The beard tax has been levied at different times and places. Sometimes it only served purely fiscal purposes, sometimes it should have a steering effect. So it is known that in Lycia already existed in antiquity a beard tax. King Maussolos introduced them. Also in the ancient China of the Ming Dynasty there should have been a beard tax, which should serve the financing of an imperial summer residence. Later, it was Tsar Peter the Great who was associated with the collection of a beard tax. However, his beard tax was about other goals. Because in his case, the beard tax was a steering tax. It was intended to modernise Russian civil society.

1st Beard Tax as an Example of a Curious Tax – Introduction

Taxes are a serious matter, at least you want to think. Like the police, the judiciary and the military, they stand for the far-reaching powers that the state as an authority can enforce against the citizens. But occasionally one encounters example from tax law, in which one may well wonder whether this is an April Fool’s joke (for example, the commodity tax). This applies to current taxes as well as those from earlier eras and other countries. Of course, such tax curiosities must always be considered in context. Because what is perhaps strange for us can seem quite sensible and logical from the perspective of the respective authorities who enact these tax laws. One such example is the beard tax, which we follow up in this article.

2. Lycia – historically the oldest beard tax

Maussolos, a Persian satrap who administered the province of Lycia in the southwest of present-day Turkey for the Persian king in the 4th century BC, is best known for his tomb in Halicarnassus. Because it turned out so great that already in antiquity it was called one of the seven wonders of the world. No wonder then that such large tombs were named after him, namely Mausoleum. King Maussolos is also known for being one of the first to have levied a beard tax. This was probably also interesting for him because his contemporaries wore magnificent beards as a status symbol – and thus made it easier for him to collect a beard tax. Whether he used the beard tax to finance the construction of his mausoleum, however, is uncertain, albeit obvious.

3rd Beard Tax in Ming Dynasty China

The founder of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Hongwu, came to power by overthrowing the previous Yuan Dynasty in a protracted uprising. He came from simple backgrounds and is said to have worn a beard. Apparently, the population imitated him at the latest after his seizure of power in this regard. At the same time, he was probably looking for ways to establish his new capital – a certainly expensive project. He is said to have charged a beard tax to finance the construction of a summer palace. Whether the population took this conciliatory, is uncertain. After all, Hongwu had been a popular emperor because he had expelled the Mongolian Yuan dynasty from China. For Han Chinese, this alone was a satisfaction. For Mongols on the imperial throne, as much as they may have approached the Chinese rites, customs and structures, were hated as occupiers.

4th beard tax in France

A beard tax also existed in France in the late Middle Ages. King Francis I introduced them in the 16th century. However, it only applied to members of the clergy. As a reason for the introduction of the beard tax in France, it is assumed that Francis I was bothered by the fact that the clerics at his court wore a beard, as he himself wore it. So he apparently wanted to prevent this with a beard tax. King Francis I had obtained a special consent of the Pope.

So it came about that in the end only higher-ranking clerics could afford the beard tax. Simple priests, whose financial resources were usually much less, therefore preferred to shave regularly in order to avoid the beard tax of the king.

Just as curious is the end of the beard tax in France. Instead of abolishing the tax in 1561, a general ban on the wearing of beards for church dignitaries indirectly led to the beard tax becoming obsolete.

5. The beard tax of Tsar Peter the Great

5.1. Motivation for the introduction of the beard tax in Russia

Eons after Maussolos, another master came up with the idea of taxing beards, albeit for other reasons. For Tsar Peter the Great had other goals with his beard tax, which he introduced in 1698.

Peter the Great was still a young ruler. Perhaps this explains why he thought about how his country could evolve. That this seemed necessary to him came here because he had previously made a journey through Central and Western Europe. There, he found that other nations—especially the then-economically flourishing Netherlands—were in many ways far more advanced than his beloved Russia.

Incidentally, an external sign of this difference was the extensive absence of beards in the countries traveled by Peter the Great. In contrast, in Russia, a full beard was an expression of dignity and, among the Old Believers, of religious importance. So he decided to put his country on course for progress.

Traditionally worn beards were thus for Tsar Peter a symbol of backwardness, which he intended to eliminate. Only for this reason he introduced the beard tax in Russia. He wanted to make his subjects change externally for a modern Russia. He wanted to set a sign against the old and for the modern. His counter-design was the orientation towards Western Europe, where no one wore a beard for cultural reasons rooted in the Middle Ages, but at best for purely aesthetic reasons.

5.2. collection of the beard tax in Russia

To introduce the new beard tax, Peter the Great invited a large number of dignitaries to a meeting. There he opened up to them that from now on it would cost taxes if you decided to wear a beard. Those present, on the other hand, had little choice, because they were, with few exceptions, shaved on the spot. Only the patriarch of the church and his former guardian, now already old, were spared the razor.

At the level of the tax, there was a staggeration, demanding 100 rubles from wealthy merchants, 60 rubles from civil servants and courtiers, and 30 rubles from city dwellers. Thus, at least farmers were spared the beard tax.

Only clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church were exempt from the beard tax. Old believers, who opposed the reforms of the Russian Orthodox Church enforced under Patriarch Nikon and were convicted of the church ban and the loss of civil rights, had to submit to the beard tax. So this can be seen as a further harassment of these resisters, because Old Believers had to pay double taxes under Tsar Peter the Great anyway.

A further regulation of the beard tax, which was subsequently submitted in 1705, provided that bearded men who were met in public (especially at the city gates) and checked for the beard tax, had to show a special copper coin, the bearded copies, as proof of their tax payment. If they were unable to do so, their beard was immediately taken from them. An additional payment of the tax, even an immediate one, was excluded.

After all, the collection of the beard tax in the old Russian Empire lasted several decades. Only under Catherine the Great ended the taxation of facial hair in 1772.

6th beard tax in Yemen

Another form of beard tax was introduced by the Kingdom of Yemen in 1936. As an Islamic country, men had a religious rule that they should wear a beard. But unlike in other Islamic countries, in Yemen, instead of punishing the men who did not wear a beard, it was decided to impose a beard tax on them. So it was basically more a “no beard tax” than a beard tax in the real sense.

7 Is a beard tax considered nowadays?

As absurd as a beard tax may seem to us today, it may have occurred to those who were confronted with it in earlier times. They certainly never expected that a beard tax could become relevant to them. Therefore, one should be careful with hasty conclusions when excluding a tax just because it may seem strange. Because if historical examples already exist for taxes, then a later new edition may well come into question.

So we finally ask whether we in Germany could currently also threaten a beard tax. After all, beards are quite popular among men in Germany at the moment. A tax on this could therefore actually be worthwhile. Of course, this question is only partly serious. And yet we should try to answer them objectively. The answer is no, because it would be a tax that is gender-specific and therefore unfair within the meaning of Article 3 GG. Because where all people are to be treated equally, one must not impose a tax that potentially targets only one particular circle. Moreover, it would also be a violation of the efficiency principle, with which Tsar Peter the Great already seems to have dealt in beginnings.