From For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization by Charles Adams (pgs 23-24):

Scholars have tried to determine what went wrong in Egypt under the Ptolemies, when an empire that had survived for over three thousand years simply withered and died. Little resistance was put up against the Romans when they invaded Egypt. Egypt had suffered no military disasters, famines, or plagues. The Nile delta was still the richest farming region in the world. The Ptolemies had been good kings. Egypt could have been the Romans' most difficult conquest, not the easiest.

Some scholars believe all civilizations have a life cycle like plants and animals and that Egypt simply died of old age. The Greek historian Polybius suggested that the civil war that incapacitated Egypt was caused by the Greek domination in the government. Polybius may have been partially correct, except it was not the Greek element itself that irritated the Egyptians, but Greek tax practices.

The most impressive analysis of Egypt's demise came from the great Russian scholar Rostovtzeff.z He believed, after a lifetime of study, that the decay in Egyptian society was the result of lawlessness in the bureaucracy, especially the tax bureau. The king could not restrain it, and his orders went unheeded. Rostovtzeff felt that the continual and unabated tyranny of Egyptian tax collectors produced a nationwide decline in incentive. Egyptian workers and farmers lost their desire to work-agricultural lands fell into disuse, businessmen moved away, and workers fled. Sound money disappeared with robbers who wrecked commerce and brought fear and despair to the populace. Boating and sailing along the Nile became as dangerous as walking at night on the back streets of New York and Detroit. In the end, thieves were no longer only in the tax bureau-they were everywhere.

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“…the decay in Egyptian society was the result of lawlessness in the bureaucracy, especially the tax bureau.”

If that's the same book 'pelipsky read, Pharaoh's IRS agents would break into Egyptian kitchens to find out if the housewife was using saved, and untaxed, bacon drippings for cooking purposes, rather than the TAXED Pharaoh's Own Olive Oil.

Good think that could never happen here.

The most impressive analysis of Egypt's demise came from the great Russian scholar Rostovtzeff.z He believed, after a lifetime of study, that the decay in Egyptian society was the result of lawlessness in the bureaucracy, especially the tax bureau. The king could not restrain it, and his orders went unheeded.

Here is the parallel with our situation, and this is the how of and the why of it:

In a constitutional republic there is no such thing as a king who is the law and ruler. In our case the controlling law and ruler at the fundamental center governing the courses of everything else in the governing system is the constitution and the rule of law. In our present case the constitution and the rule of law are the “king.”

Comrades, don't we all share the sheer pleasure of filling out the yearly tax forms in order to share our obscene profits with the many homeless families and fascist neo-con meth freaks throughout the feces-lined streets of the fruited plains? Sure, we celebrate April 15th, and the ancient Egyptians celebrated the Festival of Khoiak, and every year, the usual sounds of threats, fear, intimidation, and emotional scarring would come from the circle of elders. However, even now, our own leaders are finally taking steps to demand gifts for the divine. Of course, there will always be a few bad apples who offer nothing but negative things to say about a few armed pugilists showing up at your doorstep, the forced labor camps, and mass executions through injections which just ensures the continued goodwill from the god's leaders to the people. But while our progressive leaders' bask in the giddiness and the bright glow of NPR to ensure that the votes from the souls of the dead be counted, perhaps this would be the time to demand a federal maximum wage for both living and dead? This would go a long way to provide positive reinforcement for the great unwashed, our grizzled war veterans, and jingoist deplorable Nazis, which would simplify their extortion because Comrades, progressive leaders throughout history, seem to have always envisioned forcing valuable lessons about sharing with others. Those Egyptians knew a good thing in spite of the outcome....