Are Taxes Justified?

The state is an organization of institutions that claim legitimate authority to use violence in a territory. As such, they are able to threaten force if one does not pay them a certain amount of money (taxes). Is this justified? Although you may say it is a reciprocal relationship, a large number of people do not get as much from the state as they give it. Refusing to pay results in violence to the person (jail time or other), without any option to abstain. Is this not robbery?

 

If it isn't justified, i.e., you don't agree with it - what's the alternative?

 

You can't measure the extent in which each individual uses the state's services. So, how else would you organise an alternative? Would paying for everything every time you use it be better or worse for international economics?

 

The one thing everyone benefits from through the state is security. Security could be contracted privately, could it not?

 

Could be. Just like everything else. Though I'm sure if you contracted everything that the state offers you separately you would be no better off.

Try living without anything that you haven't sourced yourself, that is free to take.

 

Consider the question: why do you pay taxes? Some will answer they do it to receive something from the state. The majority will say they do it to avoid going to jail. If this wasn't the case, if everyone got equal or more out of the state than they put in, the state wouldn't have enough money to provide any services to anyone.

 

The way they implement taxes, and how they implement taxes to the wealthy has been a scam for centuries.

 

How so? Some would argue that the 40% income tax on those making $400k+ (in Canada) is the only reason the state can afford to offer programs in the first place.

 

This question is very dependent upon how you feel about the state's (government) position in the world. The question is to those who believe in minimal government, how does the state pay for contract enforcement without some sort of income stream? I am personally nonplussed on the tax issue. I pay taxes to maintain roads that I travel daily and to ensure that if I were to become unemployed due to some sort of economic down turn I'd have an at least temporary social safety net to keep me from starving.

 

Taxation is extortion and theft, if you aren't consenting to them. The "services" they they provide you are weak, inefficient, and overbudget, etc. If I had the choice I'd opt out for sure.

Unfortunately they will seize your property right from under you if you do not, and if you defend your property they will shoot you or taze you. There is no getting around it for an extended period of time.

@As far as nero's post.

I'd rather roads be built privately, by businesses that want to attract customers. They would have every incentive to provide access to their location. And before you say that stomps out the little guys, not really. You'd just lease a complex or something, like any business does already.

As far as unemployment, if you saved the money for taxes you'd be able to make it through yourself. Generally I find services I pay for myself to be better, as I can pick a provider that I'm comfortable with.

Also I refuse to post here again, as I will not get into a long drawn out argument with a bunch of internet statists =p

 

Yeah we've had this discussion before. The problem with road building is that it isn't easy or cheap. To have a business only pay for the road they need you wouldn't have half the interstate and highway system we have now. As far as unemployment benefits goes it wouldn't really work like that. I can assure you from personal experience.

 

That is complete bogus and hogwash and obviously wrong. I'm not going to even bother explaining it is so obvious.

 

Because SuF didn't elaborate, I'll give you an example.

Consider a town with no road system. Now consider everybody who would benefit from a road system. (Most of the people). Suppose that if everybody who would benefit puts in $10, that a road can be built. Otherwise, to build the road on your own, it would cost you $100.

What will happen? Well, evidently, putting in $10 to have a road is beneficial to everybody. But suppose there was nobody to take the $10 and spend it on the road? Well, nobody would end up wanting to contribute the $100, so there would end up being no road, a situation where everybody is worse off.

Anyways, my own point -

The real question here is what rights do we have? Why is a right to live on our own with nobody bothering us a right? Animals don't have that, and if we lived in a state of nature, we wouldn't have that, so it's naive to think that you should be able to get some land and have everybody leave you alone. Just because you wish that were the case doesn't mean it is your right.

 

If I'm not a car owner, why should I pay for other people's roads?

You're right, part of this discussion does have to do with rights. There isn't really a way for one to be stateless, as there is no territory within which you could live, and you would have no guarantee of security.

Perhaps it is true that the state is unavoidable, but why is it not within your rights to reject it's extortion?

 

The roads was an example as to how someone (and most people) could get something more out of the state than you put in. For you, it might be your children's education. Or the feeling of safety you may feel from the police, and so on.

You're perfectly within your rights to reject its extortion. But if you do so, the state is within its rights to come and do whatever it wants to you, since it owes you no obligation to protect you or to act in your interest.

 

Why does it have the right to do whatever it wants to me if I don't pay it? Does that mean I can kidnap a man off the street and imprison him if he doesn't give me his wallet?

 

No, you're not within your rights to kidnap the man because you're both paying taxes and there exists a Leviathan (the government) to keep everybody from doing that, so your example is a bad one.

If instead you lived in the Early Middle ages, and had to answer to nobody, then yes, you would be within your power to do that. (Kings and nobles did it all the time anyway).

And it has the right to do whatever it wants because you can't do anything to stop it. What gives you the inherent right to be left alone? You don't get rights just because you came out a birth canal, you have to earn them/make sure they are respected.

 

It's the reason they can afford to offer the programs, but it isn't fair. Hence what you said earlier, if everyone got from the government as much or more than they put in. The upper class pays the majority of the taxes and receive few of the benefits.

As for whether or not taxes are justified, the short answer is 'No'. I never signed a contract with the government saying I would pay them anything, I never agreed to that. But you have to consider the alternatives.. No taxes = No government = Anarchy.

 

What is wrong with Anarchy? As a political ideology, it simply means the absence of domination. Taxes as a form of domination by the state over the individual seem undesirable when you don't benefit from what you put in. I would rather not be dominated by something that forces me to pay them to not put me in jail.

 

How are you going to get anywhere if there is not a public path there? Trespassing is illegal and violates others rights. Have fun starving to death.