Five Strange Taxes from the Past

If you think we’re heavily taxed in the UK in 2025, spare a thought for people of the past, who were taxed on everything from windows to simply being registered to vote. Here are six strange taxes from the past to know.

Table of Contents

The Cooking Oil Tax

Ancient Egypt holds the record for the earliest tax on record, which was levied on cooking oils. Officials recorded household oil usage and took payments in the form of livestock, grain and oils themselves. Even worse, citizens had to buy oil from the pharaoh’s monopoly on sales and were prohibited from reusing their cooking oil supplies.

The Urine Tax

Cheltenham accountants such as https://www.randall-payne.co.uk/services/accountancy/cheltenham-accountants/ can count themselves lucky that Emperor Nero isn’t around today. He levied the urine tax in 70 AD, when this waste product was used to whiten everything from laundry to teeth and to produce wool. The mind boggles.

Salt Tax

France had a salt tax in the fourteenth century that disproportionately affected small farmers and poorer people. In fact, the tax was a direct driver of the French Revolution, as it was listed in one of the official grievances that contributed towards the revolution. England had a salt tax too.

The Beard Tax

Again in France, priests were forced to pay a beard tax in the early 1500s to help fund the wars in the Holy Land. Again, this caused greater issues for poor village priests than it did for the wealthy priests of court. In other nations, though, such as Yemen, a no-beard tax was levied as recently as 1936 to encourage males to grow bears in line with sharia law.

Wealth Taxes in the UK

In the sixteenth century, a window tax was introduced to tax people in line with their wealth and as a way of avoiding income tax, which was hugely unpopular. As a result, you can still see historic buildings with bricked-up windows, which were designed to lessen the tax burden. A few years later, the government took a different line and started taxing bricks.

In short, there’s no avoiding tax!