TAX IS THEFT! and what to do about it. | Налоги – это грабёж! и что с этим делать. | |
Sure feels like it close to April 15, right? But of course that slogan is just an exaggeration. After all, we <i>must</i> pay our taxes! It’s sort of a duty, no? Look, suppose <i>no one</i> paid their taxes, where would streets and sewers and social security and post offices come from? Not to mention police and marines and missiles and space shots? No doubt about it, taxation is necessary, so even if it is theft... | | |
Think about that for a second — “even if it is theft...?” Theft is universally accepted to be an immoral act. Assuming all the aforementioned services are moral and desirable (and <i>that</i> is hotly debated about all of them), how can moral ends be achieved only through immoral means? | | |
“Well, surely, nothing right can be only done wrongly; there is a right way and a wrong way of doing anything,” you might say. But then there must be a right way of financing those necessary (moral) services. That is, taxation is not <i>necessary</i>, not if it is immoral. | | |
OK, but even if we all hate paying taxes, <i>that</i> does not make it wrong. It is right or wrong, no matter what we feel about it. It is theft, or not, no matter what our “feelings” about it at the moment. So consider this. | | |
A man sends you a letter saying your neighbors are contributing to his fund. This “fund” performs many good acts, he claims, and perhaps he lists a few. Please send in your contribution, and get it in by the middle of the month. To assist you in deciding your contribution, which should be based on your income (or maybe how much you buy, or how much your house is worth, or something else, or some combination), a handy table for easy calculation is provided. | | |
Nothing wrong here. Junk mail, perhaps; a trifle irritating. Maybe you even agree with most of the services the Fund finances, and nobody would disagree with all of them. But say you choose either to ignore the letter or send less than your assigned quota. He writes again, expressing his regret at your omission. He mentions that he has means to get your “fair share” — after all, everybody <i>else</i> paid their share, except for a few scoundrels. | | |
