Re:Jeff Bezos comes out in support of increased corporate taxes
by posix_me_less on Thursday April 08, 2021 @06:26AM
(#26737096)
This is just one point of view of money and taxes, a mechanism to extract value from conquered population.
This probably still happens in 21 century, but I hope we can see beyond that, at least in 1st and 2nd world.
Money infrastructure for most people there is primarily a convenient bookkeeping mechanism for trade. In most cases, government should not directly involve itself with such trades.
Towards your question, if soldiers stopped taxation, their supervisors would rectify that eventually. If Rome stopped taxation of conquered populations, the coins would still retain value in Rome.
Money has meaning in large part because of taxes; you need a certain amount of money because you owe the government. Since you need money to pay taxes (and therefore buy things, earn income, or own property) money has value.
In Ancient Rome, armies would enter conquered areas, carrying coins. Everyone in the conquered area was expected to pay a tax of (say) 20 coins to the army each year or face punishment.
The newly conquered citizens, then, had no choice but to find ways to get coins from these soldiers so that they could pay their taxes.
Farmers would trade food for these coins. Merchants would trade goods.
These coins suddenly had value.
If the soldiers suddenly stopped the taxation, do you think the coins would retain their value?