Quayboardwarrior, that is not more than 10%, it’s just a different ten percent. Many people in those times dealt and traded wiith produce and herds, not necessarily coins, so that’s how they gave their ten percent of maaser.
And it’s ridiculous to mention challah, how much does that cost per batch of dough? Not even a few pennies per many dollars that comes in (if one sells baked goods). For the size of a half an egg of dough you take off you get 5 full sized challos and many bilkes, the loss of a few pennies is irrelevant according to money that comes in per batch, it’s WAY LESS than a percent.
Bringing up bikkurim is all irrelevant, a few fruits out of entire orchards does not prove your point of giving away more than ten percent. It just shows how little Hashem asked from us.
The bottom line is that a person gave away 10% of their income in whatever form it was, and a few fruits and an animal or bird, dough, etc. did not mean giving away more than 10% of one’s income.
Those living in Eretz Yisroel have other forms of maaser nowadays too besides giving away ten percent of one’s income to tzedaka and we all take challah too. If that affects in any way anyone’s net income then they are in very bad shape indeed. My point is that it has no affect, other than a few pennies or dollars, to our net income. It doesn’t make a dent in our net income but taxes nowadays could skin people alive.
The only time people were obligated to give away more than ten percent of their income was during shmitta. But only God can expect to make such demands of people because He promised to give back many times over what farmers lost.