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Taxes in the future

In my story, a vaguely cyberpunky retro-futurastic setting has digital payments (credit-chits+personal communication devices+identity implants etc). Ie, swipe, insert, tap and go.

What i can't figure out why, though, how/why such a society would also accept taxes in kind. (At customs posts, toll-gates, toll-bridges, etc)

This is a relatively generic cyberpunk world (eg. gangs, low-tech physical augmentation, genetic enhancements, massive wealth inequality, pollution, the government is highly corrupt and incompetent etc.)

The primary revenue collection agency is funded by the government, mostly, so it's relatively self-sustaining.

My question

Why would material taxes-in-kind be valued/accepted in a society where cashless is acessible and accepted.

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  • $\begingroup$ Asking us to brainstorm reasons why humans do a thing is far too broad a question for this site. Very few things people do are strictly logical with a perfect why behind it. Look at how even in our globalized world there's an immense variation in culture, language, formal and informal economic systems, etc... What makes this is a question that is only has a few valid answers as is required by this site. $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 5, 2025 at 15:30
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    $\begingroup$ Do you mean "why do fee collectors sometimes accept material goods instead of money payment"? It's probably off topic for this site, but they do now and have always done so, and it's so that they can sell the goods, pay the toll themselves (if they don't know how to cheat the system), and pocket the margin. $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 5, 2025 at 15:46
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    $\begingroup$ (1) Taxes in kind at customs posts make perfect sense for some categories of goods. For example, the USA has a 20% customs tariff on vehicles made in the European Union; why not simply take one car out of every five? Easy peasy, and no cheating possible. (2) Taxes in kind at toll gates make no sense whatsoever. For example, say a motorist has to pay three chequeens at the gate on the motorway; can he pay four pretzels? Two candy bars? Six eggs? This would do nothing but create new forms of currency. $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 5, 2025 at 16:55
  • $\begingroup$ I was the last close voter and, despite having an accepted answer, I wanted to explain why. The question is very unclear. Taxes are collected at customs offices. They are not, per-se, collected at toll booths. Tolls are collected at toll booths. Drivers (e.g.) are paying to use the road in the same way that someone would pay to rent a tool. Access to the road is provided as a service. But why would I pay with (e.g.) a chicken? High-speed cars keep pedestrians off toll roads. Are these tunnels to keep out the pedestrians? Or does Mad Max haul chickens around in lieu of bitcoin? (*Cont.*) $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 13, 2025 at 22:16
  • $\begingroup$ Said more simply, what's the real problem you're trying to solve? If you want the toll attendant to take chickens, do so. Who doesn't want a chicken? (Well... at least a dead one wrapped in cellophane.) I don't understand the question because I don't understand what problem you're trying to solve. As inefficient as the government may be, it should be incensed that someone's taking chickens for any reason other than to give to the government. Weird. Dystopic! But weird. $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 13, 2025 at 22:19

3 Answers 3

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Massive wealth inequality and highly corrupt government results in many, many people in subsistence living where they grow their own food and barter with their neighbors for anything they don't grow. (See "sharecropping.") They live outside of the "cashless society" because they don't create anything that they can be paid "cashless" for. There are also quite a number of people who are itinerant, not living any specific place, not having any assets you can take, get recruited by gangs, or get thrown into a "work camp." These people often were once living in one spot growing crops / raising animals but those with wealth threw them off the land and now they are homeless. (See the Irish Famine for example.)

Edit: A person has to have "cashless" income in order to pay "cashless" taxes.

Ok, now you have a large group of people who don't have the "cashless" to pay taxes with. You have to collect something. So, you take crops, animals, furs, or anything that you think you can convert to "cashless." The itinerant people get put into the "work camps" to work off their tax debt. (See the Jim Crow anti-loitering law.)

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Because they have no choice.

Some kind of technology is needed to access the cashless economy, and there is a substantial proportion of society that doesn't have it.

A useful proportion, at that. They can't just cut them off, or they risk the whole economy. Perhaps farmers.

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People will tell you that fiat currencies have value because people believe that it does, I argue instead that fiat currency has value because government accepts it in payment for tax receipts. In this cyberpunk land, people still need to pay taxes, and this government-issued currency is the only form of payment it accepts.

People who don't pay the pipe end up in jail, or on work gangs, or dead.

Others counterfeit, or provide the service of trading whatever most people use as their day-to-day payment into the physical money the government will take (of course, those people charge a premium for the service).

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