According to Jacob Soil, who is a historian at the University of Southern California, ‘think tank’ is a term that is relatively modern. However, the concept of think tanks dates back to the 800s, when kings and emperors started arguing about taxes with the church. Inherently, a think tank is a policy institute which conducts research and by making it the basis, comes up with policies.
A think tank conducts research based on social policies, economics, technology, military, and political strategies. These policy institutes happen to be non-profit organizations and are hence exempted from tax in countries including Canada and the United States.