[IAmBroom]

Not only are most folk etymologies about acronyms pure hooey, but most historical explanations that involve tax-dodging are, too.

Take for instance the upper-story medieval buildings that jut out over the first floor. NEVER done for tax reasons; ALWAYS done for a perfectly simply structural reasons. For the tax story to have an ounce of truth, there would have to have been invariant, multi-country, identical tax laws about footprints of houses.