The right, even obligation, of the sovereign is to dip a straw in the stream of commerce and extract revenue. Tax farming was the way to do this in olden days,

The right, even obligation, of the sovereign is to dip a straw in the stream of commerce and extract revenue. Tax farming was the way to do this in olden days, a highly inefficient and grossly unjust means. Today the income tax is the predominant means, and it is sold as the socially just alternative. I don't want to argue the social justice aspect. I pointed out some contradictions in another comment. I will argue for an alternative that is far more efficient and retains progressive elements. In the U.S. the tax collection points number in the 100s of millions. This incurs cost on the sovereign, reducing the value of the collected revenue, and on the taxpayers, increasing the burden of the tax. It makes much more sense to switch to a system where the tax collection points number in the 10s of thousands, and the rules are transparent. Public utilities are already extremely efficient tax collectors. Take a close look at your utility bill. The taxes may have confusing names, but they are there, and the utility collects them and remits them to the sovereign with very small staffs implementing very simple rules (compared to the IRS tax code). Bear with me, I am now getting to the meat. Think of an energy transformation tax. Whenever energy is transformed (in most cases combusted), it is taxed. Somewhat like a value added tax, but only for energy. For instance, coal at the electrical generator: taxed; natural gas to heat a building: taxed; gasoline or diesel pumped into a vehicle:taxed; electricity at a meter: taxed. Utilities are already set up to do this. Just bring on oil and coal companies and a few others. Those are your tax collectors. Social justice / progressive tax? The utilities are also already set up to do this. So-called life-line or base-line rates on bare minimum consumption don't get taxed. Likewise a minimum level of gasoline and diesel consumption could be tax free to individuals. Energy consumption underpins virtually all economic activity. There is no escaping taxes in the underground economy. Energy theft can be made a special case of crime with appropriately draconian punishment. And do you really want to soak the rich? What do you think their energy footprint looks like compared to the common man's? Even when all they do is clip coupons. Concerned about rising CO^2 levels? Tax hydrocarbon conversion higher than others. That which you tax you get less of. That which you subsidize you get more of. The economic analysis of tax rates on different fuels is very feasible compared to analyzing the entire economy. I don't underestimate the capacity of elected politicians to complicate and demagogue anything, but an annual debate on energy conversion rates would be far more transparent than the budget process. Of course it would be a big shock to jump to such a system in a single year, and this has only been a brief outline of such a plan. Better to implement over several years and dedicate the IRS to catching tax cheats from the old (income-based) system while it is mostly phased-out.