“Leaders will use taxation as a means of control – to influence behaviour and the decisions people make. Peter the Great wanted to modernise Russia and he felt beards were unfashionable, so he levied a tax against them. Russians had to shave, or pay the tax. To prove they had paid it, they had to hang a copper token from their beard on which was written, ‘The beard is a superfluous burden.’

~ Daylight Robbery: How Tax Shaped Our Past and Will Change Our Future by Dominic Frisby.