Interesting. I read a little bit more about it:

“In Scotland, a window tax was imposed after 1748, and a house had to have at least seven windows or a rent of at least £5 to be taxed[10]. The tax was particularly burdensome on poor families living in tenements, where assessors taxed the residents collectively[2].

The window tax had several unintended consequences, including the boarding up of windows and the construction of houses with very few windows to reduce tax bills. These measures had pernicious health and aesthetic effects[7]. The tax persisted for over a century and a half despite widespread protests and was finally repealed on July 24, 1851[1][13].

The saying "daylight robbery" is popularly believed to originate with the window tax, but there appears to be no scholarly support for this claim[1]. The tax also inspired changes in architecture, with some houses being built with exactly seven windows to avoid the tax after it was abolished for houses with seven or fewer windows in 1823[3].

The window tax is often cited as a historical example of the potential distorting effects of taxation, leading to serious adverse side effects on social welfare and resulting in obvious and costly misallocations of resources[5][7].”