Is Taxation moral?

Is taxation morale? Is it just to have money that you earned taken from you forcibly by the government?

You get protected , educated healthcare should you take these without paying ? Each according to his or her means?
I would suggest that is the logically correct moral question

David

Although it may negatively effect morale, I don't think this has to be a moral judgement. I can't think of how roads, schools, public parks ... would be funded without taxes.

I too take the 'taxation is moral' stance. I certainly feel its more moral than loaning at interest (grumble grumble grumble).

Perhaps better to discuss which forms of taxation are appropriate or inappropriate in a society. Ie is a flat tax or a progressive income tax more moral? What about sales and excise taxes? Vice taxes? Is it moral for a free society to have vice taxes?

If you're going to have government at all you're going to have some taxation. The question is how to tax and what these levied funds go towards is a whole other discussion. Though perhaps we can have it on this thread

Okay, you entertaining engaging group you - you've taken enough of my time! I finished lunch long ago. Back to work for me.

Damn straight taxation is moral because your not paying for the things you take your stealing! Biggest government perk taken for granted is protection of life and property.

If we wish to live in a governed society, we need to financially support that governing body.

If it was a 'pay-as-you-go' system, we all would need to keep cash reserves to pay for what we needed.
For example, when a house catches fire, the fire department is called. What would happen if you didn't have $1,000 cash on hand when the fire department showed up at your blazing home? "Sorry, boys. Back to the station. This guy can't afford us tonight."

What is immoral is the government spending that money on things that benefit their friends, but not the public at large.

Taxation for protection of sovereignty is moral. For roads and infrastructure is logical. For the other 90% of stuff they spend it on...not so much.

The old testament moral tax was a per person tax, each family paid the same share rich or poor. I can see how a flat tax could be morally fair. This progressive stuff is only as moral as those that wrote it...

Funny I had a morality of taxes conversation the other day. Our small community wants to establish a Urban Renewal District.
Once an URD boundary is established all taxing entities have their portion of tax increases encompassed by the URD boundary don't get that tax money. In my County in Oregon we are saddled with a 3% property tax increase each year.
For new buildings the entire tax would go into the URD until it expired.
So for instance the Library District for all properties in that boundary are diverted to the City for URD projects. So the Library has convinced people in the boundary, prior to the URD's establishment, that they should agree to be taxed to support the Library and the City by creating the URD gets money the Library was counting on. It's not just the Library District it is the Fire District, Park and Rec District, School District. The city hails the new project claiming look your taxes won't go up "this is great", while impacting districts that have essentailly no voice in preventing the establishment of the URD. Municipal Welfare.

http://www.hermiston.or.us/sites/hermiston.or.us/files/File/economic-development/Urban%20Renewal%20Districts%20Impact%20on%20Tax%20Payers.pdf

I can't think of how roads, schools, public parks ... would be funded without taxes.

All of these things that have been have been done by the private sector and done well. I think that the more that we rely on the private sector to do these things for us the better because of the fact that the only way government can accomplish anything is through force and subjugation. If you stopped paying your taxes what would happen? Probably nothing but getting a few letters for the first year or two but eventually they are gonna come after you and arrest you at the point of a gun! How can we ever become better as a society if the over arching powers can only stay in power at the point of a gun?

Sorry Sam I disagree totally with what you say . The only thing that private companys are interested in is profit. The bottom Line . Thats ok because that what they were set up to do .
To suggest that they should be in charge of govt services setting the level of service for example is just not viable . Please give me one example anywhere in the world where this is working well . And by well I mean where the consumer is happy as opposed to the company.

David

The bottom line is not effected just by how cheaply a company can make a product. I can start a business and sell hammers that cost me 1 cent to manufacture and then resale them for $100. But no one would buy them because they are terrible hammers that I made using the cheapest parts I could find anywhere. This is where competition comes in to play in a free market when I produce the hammer for 1 cent and then retail them for $100 no one is going to buy them because other hammers that cost $100 are made with super high quality materials and will last for a long time where as my hammer only last for one hit then it breaks. So if I as a company want to compete in the $100 hammer market then I need to increase the quality of my product so that the customer is happy.
However if I want to people to buy my hammers the way they are at a much lower price set by the market such as 10 cents for my hammer then I need to change my price accordingly. Likewise a company who would provide private education or parks would want to make there product good enough to make the consumers happy while at the same time making themselves happy by making money on it.

However If I am the government and I have a product I can take your money BY FORCE and then give you whatever quality of product I want to because there is no one competing with me to provide said product. This is happening with Security, Roads, Schools and now Health care!

One real world example is when a private company owns a parking lot. If the company wants to encourage customers to come to there store then they are going to pay another private company to maintain that parking lot for them. If you as a consumer want to go and buy some product from the store and there are two stores that sell the same product and store A spends zero dollars on parking lot maintenance and there lot has 8 ft of snow drifts in it all winter then they won't have any customers to buy there product. If store B spends $1000 on there parking lot maintenance then they are going to have a nice snow free parking lot and people will shop there because they can actually get to the store! Thus both the customer and the private company are happy.

There are over 40,000 private roads in England and Wales as well as 2/3 of all of the roads in Sweden are taken care of by privately run Road associations. In St. Louis there are Street associations that join together and provide garbage collection, security and road maintenance and much better then a publicly funded road.

Privatization of some Government jobs makes sense for some things. I'm not sold on the privatization of prisons. Prevailing wage is something that bothers me. There are a whole bunch of areas that I think need adjustment as far as how taxes are spent.

I would say that the "Private" prisons that there are right now aren't private at all just government contracted.

They are prisons assuming what has been a a government role in the past. You see security of some diplomats held by private contractors now too, a role once that was formerly a government employee/military person in that role.
So it is a private corporation assuming what has been a traditional government niche. Cost savings for the expensive warehousing of offenders is the reason they have justified the use of non public owned institutions.
If it is a non public owned corporation assuming that role, I guess I don't see how that isn't a privatived prison.
I'm just saying I'm not sold on the concept and its efficacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison

Sam Barber wrote:Is taxation morale? Is it just to have money that you earned taken from you forcibly by the government?

The idea of my ownership of the money doesn't fit into my morals. Ownership is a widespread concept that deserves some examination. Stewardship is a more just way of looking at property to me. Taxation in general is moral. I didn't earn the money in a vacuum, in fact, the government created the money! The government certainly does some immoral things with its money though...

I think of government and taxes as necessary evils . Therefore they should both be kept to a minimum . I do think our current tax system is immoral . That is a system that seems to view our working population as a public trough in which every one that is elected to any level of government feels entitled to feed from . Taxation is coercion and should not be taken lightly . Taking it lightly is immoral . I like the analogy of our current two party system as " two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner ". Where is the hawk kite above the hen house ?

Sam
There may be 40000 private roads in England but they are private not for public use without permission . They are on farms , estates And simple tracks to peoples houses . Public roads are paid for out of taxation apart from some toll roads And bridges And these comprise less than 1% of the milage of the roads.
I' m English by the way
It seems that you are the only person you agrees with you , you may wish to reflect on that.

David

One more thing - HaHa !
What if for every $100 you paid in taxes you got to sit down with a tax agent and recieved an accounting . One dollar at a time . This dollar goes to feed a hungry child . "OK" . This dollar goes to pay for heat for an elderly couple is Minnesota . "OK" . This dollar goes to build a stadium for your local NFL franchise . "Ah .." This dollar goes to educate children . "Oh , Ok" . This dollar goes to build a drone that might accidently blow up some elses children . "No . hang on a moment" . This dollar goes to pay for that guy that fines you if you don't mow your lawn . "Stop" . This dollar pays a farmer to grown RUR corn . "That's enough" . On and On ...At the end of the session you have $57 in the OK pile . $43 in the no pile . You are then offered the choice of paying in full or face jail time . I think that having our taxes removed from you each paycheck before you see those dollars keeps us from having to make those ethical choices in real time . So , if we are asking if taxation is moral or immoral - subjective question - then can you seperate this dilemna from the equation . How is your money spent in your name dollar by dollar and does that fit your moral framework ?

David, Wayne and Matu just made a few of my points for me but I'll reiterate a few

1) Money - do we privatize money as well? How would that work? Would that work? The government is currently the only power who can lawfully print money (and lets not start talking about the Fed at the moment... talk about ulcers...)

2) Private roads - While I have no doubt that a road could be built and maintained privately - in fact there are many communities around here who do just that with their glorified driveways - I have to throw some wrenches at this one, because the whole point behind public roads is that they are public. Like, Lets say we privatize everything. Me and my merry men start maintaining this 4 mile section of road connecting two towns. In fact we maintain it so well we deside we're going to set up a road side toll. So we get out staffs and bows and stop every car who comes by and demand our sliding scale toll. In addition we decide that we aren't going to let any vehicle that gets less than 20 mpg on our roadway at all - under pain of death. Cause who's gonna stop us? Last I checked the cops don't work free. A slippery slope to anarchy is what I'm getting at I guess. (and this from the punkrocker)

3) Taxation by force. Taxation does not necessarily have to be by force - at least not in the 'you don't file you're taxes and the IRS comes kicking down your door with machine guns' sort of way which I think we're all thinking of. You'll get no argument from me about many of our current systems of taxation being systemically corrupt and god awfully heavy handed. But earlier I brought up sales and excise taxes. These are basically voluntary taxes and they are tacked on as an after thought on all purchases - just part of the cost of doing business.

I live in a state with no income tax but a sales tax. Now many would argue that a sales tax disproportionately effects the poor - and I suppose if one is a poor consumer this is true - but the tax is entirely avoidable. I can choose to avoid this tax by not purchasing taxed goods. I think the same can be said about tariffs on goods - which we as a nation have been working to utterly obliterate in the name of free trade (and who is footing that tax burden now?)

I agree that tax dollars going to fuel a bureaucracy to track, hunt down, and forcibly punish rule breakers - especially conscientious objectors - which many (though probably not most) tax evaders are is a gross misuse of public resources. But just because the currant implementation of taxation policy is complete and utter bullshit - I don't know that that makes the entire concept of 'taxation' immoral.

This dollar goes to build a stadium for your local NFL franchise .

That is a pet peeve of mine.
Somebody can afford to pay hundreds of millions to buy a team, but expects the public to pay for his 'place of business'.

If I wanted to open a bookstore, would I expect the taxpayers to build me a shop?

I actually like the sales tax (aka VAT). Those that wish to live a more luxurious lifestyle pay more than the frugal.
Also, it hits many who otherwise pay no taxes: If you make millions pimping, trafficing drugs, or burglarizing homes, you will need to pay taxes when you spend those millions.

There's a drug dealing clan in Nanaino who are known to spend huge sums in a provincially owned casino. They also consume lots of cigarettes and alcohol which are taxed very heavily in Canada. These numb skulls are amongst our most heavily taxed citizens. I love sin taxes.

Landon Sunrich wrote:
I live in a state with no income tax but a sales tax. Now many would argue that a sales tax disproportionately effects the poor - and I suppose if one is a poor consumer this is true - but the tax is entirely avoidable. I can choose to avoid this tax by not purchasing taxed goods. I think the same can be said about tariffs on goods - which we as a nation have been working to utterly obliterate in the name of free trade (and who is footing that tax burden now?)

Landon - there is a huge amount to be said for abolishing every other form of tax and basing all taxation on consumption. I can't remember the title off hand but I read a book recently that discussed this idea in principal. As you point out it can be structured so as to not inconvenience the poor disproportionately (lower rate on basic food stuffs for example) while at the same time it encourages consumers to save. If you only get taxed on what you spend then you have a big incentive to hang on to your cash and invest it for the future. This is incredibly important as the proportion of people who have inadequate savings or pensions for their retirement is staggeringly huge.

If you tax consumption and remove all other taxes (eg income tax, corporation taxes, capital gains taxes) the tax system will become vastly simplified and much much cheaper to administer, reducing bureaucracy at a stroke.

I think taxation should be an incredibly powerful tool that governments can use to change behaviour for the better - tax the less fuel efficient cars at a higher rate to reduce fossil fuel use is one simple example

This dollar goes to feed a hungry child . "OK" . This dollar goes to pay for heat for an elderly couple is Minnesota . "OK" . This dollar goes to build a stadium for your local NFL franchise . "Ah .."

So does state giving into state mandated compassion make you a better person and does it justify theft? If a person didn't have to pay income tax they would have a lot more money to donate to what ever charitable organizations they deemed fit including ones that benefit only your local community which you would directly be able to see the positive effects of. Not to mention that this for of helping out the needy is much more efficient then having welfare that is processed by the government. Also I think that as much as getting taxes taken out of your check disconnects you from all of the useless spending the government does it will also buffer you from the happiness received from donating that money to a charity yourself!

1) Money - do we privatize money as well? How would that work? Would that work? The government is currently the only power who can lawfully print money (and lets not start talking about the Fed at the moment... talk about ulcers...)

For thousands of years money was privatized, If you read into the history of money it turns out that it isn't a construct of a government body but a need fulfillment by the free market! The free market saw that direct bartering wasn't a super efficient way to do trade so money became popular as a way of getting the goods you would need! Gold, Silver, Copper were all decentralized forms of currency that had no government control for a long time until banks became popular and eventually so did goverments!

Micheal I would agree with you to some extent that if we were to move away from taxation the first step to doing that would involve moving to all voluntary taxes. Such as sin tax and sales tax.

tax the less fuel efficient cars at a higher rate to reduce fossil fuel use is one simple example

Oddly enough, many states are contemplating adding an extra surcharge on electric vehicles.
The logic is that the 'road tax' is collected each time you buy gas/diesel for your vehicle.
Electric cars do not pay road tax, yet still use the roads.

To me, one of the best forms of taxation is the Lottery:
People willingly stand in line to pay a tax that they don't owe !

I would agree with that I think that if people want to give up there money it is there right to. Even if it is stupid.

I don't think the concept of taxation is morally wrong. The way it is spent could certainly be called into question. What consequences does the government have when taxes are spent in ways we don't like?
Seriously with the cases of morally corrupt leaders that pop up in the news far too often what do we expect? I don't know what the answer is.

I think that the concept of taxation is morally wrong not only because it is a form of theft but also because of how inefficiently the money is spent! Do you feel okay with a government using your money to go and kill people? Or using your money to help out companies like Monsanto? Or using your money to imprison your fellow citizens for victim less crimes? I certainly don't!

Is tythe to a church morally wrong? Some churches do or have done horrific things in the name of Dieties. Taxes do good things too. It is the disbursement that has become disconnected from the populace.
Sam, your hammer analogy is perfect, increase the quality of what the 100.00 tax is spent on.
When you are talking about taxes are you talking about all taxes? Are you talking about just income taxes? Property taxes?

I would say that tithing to the church is not morally wrong for a few reasons first off no one is forcing you to do it! Second if you don't like what your church is using your tithe money for then it is alot easier to change things in the church then at the federal and state governmental levels. Also you don't necessarily have to give your tithe money to your church or to any other church for that matter you could give to any organization or person who would use it in a matter in accordance with your beliefs! Also I think that most churches are much better stewards of your money then the government is. One of the main things that I find wrong with taxes is the force involved!

Ok then Sam,

Let's flip this conversation round and look at it from the other direction.

Is it moral to benefit from goods and services paid for through taxation of others without paying for it yourself?

I think everyone would agree that it would be nice to pay less tax. But I think most people would also agree that not paying your fairshare places an unfair burden on the rest of your society.

You mention "concientious objectors" - I'm not familiar with that term in this context, but I presume you mean people who object to paying taxes (because of how they are spent, or because they think the money is "theirs??)? They are in a position to object in the first place because of the taxes paid by previous generations that have gone to build the infrastructure of their nation. Roads, schools, justice systems, defence etc... without these in place they wouldn't be arguing about whether collection of taxes is just, they would be worrying about where the next meal was coming from and whether some bandit gang was coming over the hill to burn the fields and pillage.

In any society where goods and services are provided by a centralised system there needs to be a system of preventing or discouraging freeloaders otherwise everything breaks down.

I was reading an economic analysis of greece (IIRC) which noted that the proportion of owed taxes that was actually collected was astonishingly low (like 2%). Fraud and corruption are rife and their economy is in tatters. External businesses won't invest there because of the risk and unemployment is rife. The security and stability provided by a well funded and effective government has simply been missing for too long.

you may not like being forced to pay taxes, but I'm willing to bet being unemployed in greece is worse.

Sam
I think you are confusing two issues .
Is taxation moral and is our tax income spent wisely by the polititians.
I see these as two sperate desisions .
My second point is that England at one time was full of people who objected to the tax system , religious policies and the political process . They left and helped found the USA . Maybe if you feel so strongly you should follow their example

David

My example of tythe was just to illustrate what happens when others recieve money and how (for the good) they then spend that money. We could argue the power that faith has over others actions and how there is in some cases an obligation to tythe. The Crusades and Jihads are cases where I personally don't see as a good value.
Changing the government at a local level is far easier than changing religious doctrine I would suspect.
Your movement from Michigan to Missoula took advantage of a tremendous amount of infrastructure paid for by taxes.
Some easily forget that turning on the tap for water or flushing the toilet has required infrastructure and requires infrastructure maintenance. Did you go to private school? Hopefully you have never needed or will ever need EMS, fire or police services. County hospital or clinic are the only option for some rural areas since there is not enough profit for the private sector. Just curious do you own property? Is your tax liability limited to income? Some would argue that in some areas property owners are assuming a higher proportion of services that are provided to non property owners. So a young couple that rents with a child that was born in a county hospital and will go to a public school on public roads benefits from my tax contribution. I think it's worth it, I'm not happy with all expenditures but I have a voice and can use it. That voice supported by taxes that fund a judicial system.
I know several people that work under the table and pay no income taxes other than those taxes associated with purchases so there are ways that avoid some taxes. With that conduct unemployment and some benefits for accidents that occur on a jobsite aren't covered.

Sam Barber wrote:
For thousands of years money was privatized, If you read into the history of money it turns out that it isn't a construct of a government body but a need fulfillment by the free market! The free market saw that direct bartering wasn't a super efficient way to do trade so money became popular as a way of getting the goods you would need! Gold, Silver, Copper were all decentralized forms of currency that had no government control for a long time until banks became popular and eventually so did goverments!

For thousands of years the quality and consistency of coinage has been a function of centralized minting. This is one of the primary reasons the Roman Empire flourished so far - they had the internationally recognized standard in silver coinage. People would take it anywhere because they new that coins minted by the Romans had a superior and standardized weight and quality -- they where hoarded as far away as India and have been found almost everywhere in Eurasia. This standardization came about as a necessity of the free market. There are always unscrupulous folks around who are willing to represent their product as higher in quality than it really is - Imagine trading away a hundred sheep for tin and copper ingots only to find out that the impurities make them useless for smelting bronze! Sure you'd never do trade with those folks again - but the damage is done, you're out 100 sheep! And you've been shorted on bronze so you don't have the superior spears and axes you'd need to go take back whats yours! And so for this as well as many other reasons people have insisted on standardized currency for millennia


edited to elaborate on my fantasy historical situation

Sam Barber wrote: ...because of the fact that the only way government can accomplish anything is through force and subjugation... How can we ever become better as a society if the over arching powers can only stay in power at the point of a gun?

I think (a free representative) government is supposed to function through cooperation not subjugation - though they are supposed to be the last say in the using force as a final resort department. But they are only supposed to use this force as a last resort and in a manor clearly prescribed by law and backed with the support of the society at large. If the over arching powers are truly only staying in power at the point of a gun then the society that they are governing is obviously well and totally fucked - and it's time to start listing grievances

Parks and roads, two topics I actually wrote a book about.

I shudder to think what Yellowstone and the rest of our national parks would look like if they had not been protected from private ownership. As late as the 1960s, the yahoos in AZ almost destroyed the Grand Canyon by building a dam. Because after all, people would have more fun there on power boats (one of the main arguments was actually accessibility for the masses excluded by the hiking!) Non-renewable pristine wilderness has no monetary value. While far more things can be accounted for in the free market than are currently done (like including the entire cradle-to-grave costs of deploying and dismantling a nuclear power plant in the costs of its power sales rather than allowing the burden of the clean-up to fall on the taxpayers); national parks, clean air and our cultural heritage (like the original copies of the Declaration of Independence) are some of the few exceptions, IMHO.

As for roads, civilizations back to the Romans recognize roads as critical to national defense. Our federal road building program of the 1920s (the one that brought you Route 66) came about in large part because the federal government had to NATIONALIZE the railways during the mobilization of WWI because the roads were so inadequate. There's a great story in American history about the 1919 Army convoy across the Lincoln Highway, which took 2 MONTHS! Now mind you, private citizens had been trying to build the Lincoln Highway for nearly a decade at that point. The best intentions of private citizens didn't work. Neither did the next iteration, giving federal money to the states to do what they saw best, mostly because the states wouldn't use the money to build interstate roads when they could get political points by improving local roads. The military, BTW, had a final veto over the routing of the first numbered federal highway map.

A map I use in my talks, showing why federal funding of roads were deemed necessary. The roads shown were built by the states with federal money but no mandatory coordination.

Edited to get the image to load. Caption should read "1916 illustration of disconnected roads"
Source of image: America’s Highways: 1776-1976, p. 106.

For thousands of years the quality and consistency of coinage has been a function of centralized minting.

I agree that during the roman time period due to the lack of interconnective communications that we have today it would be difficult to have a large ammount of private mints stamping coins. However today there are all sorts of trusted private mints http://www.fleur-de-coin.com/links/mints/-1 that produce silver and gold coins to a very high quality and recognizably and if money was to be privatized that would be one way to go. I also believe that there would be more private companies that would do quality assurance of these monies to make sure they were being fairly minted and were of a high quality (think consumer report).
As far as perserving national parks goes there are tons of conservation groups out there who would be able top purchase the parks from the government and run them more efficiently and and still keep them open to the public. When I go to the State Park in my hometown I have to pay a fee for usage. It is either a daily or a yearly fee. The privately run parks would be much more efficient at conserving the wilderness then the federal government and they would be incentivised to this by the people who would visit there park. People wouldn't pay to go to dumpy park and if they do they aren't using their money wisely.

Sam Barber wrote:

For thousands of years the quality and consistency of coinage has been a function of centralized minting.

I agree that during the roman time period due to the lack of interconnective communications that we have today it would be difficult to have a large ammount of private mints stamping coins. However today there are all sorts of trusted private mints http://www.fleur-de-coin.com/links/mints/-1 that produce silver and gold coins to a very high quality and recognizably and if money was to be privatized that would be one way to go. I also believe that there would be more private companies that would do quality assurance of these monies to make sure they were being fairly minted and were of a high quality (think consumer report).

Its an interesting thought.


I must disagree though re: Parks. Parks are for the people - all of them - frankly I abhor that they have to charge at all - this is a higher priority for me than drone striking yemenes civilians. Of course I don't drive so I don't give a rip if the bab el-mandab is navigable or not. As far as I'm concerned I'll keep my tax payed for free bus and pay 10 dollars a gallon when I need to run a chainsaw

For thousands of years the quality and consistency of coinage has been a function of centralized minting.

However, the U.S. mint quit circulating coins sometime in the '60s.
A coin has a true value. A $1 coin would be made from $1 worth of gold, silver, or other material of value.
What they began minting were not coins, but rather "tokens".
A token represents a value, but has no true value itself.

If you melted down $1,000 worth of pennies, you might end up with $1 worth of zinc.

I completly agree with you John over the past several decades our money has moved from a real gold backed money, to a fiat currency (backed by nothing), to a currency backed by debt! That is why a private system of mints coining real money would be a much better option! I find it hard to trust a currency that is only backed by the faith and power of the Federal government. Gold and silver are a much better option. I am not sure about bit coin though... It looks promising but we will see what happens.

Sam
Two questions
I dont understand how a private system of printing money would make any difference to taxation. Weather you pay with gold or sea shells makes no difference you will still have to pay for community asserts even if you dont use them as its the price you pay for being part of a community .
Secondly these private mints I suggest you check out the price of gold wholesale and the price of the coins and how much gold is in each coin .

David