Government Employees Do NOT Pay Taxes

Miscellaneous General
1

Does anyone else know where I might be able to find who wrote about this:

I read this a few years ago, and I believe it was Mises who wrote about this, but I am not sure: an author made the case that a gov’t employee (or contractor) who receives tax revenue for pay, then gives a little back in so-called taxes, does not really pay taxes at all. His refunded tax money is just a reduction in pay from the same bucket the money came from in the first place.

It would be nice to have an eloquent argument against those who would say “everyone” has to pay taxes, when in fact if you are being paid with tax money, just giving some of it back is not really a form of taxation but just a game or ruse to keep the subservient classes from storming the castle.

2

Is labor not labor? Do employees, whether they be working for the government or private persons, earn their wage through their labor?

If you sell a thief a sandwich, are you then a thief because you accepted stolen money for the sandwich?

At what point does the theft end?

Is the exchange of any goods or service for government fiat currency equivalent to theft since the currency can only be put into circulation via theft (whether actual seizure or the devaluation of the property already on hand)?

3

Yes, in this case, immorality breeds itself, without doubt. Once the loot is transferred widely enough it becomes insolent to point out the fact.

4

I remember Hans Hoppe talking about this in one of his lectures (on audio). I don’t remember which one though..

EDIT: Possibly it was in this:

http://mises.org/media/2739/What-is-Exploitation-Who-Exploits-Whom

5

Was Mises, if this statement did indeed come from him, referring to taxes from government employees as not really being “revenue” because it came from the same bucket of money the government started with? In other words, the government could have just paid the employee the net amount and even saved on the effort to collect the so-called taxes.

This would be more in line with the perspective that the government, and those who work for the government, don’t really produce revenue. If the products built by these government workers aren’t driven by a market-based demand, then the effort is a misallocation of wealth and therefore a burden on the market. If the government effort does not produce capital that can be used within the market for other products or services, then it is wasted even if it has market demand [picture the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark with crate stacked upon crate of items that just sit there indefinitely].

6

money goes to different, pools…

Getting a state job, you still pay federal taxes.

Funding specifically for infrastructure building which is paid to workers now goes to every deduction in the paystub.