Centesima rerum venalium (
lit.'hundredth of the value of everything sold') was a 1% tax on goods sold at auction during the
Roman empire.
History
Tax revenues went into a fund to pay military retirement benefits (aerarium militare), along with those from a new sales tax (centesima rerum venalium), a 1% tax on goods sold at auction.[1] The inheritance tax is extensively documented in sources pertaining to
Roman law,
inscriptions, and
papyri.[2] It was one of three major
indirect taxes levied on Roman citizens in the
provinces of the
Empire.[3]
References
^Gardner, "Liability to Inheritance Tax," p. 205; Graham Burton, "Government and the Provinces," in The Roman World (Routledge, 1987, 2002), p. 428; Peter Michael Swan, The Augustan Succession: An Historical Commentary on Cassius Dio's Roman History Books 55–56 (9 B.C–A.D. 14) (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 178.
^Gardner, "Liability to Inheritance Tax," p. 205. A 2nd-century AD
epitaph for a Roman of
equestrian rank, for instance, lists procurator of the 5 percent inheritance tax on his
career résumé (CIL 10.482).