Britannian Tax Council

The Britannian Tax Council is the, as name name says, government agency in Britannia responisble for calculating the taxes for each individual and collection of the taxes.

While such an agency is of course needed in every state that wants to finance itself, the BTC over time became a bloated bureaucratic monster with little to actually control it. In Ultima VII, it's forms were really complicated, the taxes for some people simply astronomical and it used its power to deepen the class system of Britannia and hold down the non-rich. As a result, the BTC had become a huge problem.

Just how draconic they could be shows the case of Murray and Myrtle in Yew. They had literally lost their last shirt and lived as nudists in the Bee Cave, because of the Tax Council.

Trivia

 * Patterson is the president of the Tax Council, so it is very possible that he used it to create fricition in Britannia to get more people to join the Fellowship, so that the Guardian could take over easier.
 * How corrupt the system is can be seen in the explanation Cynthia gives the Avatar. The taxes are also used to maintain the estates of rich people.