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The funny thing about GRRM's "argument" with Tolkein is that Tolkein wins even on GRRM's own terms. The logistics and economy of Westeros are a complete mess. Martin has 14th century armies fighting 17th century wars across 19th century distances backed up by 11th century agrarian technology and political organization. Ironically, no one has a coherent tax policy, and the difficult nitty gritty details of managing a medieval state or organizing a medieval military campaign are largely ignored in favor of "and then thr knights robbed, raped, and murdered everyone" grimdark "realism." GRRM knows a lot of good stories from the Middle Ages--the family drama of the War of the Roses, Shakespeare's history plays, events like the Black Dinner and Massacre of Glencoe (though, notably, his references are mostly early-modern or maybe very late medieval)--but his understanding of the actual history tends to be pretty shallow and not particularly well-researched.
Tolkein, by contrast, was a professor of medieval language and history, who actually knew quite a bit about the socio-politico organization of medieval societies. It's just that a lot of that information is kept in the background, and often implied rather than stated due to Tolkein's narrative focus. Aragorn's tax policy isn't described in the Lord of the Rings because it's not important to the story, but that doesnt mean Tolkein didnt think about it or that the Reunited Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor was somehow less realistic than The Seven Kingdoms.
We can piece together Aragorn's likely tax policy quite easily. He's the feudal monarch of a large, mostly agrarian society that was recently victorious in a massive war. Aragorn wouldn't have had much of a tax policy. The feudal lords of his kingdom might have their own tax polcies and remit some of that income upward, but their obligations to the king would be almost exclusively in the form of military service (likewise, Aragorn wouldn't be personally responsible for maintaining the local infrastructure, etc.). The crown would have been funded by a combination of rents from tenant farmers on the Pellenor fields and other parts of the royal demesne, fees/tolls on bridges, ferries, and ports, and likely some sort of commercial tariff on merchants operating in Minas Tirith (and maybe Pelargir, I don't recall how the chief port of Gondor is administered). And of course all of this would probably have been dwarfed by tribute/loot extracted from Morder and subjugated peoples to the East and South. None of this is spelled out in the book, but can be inferred from other details Tolkein does provide and due to the general verisimilitude with which these pseudo-historical societies are depicted throughout.
If Tolkein were alive today to debate GRRM and both were asked to describe their king's tax policy (GRRM can pick any of his kings he wants), I guarantee you Tolkein would provide a significantly more nuanced, complex, and historically authentic answer than GRRM could.
I know he has something of a mixed reputation around these parts (mostly due to his habit of assuming his expertise extends much farther than it does when commenting on modern geopolitics, though. I don't think he's terribly controversial when he stays in his lane), but historian Bret Devereaux has a really great series of blog posts discussing the historical authenticity of both authors' work (focusing on his specialty: ancient/medieval military logistics). I'd start here (https://acoup.blog/2019/05/10/collections-the-siege-of-gondor/).
Thanks for reminding me, I have all of acoup's LOTR content to dig into!
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