It was reported a while ago that in Sweden 20 billion SEK are "lost" annually in the retail and restaurant industry due to black money. It's generally a good rule of thumb to do the opposite of what the IRS says. The state collecting (stealing) less money is a good thing. To escape being robbed is something we should encourage, right? Another thing you can do to reduce the tax revenues of the state is to always opt for takeaway. Then the VAT will be lower. And of course, never ask for a receipt.
It's tragic that there are so many people who think it's morally wrong to try to evade taxes, i.e try to avoid being robbed by the state. The recent Panama papers "scandal" showed just how common this stance is. Orwellian new-speak terms such as "tax ethics" are thrown around in media. Tax evaders are portrayed as literally Hitler. But I wonder if it actually isn't the contrary that is true; that you in fact contribute to less evil if you evade paying taxes. Considering that it will mean less power to a morally corrupt state that steal, threaten, coerce, jail and bomb the shit out of people.
Is it morally wrong not to pay taxes then? No, not really. On the contrary. Refusing to be robbed is honorable. Just like @LarkenRose says in his speech below, taxpayers in Nazi Germany were contributing to anything but good; they funded oppression, war and genocide. It was the tax evaders and smugglers who were the good. Exactly the same standards apply today.
The more you evade taxes the less you pay for the wars in Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, etc, the kidnapping of drug users and other victimless "criminals", the monitoring of internet, crappy public schools and hospitals, the bloated, counterproductive and inefficient welfare state and government spending in general.
I think it is morally wrong not to pay taxes in a capitalist society. Because then you are technically stealing from other members of your society.
The reason being is that if you are earning excessive amounts of capital like more than enough to support your familyx10, due to the laws of economics this usually means that someone else is at a loss for your gain. Extortionate prices and big profits are usually due to business being able to exploit demand. Like medicines for example; the epipen costs 0.30c to produce but is being sold at $200 due to demand, a diabetic on welfare will be $200 short instead of 0,30c short.
This is even more compounded by people who do not pay tax and make use of public services, which then means that they are directly stealing from their neighbors.
With reference to your argument, which seemed to me to be a case of 'but if these guys are doing it, why can't i?'; I completely agree big corporations and the wealthy can afford to 'legally' not morally hide their money offshore and not pay any tax, which is stealing from all the people in that country. They hire really expensive accountants to exploit legal loopholes to store their money offshore. These legal loopholes exist because the government turn a blind eye to them.
But it would be very easy for a government to hire some lawyers and draft a law that would close off the majority of the loopholes within a few years.
But in the words of the old saying; 'two wrongs don't make a right'
We don't live in a capitalist society and there has never been a capitalist society.
There will be no taxes in a capitalist society.
Taxes are involuntary and enforced with violence.
No one benefits from taxed. Poor people are not helped by taxes and the welfare state.
What you wrote is leftist-infested and disconnected from any form of livable real-world situation and I assume you've never run a business, been involved in business processes, strived to become and entrepreneur and instead sit on your ass while reading leftist-propaganda bullshit that does nothing to ruin the world.
Taxes are not a contract and are therefore theft. Learn the fucking difference or stop wasting everyone else's time with this leftist crap, please.
That's not very constructive, @gliten. @raph isn't just thinking about this stuff; he's also made himself vulnerable by sharing his thoughts in a public forum. Which is more than can be said for the majority of people who hold these views.
He's wrong, but weren't we all at one point?
Thankyou for your contribution @raph, there are a lot of holes in your argument, including a lot of cliched ones which people like @gliten and I get a little tired of hearing, hence the occasional outburst.
Hang around, read some stuff and keep thinking :)
We don't live in a capitalist society?
Wow, I think you need to tell that to everyone that bought into the 'Capitalism won the cold war' after the fall of the Berlin wall in the 80's and and Russia adopting capitalism in the 90's.
How is communism ruling again? Apart from in China, and NK.......
Taxes are not a contract? So by choosing to live in a society you are not agreeing to their terms and conditions? Guess who paid for the sidewalk, roads and amenities? The tax payer, so yeah you are stealing from them if you enjoy the fruits of living in a society they paid for.
Where are your constructive comments I can't find them? If taxes are theft, go live in a tax free country like Dubai or the UAE. These countries invest oil revenue into infrastructure.
Leftist crap? Name calling? Sounds like a guy who has to resort to playground tactics when they've been discredited and have no credible comeback.
There are people in society who depend on welfare, and also make a contribution to society, so your kinda ignorant if you belive there aren't. While I don't disagree with you entirely, I do belive that the government are responsible and should be held accountable for those that actually steal from tax payers.
For example the same people that stole tax payer money to bail out the banks, should be held accountable, the same people that abuse fear and war, and released public funding to go to the pockets private contractors extortionate figures, as well as the military industrial complex, the same people that don't crack down on extremely high earners; who have no need for ridiculous amounts of wealth, the same people that allow 1% of the population to hold 40% of the wealth.
These are the real thieves and their accomplices.
So if taxes are theft, is living in a country while not paying taxes 'squatting'? Are you a squatter?
There are no countries. They exist only in the minds of statists. There's earth and there's ocean. The lines between 'countries' only exist on maps.
A rebuttal of basically, " let the government steal from you, or leave" is counterproductive. You're basically saying he has no right to decide where his money is spent. That's called slavery.
In a true freedom society, which we have not achieved yet, nobody would be forced to pay anything they do not agree to. Taxes are part of the feudal system and it is basically a way for the government or monarchy to steal from their citizens. We don't need large governments or pay taxes if individuals govern themselves privately in their communities. So, it is not morally wrong to evade taxes because people should have the right to disperse their own money however they like. If a government forces you to pay taxes, they are stealing from you.
Great article as usual steemswede. But may I ask you something a little off topic? Why do you quote Larken Rose so much? It's not like he's the original source of these thoughts. Why not quote Mises, Hayek, Rothbard and use videos of Robert Murphy, for example? Just a thought...
lol I quote Larken Rose much? This is the very first time I post a video by him on Steemit. Please see my posts on Hazlitt, Mises and other greats.
It's not the first quote... but ok, I'm probably seeing too much.
I'd like to register the opinion that's too easy to say Germans should not have paid taxes because the money would be used for terrible end. Is it more moral to have yourself arrested and leave your family not provided for and labelled as traitors?
You see, the idea of self-regulation carries implicit that morality is an individual pursuit. It is not helpful to say 'if all Germans did not pay taxes' because that's outside the scope of self-regulation. To a German in Nazi regime, both paying and not paying taxes was immoral in principle. This could apply to any of us today.
I'd agree absolutely that in a true capitalist society, where everything is private property, taxes would be non-existent and we'd all be better off. But there's a problem with the transition from here to then, since it's at least conceivable that the total amount of suffering would increase in a revolution. (By revolution I mean the sudden collapse of government without enough time for private initiatives to provide answers to problems dealt by governments, however poorly.) If you only take your morals from principles, like NAP, then you're safe, but things get a lot more complicated when we assess the problem with a utilitarian perspective.
Technically speaking, you're referring to a consequentialist perspective, not a utilitarian one, per se. Consequentialist is opposite of "deontological" or "duty-based" perspective. A compatibilist perspective merges the two, noting that there are no differences that cannot be reconciled under normal circumstances, and that only lifeboat circumstances contain irreconcilable differences of approach. Just my .02
I stand corrected on the use of the word utilitarian.
As for the word compatibilist (which I actually use in other context), I think the label isn't all that useful. There could be many ways to reconcile the two and an umbrella term could silence them.
Thanks for your input.
Technically, it's morally wrong to pay taxes. By forcing everyone to pay taxes, the IRS and central bankers have forced all taxpayers to lose the moral high ground as "freedom-lovers." After all, no taxpayer loves freedom enough to pursue it perfectly consistently, as that would constitute tax-nonpayment.
So, we are all "muddy."
Subscription base public services? I just want to opt out of social security. Income tax seem stupid in principle, tax us on what we buy instead of what we make and the gove will get more of the grey money they desire from those who launder. Property taxes are dumb as well and the term "I own this property" is just figurative. Really we just need to rework the whole taxe code in the US and probably everywhere else. being a elected official should be voluntary work. but you must admit it's better then the king sending a knight to your house to shake you down for all your valuables.
Obedience should never be associated morality. You either explain to your children so they understand why or then the disagreement may be justified. Obviously you should know exactly where your labor goes. This post is a meta understatement. The dollar is funamentally broken we should not use statism money and it is not their land. When someone or somegroup is not sharing, it's ridiculous to to defend the parasite. Stockholm syndrome is an epidemic.
Well stated, @steemswede!
There are many ways to resist. I find it disappointing that there is still a majority of humanity that seem to willingly remain blasé and ignorant about taxation. Even worse, they apply whatever leverage they may have to make life difficult for those willing to stand up against the beast...