If your pay is not yours to keep, then neither is the tax

https://aeon.co/essays/if-your-pay-is-no...is-the-tax

EXCERPT: [...] The more interesting question is whether taxation is moral theft, and this depends on whether citizens have some kind of moral claim on their gross income. It is to this question I now turn.

Your gross, or pre-tax income, is the money the market delivers to you. In what sense might it be thought that you have a moral claim on this money? One answer might be that you deserve it: you have worked hard and have done a good job, and consequently you deserve all your gross income as recompense for your labour. According to this line of reasoning, when the government taxes, it takes the money that you deserve for the work you do.

This is not a plausible view. For it implies that the market distributes to people exactly what they deserve for the work that they do. But nobody thinks a hedge-fund manager deserves many times more wealth than a scientist working on a cure for cancer, and few would think that current pay ratios in companies reflect what philosophers call desert claims. Probably you work very hard in your job, and you make an important contribution. But then so do most people, and the market distribution of wealth patently does not reward in proportion to how hard-working people are, or how much of a contribution they make to society. If we were just focusing on desert, then there is a good case for taxation to correct the amoral distribution of the market.

If we have a moral claim on our gross income, it is not because we deserve it, but because we are entitled to it. What’s the difference? What you deserve is what you ought to have as a result of hard work or social contribution; what you are entitled to is the result of your property rights. Libertarians believe that each individual has natural property rights, which it would be immoral for the government to infringe. According to Right-wing libertarians such as Robert Nozick and Murray Rothbard, taxation is morally wrong not because the taxman takes what people deserve, but because he takes what people have a right to.

Therefore, if taxation is theft, it’s because it essentially involves the violation of people’s natural rights to property. But do we really have natural rights to property? And even if we do, does taxation really infringe them? To begin to address these questions, we need to think more carefully about the nature of property....

MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/if-your-pay-is-no...is-the-tax

Nonsense. The free market delivers what your results are worth....on the free market...by voluntary exchange. The hedge-fund manager deserves many times more because he earns his clients much more than that. Those seeking a cure for cancer have yet to deliver a result. There's nothing "amoral" about some things being worth more than others...especially results being worth more than no result. If you work hard, you will succeed, but no one claims that hard work is the only measure of the degree of success.

This article is also equivocating two synonymous words...deserved and entitled. You both deserve and are entitled to all the recompense you agreed to do the job. If people do not have the right to what is mutually agreed upon then they have no rights at all.

Taxation is essentially theft, sanctioned by the state and ultimately enforced at the tip of a gun.

Capitalism is Ammoral, it always has been. For instance a government selling weapons can make a lot of money, it doesn't matter which side of a conflict buys them, in fact it's even better if both buys as it's both money and balancing of power, it's only seen as a problem when an Amnesty group spots how those weapons are misused to kill civilians and then it threatens how much that government can earn without getting flak from anyone that cares about the lives they effect.

A great example of such ammoral sense is how the UK on occasion houses one of the largest weapons expositions. The country itself has tight control over the general public having weapons, it adhere's to international legislation in regards to how it treat's prisoners (of war or otherwise), doesn't have a death penality (any more) and aid's when humanitarian issues arise. It's just ammoral that it can sell weapons to governments that will literally use those weapons to kill their own civilian populous, start wars with neighbouring countries and literally bring about tyranny that leads to system collapses that spawn terrorist minorities (who happen to get their hands on the weapons that are sold).

(Incidentally it's not the only government that's ammoral in this situation, there is actually some that are supposedly "Neutral" that do the same.)

Further still it's just one of the many arguements that can be used against paying the state taxes.

Another example of ammoral behaviour is in regards to "Big Pharma". A company can spend a lot of money doing R&D attempting to produce a drug for a particular condition. Their concern isn't about creating a cure, it's about monopolising a cure to create a profit. The problem however is in their endever to be the first, it can lead to dishonest science where both corners are cut and results are tampered with. This isn't initially noticable until decades after a drug has been marketed and then side effects start to become known. This however the company already knew about because rather than cut the potential to profit early when results suggested something is ineffective, their "immoral" attitude is to make money while they can and give out a pittance in damages should the time come (or even go bankrupt)

That is not a feature of capitalism. Free enterprise does not somehow make people take advantage of others...since it is a wholly voluntary system. People who seek power and personal gain by any means necessary will do so in any economic system. Labeling capitalism a boogeyman just distracts from the real problem. You attack a ubiquitous system and end up ignoring the actual bad actors, providing them the cover of hiding their most egregious acts with rhetoric condemning their competition.

Taxes enable our government to provide free or low cost services like Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security and freeways and air traffic control and postal service and schools and national defense. I'm fine paying taxes to fund our government's duty to promote the general welfare. We should deny these services to every stingy non tax-paying citizen.

(Sep 25, 2017 01:48 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: We should deny these services to every stingy non tax-paying citizen.

Like welfare recipients? O_o

(Sep 25, 2017 03:11 AM)Syne Wrote:

(Sep 25, 2017 01:48 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: We should deny these services to every stingy non tax-paying citizen.

Like welfare recipients? O_o

Welfare recipients pay taxes.

(Sep 25, 2017 03:35 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: Welfare recipients pay taxes.

Really? O_o

"Income that may be part of your gross income but is not identified as taxable income would include child support, proceeds from life insurance policies, inheritances, workers compensation payments, welfare benefits, compensation awarded as a result of physical injury, education scholarships or grants, and income paid to your retirement account (either a 401k or IRA, up to a certain amount)." - https://www.irs.com/articles/what-is-taxable-income-2

(Sep 25, 2017 04:13 AM)Syne Wrote:

(Sep 25, 2017 03:35 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: Welfare recipients pay taxes.

Really? O_o

"Income that may be part of your gross income but is not identified as taxable income would include child support, proceeds from life insurance policies, inheritances, workers compensation payments, welfare benefits, compensation awarded as a result of physical injury, education scholarships or grants, and income paid to your retirement account (either a 401k or IRA, up to a certain amount)." - https://www.irs.com/articles/what-is-taxable-income-2

"All people pay sales taxes for at least some purchases. Even states like Pennsylvania, that do not tax food and clothes, tax other necessities, such as shampoo and lightbulbs. Welfare recipients are subject to these taxes, just like everyone else."---https://www.sapling.com/8786318/do-welfa...-pay-taxes

(Sep 25, 2017 04:28 AM)Magical Realist Wrote:

(Sep 25, 2017 04:13 AM)Syne Wrote:

(Sep 25, 2017 03:35 AM)Magical Realist Wrote: Welfare recipients pay taxes.

Really? O_o

"Income that may be part of your gross income but is not identified as taxable income would include child support, proceeds from life insurance policies, inheritances, workers compensation payments, welfare benefits, compensation awarded as a result of physical injury, education scholarships or grants, and income paid to your retirement account (either a 401k or IRA, up to a certain amount)." - https://www.irs.com/articles/what-is-taxable-income-2

"All people pay sales taxes for at least some purchases. Even states like Pennsylvania, that do not tax food and clothes, tax other necessities, such as shampoo and lightbulbs. Welfare recipients are subject to these taxes, just like everyone else."---https://www.sapling.com/8786318/do-welfa...-pay-taxes

So you're saying some people avoid paying sales tax? O_o "We should deny these services to every stingy non tax-paying citizen."

Or is it much more likely that you just moved the goalpost of your own stupid argument?

So considering everyone pays sales tax, who are these mythical "non tax-paying citizens"? O_o
Oops, you just refuted your own argument.