Vicesima hereditatium
{{Short description|Roman 5% tax on inheritance money}}
The Vicesima hereditatum was a Roman 5% tax on inheritance money.
History
No inheritance tax was recorded for the Roman Republic, despite abundant evidence for testamentary law. The vicesima hereditatum ("twentieth of inheritance") was levied by Rome's first emperor, Augustus, in the last decade of his reign.Jane Gardner, "Nearest and Dearest: Liability to Inheritance Tax in Roman Families," in Childhood, Class and Kin in the Roman World pp. 205, 213. The 5% tax applied only to inheritances received through a will, and close relatives were exempt from paying it, including the deceased's grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, and siblings.Gardner, "Liability to Inheritance Tax," pp. 205, 211. The question of whether a spouse was exempt was complicated—from the late Republic on, husbands and wives kept their own property scrupulously separate, since a Roman woman remained part of her birth family and not under the legal control of her husband.Gardner, "Liability to Inheritance Tax," p. 214; see further Bruce W. Frier and Thomas A.J. McGinn, A Casebook on Roman Family Law (Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 19–20, and Beryl Rawson, "The Roman Family in Italy" (Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 15–18. Roman social values on marital devotion probably exempted a spouse.Gardner, "Liability to Inheritance Tax," p. 214. Estates below a certain value were also exempt from the tax, according to one source,Cassius Dio [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/55*.html#25.5 55.25.5.] but other evidence indicates that this was only the case in the early years of Trajan's reign.Gardner, "Liability to Inheritance Tax," p. 205.
References
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