>Those countries provide a hell of a lot to their citizens, and the citizens are happy to pay.
When you have a $600k per year income, those services aren't necessarily as valuable as they are to someone who makes $60k per year.
Seems that I've upset some people. Have you forgotten that international business does exist?
So, at some stage you might be comfortable with the conditions agreed, but you might also get to another stage of your life, when it is not comfortable anymore - thus you start seeking better deals.
There is nothing bad or evil in this.
For some people it is 20% and for others - 75%.
And be more than happy to pay high taxes.
I'm sure there's a threshold beyond which you just don't care, when you already have enough money to do everything you could possibly want, but whenever I've written a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars to the government I think "well, that probably would've paid for the college education of one of my kids" or "well, invested prudently that would've let me retire years earlier." I've also thought "huh, I'm getting exactly the same services as everybody else but paying ridiculous amounts of money for them."
Neither's a particularly good feeling.
And sustainable societies have moral hazards.
And if you really want to live in true freedom, where freedom to knock down the house around you is not specially excepted under some theory of Objetivist morality, good luck finding off the hordes.
I do get the point you're trying to make, but no matter how you feel about taxes intellectually, I don't think anyone ever says "awesome, I get to write a very large check to the government" before they've reached the threshold where they have enough money to do whatever they want.
I find it really interesting that back when I was a poor grad student, the small amount of money I paid in taxes would've made a much bigger difference in my standard of living than the large amount of taxes I've had to pay in one of my good years. Because of this, you'd think the small amount of money I paid when I was poor would be much more painful to pay, since it could've meant the difference between (say) living in a garret or a decent place. But that wasn't the case.
Psychologically, at least for me, the absolute dollar amount seems to matter a great deal, and so does the absolute dollar amount others are paying. I don't think I'm a freakish psychological outlier, so perhaps this provides some insight into others as well.
For me, it helps to think of all the things I have my country to thank for. I saved up to my first computer when I was 10, with government subsidies, which later led to my career. I attended university for 5 years without paying tuition and without being a burden financially on my parents. The government paid my tuition when I went to a US school for a year. They even got me a lawyer when my US landlord sued me for $30,000 for a leak they were responsible for. I'm thankful for my cousin, whose mother died in cancer and father died after having to have his leg amputated (becoming an orphan at 17), and he himself suffering for his whole life from an incurable disease even after a kidney transplant. I'm thankful that he can life a normal life today with no medical debt and a normal job. I'm thankful for the government providing living assistance to my grand mother, who recently suffered a stroke, so that she can continue living at home close to her friends. I guess I have a lot to be thankful for, and I try to think of that when I pay my taxes.
1) You don't want your fair share of government services. You really don't. You don't want to be in prison. You don't want remedial literacy training. You don't want drug rehab. You don't want your children taken into care. You don't want to live on unemployment. You want to pay for these things to exist in case you need them one day. Also, the fact that other people get them may also be to your advantage.
2) The value of the welfare I received as a youngster is more to me than the cash value plus interest. I grew up poor but now I'm comfortably middle class thanks to care and opportunity that was blind to my ability to pay.
I am happy to pay now for more than my share of the burden of education and health care for others, while having more money left over than I strictly need. I have benefitted from the education and the healthcare. Without it, I would not be financially comfortable, healthy, or have children. I did the work myself, but I would not have been able to do it without educational opportunity and occasional medical care.
If you grew up comfortably off, you might not feel the same way I do. You might resent paying for those less fortunate than yourselves. I don't, because I was one of them.
Intestine transplant costs more than $1 million. Heart transplant - $700-800K. Bone marrow transplant - $600-700K.