Farming or tax-farming is a technique of
financial management
Financial management is the business function concerned with profitability, expenses, cash and credit, so that the "organization may have the means to carry out its objective as satisfactorily as possible;"
the latter often defined as maximizin ...
in which the management of a variable revenue stream is assigned by
legal contract
A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tran ...
to a third party and the holder of the revenue stream receives fixed periodic rents from the contractor. It is most commonly used in
public finance
Public finance is the study of the role of the government in the economy. It is the branch of economics that assesses the government revenue and government expenditure of the public authorities and the adjustment of one or the other to achiev ...
, where governments (the
lessors) lease or assign the right to collect and retain the whole of the tax revenue to a private financier (the farmer), who is charged with paying fixed sums (sometimes called "rents", but with a different meaning from the common modern term) into the
treasury
A treasury is either
*A government department related to finance and taxation, a finance ministry.
*A place or location where treasure, such as currency or precious items are kept. These can be state or royal property, church treasure or i ...
. Sometimes, as in the case of
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best kno ...
, the tax farmer was a government employee, paid a salary, and all money collected went to the government.
Farming in this sense has nothing to do with
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
, other than in a metaphorical sense.
Etymology
There are two possible origins for ''farm''.
Derivation from classical Latin
Some sources derive "farm" with its French version ''ferme'', most notably used in the context of the
Fermiers Generaux, from the mediaeval Latin ''firma'', meaning "a fixed agreement, contract", ultimately from the classical Latin adjective ''firmus'', ''firma'', ''firmum'', meaning "firm, strong, stout, steadfast, immoveable, sure, to be relied upon". The modern agricultural sense of the word stems from the same origin, in that a medieval land-"holder" (none "owned" land but the king himself under his
allodial
Allodial title constitutes ownership of real property (land, buildings, and fixtures) that is independent of any superior landlord. Allodial title is related to the concept of land held "in allodium", or land ownership by occupancy and defens ...
title) under
feudal land tenure might let it (i.e. lease it out) under a contract as a
going concern
A going concern is a business that is assumed will meet its financial obligations when they become due. It functions without the threat of liquidation for the foreseeable future, which is usually regarded as at least the next 12 months or the spec ...
(not as a
sub-infeudated fee
A fee is the price one pays as remuneration for rights or services. Fees usually allow for overhead, wages, costs, and markup. Traditionally, professionals in the United Kingdom (and previously the Republic of Ireland) receive a fee in cont ...
), that is to say as a unit producing a revenue stream, together with its workers, livestock and deadstock (i.e. implements), for exploitation by a tenant who was licensed by the contract, or ''firma'', to keep all the revenue he could extract from the holding in exchange for fixed rents. Thus the rights to the revenue stream produced by the land had been farmed by the lessor (therefore strictly perhaps the "farmor") and the tenant became the "holder of the farm", or to coin a word, "farmee". Because this was the form of the farming transaction most known to popular society, the word "farmer" became synonymous with a tenant of an agricultural holding.
Derivation from Old English
According to other sources, the word ''farm'' comes from
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...
''ferme'' ("farm, rent, revenue; revenue collected from a farmer; factor, stewardship, meal, feast"), from
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...
''feorm, farm'' ("provision, stores of food, supplies, possessions; provisions supplied to the king or a lord by a tenant or vassal; rent, feast, benefit, assylum"), from
Proto-Germanic
Proto-Germanic (abbreviated PGmc; also called Common Germanic) is the reconstructed proto-language of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
Proto-Germanic eventually developed from pre-Proto-Germanic into three Germanic bran ...
*''firmō, *firχumō'' ("means of living, subsistence"), from
Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo- ...
*''perk
wu-'' ("life, strength, force"). It is related to other Old English words such as ''feormehām'' ("farm"), ''feormere'' ("purveyor, grocer"), ''feormian'' ("to provision, sustain"), and ''feorh'' ("life, spirit"). The Old English word is stated by these sources as having unusually been borrowed by
Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functione ...
as ''firma'' or ''ferma'' and to have provided the
Old French
Old French (, , ; Modern French: ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France from approximately the 8th to the 14th centuries. Rather than a unified language, Old French was a linkage of Romance dialects, mutually intellig ...
''ferme'' "farm",
Occitan Occitan may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain.
* Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France.
* Occitan language, spoken in parts o ...
''ferma'' "farm". This is refuted by those sources which state ''firma'' to derive from classical Latin ''firmus''. The word continued the same senses of "rent, farmed office, source of revenue, feast". The meaning "rent, fixed payment", which was already present in the Old English word, was further strengthened due to the word's resemblance to the unrelated (so say these sources)
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''firmus'' ("firm, solid"), and ''firmitas'' ("security, firmness").
Valuation of a farm
The tenant of a farm can only make a profit if he makes a careful assessment of its value. Although modern
financial management theory has reduced such calculations to scientific formulae, the mind of the astute financier of past ages would have well understood the calculations involved, whether they were performed mentally or by making marks in the sand. An estimate is made of the long-term average yearly gross value of the revenue stream in question, which can be derived from examination of past records and accounts, adjusted for any new circumstances affecting the future. Then a discount for a risk element is deducted with a further discount deducted for the
time value of money
The time value of money is the widely accepted conjecture that there is greater benefit to receiving a sum of money now rather than an identical sum later. It may be seen as an implication of the later-developed concept of time preference.
The ...
. The risk in question relates to the possibility of some of the debts forming the revenue stream being defaulted on or paid late. This causes variability in the revenue stream. The resultant figure forms the maximum rent the tenant is willing to pay to the lessee of the farm. His profit becomes the excess of whatever revenues he can extract from the farm less the rents payable, less his administration, levying and collection expenses. The skill of the tenant of a farm is therefore firstly in negotiating a favourable rent which he does by overstating the riskiness (variability) of the cash flow stream in question and secondly in his management of the debts thus assigned to him, that is to say his skills as a debt-collector and manager in general. He must also be satisfied that he has the ability to enforce payment of the debts, ultimately by use of a court of law, in which he must pay the standard fee for bringing a suit, under the legal system generally instituted by the government authority which is the lessor of the farm. He does not act as the lessor's agent but as a principal.
Historical use
Roman Empire
Tax farming was originally a
Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
practice whereby the burden of
tax collection
A revenue service, revenue agency or taxation authority is a government agency responsible for the intake of government revenue, including taxes and sometimes non-tax revenue. Depending on the jurisdiction, revenue services may be charged with ...
was reassigned by the Roman State to private individuals or groups. In essence, these individuals or groups paid the taxes for a certain area and for a certain period of time and then attempted to cover their outlay by collecting money or saleable goods from the people within that area. The system was set up by
Gaius Gracchus
Gaius Sempronius Gracchus ( – 121 BC) was a reformist Roman politician in the 2nd century BC. He is most famous for his tribunate for the years 123 and 122 BC, in which he proposed a wide set of laws, including laws to establish ...
in 123 BC primarily to increase the efficiency of tax collection within
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
itself but the system quickly spread to the
Provinces
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
. Within the Roman Empire, these private individuals and groups which collected taxes in lieu of the bid (i.e. rent) they had paid to the state were known as ''
publicani
In antiquity, publicans (Greek τελώνης ''telōnēs'' (singular); Latin ''publicanus'' (singular); ''publicani'' (plural)) were public contractors, in whose official capacity they often supplied the Roman legions and military, managed the c ...
'', of whom the best known is the
disciple
A disciple is a follower and student of a mentor, teacher, or other figure. It can refer to:
Religion
* Disciple (Christianity), a student of Jesus Christ
* Twelve Apostles of Jesus, sometimes called the Twelve Disciples
* Seventy disciples in t ...
Matthew
Matthew may refer to:
* Matthew (given name)
* Matthew (surname)
* ''Matthew'' (ship), the replica of the ship sailed by John Cabot in 1497
* ''Matthew'' (album), a 2000 album by rapper Kool Keith
* Matthew (elm cultivar), a cultivar of the Ch ...
, a ''publicanus'' in the village of
Capernaum
Capernaum ( ; he, כְּפַר נַחוּם, Kfar Naḥum, Nahum's village; ar, كفر ناحوم, Kafr Nāḥūm) was a fishing village established during the time of the Hasmoneans, located on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. It ...
in the province of
Galilee. The system was widely abused, and reforms were enacted by
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
and
Diocletian. Tax farming practices are believed to have contributed to the
fall of the Western Roman Empire
The fall of the Western Roman Empire (also called the fall of the Roman Empire or the fall of Rome) was the loss of central political control in the Western Roman Empire, a process in which the Empire failed to enforce its rule, and its vas ...
in Western Europe.
Feudal England
Medieval English kings frequently made grants "in
fee
A fee is the price one pays as remuneration for rights or services. Fees usually allow for overhead, wages, costs, and markup. Traditionally, professionals in the United Kingdom (and previously the Republic of Ireland) receive a fee in cont ...
-farm", a form of
feudal tenure. An example is the following
writ
In common law, a writ (Anglo-Saxon ''gewrit'', Latin ''breve'') is a formal written order issued by a body with administrative or judicial jurisdiction; in modern usage, this body is generally a court. Warrants, prerogative writs, subpoenas, a ...
of King
William II (1087–1100) granting a
hundred court
A hundred is an administrative division that is geographically part of a larger region. It was formerly used in England, Wales, some parts of the United States, Denmark, Southern Schleswig, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Bishopric of Ösel–Wiek, C ...
to be held in fee-farm by
Thorney Abbey
Thorney Abbey, now the Church of St Mary and St Botolph, was a medieval monastic house established on the island of Thorney in The Fens of Cambridgeshire, England.
History
The earliest documentary sources refer to a mid-7th century hermita ...
:
William, king of the English, to all the sheriffs and barons
Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knigh ...
of Huntingdonshire
Huntingdonshire (; abbreviated Hunts) is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire and a historic county of England. The district council is based in Huntingdon. Other towns include St Ives, Godmanchester, St Neots and Ramsey. The popu ...
, greeting. Know that I have granted the Hundred of Normancross
Between Anglo-Saxon times and the nineteenth century Huntingdonshire was divided for administrative purposes into 4 hundreds, plus the borough of Huntingdon. Each hundred had a separate council that met each month to rule on local judicial and ta ...
to the abbot
Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. The ...
and monks of Thorney to be held in fee-farm for an annual rent of 100 shillings which I order them to pay to my sheriff at Huntingdon. And I forbid any of my officers to do them injury or insult in respect of this.
Medieval Egypt
The
Chief Rabbi of
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Medit ...
,
Sar Shalom ben Moses
Rabbi Sar Shalom ben Moses HaLevi (Hebrew: שר שלום בן משה הלוי) (Arabic: يحيى أبو زكري, ''Yaḥyā'' ''Abū Zikrī;'' d. 1204) also called Zuta was the last of the Egyptian geonim, he controversially held office in Fustat ...
was accused of tax farming, which led to his excommunication by
Maimonides
Musa ibn Maimon (1138–1204), commonly known as Maimonides (); la, Moses Maimonides and also referred to by the acronym Rambam ( he, רמב״ם), was a Sephardic Jewish philosopher who became one of the most prolific and influential Tora ...
.
Ottoman Empire
The ''
iltizam
An Iltizām (Arabic التزام) was a form of tax farm that appeared in the 15th century in the Ottoman Empire. The system began under Mehmed the Conqueror and was abolished during the Tanzimat reforms in 1856.
Iltizams were sold off by the gov ...
'' () tax-farming system was established under Sultan
Mehmet II
Mehmed II ( ota, محمد ثانى, translit=Meḥmed-i s̱ānī; tr, II. Mehmed, ; 30 March 14323 May 1481), commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror ( ota, ابو الفتح, Ebū'l-fetḥ, lit=the Father of Conquest, links=no; tr, Fâtih Su ...
and was officially terminated in 1856 during the
Tanzimat reforms.
Other uses
Besides the Romans, historical examples include the tax collection methods of the
Ptolemies,
Seljuks
The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; fa, سلجوقیان ''Saljuqian'', alternatively spelled as Seljuqs or Saljuqs), also known as Seljuk Turks, Seljuk Turkomans "The defeat in August 1071 of the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes
by the Turk ...
,
Mamluks,
Ottomans, the
French State prior to Louis XVI (see
ferme générale
The ''ferme générale'' (, "general farm") was, in ''ancien régime'' France, essentially an outsourced customs, excise and indirect tax operation. It collected duties on behalf of the King (plus hefty bonus fees for themselves), under renewable ...
), and
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
prior to 1862 and the
Dutch East Indies (see
pacht
The institution of the ''pacht'' or ''pacht-stelsel'' (revenue farm, pl. ''pachten'') was a system of tax farming in the Dutch Republic. In this system tax is not collected by the government, but by a private individual who has leased the right to ...
) prior to the twentieth century. In many cases, such as the
Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...
practice of
Iqta
An iqta ( ar, اقطاع, iqṭāʿ) and occasionally iqtaʿa ( ar, اقطاعة) was an Islamic practice of tax farming that became common in Muslim Asia during the Buyid dynasty. Iqta has been defined in Nizam-al-Mulk's Siyasatnama. Administrat ...
, these rights were granted by an authority, in this example the caliph, for services rendered or promised. In the Byzantine ''pronoia'' system, similar rights were often purchased from the crown. Though such arrangements in some respects seem similar to the feudal system, there are significant disparities, including continuance of state power and, at least in the case of ''pronoia'', theoretical time limits on the grant. In many cases, including those mentioned, tax rights were not transferable or divisible, unlike feudal fiefdoms.
Advantages
Tax farming was an important step in the history of
economic development
In the economics study of the public sector, economic and social development is the process by which the economic well-being and quality of life of a nation, region, local community, or an individual are improved according to targeted goals and ...
by providing a method for collecting taxes across a large area without the need for a tax-collecting
bureaucracy, or during periods when such a bureaucracy is unworkable or impossible to maintain. Systems of tax farming similar to the Roman model were used in
Ptolemaic Egypt, various medieval Western European countries, the
Ottoman and
Mughal empires, and in
Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...
China. As states become stronger, buoyed up by revenues brought in by tax farming, the practice was discontinued in favour of centralized tax collection systems. In part this was because tax farming systems tended to rely on wealthy individuals outside the state machinery,
gang
A gang is a group or society of associates, friends or members of a family with a defined leadership and internal organization that identifies with or claims control over territory in a community and engages, either individually or collective ...
s, and
secret societies
A secret society is a club or an organization whose activities, events, inner functioning, or membership are concealed. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence a ...
.
Disadvantages
The key flaw in the tax farming system is the tension between the state, which seeks a long-term source of taxation revenue, and the tax farmers, who seek to make a profit on their investment in as short a time as possible. As a result, tax-farmers often abuse the taxpayers in various ways, tending them to switch their economic activity from strategic long-term projects to short-term revenue generation. In
barter
In trade, barter (derived from ''baretor'') is a system of exchange in which participants in a transaction directly exchange goods or services for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money. Economists disti ...
systems, tax farmers commonly undervalue
taxes in kind, reselling the goods to create a second profit source. Such abuses stifle economic growth by restricting the ability of the tradesman to reinvest in his business, limiting the quantity of taxes generated over the long-term.
Modern-day
Indian sub-continent
In Bangladesh and India tolls on bridges and roads and dues from public properties such as lakes and forests are often leased to private persons or firms.
Disambiguation
Privatized tax collection
Tax farming is not synonymous with modern
privatized tax collection, where private individuals or companies collect taxes and pass them to the state in return for a commission or fee, without bearing any risk consequent of default by the taxpayer. Tax farming is
speculative
Speculative may refer to:
In arts and entertainment
*Speculative art (disambiguation)
*Speculative fiction, which includes elements created out of human imagination, such as the science fiction and fantasy genres
**Speculative Fiction Group, a Per ...
, meaning that the tenant of the farm bears the full risk of defaulted debts. In addition, a tenant is often required as a term of the lease to make an early rent payment, which must be financed from his own resources until the revenue stream subject to the farm has started to be collected.
Factoring
In the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, some tax collection of "lower value debts" by
HMRC
, patch =
, patchcaption =
, logo = HM Revenue & Customs.svg
, logocaption =
, badge =
, badgecaption =
, flag =
, flagcaption =
, image_size =
, co ...
has been outsourced to
debt collection agencies
Debt collection is the process of pursuing payments of debts owed by individuals or businesses. An organization that specializes in debt collection is known as a collection agency or debt collector. Most collection agencies operate as agents of ...
from July 2010. However, debt collection agencies, like invoice factors, are not truly farmers of revenue streams, as they do not bear any risk of default. Rather they make loans in expectation of future receipts, such loans being always recoverable and secured on the income stream itself.
Simple commutation
In 1999 the National Board of Revenue in Bangladesh (NBR) negotiated with cigarette producing firms a minimum amount of
Value Added Tax (VAT) that should be paid per month even though VAT is an ''
ad valorem
An ''ad valorem'' tax (Latin for "according to value") is a tax whose amount is based on the value of a transaction or of property. It is typically imposed at the time of a transaction, as in the case of a sales tax or value-added tax (VAT). An ...
'' tax, that is to say of variable yield. The NBR took this step because under the self-clearance system monitoring of production and sales of cigarettes proved to be difficult. It was agreed that if the cigarette producing firms paid the minimum revenue fixed by the NBR, physical monitoring would be withdrawn. The NBR resorted to this technique of financial management to avoid the large costs of monitoring while gaining more in revenue with certainty.
[Chowdhury, Faizul L. ''NBR's attempt at Tax Farming - fixed amount of VAT on Cigarettes in 1999'', 2007 : Desh Prokashon, Dhaka.]
See also
*
Fee farm grant
In English and Irish law, a fee farm grant is a hybrid type of land ownership typical in cities and towns. The word ''fee'' is derived from fief or fiefdom, meaning a feudal landholding, and a fee farm grant is similar to a fee simple in the se ...
*
Hollow state
*
Maona
A maona ( ar, معونة ''ma‘ūnah''; ; ar, معاونة ''mu‘āwanah''; ) also as mahona (pl. mahone) or societas comperarum was a medieval Italian association of investors formed to manage the purchased shares (''loca'' or ''partes'') of ...
*
Octroi
Octroi (; fro, octroyer, to grant, authorize; Lat. ''auctor'') is a local tax collected on various articles brought into a district for consumption.
Antiquity
The word itself is of French origin. Octroi taxes have a respectable antiquity, bein ...
*
Pacht
The institution of the ''pacht'' or ''pacht-stelsel'' (revenue farm, pl. ''pachten'') was a system of tax farming in the Dutch Republic. In this system tax is not collected by the government, but by a private individual who has leased the right to ...
: the system of tax farming in the
Dutch East Indies
*
Privatized tax collection
*
Public-private partnership
References
{{reflist, 2
Further reading
* Chowdhury, F. L. (2007): ''NBR's attempt at Tax Farming – fixed VAT on Cigarettes in 1999'', Desh Prokashon, Dhaka.
* Levi, M. Of (1988), ''Rule and Revenue'', California Series on Social Choice and Political Economy (13), University of California Press.
* Stella, P., (1992) ''Tax Farming: A Radical Solution for Developing Country Tax Problems?'' (September 1992). IMF Working Paper No. 92/70.
External links
Roman Taxes
Public finance
History of taxation
Land tenure