''Centesima rerum venalium'' (literally hundredth of the value of everything sold) was a 1% tax on goods sold at auction.

History

Tax revenues went into a fund to pay military retirement benefits (''

aerarium militare The ''aerarium militare'' was the military treasury of Imperial Rome. It was instituted by Augustus, the first Roman emperor, as a "permanent revenue source" for pensions ''(praemia)'' for veterans of the Imperial Roman army. The treasury derive ...

''), along with those from a new sales tax (''centesima rerum venalium''), a 1% tax on goods sold at auction. The inheritance tax is extensively documented in sources pertaining to

Roman law Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (c. 449 BC), to the '' Corpus Juris Civilis'' (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Ju ...

, inscriptions, and papyri. It was one of three major indirect taxes levied on Roman citizens in the

provinces A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

of the

Empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...

.Burton, "Government and the Provinces," p. 428.

References

Taxation in ancient Rome {{tax-stub