The casual attitude towards income taxation

[nereo]

I am interested in and willing to have a conversation with you about how to best implement these ideals in the modern world and within nations of 10s or 100s of millions of people. I am not interested in talking about taxation with someone who thinks my life doesn't belong to me or who thinks I am only "allowed to keep" whatever portion of the fruits of my labor 51 percent of the population permits me.

I don't know how many different people have to ask you this in how many different ways, but...
If income taxes are off the table for you, what methods do you find to be acceptable?

[winkeyman]

I am interested in and willing to have a conversation with you about how to best implement these ideals in the modern world and within nations of 10s or 100s of millions of people. I am not interested in talking about taxation with someone who thinks my life doesn't belong to me or who thinks I am only "allowed to keep" whatever portion of the fruits of my labor 51 percent of the population permits me.

I don't know how many different people have to ask you this in how many different ways, but...
If income taxes are off the table for you, what methods do you find to be acceptable?

Once again, that is not the point of this thread. The title says "The casual attitude towards income taxation." The point of my post was to try to get people who ( I presumed) believe that each person rightfully owns their own life and property to apply that attitude towards income taxes.

To maintain a society the likes of which we have become accustomed to, I will admit income taxes may be necessary. However, I think there are better ways to tax in most cases. Use taxes, for example; in respect to roads. Roads should be paid solely by tolls, gas taxes, car sales, registration fees or a combination of. I think it is self evident that it is more fair to tax the people who use the roads, proportionally, than it is to tax the sale of a person's labor.

My whole point here is not to necessarily argue over specific tax policies. It was to point out that the action of making income is essentially trading a portion of your life and creativity for another store of value (currency in our case). That action is something that should be treated as a basic human right. It is fundamental to the human condition and should be treated with respect. If we have to raise taxes, that is the VERY LAST THING we should be taxing. And if we do have to tax it, we should do so with the understanding that it is a crappy thing to do. And if we understand that, we naturally will tax income sparingly, as necessary, with respect for the person being taxed, and spend the money wisely.

Because so many people have a casual, flippant, and skewed view towards income taxation, they seem to feel entitled to tax income as much as they want, for whatever reason they want, while berating the tax payer for getting grumpy about it. Political science degrees for all! Electric car subsidies! Bail out the banks! The money was never rightfully yours to begin with so pay up and shut up!


Another of my analogies, and one that I would hope Mustachians will get: Look at one of many Native American cultures who held deeply respectful attitudes towards nature and the environment. They saw killing an animal as a necessary evil and something to be done as necessary and for good reason, using every part of it. As a result, they didn't go around wiping out animal populations for entertainment. When they killed an animal they might say a prayer and thank it for it's sacrifice.

Europeans came along with a totally different attitude towards nature and the environment. They wiped out animal populations for fun. It's just a buffalo, what's the big deal? Shoot it from the train and leave the carcass! There will always be more! Pass the whiskey and the rifle!

I would argue that the Native American example was the more ethical, healthier and better human-nature relationship.

I would submit that the modern attitude towards taxation is analogous to the 19th European attitude towards nature and animal life.

I am asking that we take a more careful, respectful, and ethical attitude on income taxation.

[RangerOne]

I in general think a progressive tax system like we have is a fair way to gather revenue to fund the government. But I think it is more important to try to reevaluate government spending and programs than to continually try to change the tax rate.

And if we do feel that we can afford to cut taxes, it would be nice to see a tax cut plan that actually relieves people in the 15%-28% tax bracket range. Because honestly it is tough pill to swallow that someone in the top marginal tax bracket really needs a tax cut if you can't afford to give an equivalent tax cut to a person with a more normal income...

If you give a tax cut to families making $100k a year they may buy that house they have been holding off on sooner. If you give a big tax cut to a family making over $400k, they may buy an extra bmw or take some extra vacations while sending 4 kids to private school. Who the fuck are these tax cuts supposed to help? Create jobs my ass...

[onlykelsey]

I think you've hit on one of the disconnects between you and most responders here: "The money was never rightfully yours to begin with so pay up and shut up!" 

There is no way I'd be making the money I am if government was significantly smaller.  Sure, cutting services for a year or two might not change much, but in my mind I realize that some not-insignificant portion of my money was made BECAUSE of the presence of government.  I may think it's not as much as the % I'm charged, but that's just a detail at that point.  The government enabled me to make the money, so I'm okay giving some of it back.

I think a second big disconnect is your focus on income taxes being particularly evil.  NYC could tax my property more heavily, and lower my income taxes, but I only got my downpayment and pay my mortgage because of my income,  so it's sort of six of one, half dozen of the other in terms of the effect on how much of my time the taxes take.

[MoonShadow]

I would venture to guess one of the taxes in which you pay most is social security, and also that you have not called for increasing it.

I would actually support abolishing the SS system, as a public pension, and returning it to it's original form as a social safety net/disability insurance program.  This would only require the addition of a means test, which would certainly remove myself from eligibility for benefits.

But my largest absolute tax is actually property taxes, followed by FICA.

If your only reason for the income tax being immoral is that it can't be avoided by lower class and lower middle class people, and that assumption has been thoroughly debunked, then why are you still arguing?

Because that was never my reason.  I'm opposed to a direct, personal income tax, because it's akin to slavery.  Exactly the argument that Winkyman made in his original post.  It's a core libertarian position.  Taxing anyone on their basic subsistence is either theft, or percentage slavery, depending upon how you look at it.  Either way, it's a violation of the NAP.  The unfairness of the income tax is implicitly acknowledged in our modern version of progressive income taxation via the standard deduction, but that doesn't fix the moral problem of a direct, personal income tax.  Neither would a flat tax.

 Property taxes are probably the hardest taxes to avoid, and yet you seem to have no issue with the morality of them.

I have neither a moral issue, nor an "original intent" objection, to property taxes.  I know what they are for, and I understand their original social intent, which works rather well.  I can't avoid paying any property taxes, but if I have to I could sell my property and move into a much smaller home or condo, thus reducing my property taxes (and many other expenses) substantially.

If you rent a house or apartment, or live with someone else, there is still property tax being paid for where you live, if there were no property tax rent prices would be cheaper.

That's true if property tax rates are particularly high, but there is some level that is low enough that it doesn't have any measurable effect upon rents, mostly because competition keeps rental rates competitive anyway.  There are plenty of economists that can make the case that such a property tax rate is above zero; although opinions vary on what that ideal, maximum revenue with minimum impact, rate actually might be, if it varies between locales, or if it's even a stable rate anywhere.

You might be able to avoid property taxes by living on federal property paid for by taxes(like on roads, in national parks, etc.) or by living in places owned by a non-profit, but that is kind of like cheating the system.

This isn't a thing, except in your own mind.  If it's a legal method of avoiding a tax, it's not cheating the system.  I have met "permanent travelers" that pay no property taxes, because their RV or boat is registered in a zero property tax state, and they either spend a lot of time camped out in primitive camping zones in pubic parks and parking lots (WalMarts & interstate rest stops) in the RV case, or they spend a lot of time moored out away from the docks or underway in the case of the liveaboards. In both cases, the couples in question don't do what they do to avoid property taxes, but simply to avoid any fees at all.  This is not cheating the system.

Is your only reason for thinking property taxes aren't immoral because they are state taxes instead of federal?

No.  They are state taxes primarily for the same reason that the 16th amendment had to be passed to exempt income taxes from the previously mentioned clause in the US Constitution (Article 2, Section 9, IIRC) because they are still 'direct' taxes upon individual households within a state.  I still consider personal income taxation immoral even when the state does it.  As I already mentioned, the constitution doesn't actually prohibit direct taxation, it simply requires that the states pass them individually.  A national property tax, or national sales tax, would work just fine; but would require either a constitutional amendment to authorize it for the nation as a whole, or each state would have to pass the authorization for the federal government to administer it.  I'm not sure that either path is politically workable, but I wouldn't object to either on moral grounds.

[nereo]

I am interested in and willing to have a conversation with you about how to best implement these ideals in the modern world and within nations of 10s or 100s of millions of people. I am not interested in talking about taxation with someone who thinks my life doesn't belong to me or who thinks I am only "allowed to keep" whatever portion of the fruits of my labor 51 percent of the population permits me.

I don't know how many different people have to ask you this in how many different ways, but...
If income taxes are off the table for you, what methods do you find to be acceptable?

Once again, that is not the point of this thread. The title says "The casual attitude towards income taxation." The point of my post was to try to get people who ( I presumed) believe that each person rightfully owns their own life and property to apply that attitude towards income taxes.

::headbang::
No, I do not think it is ethical to claim that 100% of everything you do is yours and yours alone, particularly while living within a society.
It reminds me of the teenager who gets a summer job and wants to spend the money to buy a motorcycle (or tattoo, or whatever). His parents refuse.  The teenager rails about how it's "my money, i earned it and you have no right to tell me what i can and can't do with it!". Meanwhile, he's spent the last year eating homecooked meals, sleeping in his bed and going to school.

Many of us have tried to have a discussion here, but your comments have become increasingly totalitarian. Either we have to agree with your assumptions of what is ethical or GTFO.  If we don't agree with you we're unenlightened sheeple who have had the wool pulled over our eyes by an oppressive society.  we've drank the kool-aide and now we can't see The Truth.  This seems to be the sum of your most recent lengthy statements.

I'm happy to discuss the societal value and costs of an income tax.  I like talking about ways that we could be more just and fair (and how we determine what is 'fair' to begin with). There are many posters here I don't agree with on certain issues but who have at least given me an appreciation of a different side to an argument.  Telling me that something IS unethical and I must accept that before entering into the discussion doesn't leave room for opinions at all.

The title of your thread is "The Casual Attitude towards Income Taxation".  One thing I've learned from 7+ pages of this thread is that people on this form don't have casual attitudes.  Instead we think about it a great deal and there are many that are passionate and very well informed about income taxes.  We think about all sorts of facets of the income tax: how many people don't pay them; the deductions and brackets; deductions and their societal worth; whether the rich should pay more; the cost of complexity; the inertia against changing our system.  There's nothing casual about our attitudes.

[Jeremy E.]

Radrem,

Your comments/question about balancing and/or prioritizing ethical concerns is a valid one. Lets say we have a group of 10 people, and one person is in danger of starving. For the sake of argument, assume the only two options are to either confiscate 1 percent of the 9 well-fed people's money/food/seashells/resources in order to feed the starving person -or- let the starving person die.

Let's also assume the 10 people involved all agree that:

Confiscating 1 percent of the resources of the 9 people is unethical.
Letting the 1 person starve to death is unethical.

It would be reasonable for those 10 to have a discussion, and a reasonable group of people would likely agree that letting the 1 person die is the worse of the two outcomes. Therefore, the group would undertake the unethical action of confiscating some of the 9 people's stuff in order to prevent the more unethical outcome of the 1 person starving. Maybe they decide to continue confiscating a percentage of everyone's resources in perpetuity (and start calling it an income tax) to create a fund to bail people out of situations like starvation or their house burning down.

This is the kind of trade-off that people, as social animals living together on one planet may need to make from time to time. It is serious stuff, and should be treated as such. The key thing is, the 10 hypothetical people in this hypothetical situation see the tax they have created as unethical in it's own right. Because of this, they do not have a casual attitude towards it. They would treat this power that they have created for themselves as a necessary evil and treat it with the respect it deserves.

My whole point in my original post is that (seemingly) most people on this board and in the world at large DO NOT see taxation as unethical. As a result, they do not take the power to tax seriously. People have been conditioned to see taxation as Normal and Good in it's own right. As a result they feel entitled to tax as much as they want for any reason as long as a majority agree to it in any given election cycle (or on any given day in Congress). They don't see it as a necessary evil. It has been stated in this thread and elsewhere in Real Life (tm) that there is nothing wrong with taxes because they money belonged to the government in the first place, and it is up to The People to decide how much you "get to keep." People turn to taxation as the first and only fix to any and every problem, real or invented.

I think we should give rich people money to buy electric cars. Taxes!
I think we should change the name of this school because it's named after someone unsavory. Taxes!
I think we should pay for anyone to get any college degree in any subject they feel like. Taxes!
I think the army needs a new handgun. Taxes!
I think this bank is too big to fail. Taxes!
Ad nauseam.

If taxation is seen (as I believe it should be) as an unethical act, a necessary evil, people will be careful with it's use.
If taxation is seen (as it seems to be) as neutral, or an ethical act, people are not careful with it's use.

Similarly,

If a person sees the largess of strangers as charity, they will presumably treat it with respect and gratitude.
If a person sees the largess of strangers as something they are rightfully entitled to, they not treat it with respect and gratitude.

This is how we have ended up with a society where people live off food stamps while simultaneously hating the people whose resources are confiscated provide those food stamps for not giving them more.

___


As to other comments justifying anything and everything with the "Democracy" and "Social Contract" arguments.

Government, including democracies, are created by people. Therefor, governments cannot rightfully have rights or powers that people do not have. Full Stop.

Lets take a look at those 10 people from our previous example. Lets say they decide to form an association of some kind. Let's call it a democratic government.

The reason they decide to do this is because they live in a loose-knit community of farmers. They have been experiencing a string of night time sheep thefts from people outside their community. They decide it would be easier to assign one volunteer per night to patrol the community on the look out for sheeptheives than it is for all 10 of them to stay up all night guarding their farms. For this purpose they create a Constabulary where volunteers patrol the community at night.

It is perfectly correct for them to make such an arrangement. Each individual in the group has the right prevent the theft of their sheep. Therefor, they have the right to assign that responsibility to the Government they have created. They have created a "social contract" of sorts. They could also have the Constable be on the look out for fires and other such things.

Now lets say they decide to hire a full-time Constable for this purpose. To pay for it, they get the idea of placing a small tax of 1 sheep per year on each member of the community. Of the 10 people, 6 of the people in the community (including the potential full-time Constable, naturally) are in favor, 4 are against.

It is not correct for them to create such a tax. No individual in the group has the right to confiscate any of their neighbor's property. Because no individual in the group has this right, they cannot assign this power to some Government they have created. How can a group of people assign a power to a Government if none of them have it to begin with? Creating an imaginary entity called Government does not and can not create new rights or powers that people do not possess.

For the same reason, it is correct for people to create a Police force to prevent murder in their community. Each person in the community has the right to prevent murder. Therefor they can assign the responsibility to prevent murder to the Government. They still, however, retain the right to prevent murder as individuals. It is NOT correct for people to create a Police force and assign it the power to prevent the reading of the Koran. No individual has the right to prevent their fellow from reading the Koran, so how could they possibly assign a power they do not possess to a police force?

Let's say the 10 hypothetical people in the community voluntarily agree to institute a tax for one year, to support a full-time Constable for one year. This would be correct. However, it would not be correct for them to create a tax in perpetuity that would support a full time constable in perpetuity and hold all human beings that may ever inhabit the community to this "social contract" in perpetuity. A person can enter into a temporary agreement for themselves. A person can also enter into an agreement that lasts the rest of their life. They cannot, however enter into an agreement that their children and grandchildren must adhere to simply because they are born within an arbitrary geographical boundary.

You cannot vote to turn a wrong into a right. An imaginary social contract cannot make a wrong into a right. All the verbal ju-jitsu in the world cannot make income taxes voluntary. All I am proposing is that we try to look at things through a clear and unclouded ethical lens. You say that a world without income taxes would be worse than a world with them? Fine. You say that democracy is more practical and workable than a more ethical system of volunteerism? Fine. That's not my point. All I am asking is that we are to go forward with taxing incomes, and forcing people to bend to the tyranny of the majority, etc, because it is more PRACTICAL than the alternatives, we don't PRETEND that it is our entitled due because of invented concepts like democracy and social contracts.

Every time you pass a law, it is likely that the police will kill someone in the course of enforcing it.
Every time you levy a tax, you are laying claim to the labor of another free human being.

So please, is it too much to ask that people treat these concepts with a little more respect?


TLDL Version:

Democracy should rightly be viewed as an imaginary, created institution through which the majority UNRIGHTFULLY FORCES the minority to bend to their will. However, it may be the best system we can come up with so it needs to be done, a necessary evil. When viewed this way, it is my belief that people will treat the passing of laws and taxes with due caution and respect.

Modern people see democracy as a system whereby the majority have every right to force the minority to bend to their will because of mental gymnastics, social contracts, and doublespeak. Because of this, the majority feels empowered to do whatever the hell it wants, pas whatever taxes and laws it wants, and if you complain you are a degenerate who needs to sit down and shut up. Better luck next election cycle, losers.

Any of the nine would probably agree that not only is supporting the one a better option, they would also want the same if they were the one, and are basically providing a safety net for themselves should they ever fall into the ones position.

Also, in that situation, the nine are not necessarily getting anything in return. YOU are getting services in return for your income taxes

[thepokercab]

As I have stated before in this thread. My arguments assume that the people I am communicating with take certain things for granted. In human history, people organized societies based on certain assumptions. A one point, it was taken for granted that your life and property belonged to the tribal leader. At another point, it was taken for granted that your life and property belonged to the King. At another point, it was granted that your life and property belonged to a god, or to The Church. Whatever life or property you had was what these people or institutions or concepts ALLOWED you to hold onto for the time being.

Then we had things like the Magna Carta and the Enlightenment and the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Societies started to become organized under the assumption, at least in theory, that each individual was the owner and final arbiter of his own life and property. We organized societies based on the idea that human beings have certain unalienable rights like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And that people create governments to preserve these ideals. Obviously we as fallible humans failed to carry out these ideals in many ways, American slavery the most egregious among them.

I am, in fact, assuming that you agree with these things when I begin a discussion such as this.

So I agree with this.  But you also seem to be recognizing that underlying assumptions within organized societies have evolved over time.  As you point out we went from tribal leaders to kings to churches and so forth.. until we got to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But you can't just draw a line at 17-18th century social and political philosophy and then argue about how we're now failing to live up to those ideas. The same way the deposed King might have looked around, shocked that people stopped recognizing his divine right to rule. 

In reality, underlying assumptions continue to evolve.  Many western societies now recognize that people have a basic right to things like an education, to health care, or to a basic standard of living- and people are looking to their governments to make these things happen.  You may not like it, but the belief in these things flow from the same belief in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  There not just ideas that were created in a vacuum. 

[RangerOne]

I in general think a progressive tax system like we have is a fair way to gather revenue to fund the government. But I think it is more important to try to reevaluate government spending and programs than to continually try to change the tax rate.

And if we do feel that we can afford to cut taxes, it would be nice to see a tax cut plan that actually relieves people in the 15%-28% tax bracket range. Because honestly it is tough pill to swallow that someone in the top marginal tax bracket really needs a tax cut if you can't afford to give an equivalent tax cut to a person with a more normal income...

If you give a tax cut to families making $100k a year they may buy that house they have been holding off on sooner. If you give a big tax cut to a family making over $400k, they may buy an extra bmw or take some extra vacations while sending 4 kids to private school. Who the fuck are these tax cuts supposed to help? Create jobs my ass...

I'm full of shit, if someone like Trump could actually pass his crazy tax plan I would nearly owe nothing in federal income tax... I can't imagine how much income would be lost by doing this.

[onlykelsey]

But you can't just draw a line at 17-18th century social and political philosophy and then argue about how we're now failing to live up to those ideas.

This is really insightful.

[MoonShadow]

I think you've hit on one of the disconnects between you and most responders here: "The money was never rightfully yours to begin with so pay up and shut up!" 

There is no way I'd be making the money I am if government was significantly smaller.  Sure, cutting services for a year or two might not change much, but in my mind I realize that some not-insignificant portion of my money was made BECAUSE of the presence of government.  I may think it's not as much as the % I'm charged, but that's just a detail at that point.  The government enabled me to make the money, so I'm okay giving some of it back.

I think a second big disconnect is your focus on income taxes being particularly evil.  NYC could tax my property more heavily, and lower my income taxes, but I only got my downpayment and pay my mortgage because of my income,  so it's sort of six of one, half dozen of the other in terms of the effect on how much of my time the taxes take.

Could you explain this position?  Do you work for government directly or indirectly?  Or do you have a job that exists as a direct result of some form of regulation, such as a professional tax consultant?

[winkeyman]

As I have stated before in this thread. My arguments assume that the people I am communicating with take certain things for granted. In human history, people organized societies based on certain assumptions. A one point, it was taken for granted that your life and property belonged to the tribal leader. At another point, it was taken for granted that your life and property belonged to the King. At another point, it was granted that your life and property belonged to a god, or to The Church. Whatever life or property you had was what these people or institutions or concepts ALLOWED you to hold onto for the time being.

Then we had things like the Magna Carta and the Enlightenment and the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Societies started to become organized under the assumption, at least in theory, that each individual was the owner and final arbiter of his own life and property. We organized societies based on the idea that human beings have certain unalienable rights like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And that people create governments to preserve these ideals. Obviously we as fallible humans failed to carry out these ideals in many ways, American slavery the most egregious among them.

I am, in fact, assuming that you agree with these things when I begin a discussion such as this.

So I agree with this.  But you also seem to be recognizing that underlying assumptions within organized societies have evolved over time.  As you point out we went from tribal leaders to kings to churches and so forth.. until we got to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But you can't just draw a line at 17-18th century social and political philosophy and then argue about how we're now failing to live up to those ideas. The same way the deposed King might have looked around, shocked that people stopped recognizing his divine right to rule. 

In reality, underlying assumptions continue to evolve.  Many western societies now recognize that people have a basic right to things like an education, to health care, or to a basic standard of living- and people are looking to their governments to make these things happen.  You may not like it, but the belief in these things flow from the same belief in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  There not just ideas that were created in a vacuum.

Absolutely. It is abundantly clear that attitudes are changing. But I see them as regressing back into something terrible. The idea that my life belongs to "society" is as bad for me as my life belonging to a tribal leader, king, or religion. All of those ideas are equally bad.

[Jeremy E.]

You might be able to avoid property taxes by living on federal property paid for by taxes(like on roads, in national parks, etc.) or by living in places owned by a non-profit, but that is kind of like cheating the system.

This isn't a thing, except in your own mind.  If it's a legal method of avoiding a tax, it's not cheating the system.  I have met "permanent travelers" that pay no property taxes, because their RV or boat is registered in a zero property tax state, and they either spend a lot of time camped out in primitive camping zones in pubic parks and parking lots (WalMarts & interstate rest stops) in the RV case, or they spend a lot of time moored out away from the docks or underway in the case of the liveaboards. In both cases, the couples in question don't do what they do to avoid property taxes, but simply to avoid any fees at all.  This is not cheating the system.

Property taxes often help pay for roads that RVs drive on, they also often help pay for public parks. Not paying for property taxes, but still using the roads and public parks, is cheating the system.
If you are parking at Wal Mart, Wal Mart is still paying property tax on the place in which you are parking.

[onlykelsey]

I think you've hit on one of the disconnects between you and most responders here: "The money was never rightfully yours to begin with so pay up and shut up!" 

There is no way I'd be making the money I am if government was significantly smaller.  Sure, cutting services for a year or two might not change much, but in my mind I realize that some not-insignificant portion of my money was made BECAUSE of the presence of government.  I may think it's not as much as the % I'm charged, but that's just a detail at that point.  The government enabled me to make the money, so I'm okay giving some of it back.

I think a second big disconnect is your focus on income taxes being particularly evil.  NYC could tax my property more heavily, and lower my income taxes, but I only got my downpayment and pay my mortgage because of my income,  so it's sort of six of one, half dozen of the other in terms of the effect on how much of my time the taxes take.

Could you explain this position?  Do you work for government directly or indirectly?  Or do you have a job that exists as a direct result of some form of regulation, such as a professional tax consultant?

Sure.  I don't work for the government or as a government contractor.  I'm an attorney for businesses, funds, and investors who want to invest in them. If you want more specific info, I'll follow up with a PM answering questions and trust you won't widely repost identifying info about me. :)  But, essentially, my clients run businesses that funds want to invest in, and in order to invest in what they deem profitable, they either borrow money or solicit money from investors (or both, usually). 

Of course part of why I'm employed is sort of silly regulations that my clients have to comply with (and need professional help complying with), but I think a large part of it is because they want someone who takes business ideas and makes them in to enforceable complex contracts (that will be interpreted by courts and rely on centuries of jurisprudence).  My clients need access to banks (which are regulated, if not perfectly), an educated workforce, a relatively stable (so far, reserve) currency, FDIC banking for investors' funds, etc. 

[Jeremy E.]

Property taxes are probably the hardest taxes to avoid, and yet you seem to have no issue with the morality of them.

I have neither a moral issue, nor an "original intent" objection, to property taxes.  I know what they are for, and I understand their original social intent, which works rather well.  I can't avoid paying any property taxes, but if I have to I could sell my property and move into a much smaller home or condo, thus reducing my property taxes (and many other expenses) substantially.

People could just as easily choose to live more efficiently and choose a lower wage job in which they could reduce their effective federal income tax rate, and their total income tax, possibly both to 0. In the property tax situation you can lower the amount, generally not the rate, and you can't get rid of it.

[Yaeger]

Property taxes often help pay for roads that RVs drive on, they also often help pay for public parks. Not paying for property taxes, but still using the roads and public parks, is cheating the system.
If you are parking at Wal Mart, Wal Mart is still paying property tax on the place in which you are parking.

I agree, but people should pay based on miles driven and type of vehicle. Not a flat rate independent of actual use and not into a general fund that can be shifted to pay for preventable 'emergencies' like underwater pensions or underfunded education.

[nereo]

As I have stated before in this thread. My arguments assume that the people I am communicating with take certain things for granted. In human history, people organized societies based on certain assumptions. A one point, it was taken for granted that your life and property belonged to the tribal leader. At another point, it was taken for granted that your life and property belonged to the King. At another point, it was granted that your life and property belonged to a god, or to The Church. Whatever life or property you had was what these people or institutions or concepts ALLOWED you to hold onto for the time being.

Then we had things like the Magna Carta and the Enlightenment and the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Societies started to become organized under the assumption, at least in theory, that each individual was the owner and final arbiter of his own life and property. We organized societies based on the idea that human beings have certain unalienable rights like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And that people create governments to preserve these ideals. Obviously we as fallible humans failed to carry out these ideals in many ways, American slavery the most egregious among them.

I am, in fact, assuming that you agree with these things when I begin a discussion such as this.

So I agree with this.  But you also seem to be recognizing that underlying assumptions within organized societies have evolved over time.  As you point out we went from tribal leaders to kings to churches and so forth.. until we got to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But you can't just draw a line at 17-18th century social and political philosophy and then argue about how we're now failing to live up to those ideas. The same way the deposed King might have looked around, shocked that people stopped recognizing his divine right to rule. 

In reality, underlying assumptions continue to evolve.  Many western societies now recognize that people have a basic right to things like an education, to health care, or to a basic standard of living- and people are looking to their governments to make these things happen.  You may not like it, but the belief in these things flow from the same belief in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  There not just ideas that were created in a vacuum.

Absolutely. It is abundantly clear that attitudes are changing. But I see them as regressing back into something terrible. The idea that my life belongs to "society" is as bad for me as my life belonging to a tribal leader, king, or religion. All of those ideas are equally bad.

There's a sharp difference between saying that society can take a portion of your income and saying that your life belongs to society.

[Jeremy E.]

Property taxes often help pay for roads that RVs drive on, they also often help pay for public parks. Not paying for property taxes, but still using the roads and public parks, is cheating the system.
If you are parking at Wal Mart, Wal Mart is still paying property tax on the place in which you are parking.

I agree, but people should pay based on miles driven and type of vehicle. Not a flat rate independent of actual use and not into a general fund that can be shifted to pay for preventable 'emergencies' like underwater pensions or underfunded education.

So you are saying you want to reduce the amount of government workers, while making individual taxes for each specific thing(which will require a lot more work)?

[onlykelsey]

Property taxes often help pay for roads that RVs drive on, they also often help pay for public parks. Not paying for property taxes, but still using the roads and public parks, is cheating the system.
If you are parking at Wal Mart, Wal Mart is still paying property tax on the place in which you are parking.

I agree, but people should pay based on miles driven and type of vehicle. Not a flat rate independent of actual use and not into a general fund that can be shifted to pay for preventable 'emergencies' like underwater pensions or underfunded education.

So you are saying you want to reduce the amount of government workers, while making individual taxes for each specific thing?

I sometimes think this way, but I think it's just as hard to shut down irrelevant and unneeded programs as it is to reapportion a larger slush fund, so I'm not sure it gets you anywhere. 

[beltim]

I like to hope that I can start a discussion taking Enlightenment ideals for granted when posting on a forum populated primarily by Americans, Canadians, and Europeans.

The fact that I apparently cannot take those ideals for granted when communicating with this group is frankly quite disturbing.

The thing is, that's not where you started this conversation.  You started by saying:

The question is this; if laying claim to 100 percent of my life is morally wrong, how can one say it is morally correct to lay claim to 25 percent, or 10 percent of it? Isn't any number from 100 percent to 1 percent is just lesser versions of a terrible evil.

and

Again, let me be clear. Your inability to eliminate government programs, or to find moral ways to fund them, does not negate the evil of income taxes when viewed rationally as I described above.

In other words, you started from the point that income taxes are unethical, immoral, and evil.  When asked why, I don't think that you have provided any answer.  As I pointed out many times without response, there is no ethical difference between a sales tax and an income tax, since wages are merely the sale of units of labor.  If you thus argue that all taxes are intrinsically evil, then I don't think you're going to find much support for that, and it certainly doesn't naturally flow from Enlightenment ideals.

[thepokercab]

As I have stated before in this thread. My arguments assume that the people I am communicating with take certain things for granted. In human history, people organized societies based on certain assumptions. A one point, it was taken for granted that your life and property belonged to the tribal leader. At another point, it was taken for granted that your life and property belonged to the King. At another point, it was granted that your life and property belonged to a god, or to The Church. Whatever life or property you had was what these people or institutions or concepts ALLOWED you to hold onto for the time being.

Then we had things like the Magna Carta and the Enlightenment and the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Societies started to become organized under the assumption, at least in theory, that each individual was the owner and final arbiter of his own life and property. We organized societies based on the idea that human beings have certain unalienable rights like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And that people create governments to preserve these ideals. Obviously we as fallible humans failed to carry out these ideals in many ways, American slavery the most egregious among them.

I am, in fact, assuming that you agree with these things when I begin a discussion such as this.

So I agree with this.  But you also seem to be recognizing that underlying assumptions within organized societies have evolved over time.  As you point out we went from tribal leaders to kings to churches and so forth.. until we got to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But you can't just draw a line at 17-18th century social and political philosophy and then argue about how we're now failing to live up to those ideas. The same way the deposed King might have looked around, shocked that people stopped recognizing his divine right to rule. 

In reality, underlying assumptions continue to evolve.  Many western societies now recognize that people have a basic right to things like an education, to health care, or to a basic standard of living- and people are looking to their governments to make these things happen.  You may not like it, but the belief in these things flow from the same belief in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  There not just ideas that were created in a vacuum.

Absolutely. It is abundantly clear that attitudes are changing. But I see them as regressing back into something terrible. The idea that my life belongs to "society" is as bad for me as my life belonging to a tribal leader, king, or religion. All of those ideas are equally bad.

Well, i guess its just a matter of perspective then.  I don't view my life being owned by society. I view myself as being a part of society.

[acroy]

I have nothing to add,

Except to thank winkeyman for the well-stated and well reasoned question. And for taking the time to fend off the (many many) folks who have attempted to derail/sidetrack the original topic with poorly reasoned (and occasionally hysterical) posts.

Nicely done and continuing kudos to you.

[nereo]

Property taxes often help pay for roads that RVs drive on, they also often help pay for public parks. Not paying for property taxes, but still using the roads and public parks, is cheating the system.
If you are parking at Wal Mart, Wal Mart is still paying property tax on the place in which you are parking.

I agree, but people should pay based on miles driven and type of vehicle. Not a flat rate independent of actual use and not into a general fund that can be shifted to pay for preventable 'emergencies' like underwater pensions or underfunded education.

To your first sentence - this is a change I'd like to see. The most effective way of implementing it seems to be deriving everything from the sale of gasoline, although that's becoming much harder with plug-in vehicles, etc.  Countries like Chile have very frequent toll roads which do a reasonable job of charging people only for the miles they drive; perhaps this would be better.  With systems like Ez-Pass drivers could be charged based on their individual vehicle.  I imagine this might seriously upset the people who are worried about being tracked everywhere they go though.

As for the argument of money not going into a 'general fund that can be shifted' - the problem here is that money is fungible. Try as we might, we've never worked out a real system where a tax only pays for the thing we say it's going to pay for.  Sometimes we pretend it does, like when a particular 'sin' tax goes to the coffers of local schools, but in quick order that windfall simply means the schools are funded at a lower rate from the general pool of funds, and money once again gets shifted around.

[Yaeger]

Property taxes often help pay for roads that RVs drive on, they also often help pay for public parks. Not paying for property taxes, but still using the roads and public parks, is cheating the system.
If you are parking at Wal Mart, Wal Mart is still paying property tax on the place in which you are parking.

I agree, but people should pay based on miles driven and type of vehicle. Not a flat rate independent of actual use and not into a general fund that can be shifted to pay for preventable 'emergencies' like underwater pensions or underfunded education.

So you are saying you want to reduce the amount of government workers, while making individual taxes for each specific thing(which will require a lot more work)?

Shouldn't be too hard to add an odometer reporting requirement to your annual vehicle registration and/or vehicle sale. You pay the tax in addition to the registration fee to get new tags.

[onlykelsey]

Property taxes often help pay for roads that RVs drive on, they also often help pay for public parks. Not paying for property taxes, but still using the roads and public parks, is cheating the system.
If you are parking at Wal Mart, Wal Mart is still paying property tax on the place in which you are parking.

I agree, but people should pay based on miles driven and type of vehicle. Not a flat rate independent of actual use and not into a general fund that can be shifted to pay for preventable 'emergencies' like underwater pensions or underfunded education.

To your first sentence - this is a change I'd like to see. The most effective way of implementing it seems to be deriving everything from the sale of gasoline, although that's becoming much harder with plug-in vehicles, etc.  Countries like Chile have very frequent toll roads which do a reasonable job of charging people only for the miles they drive; perhaps this would be better.  With systems like Ez-Pass drivers could be charged based on their individual vehicle.  I imagine this might seriously upset the people who are worried about being tracked everywhere they go though.

As for the argument of money not going into a 'general fund that can be shifted' - the problem here is that money is fungible. Try as we might, we've never worked out a real system where a tax only pays for the thing we say it's going to pay for.  Sometimes we pretend it does, like when a particular 'sin' tax goes to the coffers of local schools, but in quick order that windfall simply means the schools are funded at a lower rate from the general pool of funds, and money once again gets shifted around.

The data point is an interesting one I hadn't considered with use taxes.  I had considered it in the context of EZ Pass, but you're right, wouldn't the government have (or easily find a way to get) information about who bought what drugs in what amounts where, and who got on and off at which exit, and who bought a lot of luxury goods, etc.  Hmm.

[beltim]

I would venture to guess one of the taxes in which you pay most is social security, and also that you have not called for increasing it.

I would actually support abolishing the SS system, as a public pension, and returning it to it's original form as a social safety net/disability insurance program. 

This is not true.  SS has never only been a social safety net.  It only ever paid out benefits to people who paid into the system, and the benefits have always been proportional to earnings.

[Yaeger]

I would venture to guess one of the taxes in which you pay most is social security, and also that you have not called for increasing it.

I would actually support abolishing the SS system, as a public pension, and returning it to it's original form as a social safety net/disability insurance program. 

This is not true.  SS has never only been a social safety net.  It only ever paid out benefits to people who paid into the system, and the benefits have always been proportional to earnings.

You're using that term pretty loosely here. The lower end of SS get far more than they paid into the system, the upper end get less than they paid into it. We started taxing up to 85% of benefits in 1994 based on income level. The algorithm that calculates benefits has gotten more progressive favoring low income people.  It's hard to call it benefits 'proportional' when you compare it to the amount contributed.

It needs to be means tested and it needs to be provided at a level underneath what provides for dignity. It's not a pension plan, it's an emergency fund paid for off the backs of the working class. We need to encourage a growth in savings, not foster a dependence on government generosity.

[onlykelsey]

It's not a pension plan, it's an emergency fund paid for off the backs of the working class. We need to encourage a growth in savings, not foster a dependence on government generosity.

I don't disagree, although I think means-testing is a political nonstarter.  But, genuinely, how do you encourage a growth in savings?  It's pulling teeth to get my educated, math-understanding, highly earning colleagues to put 5% of their salaries away.  There's something very ingrained in Americans about spending all they have + 5%.

I think I'd be for a forced savings plan, maybe with some opt outs that are hard to get.  Everyone has to contribute X% of their salary, they can choose where to put it, they can only get it out for super dire reasons (or not at all).  Then cut SS back to real barebones. 

[Papa bear]

I would venture to guess one of the taxes in which you pay most is social security, and also that you have not called for increasing it.

I would actually support abolishing the SS system, as a public pension, and returning it to it's original form as a social safety net/disability insurance program.  This would only require the addition of a means test, which would certainly remove myself from eligibility for benefits.

But my largest absolute tax is actually property taxes, followed by FICA.

If your only reason for the income tax being immoral is that it can't be avoided by lower class and lower middle class people, and that assumption has been thoroughly debunked, then why are you still arguing?

Because that was never my reason.  I'm opposed to a direct, personal income tax, because it's akin to slavery.  Exactly the argument that Winkyman made in his original post.  It's a core libertarian position.  Taxing anyone on their basic subsistence is either theft, or percentage slavery, depending upon how you look at it.  Either way, it's a violation of the NAP.  The unfairness of the income tax is implicitly acknowledged in our modern version of progressive income taxation via the standard deduction, but that doesn't fix the moral problem of a direct, personal income tax.  Neither would a flat tax.

 Property taxes are probably the hardest taxes to avoid, and yet you seem to have no issue with the morality of them.

I have neither a moral issue, nor an "original intent" objection, to property taxes.  I know what they are for, and I understand their original social intent, which works rather well.  I can't avoid paying any property taxes, but if I have to I could sell my property and move into a much smaller home or condo, thus reducing my property taxes (and many other expenses) substantially.

If you rent a house or apartment, or live with someone else, there is still property tax being paid for where you live, if there were no property tax rent prices would be cheaper.

That's true if property tax rates are particularly high, but there is some level that is low enough that it doesn't have any measurable effect upon rents, mostly because competition keeps rental rates competitive anyway.  There are plenty of economists that can make the case that such a property tax rate is above zero; although opinions vary on what that ideal, maximum revenue with minimum impact, rate actually might be, if it varies between locales, or if it's even a stable rate anywhere.

You might be able to avoid property taxes by living on federal property paid for by taxes(like on roads, in national parks, etc.) or by living in places owned by a non-profit, but that is kind of like cheating the system.

This isn't a thing, except in your own mind.  If it's a legal method of avoiding a tax, it's not cheating the system.  I have met "permanent travelers" that pay no property taxes, because their RV or boat is registered in a zero property tax state, and they either spend a lot of time camped out in primitive camping zones in pubic parks and parking lots (WalMarts & interstate rest stops) in the RV case, or they spend a lot of time moored out away from the docks or underway in the case of the liveaboards. In both cases, the couples in question don't do what they do to avoid property taxes, but simply to avoid any fees at all.  This is not cheating the system.

Is your only reason for thinking property taxes aren't immoral because they are state taxes instead of federal?

No.  They are state taxes primarily for the same reason that the 16th amendment had to be passed to exempt income taxes from the previously mentioned clause in the US Constitution (Article 2, Section 9, IIRC) because they are still 'direct' taxes upon individual households within a state.  I still consider personal income taxation immoral even when the state does it.  As I already mentioned, the constitution doesn't actually prohibit direct taxation, it simply requires that the states pass them individually.  A national property tax, or national sales tax, would work just fine; but would require either a constitutional amendment to authorize it for the nation as a whole, or each state would have to pass the authorization for the federal government to administer it.  I'm not sure that either path is politically workable, but I wouldn't object to either on moral grounds.

I have the greatest moral and ethical problem with property taxes, in my opinion. 

How can you truly own something if you are taxed in perpetuity on it?  What happens if you stop paying the taxes?  The government confiscates said property.  I find myself viewing my real property as a lease from the government, not something I have full ownership rights of.

I can make arrangements to change my net income through increasing or decreasing my expenses or revenues.  I can stop working for my business or another company and paying FICA taxes.  I can stop buying items or services to avoid a sales and use tax.  I can create, build, and use my own personal property and not be taxed on the value or usage.  But be damned if I want to do something about my property taxes unless I don't want to "own" my property!  Heaven forbid I increase the value of my real property or here comes my property tax increase!

So from an ethical perspective?  Take my "labor."  I can do nothing and you can have nothing.  But taxing me in perpetuity on something that I have purchased and improved upon?!? Unethical to me.

[onlykelsey]

I have the greatest moral and ethical problem with property taxes, in my opinion. 

How can you truly own something if you are taxed in perpetuity on it?  What happens if you stop paying the taxes?  The government confiscates said property.  I find myself viewing my real property as a lease from the government, not something I have full ownership rights of.

I can make arrangements to change my net income through increasing or decreasing my expenses or revenues.  I can stop working for my business or another company and paying FICA taxes.  I can stop buying items or services to avoid a sales and use tax.  I can create, build, and use my own personal property and not be taxed on the value or usage.  But be damned if I want to do something about my property taxes unless I don't want to "own" my property!  Heaven forbid I increase the value of my real property or here comes my property tax increase!

So from an ethical perspective?  Take my "labor."  I can do nothing and you can have nothing.  But taxing me in perpetuity on something that I have purchased and improved upon?!? Unethical to me.

Agreed, it seems most like a wealth tax of all the taxes we mentioned here.

Of course, I think they're so popular in large part because of how decentralized certain powers are (ie education), so I'm not sure that's changing any time soon. I think property taxes also have the ability to magnify income differentials... people in my poor (not destitute, but ~60% free lunch) school district had to bear a much higher tax burden than those in the suburban middle class areas nearby, because there was less to tax, families with means left, and we were left with more kids with serious demands on the system (ESL, disabilities, etc).

[nereo]

I would venture to guess one of the taxes in which you pay most is social security, and also that you have not called for increasing it.

I would actually support abolishing the SS system, as a public pension, and returning it to it's original form as a social safety net/disability insurance program. 

This is not true.  SS has never only been a social safety net.  It only ever paid out benefits to people who paid into the system, and the benefits have always been proportional to earnings.

You're using that term pretty loosely here. The lower end of SS get far more than they paid into the system, the upper end get less than they paid into it. We started taxing up to 85% of benefits in 1994 based on income level. The algorithm that calculates benefits has gotten more progressive favoring low income people.  It's hard to call it benefits 'proportional' when you compare it to the amount contributed.

It needs to be means tested and it needs to be provided at a level underneath what provides for dignity. It's not a pension plan, it's an emergency fund paid for off the backs of the working class. We need to encourage a growth in savings, not foster a dependence on government generosity.

This would be true if the poor and rich lived an equal amount of time.  Currently men in the lowest quartile NW live about 11 years less than men who are in the upper quartile.  Practically speaking this means that a lower-class worker can expect to get about a decades' worth of distributions while a highly paid professional can expect just over two decades.
This isn't to say the SS tax should try to 'adjust' for that - it's just a curious result of demographics that greatly skews the math.

[MoonShadow]

I would venture to guess one of the taxes in which you pay most is social security, and also that you have not called for increasing it.

I would actually support abolishing the SS system, as a public pension, and returning it to it's original form as a social safety net/disability insurance program. 

This is not true.  SS has never only been a social safety net.  It only ever paid out benefits to people who paid into the system, and the benefits have always been proportional to earnings.

This is provably not true.  To avoid any complaints, I'll take my reference from the social security administration's own website...

January 31, 1940 Ida M. Fuller became the first person to receive an old-age monthly benefit check under the new Social Security law. She paid in $24.75 between 1937 and 1939 on an income of $2,484. Her first check, dated January 31, was for $22.54.

Ida May Fuller worked for three years under the Social Security program. The accumulated taxes on her salary during those three years was a total of $24.75. Her initial monthly check was $22.54. During her lifetime she collected a total of $22,888.92 in Social Security benefits.

Your claim was false from the very first beneficiary.  SS has always been a wealth transfer program; but it was proposed & advocated for as an old age pension & disability insurance program.  I only claim that it was a social safety net, because it was originally set up to pay out at the age of 65, which was the average life expectancy calculated during the census of either 1900 or 1910 (I don't know which).  For our current system to be equivalent, the normal age of benefits would have to be 86 or 87 years old.  This basically established an age limit, at which point you would, in effect, be 'disabled by age', as one of the other qualifying conditions were that you had 1) paid into the system and 2) were rendered disabled & unable to work for some reason.  Today, the disability portion no longer requires that you have ever paid into it; and the old age pension portion has been repeatedly bolstered & now requires 40 quarters (10 years) of contributing work history.  I am in full support of SS's current disability functions; but I think that it's pension functions, even if I could have considered them reasonable in 1940, have grown untenable in it's current form.  If something doesn't change, it will break anyway, due to how the wealth transfer system actually functions.  As Yeager pointed out, tax revenues are fungible; so those FICA taxes are not, and never have been, kept in any reserve solely for the purposes of funding SS.  Those funds were spent, because governments run deficits.  There is no trust fund, it's a lie.

[nereo]

I have the greatest moral and ethical problem with property taxes, in my opinion. 

When I first read this I interpreted it to mean "I have a greater moral problem with property taxes than anyone else here. Seriously, it bugs me more than it bugs anyone else".  Sorry, I digress...

How can you truly own something if you are taxed in perpetuity on it?  What happens if you stop paying the taxes?  The government confiscates said property.  I find myself viewing my real property as a lease from the government, not something I have full ownership rights of.
[snip]
So from an ethical perspective?  Take my "labor."  I can do nothing and you can have nothing.  But taxing me in perpetuity on something that I have purchased and improved upon?!? Unethical to me.

Property taxes are an interesting case because they are, as you say, taxed in perpetuity. I agree that this is troubling, but I have one question (and I'm not trying to be glib here): does an individual get to own land in perpetuity (sans fees)? If yes, does his heirs also get to own the land in perpetuity? How do we keep this from turning into a feudal system where one lord (or family) winds up owning all the land?

ok.. that was three questions.

[Tyson]

The best thing about our taxes is that they are a wealth transfer system.  We should be taxing the top 5% even more than we are right now. 

[winkeyman]

The best thing about our taxes is that they are a wealth transfer system.  We should be taxing the top 5% even more than we are right now.

And this is exactly the kind of statement that made me start this thread.

[beltim]

I would venture to guess one of the taxes in which you pay most is social security, and also that you have not called for increasing it.

I would actually support abolishing the SS system, as a public pension, and returning it to it's original form as a social safety net/disability insurance program. 

This is not true.  SS has never only been a social safety net.  It only ever paid out benefits to people who paid into the system, and the benefits have always been proportional to earnings.

You're using that term pretty loosely here. The lower end of SS get far more than they paid into the system, the upper end get less than they paid into it. We started taxing up to 85% of benefits in 1994 based on income level. The algorithm that calculates benefits has gotten more progressive favoring low income people.  It's hard to call it benefits 'proportional' when you compare it to the amount contributed.

It needs to be means tested and it needs to be provided at a level underneath what provides for dignity. It's not a pension plan, it's an emergency fund paid for off the backs of the working class. We need to encourage a growth in savings, not foster a dependence on government generosity.

Only if by "loosely" you mean "as precise as possible."  I never said benefits were linearly proportional to earnings, just that they were proportional.  And yes, you are correct that the benefits paid are progressive.

But you make the same mistake MoonShadow did – the retirement portion of Social Security is, in fact, a public pension program.  It's fine to argue, as you do, that it shouldn't be.  But it is and always has been a public pension program.

[beltim]

I would venture to guess one of the taxes in which you pay most is social security, and also that you have not called for increasing it.

I would actually support abolishing the SS system, as a public pension, and returning it to it's original form as a social safety net/disability insurance program. 

This is not true.  SS has never only been a social safety net.  It only ever paid out benefits to people who paid into the system, and the benefits have always been proportional to earnings.

This is provably not true.  To avoid any complaints, I'll take my reference from the social security administration's own website...

January 31, 1940 Ida M. Fuller became the first person to receive an old-age monthly benefit check under the new Social Security law. She paid in $24.75 between 1937 and 1939 on an income of $2,484. Her first check, dated January 31, was for $22.54.

Ida May Fuller worked for three years under the Social Security program. The accumulated taxes on her salary during those three years was a total of $24.75. Her initial monthly check was $22.54. During her lifetime she collected a total of $22,888.92 in Social Security benefits.

Your claim was false from the very first beneficiary.

What do you think you proved here?  Benefits go up as income subject to the tax go up, until you hit a max.  That's the literal definition of proportional.  It's not linearly proportional as discussed above.

[MoonShadow]

I have the greatest moral and ethical problem with property taxes, in my opinion. 

How can you truly own something if you are taxed in perpetuity on it?  What happens if you stop paying the taxes?  The government confiscates said property. I find myself viewing my real property as a lease from the government, not something I have full ownership rights of.

When it comes to real property, this is true enough already, at least regarding the unimproved land that you own.  There has never been a time, at least not in US history, that your 'ownership' of real property was absolute; as if it was an object that you could pick up and walk off with.  Real estate is just different from typical personally owned property.  You can't move it typically, for practical reasons; and you are limited in the methods for which you can 'dispose' of it.  You can sell it, or give it away; but your neighbors (via zoning laws?) do have a say in other methods of 'disposal'.  You can't just burn it, for example, for many reasons.  You could get a permit to burn it, or demolish it, but that's not a right, it's permission.  When you dig into the philosophy & history of real estate in the US, we really haven't come up with a better way to handle real estate than sovereign authority plus permanent land grants.  People in Canada certainly say it the same way, that they own their house; but if you dig down into the details, their deed is a land grant that is ultimately authorized by the soverign, which I believe is still the Queen of the British Empire.

[onlykelsey]

I have the greatest moral and ethical problem with property taxes, in my opinion. 

How can you truly own something if you are taxed in perpetuity on it?  What happens if you stop paying the taxes?  The government confiscates said property. I find myself viewing my real property as a lease from the government, not something I have full ownership rights of.

When it comes to real property, this is true enough already, at least regarding the unimproved land that you own.  There has never been a time, at least not in US history, that your 'ownership' of real property was absolute; as if it was an object that you could pick up and walk off with.  Real estate is just different from typical personally owned property.  You can't move it typically, for practical reasons; and you are limited in the methods for which you can 'dispose' of it.  You can sell it, or give it away; but your neighbors (via zoning laws?) do have a say in other methods of 'disposal'.  You can't just burn it, for example, for many reasons.  You could get a permit to burn it, or demolish it, but that's not a right, it's permission.  When you dig into the philosophy & history of real estate in the US, we really haven't come up with a better way to handle real estate than sovereign authority plus permanent land grants.  People in Canada certainly say it the same way, that they own their house; but if you dig down into the details, their deed is a land grant that is ultimately authorized by the soverign, which I believe is still the Queen of the British Empire.

That's right.  I think you'd really need to be the king of a piece of land (with all that entails) to 100% own it.  For further reading... https://thugout.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/property-rights-as-a-bundle-of-sticks/

[Papa bear]

I have the greatest moral and ethical problem with property taxes, in my opinion. 

When I first read this I interpreted it to mean "I have a greater moral problem with property taxes than anyone else here. Seriously, it bugs me more than it bugs anyone else".  Sorry, I digress...

How can you truly own something if you are taxed in perpetuity on it?  What happens if you stop paying the taxes?  The government confiscates said property.  I find myself viewing my real property as a lease from the government, not something I have full ownership rights of.
[snip]
So from an ethical perspective?  Take my "labor."  I can do nothing and you can have nothing.  But taxing me in perpetuity on something that I have purchased and improved upon?!? Unethical to me.

Property taxes are an interesting case because they are, as you say, taxed in perpetuity. I agree that this is troubling, but I have one question (and I'm not trying to be glib here): does an individual get to own land in perpetuity (sans fees)? If yes, does his heirs also get to own the land in perpetuity? How do we keep this from turning into a feudal system where one lord (or family) winds up owning all the land?

ok.. that was three questions.

Typing on phone and not proofreading will always get me =).

For ownership in perpetuity, off the top of my head, the government can take the property with eminent domain, but at a market rate, you could lose the property in a lawsuit or to pay debts, or you can sell or donate it.

For transfers to heirs, IIRC, it will transfer to heirs at a stepped up basis (market rate) on death.  So yes, your heirs will own the property (and have the ability to depreciate the building improvements again) if it was an income property.

To remedy this from us having feudal lords, there is an estate tax over a certain amount. I am no expert in this area and don't claim to be.  Hopefully someone can chime in on this.

I have no politically feasible solution to any tax situation.  As we don't live in a utopian society (will always have the free rider problem for one), and humans are rationalizing creatures, not necessarily rational, I find few alternatives to our current tax structure.

So I will continue to pay, use the services, and gripe quietly when I make too much in a particular tax year.

[MoonShadow]

I would venture to guess one of the taxes in which you pay most is social security, and also that you have not called for increasing it.

I would actually support abolishing the SS system, as a public pension, and returning it to it's original form as a social safety net/disability insurance program. 

This is not true.  SS has never only been a social safety net.  It only ever paid out benefits to people who paid into the system, and the benefits have always been proportional to earnings.

This is provably not true.  To avoid any complaints, I'll take my reference from the social security administration's own website...

January 31, 1940 Ida M. Fuller became the first person to receive an old-age monthly benefit check under the new Social Security law. She paid in $24.75 between 1937 and 1939 on an income of $2,484. Her first check, dated January 31, was for $22.54.

Ida May Fuller worked for three years under the Social Security program. The accumulated taxes on her salary during those three years was a total of $24.75. Her initial monthly check was $22.54. During her lifetime she collected a total of $22,888.92 in Social Security benefits.

Your claim was false from the very first beneficiary.

What do you think you proved here?  Benefits go up as income subject to the tax go up, until you hit a max.  That's the literal definition of proportional.  It's not linearly proportional as discussed above.

Well, I suppose that one woman who received 924 times her own contributions is literally proportional.  I made the mistake of interpreting your comments as "and the benefits have always been [based upon contributions]."  Sorry for giving your statements the benefit of the doubt.  I will try not to assume further.

[Papa bear]

[/quote]

When it comes to real property, this is true enough already, at least regarding the unimproved land that you own.  There has never been a time, at least not in US history, that your 'ownership' of real property was absolute; as if it was an object that you could pick up and walk off with.  Real estate is just different from typical personally owned property.  You can't move it typically, for practical reasons; and you are limited in the methods for which you can 'dispose' of it.  You can sell it, or give it away; but your neighbors (via zoning laws?) do have a say in other methods of 'disposal'.  You can't just burn it, for example, for many reasons.  You could get a permit to burn it, or demolish it, but that's not a right, it's permission.  When you dig into the philosophy & history of real estate in the US, we really haven't come up with a better way to handle real estate than sovereign authority plus permanent land grants.  People in Canada certainly say it the same way, that they own their house; but if you dig down into the details, their deed is a land grant that is ultimately authorized by the soverign, which I believe is still the Queen of the British Empire.
[/quote]

While historically and practically this may be the case, and we may have voted on it as a majority, it doesn't necessarily mean that a property tax is "ethical."

It's the same argument that was used for the income tax. 

Paying taxes sucks.  Not having services sucks.  All tax and all services or no tax and no services.  Pick somewhere in the middle of the continuum.  That's the more practical thing to argue, though I have enjoyed the thinking from all sides in this thread.

[beltim]

What do you think you proved here?  Benefits go up as income subject to the tax go up, until you hit a max.  That's the literal definition of proportional.  It's not linearly proportional as discussed above.

Well, I suppose that one woman who received 924 times her own contributions is literally proportional.  I made the mistake of interpreting your comments as "and the benefits have always been [based upon contributions]."  Sorry for giving your statements the benefit of the doubt.  I will try not to assume further.

And people who paid more got more per month.  So yes, it's proportional.

[Yaeger]

What do you think you proved here?  Benefits go up as income subject to the tax go up, until you hit a max.  That's the literal definition of proportional.  It's not linearly proportional as discussed above.

Well, I suppose that one woman who received 924 times her own contributions is literally proportional.  I made the mistake of interpreting your comments as "and the benefits have always been [based upon contributions]."  Sorry for giving your statements the benefit of the doubt.  I will try not to assume further.

And people who paid more got more per month.  So yes, it's proportional.

There are a lot of factors that play into this, including retirement income outside of SS. But, in a hypothetical situation where Person A has paid $100,000 into SS and receives $150,000 in benefits and Person B pays $500,000 and receives $300,000 in after-tax benefits?

That's literally not proportional. Person A and Person B are not receiving corresponding benefits based on contribution history.

[sol]

That's literally not proportional. Person A and Person B are not receiving corresponding benefits based on contribution history.

So what?

If I die at age 50 and you collect social security until you are 105, the benefits will not be proportional no matter how much we each paid in.  That's the whole point of the program.  It never tried to be fair

[Yaeger]

That's literally not proportional. Person A and Person B are not receiving corresponding benefits based on contribution history.

So what?

If I die at age 50 and you collect social security until you are 105, the benefits will not be proportional no matter how much we each paid in.  That's the whole point of the program.  It never tried to be fair

You're right, but that goes back to the nailing down the design of the program. Is it a pension program or a retirement insurance program? That definition will change how you apply the program to society. Means test Social Security if it's an insurance program, otherwise remove the progressive benefits calculation and provide after-tax benefits proportional to what people put in.

We're in this grey area where people want SS to do both, it can't, and it's floundering. It needs a purpose or you'll see this cavalier attitude about continually raising taxes to support an unsustainable, muddled, politically charged program with no clear goal.

[ender]

As to other comments justifying anything and everything with the "Democracy" and "Social Contract" arguments.

Government, including democracies, are created by people. Therefor, governments cannot rightfully have rights or powers that people do not have. Full Stop.

Lets take a look at those 10 people from our previous example. Lets say they decide to form an association of some kind. Let's call it a democratic government.

The reason they decide to do this is because they live in a loose-knit community of farmers. They have been experiencing a string of night time sheep thefts from people outside their community. They decide it would be easier to assign one volunteer per night to patrol the community on the look out for sheeptheives than it is for all 10 of them to stay up all night guarding their farms. For this purpose they create a Constabulary where volunteers patrol the community at night.

It is perfectly correct for them to make such an arrangement. Each individual in the group has the right prevent the theft of their sheep. Therefor, they have the right to assign that responsibility to the Government they have created. They have created a "social contract" of sorts. They could also have the Constable be on the look out for fires and other such things.

Now lets say they decide to hire a full-time Constable for this purpose. To pay for it, they get the idea of placing a small tax of 1 sheep per year on each member of the community. Of the 10 people, 6 of the people in the community (including the potential full-time Constable, naturally) are in favor, 4 are against.

It is not correct for them to create such a tax. No individual in the group has the right to confiscate any of their neighbor's property. Because no individual in the group has this right, they cannot assign this power to some Government they have created. How can a group of people assign a power to a Government if none of them have it to begin with? Creating an imaginary entity called Government does not and can not create new rights or powers that people do not possess.

For the same reason, it is correct for people to create a Police force to prevent murder in their community. Each person in the community has the right to prevent murder. Therefor they can assign the responsibility to prevent murder to the Government. They still, however, retain the right to prevent murder as individuals. It is NOT correct for people to create a Police force and assign it the power to prevent the reading of the Koran. No individual has the right to prevent their fellow from reading the Koran, so how could they possibly assign a power they do not possess to a police force?

Let's say the 10 hypothetical people in the community voluntarily agree to institute a tax for one year, to support a full-time Constable for one year. This would be correct. However, it would not be correct for them to create a tax in perpetuity that would support a full time constable in perpetuity and hold all human beings that may ever inhabit the community to this "social contract" in perpetuity. A person can enter into a temporary agreement for themselves. A person can also enter into an agreement that lasts the rest of their life. They cannot, however enter into an agreement that their children and grandchildren must adhere to simply because they are born within an arbitrary geographical boundary.

You cannot vote to turn a wrong into a right. An imaginary social contract cannot make a wrong into a right. All the verbal ju-jitsu in the world cannot make income taxes voluntary. All I am proposing is that we try to look at things through a clear and unclouded ethical lens. You say that a world without income taxes would be worse than a world with them? Fine. You say that democracy is more practical and workable than a more ethical system of volunteerism? Fine. That's not my point. All I am asking is that we are to go forward with taxing incomes, and forcing people to bend to the tyranny of the majority, etc, because it is more PRACTICAL than the alternatives, we don't PRETEND that it is our entitled due because of invented concepts like democracy and social contracts.

Every time you pass a law, it is likely that the police will kill someone in the course of enforcing it.
Every time you levy a tax, you are laying claim to the labor of another free human being.

So please, is it too much to ask that people treat these concepts with a little more respect?


TLDL Version:

Democracy should rightly be viewed as an imaginary, created institution through which the majority UNRIGHTFULLY FORCES the minority to bend to their will. However, it may be the best system we can come up with so it needs to be done, a necessary evil. When viewed this way, it is my belief that people will treat the passing of laws and taxes with due caution and respect.

Modern people see democracy as a system whereby the majority have every right to force the minority to bend to their will because of mental gymnastics, social contracts, and doublespeak. Because of this, the majority feels empowered to do whatever the hell it wants, pas whatever taxes and laws it wants, and if you complain you are a degenerate who needs to sit down and shut up. Better luck next election cycle, losers.

First, no one here is arguing that there is any "entitlement" whereby a government can simply take whatever they want. That is a strawman argument you are rebutting.

If anything, people are suggesting that because some percentage of their income is directly derived from the presence of the society they live in that taxes on that income are fair. If income is created in a vacuum of society you are correct - it would be unethical to tax it directly. However income is not created in a vacuum, it is created within the framework of a society/government which overwhelmingly has provided a clear and direct influence on making that income have value.

If it was possible to separate your ability to create income from the framework provided by the government and society you live in, then I do agree with your premise - taxation at that point is not ethical. But the problem is that in your trivial examples, you can clearly separate the benefit from the cost. Your constable could simply only patrol the six flocks who have paid. The others could simply be "free for the taking" while they either decide to defend themselves separately (or contribute to paying the constable).

I cannot separate my income and properly attribute it to the various sources in order to make similar claims currently.

A second point is most countries are not technically democracies, but democratic republics. Arguing against the evils or perils of democracy is not technically correct. Keep in mind a democratic republic is different than democracy. Also, whether by intention or design, you are basically implying the only form of government which is moral is complete anarchy and/or a .

Third, and perhaps most important, is that your fundamental assumptions here are inconsistent. Rights are in a very real sense are zero sum. The more rights made universal, the more rights I lose myself (however small the loss). Your example of murder - by making life a universal right, I remove someone's right to do whatever they want, in this case taking your life should I want. It seems obvious in this situation that it is a better result for society for everyone to give up their right to kill others in order to have a society which values their individual lives.

You are emphatically basing this argument on how we have fundamental and inherent rights we have (whether a right to life or to the fruits of your labor). Your entire argument boils down to the following assumption:

• A primary and fundamental right is the right to keep money you earn, above all else

Anyone who disagrees with this underlying premise will find your conclusions difficult to arrive at, particularly the bold claim that it is "unethical" to tax income. The reason it is inconsistent is because the justification for "why" we have various rights (right to property, right to life, etc) is completely because you have arbitrarily decided and assigned this to be the basis for society. What makes your interpretation more correct than mine, or someone else's?

Therefor, governments cannot rightfully have rights or powers that people do not have

This is simply not true and another fundamental assumption you are making which is incorrect. A simple example would be the ability to declare war. As an individual, I do not have the right to declare war (and in fact your argument is pretty clearly based on the right to life would affirm this). However many instances exist where it makes complete sense for a federal government to have this power, if only in self defense.

Another would be diplomatic relationships with other nationstates. As an individual, I cannot represent the nationstate I am a part of internationally pretty much by definition. Are diplomatic relationships unethical?

There are plenty of instances where a collective society/nationstate/government can have power that an individual does not have.

[MoonShadow]

There is a whole lot wrong with this post, but this part is just too wrong to gloss over...

Third, and perhaps most important, is that your fundamental assumptions here are inconsistent. Rights are in a very real sense are zero sum. The more rights made universal, the more rights I lose myself (however small the loss). Your example of murder - by making life a universal right, I remove someone's right to do whatever they want, in this case taking your life should I want. It seems obvious in this situation that it is a better result for society for everyone to give up their right to kill others in order to have a society which values their individual lives.

All that follows I ignored, because it's all based upon a flawed premise.  First, you can't make a 'right' universal, even with the consent of all people.  A right either is, or is not.   A right is discovered, not created.  This much should be self-evident (as stated as such in the Declaration of Independence), but even if it is not, it remains a fundamental founding principle of the United States, and by virtue of replication, much of the modern 'Western' nations.  It's also reflected in the Magna Carta, so it's not like the founders & framers were pulling this premise out of their asses.

Second, the benefits of liberty; i.e. the exercise of one's rights within the constraints of the rights of others, is not a zero sum game.  The social benefits of rights are in the exercising; but I can't enjoy my own liberties without respecting the liberties of my peers.  As the old saw goes, my right to swing a stick ends at my neighbor's nose.  At no point has there ever been a 'right' to murder, for my neighbor's right to life (because he own's himself, and I have no claim on his person) predates us both (even if it might not be an ancient & eternal right) and is equal to my own.  Likewise, such rights as they are, are also dependent upon reciprocity.  If I were to ignore my neighbor's right to life, and attempt to kill him (without just cause, let us assume); whether successful or not, I have no claim to a right to life myself.

No one has decreed life a right, it simply is.  And yes, it's pretty universal.

[EscapeVelocity2020]

Fortunately I live in a state where most of the population agrees that taxes are something that should be limited along with the size of the government.   

Whew, what a thread!  That is the beauty of the internet, it brings people from not just different states but different parts of the world and allows for open discussion on what seem to be a basic fundamental disagreements.  Some parts of global society 'enjoy' universal healthcare (better than they'd get otherwise, or all that they've ever known, or simply proud to know that their daily work provides something as awesome as medical care to those in need, or just have access to less expensive private care because of it...) and free or subsidized secondary education (since the free market seems to distort the cost and benefit, or because educating society benefits everyone and should be encouraged). 

When I was in Norway, I heard the mantra - a government taxes things that it wants its citizens to do less of.  I grew up in America where the Tea Party is almost biblical, 'No taxation without representation'.   And so it will go, on and on...  Governments trying to add taxes or re-frame benefits to keep citizens happy, and the citizenry complaining about taxes, but willing to be taxed enough to have good transport, national defense, and stable utilities (water, electricity, internet).     

We live in the information age where playing the system is just a matter of sitting in front of a screen and being smarter than the next guy.  I posted this a long while back, but I'll put the root link up again here: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12533

The paper offers four main takeaways. First, thanks to the incredible complexity of the U.S. fiscal system, it's impossible for anyone to understand her incentive to work, save, or contribute to retirement accounts absent highly advanced computer technology and software. Second, the U.S. fiscal system provides most households with very strong reasons to limit their labor supply and saving. Third, the system offers very high-income young and middle aged households as well as most older households tremendous opportunities to arbitrage the tax system by contributing to retirement accounts. Fourth, the patterns by age and income of marginal net tax rates on earnings, marginal net tax rates on saving, and tax-arbitrage opportunities can be summarized with one word -- bizarre.

TL;DR We can quit once we can afford a good internet connection and figure out sustainable shelter and food (via said internet connection) - a la MMM.  However, if enough people realize and opt for this, then the system is unsustainable. 

And my take is - we live in a world where the rich shelter their income from taxation via influence and the poor (who currently pay disproportionately from their labor wages) can avoid taxation by knowing the system and because life is still pretty darn good on strategic welfare. 

Isn't this how Rome ultimately fell?

[beltim]

What do you think you proved here?  Benefits go up as income subject to the tax go up, until you hit a max.  That's the literal definition of proportional.  It's not linearly proportional as discussed above.

Well, I suppose that one woman who received 924 times her own contributions is literally proportional.  I made the mistake of interpreting your comments as "and the benefits have always been [based upon contributions]."  Sorry for giving your statements the benefit of the doubt.  I will try not to assume further.

And people who paid more got more per month.  So yes, it's proportional.

There are a lot of factors that play into this, including retirement income outside of SS. But, in a hypothetical situation where Person A has paid $100,000 into SS and receives $150,000 in benefits and Person B pays $500,000 and receives $300,000 in after-tax benefits?

That's literally not proportional. Person A and Person B are not receiving corresponding benefits based on contribution history.

Sorry, I didn't realize I needed to spell out that the monthly payments were proportional.  There's no guarantee about the lifetime payments, because that's not the point of a pension – the point is to provide benefits for the rest of your life.