The establishment of a new tax involved more than publishing a declaration. Now the French government either had to create a new bureaucracy to collect these funds, or had to give orders to the existing officials on how to handle the new revenues. In accord with previous practices, the clergy, the nobility, the various corporations of officers, and the pays d’états and their officers had to be pressured in some way to comply with the new tax. The problem of taxing the income earned by foreigners in France involved diplomatic issues as well. The pressures of war and the demand for money for the upcoming campaign season forced the government to make hasty decisions. Nonetheless, the government desperately wanted to avoid provoking rebellion by seeming to make arbitrary rulings on any of these matters.

The provincial intendants were pressed into service on all these decisions. Thus, the royal government took responsibility for the dixième at the very beginning rather than referring it to the Bureaus of Finances, the Treasurers of France, or the élus. Desmaretz asked that the provincial intendants draw up rolls listing the amount each taxpayer owed as soon as the declarations of income arrived rather than waiting for everyone to file declarations. The intendant was to send the government an estimate of the expected revenue from the dixième from his generality or province. He was also to send weekly accounts of receipts of the dixième along with reports on his activities to hasten the collection of this revenue. Unlike previous impositions, such as the taille or the capitation, which were apportioned to each province, election, and parish, the dixième was levied on property owners and those individuals who received income in the form of rentes, gages, etc. The government had no idea how much revenue the new tax would produce. The intendants were to expedite matters locally in order to give the government an indication of the total amount of money it could expect. There was no precedent on which to base any estimate of revenue.

The government wanted to collect the payment for the last quarter of 1710 immediately.