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It's not really comparable to a private sector company. Anything the IRS employees formed by themselves would not have the authority to collect tax revenue on t

• alehul 8y ago
  Fun (maybe not applicable) fact here, but there is a huge history of privatizing tax collection. In fact, we coincidentally have that to thank for the foundation of logic and memory! Pascal, as a teen, essentially invented the calculator (albeit a very slow version) for his father; the device was called a Pascaline [0], and he built it because his father was a "tax collector" in 17th century France. In those days, tax collector meant that you would buy the right to collect 'x' in government taxes (and keep for yourself), for 'x - $discount', where $discount was the balance of 1) what the government believed was worth them avoiding collection themselves, 2) what the tax collector believed they could still reasonably profit from the difference of. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_calculator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_calculator
  • vageli 8y ago
    I had no idea tax collecting was outsourced in 17th century France. For others interested, I found a little bit more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferme_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale#Tax_farming_before_Colbert https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferme_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale#Tax_f...