Background:
The history of taxation in Palestine is long and complex, and is linked to colonialism and the various countries that ruled Palestine in modern history, which made taxation a tool for financing the regimes. It also aimed to subjugate and impoverish people, often leading to limited social revolutions or large tax evasions. Taxes were also used to deprive farmers from their lands to be concentrated in the hands of few feudalists affiliated with the ruling elite.
The “Israeli” occupation adopted the same well-known colonial tax practices. In fact, it imposed laws, decrees and military orders to collect taxes from Palestinians to impoverish them and make pressure to let them leave their country, and to expel them and confiscate their property. This forced Palestinians to rebel against these laws and taxes, either by evasion, by not declaring the full income and profits, or by direct confrontation and resistance as in the case of the civil disobedience of Beit Sahour, where most of the city’s residents refused to pay taxes and deal with the military administration of the occupation at the time.
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This is a part of "Taxes and Social Justice Policy Brief in Four Countries (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine)" studies
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