> "The reason to have income tax is to have people who can afford it contribute to society. I can see how that is a good thing." This argument justifies all ta

> "The reason to have income tax is to have people who can afford it contribute to society. I can see how that is a good thing." This argument justifies all taxes that a person can afford, which makes the reasoning here obviously wrong. The exact same reasoning applies to an internet tax, a premium toilet paper tax, or a smart phone tax. Taxes are not justified solely because people can afford them or because those taxes contribute to society. Taxes are justified on an economic basis and on that basis alone. When pooling money under government control according to some distribution scheme results in greater economic output (accounting for all externalities) than would be produced by the same money used for solely private purposes, then and only then is such a tax justified. The near impossiblility of assessing the relative utility of each approach is why individual taxes are largely a political debate rather than an economic one.