Taxes are a form of Theft

[Tierra Prime]

It's simple to make people pay taxes. Don't pay? No state education or healthcare for you then.

If you're not going to contribute (Which should be an option for liberties sake), you don't get anything in return.

Or roads
Water
Sewage
Infrastructure
List goes on..

Did I mention any of those? No, only subsidised education and healthcare.

[Infected Mushroom]

no it was largely about taxes; forming a new nation was kind of improv move along the way

You clearly slept through history class.

That is not correct

[Alvecia]

I hadn't heard of anyone being killed for refusing to pay taxes. Did this happen somewhere and I wasn't aware?

Revolutionaries in the US, 'Salt Marchers' in India, Jews in Rome, French revolutionaries (a number of times, perhaps most famously in the 1790s and 1840s), and all manner of other times.
For more information, I refer you to the wiki on the subject.

The implication was in America where I assume OP is from. But thanks for the info, that's quite interesting.

[Alvecia]

I hadn't heard of anyone being killed for refusing to pay taxes. Did this happen somewhere and I wasn't aware?

ever heard of the American Revolution?

Good job that was a couple hundred years ago. Got any more recent examples? In America that is.

[Occupied Deutschland]

no it was largely about taxes; forming a new nation was kind of improv move along the way

You clearly slept through history class.

Surprisingly, this is one where IM has a solid point. Some of the founding fathers intentionally went into the Revolution's early days with the express purpose of forming a new nation (Samuel and John Adams, for instance (Edit 2: Hell, for that matter, even John Adams initially was of the opinion that the Colonies loyalty was solely to the King and were otherwise fully sovereign self-ruling localities only connected to England through the personage of the King)), but the prevailing sentiment behind the Colonies movement as a whole was an agitation for their rights as ENGLISHMAN to be represented in Parliament if they were to be taxed by the same principles as their brethren in England (exemplified perhaps most obviously in Benjamin Franklin's presence as an agent of the crown in the late 1760s and early 1770s for a number of the colonies within that very parliamentary system speaking on behalf of colonial interests and pointing out the flaws in the English argument the Colonies needed to help pay for the French-Indian War).

This is why the Declaration of Independence was such a major milestone. It transitioned the colonial resistance and revolts that were occurring INTO a full-blown revolution focused against the English crown and sovereignty, as opposed to merely drastically unpopular measures of England's Parliament. Because the King finally made clear he sided with Parliament's authority, and Americans no-likeyed that to an extreme degree. I believe it was Thomas Paine himself who first compared the American Colonial resistance to English measures as carrying on in the tradition of the Glorious Revolution.

Edits: Adding more in.

[Infected Mushroom]

ever heard of the American Revolution?

Good job that was a couple hundred years ago. Got any more recent examples? In America that is.

I'm not sure how demonstrating the effectiveness of the threat of compliance refutes the claim that there is such a threat. A threat exists, independently of whether or not its exercised.

Do you not think the tax collection agencies have the backing of law enforcement? And do not law enforcement officers possess firearms? Far more firearms than a single person or family could field? And if said family refused to pay taxes for long enough, would not men with guns be sent to overwhelm, capture, and imprison the said family unit?

You think the tax people are just going to go...

''Oh wow he REALLY doesn't want to pay his taxes. I'm just going to move on.''

[Hydesland]

I just think you (and much of NSG) should consider that just because you can semantically attach a label to something does not necessarily carry any ethical implications at all for said thing.

[BK117B2]

Well then we have to ask ourselves, if the method, in this case "extortion" is done by those in the legal and moral right against those in the legal and moral wrong to reach a legally and morally favourable outcome, is it not a force for good? In this case I would say yes.
Separately we must ask, if it is not good, yet it is still legal and moral, should it not be tolerated? Does the greater good outweigh the lesser evil. In this case I would say yes. The greatest Good more the most people.

But, in the case at hand, it ISN'T done with any moral right. Given that there is a relatively easily applied solution that would negate any possible need to collect in that manner, it is an utterly pointless evil. Why not just take the good without the bad?

Perhaps, but now you can voluntarily choose between options 1, 3 and 4. The point here is that the closer the example gets to what might reasonable be assumed to be close to reality, the more and more the choice becomes a voluntary one.

That's not true. Given more options with the threat of force doesn't magically negate the threat of force. If I give you the option: I'm going to sexually assault you, burn down your residence, chop off your hand, or kidnap a loved one.....pick one....and if you don't, then I'm going to kill you, then I've given many options, but your choice is no more voluntary.

I think we will need to be more specific to argue this point further. Is there one particular tax or group of taxes that you consider to be involuntary?

It seems you're a bit confused about the concept of voluntary/involuntary. Whether something is voluntary or involuntary is based on the person doing it, not the specific thing being discussed. Take marriage as an example. Is marriage voluntary or involuntary? There's no way to answer that. It is voluntary or involuntary based on a specific case of whether or not the people involved are entering it voluntarily or involuntarily.

I would say that in my example they are yes. Which by the meaning of the word means the DEA is extorting drug cartels by seizing property under threat of imprisonment or death (not a literal death threat, see my previous post). Is this a bad thing? Well that links quite nicely into my point above. As to the forms of asset seizure that do not require force? They only do not require force if the person whose assets are being seized refuses to consent to their removal. Which again, links into my point above.

That's extremely illogical. How could someone consenting create a need to use force against them.

[Lordieth]

Theft is defined as taking something that doesn't belong to you.

The government produces the banknotes. The banks create the figures in your bank balance.

Whoops.

[Infected Mushroom]

Theft is defined as taking something that doesn't belong to you.

The government produces the banknotes. The banks create the figures in your bank balance.

Whoops.

but the money is subsequently circulated amongst the people, becoming effective gifts to the people, and once property has been transferred, it cannot be taken back without there being ethical lines

[Lordieth]

Theft is defined as taking something that doesn't belong to you.

The government produces the banknotes. The banks create the figures in your bank balance.

Whoops.

but the money is subsequently circulated amongst the people, becoming effective gifts to the people, and once property has been transferred, it cannot be taken back without there being ethical lines

If the Government collapses, your pounds or dollars will be worthless. Money is a measure of wealth. The coins belong to you. The paper belongs to you. The value isn't tangible. If the government says your money is worth half as much as it was the day before, has it stolen half your money? No.

[Infected Mushroom]

but the money is subsequently circulated amongst the people, becoming effective gifts to the people, and once property has been transferred, it cannot be taken back without there being ethical lines

If the Government collapses, your pounds or dollars will be worthless. Money is a measure of wealth. The coins belong to you. The paper belongs to you. The value isn't tangible. If the government says your money is worth half as much as it was the day before, has it stolen half your money? No.

if this is merely done by printing more money and gifting that to others (thus resulting in devaluation), then I would say no

but I do not see the connection between this and tax collection

[Lordieth]

If the Government collapses, your pounds or dollars will be worthless. Money is a measure of wealth. The coins belong to you. The paper belongs to you. The value isn't tangible. If the government says your money is worth half as much as it was the day before, has it stolen half your money? No.

if this is merely done by printing more money and gifting that to others (thus resulting in devaluation), then I would say no

but I do not see the connection between this and tax collection

You claim Taxation is theft. I counter that you cannot classify it as theft, as the money never belonged to you to begin with.

It's easy to redefine the definition of words such as "theft" and "ownership" to suit our ideological views.

[Mairland]

Before I clicked on this thread, I thought to myself, "Is this Infected Mushroom?"

It was.

[Cobalt Chloride]

Sure, I'd love to live in a place without taxes.
Certain areas of Somalia, perhaps. Barren rocks in the Pacific. Maybe I'll claim a patch of the Sahara.

[Infected Mushroom]

if this is merely done by printing more money and gifting that to others (thus resulting in devaluation), then I would say no

but I do not see the connection between this and tax collection

You claim Taxation is theft. I counter that you cannot classify it as theft, as the money never belonged to you to begin with.

It's easy to redefine the definition of words such as "theft" and "ownership" to suit our ideological views.

So you're saying money is not property? I don't think thats credible.

[Highlock]

Hello,

I would like to start off the debate with the notion that all that will be written is of good intent. Yet allow me to express my thoughts over this matter that I don't believe is present before me.

Let us start with a daily routine. First thing you do when you wake up is go to the toilet. You enter the concerned room, and you flick on the light. Then you run the tap. Where is this water coming from? Government sewers, and water purification and distribution facilities. How did the government pay for these facilities? From tax money. How about the public transport you take on your morning commute? Government owned, and financed with tax money. How about the traffic lights, and all the accessories you find on the road? Payed by your tax money. How about train stations, ports, airports... ? All payed by tax collected by the government from your income, and your purchases. How about the judiciary, the police, the army, the parliament? Their are all payed by your taxes. So, what will the government do without these taxes? All of the amenities offered by the government, and there are hundreds, are payed by tax money. And the thing is you are so blinded by the willingness to see all their problems resolved that we forget all of this. So let us open our minds, hearts and soul to the thought that the government is doing what it does, even if little, with money payed by the people. And I challenge everyone to try and think of a response to this text, as I want to develop my ideas as well. I am not a monk nor a savant over the matter, just one with a strong opinion that has never changed.


Best regards to all,



John Hillsworth, President Of The Land Of Highlock

[Lordieth]

You claim Taxation is theft. I counter that you cannot classify it as theft, as the money never belonged to you to begin with.

It's easy to redefine the definition of words such as "theft" and "ownership" to suit our ideological views.

So you're saying money is not property? I don't think thats credible.

Currency is property. Money is not property. It is a collective agreement of worth, and therefore intangible. Imaginary. Worthless if it weren't for collective agreement.

[Vistulange]

You think the tax people are just going to go...

''Oh wow he REALLY doesn't want to pay his taxes. I'm just going to move on.''

I don't know how it works in the United States, nor do I care, since the question is presented as a universal question.

Here in Turkey, if you don't pay your gas bill, they cut your natural gas. If you don't pay your water bill, they cut water. Same with electricity.

Income tax? We've already explained this over to you, IM. It's a part of the social contract. By working at a place and receiving a wage, you are considered to consent to having a part of your money taken as a tax. If you don't want to be subject to income tax, don't work for a wage. Don't expect to buy goods and services, though.

-snip-

General is OOC.

[Dyakovo]

because the state has overwhelming firepower

I hadn't heard of anyone being killed for refusing to pay taxes. Did this happen somewhere and I wasn't aware?

Maybe in Westeros...

[Vistulange]

I hadn't heard of anyone being killed for refusing to pay taxes. Did this happen somewhere and I wasn't aware?

Maybe in Westeros...

Where IM thinks he is.

[Dyakovo]

I hadn't heard of anyone being killed for refusing to pay taxes. Did this happen somewhere and I wasn't aware?

ever heard of the American Revolution?

Ever hear Mein hertz, mein sehnen?
...
What? I thought we were playing a game where you respond to questions with completely unrelated questions...

[Hurdegaryp]

Maybe in Westeros...

Where IM thinks he is.

Fortunately for him, he isn't. If the White Walkers don't get you, the dragons will. And the humans are even worse!

ever heard of the American Revolution?

Ever hear Mein hertz, mein sehnen?
...
What? I thought we were playing a game where you respond to questions with completely unrelated questions...

Sounds like a solid plan, actually. It is not too late to make this thread a bit more entertaining.

[Geilinor]

You clearly slept through history class.

That is not correct

Part of the cause was that the American colonists felt able to run their own nation.

[Galloism]

Hi, I'm Galloism. Please refer to my original post to read my counter. CS is too lazy to neatly quote each individual counter-arguments.

Roads

Who is going to invest 1-2 billion for a road is right, except the Government. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/24/palin.road.to.nowhere/

I must point out that the "road to nowhere" and "bridge to nowhere", when combined, as originally intended, become a route to somewhere, very namely the Ketchikan International Airport. That's right - "nowhere" was an international airport - the second largest one in Alaska servicing over 200,000 passengers a year. The ferry that the road and bridge would have replaced shuttles 350,000 passengers a year, or almost 1,000 people per day. A bridge would have replaced the ferry with something faster and better.

Once the "bridge to nowhere" was killed because of bullshit political pressure, the road which was supposed to connect to the bridge became a "road to nowhere", and Alaska could not cancel the project without returning money it had already spent to the Federal government. It was not in Alaska's interest to cancel the project and return money it had already spent on it.

Now, like I've stated a companies main object is profitability. The problem with why it costs so much to build a road is because of the amount of times money changes hands. Resources, Materials, and People all cost time and money.

Now lets pretend a company is looking to build a road.

Firm A refers to the road building company
Firm B refers to the resource company

1.) It's gonna look around for the lowest cost for those three things list above. Firms that cover these facets are going to compete and bid down prices to acquire the contract to supply the building of the road. Both companies want as little convolution as possible, and want to complete the project as quickly as possible. Of course in terms of hourly wage, the laborers will want to make it continue on as long as possible. But I digress.

Governments already do this via a competitive bidding process. There's no reason to believe a for-profit corporation can do it better.

2.) Is it even worth the investment? How much traffic will they acquire once they build the road, and at what price will demand meet supply? If they charge too much the consumer will either find an alternative, drive less, or even completely stay home (an extreme).

Yes, collapsing a section of the economy is... bad. Even more problematic is that there are number of towns with only one or two roads leading in and out of town. If you control both roads, you can very literally starve people into submission and charge whatever you want. Even if another firm decides to build a second or third road into town, it will take years to finish the project. You can literally starve the town to death before competition can arrive to 'save the day'.

Entrance costs and market delay are a thing with things like roads.

Incidentally, you just admitted that you are deliberately willing to underserve a low population area and leave them without access to roads as part of your plan. This is very literally threatening them with economic ruin, and somehow this is 'better'.

3.) What does the competition look like? Can they build the road more efficiently and provide it at a lower cost? Or maybe alternative technologies allow consumers to commute via the sky, water, or even teleport (an extreme).

There is no teleportation at this time. There is no reason to build our market on a thing which does not exist.

Flying takes a great deal of skill - more than driving a car. This is because motion takes place in a three dimensional space rather than what is effectively a two dimensional one. Many will not be able to hack it, or, flying is too hazardous with the health conditions that they have. Also many places do not have access to water, unless you plan to dig a maze of canals.

This would more expensive than roads.

Utilities

I've set the foundation for this already. But let me introduce some arguments.

The government currently has archives of patents, specifically those from Tesla that allow for the transmission of electrical power via the air, hence no power lines.

And it's horridly inefficient, not to mention hazardous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_power

I suggest reading it over. We use insulators for a reason.

Now you can only charge so much before people find alternatives. Likely scenario is that the power lines or sewers won't go anywhere, the firm will. The problem with saying anything about the existence of a monopoly is that logistically speaking the larger a firm gets the larger diseconomy it produces. This is why markets operate in a downward fashion when they're unrestrained, because management becomes easier when less math is involved.

Yes, but those alternatives in the case of utilities might mean "starvation" or "freezing to death" or "burning their house down because they're trying to maintain an open fire in their living room". When the market was unrestrained, death from market failure was rampant.

For instance, before we had mining safety regulations, the death rate of miners was about 300 per 100,000 workers per year. Put another way, if you worked for 40 years, you had about a 3/25 chance of dying on the job. Put another way, 12% of miners who worked 40 years died on the job.

Now, mining is still one of the riskiest jobs. It has 9 deaths out of 100,000 per year. Working 40 years, you have a 360 out of 100,000 chance of dying on the job. That's 0.36%.

Police and Prisons

Your link doesn't work.

I was being facetious when I said that the police was a luxury. I was subtly remarking on the difference in quality of rich neighborhoods vs. the impoverished neighborhoods and how police perform in each respectively.

I hate repeating myself but you're making an awful lot of assumptions. Guns and training like anything require an exchange of time and labor. Most modern companies look outside their consumer base before launching, for potential investments. An investor is looking for stability, and returns. If the police firm hires a bunch of thugs off the street and hands them automatic weapons, and then they go around doing mob-like acts, how long do you imagine they'll be around?

Dunno, how long has it been since all the mobs actually went bust and went out of business because of their mob-like actions that their consumer base wouldn't tolerate?

This is what you don't realize - we DO still have mobs, despite concerted legal efforts to shut them down. This is despite government intervention doing its damndest to kill them. What do you suppose would happen if the government just told the mobs "we give up - have at it"?

Please don't use the absence of the state post-collapse argument of warlords and tyrants. Even that has a lot to do with government manufactured arms being trafficked across the globe by either governments trying to prop up sympathetic governments or by corrupt officials being on the payroll of arms dealers. This doesn't even include public discourse on the matter of an out of control police force, which do exist even as we speak in places like New York, and a special place I reside like cook county, Illinois.

We have a police brutality problem. It needs to be fixed.

What we SHOULDN'T do is privatize the police force and set up a subscription model to get protection. That's what the mobs are for, and they probably don't like people horning in on their business model.

About Prisons though, every single private prison had been contracted out by the Government. That Prison isn't beholden to any sort of shareholder, or consumer. It just has to play nice with the Government.

Prison companies are VERY beholden to their shareholders.

John Oliver on prisons - especially private prisons

Animal Control

That's pretty awful. I bet all those rich folks aren't paying for Animal control at all. I'm sure the redneck in the woods isn't as well, or for that matter paying a mechanic to fix his truck.

The point being is that when the government gets into any business it is almost impossible to compete with, so why would you open up a private firm? Curiously I postulate how much your county must tax the populous if they don't have enough to donate to animal shelters and the government would face outrage for raising taxes.

The county has a 1% sales tax, and the city has a 1% sales tax.

If the government can deliver ANY service at a lower cost than a private firm, and effectively compete them out of business, then that makes the government inherently more efficient than the market. I'm not sure if that's what you intended to imply with your statement, but you seem to be trying to make an argument in favor of communism.

I am not a fan of communism.

Military

Still gonna direct you back to the police force section.

And I will do the same.

Usury

Because the rich man probably has his own personal army for his own protection. Why would he need to pay for another service when he has provided his own. Perks of being rich is that you don't need to collectivize. Now before you say anything, I don't have any issue with collective thinking or grouping. I have an issue with mandate and obligation, I.E. Taxation.

Or he acts as a free rider. I mean, that's the problem isn't it"

If I live in Missouri, roughly in the population center of the country, what incentive do I have to pay for military? Everyone else around the edges will pay for it, and I get the benefit of it.

Police is the opposite problem - if I buy up the local police force, then I can act with near impunity as long as I protect the police and their immediate family. Because I now have a monopoly on force, who's going to stop me?

Let me cover another base before we get to it. He's got a personal army, if he abuses it on the general community he is apart of, we can safely view what the collective has done in the past. Now this isn't an advocation of violence, it's merely an observation. On a side note, his wealth has to come from somewhere and again his actions have large implications.

So... by your own admission, your solution will logically lead to rural communities denied basic services, vigilance justice, and apparently civil war.

Well that's SO much better than paying a little in taxes isn't it? This is fucking absurd. You very seriously are trying to convince me that your way is better when extortion, buying your way to immunity, and civil war is the result?

Toll roads

Perhaps, perhaps not.

If we go based on total number of working class, and we generously figure that they commute, and don't use a form of mass transit (private). They need to be able to afford it, otherwise the road will go unused. The rich don't tend to drive on the highway, and it would be rather impractical to build tolls inside the city. In fact most likely highways would have a flat rate because it mostly accommodates the working class, and maybe even tourists. The inner city would most likely be payed for by companies and firms that deal in other industries, such as factories, commercial enterprises, agricultural, etc. It's like lot ad revenue, a television produces shows, the ad company pays the television produce cash to show the ads, and people contently are able to watch for free, and if something catches their eye they go out and consume. The analogy is to describe that a factory needs workers to produce goods, and if they want to make that happen they need traffic.

Except why would I build a road that goes all the way out of the city to the suburbs when Goodyear will?

This is why taxes are relevant - it removes the free rider problem. All of the businesses, rather than investing their entire net worth into a single piece of pavement, will wait for the other guy to do it. Meanwhile, everyone else has to walk into work. What difference does it make to ME, the factory owner, if the worker has to walk 4 hours to get to work or drive 15 minutes?

Of course someone may postulate the argument that companies will engage in what I'd call "road warfare" where they restrict the competition via the roads by either impeding the movement of works to and from, or by creating contracts of their own for passage through the road to deliver goods. But I envision this would be left to a minimum because it would create a lot of logistical problems, and may even hurt a business in the long run with partnerships, and contracts. Not to mention it may be in their benefit to produce as much traffic as possible as to promote their own business.

Also, not to keep pounding this into the ground. But air travel, sea travel, walking, biking.

What you envision is opposite of reality. Air travel require permission to travel through the airspace, sea travel requires water access (can water space be owned in your vision?), biking and walking both require passing over land that is owned by someone else. Walking, you may find yourself subject to a toll every few hundred yards when you hit someone else's land. A smart person would buy a small 100ft wide ring of property around the city and say no one can enter or leave without paying $1,000 to traverse the land.

We've already seen companies acting anti-competitive in a manner very similar when it comes to the internet. Hell, we had to reclassify them as common carriers to stop them from blocking and making unusable rival services. Comcast, for instance, caused this to happen.

Guess when Netflix agreed to pay Comcast extra for priority service? MARCH. This has all the earmarks of a mob shakedown.

This isn't even uncommon. Carriers blocking or throttling competing services was commonplace until we made it illegal.