Household Tax

(in Russian, podvornoe oblozhenie), a system of direct taxation of households. Beginning in the 1630’s, the household periodically served as the unit on which certain direct and special taxes were levied. As a result of the census of 1676–78 and the compilation of perepisnye knigi (census rolls), the government in 1679 introduced the household tax in place of the sokha tax, based on the sokha, a measure of land. This increased the number of taxpayers by including previously exempt categories of the population.

The highest household taxes were levied on posadskie liudi (merchants and artisans) and those state peasants who had been subject to the sokha tax. Peasants on private estates paid much less, since the government took into account the payments that these peasants made to their landlords. The total amount of the household tax was set by the government, but the peasant commune and the posad (suburb) authorities had the right to apportion the taxes among the households according to the householder’s wealth. The household tax system was preserved until 1724, when it was replaced by the poll tax. In the Ukraine and Byelorussia, the household tax was collected until the second half of the 18th century.