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Should dog owners pay taxes?
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Photo by Lindsay Burkhardt
It’s tax day and if you haven’t filed, you are probably fretting, crunching numbers or standing in line at H&R Block. What you’re probably not doing is thinking about dog taxes. Why? Most places in American don’t have them. However, this fact wasn’t always the case. Our forefathers had dog taxes.
In the 1800’s, the township of Shrewsbury, NJ had dog taxes. They needed them because the role of dogs was widely different then than they are today. Dogs were owned, bred and used mainly to hunt and control other animals. As a result, when an occasional dog got loose, it wasn’t uncommon for him to kill a neighbor’s sheep or other livestock. A dog tax law was passed to compensate for these kinds of losses.
The dog tax law was exacted based on the number of dogs owned by someone. They had to pay a flat fee per dog and even have their name on a list. It was a tedious process that Americans accepted at the time.
Of course, these days, dogs are largely domesticated around America. They are in the house, on our laps and wait for us to go out and get food. Yet, the idea of a dog tax is an interesting one. Today, it would help compensate people who have to clean up the poop of other dog owners or the time it takes to clean up a tipped over trash can. Does this make you want to call your local senator? Okay. For most of us, probably not, but it is food for thought.
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