Is taxation voluntary?

[Mike Mitrosky]

Benjamin Franklin said it best "'In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

Taxes is the cost of a civilized society. Countries that don't have alot of taxes or tax revenue usually has very unstable governments. Its just a fact. To have a stable military, stable society, you must have government. You must have some sort of stability to have life be as calm as possible. Libertarians, Tea Party people obviously have no capacity of intellect to understand the importance of government.

No, taxes are not voluntary. And if you don't pay them on time, you should not be able to negotiate a lower rate because you didn't pay them. That's ridiculous.

Didn't we leave Europe over debtor's prisons?? And how did we persevere for years with no taxes?? (devils advocate question)

When in the US did we have no taxes?

Income taxes do not pay to fund our government. They dont pay for the military, roads, schools, congressmans' salaries, etc.. none of that.

Paying taxes is not patriotic.

Patriotism is better defined by holding your government's feet to the fire.

 

[Madeline]

Didn't we leave Europe over debtor's prisons?? And how did we persevere for years with no taxes?? (devils advocate question)

When in the US did we have no taxes?

Income taxes do not pay to fund our government. They dont pay for the military, roads, schools, congressmans' salaries, etc.. none of that.

Paying taxes is not patriotic.

Patriotism is better defined by holding your government's feet to the fire.

Paying taxes is a patriotic act, IMO. Just not the only one. So is voting, military service, etc. Even "holding the government's feet to the fire" is patriotic.

Your assertion that income taxes are not used to fund the government is just plain silly, unless you have some sort of fancy explanation to go along with it I am just not able to imagine.

 

[Madeline]

Then Ohio needs some serious spending cuts. A good start would be to cut all Ohio politicians' pay in half, in my opinion.

Symbolic, Kevin. But why stop there? Why not make all elected officials serve as volunteers for no pay at all?

Even better. They'd never make it happen though.

There is actually a counter-argument to this, if you can bear to hear it. Most people agree we are best served by citizen legislators...men and women with jobs or businesses who put them on hold to serve a term or two as an elected official. An all-volunteer legislature forecloses this option to all but those who are wealthy enough to go without income for that time.

 

[Madeline]

No. Taxation is not voluntary. When the consequence of not doing something is having one's income garnished, property seized, or self imprisoned, the "activity" is not voluntary.

And to preempt the inevitable: what about traffic laws blah blah blah.

Traffic laws for public safety are to keep one from killing others whilst operating a vehicle. One can perform one's job without paying taxes and not harm anyone.

Tax cheats harm us all, boedicca.

 

[Greenbeard]

My opinion is that taxation is not voluntary because for something to be voluntary you have to be able to choose not to do it. Since you cannot choose not to pay taxes without being thrown in prison it is clearly not voluntary. loosecannon is of the opinion that because you sign a paper prior to employment that allows the government a portion of your income that you're consenting to being taxed, but I disagree. For one this doesn't cover all forms of taxation, and two you have no other choice but to sign this paper. The government has made it illegal to work without giving them a cut of your income so you are forced by law to sign this paper or you can't legally work. If you can't work you can't live so there's obviously no choice there.

Taxes are clearly coercive, not voluntary.

When has choice ever meant "free of all constraint"? There are always limitations to what you can choose (there's actually an entire discipline dedicated to fleshing out this principle--it's called economics). That doesn't mean there is no such thing as choice or you don't have choices. As you even point out in your post, there are alternatives to the choice you've made, you simply like them less. Alternatives are available to you right now, some of which have already been suggested in this thread:

1. Emigrate. I suspect the tax rate in Mogadishu will be more to your liking.
2. Lower your income. The destitution choice will free you from the onerous burden of income taxes.
3. Pull a Thoreau. If you view your current situation as devoid of choice (and, perhaps, lacking in freedom), then presumably life as a wage earner and life as a prisoner lie on the same indifference curve for you. Try it out for a while.

Given that these alternatives are all available to you but instead you opt for paying taxes, by the definition you presented ("for something to be voluntary you have to be able to choose not to do it") they are voluntary. Similarly, illegality also doesn't absolutely restrict choices; you may have noticed that the crime rate isn't zero. What illegality does is alter the nature of the choice. If "A" is a legal option, and "B" is an illegal alternative, that doesn't mean there's some cosmic force or infinite potential well stopping you from choosing "B." Illegality simply means that with "B" comes some probability of sanction (a fine, jail time, whatever). That probability (and perhaps adherence to some particular moral tenets or conscience) is enough to make "B" the less desirable choice for most people but desirability doesn't determine whether the choice itself exists.

Quite a bit of what you probably consider to be voluntary is a bit more ambiguous if you want to take the position that constraint signals an absence of choice. Some examples: For many people, consumption patterns are dictated by the status group they happen to be in. Drug trafficking in a high unemployment inner city neighborhood may be the most immediately appealing option to a teenager facing a list of unpleasant options (just as paying your taxes is probably the most appealing option to you, given the list of alternatives I posted above). Choosing to go to work at a fast food joint while sick--even knowing one might, and probably will, infect customers--may be the only viable option for a low-wage hourly worker. A single mother may choose to settle for more less-than-healthy dollar menu meals and corn-based products for her children due to the relative prices and availability of fresh fruit and vegetables in her neighborhood.

These are all issues generally understood to fall under the umbrella of "personal responsibility." Life is full of constraints that make our actual choices less appealing than the choices we dream we'd make in some idealized world. But if you want to go down the road of suggesting that if the choices we're directed to make by ambient incentives and the contours of the world in which we live are not choices at all if they differ substantially from our ideal (e.g. if we simply don't like the best option available to us), then you're also going to have to accept that a great many people in this world, even in "free" countries, have never had the luxury of making a single substantial choice in their entire lives.

 

[boedicca]

No. Taxation is not voluntary. When the consequence of not doing something is having one's income garnished, property seized, or self imprisoned, the "activity" is not voluntary.

And to preempt the inevitable: what about traffic laws blah blah blah.

Traffic laws for public safety are to keep one from killing others whilst operating a vehicle. One can perform one's job without paying taxes and not harm anyone.

Tax cheats harm us all, boedicca.

False reasoning. You are assuming that the taxes are valid in the first place.

 

[peach174]

Seems to me that the question for all of us, is do we get rid of the IRS? I say yes. What would be the best form of very simple taxes.
Do we get rid of the the 16th amendment? I don't think that Congress would ever go along with this.
I would like to go back to the states collection of taxes and giving it to the Federal Government like it was originally (before 1913) but I don't think that will happen.
By the way- this was done by progressives, part of what President Obama has been talking about several times . Quote "It has taken us 100 yrs." yada,yada,yada But I digress.
What we need to do is get rid of our tax code and get rid of the IRS.
We the people need to discuss what would be the best way to do it. (Flat Tax)?

 

[NYcarbineer]

No. Taxation is not voluntary. When the consequence of not doing something is having one's income garnished, property seized, or self imprisoned, the "activity" is not voluntary.

And to preempt the inevitable: what about traffic laws blah blah blah.

Traffic laws for public safety are to keep one from killing others whilst operating a vehicle. One can perform one's job without paying taxes and not harm anyone.

Really? So we can eliminate the billions in taxes that go to fund our military - disband it completely for lack of funding - and that would do no harm...

...unreal.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Well, we can start by making county or township or village taxes voluntary...

...you don't have to pay them as long as you agree not to use any of the roads maintained by your locality.

 

[Madeline]

No. Taxation is not voluntary. When the consequence of not doing something is having one's income garnished, property seized, or self imprisoned, the "activity" is not voluntary.

And to preempt the inevitable: what about traffic laws blah blah blah.

Traffic laws for public safety are to keep one from killing others whilst operating a vehicle. One can perform one's job without paying taxes and not harm anyone.

Tax cheats harm us all, boedicca.

False reasoning. You are assuming that the taxes are valid in the first place.

"Valid"? As in, properly enacted laws that have passed constitutional muster?

Why yes. Yes, I am. If you disagree, you may soon be enjoying the government's accommodations....at a prison or a mental hospital.

C'mon, boedicca. You can do better than this psuedo-intellectual crappola.

 

[Madeline]

Well, we can start by making county or township or village taxes voluntary...

...you don't have to pay them as long as you agree not to use any of the roads maintained by your locality.

Actually, this might could be a fun discussion, NYcarbineer. I know folks in Florida who live on private roads, unpaved. To be passable by anything other than a 4 wheeler, they have to be replowed rather often and it is a chronic source of disagreement among them as to how often, and whether those with teenagers who use the roads to "go muddin'" should pay more.

Every little side street reaches its own consensus, but God help you if you need an ambulance whilst the repairs are needed but have not yet been made.

 

[boedicca]

Tax cheats harm us all, boedicca.

False reasoning. You are assuming that the taxes are valid in the first place.

"Valid"? As in, properly enacted laws that have passed constitutional muster?

Why yes. Yes, I am. If you disagree, you may soon be enjoying the government's accommodations....at a prison or a mental hospital.

C'mon, boedicca. You can do better than this psuedo-intellectual crappola.

I'll defer to your superior expertise in spewing pseudo-intellectual crappola.

The topic is whether or not taxes are voluntary.

They are not. We have passed the tipping point in this country; the big government centralization at the federal level makes most taxation "without" real representation. The unelected regulatory apparatus drives a great deal of tax and "fee" policy. It's out of control - and most of the money goes towards transfer payments and other items that are not the core, essential functions of government.

 

[PixieStix]

If you don't want to pay taxes, quit your job, sell your possessions, and go live off the land.

You mean the land that the government owns or taxes you for living on?

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

If you don't want to pay taxes, quit your job, sell your possessions, and go live off the land.

So I should sell all of my property and quit my job, and then go live off somebody else's property? How does that even make sense?

Well, if one assumes that there are no property rights, you should just be able to take whatever you think you NEED.

Except there are property rights, so my living off the land doesn't make much sense.

 

[PixieStix]

A person would have to disappear to escape the long tentacles of the US government

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

Symbolic, Kevin. But why stop there? Why not make all elected officials serve as volunteers for no pay at all?

Even better. They'd never make it happen though.

There is actually a counter-argument to this, if you can bear to hear it. Most people agree we are best served by citizen legislators...men and women with jobs or businesses who put them on hold to serve a term or two as an elected official. An all-volunteer legislature forecloses this option to all but those who are wealthy enough to go without income for that time.

That's essentially what we get now. The worst of the worst rise to the top so why should we pay them?

 

[Douger]

Of course it is. You can volunteer not to pay and your masters will volunteer to put you in a cage if you don't. Ask Wesley Snipes.

 

[bucs90]

Everything is voluntary. Poor people dont pay income taxes. And they dont pay payroll taxes if they refuse to work. The only tax most poor people pay is the sales tax on their 40 oz, their pack cigarettes and their lottery tickets.

 

[Madeline]

Even better. They'd never make it happen though.

There is actually a counter-argument to this, if you can bear to hear it. Most people agree we are best served by citizen legislators...men and women with jobs or businesses who put them on hold to serve a term or two as an elected official. An all-volunteer legislature forecloses this option to all but those who are wealthy enough to go without income for that time.

That's essentially what we get now. The worst of the worst rise to the top so why should we pay them?

Do you mean the poor and the middle class are inherently worse at governing than the wealthy? If so, that's amazingly foolish, Kevin.

 

[Madeline]

Everything is voluntary. Poor people dont pay income taxes. And they dont pay payroll taxes if they refuse to work. The only tax most poor people pay is the sales tax on their 40 oz, their pack cigarettes and their lottery tickets.

Always interesting to see which USMB-ers hate the poor. If your circumstances change, should we commence to hating on you, bucs?