Tax Collection Custom

A research team went to a village somewhere between the jungles of Africa. Luckily for them, they reached the day when quite an interesting custom was to be performed. The custom was performed once a year as they confirmed and was performed in order to collect the taxes from every male of the region.

The taxes were to be paid in the form of grains. Everyone must pay pounds of grain equaling his respective age. This means a 20-year-old will have to pay 20 pounds of grain and a 30-year-old will pay 30 pounds of grain and so on.

The chief who collects the tax has 7 weights and a large 2-pan scale to weigh. But there is another custom that the chief can weigh only three of the seven weights.

Can you find out the weights of the seven weights? Also, what is the maximum age of the man that can be weighed for the payment of taxes?




Similar Riddles

Two trains start at the same time, one from Bangalore to Mysore and the other from Mysore to Bangalore. if they arrive at their destinations one hour and four hours respectively after passing one another, how much faster is one train running than the other?

Asked by Neha on 19 Apr 2022


A mules travels the same distance daily.
I noticed that two of his legs travels 10km and the remaining two travels 12km.
Obviously two mules legs cannot be a 2km ahead of the other 2.

The mules is perfectly normal. So how come this be true ?

Asked by Neha on 08 May 2021

_ _ _ IE _ _
_ _ _ IE _
_ _ IE _ _
_ _ IE _
_ _ _ _ IE

Like you see, some letters have gone missing from these words that contain the IE pair at some or the other place. The letters that will be used to fill the blanks are given below. Use them and form meaningful words. Can you do that?

A, C, D, F, H, K, L, M, N, N, O, R, R, S, S, S, T, T, Y and Y.

Asked by Neha on 22 Jul 2021


A large container is kept in open under the rain. Every passing hour, the water collected inside the container becomes double what it was.

In ten hours, the container is filled completely. Can you calculate how long would it have taken to be filled in half?

Asked by Neha on 05 Apr 2024

An octopus has 8 legs. A hippogriff has 6 legs and 2 pairs of wings. A sphinx has 6 legs and one pair of wings. Now we have all 3 kinds and a total of 18 insects in a cage. We have a total of 118 legs and 20 pairs of wings. How many insects do we have of each kind?

Asked by Neha on 13 Oct 2024

What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps?

Asked by Neha on 17 Mar 2025


A person was killed at a house party. When the police arrive, there are six people present in the house who are the friends of the victim. The name of the friends is Rohit, Aman, Nick, Gagan, and Randy.

Near the dead body, they find a few numbers written with blood by the victim on the floor. The numbers are 8, 5, 4, and 11.

The police arrests one of the friends for the murder. Whom did they arrest and why?

Asked by Neha on 04 May 2023

What does the following represent?

N N N N N N N

A A A A A A A

C C C C C C C

Teaser Puzzle

Asked by Neha on 04 Mar 2021

What comes
Once in a Year
Twice in a Month
4 times in a Week
6 times in a Day

Asked by Neha on 24 Feb 2022


Wednesday, Steve and Pam go to a restaurant to eat lunch. After eating lunch, they pay the bill. But Steve and Pam do not pay the bill. So…who does?

Asked by Neha on 26 Jun 2025

Hot Articles

Amazing Facts

Crossword puzzles

In the 1920s, people feared that crossword puzzles would contribute to illiteracy.