emoluments

Benefit-in-kind. I arrived here hoping to find support for my assertion that it is really benefit-in-kine because kine is the old plural for cow. i.e. benefit in goods (live stock). Do I have any supporters and more important proof references?

That's a nice idea, but I can't find anything that supports it. 'Payment in kind' dates back to at least 1730, when it was referred to in the English Law of Tithes:

"Honey falls under the Rule of a Perfonal Tithe, and yet it is usually paid in Kind."
...
"She thought fit to transubstantiate their Nature from Personal to a Predial Tithe, and accordingly claim'd their Payment in Kind."

I's an ellipsis for "in the very kind of thing in question" - that is, in actual goods rather than money to the value of the goods. (VSD)

Kind, not kine. Think of cattle as very large denomination bills. Most debts would run one to two chickens at most. Got change for a goat?

BIK are a long-established phenomena in tax circles - income tax is charged against what a person is rewarded for performing their job - crafty folk would often disguise part of the pay package by some of it being 'in kind' - as in 'some other kind of reward' compared to cash. eventually, the inland revenue closed this loop-hole and taxed all emoluments, which include 'benefits in kind'. it appears on numerous forms and from recollection Statutory Instruments.

a cow is a big unit of barter currency, chickens etc would have been better as an example - I am strongly convinced that 'kind' is the origin and normal use.

L