All hail sales tax!
Taxing certain goods dates back as far as 4,000 years. Ancient Egypt taxed cooking oil, for instance. The tax was levied on a product people had to buy and were forbidden to reuse (coincidentally, the Pharaoh had a monopoly on production).
Imperial Rome’s Julius Caesar is considered to have implemented a proper sales tax, a 1% flat rate across his entire Empire. Later, Caesar Augustus boosted the rate to 4%.
Source: taxconnex.com
