{"id":445,"date":"2014-04-13T20:58:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-13T20:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/13\/cloth-for-taxes-2\/"},"modified":"2014-04-13T20:58:00","modified_gmt":"2014-04-13T20:58:00","slug":"cloth-for-taxes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2014\/04\/cloth-for-taxes-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Cloth for Taxes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\nIt\u2019s
\nTax Time!<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nI
\ndon\u2019t think there is anything that inspires more dread than filing tax forms,
\nunless it is an envelope from the IRS with an audit notification inside.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nFace
\nit!  Taxes have been around forever and
\naren\u2019t about to go away anytime soon.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThere
\nare many examples in textile history about cloth used as tax payments as far
\nback as the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.  I thought I would share a few examples from other cultures with
\nyou today.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIn
\nHawaii, before the islands were \u201cdiscovered\u201d by westerners, commoners worked
\nthe land owned by their chief and paid taxes to both their local chief and the
\nking.  Tax payments were in the form of
\nfood and clothing.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIn
\nChina (500BCE-1500 CE) taxes levied on each household were paid in grain and
\ncloth, one bushel of grain equaled one bolt of cloth.  The state levied taxes in \u201cnew textile\u201d (cotton) which was grown
\nin the north.  The raw cotton was sent
\nto the south to be made into cloth and re-exported back north where taxpayers
\nbought the cloth to pay their taxes.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIn
\n17thC Spanish Peru cloth was the most valuable commodity.  It was used as a form of currency and for
\nthe payment of taxes.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nOne
\nof the most interesting tax stories I have read comes from Korea in the late
\n1600\u2019s.  It seemed Korea faced a problem
\nwith the minting of coins for their cash currency, which was used for personal
\nand government debts.  Somehow the
\nprinciple of a monetary economy was somewhat lacking and the minting of coins
\nbecame so rampant that the people started melting the coins for the base metal
\nitself.  In other sectors, the coins
\nwere hoarded as they were expected to increase in worth beyond their face
\nvalue. For centuries cloth had been used as a tax payment, now with \u201ccash\u201d as
\nthe acceptable form a serious problem arose when certain citizens were unable
\nto pay in \u201ccash\u201d if they couldn\u2019t sell their crops for a reasonable
\nreturn..  This started a political
\ndebate about whether cloth or cash were preferable.  It went so far, that in 1726 a proposal to eliminate cash for
\ntaxes and reinstate cloth or grain was instituted, however this lasted only a
\nshort while and was discontinued some six months later. (probably after
\neveryone used their cash to purchase cloth, as in ancient China). <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nSo,
\nI guess I should be grateful that I can file electronically, use my credit card
\nto pay the damages (while gaining air miles) and not have to worry about spinning,
\nweaving and sewing my payment.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Tax Time! I don\u2019t think there is anything that inspires more dread than filing tax forms, unless it is an envelope from the IRS with an audit notification inside. Face it!  Taxes have been around forever and aren\u2019t about to go away anytime soon. There are many examples in textile history about cloth used…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}