The modern progressive income tax system is not even remotely a millennium old. We didn't even have income taxes in the US until 1861, and they weren't generally applied until 1913.

Because History started when the US began and there was no financial system before and nobody ever learned anything before.

First income tax in the UK was in 1842, first income tax in France was 1789 - could you find one that has been going since 1017 AD?

There aren't many sovereign nations that have been in existence since 1017 AD, so that sort of makes your question moot.

The Code of Hammurabi describes Babylonian taxes and the manners of levy. The Egyptians and Romans levied income taxes. There is of course the gafol/Danegeld/heregald of the Anglo-Saxons. You've got taxes/tolls paid by merchants on the Silk Road and certainly I've read of taxation in Ashoka's era and other sub-continental sovereignties.

You have the taxation/feudal levy system that existed even in archaic Greece where boats, rowers and soldiers were expected to be provided by patricians in times of war.

China (especially) and Japan have long histories of taxation.

The idea that recorded human history has been mostly without tax seems to be ahistoric.

>There aren't many sovereign nations that have been in existence since 1017 AD, so that sort of makes your question moot.

Sure. Which is why it's a bit ridiculous to say there has been a millennia of income tax we have been learning from.

Tax in general has existed - progressive income taxes, however, seem to be a fairly recent development. Purely in the administration sense, it would have been far more difficult to do in the past and as a progressive tax system does not actively benefit the people in power in a feudal or imperial government, it would be unlikely for a progressive tax to be implemented, especially one that exists in peace-time. In fact, feudal era taxes seem to have been actively regressive.

Removing a progressive tax system, something I believe is a bad idea to do, wouldn't roll things back to older systems of taxation. We wouldn't sacrifice the development of financial policies and tax frameworks, and we didn't arrive at the concept of a progressive system because of hundreds of years of failed tax policies. We have a structurally different government than countries did for hundreds of years prior.

Thank for putting into words what I thought ^^

I'm talking about learning not "income tax"...

The first "bank" was also founded much earlier than 1000 years ago (and wasn't a bank), but we did know a bit about financial systems even before then.

You replied in a discussion of income tax to a person talking about the history of income tax. Your objection appeared to be that the person you replied to was talking about US income tax history and your millennia of progressive income tax talk covered other countries.

Is that such a bad idea?

Not necessarily. But in that case we wouldn't argue for a "simple" tax system. A tax system has to be complicated because humans and their activities are complicated things.

edit: at that point, if we threw out the tax system, why not just get rid of states and corporations and start everything from scratch, said the junior dev

Seems like we should make another go at trying to structure this whole "society" thing for the good of everyone from where I am sitting.

It is if you think not every moment in the last millenium was pleasant for everyone.