[Passed] Lex Tribūtō Salīnae

**Dirty Chai** · October 22, 2016, 02:36 PM

Lex Tribūtō Salīnae I. From now and henceforth, the SPQR enacts a salt tax on every salt-works and salt mine in territory governed by the SPQR and its provinces. A fifth of all produced salt will be seized or contributed to the provincial quaestors and publicani.
II. The fifth of salt will be collected every two months (thus, five times a year) and shipped to Roma where it becomes the direct property of the Aerarium and comes under the direct supervision of the Quaestors and their delegated administrators.
III. The collected salt will be sold in Roma and in other Italian markets at lower than average prices each year, five times a year.
IV. The Aerarium in Roma and its Quaestors are the top authority of this tithing, and the provincial quaestors and their publicani will answer to them and the praetors for any misconduct or suspected corruption.
V. Publicani, to incentivize their collections, will be entitled to keep 15% of all salt they collect on behalf of the state salt tax.
VI. All saltworks and salt mines wishing to sell, due to the state's forced price drop, will be sold to the state. The publicani will be incentivized to acquire these salt mines at reasonable prices by being offered small shares of the salt mine's future profit under public ownership.
VII. Publicly owned salt mines then will abide by a reasonable, low price fixed by the SPQR.

Effect: 1,000 Denarii/year goes into the Aerarium for each sea region the Romans control without contest. Ligurian, Balearic, Tyrrhenian, Sicilian, Adriatic, Ionian, Aegean Seas are controlled by Rome; 7 seas, 7,000 denarii per year.
Secondary Effect: Possibly forces the private saltworks into state hands; at which point the state will receive 2,000 denarii per sea region, instead of 1,000

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