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Comment by paulhauggis | Hacker News Reader

How much is considered lawful? 30%? 50%? 90%?

It would be lawful if I agreed to all of it. I do agree we need taxes, but in many cases, it's excessive and against my will (you can go to jail if you don't pay it).

The other problem is that there is no accountability.

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If you are living in the USA, you are probably paying far fewer taxes (income and consumption) than people living anywhere else in the developed world, as well as much of the developing world.

I'm assuming you live in China though, since you said there is no accountability, and you can't vote out public officials whose tax policies you don't like.

So because other countries take an arm and a leg in taxes, but the USA only takes an arm, we should shut up and be happy?

/FlawedLogic.

Give me a good example of a developed country with generally happy citizens who pay less taxes than we do, then we can use that country as an example of how a low tax society could work without failing spectacularly. Barring that, it might be possible that the libercrazian no/low-tax country might still work; we just have no evidence and/or experience that it does.

Whenever I hear Americans complain about taxes, I play a sad song on a very tiny (invisible) violin in my hand.

Surely complexity of the tax code is important too? Anyway, Hong Kong is a very developed and modern place, and taxes are much lower here.

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