Did Soviet citizens pay taxes?

Factual Questions
1

I’m reading a book now that makes frequent reference to how “Soviet taxpayers” were burdened with Cold War burdens like foreign aid and the arms buildup. Is it accurate to describe citizens of the former Soviet Union as “taxpayers”? I thought the government basically took all the benefits of production and doled out compensation to workers itself, rather than taking merely a portion of the benefits of production in the form of tax. I’d appreciate if someone can give me some citations with their answer.

Zarathustra

2

All I found…

From The Baltics Worldwide:

3

Webster defines a tax as “a charge usually of money imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes”. For my money, that means that yes, Soviets were tax payers. Mighty heavy ones, I might add.

4

Soviet citizens were basically all welfare recipients. The government controlled business and the means of production, and all revenue went to the government, which then dished out monthly cheques to everyone. The amounts didn’t differ all that much, which is why the Soviets always tried to claim that everyone was equal.

In fact, the economy was much more complex than that. The Ruble was damned near worthless, so the amount of money you had didn’t count for much. What good is money if you can’t buy anything with it? Soviet citizens would walk around with giant wads of almost worthless cash on them, just in case something they could use might become available somewhere.

We in the west can’t really understand the mindset of the average Russian. For instance, there was a whole culture and etiquette that revolved around standing in line. If a Russian was walking home and saw a line, he was likely to join it even if he didn’t know what was at the end. After all, if people were lining up it must be something worth having, right?

There was no such thing as saving to buy a car, or saving for a better apartment. If you needed a car or an apartment, you applied for one to a state agency. Then you’d be approved or rejected, based on the state’s determination of whether or not you “needed” what you were asking for (that decision was also determined by greasing the right palm, or having the right connections in government. Cronyism was rampant in the USSR).

If you were lucky enough to get put on a waiting list, you could be in for a long wait - it could take ten years or more to get an apartment, and five years to get a car. And the apartment you got was likely to be a single-room 400 sq ft hovel. There were lots of Russians living in one-bedroom apartments with wife, kids, and grandparents.

Women generally paid the heaviest burden. A typical Russian woman’s day would look like this: Get up at 4-5 AM and make breakfast for the family and do daily chores like mending and cleaning (don’t ask about the food). About 7 AM, go off and work until 3 or 4. Then, get ready for the exciting part of the day - standing in line for 2 or 3 or 4 hours to pick up bread, meat, butter, or whatever other food you needed to feed your family that night, plus whatever other staples you needed to have. Get home at 6 or 7, make supper for the family, then get ready for that 1 or 2 hours of quality family time with six people crammed into 800 sq ft. before heading off to bed exhausted to do it again the next day.

But what about the equality? To each according to their needs, right? Isn’t that worth some sacrifice? Well, unfortunately the class structure in the Soviet Union was just about as varied as ours, only it wasn’t based on money. Rather, power and prestige got you ‘perks’ that made your life better. Sure, a Russian factory manager might make the same income as the workers or close to it, but the job came with a ID card that gets the manager into Moscow’s GUM department store, which carries excellent goods that aren’t available to the public.

Also, the manager might get a country Dacha (vacation cottage), and a big apartment or even a house. Plus, he or his wife won’t be standing in lines all day, because they get direct access to the goods as they become available (and through the GUM store and others like it, access to goods that are NEVER available to the average person).

Welcome to the worker’s paradise.

5

The same could be said about the British, and their fascination with queues.

6

Cite?

7

Wherever you think you reside, you’re always <country western singing> Deep In The Heart Of Tax-as</country western singing>
Or, in my case, “Deep in the Hole to Taxes”

8

Here, and what I’ve been told before by others curiously interested in the phenomenon. I never claimed that it was a scientific fascination, just using it as an example to debunk the Soviet-centred claim.

9

The second page of responses for searching for “British fascination with queues” gives this page:

So, I’m not just imagining it.

10

Sorry, montfort, I was in a foul mood with a raging hangover when I posted that. Point taken.

11

All right. Enough of the “let’s bicker about the British and queueing” hijack.

From the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, A.M. Prokhorov, Editor-in-Chief, Moscow: Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia Publishing House, 1974; translation New York: Macmillan, Inc., Maron L. Waxman, Editor; article “income tax”, volume 20, page 129: