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Comment by sykh | Hacker News Reader

One can not credibly equate income taxes to theft. We live in a society and it costs money for the society to function. Police, courts, roads, sewers, military, etc. require funds and everyone with the means to do so ought to contribute. I doubt anything I say can possibly change your mind but if you really think paying taxes is a form of theft then leave the country. You are not forced to stay (unless you are in a place like North Korea). You lose any credibility you have when you equate taxation to theft.

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I agree that we need police, courts, roads and sewers. But those are very tiny percentage of your taxes. The vast (over 70%) majority of taxes goes towards: Defense, social security, medicare and medicaid. And although those categories contain some worthwhile things, there's also a lot of waste in there. You really should look into where all this money goes before you assume that we need it.

And there is a point at which it becomes theft, it's just a question of where: 60% of income, 85% of income, 95% of income? As it is right now, in the US we currently pay 38% of our incomes to the govt: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-spendi...

And if you live in New York or CA, you can bet, it's much much higher than that, both because the state taxes are higher and because of the higher COT which results in being at a higher federal income tax bracket.

Now, you may not see those income taxes all in your pay check because some of it gets paid by your company: those are lost wages that could've gone to workers. For consumer products, People think that they don't pay taxes that corporations pay. But, in a competitive economy, it's you, the customer that ends up paying for it. There's many many more.

Let's say 50% of your income goes to taxes. It's actually worse than you think. Because with the 50% that's left over, your buying power has been further reduced because any labor you purchase is taxed, which raises the cost of that labor by that amount. That's how you end up in a situation where you can't even afford to work because Day care costs nearly as much as your net salary.

My claim is that taxation is not theft. I’ve not stated any position on whether or not taxation is too high or whether or not our spending proroties are good.

I’ve merely stated that government is necessary, requires money, and that taxation is not theft. Is there any part of this that you find objectionable? If so what part?

EDIT: According to this website in the U.S. we clearly haven’t reached the taxation is theft level so your point doesn’t seem to be apt.

https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-revenue.htm#ind...

You switched mid paragraph from accurately discussing income tax to inaccurately generalizing to all tax.

Please don’t do this.

The argument and points still stand. It’s hard to imagine that one can reasonably describe income taxes as theft but not other forms of taxation. I suppose one can call other sorts of taxes as pernicious or akin to theft but in the United States, at the federal level, I don’t think any of those sorts of taxes exist.

Parent said income tax was unconstitutional for a reason.

He did not say it was theft. You're generalizing without evidence.

I think it’s clear that parent was equating income taxes to theft. The article we are all nominally commenting on is about theft. Parent says he/she can get behind the movement against said theft and that there is a reason that income taxes were unconstitutional. I think I have enough evidence to base my conclusion on. If you really think that I’m wrong in thinking that parent believes that income taxes are theft then why wasn’t this your objection to begin with?

Parent also did not offer any supporting evidence for their argument that it's unconstitutional.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/tenth_amendment

That doesn't provide evidence for it being unconstitutional, especially considering the right of Congress to tax was in the Constitution, and the Sixteenth Amendment explicitly gives them the right to lay income taxes.

I obviously refer to the passage of the 16th amendment. Note the choice of the word "WERE."

I don't want to get into a long debate on this subject but the fallacy you base your argument on is that there is no other way to pay for "society" other than taxation.

Food and housing are essential things "for the society to function" yet are not supplied by the government through taxation, food for thought...

There is no fallacy in my argument because my statmemt is that that taxation is not theft. I’ve not argued that the only possible way for government to get the money necessary to run is via taxation. Though it is true that I think taxation is best way for government to get enough money to run.

Also food and housing are provided by government to some members of society and this requires money. Throughout history in times of great distress government has provided food and housing to the masses. The story of Joseph in the Bible is a great example of this. Of course when government failed to do this sufficiently well revolutions occurred.

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