Empire and Cities: Taxation

Taxation is nowadays a prime public task, and an important body of public law on taxation exists. In the republic and early empire, taxes were farmed out by the Roman state to collecting companies (societates publicanorum).

The conditions of these contracts were a private matter. Only after many complaints by provincials about the oppressive behaviour of the companies did Nero publish the conditions of the contracts. At some point, however (the end of the second century according to some authors, but more likely later), levying the land tax (tributum) and its accompanying surcharges as well as the poll tax (tributum capitis) was entrusted to local decurions and put under the supervision of the praetorian prefectures and other offices, such as the comes sacrarum largitionum. Collection of customs dues remained farmed out. This was certainly the position by the beginning of the fourth century. The freedom from taxes which Italy had enjoyed was removed. The Theodosian Code includes a body of law on taxation which was needed to direct the provincial and local authorities and to ensure the equitable imposition and levy of taxes. It also contains procedural rules. The basis of the land tax at that time, and probably already by the end of the second century, was an evaluation of the productivity of land according to different categories. In the assessment a landowner had to declare lang=EN-US style='font-size:11.0pt;line-height:115%; font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>‘land: how many jugera have been sown in the last ten years; vineyards: how many vines they have; olive-groves: how many jugera and how many trees they have; meadows: which have been mowed in the last ten years and how many jugera; pastures: how many jugera are estimated; the same for coppices’.³⁶ On the basis of these statistics, the taxpaying capacity of every town was calculated, and at the higher levels that of every province, diocese, and prefecture. On the other side of the account, anticipated expenditures were added up. Using a proportional scheme, these were then redistributed by reference to prefectures, dioceses, provinces, towns, and finally landowners through indictiones. In this redistribution surcharges were included.³⁷ If later on more income was required in order to meet expenditure, a superindictio would be imposed. The poll tax was apparently a fixed sum. Legal challenges to the imposition of tax and charges were possible, and appeal was possible too, which led to some case law. The comes sacrarum largitionum was in fiscal litigation the highest judge.

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Source: Johnson David (ed). The Cambridge companion to Roman Law. Cambridge University Press,2015. — 554 p.. 2015

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