[RD] Taxes are actually not theft

[Synobun]

dont people get nailed with taxes if they try to leave the country?

A country's ability to take your wealth is severely restricted once that wealth is no longer within its borders. If you leave the US, for example, you can easily just bin the notices from the IRS.

You won't be let back into the country, though.

 

[El_Machinae]

Probably.

I also pay commission when I try to sell a stock or a mutual fund.

But, you knew about that future tax before you started using the system to collect and generate wealth. How different is that from signing an exit clause on your lease? And I really don't think new laws are sprung on people unawares. If a new tax or service fee is being introduced, then you can move your wealth beforehand too.

 

[Berzerker]

Clinton's tax increase of '93 was retroactive and upheld by the courts in spite of the explicit constitutional prohibition on ex post facto legislation

would you consider it theft if you wanted to leave the country and your wealth was seized with retroactive legislation?

 

[astrallite]

Technically government spending is theft, its counterfeiting money to benefit some people at the cost of everyone (inflation). Thing is government deficit spending hurts the poor more than the rich because inelastic goods like food and housing always rise with inflation, whereas consumer goods can fall in price since corporations can simply lay off people, outsource, or let inventories fall in the short term to reduce prices. The purpose of a progressive tax system is simply to counteract the regressive effect of government bidding up the cost of goods and services (above normal demand) via expanding the money supply/deficit spending.

 

[Commodore]

its counterfeiting money

It is literally impossible for a government to do this.

 

[Mise]

I don't know if any more than a handful of people really thinks that taxes are theft. What they're mostly trying to communicate is that taxation feels like theft: that they seem a large deduction being made from their income without their specific, item-by-item approval, doesn't feel viscerally different than somebody just reaching into their pay-packet and lifting out a few hundred dollars. It's not a response that stands up to much scrutiny, to be sure, but it doesn't have to, if enough people feel it strongly enough to convince each other that "scrutiny" is another word for Bolshevism.

This is absolutely right. I'm in favour, in general, of a tax-and-spend government; I'm a fully paid up member of the Labour party; I believe firmly that I should be taxed more.

But when I look at my pay slip, and I see so much money going out in tax, I absolutely do feel like I've just been robbed.

 

[Angst]

If taxes are theft, the virtue of theft is to be reevaluated.

Theft is considered pretty much universally vicious. The exception to theft being vicious could be argued to be stuff like stealing the bare necessities to live out of poverty, if you are barred from work without any subsidies and have children to feed. The vicious nature of theft is why certain political debators claim taxes is theft - it is a way to demonize taxes, and shorthand explain why taxes are wrong.

But here's the thing. Taxes have a lot of good consequences that people like.

So if you want to argue taxes as theft, you complicate the nature of theft, because theft is in that case no longer a (near) universally vicious action. Taxes have a massive lot of benefits, so if you want to say taxes is theft, you argue that theft can inherently have a massive lot of benefits. It complicates your anti-tax, anti-theft position instead of reinforcing it.

 

[Hygro]

If taxes are theft, the virtue of theft is to be reevaluated.

Theft is considered pretty much universally vicious. The exception to theft being vicious could be argued to be stuff like stealing the bare necessities to live out of poverty, if you are barred from work without any subsidies and have children to feed. The vicious nature of theft is why certain political debators claim taxes is theft - it is a way to demonize taxes, and shorthand explain why taxes are wrong.

But here's the thing. Taxes have a lot of good consequences that people like.

So if you want to argue taxes as theft, you complicate the nature of theft, because theft is in that case no longer a (near) universally vicious action. Taxes have a massive lot of benefits, so if you want to say taxes is theft, you argue that theft can inherently have a massive lot of benefits. It complicates your anti-tax, anti-theft position instead of reinforcing it.

That's just like a whole lot of words to say taxes are theft, man.

 

[Angst]

That's just like a whole lot of words to say taxes are theft, man.

(Anwering seriously) I'm not saying whether taxes are theft or not. I'm saying that if taxes are theft, theft is much more morally ambigious than economic libertarians or anarcho-capitalists wants it to be.

 

[El_Machinae]

would you consider it theft if you wanted to leave the country and your wealth was seized with retroactive legislation?

Yes. That seems reasonable. At that point, it is no longer contracting for a service, but a seizure.

 

[Glassfan]

People on the Right don't really mind when the offspring of a successful person is then able to live off the largess...

...People on the Left don't inherit?

Of course, there aren't actually many on the right who are committed to this different understanding,...

The practical question doesn't appear to be taxes - yes or no - but how much. In the Cycles of American History, Liberal regimes tend to raise taxes, Conservatives to lower. No reasonable person would argue that taxes must be abolished.

John Marshall said, "The Power to Tax is the Power to Destroy." He didn't mean get rid of all taxes - just the ones he didn't like. Rhetorical excess should not be taken literally.

 

[El_Machinae]

Is that where you stopped reading? I don't see any purpose to your rhetorical question

 

[Glassfan]

Is that where you stopped reading? I don't see any purpose to your rhetorical question

No, just pointing out that if you start with an obvious political bias, then your reasoning may become suspect.

 

[El_Machinae]

What's the 'obvious bias'? I literally don't understand the point of your question.

 

[warpus]

It's not so much about making an argument so much as voicing a feeling, and hoping that the feeling resonates with others.

Well then, if they're not making an argument, then we don't have to listen to them. It would make sense, as badgers generally lack general reasoning ability and react to their external stimuli based on instict and feelings alone.

Excellent, problem solved. That makes me feel "happy"

 

[Berzerker]

If taxes are theft, the virtue of theft is to be reevaluated.

Theft is considered pretty much universally vicious. The exception to theft being vicious could be argued to be stuff like stealing the bare necessities to live out of poverty, if you are barred from work without any subsidies and have children to feed. The vicious nature of theft is why certain political debators claim taxes is theft - it is a way to demonize taxes, and shorthand explain why taxes are wrong.

But here's the thing. Taxes have a lot of good consequences that people like.

So if you want to argue taxes as theft, you complicate the nature of theft, because theft is in that case no longer a (near) universally vicious action. Taxes have a massive lot of benefits, so if you want to say taxes is theft, you argue that theft can inherently have a massive lot of benefits. It complicates your anti-tax, anti-theft position instead of reinforcing it.

If somebody says taxes are theft, they don't reinforce their position by agreeing taxes aren't theft. Yes, taking your money would benefit those taking it. Taxes were 'ostensibly' invented to deter theft, using them to facilitate theft undermines the moral claim for their existence. Tax revolts are not led by people opposed to the use of taxes for infrastructure, they're led by people fed up with "special interests" enriching themselves when their bribes pay off.

Most taxes are user fees, some are legalized theft. When a politician takes your money and hands it to the multi-millionaires who own local industries in return for large campaign donations, they're stealing your money. Its legal... But the nature of theft being a nearly universally vicious action existed before both the taxes invented to deter theft and the taxes used by politicians to pay off their corporate donors.

 

[Angst]

If somebody says taxes are theft, they don't reinforce their position by agreeing taxes aren't theft. Yes, taking your money would benefit those taking it. Taxes were 'ostensibly' invented to deter theft, using them to facilitate theft undermines the moral claim for their existence. Tax revolts are not led by people opposed to the use of taxes for infrastructure, they're led by people fed up with "special interests" enriching themselves when their bribes pay off.

Most taxes are user fees, some are legalized theft. When a politician takes your money and hands it to the multi-millionaires who own local industries in return for large campaign donations, they're stealing your money. Its legal... But the nature of theft being a nearly universally vicious action existed before both the taxes invented to deter theft and the taxes used by politicians to pay off their corporate donors.

I can accept your position of "certain taxes are vicious and therefore theft". I cannot accept the position of "all taxes are theft and therefore bad" because of reasons outlined above, but that's not your position. The thing is, "taxation is theft" is used as a rhethorical device that demonizes all taxation, and this device is either fallacious, or it beckons reexamination of the nature of theft. That was all I said. I also demonize certain taxes due to vicious wealth redistribution, but not because I think they're theft. I demonize them because their wealth redistribution is vicious.

 

[civvver]

In the United States 'taxation is theft' almost literally translates to 'I don't want my money going to black people.'

Wow seriously? Aren't way more white people on welfare than black people? Isn't a huge majority of congress white?

I could get on board with equating the saying to I don't want my money wasted, and possibly on board with I don't want my money going to poor people, but it has nothing to do with race.

 

[Lexicus]

Wow seriously? Aren't way more white people on welfare than black people? Isn't a huge majority of congress white?

I could get on board with equating the saying to I don't want my money wasted, and possibly on board with I don't want my money going to poor people, but it has nothing to do with race.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2960399?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2016/2/racism-undermines-support-for-government-spending.html

https://apps.cla.umn.edu/directory/items/publication/304524.pdf


There are oodles of other papers showing the same thing.

 

[Traitorfish]

...People on the Left don't inherit?

They would feel guilty about it, is, I think, El Mac's point.

Well then, if they're not making an argument, then we don't have to listen to them.

What makes you think you were ever the intended audience?

I could get on board with equating the saying to I don't want my money wasted, and possibly on board with I don't want my money going to poor people, but it has nothing to do with race.

Class and race are not categories which Americans have, historically, been very good at untangling. If I was to contest Lexicus' claim, it would only be that it's too narrow: the conservative heart does not swell with sympathy for the working single mother because she happens to be Hispanic or Irish-American or Appalachian.