Fall of Rome through the tax system

All trading activities used to be taxed and it remained to be a burden to the new traders. Tributun was the popular type of tax in the republic and was a type of tax on how much wealth you are endowed with. The citizens of Rome didn’t need to pay this type of tax unless financial crisis arose. All other non-citizens had to pay Tributun on each type of property they had acquired 1. From, this perspective the foreigners were being discouraged in existing to the country. Other forward changes which Caesar did included inheritance tax, which was used in providing money for people who had retirement from the military sector 2. This tax formed a percentage of 5% of the all the inheritances one received with exception gifts offered to children.

Among all other types of taxes inheritance tax had the powerful impact as it changed the life of people. Many military retiree had the means of survival at their old age. The ancient Rome had sales tax which was 4% of the made by the traders and 1% for the citizens 2. Even the senators’ who were responsible for economic matters of the community were still affected in their regions. Following the directive of Constantine, the burdens of tax where put into one groups of people called the senatorial who were made the hereditary and this meant economic changes and debts could be move from one generation to the other 3. This resulted to ruining of families and not giving space for the economy to recover.

The argument for this paper is on whether the taxes paid by the romans were excessive or not and if they resulted to fall of the empire. The conclusions made on the system of taxation that was exercised was expensive compared to per capital income. The state kept to lose its power and land owners realized how their survival was under threat due to the burden of taxation which was to fall on them. Not only the tax but the laws made on property were not favorable at all. In holder for the property to be on their acquisition their turned their attention on the political matters of the state to ensure there is safety of their property through influencing rules made.

The state decided to protect the properties of landowners as they contributed revenue and ensures security people outside as tax continued to increase for the low class people. The poor economic policies of Rome resulted to military problems and this is the security of any state. The soldiers who had been trained well protected themselves and gave priority the mercenaries to do hand to hand combat 5. When the western army lost discipline and became barbaric it led to loosing of its tactics. Soldiers had quite many other duties to play in the society and lived together with their families. When the barbarians turned in pushing to invade Rome, the soldiers were not strong enough to fight as they lacked man-power. Economic challenges led prolonged military commands as commanders used to say they needed extra time to end military campaigns.

Troubles of the roman army is the cause of the fall of the western empire of the state, but also the society issues caused the decline 6. The society and the army interacted as one entity for better performance. The community issue in different levels of developed affected the army activities. Other issues of downfall of the society included racial and religion tensions. The poor who large in number used to be highly taxed for the support of the army and this population represented the peasant farmers who owned little lands. "Roman and Anglo-Saxon Agrarian Conditions. " The Quarterly Journal of Economics 7, no. Rathbone, Dominic. "Egypt, Augustus and roman taxation. " Cahiers du Centre Gustave Glotz 4 (1993): 81-112. "Roman Taxes | UNRV. Com". Unrv. Com, 2018, https://www.