This was not a practice. Taxation, yes. Returning to province of origin, no. As a practical issue, taxes were actually collected through the odd process of farming out tax collecting to local residents of the provinces. This form of revenue collection was in full swing during the period stated in the bible. Below is an excerpt from an article whose URL is given below. Here is an example of having even a smattering of knowledge of history makes the bullshit of the bible glaringly apparent.

---"With expansion, Roman censors found that accurate census taking in the provinces was a difficult task at best. To ease the strain, taxes were assessed as a tithe on entire communities rather than on individuals. Tax assessments in these communities fell under the jurisdiction of Provincial governors and various local magistrates, using rules similar to the old system.

"Tax farmers (Publicani) were used to collect these taxes from the provincials. Rome, in eliminating its own burden for this process, would put the collection of taxes up for auction every few years. The Publicani would bid for the right to collect in particular regions, and pay the state in advance of this collection. These payments were, in effect, loans to the state and Rome was required to pay interest back to the Publicani. As an offset, the Publicani had the individual responsibility of converting properties and goods collected into coinage, alleviating this hardship from the treasury. In the end, the collectors would keep anything in excess of what they bid plus the interest due from the treasury; with the risk being that they might not collect as much as they originally bid.

"Tax farming proved to be an incredibly profitable enterprise and served to increase the treasury, as well as line the pockets of the Publicani. However, the process was ripe with corruption and scheming. For example, with the profits collected, tax farmers could collude with local magistrates or farmers to buy large quantities of grain at low rates and hold it in reserve until times of shortage. These Publicani were also money lenders, or the bankers of the ancient world, and would lend cash to hard-pressed provincials at the exorbitant rates of 4% per month or more."---

The full article: [unrv.com]

My 2 cents worth: first of Genesis starts with garden story and "being like God knowing good and evil" in English version. After that, they were to "be like God" working 6 days and taking a day off. Eventually, it evolved into the laws of Moses that the people were to follow and be like "God". Then because the were Gods Children, they grew up in 'law", teachings or Torah knowledge to be Gods. John 10:34 Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are "gods"'?

So, like having laws and following the laws makes people into God-people rather than jungle monkey-people

In the only historically recorded census around that time, that of Claudius. People were actually asked to say put and not to travel on the census day. But then the census of Claudius can not be made to fit the time of the nativity, neither can the reign of Herod or any of the Roman governors. Plus not only does the history not match that given in the new testaments, but they do not even get the geography of the holy land correct. So that you can only conclude that they were written by people who were not there at the time, and had never been there at any time.