Who were the Farmers-General created under Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s financial reforms?

Under the financial reforms of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the Farmers-General were a new syndicate of tax farmers created to manage the collection of indirect taxes in central and northern France.1

By rationalizing the gathering of these taxes and tightening the administration of the collection process, Colbert successfully increased the total revenue from indirect taxation from 36 million to 62 million livres. This initiative was part of his broader effort to improve the efficiency of the French financial system without introducing entirely new mechanisms.1