The French court paid the price for this during the Reign of Terror. Some parts of the terror were more terrible than others, however. In an early version of Proposition 13, the people rounded up the tax farmers, tried them in people's courts, and condemned them to death. As heads tumbled, the taxpayers cheered. As a result, the revolutionary government abolished tax farming, and, to this day, France prohibits private companies from collecting taxes.
Capitalism is a productive, efficient, and powerful organizer of human energies.
This also shows us that while privatization is a useful political strategy, it is not a first principle of government. For one thing, it begs the question of what a free society should allow in the first place. We should no more privatize Treasury Department functions than those of the Federal Reserve System. It is important to advocate the abolition of agencies that are inherently illegitimate, as it is the privatization of such proper services as garbage collection. As regards taxes, if government is going to raise them, the least it can do is assume the responsibility, and the blame, for collecting them.