"Taxes were never instituted by common consent,… but are taken by those who have the power of taking them… A man should not voluntarily pay taxes to governments either directly or indirectly; nor should he accept money collected by taxes either as salary or as pension or as a reward; nor should he make use of governmental institutions supported by taxes, since they are collected by violence from the people."
Considering that, if you're an American citizen, your tax dollars have been used to: kill a million innocent Filipinos, build Little Boy and Fat Man (200,000 innocent Japanese, dead), bomb Hamburg, Dresden, and Pforzheim (100,000 innocent Germans, dead).
...and I could go on, and on, but I don't intend to belabor the point.
Oh, and nowadays, the money's used for stuff like waging the drug war and occupying Iraq (that's another 100,000 innocent dead); again, you get my point.
(And, regardless of your country of origin, I guarantee you that your government has done some pretty bad things as well.)
Taxation bears a marked resemblance to theft excepting the fact that the theives are the ones we entrust with enforcing laws against theivery. How can you confiscate the sweat of a man's brow, the money he worked to acquire, by fiat? So some sheet of paper says you're entitled to a certain amount? Did the man sign this document, or agree to pay?
Is paying one's taxes moral? Even if you argue that it is morally ambiguous, should one feel obliged to pay? Is tax resistance/evasion the answer?
Discuss, please. I unabashedly believe that taxation is state-sanctioned theft, but I do not want the discussion of taxation (and that's what this should be, a discussion of taxation) to be one-sided. Chime in, if you will.
Considering that, if you're an American citizen, your tax dollars have been used to: kill a million innocent Filipinos, build Little Boy and Fat Man (200,000 innocent Japanese, dead), bomb Hamburg, Dresden, and Pforzheim (100,000 innocent Germans, dead).
...and I could go on, and on, but I don't intend to belabor the point.
Oh, and nowadays, the money's used for stuff like waging the drug war and occupying Iraq (that's another 100,000 innocent dead); again, you get my point.
(And, regardless of your country of origin, I guarantee you that your government has done some pretty bad things as well.)
Taxation bears a marked resemblance to theft excepting the fact that the theives are the ones we entrust with enforcing laws against theivery. How can you confiscate the sweat of a man's brow, the money he worked to acquire, by fiat? So some sheet of paper says you're entitled to a certain amount? Did the man sign this document, or agree to pay?
Is paying one's taxes moral? Even if you argue that it is morally ambiguous, should one feel obliged to pay? Is tax resistance/evasion the answer?
Discuss, please. I unabashedly believe that taxation is state-sanctioned theft, but I do not want the discussion of taxation (and that's what this should be, a discussion of taxation) to be one-sided. Chime in, if you will.
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