A Roman-era latrine in Timgad in Algeria. Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Throughout history, governments have found creative ways to raise revenue, taxing everything from the essential to the absurd. Beyond familiar levies like income, property, and sales taxes, there have been taxes on bachelors, beards, hats, bricks, and even windows. In ancient Rome, the tax system included four main pillars: a cattle tax, a land tax, customs duties, and a tax on professional earnings. But Roman ingenuity didn't stop there—widows and orphans could be taxed, as could slave owners who freed their slaves. Among the more unusual and memorable of these levies was the urine tax. Introduced by Emperor Vespasian in the 1st century AD, this malodorous but profitable measure not only helped replenish the imperial treasury, it also gave rise to one of history’s most enduring financial maxims: pecunia non olet—“money does not stink.”
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