Taxation as theft.

[Truthseeker]

If any national government, particularly including the USFG, is truly bettering the world than the world would be absent that government, I would not be defending the proposition that taxation is theft.

(Of course it is not really if people don't begrudge paying to the State. However many people do wish to be allowed to do whatever they want with the money in their pockets.)

Those fellas and ladies who think taxation is theft indeed need to justify the implicit assumption that the world is better off because of any national government. Really? Please do justify that proposition. I think that at least you'll realize that you had never considered questioning that before.

Socrates said a life unexamined is not worth living.

[Leonhard]

Crank alert.

[Cerebrum123]

Crank alert.

After having my life saved by someone who many were calling a "crank" I tend to ignore that pejorative entirely. I tend to distrust "experts" for the opposite effect they had on my life.

[Darth Ovious]

I know of a couple of good members of tweb who hold to the political philosophy that taxation should be regarded as theft. I don't really know how that can make sense. However the more important question is, if we take this proposition seriously. Why is tax fraud then wrong?

From what little I've come across on the internet, the person who coined the term in the eighties, used it to justify tax resistance.

Not least to say I don't understand how anyone can imagine a tax-free government to work.

Anyone who hold to this view who'd mind to explain. Is it something you take seriously, or is it just a rhetorical device to get people to think about morality and government?

I suppose I'm one person who should answer this.

When a person earns money they are earning that money by performing work for a certain party (i.e. company, person or private entity). The government is not involved in this arrangement. The only exception being of course if the entity you work for is the government themselves and in those instances the government gets that money from taxing individuals who do work for private parties in the first place.

So after they have performed this work in exchange for money, the government then comes along and takes a certain percentage of it despite the fact that this person has never accepted to giving the government money for their labour, let alone decided what percentage they should give to the government in the first place. Some individuals may be willing to accept giving some of their money to the government, especially in exchange for services provided to the public. However whenever a person thinks they are paying tax when they shouldn't be or if they think they are paying too much tax then technically this means that the government is stealing money from them. They are inadvertently forcefully taking money off of people that they quite frankly do not wish to give. And since these sort of transactions are done on an individual basis then the thefts are also done on an individual basis.

I will use the UK as an example.

Income tax first started in the UK as a means to fund the war against Napoleon. Now did the UK government scrap the tax after the war had ended? No they did not, instead they kept taking it off the people and used it for other things. So note that when the reason for claiming the need for the tax disappeared they of course invented new reasons why they needed to keep taking this tax from the people. Of course the problem is that not everybody wants or needs the things that this money then goes into. Governments have a horrible track record of just increasing tax more and more to fund their pet projects and a lot of the time these pet projects don't actually do any good. Now and again some governments may decrease tax but overall tax has been increasing over time. Pointing to Sweden may be a good example at this point.

This is why it is important to understand that tax if theft. You might consider it to be necessary in some cases but it just makes it necessary theft. If you let this fact slip out of your mind then you are accepting that your hard earned cash is being used to fund things which could be against your will. i.e. Funding of abortions as an example. Without this limitation in mind then there is no reason to argue against the state taking all your money away and leaving you with nothing, the defence can always be made that the government will give you it back in some form of benefit even if it's one you don't agree with. I also don't think I am being unrealistic in this assessment since under communist Russia it was the states responsibility to feed people and they failed in the matter and that people went starving because they interfered in the private transactions of workers and their employers to a ridiculous degree.

[Darth Ovious]

Its just a term I don't get. I suppose they'd say that my landlord isn't stealing from me, even though I'd rather not have to pay rent. Without knowing, I imagine that they point out that I've consented to living here, signing a contract.

The property is owned by your landlord. You are renting the use of the property from him. It would be theft if you decided that you wanted to live there rent free and not pay them. As a landlord it is also their right to ask you leave and move out too since they actually own the property and not you.

On the other hand......... the money you work for and earn is YOURS and not the governments.

Yet why can't I say the same about them? It wasn't by consent that they were born, but they're certainly staying in their country, or not, by their own consent.

What are the assumptions here? Are we assuming that the government owns the land? I don't think that is an assumption I need to accept. For one thing a person doesn't get any autonomy for themselves until they are legally considered an adult anyway (age 16 in UK).

Another assumption is that you are assuming that people can just pack up and leave and be accepted into another country without any problems. I don't know one place in the world where you can go without having to pay tax anyway.

Also why leave when you can fight for change? And lots of people have left their country because of high taxes, so some people do decide to leave instead of staying. Especially a lot of the richer stars from the UK in the early 70's when the Labour government thought it was a good idea to tax the rich.

[Darth Ovious]

One other point to make. In the UK at least when it comes to taxes the more you earn then the more of a percentage in tax you pay. The reasoning behind this seems so arbitrary it's not even funny. For instance here is the set-up.

For the first £10,600 you earn it is tax free as a personal allowance. The next £31,785 (total earnings of £42,385) is then taxed at 20%. After that the next band goes up to £150,000 (Between £42,386 to £150,000) and is taxed at 40% and finally anything over that £150,000 then gets taxed at 45%.

What is the reason for this? Considering that people who are earning more money are already paying more tax in regards to it being a percentage of what they earn then why is their tax rate increased even more when they reach a certain threshold for that amount of money over it? Are they using more public services than everybody else? Are they costing anything more to society in general? The simple answer can only be that because they earn more money, they have more money to take away from them. Especially in concerns to expendable income.

However, this simple example proves my point. these people are paying more tax but are not receiving anything in return for this, either that or they paying more than others to pay for the same things that they are receiving.

[Darth Ovious]

Also one last note to make since there are posters here other than Leonhard who don't know my personal position. Here it is.

I am not saying that I do not wish or do not want to pay taxes. My position is that taxes are what I consider to be necessary theft. In the same way that a lot of Americans would consider government to be a necessary evil. I am happy to pay taxes for things which I think are needed for society, however that doesn't change the fact that I have never, ever entered into a negotiation with government to decide what percentage of tax that I should pay and the fact that this money gets taken from my paycheck without my consent. This is the case for everyone and so ipso facto it is theft. Just because you can justify it, it doesn't mean it is not theft in the same way that you can justify cannibalism in some extreme circumstances means it is not cannibalism. Theft is the act of forcefully taking possessions off of a person without their consent and so anyone who thinks they shouldn't pay tax or that they pay too much tax is having money taken from them without their consent.

[Teallaura]

What is and what isn't worthy of taxation is always a matter of opinion but in a democracy the majority opinion wins. Some people don't believe they should be required to pay for things that they don't recognize to be of a personal benefit to them, but taxation has to do with the overall benefit to society, not just individual personal benefit. Public education comes to mind. That being said, the citizenry need be constantly vigilant to the corruption, abuse, and misuse of tax revenues by public officials, as well as the evasion thereof, particularly by the corporate sector.

Not a democracy. And you just affirmed slavery...

[Teallaura]

No. Well, maybe a few fellas think so, but many other fellas say, theft (which is unjust anyway).

Yep, but the position is irrational. You're arguing the legal equivalent of 'circles are square'.

[Cow Poke]

Not a democracy. And you just affirmed slavery...

The boy is SO kafoozed.

[Adam]

Not a democracy. And you just affirmed slavery...

Affirmed slavery? Huh?
The U. S. Constitution did not set up the U. S. as any kind of a democracy, but it has evolved (including by constitutional amendment) to become a democratic republic. What's your point?

[Teallaura]

Affirmed slavery? Huh?
The U. S. Constitution did not set up the U. S. as any kind of a democracy, but it has evolved (including by constitutional amendment) to become a democratic republic. What's your point?

Right - but Jim argued an unrestricted 'majority rule' which logically affirms any majority held view - and slavery wasn't ended by a true majority.

[Cow Poke]

Affirmed slavery? Huh?
The U. S. Constitution did not set up the U. S. as any kind of a democracy, but it has evolved (including by constitutional amendment) to become a democratic republic. What's your point?

Unfortunately, I'm concerned it's become more of an oligarchy.

[Darth Ovious]

Unfortunately, I'm concerned it's become more of an oligarchy.

Do they have the same type of tax bands in the US that we have here?

[Littlejoe]

Do they have the same type of tax bands in the US that we have here?

If you are asking "Do people who make more money have a higher % tax bracket?" Then the answer is yes.