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Comment by skinpop | Hacker News Reader

I like paying taxes. I get "free" healthcare and education and so many other things here in Sweden that wouldn't be possible without taxes. Simply not having to ever think about the financials of those things is worth a good 5% taxes if you ask me.

I wouldn't want to pay any less in taxes if it meant taking any of that away, but I would happily pitch in more if each additional krona would do as much or more than the one before it.

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Yeah that's all nice and shiny, but imagine if those taxes were simply stolen by corrupt government. Your mom would die from simple appendectomy infection because hospitals don't have enough money to do things properly. Plus if you got fired, you would have next to 0 support from the state, and either you have some savings you just eat through or your kids starve. And on top of that, any simple bureaucracy you want to do would require bribes left and right just to get things done that in normal society are done efficiently and almost effortlessly. Police would be corrupt too and chasing any dissent more than criminals. Roads you drive on would be semi-useless and getting worse. Etc...

In that situation, you know your tax money is >90% spend just to enrich somebody, probably also helping mafia, you would have a different perspective.

I don't claim I have a solution. I don't. I left my east/central European home that is nowhere as bad as failed state of Russia, but even with that corruption is still pretty bad, a-holes stealing from everybody are often well known, sometimes proper celebrities laughing off their supercars. I know I don't want to raise my kids in such a society, no matter how close to my heart it is and how easy life I had back home with my qualifications and savings. I know I wouldn't change anything back home and just be frustrated or apathetic, just like all my peers that stayed at home. Or I would get a sniper rifle and take those corrupt people down, without much remorse (actually I am very surprised not a single unbalanced person ever done that, anywhere). So, I moved and don't plan to come back in productive age.

> imagine if those taxes were simply stolen by corrupt government

of course effective taxation systems always have implicit requirement of no or low corruption. what's the point of imagining the thing you're saying?

imagine a giant asteroid hit your home - how is anything you're doing in your life relevant?

The point is, people give up on thinking about greater societal good and it becomes everybody for themselves. Paying taxes is basically charity for rest of population of given state, where you don't get anything immediately back, but hope for overall well being.

I don't think people in the west understand how dysfunctional society can be if corruption is everywhere.

If somebody from Sweden states how he is happy about being taxed because he/she sees the results, thats great. It doesn't mean anything for place like Russia where you simply don't see much coming back to you from state, but you very clearly see how some corrupt / well connected / mafia are getting back most of it.

The OP is talking about a scenario where the tax money you pay is stolen.

Would you feel the same way in that case?

You get all those things regardless of whether you pay taxes or not

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