Color tax

I love colour (or as the Americans would spell color :)) and having studied various tax legislation over the years as an accountant, I appreciated this piece of history I came across and thought I might share it with you.

Governments can come up with lots of crazy tax ideas.  One time---a few centuries ago---an emperor was trying to come up with new and creative ways to tax the people in the empire.  It was the time of the Renaissance in the Holy Roman Empire.   And art was flourishing.  One day the emperor was sitting on his throne and he had nothing better to do than daydream about new ways to tax the citizens.  As it was, there were plenty of taxes in the Empire, but the emperor wanted to create a new one.  So he decided to pick on the artists.  (I know---what a terrible idea!) But first, he wanted to consult one of his advisers, a guy named Guiseppe.  He said, "Guiseppe, what do you think? How should I tax art?"

If Guiseppe had been an intelligent adviser, he would have told the Emperor that taxing art was a stupid idea---surely among the dumbest ideas in the Empire.  Instead, Guiseppe said, "Let's tax every painting in the Empire."

The emperor thought this was too extreme.  "That's too crazy---too extreme.  I think it would discourage artists too much.  There has to be a better way to tax art.  Something not so heavy-handed."

Then Guiseppe came up with his infamous idea---an absolutely ridiculous proposal.

Guiseppe said, "I have the perfect solution.  Let's have a color tax."

The emperor was incredulous.  "A color tax? You mean the Empire would tax colors? Just how in the world would that work!?"

Guiseppe was way too optimistic.  "Oh, it would all be very simple, sire," he said in his high-pitched, whiny voice.  "You see, every painting that is created in the realm would be tax-free as long as it only has 3 colors or less in it.  But every painting that has more than 3 colors in it would be taxed.  And we would enforce this law by creating a new bureaucracy---the Government Art Regulation Department---GARD for short.  The agents in GARD can inspect every painting and collect the taxes."

The emperor just stared at Guiseppe for awhile.  Finally he said, "Guiseppe, I do believe this is the most insane idea I've ever heard in my life."

From that point on, the emperor gradually came to the conclusion that taxing artists was something that he didn't want to attempt.  But the idea lived on in the mind of Guiseppe, who somehow (amazingly) eventually became second-in-line to the throne. 

One night the emperor unexpectedly died in his sleep.  The next day Guiseppe was crowned emperor.  And then Emperor Guiseppe decided to impose his infamous idea---the color tax.

And so the color tax unfortunately became the law of the land.  The Government Art Regulation Department (GARD) was created.  The Department had offices set up all across the land.  And all across the Empire, no painting with more than 3 colors could be bought or sold unless it had a little red stamp in its upper right hand corner, signifying that the painter had paid the color tax.   Artists throughout the realm were required by law to take their paintings to their local GARD office, where the colors of each painting would be counted. 

It was simply government taxation gone mad---gone cuckoo---and artists in the Empire, as you can imagine, were infuriated.  Many of them protested the color tax by painting unflattering images of Emperor Guiseppe:  They painted him with red horns & a pitchfork---a sort of caricature of the devil; they painted him wearing only underwear; they painted him naked; they painted him cavorting with lewd women; they painted him wearing women's clothing; they painted him picking his nose; they painted him looking like a crazy coconut-throwing chimpanzee; someone even painted him being burned at the stake.  And all of these paintings sold like crazy.

Emperor Guiseppe, when told of these unflattering paintings, was angry.  At first he thought all of these painters should be sent to prison.  But then, displaying a rare flash of intelligence, he realized that this was a dumb idea.  After all, painters in prison meant less color taxes!!

In the end, the color tax was a pathetic idea no matter how one looked at it.  It ended up not even being profitable for the Empire because the creation and funding of the Government Art Regulation Department ended up costing more money than the color tax raised.  Emperor Guiseppe, when confronted by his accountants, finally decided that the color tax was a stupid tax.  He rescinded the law.  And thus ended a crazy era for Renaissance painters.

Ha ha, you may have guessed by now that this story is not true, but is in fact written by my a friend of mine, Mark Rosenquist. I almost believed it was true the first time I read it! Anyway, I think it is a great story, as his usually are, and it's art related so all the better :). Luckily he didn't charge me the £8.99 ($14.53 USD), (A$14.07), (€11.00) he threatened!