In halachah, taxation has a long history

In this world nothing is certain except death and taxes. (Benjamin Franklin, 1789)

Having just entered a new financial year so that our minds are directed to relevant issues including taxation of all types, I thought that some comments on halachah and taxation might be in order.

The earliest biblically recorded form of taxation is the half shekel payable annually for the upkeep of the Mishkan and subsequently the Beit Hamikdash. There were also tithes payable to the Levite and the poor as well as Terumah given to the Kohen. However all that was aside from tributes payable in subsequent generations to the king – that while accepted in principle became a very vexed matter following the death of King Solomon, even leading to the break-up of the kingdom when his son and successor Rehabaum refused to compromise, threatening instead to increase the taxation burden on the populace.

Mishnaic and Talmudic literature, reflecting realities of the Roman period, contains many references to taxation. The Romans substituted a poll tax for their benefit in place of the half shekel that all Jews were used to paying. “Mukhsin – tax collectors” were frowned upon, probably not because of the principle of negativity to tax per se, but because as those who acquired the right to collect taxes, submit the prescribed amount to the authorities and maintain a personal right to the balance, they were seen as robbing the populace. Thus the Talmud in Nedarim (25a) specified that it was only in regard to such tax collectors that one may falsely deny ownership of property (and thereby try to minimise payment), despite the dictum “dina d’malchuta dina – the law of the land is the law”, which forbids tax avoidance as well as so many other matters. (I am not here referring to certain impositions with an antisemitic purpose; in such cases, subject to circumstances, different principles may apply even from a halachic perspective.)

Also relevant to Talmudic approaches to taxation is the dispute between the sages I quoted some weeks ago prior to Lag b’Omer regarding the improvements made by the Romans using funds collected from the public.
“It once happened that Rabbi Yehudah, Rabbi Yose and Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai were sitting together. Rabbi Yehudah opened the discussion and said: ‘How admirable are the deeds of this nation [the Romans who ruled Eretz Yisrael at the time]. They have established marketplaces, they have established bridges, they have established bath houses.’ Upon hearing Rabbi Yehudah’s praise of the Roman occupation Rabbi Yose remained silent. Rabbi Shimon, however, answered and said: ‘Everything they have established they established only to serve their own needs. They established market places to quarter harlots therein; they established bath houses in order to beautify their own bodies; and they built bridges in order to collect tolls from those who travel over them.’” (Shabbat 33b).
While the definition of public works – the purposes for which taxation moneys are reinvested in the home of taxpayers – may have changed, does this exchange not contain echoes of the very attitudes which differing elements of contemporary society have regarding spending by contemporary governments? Cynicism regarding government use of public funds has hardly changed (especially as costs balloon and government requirements increase).