Neil

I keep coming across this claim that taxation is theft, particularly from ancap types.

Taxation is not theft nor can it possibly be theft.

The reason we pay taxes is for property ownership purposes. It's the fee we pay to the collective of society we are part of, in the form of a state or nation, in exchange for recognition by that collective of ownership of the property in question.

We pay taxes to fund government for this purpose, and if we don't do that we have no objective or impartial infrastructure or mechanism to determine who owns what.

Without taxes, the state, government, and capitalism in general, all we would have is people constantly fighting with each other over who owns what. Every time someone claims they own something that someone else thinks they own, either it will now belong to the new person claiming it if the previous person does nothing, or the two parties will fight until there's a winner.

With capitalism (and taxes to pay for its existence), there are city, county, or state records, paper trails, receipts, witnesses, etc.

TNVolunteer73

Taxation isn't thieft OVER TAXATION IS..

There is NO REASON for anyone to be paying more that 12% in Taxes

goober

That's enough to service the debt, you don't want anything else?
Military, roads, fire, police, schools?

This country does best with graduated taxes.
Top tax rate should be at least 50%, on all income.
Give the government the revenue to pay down the debt, and to provide the social services that people need.

Raise taxes until the concentration of wealth goes down, that would be the pre Reagan tax levels, that's the last time the middle class increased it's piece of the pie.

TNVolunteer73

There should be NO public debt...

actually 12% of 18 Trillion = 2.16 trillion.. debt service is 0.6 trillion.

Government should only have 4 duties.

1. National Defense
2. Interstate law enforcement
3. Promotion and regulation of interstate commerce
4. Promotion and regulation of international commerce

Everything else the government does should be either done by the State and Local Governments or Private sector.

Neil

In a manner of speaking, yes I agree with you. The problem I have with calling taxation theft in general, is that theft is something that's established and determined at the collective (state) level. It would be like a contradiction for the state to be committing theft. If it's a tax it's legal, if it's legal it cannot be theft.

I prefer saying that taxes can be excessive, or that we're being over taxed, but none of that would be theft. Look at it this way: the state is an entity that we own, so how can an entity we own be stealing from us? That makes no sense.

I suppose the only exception to this would be if laws were passed to tax us that we didn't approve of by voting on it or voting for legislative delegates to authorize such laws. Even if it wasn't over taxation something like that could qualify as a form of theft, or theft-like situation.

I don't know why it would be 12% or any other specific percentage rate, but I would agree that we should only be paying taxes to fund and support the essentials needed to have a state (courts, government administration facilities, law enforcement, prisons, etc.), and whatever's run by the state (roads, water works, sanitary systems, etc.). If the government collects taxes and ends up with a large surplus, they should return that surplus they don't need for slack back to taxpayers, or credit them for that amount (essentially like a one-time lowering of taxes).

TNVolunteer73

Taxation is not theift Small government people don't believe that taxes are stealing

but over taxation is

is it fair that a government take in taxes more than 1/2 of a persons income.

THAT IS THEIFT

Neil

Roads, fire, and schools can be privatized. Even military and police could be privatized, but they're valid or reasonable services to have run by government. It used to be posses and an elected sheriff who handled law enforcement matters, and some might argue that we just need to have people armed to defend our nation.

Do we need people wearing uniforms & patches, saying YES SIR NO SIR HOW HIGH SIR to defend our nation? Anyone can pick up a weapon to fend off an invading force, and we'd have the home field advantage. LOL

Anyways, I'm personally fine with having a government-managed military, and roads, etc. It's more streamlined and economically efficient that way. For roads I'm somewhat opposed to privatization, because I'm opposed to preventing anyone from having access between private properties or public facilities. Land or real estate properties should only be like enclaves in a mesh of publicly accessible pathways.

TNVolunteer73

I base it on faith. anything over 12% is usury

Endtherepublic

There should be no taxation because there should be no income. The state should provide everyone with each according to their need.

goober

So just a belief in the supernatural, no basis in reality...