TAXATION UNDER THE POWERFUL PHARAOHS

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Egypt is ironically known as Gift of Nile. Historians believed that there are many secrets and mysteries which are unanswered yet and are deep buried within the pyramids of Egypt. Some secrets have been learnt, but still there is lot of things which remains incomplete about the daily life led in the ancient Egypt.
Ancient Egyptian regarded their rulers as Gods. These rulers, called Pharaohs, had the duty of protecting their subjects from foreign aggression and internal conflicts and also from severe droughts and famines. Egyptian had a barter economy where taxes were extracted by seizing the part of the produce, merchandise or property.[1] The Egyptian did not have coins so generally taxes were calculated for cattle, grains and other products.[2] Additional fees for merchants were also charged.

Agricultural sector was the easiest to tax. No farmer could hide an extra piece of land from the tax collectors. Since river Nile flows through the heart of Egypt making its land fertile therefore the harvest of food crops was large and bulky. Therefore agriculture was easy to measure for the purpose of tax. Taxes were stored in the large warehouses. Sometimes taxes were collected as high as 60 percent of the produce. The pharaohs relied on these taxes as a source of supplementation during bad harvest and years of drought. Most of the taxes were used in building the magnificent pyramids, building temples for offering prayers, feeding armies and staffs of king and also to stabilize society.
Taxes were collected by force and coercion. It was collected by the people, generally known as Scribes, who used to collect tax on the behalf of the king. The king appointed the scribes who used to calculate the due tax and they were given responsibilities to make officials records of such transactions. The scribes used to keep records of title deeds; field sizes etc.[3]

[1] Janel Viljoen, Lessons Learnt from History: Tax Evasion
[2] Rosanne, How Taxes were collected in Ancient Egypt.
[3] Available at http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/economy/taxation.htm

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