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>>My duty is only to pay the minimum amount I am legally obliged to pay. Not one cent more. How much you are obligated to pay is the point of contention. Ideal

>>My duty is only to pay the minimum amount I am legally obliged to pay. Not one cent more. How much you are obligated to pay is the point of contention. Ideally, everyone pays taxes proportional to the amount of benefit they get from public services, programs and infrastructure, so that those things can be maintained. The issue with tax-dodging is that it sidesteps this moral imperative by taking advantage of a legal loophole.

LordKano 11y ago
Taxes are not a moral matter. Taxes are a legal matter. Governments are amoral entities. I'll clarify because the last time I said this, it was misinterpreted... Governments pass, enforce and obey laws. It is beyond the scope of government to determine morality. It's not legal for a group of us to say "Give us $X percentage of your income, under these rules, or else we'll send men with guns to take you away." but it's perfectly legal for a government to do it. Morality isn't the concern here, legality is.
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  >>Taxes are not a moral matter. Taxes are a legal matter. Correct, but paying the appropriate amount for the services and programs you benefit from IS a moral matter. Taxes simply happen to be the avenue through which this is accomplished. If you consume X dollars of government services and infrastructure, you should pay X dollars in taxes, regardless of whether loopholes exist through which you can pay less. Because if you pay less, you are doing two things: passing the tax burden on others, AND causing harm to the services and programs. Both of these are immoral. Therefore, not paying your fair share (note that I didn't say "legal share") is immoral. You know how there are certain actions that aren't illegal, but are clearly against what's called "the spirit of the law"? This is one of those situations. Tax breaks are always created to encourage certain actions or facilitate certain results (e.g. Growth in a certain sector) but others figure out how to take advantage of them through creative accounting practices. That's when a tax break becomes a loophole. It's basically hacking the system.
  - LordKano 11y ago
    Both of these are immoral. Therefore, not paying your fair share (note that I didn't say "legal share") is immoral. Fairness is subjective. Morality is subjective. Legality is objective. It's not "fair" that 51% of people get to decide which services to provide, how much to pay for them, under which conditions to provide them, then use force and the threat of force to compel the other 49% of people to pay for it. I didn't ask for these services. I have no moral obligation to pay anything for them and I have no legal obligation to pay anything more than the law requires. We don't legislate morality. It's basically hacking the system. Agreed and it's not immoral to hack the system. The state has every advantage. The state can write the laws. The state can interpret the laws. The state has men with guns to enforce the laws. Even with all of these advantages over the individual, sometimes the state doesn't come out on top. That's a failure of the state, not the individual. If you write the rules in your favor, interpret the rules in your favor and enforce the rules in your favor, it rings hollow when you cry that it wasn't fair that the little guy beat you using the rules that you wrote, interpreted and enforced.
    - enraged_camel 11y ago
      >>Fairness is subjective. Morality is subjective. There isn't much that is subjective about paying the appropriate amount for the services and programs you benefit from. If you disagree that you should pay $5 for a cup of coffee that costs $5, then we have some very fundamental differences and can't come to any agreements in this debate. >>We don't legislate morality. On the contrary. Murder is illegal because we have decided as a society that killing people without just cause is immoral. >>I didn't ask for these services. But you still benefit from them, either directly or indirectly. A homeless shelter benefits you even if you aren't homeless, because it takes care of the homeless and makes it a lot less likely for them to commit crimes for survival. A fire department benefits you even if your house isn't on fire, because they put out fires in neighboring buildings and prevent them from spreading to and burning down yours. You are part of a society, and taxes are required to maintain the proper operation of that society, whether you have asked for it or not.
      - 11y ago
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  I think saying that taxes are not a moral matter is like saying going to doctor is not a health matter. Yes, technically, taxes are a legal issue, and going to doctor is an issue of logistics. But both things have some purpose behind them. I second enraged_camel's response. He described it better than I can.
klipt 11y ago
> Ideally, everyone pays taxes proportional to the amount of benefit they get from public services, programs and infrastructure That sounds very convoluted. If you want to charge proportional to usage, why not just charge for usage?

LordKano 11y ago

Taxes are not a moral matter. Taxes are a legal matter. Governments are amoral entities. I'll clarify because the last time I said this, it was misinterpreted... Governments pass, enforce and obey laws. It is beyond the scope of government to determine morality. It's not legal for a group of us to say "Give us $X percentage of your income, under these rules, or else we'll send men with guns to take you away." but it's perfectly legal for a government to do it. Morality isn't the concern here, legality is.

enraged_camel 11y ago
>>Taxes are not a moral matter. Taxes are a legal matter. Correct, but paying the appropriate amount for the services and programs you benefit from IS a moral matter. Taxes simply happen to be the avenue through which this is accomplished. If you consume X dollars of government services and infrastructure, you should pay X dollars in taxes, regardless of whether loopholes exist through which you can pay less. Because if you pay less, you are doing two things: passing the tax burden on others, AND causing harm to the services and programs. Both of these are immoral. Therefore, not paying your fair share (note that I didn't say "legal share") is immoral. You know how there are certain actions that aren't illegal, but are clearly against what's called "the spirit of the law"? This is one of those situations. Tax breaks are always created to encourage certain actions or facilitate certain results (e.g. Growth in a certain sector) but others figure out how to take advantage of them through creative accounting practices. That's when a tax break becomes a loophole. It's basically hacking the system.
- LordKano 11y ago
  Both of these are immoral. Therefore, not paying your fair share (note that I didn't say "legal share") is immoral. Fairness is subjective. Morality is subjective. Legality is objective. It's not "fair" that 51% of people get to decide which services to provide, how much to pay for them, under which conditions to provide them, then use force and the threat of force to compel the other 49% of people to pay for it. I didn't ask for these services. I have no moral obligation to pay anything for them and I have no legal obligation to pay anything more than the law requires. We don't legislate morality. It's basically hacking the system. Agreed and it's not immoral to hack the system. The state has every advantage. The state can write the laws. The state can interpret the laws. The state has men with guns to enforce the laws. Even with all of these advantages over the individual, sometimes the state doesn't come out on top. That's a failure of the state, not the individual. If you write the rules in your favor, interpret the rules in your favor and enforce the rules in your favor, it rings hollow when you cry that it wasn't fair that the little guy beat you using the rules that you wrote, interpreted and enforced.
  - enraged_camel 11y ago
    >>Fairness is subjective. Morality is subjective. There isn't much that is subjective about paying the appropriate amount for the services and programs you benefit from. If you disagree that you should pay $5 for a cup of coffee that costs $5, then we have some very fundamental differences and can't come to any agreements in this debate. >>We don't legislate morality. On the contrary. Murder is illegal because we have decided as a society that killing people without just cause is immoral. >>I didn't ask for these services. But you still benefit from them, either directly or indirectly. A homeless shelter benefits you even if you aren't homeless, because it takes care of the homeless and makes it a lot less likely for them to commit crimes for survival. A fire department benefits you even if your house isn't on fire, because they put out fires in neighboring buildings and prevent them from spreading to and burning down yours. You are part of a society, and taxes are required to maintain the proper operation of that society, whether you have asked for it or not.
    - 11y ago
TeMPOraL 11y ago
I think saying that taxes are not a moral matter is like saying going to doctor is not a health matter. Yes, technically, taxes are a legal issue, and going to doctor is an issue of logistics. But both things have some purpose behind them. I second enraged_camel's response. He described it better than I can.

klipt 11y ago

> Ideally, everyone pays taxes proportional to the amount of benefit they get from public services, programs and infrastructure That sounds very convoluted. If you want to charge proportional to usage, why not just charge for usage?