The Sword and Laser discussion

Scifi/fantasy seldom mention taxes.
Do any come to mind?
Is that an oversight or are those kinds of stories listed under horror?
Many Happy Returns!: An Unofficial Guide To Your Income Tax Problems

The Wise Man's Fear has taxes being stolen by bandits. All I can think of off the top of my head.

In Phantom Menace, Palpatine says the Trade Federation blockaded Naboo to protest taxation of their trade routes

The Unincorporated Man and its sequel speak of taxes. But it's specifically about corporations and libertarianism and suchlike.

Great North Road mentions the enormous tax increase needed to fund the Human Defense Alliance to protect us from aliens.

American ways of doing taxes hurt my head, just from hearing about it. Ours is all included, and I imagine any sci fi stuff would assume it's all inclusive aswell.

It is weird that more books don't mention it, but I guess it's like how they tend to avoid messy subjects. Adventurers getting their periods in the middle of a journey with no supplies, eating that shoddy stew and the results of said stew, collecting taxes etc etc..

I think it's one of those things with world building where it just isn't necessary a lot of times. Sometimes world building can go too far and detract from the plot/characters and if they go into every nuance of governance such as taxation it would reach that point more often than not.

I mean do you really want to read about the Imperial/Federation/"name your government system" tax code?

The main character in at least 3 of the Monster Hunter International books is an accountant (as well as being a monster hunter, of course), and doing taxes, dealing with taxes, and being audited by the IRS come up multiple times.

Most of the Warhammer 40k novels make reference to the tithe that every Imperial planet pays to Terra.

Daniel Abraham's The King's Blood has an interesting use of the banking merchant class as a major component of his world. Might be worth a preview of.

Sadly, I didn't really care for the rest of the book and I'm quitting after the second book because I felt like the bankers got de-emphasized, and that was the most fresh and interesting part of the series.

Isn't a sort of big part of Part I of Dragonflight about the taxes/tributes owed to the dragon riders? I seem to remember that there were taxes in the Scott Lynch books, too...along with those listed here.

The theme of overlords overtaxing the lower classes is all over the fantasy realm. As for SF, no idea. Mack Reynolds supposedly had economics in his SF, haven't read any so no idea if it's taxes. Same with Charles Stross's Merchant Princes series.

There is potentially a new Discworld book being written called Raising Taxes.

The main plot of Raymond E. Feist's Rise of a Merchant Prince has agents of the crown aiding the title character's domination of trade in the Kingdom of the Isles, so they can have him finance the great war they know is coming. Apparently raising taxes isn't an option for them. (The book might explain it, but it's been a long time and I can't recall.)

Serendi wrote: "The theme of overlords overtaxing the lower classes is all over the fantasy realm. As for SF, no idea. Mack Reynolds supposedly had economics in his SF, haven't read any so no idea if it's taxes. S..."

That's sort of my point. I really haven't seen a new ideas of how to pay for public services.
Plenty of "I hate the king. Lets steal all his gold" scenarios." (Not that there's anything wrong with that mind you).

I was going to mention the tithing in Dragonflight as well, but then it occurred to me that it was actually more akin to a religious tithe rather than taxes, since the dragonriders aren't actually ruling anyone. There's no exact analogy in our world; sort of like a Coast Guard who are influential because they are respected.

Harry Turtledove's The Gladiator is one of his Crosstime Traffic series that takes place on a world where the USSR won the cold war, but time travelers from our world are... opening game stores. Anyway, some mention of taxes there as they talk about capitalism versus communism.

I kind of just assume people are paying taxes in most cases, unless the protagonists are criminals in which case they are probably also tax evaders, or rebels, in which case they are, well, rebelling and probably not too keen on taxes anyway. Taxes drift off my wages without me giving them much attention, so paying taxes seldom enters my mind. If I were to write stories from my life, I doubt I would mention taxes once, and if my life took place in a futuristic sci-fi world with space battles and lots of cool tech, I can't see that I'd be any more likely to mention them.

Do other genres have a lot to say about taxes? None spring to mind. I think it's just one of those things that is generally accepted as normal. If there is any kind of government, then it will need money in order to provide services to keep things running along. The most common way of doing this is through taxes. Only if they are too high and lead to an uprising do they really become interesting to a story.

H. Beam Piper's Lone Star Planet . Has a politician legally assassinated when he proposes an income tax.

Richard wrote: "H. Beam Piper's Lone Star Planet . Has a politician legally assassinated when he proposes an income tax."
You make that sound like its a bad thing.

Interesting suggestions. I've added a few more to my reading list.
I guess what I should have said is that I haven't seen any real alternative systems to the tradiutional tax the underlings.
It seems like aliens may come an go but taxes endure.

Freehold talks about taxes quite a bit if I remember correctly. The planet has a voluntary tax system. Those who run for office on the planet are required to basically give all their money to the state if they are elected.

Taxation is mentioned peripherally quite a lot in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan novels. Barrayar's ruling Counts derive their name from their forbears being the emperor's accountants, and the emperor's most powerful enforcers are the Imperial Auditors.

However, I don't think the subject ever takes centre stage.