In the 18th century, to discreetly tax rich people more, all the countries mentioned before, imposed window taxes based on the number of windows your residence had. It was originally introduced to make up for losses caused by clipping of coinage during the reign of William III.
The window tax was relatively easy to assess and collect as windows are clearly visible from the street. People tried their hardest to avoid what was considered this unfair tax by bricking up their windows. To this day you can see many bricked over windows from that time around the streets of those 3 countries.
Hopefully that tax won't show up again, and if it does, Bill gates will have to pay a huge amount of money.
