7 ms·

Total off-topic: out of curiosity, what levers does she think are moral to pull to encourage folks to pay taxes?

by zucked 5y ago

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
throwawayboise 5y ago
Fee for service like any other consumer transaction.
intricatedetail 5y ago
I'd say why government focuses on the weak when enforcing taxes and doesn't go after the rich and their notoriously tax avoiding multinational organisations?
- WincysWife 5y ago
  Yes, property and sales taxes are regressive taxes. But all taxes should be voluntary because the government doesn't own you or your property.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > But all taxes should be voluntary because the government doesn't own you or your property. Yeah, it doesn't own it: the relationship is more fundamental than that. Government (and its primitive antecedents) is the system that enables you to own property in the first place, and taxes (or their equivalents) are the price of admission to that system. I wouldn't mind making taxes voluntary if it also meant surrendering property and other rights (though of course to be just that surrender could only happen after a formal renunciation of the obligation, not just a failure to pay). So you could choose to not pay taxes, but then all your property would become legally abandoned and you'd lose the protection of the law.
WincysWife 5y ago
Same as what happens when you don't pay your utility bills, your services stop.
- jdlshore 5y ago
  How do you enforce that? Taxes pay for roads, parks, local goverment offices, etc. Is somebody who is behind on taxes prohibited from using public roads? Are they prohibited from entering the courthouse?
  - bena 5y ago
    You know how they want that enforced. They don't. She's talking about making taxation voluntary. Which seems on the wrong side of crackpot to me. Of course anyone who goes on and on about "the threat of violence" when talking about taxes is not going to discuss the issue in good faith. "Building libraries by gunpoint" is a thought terminating cliche. They're a brand of libertarian that elevates the very concept of being required to do something they don't want to as violence against them. They are exhausting to deal with. Taxes are the dues you pay to live in the community you stay. There's a lot the government should stay out of, but there's also a lot the government should be doing as well. And as long as the government should be doing things, it'll need money to do those things.
    - throwawayboise 5y ago
      So don't pay your taxes and refuse to leave your property. Sooner or later, men with guns will show up.
      - bena 5y ago
        Don't pay your mortgage/rent and that will also happen. Because that's what happens when owe money that you don't pay. You chose where to live when you bought that property. That choosing is an implicit agreement with the government of that area to pay them taxes in exchange for certain services (schools, roads, police, fire, etc). And you are part of that choice whenever elections come up. Sure, you may vote 'No' on every tax increase, but that doesn't exempt you. Because, once again, as part of the agreement you implicitly made, you agreed to abide by the decision of the group in order to live in the area.
littlestymaar 5y ago
I also wonder what she thinks about people not paying their rents to their landlords.
- nindalf 5y ago
  Seems to me that all private transactions are contracts. Contracts are meaningless unless they can be enforced. I’m not aware of any practical mechanism to enforce contracts other than the threat of state violence. Ostracising people who break contracts might work in a small community but wouldn’t scale to a large one. My understanding is that HN has no shortage of libertarians. Maybe one of them could tell us if there’s an alternate way to enforce contracts.
  - littlestymaar 5y ago
    AFAIK the libertarian view on this topic is pretty clear. Violating a contract is violating the “Non aggression principle” and the landlord is considered as acting in self-defense.
    - nindalf 5y ago
      And the landlord does what to the tenant who won’t pay? Threaten the tenant with a gun? Or does she rely on the coercive power of the State? The State that maintains a monopoly on violence.
      - littlestymaar 5y ago
        Obviously, there's as many variants of libertarianism as there's libertarians, but AFAIK most of them agree that there should be no state. I think threatening the tenant with a gun to get the money then kick him out of the flat is the way it should go for most libertarians. You'd appreciate the irony of this not being an aggression. (there's a reason why libertarianism is almost only found in the US: it lays on the Far West myth a lot)
        5y ago

Total off-topic: out of curiosity, what levers does she think are moral to pull to encourage folks to pay taxes?

by zucked 5y ago

Total off-topic: out of curiosity, what levers does she think are moral to pull to encourage folks to pay taxes?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

throwawayboise 5y ago

Fee for service like any other consumer transaction.

intricatedetail 5y ago

I'd say why government focuses on the weak when enforcing taxes and doesn't go after the rich and their notoriously tax avoiding multinational organisations?

WincysWife 5y ago
Yes, property and sales taxes are regressive taxes. But all taxes should be voluntary because the government doesn't own you or your property.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > But all taxes should be voluntary because the government doesn't own you or your property. Yeah, it doesn't own it: the relationship is more fundamental than that. Government (and its primitive antecedents) is the system that enables you to own property in the first place, and taxes (or their equivalents) are the price of admission to that system. I wouldn't mind making taxes voluntary if it also meant surrendering property and other rights (though of course to be just that surrender could only happen after a formal renunciation of the obligation, not just a failure to pay). So you could choose to not pay taxes, but then all your property would become legally abandoned and you'd lose the protection of the law.

WincysWife 5y ago

Same as what happens when you don't pay your utility bills, your services stop.

jdlshore 5y ago
How do you enforce that? Taxes pay for roads, parks, local goverment offices, etc. Is somebody who is behind on taxes prohibited from using public roads? Are they prohibited from entering the courthouse?
- bena 5y ago
  You know how they want that enforced. They don't. She's talking about making taxation voluntary. Which seems on the wrong side of crackpot to me. Of course anyone who goes on and on about "the threat of violence" when talking about taxes is not going to discuss the issue in good faith. "Building libraries by gunpoint" is a thought terminating cliche. They're a brand of libertarian that elevates the very concept of being required to do something they don't want to as violence against them. They are exhausting to deal with. Taxes are the dues you pay to live in the community you stay. There's a lot the government should stay out of, but there's also a lot the government should be doing as well. And as long as the government should be doing things, it'll need money to do those things.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    So don't pay your taxes and refuse to leave your property. Sooner or later, men with guns will show up.
    - bena 5y ago
      Don't pay your mortgage/rent and that will also happen. Because that's what happens when owe money that you don't pay. You chose where to live when you bought that property. That choosing is an implicit agreement with the government of that area to pay them taxes in exchange for certain services (schools, roads, police, fire, etc). And you are part of that choice whenever elections come up. Sure, you may vote 'No' on every tax increase, but that doesn't exempt you. Because, once again, as part of the agreement you implicitly made, you agreed to abide by the decision of the group in order to live in the area.

littlestymaar 5y ago

I also wonder what she thinks about people not paying their rents to their landlords.

nindalf 5y ago
Seems to me that all private transactions are contracts. Contracts are meaningless unless they can be enforced. I’m not aware of any practical mechanism to enforce contracts other than the threat of state violence. Ostracising people who break contracts might work in a small community but wouldn’t scale to a large one. My understanding is that HN has no shortage of libertarians. Maybe one of them could tell us if there’s an alternate way to enforce contracts.
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  AFAIK the libertarian view on this topic is pretty clear. Violating a contract is violating the “Non aggression principle” and the landlord is considered as acting in self-defense.
  - nindalf 5y ago
    And the landlord does what to the tenant who won’t pay? Threaten the tenant with a gun? Or does she rely on the coercive power of the State? The State that maintains a monopoly on violence.
    - littlestymaar 5y ago
      Obviously, there's as many variants of libertarianism as there's libertarians, but AFAIK most of them agree that there should be no state. I think threatening the tenant with a gun to get the money then kick him out of the flat is the way it should go for most libertarians. You'd appreciate the irony of this not being an aggression. (there's a reason why libertarianism is almost only found in the US: it lays on the Far West myth a lot)
      - 5y ago