Other than the obvious avoidance of imprisonment, what is/are the/some of the reasons libertarians pay taxes?
Employers pay it automatically.
In order to obtain goods and services, one must pay the tax on them, i.e. the tax is included in their price.
What good comes from not paying taxes?
Right. Let me rephrase the question then: Absent the two obstacles mentioned, what would be the rationale, if any?
What good comes from not paying them to government? Well, for a start, I get to choose which goods and services I deem valuable. Doesn’t that theoretically increase wealth? Mine and that of others?
I can’t tell if this is sarcastic, so I’m going to risk sounding stupid in order to ask.
What good would come from not paying taxes to government? Well, for starters I would get to choose which goods and services I deem valuable. This would seem to me a practical answer. And, on the theoretical level, does this not increase the potential for my own wealth creation and that of others?
Sorry, double-post for some reason.
It’s an honest question, in the hopes of exposing some of the assumptions ImagesandWords and others take for granted. I do feel I should clarify and ask: What good comes from not paying taxes, if our interest is to promote libertarianism? The original question, after all, is for what reason libertarians pay taxes.
MJG, You’re probably correct that I am assuming certain things (probably more than I even realize to be honest), but how would paying taxes promote libertarianism in the absence of the two obstacles mentioned at the outset of my post?
I don’t know, but if not paying taxes does nothing to promote it, then how are we to decide?
Yes, there are benefits to keeping more of your money, but this is true for the non-libertarian as well. On the other hand, I would argue that the danger of not paying taxes is more pronounced for the libertarian than most non-libertarians, as libertarianism is a threat to the state. And, for better or worse, people have been conditioned to believe that it is our duty to pay taxes. If you are trying to convince people of libertarianism, you open yourself to an easy ad hominem attack. Many open-minded people can be easily swayed by the charge, “This man is a criminal!”
MJG, Do I understand you to be saying that promoting libertarianism takes precedence over being (i.e. living out, making personal choices, etc.) a libertarian? While on the surface your answer sounds reasonable, something seems convoluted to me about the whole argument (granted perhaps this is due to my own ignorance on the matter).
I guess what I’m saying MJG, is that your argument seems to be a reductio ad absurdum (i.e. granting your argument, what then would be the threshold or stopping point in promoting libertarianism?).
Well if they don’t care about going to prison (unlikely), maybe they feel guilty because others have to pay taxes? Also, if the goal is to take power from the state, just one person doing it won’t make much of a difference. And if somehow every libertarian (15% of the U.S. population) didn’t pay taxes, there would be a huge deficit and tax laws would become more authoritarian and taxes would be higher.
Some view it as selfish to not pay taxes. Paying taxes is a sort of like an indulgence. They think they are doing something for the community. It clears their conscience.
EmperorNero, by “some” are you referring to libertarians or non?
MJG, re: your question on how we would decide? I admit I do not have an answer. I have alot to learn. Hence, my reasons for posting the newb-type questions I do.
I did not say what anyone should do, only what a libertarian should consider qua libertarian. I would not say a libertarian is doing anything wrong by not paying taxes; but if that person says he does not pay taxes because he believes it advances libertarianism, I may (or may not - I haven’t much thought about this) say he is acting counterproductively.
You don’t have to put your libertarian convictions over other values. If it were determined that the best strategy to advancing the libertarian cause required giving up certain conveniences of modern life, my desire to live a comfortable life would likely outweigh my desire to promote libertarianism.
The reason one must pay taxes, according to the United States Department of the Treasury, is:
Oliver Wendell Holmes, former Justice of the United States Supreme Court, said, “Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.” In some respects, a “civilized society” is the rationale for government in the first place. The signers of the Declaration of Independence set out to establish a new form of government for the “protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. To this end, the framers of our constitution enumerated the proper fiscal functions of government as “to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States”. Taxes are simply the preferred method for paying for these governmental functions, the other methods being the issuance of public debt and the issuance of money.
Justice Holmes’ famous quote establishes the propriety of taxation, but it tells us nothing about the form or levels of taxation, and, indeed, matters have changed significantly in both regards over the years since his pronouncement. For example, in 1902 the Federal tax burden stood at 1.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). A century later, the federal tax burden had risen nearly 20 fold, to 20.8 in the year 2000.
Taxes perform another important role besides funding government activities. Taxes also provide citizens with basic information regarding the total price for those activities. Government has become a dominant factor in our economy, absorbing significant resources for its purposes and redirecting many more resources through its regulatory policies and through a mixture of taxation and spending programs that remove resources from some areas to transfer those resources to other areas. It is critical, therefore, that citizens have as much information as possible regarding these diverse programs and regarding their aggregate totals so they may decide for themselves whether the government’s activities are appropriate. Taxes, and especially the paying of taxes, yield citizens a personal sense of the total price of those activities.
Ha. Hahahahahahahahaha.