For context, back in the day, tax collectors were private entities. They would bid with the king or whatever to pay the taxes up front for a particular area for a year, then collect from the community to make back their money. The difference between what they collected and what was paid to the king was their profit margin. So, the tax collector they are talking about here is more akin to a blood sucking middle man/speculative investor type than the sort of tax collector we’d think of today.