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Tax Museum Tries to Cheer Up Israelis

Posted by Jeff (Guest) jeff@attoz.com - Saturday, January 17 2004, 12:16:55 (EST) from 69.14.56.182 - d14-69-182-56.try.wideopenwest.com Commercial - Windows XP - Netscape Website: Website title:

Last one for today.. Tax Museum Tries to Cheer Up Israelis Fri Jan 16,12:46 PM ET Add Strange News - AP to My Yahoo! By GAVIN RABINOWITZ, Associated Press Writer JERUSALEM - At the Museum of Taxes, anecdotes about tithing in the Holy Land are meant to amuse Israelis buckling under some of the highest taxes in the world. But days go by without visitors to the one-room display in Jerusalem — partially funded by tax money and now threatened with closure. Mira Dror, the director, curator and only guide, thinks shutting down the museum, founded in 1964, would be a huge loss. "It is not just a museum of taxes, it is a museum of the history of the country," said Dror. The museum takes visitors on a tour of the history of taxation and its relationship with the Jewish people. A 5,500-year-old mural from Ur of the Chaldees — birthplace of biblical patriarch Abraham — depicts farmers lined up with their cattle, crops and fish to pay their tithes. In the Holy Land, King Solomon's taxman bore the brunt of anger over excessive taxation "when all of Israel stoned him to death." (1 Kings 12:18). The argument even contributed to the split of Solomon's kingdom into Israel, to the north, and Judah, to the south. Taxes may also have brought Joseph and Mary down from Nazareth to Bethlehem, Jesus' traditional birthplace, though biblical scholars debate the issue; some say it Joseph and Mary responded to a census, not a call for taxation. Holy Land taxes have taken many strange forms. The Crusader kings of Jerusalem imposed a tax on matzoh, the unleavened bread Jews eat during the Passover holiday. The British rulers of the Holy Land introduced the income tax. A prized possession of the museum is a letter from Israel's founding father, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, to the tax authorities after his retirement. Ben-Gurion complained about overly complicated tax procedures. Israelis are one of the more heavily taxed people in the world, paying a marginal rate of up to 60 percent of their earnings to the state, said Ofer Minirav the president of Israel's accountants' institute. Dror said initial idea behind the museum was to educate the younger generation about the painful subject. "At home, they would hear their parents using not-nice words about taxes, we wanted to show them that they are not so bad," she said. An 18th century English manuscript on display proves that things could be worse. It describes a protection tax London's Jews had to pay City Hall in the Middle Ages to avoid being stoned in the streets during the pre-Easter fast of Lent. The Nubians of 1400 B.C. were forced to supply their tribal leaders with gold, ivory, giraffe tails and panther skins for the privilege of the air they breathed. The Jerusalem museum is one of just a handful of its type, including in the Netherlands and Japan. The Israeli museum is facing closure. Not because the government has struck oil and abolished taxes, or Israelis have embraced the idea of handing over their hard-earned cash. The museum's patron, the Customs and VAT department, has moved to new premises, leaving the museum behind in a building that is slated for destruction. Visitors are increasingly scarce. Tourists and school children, a former mainstay, rarely come these days, scared off by more than three years of Mideast fighting during which downtown Jerusalem has been a frequent target for Palestinian suicide bombers. "Now there are days when no one comes in at all," Dror says. The subject is also a bit of a turnoff. Gilad Tschaikov, who has owned a coffee shop just one block away from the museum for the last seven years, has never stopped by. "I just never got around to going," he says. Even Minirav from the accountants' institute says he has "just heard of it." Dror acknowledges they have a problem. "That's why entrance is free," she said. "Otherwise who would come?" On the Web: http://www.mof.gov.il/museum/english/index_e.htm gr-kl --------------------- - BACK TO INDEX - REPLY - QUOTE - EDIT - DELETE -

The full topic: Tax Museum Tries to Cheer Up Israelis Jeff - Saturday, January 17 2004, 12:16:55 (EST) Tax Museum Tries to Cheer Up Israelis panch - 01/17 12:35

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