Something interesting I heard . . .

[indianasmith]

One of my friends said this in an Email I got today, discussing Rome:

In the time of Augustus, the average citizen of Rome worked two days a year to pay off his entire tax burden.

 

Does that sound accurate?

[caldrail]

It probably isn't. I certainly haven't heard of this before and it doesn't sound right to me. There were however 'tax farmers' who bidded for the right to collect tax in a set area, who effectively lent money to the Roman state and got their money back (and with some profit I imagine) via tax collection.

[indianasmith]

True, but the tax farmers, as I understand it, worked in the provinces, where most of the folks were subjects, not citizens.

 

I asked my friend where she heard this, and she said it was in a series of lectures by some Oxford professor about Rome that she listened to a couple of years back.  She also commented that he said it more than once, as an example of how efficient Augustus' administration of Rome was.

[caldrail]

I wouldn't get carried away with tales of Roman efficiency. They were capable of great feats of organisation but their whole society revolved around the concept of exploitation, which included loopholes in regulations or even what they could get away with. Their system of law was almost a collection of temporary regulation anyway, as time after time this or that was outlawed only to be carried on as normal a while later when everyone had forgotten the law existed.

 

Actually I was incorrect anyway - Augustus had made private tax farming a thing of the past, and instead instituted a more stable tax system, with taxes applied to sales and estates, and with fixed quotas on provinces. However, nowhere have I seen any demand for the citizenry of Rome to serve two days labour a year for Augustus. That's a very medieval concept, it doesn't sound Roman, and given the average preference for individual liberty, I find it hard to believe that the citizenry would tolerate that sort of social obligation easily. If I find evidence of this I'll happily eat my  words - but right now, I wouldn't accept this point.

[indianasmith]

That's not exactly what was meant, I think.  What I took from it was that, under Augustus, it took about two days' wages to satisfy the tax burden for the entire year (for citizens).

[caldrail]

But the Romans weren't taxed on earnings directly, so that equation is based on false assumption. Therefore the tax burden was weighted toward getting a percentage from those who gathered profit and status. Claiming there was an average tax obligation is just playing with numbers and different results could be easily demonstrated.

 

Also, citizens abroad were subject to some degree of greed at times. For instance, Varus, who had been a governor of Syria before Augustus sent him to tax the barbarians in occupied Germania, had left the province very much the poorer. So although Augustus set tax quotas for provinces, the old idea of 'tax farming' was still in use under a different guise, in this case provincial governors using their status and influence to collect taxes to satisfy their own books whilst a set amount of money was sent to Rome. Obviously some governors would be honest and fair, but lets be straight about this - Rome was an exploitative society and that fondness for greed was never far from their hearts. Indeed, late empire sermons point at the failings of Roman society.