How Taxes Went from a Sack of Wheat to Your Paycheck

A Long Road to Income Tax: From Ancient Egypt’s granaries to modern digital deductions

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Imagine you are living in Ancient Egypt, where taxation didn’t mean online forms or hustling with accountants.

It meant giving a cartful of wheat or vegetables to the pharaoh’s storehouse. No receipt, no fees, just simple food.

Income Tax, as we know it today, is a relatively modern invention. Hundreds of years ago, rulers, emperors, and kingdoms found creative ways, sometimes even brutal approaches, to collect their share from the people.

Let’s explore through the prints of history, and see how different civilizations taxed people before the salary and modern payroll system.

Ancient Egypt

Around 3000 BCE, when the Nile flood ended and harvesting time came, the pharaoh’s officials went from farm to farm. Their job was to measure the crops and take out the kingdom’s share.

Instead of paying with coins, farmers paid with a sack of wheat, barley, jar of grain.

They also used to pay a share via days of labor to help build temples or canals.