Window tax
This special form of property tax was introduced in the Netherlands in January 1812 by Napoleon. All the windows and doors in a building counted towards the calculation of this levy, which was introduced partly because it was so easy to check. A sort of council tax valuation, but different! The tax was levied on all windows and doors facing outwards, so in some houses in the city it could mount up pretty quickly.
Window shut, pay less
To escape the tax, or to bring the amount down, some homeowners chose to reduce the number of windows and doors in their property. Simply by bricking up the window or the door. To this day, you can still find buildings in the old city centre where a window really has been bricked up, while the outline of where the window once was is still clearly visible.
Want to read more?
You can read more about how this tax was applied in other countries on this site. PS: in the category of 'crazy taxes', there was once also a tax on facade width. You can read more about that here.
