9 ms·

Well, the world ain't black and white. Taxes are immoral, but evading taxes is probably more immoral. How low the scales are on both these is dependant on who

• typon 10y ago
  Why are taxes immoral?
  • abritinthebay 10y ago
    Spoiler: they aren't. It's an incredibly naive position that many "libertarians" hold. It ignores the direct and indirect benefits that governments provide that support an entity being able to make money that can even be taxed. It's quite a silly position. Now specific taxes could be immoral and debate about the correct amount that it should be all you like... but the concept? No.
    • maloney 10y ago
      So... Your argument is, if the thing taking your money provides you with some benefit it's moral?
      • vec 10y ago
        No, the argument is that humans are tribal creatures. Imagine going off to live in the woods with a handful of other individuals, 100% off the grid and with only the tools you can carry. Inevitably, it wouldn't be long before you start insisting that everyone help out with farming or hunting or repairs or something. It's literally built into our DNA that individuals should contribute some labor to the betterment of the tribe in exchange for the security and comfort the tribe provides. Now, fast-forward to the modern world. We have much, much bigger tribes called countries, and we have a way of talking about and trading human labor that we call money. But it's still true that you should contribute some of your labor (i.e. money) to the tribe (i.e. your country) in exchange for security and comfort (i.e. civilization). Taxes are moral so long as the taxed individuals consent to be part of the entity imposing the taxes, and there are very few individuals throughout history who have actually been willing to opt out of civilization. And, since you're reading a page on the internet you are clearly not one of them.
        • exstudent2 10y ago
          It's not so black and white. You can be against taxes but not want to opt out of civilization. If the government wasn't stealing around 40% of my income, I could spend that money on initiatives that benefit people other than just myself. Money could even be pooled by neighbors to pay for things. The thing is it has to be up to the individual how they spend their money, not left to guys with guns forcing you to hand over your money (the government).
          • evgen 10y ago
            If the government wasn't stealing around 40% of my income, I could spend that money on initiatives that benefit people other than just myself. If the government was not stealing around 40% of your money I would come and take 100% of it and leave you bleeding in the gutter.
          • sgift 10y ago
            I'd rather not try out again what happens when we give people the option to help those less fortunate than them or let them suffer without any safety net for those people. History tells me that this won't work very well. And if you don't like that the government is stealing your money you can always go somewhere else (and resign your citizenship if your taxiation is bound by that) where they steal less money. You can even go somewhere where the government doesn't steal any of your money (usually only in countries where there's no government). At the end of the day democracy demands that we have to live with decisions that we personally do not like but the majority of people voted for. Everyone knows that this is not a great system, but we haven't found a better one yet. Not for lack of trying though.
            • jamesdwilson 10y ago
              > And if you don't like that the government is stealing your money you can always go somewhere else if you can afford it. > At the end of the day democracy demands that we have to live with decisions that we personally do not like but the majority of people voted for. All major USA candidates are connected to Soros.
      • X86BSD 10y ago
        I think a better argument is that it's simply not a voluntary contract between two parties. It's theft by one party that has a monopoly on violence to enforce the theft on the other party. Until one day when the other party stops playing by those rules and shoots back. "But you can vote to change it." If voting changed anything it would be illegal. Only an idiot believes "voting" means anything in a two party system where both parties are identical, and both are funded and given marching orders by massive international corporations. Dollars > votes and you only have the latter.
        • exstudent2 10y ago
          Really sad to see all the libertarian viewpoints blanket down voted, mostly without any replies. It really seems like tech has been hit with a wave of pro-big government thinking. My personal theory is that it's younger people who didn't have to deal with the threat of a draft and the baby boomers heavy handed social meddling. The threat of being forced into a war you don't agree with will make you think twice about funding the entity making that happen. Same with watching decades of ineffective social engineering from above.
          • wstrange 10y ago
            I honestly don't get all the libertarian angst about paying taxes. As a Canadian, I pay a lot of tax. I grumble a bit during tax season - but I am incredibly grateful that I was lucky enough to be born in a prosperous country. A good part of my sucess (education, health care, etc) was paid for by other peoples taxes. So I am quite happy to return the favour. I also want to live in a society that is compassionate and takes care of those who can not take care of themselves. The libertarian viewpoint seems like "I got mine, so I'm OK".
            • dchest 10y ago
              So I am quite happy to return the favour. It's great that you're happy, but you don't have a choice. You'll go to jail if you don't "return favour". I also want to live in a society that is compassionate and takes care of those who can not take care of themselves. Simple logic will tell you that if a society is compassionate, it doesn't need force taxation. From dictionary: compassion is a feeling of wanting to help someone who is sick, hungry, in trouble, etc. If you are forced to help, it's not compassion.
    • exstudent2 10y ago
      Your argument would only be true if there was no alternative to government programs. Both private enterprise and charity can accomplish what is now being ineffectively done via the government. All without the highly immoral (imo) military and political spending the government prioritizes. People should be allowed to keep 100% of their earnings. To involuntarily take a percentage is by definition immoral (theft).
      • abritinthebay 10y ago
        Your argument would hold water if that money was earned with no help from federal or state at all. So no use of public utilities, roads, etc, oh and your company can't employ people who have benefited from them either - like going to a public or state school. Good luck with that.
        • ultramancool 10y ago
          It would be entirely possible to do that if we first remove government from the equation. Private companies and co-ops can and do operate roads, electricity production, waste collection, etc. It's just a matter of government standing in the way of it being a more direct transaction. I'm not necessarily saying one way or the other is a better solution, but to invalidate their argument on the grounds that "it's like this way already" or "I grew up this way" essentially is bullshit.
          • wstrange 10y ago
            What is a co-op, but another form of government?
        • ybx 10y ago
          While I don't consider myself a libertarian by any stretch, typically roads and utilities are two of the things that have pretty easy counter-arguments - make utilities free market (or something of the sort) and roads can be paid via tolls. If you want something that doesn't have a good counter-argument, look at policing and contract enforcement (basically, a public legal system). That's something that can't be done very well by a private entity or multiple competing private entities. Another problem without much of a counter-argument is looking at e.g. utilities and roads together (i.e. a monopolistic infrastructure with a non-monopolistic infrastructure). Roads are monopolistic because they control that land - in order to use it, you have to pay the owner what they want. This isn't too big of a problem because if you feel one route costs too much, you can simply take another route. Utilities on the other hand, can be provided by anyone, as long as they run the pipes, lines, etc. out to you. In itself, if you feel one utility costs too much, you can pick another utility. The problem comes with combining the two - typically to deliver the utility to you, they would also have to pay the road owner to run the lines along and/or make some agreement. So what happens when an exclusivity agreement comes into play? Well, unless you don't want the utility at all, you have no choice but to either pay whatever fee they want you to, or move. When you move, it's possible an exclusivity agreement exists there too. One could argue that it's not any better the way it currently is (Comcast, etc.) however you couldn't make it better by making everything privately-owned without regulation, and you could make it better by going further towards the public side.
  • jamesdwilson 10y ago
    Food for thought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngpsJKQR_ZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngpsJKQR_ZE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMQZEIXBMs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGMQZEIXBMs
  • brasky 10y ago
    Forced taxation is immoral since it violates the non aggression principle. You can still have voluntary taxation though.
    • wstrange 10y ago
      There are plenty of third world countries where you can pretty much avoid taxation, but it hasn't worked out terribly well for them. There are benefits to belonging to civilisation. Voluntary taxation is just not realistic.
    • cmurf 10y ago
      And how does free loading on others avoid the non-aggression principle? Do you have examples of where voluntary taxation exists and works? Do you think turning societies into country clubs is really workable, as in, does it scale? Tax payers are in effect members of civil society, but we have a technology that enables us to identify non-members so that we can each choose whether, and how, to exclude non-members from social and business ventures?
    • typon 10y ago
      Letting a child starve doesn't violate the non-aggression principle either.
• mindslight 10y ago
  > Managing to build our societies around a non-cheatable taxation system would be a huge step forwards for our species. I don't dispute that this could be true, but building our societies around untaxable money would be a similar step forward. The primary problem is the ambiguity, where the rich mitigate taxes/inflation while the poor run on the suckers' treadmill. Although given the tendency for capital to influence government, and the speciousness of "majority rule", I don't particularly see an airtight taxation system leading to airtight taxation. In my opinion, it's more important to have exit for the minorities at the edges, than to attempt to soothe them with some centralized notion of fairness.
  • irq-1 10y ago
    A system that is transparent (for collections, not payments) is ideal. It makes cheating harder, even if it doesn't solve all ways of cheating. Untaxable money would make cheating easier for lack of accounting. An "exit for the minorities at the edges" will always exist by paying outside the system (possibly using a private/local currency.) In fact the exit will be easier to use and more beneficial for poorer people since they're dealing with smaller amounts in a local community of trust. Wealthy cheats who try to exit a system like this will loose the availability of a trusted money (a species) not controlled by governments.