Papal income tax

For example, Pope Gregory IX in 1228 levied a one-tenth income tax to fund his war against Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor.

[2] By 1253, the phrase "ecclesiastical revenues and receipts" was defined more carefully, and interpreted to include temporalities as well as spiritualities.

[3] In 1274, the lessons from the past taxes were aggregated and compiled into a set of instructions for the collectors in France under the direction of Gregory X, in the tear that the Second Council of Lyon ordered a sexennial tenth.

[3] Fourteenth and fifteenth century popes leveled similar taxes for personal uses as well as for wars against the Ottoman Turks and others.

[2] Taxes could be imposed either on the universal church, the clergy of a single country, or even on a group of provinces.

Pope Innocent III was the first pope to impose an income tax.