New Tax Man from Ancient Rome

[Ludovicus]

As the Huffington Post Investigative Fund reported this week, big banks and hedge funds in the U.S. have been quietly collecting taxes on hundreds of thousands of homes. The process, called "tax farming," is simple: A company goes to a local government and reimburses it for taxes that citizens aren't paying. In return, the company gets to act like an old-fashioned tax thug -- the kind rabbis condemn in the Bible -- charging up to 18 percent interest and thousands of dollars in legal fees, simply because it can. As the District of Columbia attorney general told the HuffPost Investigative Fund, there's "no oversight at all."

 

Modern American tax farms, like their Roman counterparts, lack government oversight. But the Romans, at least, had an excuse. The republic, and later the empire, was huge, and ancient technologies made transportation and communication difficult. As Edgar Kiser, of the University of Washington, and Danielle Kane, then of the University of Pennsylvania, say in a 2007 paper, that hugeness motivated Roman governments to turn to privatized tax collection in the first place. With tax farms, the government knew it would get paid. It didn't care -- it couldn't afford to care -- how

the publicani came up with the money.

For the entire article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/22/tax-farming-private-collectors-rome_n_772178.html

Edited October 22, 2010 by Ludovicus

[Kosmo]

Publicani were fleecing conquered subjects while the modern banks are going after their own citizens. Actually I am not surprised given that Americans gave their companies the right of free speech and to secretly take part in politics. They even allow them to create their own proofs against their opponents in court cases, like the scandal with the mortgage affidavits shows.

[Ludovicus]

Yes, I agree. Here banks used to provide capital to finance production.

Now they gamble on the stock market or, as in the article I quoted above, the become the tax collector. They don't seem to have an interest in creating wealth any more.

Edited October 23, 2010 by Ludovicus

[GhostOfClayton]

The problem is that they're almost obligated to do those things you mention . . . all the other banks are doing it, and if an individual bank wasn't, they wouldn't be as competitive/profitable, and the shareholders would vote with their feet.