fees are still a thing, of course -- even the most violent gazebo-murdering hobo might hesitate to burn a bridge he hopes to cross again.

[GreatWyrmGold]

It depends. It depends on who's running the nation, how, how the nation's economy works, and perhaps most importantly, who is being taxed.

This blog post/essay by Bret Devereaux gives a decent rundown of how food and farmers (most of a premodern society's economic output and labor) interact with markets, money, and taxation; this one describes relationships between small farmers and large landowners (including nobility). Useful points for this question:

• Taxation in coin (as opposed to whatever goods the taxee was producing, e.g. grain) was very rare in premodern societies, but it serves as a way to help money penetrate a society. If everyone in the kingdom trades with coin, as is standard for TRPG settings, taxes are probably being collected in coin. (When it comes to the economy, I'd suggest looking at the prosperous eras of the Roman Republic and/or Empire before medieval Europe, simply because that kind of heavily-monetized economy fits a lot better with the game's mechanics.)
• Effective tax rates vary greatly. Medieval documents for serfs suggest that the lord might have taken ₁/^11th or ₁/^17th; standard taxation of freedmen is often given as 10-20%; tenant farmers working on a rich landowner's land might get half of what their labor produces; Spartan helots got less; etc. Societies often also had additional duties which aren't easily summarized in percentages of income; for instance, when a medieval army went to war, it conscripted levies from the peasantry and "foraged" food by robbing any peasants too close to the army. How the heck do you quantify the possibility of forced military service? Does having the king's soldiers ransack the village granary count as taxing the village?
• If the setting involves a lot of active use of magic (clerics using create food and water to feed the urban poor, not murderhobos exploding goblins), things are probably going to change, so you need to keep that in mind.

Taxation in a sci-fi setting is probably going to be like modern taxation, except with more stuff being automatically logged and calculated. I spent a few months learning how to prepare individuals' tax returns for the current tax season, so let me tell you: Modern tax systems would be a lot simpler if people weren't so complicated.

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 are some powerful kings that can hire adventurers despite having a surprisingly weak grasp on the land, an "untamed" wilderness to explore, plenty of sentient people in that wilderness who don't count for fairly arbitrary reasons...Yeah, this might be a better analogy than anything from the premodern world.

Taxes are for peasants and other people you can threaten with your knights.

PCs very quickly reach a level where that threat is not relevant, and thereafter the PCs tend to interact with nobles and local governments by giving gifts in trade for favors, rather than paying taxes.

I wouldn't be that absolutist; nobles could levee taxes on each other, for instance. That said, I don't imagine many nobles would try to collect taxes in a world like the ones a typical D&D game takes place in (and not just because virtually no official material suggests the PCs should be taxed). Adventurers roam with such freedom and wield such power that they're almost more like independent nation-states, which makes some sense when you remember that "I am the state" was almost literally true for the kings of many societies D&D draws loose inspiration from. Adventurers aren't subjects to be taxed, they're allied to be bartered with.

[VoxRationis]

In D&D games, I usually assume my players pay no taxes on adventuring spoils. The basic logic is that tax collectors had a hard enough time determining how much you owed on the other things they taxed [like counting windows in a house for example], adventuring spoils are incredibly liquid, and record-keeping isn't remotely at modern standards, therefore while the state/their liege would dearly like to tax them on their spoils, it would be essentially impossible to assess or enforce. [Not that they won't try of course, but things like generous donations of part of it to your liege can grease the gears enough to get them to try less hard.]
Other things are taxed if I feel like it and it's relevant.

I'm generally inclined to agree with this assessment. Unless there's a particularly well-organized bureaucracy at play, adventuring income is 1) too variable, 2) not usually derived from any particular jurisdiction, and 3) too portable (and thus easily hidden) for a local lord to hope to tax in any accurate way.

That said, if lords are expecting adventurers to run through, they can tax the likely expenses of such adventurers to no end and probably in ways which are so targeted as to avoid their normal constituents and thus reduce the likelihood that the peasantry will help the adventurers in tax evasion. Separate rooms at the inn could have a heavy added tax (because who else but adventurers rents four rooms for as many people?). Particular adventuring goods could be taxed, such as caltrops and arrows (of course, the army has a store of such things, but the army is a natural exception). If magic is common enough, a detect magic effect at the gate and a subsequent tax per outstanding magical effect could be levied.

Therefore unlike the original Disney version where Mulan was trying to save save her father out of filial piety, in the 'real world' version, Hua Mulan headed willingly into an active warzone because she wanted fight and kill people (and in the original Ballad, it's implied that she went with her parents' blessing as the Northern Wei were very much more gender equal than other Chinese dynasties who were more into feet binding their girls).

It's kind of odd for a Disney version of a story to be less in keeping with modern American values than the source material; we're not too big on filial piety, but we love us some volunteer military recruitment.

[LordCdrMilitant]

I'm generally inclined to agree with this assessment. Unless there's a particularly well-organized bureaucracy at play, adventuring income is 1) too variable, 2) not usually derived from any particular jurisdiction, and 3) too portable (and thus easily hidden) for a local lord to hope to tax in any accurate way.

That said, if lords are expecting adventurers to run through, they can tax the likely expenses of such adventurers to no end and probably in ways which are so targeted as to avoid their normal constituents and thus reduce the likelihood that the peasantry will help the adventurers in tax evasion. Separate rooms at the inn could have a heavy added tax (because who else but adventurers rents four rooms for as many people?). Particular adventuring goods could be taxed, such as caltrops and arrows (of course, the army has a store of such things, but the army is a natural exception). If magic is common enough, a detect magic effect at the gate and a subsequent tax per outstanding magical effect could be levied.

Of course. "Sin Taxes" in weapons and adventuring gear are probably the only way to get adventurers to pay their fair share towards the roads they're using in a D&D setting. That said, it's not ideal, because anything specifically targeting adventurers would be pretty easy to evade or be more damaging to legitimate businesses.


That said, it's also worth considering that some adventures can still be taxed. While most adventures my parties go on are decidedly illegal or at least covert, off the books, and on their own initiative, more legal adventurers operating as mercenaries clearing dungeons on contract from the local lords or guilds are leaving a paper trail, which means they can be taxed. They can certainly hide some of it away from the eyes of the tax collectors by underreporting their income, but they can't go in and come out and shrug and go "there was nothing there," and expect people to believe them while they spend wildly on new magic items.

[Satinavian]

Honestly, if you wanted to tax adventurers in some D&D economy (which is not remotely similar to a medieval one), you would just tax the magic mart. 90%+ of adventurers money ends up there and so does nearly all of the loot.

[VoxRationis]

That said, it's not ideal, because anything specifically targeting adventurers would be pretty easy to evade or be more damaging to legitimate businesses.

I don't know; as Satinavian suggests, there are some sectors that are disproportionately patronized by adventurers and some practices, as I suggested, that are unique enough to adventuring parties that they could be targeted with a clever enough tax routine. Aside from the inn example, consider gate tolls for carried weapons (above and beyond the normal gate tolls). Most people traveling through a city gate will be unarmed; some will have one weapon. Burghers may well have one or more weapons, but they will rarely need to travel with them. Adventurers will probably carry at least two per person, and often more (except for the casters, but it would be simple to call most foci weapons for tax purposes). Nobles and their retinues may well be armed, but they are noble and thus tax-immune and/or rich enough to pay without much difficulty. Various forms of licenses for weapons, magical implements, and whatnot can also be introduced. Certain services, like magical healing of injuries (as opposed to the curing of disease), will be highly skewed towards adventurers.

[Tanarii]

That said, if lords are expecting adventurers to run through, they can tax the likely expenses of such adventurers to no end and probably in ways which are so targeted as to avoid their normal constituents and thus reduce the likelihood that the peasantry will help the adventurers in tax evasion.

Just have tax collectors at the gate follow around any adventurers, who would stick out like a sore thumb. Note down anywhere they made purchases, and assume they merchants marked up their product to 1000% for those customers.p when reviewing the ledgers. Or just have the tax thugs get the list of purchases and collect the tax right away.

One visit from an adventuring party would be enough to fund the tax collector (plus thugs) that followed them for several years, so it's be well worth it.

[Willie the Duck]

Honestly, if you wanted to tax adventurers in some D&D economy (which is not remotely similar to a medieval one), you would just tax the magic mart. 90%+ of adventurers money ends up there and so does nearly all of the loot.

In game worlds where they exist, that works. In my groups, after a certain point most loot eventually ends up in strongholds, sailing ships, etc.

[Telok]

Just have tax collectors at the gate follow around any adventurers, who would stick out like a sore thumb. Note down anywhere they made purchases, and assume they merchants marked up their product to 1000% for those customers.p when reviewing the ledgers. Or just have the tax thugs get the list of purchases and collect the tax right away.

One visit from an adventuring party would be enough to fund the tax collector (plus thugs) that followed them for several years, so it's be well worth it.

I saw it as a magic tax once. At the gates (the city had rings/areas) there was a basic detect magic arch built in that made magic auras visible. Plus a wandering tax assessor group spamming detect magic. Once you paid the tax you got a arcane marked recipt from one of the tax mages. Get caught in the city with magic auras and without a recipt was 4x the tax.

As I recall it was 5gp per spell/misc. 25gp per armor level/plus, 50gp per weaponlevel/plus and per scroll, 100gp per wands/staves/rings. It was AD&D times so it wasn't like 12gp scrolls of cure light wounds, there were fairly strong protection scrolls anyone could use that were semi-common.

[Nifft]

I saw it as a magic tax once. At the gates (the city had rings/areas) there was a basic detect magic arch built in that made magic auras visible. Plus a wandering tax assessor group spamming detect magic. Once you paid the tax you got a arcane marked recipt from one of the tax mages. Get caught in the city with magic auras and without a recipt was 4x the tax.

I'm thinking about some images of Warhammer Fantasy armor with scripture-scrolls wax-sealed onto them.

Now I realize those were tax receipts, visible so the tax inspector can do his job and bugger off without needing to speak to you.

[Storm_Of_Snow]

Taxes are for peasants and other people you can threaten with your knights.

PCs very quickly reach a level where that threat is not relevant, and thereafter the PCs tend to interact with nobles and local governments by giving gifts in trade for favors, rather than paying taxes.

PCs can also easily reach a point where they're not present in the region to be able to tax.

Tolls, tithes, and things like income or window taxes are one thing, but there's also duties - a merchant bringing in goods through a port might have to pay import duties on those goods, in addition to fees for use of the dock, hiring shoremen to load/unload and take the goods to their warehouse, a brewer may have to pay duties on the beer they produce, and so on - maybe in a particular area, a baker's dozen is because the 13th item goes to the state, rather than being a backup to avoid short measures.

And yes, that means you get smuggling and bootlegging to get around those duties.

[Brother Oni]

It's kind of odd for a Disney version of a story to be less in keeping with modern American values than the source material; we're not too big on filial piety, but we love us some volunteer military recruitment.

Except that doing proper historical research by simply asking the experts is hard - far too hard for the average script writer.

[The Random NPC]

Honestly, if you wanted to tax adventurers in some D&D economy (which is not remotely similar to a medieval one), you would just tax the magic mart. 90%+ of adventurers money ends up there and so does nearly all of the loot.

You'll probably want tax breaks to make sure it ends up there, the kind of money adventurers deal with can seriously screw up your economy if it isn't dealt with carefully.

[t209]

Here's a little titbit for you - because the administration for government service was done at the local level, the people calling up Father Hua would have been his neighbours or other people local to the area, and would have known that he had a dodgy knee and no sons, so they would have shuffled him off to a nice cushy, but still a necessary job, like clerk or jailer.

Well, I think Father Hua doesn't want to be in those positions since he walked up to the clerk without a cane to show that he's fit (also he was known as "The (Father Hua)", armor set, and a horse meant that either he's an officer or a renowed soldier who was granted land for services).
But as you said, but as a local garrison.

[Segev]

Supposedly - though I am not sure how true this is - one way taxes were once collected was that tax collectors were men who literally bought the right to do so. They'd go to a lord who had tax-right over his territory, and pay him a bulk sum (or promise him a set amount), and get a license to go out and take money from people in the area and call it "taxation." He got to keep whatever overage he made beyond what he promised (or everything, if he paid up front). How, exactly, this worked puzzles me enough that I doubt I either a) understand it correctly or b) heard it truthfully described, since I'm unclear how much authority he has to make demands and enforce them, nor what limits him if he has such authority.

The other thing, though, is that taxes were also "rent," essentially, in the classic feudal structure. Serfs worked the land they were assigned, and were permitted to keep the majority of the crops and such they produced, but their lords took some of it as their due. My understanding is that the percentages were low, because production was so low that serfs would starve if they were much higher. Some did, anyway. I think 10% was considered cruelly burdensome.

If you just want fictional reference, Disney's Robin Hood movie (with the talking animal characters) showed the "taxation" being little more than banditry performed by the law enforcement (i.e. the Sheriff of Nottingham). He'd see the peasants have money, and take it. This is, of course, a gross oversimplification, but it is fiction depicting a tyrant's rule.

If you want to tax adventuring and loot, though, that's probably best done via guild fees, entry fees (into cities), and the like. Cities often simply took a fee based on how many goods of whatever sort were being brought into town.

[Satinavian]

Supposedly - though I am not sure how true this is - one way taxes were once collected was that tax collectors were men who literally bought the right to do so. They'd go to a lord who had tax-right over his territory, and pay him a bulk sum (or promise him a set amount), and get a license to go out and take money from people in the area and call it "taxation." He got to keep whatever overage he made beyond what he promised (or everything, if he paid up front). How, exactly, this worked puzzles me enough that I doubt I either a) understand it correctly or b) heard it truthfully described, since I'm unclear how much authority he has to make demands and enforce them, nor what limits him if he has such authority.

In many cases that works a bit like a loan with the taxes as interest. The ruler gets the money now and it is "repaid" over time. Another option would be that setting up and controlling tax collecting infrastructure does cost money as well and depending on where the tax is owned might better be outsourced. A third way this could happen is to provide a source of steady income to someone without actually giving them land. People sometimes had the need to do so. Last but not least is the fact that no one likes tax collectors and some rulers used this setup to shift all the complaints about taxation to someone else while still earning all the praise for taxes well-spent.
Technically the tax level in those cases was still the same. The tax collectors were meant to make a profit not by taking higher rates or arbitrarily seize stuff,, but by more effort to actually collecting what is due and preventing tax evasion. That is some really old concept : having tax collectors paid based on the taxes is supposed to prevent them from fraternizing with the peasants and misreporting for favors or just being lazy. It is kind of a commission system.

The other thing, though, is that taxes were also "rent," essentially, in the classic feudal structure. Serfs worked the land they were assigned, and were permitted to keep the majority of the crops and such they produced, but their lords took some of it as their due. My understanding is that the percentages were low, because production was so low that serfs would starve if they were much higher. Some did, anyway. I think 10% was considered cruelly burdensome.

Yes, but of course it was far more complicate in praxis. For medieval Europe you have dozens of kinds of free, halffree and unfree landworkers, you have serfs that belong to regular free men and not to nobility, you have even free peasants belonging to unfree nobility. For pretty much everything you find a lot of exceptions so one can basically only talk about tendencies.
So while serfs were generally not free and didn't own their land, they also had exclusive, often hereditary right to work that particular land. And while they did pay some taxes and some rent for the land, they were excempts from some other taxes and other duties. For example, typically serfs were not subject to the draft into armies, that was more something free peasants would have to do.

If you just want fictional reference, Disney's Robin Hood movie (with the talking animal characters) showed the "taxation" being little more than banditry performed by the law enforcement (i.e. the Sheriff of Nottingham). He'd see the peasants have money, and take it. This is, of course, a gross oversimplification, but it is fiction depicting a tyrant's rule.

The thing to keep in mind about most versions of Robin Hood is that the action is meant to show blatant power abuse by the Sheriff, so over the top that everyone gets it. I won't say something like that never happened, it sure did. But it was rare and not really acceptable even then. Aside from making the Sheriff a tyrant, it is also meant to show how the reign of John Lackland does not really work and is descending into lawless anarchy.

[Cluedrew]

The other tax story that came to mind is that the I have heard stories from pretty credible stories about the Roman emperors cracking down on over-taxing. On the whole the Roman empire seemed to use the "bidding for the tax collector position" system where the tax collector would promise a certain amount of money then try to collect more than that to earn a profit. Something like this happened on the provincial level as well where the provinces sent pack money to the capital. Anyways there is at least one case of a provincial governor (?) being removed because they sent back so much money that the emperor realised they were overtaxing.

[LordCdrMilitant]

Honestly, if you wanted to tax adventurers in some D&D economy (which is not remotely similar to a medieval one), you would just tax the magic mart. 90%+ of adventurers money ends up there and so does nearly all of the loot.

I don't know; as Satinavian suggests, there are some sectors that are disproportionately patronized by adventurers and some practices, as I suggested, that are unique enough to adventuring parties that they could be targeted with a clever enough tax routine. Aside from the inn example, consider gate tolls for carried weapons (above and beyond the normal gate tolls). Most people traveling through a city gate will be unarmed; some will have one weapon. Burghers may well have one or more weapons, but they will rarely need to travel with them. Adventurers will probably carry at least two per person, and often more (except for the casters, but it would be simple to call most foci weapons for tax purposes). Nobles and their retinues may well be armed, but they are noble and thus tax-immune and/or rich enough to pay without much difficulty. Various forms of licenses for weapons, magical implements, and whatnot can also be introduced. Certain services, like magical healing of injuries (as opposed to the curing of disease), will be highly skewed towards adventurers.

I don't actually think this works logically.

I don't think such stores could reliably remain in business keeping up a stock of items they exclusively sell to adventurers. Even if they work on commission and also deliver high value magic weapons/armor/etc. to nobles and other people, that's not a lot of deliveries a year and definitely not cause to keep a stock of ready-to-buy adventuring items unless they're also selling a decent turnover of more regular stuff.

Presumably, much like how a blacksmith typically made more horseshoes and shovels than swords and armor, I assume ye olde enchanter also primarily is delivering things like hoes of extra-earth-turning or nails of staying over spending all his time catering to a very small group of people who will buy something maybe once every few months.



And as far as gate taxes go, you also don't want to hit regular merchants too hard and starve your lands for trade.

[Tvtyrant]

Supposedly - though I am not sure how true this is - one way taxes were once collected was that tax collectors were men who literally bought the right to do so. They'd go to a lord who had tax-right over his territory, and pay him a bulk sum (or promise him a set amount), and get a license to go out and take money from people in the area and call it "taxation." He got to keep whatever overage he made beyond what he promised (or everything, if he paid up front). How, exactly, this worked puzzles me enough that I doubt I either a) understand it correctly or b) heard it truthfully described, since I'm unclear how much authority he has to make demands and enforce them, nor what limits him if he has such authority.

The other thing, though, is that taxes were also "rent," essentially, in the classic feudal structure. Serfs worked the land they were assigned, and were permitted to keep the majority of the crops and such they produced, but their lords took some of it as their due. My understanding is that the percentages were low, because production was so low that serfs would starve if they were much higher. Some did, anyway. I think 10% was considered cruelly burdensome.

If you just want fictional reference, Disney's Robin Hood movie (with the talking animal characters) showed the "taxation" being little more than banditry performed by the law enforcement (i.e. the Sheriff of Nottingham). He'd see the peasants have money, and take it. This is, of course, a gross oversimplification, but it is fiction depicting a tyrant's rule.

If you want to tax adventuring and loot, though, that's probably best done via guild fees, entry fees (into cities), and the like. Cities often simply took a fee based on how many goods of whatever sort were being brought into town.

Tax farmers were quite common into the Eighteenth Century. Government had to be quite small and decentralized due to communication issues, so a lot of utilities were sold out to companies. The King makes a tax on Salt, then sells the right to that tax because he can't keep track of the number of collectors it would take to tax salt, iron, candle wicks, etc. This had the side effect of massively over taxing everyone, slowing economic growth and requiring the King to habitually fix the issues caused by it.

How taxes would look it entirely dependent on setting. In an adventurer dominated setting where they are spelunking treasure dungeons I would assume the lords would charge fees for entrance to said treasure dungeons, not taxes on the way out. Weak parties paying to take a shot are going to net you more then trying to strong arm powerful adventurers coming out of the dungeons. Also monopolies on equipment sales to the adventurers as they go in.

[John Campbell]

I just have to mention that, any time I've seen taxes, tolls, dues, licenses, or the like come up in a game, the PCs have treated it as an encounter to be overcome, oftentimes going to great lengths and spending far more cash and effort to avoid it than it would have simply to pay up.