Mita was the Inca Empire’s labor tax requiring public service from communities.
Under the Inca system, eligible people supplied labor for a set period rather than paying money. Work could include building roads, terraces, temples, storehouses, and other state projects, or serving in the army. Communities organized the obligation, and the state supported workers with food and other provisions during service.
The mita helped the Inca state mobilize labor across a large territory where coinage was not the normal basis of taxation. It was part of a wider system that also relied on agricultural production, storage, redistribution, and local community organization.
The Spanish later adapted the term and used a coercive labor draft in parts of the Andes, especially for silver mining at Potosí. That colonial institution should not be treated as identical to the earlier Inca system, even though it borrowed the name and some organizational features.