A thread on entertaining effects of taxes, tariffs, and bans 👇 A ban on exporting glass in Hong Kong:
Devon ☀️ @devonzuegel
28 Jan 2018
Incredible ingenuity has been devoted to dodging bans and taxes, and the results are hilarious
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The "oldest living woman" was likely just a tax dodge nitter.vloup.ch/albrgr/status/10…
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Suspiciously few Macbooks in Argentina...
Devon ☀️ @devonzuegel
20 Dec 2018
Noticed that few people in Argentina have MacBooks, even in coworking spaces. Turns out there are no Apple Stores in the country (apple.com/retail/storelist), and products sell for up to 3x as much in Argentina as the US due to taxes, tariffs, and inflation
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Mansard roofs started as a way to skirt Paris' poorly-conceived height restrictions
Devon ☀️ @devonzuegel
24 Jan 2018
Paris' iconic mansard roofs are the inventive result of a 20m height restriction on buildings that measured up to the cornice line
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Saigon's ridiculously skinny "tube house" buildings are a reaction a frontage tax
Devon ☀️ @devonzuegel
22 Mar 2018
At first I thought Saigon’s tall, skinny buildings were just a quirk, but increasingly extreme examples made me realize there must be something else going on… devo.nz/post/a-day-in-saigon
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Frontage taxes have had a similar effect in Tokyo...
Devon ☀️ @devonzuegel
29 Sep 2018
Replying to @devonzuegel
Frontage taxes strike again!
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... and in Amsterdam!
Bil Corry @bilcorry
29 Sep 2018
Replying to @WTjern @devonzuegel
Yes, Amsterdam used to tax the width of the house. holland.com/global/tourism/d…
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Colonial Spain wanted to reduce the amount of silver leaving the country, so they cut the number of ships allowed to cross the Pacific. The response? Ships became enormous!
Devon ☀️ @devonzuegel
9 Feb 2018
Another hilarious example of unintended consequences of tax incentives
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Replying to @devonzuegel
French Indochina wanted to be rid of rats and paid a bounty for each rat tail, so the locals bred and imported rats. (atlasobscura.com/articles/ha…)

Jan 9, 2019 · 4:16 AM UTC
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