Changes

The two developments of empires and currency by the mid-1st millennium BCE led to complex tax systems that began to resemble our own systems today. The Achaemenid Empire created a regulated system that was based on earlier systems, such as the Assyrian Empire, but the system began to change as currency began to be more utilised in the Greek-speaking parts of the Empire and the Greek world itself. Provinces now had specific obligations and those obligations had to be met through silver. There were attempts then to standardize revenue collected by the state into a type of currency (e.g., silver) rather than as a variety of products. This also meant that the state now had to understand the land it controlled in more detail, as the types of crops, fruit trees, and other forms of revenue generation had to be identified so that an estimate on tax obligations could be calculated (and thus a budget determined by the state). <ref>For more on Achaemenid taxation, see: Pirngruber, R. (2017) <i>The economy of Late Achaemenid and Seleucid Babylonia</i>. Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA, Cambridge University Press, pg. 42.</ref>

The development of coinage allowed the state to obtain funds in new ways. It now created a system where people had to exchange goods or their own currency to obtain local coins. The state now could create favorable exchange rates as a form of revenue generation. Coins, in effect, allowed taxes to be hidden and allowed the authority of the state to be made clear. This caught on in the Aegean and Anatolian cities at first but later began to spread throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East. It became clear that currency did not have to be a direct transfer of value on a one to one basis but rather currency could have value potentially above the value of the metal itself, allowing or greater revenue generation by the state as it taxed foreigners coming into the state and citizens as well.<ref>For more on the role of coinage and tax, see: Schaps, D.M. (2004)<i> The invention of coinage and the monetization of ancient Greece</i>. Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press.</ref>

The Roman Empire created a series of specialized taxes that saw it tax things like trade, military obligations, inheritance, sales, religious, slave trade, land, as well as income tax. In effect, the Roman Empire depended on a series of specialized taxes and obligations. While some taxes were obligatory, the state also created a series of tax revenues that could be generated by people using the state's services or performing certain functions (e.g., selling slaves). <ref>For more on Roman taxes, see: McGeough, K.M. (2004) <i>The Romans: new perspectives. Understanding ancient civilizations</i>. Santa Barbara, Calif, ABC-CLIO, pg. 114.</ref>

In the Medieval period, various forms of taxes developed that included religious as well as state-based taxes. Land taxes, tithes, feudal taxes, and poll tax were typical taxes developed. Earlier systems, such as in England during the Anglo-Saxon period, did not require compulsory taxation but they, instead, used fines as forms of taxation. Norman England created a universal land tax. Taxation, however, became a source of contention, leading to a system where the king would have to get consent from leading individuals and nobles from different regions. During the reign of King John in the 12th and early 13th centuries, there were attempts to make taxes a larger supply or portion of the king's overall revenue, where even annual income by individuals was now something taxed by the king (which was rare in earlier periods and until the 19th century). This created conflict with nobles. Over time, through <i>Magna Carta</i> and other agreements, assembly of nobles that gave consent on taxes helped form the bases of Parliament that developed in the 13th century and, eventually, the foundation of modern democratic institutions (Figure 2).<ref>For more on early Medieval and English tax systems, see: Frecknall-Hughes, J. (2015) <i>The theory, principles and management of taxation: an introduction</i>. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY, Routledge.</ref>