Taxes Aren't Illegal. Taxes Aren't Theft

[davidpakman]

Taxes Aren't Illegal. Taxes Aren't Theft

Taxes are not theft, and taxes are not illegal, and we discuss exactly how to deal with cartoonish right wing and libertarian arguments about taxation, including the 16th Amendment and American law

Have you heard this argument before?

Comments

[mattclarke]

It certainly appears the signatories to the constitution consented to taxation; although they're long dead so probably not big contributors.
Your logic is compelling, but assumes the existence of countries, which is a religious belief you hold, and not something demonstrably true.

[aegyptiangod]

Ah good, you posted this here so I don't have to wait a week before commenting.

You mention that other countries have taxes so moving there is meaningless, but I have a point that I bring up at this stage in the argument that you may be missing here:

That's actually not true. There are a significant number of countries without taxes. Not one. They have no taxes for various reasons, ideological (communism mostly), poverty (no one to tax), Monarchistic nations that don't need to collect taxes, or an inability to collect taxes.

But the key point here is that those countries without taxes, tend to less be anarchic eutopias, and be more of what these libertarian types refer to as 'shithole countries'. Which is a refutation of the 'libertarian anarcho capitalist state' in and of itself.

It's also an extension of how their argument is bogus. Libertarians aren't flocking to Uganda to set up their anarchy metropolis; they know that it's not going to work. In fact there are many rich people who if any one could make it work, it'd be them. But they don't want to move to any of the shitholes with no taxes.

https://tax-free.today/blog/23-countries-without-income-tax/

[davidpakman]

very interesting point

[joereform]

I have never heard a single libertarian say that taxation is "illegal," but rather that the state made it legal long after the Constitution was ratified. Legality, though, does not make something morally right.

The idea of a social contract does not hold water, David. If you had lived during Prohibition times, would you have told the person who considered it a violation of their rights to "just leave" if they didn't like it? It's part of the social contract, after all. What if the states ratified an amendment prohibiting abortion? "Social contract!"

The United States does not "own" me or my property by fiat. The concept of a social contract is a fiction designed to legitimize whatever the state deems to do, whether those things are moral in your eyes or they are atrocities.