A predecessor of the modern property tax was a tax levied on dwellings based on the number of windows they had. (The window tax was introduced in England in 1696 by King William III.) Oates and Schwab (2015) estimated that raising an additional $1 of tax revenue through the window tax generated an additional $0.23 of excess burden, as a result of residents reducing the number of windows. The authors noted that, despite its evident inefficiency, the window tax persisted over a long period, perhaps because “these were years of intense fiscal pressures, involving at various junctures massive military expenditures.” Based on these observations, discuss the relevance of each of the three views of the property tax for assessing the equity and efficiency consequences of the window tax.