Although they seem to have been first used by the Ancient Egyptians, around 3000BC, they weren't a permanent feature of life in the USA until 1913. Before the Fuel Wars of the early 21st century, before the Great Wars of the 20th Century, they were levied to pay for conflicts, and sometimes imposed on alcohol, slaves and other goods.
Taxes.
You have to admire the ability of governments to use the issues of the day to raise them. During war, they create war taxes, few of which are ever repealed. During peace-time governments need to be more creative, using energy scarcity (or surplus), population growth (or shrinkage), the cold winters (or the warm summers) and everything in between as an excuse to raise taxes. In the late 20th century, people finally started realising that pumping CO2 into the air, chemical sludge into the sea, and salting the earth with heavy metals really wasn't a very clever idea. The politicians stepped up to the plate, agreeing with the noble sentiments, ready with their taxes that were going to save us all. Like beggars with machine-guns. Ratcheting up the burden.
Take transport, for example. You pay tax on the vehicle when you buy it, a tax when you sell it. Road tax each year for the privilege of using it. Most of the cost of fuel is made up of taxes of various kinds. Toll roads. Congestion charging. Taxes on parking. A per-mile tax on usage. Tax for building and maintaining the roads, taxes to pay for the public transport that few use because it's more expensive than private vehicles. Even a tax to pay for the cost of recycling the vehicle when you abandon it because you can't afford the taxes on it anymore.
Sometimes the wind here is so strong, it whistles around the houses. It sounds like voices, like screaming. Yes, it must be the wind.
Before the penal reforms of the early 20th Century, defaulting on tax payments made you just another debtor. Prisons weren't fun, but most survived them to build their lives again. We no longer put debtors in prison. We seize their houses and other assets. We confiscate their savings and freeze their bank accounts. We put permanent black marks on their credit rating. We force their companies to fire them, adding them to the shared corporate databases of people unsuitable for employment. We drive their families into poverty and shame. Suicide is common, but unlike the song's promise, seldom painless.
As the environment worsened and the sea-levels rose, the Green taxes began to mount. Penalties for contravening environmental agency regulations became steeper. Eco-terrorism, at first a label used by the media, was finally enshrined in the law in 2018. Surveillance, interception, detention, rendition, interrogation, execution. The legal tools first put in place against the suicide bombers were easily tweaked to include those accused of environmental damage. Curiously though, the worst polluters, large corporations and government agencies, were seldom targeted. Several small business owners were imprisoned after show trials, and in 2025 the first house-holder was executed. His crime: persistent failure to recycle.
Now that was a scream. And gun-shots. Earlier than I had expected. I had better finish soon, while I still am able.
Then, last year, they introduced the O2 Tax. Sure the Moon colony and the Orbitals had had similar charges since inception, but that stands to reason. Their O2 has to be shipped to them or generated, so it's fair that they should pay. It was one tax too many. Charging citizens for the air they had always breathed for free seemed wrong. Millions took to the streets, braving the sonic panic cannon and the riot foam of the police. They came out on the streets and marched, banners held high. For a week or two it looked like we were going to see a Western version of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, but the government backed down at the last minute, withdrawing the tanks and the troops. Millions celebrated, and many tore up the tax demands when they came, and refused to pay. The will of the people had overcome an uncaring government.
Or so it seemed until last week. Faced with losing the forth-coming elections, the government declared martial law and a curfew. In the words of the offical statement, it is a temporary action "to ensure the safety of all law-abiding citizens from the eco-tourists and saboteurs that are seeking to destroy our way of life". Before the web-casts were shut down, I watched the summary executions begin. Those venturing outside are being shot on sight for breaking the curfew, while the black-armoured soldiers of the Environmental Agency go house to house, dragging people out onto the street. If you haven't paid your O2 Tax, you and your family are no longer allowed to breathe. Those who did pay stay inside, curtains drawn, waiting for the garbage trucks to take the bodies away, for the blood stains to be scrubbed away.
That's it. The knock at the door. I'm hiding this short note under the floor-boards, a record of this dark time. I hope you who read this are living in a better world. When I put my pen down now, I'm going to take one last, long breath of fresh, free air to calm myself, and then I'll answer the door.
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Short Fiction 
