“How does he know how much needs to be taken in?” Uri asked.
“He just does.”
Once a year the heads of households had to go to the tax collector in the nearest town and declare how much of what produce had been cultivated and how many souls there were in their families. That declaration was only checked in very rare instances; there just were not enough tax collectors. In that particular village there had never yet been a check on the Roman tax; no tax inspector would make it out alive if there were, that was for sure. All the same, they paid their taxes honestly to Edom because that was what their leaders demanded, and it was also what was demanded, for instance, by Master Jehuda, and if Master Jehuda said that they had to pay taxes to Edom, then they paid the tax, because Jehuda was the master.
Children did not have to be declared at birth but only once they reached seven years of age. That had been the case since Edom ruled them, maybe because so many died early in childhood. They did declare them to the priests, though, and if the firstborn was a son, they would immediately pay five sela’im to redeem him, because that son belonged to the Lord (or, in other words, to the priests), and he would have to be purchased back from them. Boys born subsequently would also have to be declared or they would not be circumcised, and girls were also declared. After each and every childbirth, even for a girl, the mother would sacrifice a lamb and a dove, or, if she was very poor, just two doves. Anyone who had no money — five silver sela’im was a huge sum, the equivalent of twenty drachmas! — would have to sign a promissory note that it would be paid as soon as they were able.
“And can a priest relieve a man of that debt?” Uri queried.
“No, that belongs to the Lord. It can never be paid off in crops, only in Tyrian silver.”
“The priest can give the money as a present to a poor family if he sees fit,” someone commented.
But they were in no mood for explanations; they wanted to grumble. So they carried on grumbling — in hushed tones so that the tax collector could hear, but not the Levite resting in the shade two paces farther away.
As if it were not enough that they had to pay a water fee, even though there was no aqueduct coming their way, all they had were their own cisterns and wells; as if it was not enough that they had to pay a road levy every time they went on a highway, festival periods aside, and there were times when they might have to go to Jerusalem in connection with a lawsuit; as if it was not enough that they had to pay a house tax even though they had put up their shacks with their own bare hands; as if it was not enough that they had to pay a frontier-crossing toll every time they needed to enter a town surrounded by a wall. Some three to four percent of their crop was taken away because the amount paid to the tax collector was more than two and a half percent, and if he was not happy he wouldn’t have his say here but would report them straight to Jerusalem, which meant that the high priests would bring some unfavorable decision with regard to the village, such as not allowing them to enter the City on feast days, or pushing them farther back in the hierarchy of the twenty-four tribes so that they would never get to stand next to the altar. So whatever they thought to themselves, they would fill separate wineskins for the tax collector, which would not go toward enhancing the emperor’s wealth but his own.
Uri then asked where all the crops and animals ended up. Were they shipped across the Great Sea to Italia?
No, because the present emperor had forbidden it. All the meat and grain had gone bad on the long journey, and since then it had been used locally, sold at the bigger markets. The money received from that was used by the prefect to maintain the soldiers and officials. That tax stayed local.
“We keep our occupiers going,” said sage heads.
“In the same way we brought them down on us!” said even sager heads.
Uri made a quick mental calculation. If the Roman tax, including the water levy, the house tax, the road taxes, the frontier-crossing tolls, and the produce were put at five or six percent of the total harvest, that was probably not far off the mark.
He quizzed people about the exact taxes on the Jews of Judaea, and they readily and proudly enumerated them.
They gave the Levites one tenth of everything edible, out of which one tenth went to the priests.
They also put aside another tenth for themselves to cover the three big festivals. They consumed this during the long journeys and in Jerusalem itself, and it was generally insufficient. There had been cases when they had to go hungry and thirsty for two or three days during the walk back home.
When adjudged guilty, they would pay for sacrifices in sin and guilt offerings. That was quite common, to be sure. The Lord created us as sinful beings, but He did not hold any ill will if we duly repented and propitiated Him.
If a wish or vow of ours should be fulfilled, a votive offering would be given, with the breast and right shoulder of the sacrificial animal going to the priests. We would gladly give these because the supplication would be heard by the Eternal One, may He be praised.
The priests received all first fruits and every firstborn male animal, and that was precisely what was being collected now, as Uri could see.
The ground tax was the year’s first fruit of the wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and honey. The priests also had a right to the very best of the crop, which was was also being collected that very day. That meant the best of the food that stemmed from any plot of land or tree. Either a person knew himself what was best or else the experts — the masters and supervisors — would draw his attention to it. The most important of these products were the wheat, wine, and oil. One fifteenth of their entire income would be put aside for that purpose, even though nowhere had it been set down in writing and it was not even measured. The heave offering comprised a cake of the first of the dough, which was due on wheat, barley, oats, and rice, and it was not food as such but the offering had to be given in the form of dough, being fixed at one twenty-fourth if it was for private consumption, or one forty-eighth if it was for sale by baker.
A toll had to be paid at the gates of a city to enter.
All adult men paid half a shekel of sacrificial money annually at Passover, which is two drachmas.
They would also have to pay to get coins changed because sacrificial money could not display a graven image of anyone.
To buy two doves they would have to pay the price of three.
A pe’ah was left with everything.
Deductions were made to pay for alms, the tzedakah, the rations that went to the neediest, the disabled, the infirm, and itinerants. This differed from place to place, being whatever the master said.
They paid for the upkeep of the ritual bath.
They paid for the teacher who instructed the children.
They paid for the kosher butchers, the shochets.
Uri mused on how much all that might amount to — no doubt more than half of an average year’s income, even though altogether it was not all that much.
But none of that was Roman tax, those were just the Jewish dues, though the Jews were unaware of the fact.
Five percent imperial tax as against at least fifty percent Jewish dues.
It wasn’t certain, Uri reflected, that the tax Rome received was worth the trouble. The empire in the provinces was self-sufficient, and what went on was economically rational; in fact Rome was not seeking profits, yet it still aroused hatred in people’s souls.
If the imperial tax was assessed on self-declared income, as it was in Rome, Uri went on thinking, then men would not declare even one tenth of their real income, and maybe one would perchance forget all about the age of that seven-year-old child and therefore not pay the poll tax for the child for a year or two more, and if Rome genuinely did not have enough people or means to check the authenticity of the self-declaration, then the Jews of Judaea were barely paying any taxes to Rome.