Thread by @finshots

Some of the weirdest tax rules around the world.

A thread...

1. Pro-cigarette smoking tax revenue : Smokers around the world are used to paying high taxes on cigarettes that are levied by governments to dissuade smoking.

However, in 2009, China was facing a tough economic crisis, and the majority of local taxes were derived from cigarette sales.

So the citizens of the central-Chinese Hubei province were given a weird choice - to either smoke cigarettes or face a fine.

2. Junk Food Tax: If you’re hungry in Hungary, you better look for something other than junk food, or else you’ll have to pay the country’s junk food tax, officially called the public health product tax.

This tax is levied on packaged snacks high in salt and sugar – as well as sodas and energy drinks.

The tax was introduced to reduce “consumption of food products that are not useful from a public health point of view and to promote a healthy diet."

3. Wine Equalization Tax & 16 Beer Tax Rates: Getting drunk in Australia could be an expensive affair if you’re not mindful about the type of alcohol you buy. That’s because these products are taxed based on the alcohol content.

So the merrier the drink makes you feel, the higher the tax rate. For instance, there’s a wine equalization tax of 29 percent of the wholesale value of wine. For beer alone, there are 16 different tax rates in the country.

4. Cow Tax: Well, you can call it the methane tax, or the cow tax, or the flatulence tax, but the bottom line is that Denmark has adopted this strange tax strategy to take on climate change.

We’re talking about taxing farmers or people who own cows, for owning cows — because cows are among the most significant producers of methane in the world. This is done in order to curb greenhouse gas emissions.