WI: Roman Citizens Fix 3rd Century Crisis

I read somewhere recently that one of the chief reasons why the Crisis of the Third Century occured had just as much to do with money and imperial finances as it had to do with political and social strife.

Due to the ever expanding expenditure of the Roman military, the Roman state during the third century operated under the constant threat of bankruptcy. The imperial coffers, as they were, could not extract enough of tax revenue to pay for the military salaries, with one of the chief reason being the lack of taxation on two major classes: Slaves and Roman Citizens

So my simple question is what if one of the Emperors saw this major issue and decided to implement a small tax on Roman citizens to help pay for the expanding bureaucracy.
This could be in addition to lessening the obstacles to obtaining said citizenship, creating in essence a potentially ever expanding tax base.
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Could this have solved the financial crisis of the later Roman empire?

And if so, saved Rome, financially speaking, from collapse only a century later?
 
I read somewhere recently that one of the chief reasons why the Crisis of the Third Century occured had just as much to do with money and imperial finances as it had to do with political and social strife.

Don't forget climatic changes, external pressure (partially due to the climatic changes, and partially due to Sassanians), epidemics (that provoked the loss of a large part of the population and made the empire entering in a loop of a constant lack of manpower), possiblility of over-farming, civil disorders (as bagaudae) due to an increasing fiscal pressure, too great power of the military, etc.

Third Century Crisis was really a complex thing.

The imperial coffers, as they were, could not extract enough of tax revenue to pay for the military salaries, with one of the chief reason being the lack of taxation on two major classes: Slaves and Roman Citizens
Actually, citizens *were* taxed (and relatively heavily compared to other groups), which is why all the peregrines (non-citizen) of the Empire were made citizens by the Edict of Caracalla.

As for slavery, it's roughly the period where it began to decline, with the appearance of a semi-free peasantry : coloni.

Of course the debasement of the coinage, basically a hidden tax, provoked several issues; but basically, all fiscal tentatives of the era provoked problems, up to large-scale revolts.
 
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