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Its like the mafia coming to your door wanting a protection fee but instead the government is much bigger and even pays to punish people for wrong-think like on

Its like the mafia coming to your door wanting a protection fee but instead the government is much bigger and even pays to punish people for wrong-think like on this site. If you don't pay your taxes and fight back, the government will send its servants to kill you or beat you until money pops out.

frankbreetz 5y ago
If you don't like taxes why wouldn't you move to a country that doesn't have taxes like Somalia? Is it because taxes pay for security and things you use everyday like infrastructure?
- AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
  Somalia has some other issues. That being said, I would happily move to a country with 0% income tax, such as Monaco or Oman. Alas these countries do not allow free movement of people through their borders.
- Grim-444 5y ago
  It's a common strawman argument to paint the argument as black and white, that either you want taxes or you want zero taxes. When in reality there's many shades of grey. The majority of people that complain about taxes don't want zero taxation, they just want to be taxed fairly, with proper representation, and for the government to make proper use of the money they do take, with accountability, before demanding more from the citizens.
  - epgui 5y ago
    These are things that everyone want, they don't really distinguish those who complain about taxes from those who don't. I'd propose, simplistically, that people who demand tax cuts have in common the following characteristics: - they may be confused about the role(s) of taxation - they may not have sat down with pen and paper to try and figure out how to work a government's finances - they may not be aware that a lot of the information they're demanding is public, or may not know where to find it - they may not have a clear idea of which services to cut, or might not fully appreciate the importance of the services they'd like to cut Conversely, it is highly probable that the people who support tax hikes: - have a clear understanding of at least some of the roles of taxation - have a specific idea what budget item they would like to see it spent on
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      I think there's a non-trivial (and certainly non-zero) portion of the population who would specifically enjoy tax hikes on other people who have become, in their judgment, too successful.
      - AlexandrB 5y ago
        Huge success is only possible in the context of systems and infrastructure that enable it. There are no billionaires in Mad Max because society has crumbled - you can't leverage an educated workforce to build your widgets or a working interstate highway system to move them around. Is it so much to ask that those that benefit the most from the legal, financial, law enforcement, and military infrastructure of a country contribute proportionally more of the fruits of their success back to the maintenance of those systems? That's not even mentioning those that are successful and wealthy in part because of government subsidies and support (e.g. green credits for Tesla).
        refurb 5y ago
        For your logic to be true there must be no billionaires in low tax countries. HK has billionaires and a very low tax rate - ergo, the amount of taxes needed to pay for “the system” to become rich are actually quite low.
        kortilla 5y ago
        >of a country contribute proportionally more of the fruits of their success back to the maintenance of those systems? They already contribute more than proportionally. Proportionally is a flat tax rate and the rich already contribute far in excess of that.
        analog31 5y ago
        This is the dilemma of living in a complex modern economy. We cooperate with a system that makes great wealth possible, not because that wealth is a right, but because of a social theory that the same system lets the rest of us live in relative security and decency. We could pull the plug on that system, but only by driving ourselves into utter poverty, so in some sense we are hostages of the system that we created. On the other hand, if that system fails to serve an agreeable social purpose, it's our prerogative to moderate it.
- monkeycantype 5y ago
  Our governments are empires that have had democracy patched into them. Yes taxes pay for security and infrastructure, but this isn't why taxes are collected, taxes are collected because government is a self sustaining system largely populated by self serving individuals drawn to power. Unlike my anarchist and libertarian friends, I don't think there is a better strategy than iterating on what we have, so we really don't have a better alternative that continuing to fix what we have, but that doesn't require us to pretend that our current systems are the benevolent commonwealths we would like the to be. (let's see how mars works out)
- jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago
  Somolia has taxes. If you don't want to pay (income) tax there is Monaco, UAE, Bermuda, Bahamas, etc. Somehow they manage to have roads and firemen.
  - epgui 5y ago
    Those countries all have various forms of (non-income) taxation.
    - AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
      Could you please elaborate a bit? Because on the surface it looks like USA also has non-income taxation, such as sales tax (in lieu of VAT), property tax and so on.
      - kortilla 5y ago
        Sales and property tax don’t go to the federal government.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  You do realize as an American you have to pay US taxes whatever you live in the world so simple moving wouldn't help. You could drop your citizenship but you will need another. No country with little or no taxes will give you a citizenship. Your best bet is to stay in the US and complain to get policies changed. Or live in the woods/desert. The average person has no real path to a tax free life but the rich can use loops.
  - 4rtyui9xd 5y ago
    Do the wealthy need the government's services, financed through taxes, as much as "the average person". What if a US citizen obtainins citizenship in a country that does not tax non-residents, relinquishes her US citizenship and then moves to a country that has little or no taxes.
    - analog31 5y ago
      Yes, even moreso than the rest of us. The wealthy need things like corporate and financial regulation, the tort system, and other economic infrastructure that the poor aren't even aware of. If the hypothetical wealthy citizen moves to a country without functioning government infrastructure, it's a safe bet that their first priority upon landing will be to figure out a way to move their assets into instruments that are valued in dollars or euro's.
      - 4rtyui9xd 5y ago
        "Yes, even moreso than the rest of us." But, generally, the wealthy do not pay more in taxes than the non-wealthy. They generally pay less.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      I like using the non-resident loophole angle. It could be possible. The rich use more of the system than the average person. The area of law, finace, education and property. They receive money/credit for investment in local communities.
- HideousKojima 5y ago
  Somalia has taxes in the form of warlords taking whatever they want. And Somalia is always trotted out as an example of Anarchy (or more uncharitably as an example of Libertarianism) by people ignorant of its history, often willfully so. Somalia is just another failed Socialist state: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Revolutionary_Socialist_Party https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Revolutionary_Sociali...
  - AstralStorm 5y ago
    By failed you mean the government was couped, right? And it being called socialist is a bit of a funny thing, with encouraging private investment and high degree of authoritarianism, even totalitarianism. This is not the same thing at all.
    - HideousKojima 5y ago
      >And it being called socialist is a bit of a funny thing, with encouraging private investment and high degree of authoritarianism, even totalitarianism. Yes, like every other failed Socialist and Communist state, they made promises of economic inequality and instead becane authoritarian genocidal maniacs.
- 1cvmask 5y ago
  Black Somalia would have to raise to taxes to defend itself against white countries that bomb it.
- kortilla 5y ago
  If you like taxes why don’t you move to the country with the highest tax rate? What a stupid argument.
  - frankbreetz 5y ago
    If I was as passionate about it as the parent, I would. For me, there are other factors to where I live besides taxes. Also, it's hard migrate to countries with high taxes, because they are deseriable places to live. It's not hard to migrate to Somalia. It's also not deseriable to live there. That's the point.
    - kortilla 5y ago
      They are trivial to relocate to if you have money and would be the one actually paying the high taxes (top half of middle-class income and above). There is a reason people making 6 figure+ salaries aren’t clamoring to move to France/Portugal/Brazil/Sweden. They aren’t actually all that desirable if you are the one paying the brunt of the taxes. If you’re actually “passionate about taxes” and you don’t make good money, you would be happy to relocate to the country with the highest taxes for low income... Swaziland. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/highest-taxed-countries https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/highest-t... Both you and the parent aren’t actually fans of high taxes it sounds like. Instead you just like social programs paid for by someone else.
      - frankbreetz 5y ago
        Are there more rich people in Somalia or "France/Portugal/Brazil/Sweden". It's almost like everyone including rich people benefit from a society where government is properly funded. It's also seems properly funded governments generate more capable people(see incomes over 6 fig). Obviously you can over-do it, but parent compared taxes to protection money from the mafia and that is ridiculous. Also people who are “passionate about taxes” think that rich people benefit more from a properly funded society then more poor people, so they should pay more. So as the parent says "what a stupid argument" Also, of course we are my passionate about high taxes. We are passionate about the society that high taxes provide. All of your arguments seen quite disengenious.
intergalplan 5y ago
God is love. Love is blind. Ray Charles is blind. Ray Charles is God.
- ggm 5y ago
  Ray Charles is dead, ergo...
- didericis 5y ago
  I see no flaw in your conclusion.
adamjb 5y ago
Tired: the government is like the mafia Wired: the mafia is like the government
- lukewrites 5y ago
  Inspired: mafernment

frankbreetz 5y ago

If you don't like taxes why wouldn't you move to a country that doesn't have taxes like Somalia? Is it because taxes pay for security and things you use everyday like infrastructure?

AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
Somalia has some other issues. That being said, I would happily move to a country with 0% income tax, such as Monaco or Oman. Alas these countries do not allow free movement of people through their borders.
Grim-444 5y ago
It's a common strawman argument to paint the argument as black and white, that either you want taxes or you want zero taxes. When in reality there's many shades of grey. The majority of people that complain about taxes don't want zero taxation, they just want to be taxed fairly, with proper representation, and for the government to make proper use of the money they do take, with accountability, before demanding more from the citizens.
- epgui 5y ago
  These are things that everyone want, they don't really distinguish those who complain about taxes from those who don't. I'd propose, simplistically, that people who demand tax cuts have in common the following characteristics: - they may be confused about the role(s) of taxation - they may not have sat down with pen and paper to try and figure out how to work a government's finances - they may not be aware that a lot of the information they're demanding is public, or may not know where to find it - they may not have a clear idea of which services to cut, or might not fully appreciate the importance of the services they'd like to cut Conversely, it is highly probable that the people who support tax hikes: - have a clear understanding of at least some of the roles of taxation - have a specific idea what budget item they would like to see it spent on
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I think there's a non-trivial (and certainly non-zero) portion of the population who would specifically enjoy tax hikes on other people who have become, in their judgment, too successful.
    - AlexandrB 5y ago
      Huge success is only possible in the context of systems and infrastructure that enable it. There are no billionaires in Mad Max because society has crumbled - you can't leverage an educated workforce to build your widgets or a working interstate highway system to move them around. Is it so much to ask that those that benefit the most from the legal, financial, law enforcement, and military infrastructure of a country contribute proportionally more of the fruits of their success back to the maintenance of those systems? That's not even mentioning those that are successful and wealthy in part because of government subsidies and support (e.g. green credits for Tesla).
      - refurb 5y ago
        For your logic to be true there must be no billionaires in low tax countries. HK has billionaires and a very low tax rate - ergo, the amount of taxes needed to pay for “the system” to become rich are actually quite low.
      - kortilla 5y ago
        >of a country contribute proportionally more of the fruits of their success back to the maintenance of those systems? They already contribute more than proportionally. Proportionally is a flat tax rate and the rich already contribute far in excess of that.
      - analog31 5y ago
        This is the dilemma of living in a complex modern economy. We cooperate with a system that makes great wealth possible, not because that wealth is a right, but because of a social theory that the same system lets the rest of us live in relative security and decency. We could pull the plug on that system, but only by driving ourselves into utter poverty, so in some sense we are hostages of the system that we created. On the other hand, if that system fails to serve an agreeable social purpose, it's our prerogative to moderate it.
monkeycantype 5y ago
Our governments are empires that have had democracy patched into them. Yes taxes pay for security and infrastructure, but this isn't why taxes are collected, taxes are collected because government is a self sustaining system largely populated by self serving individuals drawn to power. Unlike my anarchist and libertarian friends, I don't think there is a better strategy than iterating on what we have, so we really don't have a better alternative that continuing to fix what we have, but that doesn't require us to pretend that our current systems are the benevolent commonwealths we would like the to be. (let's see how mars works out)
jxidjhdhdhdhfhf 5y ago
Somolia has taxes. If you don't want to pay (income) tax there is Monaco, UAE, Bermuda, Bahamas, etc. Somehow they manage to have roads and firemen.
- epgui 5y ago
  Those countries all have various forms of (non-income) taxation.
  - AlexTWithBeard 5y ago
    Could you please elaborate a bit? Because on the surface it looks like USA also has non-income taxation, such as sales tax (in lieu of VAT), property tax and so on.
    - kortilla 5y ago
      Sales and property tax don’t go to the federal government.
ipaddr 5y ago
You do realize as an American you have to pay US taxes whatever you live in the world so simple moving wouldn't help. You could drop your citizenship but you will need another. No country with little or no taxes will give you a citizenship. Your best bet is to stay in the US and complain to get policies changed. Or live in the woods/desert. The average person has no real path to a tax free life but the rich can use loops.
- 4rtyui9xd 5y ago
  Do the wealthy need the government's services, financed through taxes, as much as "the average person". What if a US citizen obtainins citizenship in a country that does not tax non-residents, relinquishes her US citizenship and then moves to a country that has little or no taxes.
  - analog31 5y ago
    Yes, even moreso than the rest of us. The wealthy need things like corporate and financial regulation, the tort system, and other economic infrastructure that the poor aren't even aware of. If the hypothetical wealthy citizen moves to a country without functioning government infrastructure, it's a safe bet that their first priority upon landing will be to figure out a way to move their assets into instruments that are valued in dollars or euro's.
    - 4rtyui9xd 5y ago
      "Yes, even moreso than the rest of us." But, generally, the wealthy do not pay more in taxes than the non-wealthy. They generally pay less.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    I like using the non-resident loophole angle. It could be possible. The rich use more of the system than the average person. The area of law, finace, education and property. They receive money/credit for investment in local communities.
HideousKojima 5y ago
Somalia has taxes in the form of warlords taking whatever they want. And Somalia is always trotted out as an example of Anarchy (or more uncharitably as an example of Libertarianism) by people ignorant of its history, often willfully so. Somalia is just another failed Socialist state: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Revolutionary_Socialist_Party https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_Revolutionary_Sociali...
- AstralStorm 5y ago
  By failed you mean the government was couped, right? And it being called socialist is a bit of a funny thing, with encouraging private investment and high degree of authoritarianism, even totalitarianism. This is not the same thing at all.
  - HideousKojima 5y ago
    >And it being called socialist is a bit of a funny thing, with encouraging private investment and high degree of authoritarianism, even totalitarianism. Yes, like every other failed Socialist and Communist state, they made promises of economic inequality and instead becane authoritarian genocidal maniacs.
1cvmask 5y ago
Black Somalia would have to raise to taxes to defend itself against white countries that bomb it.
kortilla 5y ago
If you like taxes why don’t you move to the country with the highest tax rate? What a stupid argument.
- frankbreetz 5y ago
  If I was as passionate about it as the parent, I would. For me, there are other factors to where I live besides taxes. Also, it's hard migrate to countries with high taxes, because they are deseriable places to live. It's not hard to migrate to Somalia. It's also not deseriable to live there. That's the point.
  - kortilla 5y ago
    They are trivial to relocate to if you have money and would be the one actually paying the high taxes (top half of middle-class income and above). There is a reason people making 6 figure+ salaries aren’t clamoring to move to France/Portugal/Brazil/Sweden. They aren’t actually all that desirable if you are the one paying the brunt of the taxes. If you’re actually “passionate about taxes” and you don’t make good money, you would be happy to relocate to the country with the highest taxes for low income... Swaziland. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/highest-taxed-countries https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/highest-t... Both you and the parent aren’t actually fans of high taxes it sounds like. Instead you just like social programs paid for by someone else.
    - frankbreetz 5y ago
      Are there more rich people in Somalia or "France/Portugal/Brazil/Sweden". It's almost like everyone including rich people benefit from a society where government is properly funded. It's also seems properly funded governments generate more capable people(see incomes over 6 fig). Obviously you can over-do it, but parent compared taxes to protection money from the mafia and that is ridiculous. Also people who are “passionate about taxes” think that rich people benefit more from a properly funded society then more poor people, so they should pay more. So as the parent says "what a stupid argument" Also, of course we are my passionate about high taxes. We are passionate about the society that high taxes provide. All of your arguments seen quite disengenious.

intergalplan 5y ago

God is love. Love is blind. Ray Charles is blind. Ray Charles is God.

ggm 5y ago
Ray Charles is dead, ergo...
didericis 5y ago
I see no flaw in your conclusion.

adamjb 5y ago

Tired: the government is like the mafia Wired: the mafia is like the government

lukewrites 5y ago
Inspired: mafernment