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Structure
Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 30 general entries.
Special Topics
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 The Law
Murder. Their politics - they were anarchists - may have influenced the course of events
Treasonous activities involving secession. It was said that Burr was trying to foment secession of the western states.
Selling State Secrets. They said that he sold secrets to the Germans. But, did he do it?
Income Tax Evasion. Ironic, isn't it?
Late 1600's. 1692 is the date usually given.
'De Profundis'. 'De Profundis' is a long, memoir-style essay. 'Gray' and 'Earnest' were from better days. Kipling wrote 'Light'
Corruption of Youth. There were a lot of issues and motives behind the scenes.
Early 1400's. 1431, I believe.
Albert Speer. Goering committed suicide before he could be executed. Bormann was condemned to death - but was never taken into custody. Mengele was not a defendant. Speer was sentenced to prison - and served time in Spandau.
David Greenglass. Sobell and Gold were defendants, but not family members. Kaufman, I believe, was the judge.It was Greenglass who was Ethel Rosenberg's brother.
| Which Roman emperor levied a tax on, of all things, the collection of urine? | Tax Facts
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Nero. In ancient Rome, urine was used in the tanning of leather and also by the laundresses who kept all those senatorial togas sparkling white (urine, of course, contains ammonia, a bleaching agent). The tanners and the laundresses collected the urine from public toilets (yes, they had such facilities in the Rome of those days) and used it to ply their trades.
It was Nero who hit on the idea of taxing the urine collectors as a means of swelling the public coffers. The tax was later repealed (I guess the citizens raised a bit of a stink about it), but it was reinstated by Nero's successor, Emperor Vespasian. When Vespasian's son Titus wrinkled his nose and expressed his disgust about taxing urine, dear old dad held up a gold coin and said, "Non olet!" (translation: "This doesn't stink!)
Oddly enough, even though it was Nero who invented the tax, it is Vespasian's name that is associated with it. In France, public urinals are known as vespasiennes, in Italy, they are vespasiani, and in Rumania, the gentlemen head for the vespasiene when nature calls.
| Where in the world would you pay a tax on blueberries? | Tax Facts
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Maine. Maine has been taxing blueberries since 1882, and any Maine resident who grows, sells, handles, processes or buys blueberries pays a tax of three-quarters of a cent on every pound of blueberries grown, sold, handled, processed or bought! Since Maine produces 25% of all the blueberries in the US, the state make a pretty penny at tax time! Think about that the next time you enjoy a slice of blueberry pie.
| On March 31, 1990, hundreds and thousands of Brits engaged in violent protest against a new tax. What kind of tax was it? | Tax Facts
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Poll tax. While there are certainly tax implications in a divorce settlement, there is no actual tax on divorce itself in the UK, Brits already pay taxes on every pint they consume at the local, and since schools have outlawed conkers as not being PC, it wouldn't be worth HM government's while to tax the horse chestnut. No, it was Margaret Thatcher's infamous poll tax that caused not only the riot but also her own political demise! She resigned office eight months later and her successor John Major repealed the poll tax. Surveys taken in Britain during the poll tax debacle indicated that only 2% of the population were in favour of the tax.
| The American income tax filing deadline is April 15, and Canadians have until April 30 to get their returns in. Consequently, the April air in North America is filled with moaning and groaning about tax burdens. To hear them tell it, they pay the highest taxes anywhere; but they don't. In 2009, who will shell out the most in income taxes?
| Tax Facts
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Danes. The Danish income tax rate is 38-59% of total income. Ouch! Swedes pay 0-57%, followed by the Norwegians (28-49%), the Dutch (0-52%), Austrians (21-50%), Belgians (15-50%), Australians (17-45%), Germans (15-45%), Italians (23-43%), Spaniards (24-43%), the French (5-40%), and the Brits (0-40%). If you're an American or a Canadian, you should feel better about income tax rates of 10-35% and 15-29% respectively!
NB: Please note, the tax rates given here are tax rates for the year 2009.
| If you don't want to pay any tax on income, may I suggest you call the movers and head for which European state? | Tax Facts
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Monaco. The Monagesques* pay no income tax at all - zip, zilch, nada! The world's second smallest country (actually, it's a city state), Monaco has become something of a tax haven for the international high roller set. In Bulgaria, you'll pay a flat income tax rate of 10%, regardless of how much you make, and Russia imposes a 13% flat tax, the Ukraine and the Czech Republic will take 15%, while Rumania assesses a 16% flat income tax rate and Iceland does too, for 23% of your income.
*I've been waiting for an opportunity to use Monagesque in a quiz and it finally came - tax-free!
| In which country would you have paid a window tax in the 17th century? | Tax Facts
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England. King William III of England came up with idea of this tax, which affected primarily the prosperous citizens and was a way of getting around the idea of income tax (it had been proposed but found no favour with the people who saw income tax as an unwarranted bureaucratic intrusion into private matters - sound familiar?).
The window tax proved to be about as popular as income tax and was deemed by the populace to be a tax on light and air! When the tax was introduced in 1696 it consisted of two parts - a flat rate of two shillings on the house itself, and a variable amount for houses with more than ten windows. If your house had between ten and twenty windows, you paid an extra four shillings, and homeowners whose residences had more than twenty windows paid eight shillings over and above the flat rate of two shillings. (In 1766 the number of tax free windows was reduced to seven and in 1825 the rate was changed again to allow eight tax free windows).
In 1778 the base rate of two shillings per house was changed to a variable rate, in accordance with the value of the property. In time the window tax, while still unpopular, became something of a status symbol. The extremely wealthy, when building new homes, made sure that the architect's design would include as many windows as possible. This, I suppose, was the 17th/18th century version of "If you've got it, flaunt it".
When the window tax was introduced in Scotland by William Pitt in the 1780s (well after the 1707 Act of Union which made the Scots British subjects) it proved to be as popular as it was in England and even today you can see "Pitt's Pictures' (blacked out windows) in Edinburgh. The tax was finally repealed in 1851 and replaced by a property tax, known as House Duty, which was assessed according to the value of the property in question.
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