While we hear a lot about tax avoidance and tax evasion today, I think it is something we always have had and probably always will. To be clear avoidance is using legal means, evasion is the illegal one.
I can recall as a young kid being told by my father that old houses had less or smaller windows due to a window tax – see here https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/georgian-britain-age-modernity/window-tax/. Or here is another example, a curved brick wall which used less bricks – and it’s also quite nice to look at https://www.linkedin.com/posts/historicengland_have-you-ever-heard-of-a-crinkle-crankle-activity-7169587666236215296-EIqu?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios
Both of these examples essentially reacted to higher taxes to reduce the amount of tax payable – something we still do today, well at least corporates and high wealth individuals do.
