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I know that taxes ultimately don’t result in lost schools and hospitals, as it’s never that 1:1, but do you ever think you could have cost your country a hospit
by jackcodes 7y ago
I know that taxes ultimately don’t result in lost schools and hospitals, as it’s never that 1:1, but do you ever think you could have cost your country a hospital, a new road, or a new warhead or whatever?
- senorjazz 7y ago> or a new warhead Perhaps they thought they were saving the lives of innocents from collateral damage in wars of aggression?
- henvic 7y agoThey probably were!
- Kaiyou 7y agoTaxes are pretty much theft at gunpoint, so I imagine nobody losing sleep over dealing with it in an appropriate way.
- Frondo 7y agoTaxes are not theft, they are an agreed-upon payment for being a member of a society. Your parents, as guardians of a newborn, made your initial decision for you to bring you into the society. You maintained your consent by retaining your citizenship when you reached an age of majority. Taxes are the price you pay for retaining the benefits of your citizenship. Not theft.
- leetcrew 7y agothis is sort of like the "wage slavery is consensual because both sides agreed" argument. what realistic alternative does someone who doesn't consent to taxation have? renouncing US citizenship triggers a large tax on the total value of your assets if you are wealthy. even if you're not wealthy, the US charges a flat fee of about $2000 for the process. you might literally be unable to afford renouncing your citizenship. even after that, the IRS can come back and harass you at any time if they suspect you of tax fraud, and most foreign countries will cooperate with them.
- burnte 7y agoIf you're looking to leave the country over taxes, why the hell would them trying to tax your assets bother you? You're leaving. You are welcome to leave, no one is forcing you. It's the same argument with bringing jobs to dead small towns. No one ever promised everyone could get any job anywhere, sometimes you have to move. No one ever promised you could live in any country without help paying for the upkeep.
- leetcrew 7y agoI think you may be missing the point of my post. pragmatically, I don't object to the idea of taxation. the government provides some useful services and it needs a way of funding them. I'm also not actually interested in renouncing my citizenship, as I personally find US citizenship to be worth the tax obligations. what I do object to is the common "social contract" argument for why taxes are legitimate. in particular, I strongly object to the idea that I "consent" to taxation merely by having been born here. I haven't consented to anything; I submit because an overwhelmingly powerful entity compels me.
- burnte 7y ago"I submit because an overwhelmingly powerful entity compels me." This is also the "I don't want to be told what to do" argument, which PERSONALLY I find immature. Please don't misunderstand, I'm not calling you a name, we're having a reasonable discussion, I'm just saying that no one likes being given orders, but it's a part of life. You DO have the option of leaving and going somewhere without taxes. You're submitting because you have to in order to be where you want to be.
- Kaiyou 7y agoYes, you are submitting because you have to, hence nobody is losing sleep over dealing with it in an appropriate way. You wouldn't submit if you didn't have to.
- Frondo 7y ago
- Kaiyou 7y agoThey are a forced payment. To add insult to injury they are wasted on stupid things in a very inefficient way all the time.
- dragonwriter 7y ago> Taxes are pretty much theft at gunpoint, It's odd how the people that think this are generally the same ones most likely to argue that “positive rights” that impose a cost on others are an incoherent concept, and positive entitlement can at most be a limited privilege granted by others based on available resources and expected utility of the grant. But they fail to recognize that the “right” to wall off goods from the commons and exclude others by force—i.e., property—is very much a positive right that has a cost for others.
- Kaiyou 7y agoYou're using some words that I do not know if I understand them correctly, but let me just say that I personally think of rights as something that is either given to you by someone or taken by force and the only rights you truly have are the ones you can personally defend with your own force, since the other ones can be taken from you at any time. If you think you should have rights that you cannot take with your own force, that is the definition of entitlement.
- nybble41 7y agoProperty is not a positive right. Property ownership is derived from the self-ownership of the person who created the property by combining their own labor with unowned land. The exclusive right to decide how the property is consumed is a negative right; others have no obligation to provide anything to the property owner, only to leave the owner (including their property) alone. Homesteading imposes no cost on others for the simple reason that these others have no claim to the unowned land being homesteaded. Your error is starting from the assumption that land is owned in common by everyone, rather than unowned. If land were actually owned in common then you would need to obtain permission from every single person on the planet before using any of it. You would starve to death long before you obtained even a small fraction of the necessary consent. And no, the government cannot grant that consent on behalf of others who never deliberately and voluntarily agreed to permit the government to represent them. You would need the consent of each and every individual.
- kortilla 7y ago> It's odd how the people that think this are generally the same ones most likely to argue Don’t attack strawmen, it’s boring.
- henvic 7y agoOn point. Tax is extortion. If you don't pay, they'll send the thugs after you. Try to stand your ground and they escalate the violence up to murder.
- burnte 7y agoTaxes are dues for being part of a club. Any club will send security if you stay there, without paying, and refuse to leave.
- kortilla 7y agoNo, a club will not imprison you in the club. They will just kick you out.
- rstuart4133 7y agoThat's always an option in this case too. Just move to a somewhere without an extradition treaty.
- burnte 7y agoDepends on the club.
- Kaiyou 7y agoClubs are opt-in, taxes aren't.
- burnte 7y agoTaxes are dues for being part of a club. You're free to move to somewhere else if you don't want to be part of that club but you don't get to freeload.
- nybble41 7y agoIf it were just a "club" (as opposed to a protection racket) then joining would involve consent and you wouldn't have to move to quit. Also, it's not as if there's anywhere you could move to that hasn't been infested with its own "club". Merely wanting to be left in peace in the place where you were born without being compelled to pay for things you never asked for is not "freeloading".
- mrmonkeyman 7y agoThat's fine by me. Just don't collect social security, drive on our roads, use our schools, actually don't use any of our infrastructure in any way whatsoever and we're OK.
- fock 7y agoHow about Somalia :). I reckon you can live without to many taxes there. https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sfVbXjODdRQ/T9-dLQR5yUI/AAAAAAAAMIc/DCGLpZF125A/s1600/better-in-somalia.jpg https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sfVbXjODdRQ/T9-dLQR5yUI/AAAAAAAAM...
- kortilla 7y agoWell given that they were already doing this before software, probably not?