A closer look

Tax evasion was functionally impossible in Edo Japan. The Tokugawa shogunate didn't care about your actual money; they cared about how much rice your farm could theoretically grow if you weren't lazy. They deployed surveyors to measure every single plot of land, assigning a strict 'kokudaka' (rice yield value) to each village. Even if your harvest failed, you owed that exact projected amount, ensuring the samurai class remained obscenely rich while peasants starved.