I don't get what is so difficult about paying income taxes to a country that provides you freedom, protection, modern civilization and all those perks? What don't you get? You won the sperm lottery Wade - you weren't born Somalian or some other third world cess pool. Guess what, so did I, but I never bitch about my obligations.
Originally Posted by: DakotaT
1. Taxes aren't paid to a "country." Taxes are paid to a government.
2. Governments don't provide freedom. Their job is to constrain freedoms otherwise possessed in the name of "something more important."
3. Insofar as governments provide anything positive (i.e., "something more important"), it is the protection of freedom against those who would infringe upon it (rampaging hordes of Canadians, terrorists, religous zealots, etc). So I'll grant the need to pay something for protection.
3A. Though the burden of proof for paying for said protection via coercive taxes (actually a redundancy, but one has to be sure with you statist types sometimes to make this one clear) lies with those who would use said taxes. In particular, it needs to be shown that said protection money must come via taxes, and how said taxes are better than, say, protection money paid to Don Corleone.
3B. I'm actually not completely against taxes. I'm merely arguing that any tax, to work, must be coercive. And the burden of proof for those who would coerce, not with those of us who would rather not be coerced.
3C. The fact that our decisions are made upon (more-or-less) majoritarian principles doesn't change that burden of proof. A majority of 51% (or 60% or 99.9%) has no more authority to coerce the minority than a King or Emperor does. There is no divine right of kings, and there is no divine right of the majority either.
4. Government hasn't created a single piece of civilization. Now, I'd be happy to agree that the
people of the US of A have created a lot of it. At best, the government has made it easier -- through #3 -- for those people to create said civilization. (See, e.g., counter-example of Soviet Union.)
4A. Government can, under certain conditions, protect wealth. Only individuals, acting alone or in combination with other individuals, can create it. I won that sperm lottery because the foundations of this country were built strong enough between 1776 and 1945 to withstand the attack from both external AND internal seekers after power. Foundations which have been steadily chipped away at for several decades. Those foundations were not built by government, but by a people who (for awhile anyway) recognized that government was an evil that needed to be constantly limited and pruned, not something that provided cradle-to-grave protection against every possible risk and diaper rash.
4B. The federal government passes somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000 pages of new rules/laws/regulations every year, and that doesn't count the hundreds of volumes of judicial decisions, or any of the rules/laws/regulations/ordinances passed by state and local authorities. If you can demonstrate to me that even 10 percent of that government interference in the lives of its citizens constitute net increases in freedom, protection, and civilization for the individual American, then I'll entertain the idea that general taxation in some form is justified. Then, and only then, in my opinion, does the question of the relative benefits of income taxation, progressive or otherwise, and sales taxation, regressive or otherwise, become relevant.
I will continue to pay my taxes. But not because those taxes are justified. Only because I'm a wimp who doesn't want to deal with the coercive power of the state to make me.
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2 (NKJV)