Why are people scared of taxes?

[wabber]

I don't know why ppl are always scared of paying taxes.
taxes are actually a great thing but only if everyone pays them and if they are spend on useful things only. Just look out your window and you will see lots of things paid with your taxes you use everyday.

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[hazek]

I don't know why ppl are always scared of paying taxes.
taxes are actually a great thing but only if everyone pays them and if they are spend on useful things only. Just look out your window and you will see lots of things paid with your taxes you use everyday.

Taxes are no more a great thing than a band of thieves robbing a whole village and then using some of the loot to pay for a homeless family's dinner and shelter. It's still theft and it's still wrong.

Don't make the classic mistake of noting only what is seen and forgetting about what isn't. Taxes are theft of money, money that if left in their owner's hands could have been saved, could have been invested into a company and created some jobs, could have been spent much more efficiently and where the market regulated by strictly it's consumers i.e. the free market really wants it, and not where some bureaucrat thinks will earn him some points in the next election while stuffing his own pocket with a nice portion of it.


I don't know about anyone else, but I'm sick and tired of being oppressed and robbed by this gang of thugs known as the government and without incriminating myself I'll say only this: If one should ever make a stand against theft - taxes, why not do it with Bitcoin?

[wareen]

Low income tax rates have a strong correlation with wealth-inequality within societies. Wealth-inequality in turn correlates positively with violence, low life-expectancy, infant-mortality, obesity,...

I am happy to pay my taxes and why shouldn't I be? The state has provided me with free university education, cheap public transport, free access to medical care and I don't have to have to fear going anywhere - partly because I know that all the other people in my country are not that much worse off than I am.

[Etlase2]

Taxes are no more a great thing than a band of thieves robbing a whole village and then using some of the loot to pay for a homeless family's dinner and shelter. It's still theft and it's still wrong.

Hey bro I'm sure there are a couple countries in Africa with no taxation. Have fun, you won't be missed.

[Deafboy]

I am happy to pay my taxes

I would be happy to pay taxes... voluntarily. Otherwise it's a robbery.

taxes are actually a great thing but only if everyone pays them and if they are spend on useful things only.

...if they are spend on useful things only...

Robbery - the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force

[hazek]

Low income tax rates have a strong correlation with wealth-inequality within societies. Wealth-inequality in turn correlates positively with violence, low life-expectancy, infant-mortality, obesity,...

I am happy to pay my taxes and why shouldn't I be? The state has provided me with free university education, cheap public transport, free access to medical care and I don't have to have to fear going anywhere - partly because I know that all the other people in my country are not that much worse off than I am.

So you disagree with this?:

Taxes are no more a great thing than a band of thieves robbing a whole village and then using some of the loot to pay for a homeless family's dinner and shelter. It's still theft and it's still wrong.

[Atlas]

My local gov can't properly allocate water, provide adequate garbage disposal nor supply electricity at the most competitive rate.

Like hell am I going to be content with paying taxes when a market of competing services can do better.

[hazek]

I have no problem with paying taxes when they're used correctly. When a former Taoiseach (same position as UK Prime minister) here had a makeup budget higher than the average salary as well as a higher salary than the US president then being reluctant to pay taxes has some justification.

So you disagree with this?:

Taxes are no more a great thing than a band of thieves robbing a whole village and then using some of the loot to pay for a homeless family's dinner and shelter. It's still theft and it's still wrong.

[wareen]

So you disagree with this?:

Taxes are no more a great thing than a band of thieves robbing a whole village and then using some of the loot to pay for a homeless family's dinner and shelter. It's still theft and it's still wrong.

Yes, because for one thing the village probably hasn't elected the "band of thieves" democratically and "robbing" is per definition violent, which collecting taxes usually is not. I get your point but the comparison is overly-dramatic.

Please refute one of the two correlations at the beginning of my last post.

[hazek]

So you disagree with this?:

Taxes are no more a great thing than a band of thieves robbing a whole village and then using some of the loot to pay for a homeless family's dinner and shelter. It's still theft and it's still wrong.

Yes, because for one thing the village probably hasn't elected the "band of thieves" democratically and "robbing" is per definition violent, which collecting taxes usually is not. I get your point but the comparison is overly-dramatic.

Please refute one of the two correlations at the beginning of my last post.

Oh I didn't vote for this band of thugs commonly referred to as government either, I didn't vote at all, does that mean that forcing me to pay taxes is wrong?

Btw do you know what happens if you don't "pay taxes"? If you think I can't call it robbery and if you think it's not a violent act just because people choose to rather pay up when demanded rather than refusing then I suggest you do a test, stop paying and then see what happens. I wonder if you'll still say it's not violent or not a robbery.


I did refute your correlation. STEALING IS WRONG, even if it does a some good as illustrated with my example, PERIOD.

[Richy_T]

This has been done to death already, there are plenty more threads that could simply be referenced rather than going through the whole justification of taxation issue all over again. My humble opinion in short: Taxes mean that for a small fee I can sit on my arse doing nothing while someone else has the hassle of fixing the roads, unblocking the drains, talking bollocks to foreign high muckamucks and all the other crap that needs to be done to maintain a high standard of living that I can't be arsed to do myself.

If your taxes are a "small fee" then you're either doing it wrong or doing it very, very right.

[vampire]

I don't know why ppl are always scared of paying taxes.
taxes are actually a great thing but only if everyone pays them and if they are spend on useful things only. Just look out your window and you will see lots of things paid with your taxes you use everyday.

If people like Romney, percentage wise, pay three times less than me - what's so great about them?

Personally I don't see much out of them. I just pay them.

I pay for local schools via real estate tax.
I pay for highways via tolls and gas tax.
I pay for whatever via sales tax.

I pay for water and sewage via monthly bills.
I pay for garbage collection via monthly bills.

I pay for my retirement via SSI and Medicare.

[Richy_T]

I pay for my retirement via SSI and Medicare.

You pay money into SSI and Medicare. Good luck getting a retirement out of them.

[layyen]

In Czech Republic...

i dont like paying taxes and if i can, i am buying everything without receipe and without tax..

if i pay taxes, i wont get good quality services - i will get a lot of uneffective services which i dont need
if i pay money for state retirement - i will get approx 4times less then i get if i save these money by myself
if i pay state "mediacare" many times i must pay a lot of money..

i would like to decide what i want - then i will pay these services..

in Czech R.. you will state takes about 44% of your earnings (social, medical, and taxes.. ) i hate it...

[bb113]

Low income tax rates have a strong correlation with wealth-inequality within societies. Wealth-inequality in turn correlates positively with violence, low life-expectancy, infant-mortality, obesity,...

I had more about abusing data like this but just suffice to say this is a very poor argument. Once data abuse is treated like animal abuse our society will be getting somewhere. At that point it may even be possible for a government to spend tax money wisely rather than on wars and manipulating the economy.

[nobbynobbynoob]

in Czech R.. you will state takes about 44% of your earnings (social, medical, and taxes.. ) i hate it...

I believe you, and from this I ascertain that nothing much really changed in 1989.

[myrkul]

Yes, because for one thing the village probably hasn't elected the "band of thieves" democratically and "robbing" is per definition violent, which collecting taxes usually is not.

As has been pointed out, taxes are violent. They're always backed up by the threat of violence from the state.

And democracy is itself founded on a logical fallacy: The idea that if a lot of people agree on something, it must be right.

So supporting taxation is, essentially, the idea that if a lot of people think it's OK, you can commit violence on people, even those that disagree.

Tell me, if slavery were democratically approved, would you support it? Even if you were part of the minority chosen?

[Cranky4u]

Taxes are a necessary evil to provide your country with a certain standard of living. so I am fine with paying my taxes for this however what I am not fine with is being abused. Governments, particularly the public service, IMHO attract the most incompetent fuckwits on the face of the earth and place them in the key policy positions. They then make shit house decisions and waste large chunks of tax payer dollars in short sighted programs rather than 10~30 year plans that strengthen the backbone of the country.

If governments planned for more than the next election, then the public service that executes these masters wishes might be able to plan better. Then they could pay people on performance (e.g. sack the fuckwits and provide comparable pay as the private sector for performance) rather than what we have now which is "pay penuts get monkeys".

P.S. I am not a public servant

[nobbynobbynoob]

Taxes are a necessary evil to provide your country with a certain standard of living. so I am fine with paying my taxes for this however what I am not fine with is being abused. Governments, particularly the public service, IMHO attract the most incompetent fuckwits on the face of the earth and place them in the key policy positions. They then make shit house decisions and waste large chunks of tax payer dollars in short sighted programs rather than 10~30 year plans that strengthen the backbone of the country.

And it is precisely this corruption and abuse that pushes me more and more toward anarcho-voluntarist thinking.

[Kontakt]

You people are so overly dramatic about this. It's like watching a ham-fisted showing of Hamlet.

Yes, taxes are grandly misappropriated.
Yes, privatized services could be better.

No, your life would not be better without taxes.
No, you would not be happier, unless you like dystopian futures.

Taxes pay for the infrastructure you use daily, and without which, you would not be able to do much at all. Who would fund the roads if there were no taxable income? I hardly think paying a toll to leave my driveway is a viable option. Government is often irritating and frequently overbearing, but without it, we would lose so much. All of you people that advocate anarchy should stop being such dewy-eyed idealists and realize that a country without rules is not a country for long.

First off, without taxes, who would pay for infrastructure? I don't think anyone would voluntarily fund it. Next off, how would the government even manage to exist? Making the positions in government unpaid, volunteer positions would just make it more exclusive for the rich, who would be the only people who could afford to hold such a position. Then you have the problem of lack of regulation. What's to stop a company from making poisonous products and selling them for a short period before booking it with the profits? What's to stop me from robbing your house? No money means no police, no firemen, no ambulances, no sort of government subsidized public-service sector what-so-ever. 

For the most part, you guys have the right idea. If the tax money were spent appropriately on useful purposes, it would be no burden at all letting go of that money. I sigh when I see the amount I pay, knowing that almost all of it will go to fund some silly little project or be burned in the middle east, but I know that some tiny fraction of it will be used in a legitimate project to benefit myself and my community, and I try to take a little comfort in that.

But really, what's the good of money, anyways. I survive, and I just don't worry. Really, the amount of stress that comes from worrying about your money and getting angry will take far more from you than taxes ever will. Just chill out, have a beer, and be happy with what you've got.