Tax farming was a public financial management arrangement used anciently in Egypt, Rome, and Greece; also in medieval times in Spain and other countries. Governments needed services of a “farmer” to collect tax revenues, which were due to the statea state is an independent political entity with a centralized government and set geographical boundaries where control is exercised by police or military; a state claims the right to defend itself from both internal and external threats by use of force; a state may have many villages and cities and/or millions or billions of people as in China and India. Accordingly tax farming required on-site tax-collecting visits to communities by state employees. Tax yields were uncertain due to external forces such as bad weather, poor harvests, rebellions, wars, diseasea disease is a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant that produces specific signs or symptoms, or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury, or famines.
