The former Soviet Union imposed a childlessness tax in 1941 to encourage population growth, which lasted for five decades. Some were exempt, and Russia still faces negative population growth concerns. The Soviet Union also dug tunnels and drilled the deepest hole in the world.
Many countries offer tax credits to families with children, but that doesn’t mean that people without children will be penalized financially.
However, in the former Soviet Union, there was just such a tax in an attempt to encourage citizens to have children and thereby increase the country’s population. This so-called childlessness tax began in 1941, when Soviet leader Joseph Stalin imposed a 6 percent tax on men between the ages of 25 and 50 and married women between the ages of 20 and 45 who had no children.
The plan was in part to compensate for the losses it suffered during World War II, when the Soviet Union lost about 15% of its population, or nearly 17 million people (although some estimates put it as high as 27 million).
Some individuals were exempt from the tax, including many students, parents who had lost children in warfare, and people living below a certain income threshold.
The tax was in place for five decades, declining and finally defunct with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia continues to struggle with concerns about negative population growth (which is when a nation’s death rate exceeds its birth rate combined with its immigration rate). There has even been talk of reinstating the childlessness tax, but as of 2020, there are no such plans.
Soviet oddity:
Fears of nuclear war drove many Soviets to dig tunnels and fallout bunkers, including underground routes from the Kremlin to train stations.
Speaking of digging, between 1970 and 1992, the Soviet Union (and later Russia) drilled the Kola Superdeep well in the northwestern part of the country. It is the deepest hole in the world, descending 7.5 miles (12 km) into the earth’s crust.
To avoid embarrassing his nation with his love of an American drink, Soviet war hero Georgy Zhukov had Coca-Cola brewed in a clear form known as “White Coke.”
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