No it’s not your money: why taxation isn’t theft (2014)
taxjustice.net
taxjustice.net
The article seem to present a tautology for why your pre-tax money isn't yours. "It isn't yours because you are legally obligated to pay it." Taxes take a portion of your income. If they don't, and it isn't your income, then what is it?
It also seems very confused over what is and what isn't "just." They present income disparity as "unjust" and therefore immoral, but that is subjective.
The argument is that you obviously don't deserve the money you get, therefore it should be taxed. That's not a very compelling argument. Granted, like the article, that's just my opinion.
However, the articles goes on to argue against the moral right on different grounds. To say that your pre-tax income is morally yours is to argue that your current pre-tax income--as well as that of all others--is just.
As they spell out, the idea of a legal right is incoherent, while the idea of a moral right is implausible.
The problem with that as the argument is that taxes are on income. Income has many forms, but is usually understood as wages paid for goods or services. The wages must be paid to you first, then taxes deducted. The exchange of money for value (as goods or services) is made first. At that point the money is yours. The exchange has completed. Therefore the taxation on income is taxing money that is already yours, irrespective of your obligation to pay a portion of it to the state.
Taxation occurs by rule of law, therefore taxation most certainly is not theft. Use of the term "theft" is dramatic rhetoric.
This argument attempts to construe taxation as something other than "taking", though, and that simply is not true.
The moral stance put forth by the article is literally "you don't deserve the income you get, therefore the state is obligated to take it".
I think that's a misreading.
I think the key insight that demolishes slogans like "taxation is theft" is that property, taxation, and theft are all concepts that have no independent existence, but are rather social conventions subject to social definition. Taxation isn't theft because it isn't defined that way by social convention. Society has things it needs to to collectively, and it's convenient to use its money-system to accomplish those things. Society also reckons that income is can be distributed unjustly, and taxation is a way of correcting that. Society's social conventions and definitions are made accordingly.
It's arguably better than when you're taxed at the source and you don't even see its color.
Now, the fact that I need to remit a portion of that money back out to government entities in the form of taxes, as part of living in and doing business in this country, does not change the situation on the ground—I get money from my clients, then I must remit a portion of it to the state and federal tax entities. I wouldn't argue that means "taxation is theft" per se—but to argue that the money was never really mine to begin with is ludicrous.
The free market pays a banker more than a cancer researcher, therefore government must take from the banker and give to the researcher for... Reasons.
The problem with that is, while the banker has made jobs possible and allowed people to buy houses...a real and immediate value, the researcher hasn't healed a single person.
Then, one day, the researcher finds the cure...and then gets paid more than 1,000,000 bankers put together.
We cannot apply an equal value to "trying to do good" and actually doing good. That's not the way the world works.
I can't eat your good intentions. Nor can they shelter me from the cold.
When will poor people ever not be mad at billionaires for not doing enough?
I think a big part of it is that American perception on how efficient the government is at solving problems given funding (tax dollars). Some people think the government spends too much on military, some people think the government doesn't spend enough.
With the country so heavily divided (50% left, 50% right), you have wide-scale conflicting opinions on "should I pay more in taxes" or "should I pay less".
The big unexamined assumption here is that it is at all reasonable for billionaires to exist within a society that has poor people.
Billionaires are a relatively recent thing, and Rockefeller (the first) faced enormous resistance to both his wealth and the means by which he accumulated it.
I would say 'yes' that's a completely reasonable thing. The one being a billionaire doesn't cause the others to be poor.
Wealth (and money) is not a zero-sum game.