Basis for an Income Tax

[Canis_Dirus]

Yesterday a friend of mine on FB liked a political post that essentially compared income taxation to theft. Following this I PMed him and we had a bit of an informal debate which I have included here:

So after liking that post about how income tax is theft and all, right after you probably drove on the public roads and prepare to get paid at drill by the same tax dollars, do you actually have a worthwhile alternative or are you insistent on trying to have the cake and eat it too?

You do realize prior to 1913 there was no income tax and there were still roads yeah?
Property tax and income tax are the most absurd inventions in history
Don't get me started on our bloated defense spending

You do realize that before 1913 taxes were still collected, they were just done via an indirect sales tax? And that public infrastructure such as roads, bridges, etc was far inferior in scale to what it is nowadays. Not to mention the other things that taxes pay for such as public education, defense, etc.
Our defense spending could be a lot more efficient, and there are plent of ways I would re allocate the budget if given the choice.
However, prove that an income tax is such a bad idea, when it directly benefits you in at least 2 ways right now and has benefitted you directly in the past as well.
And while you are at it, got a better alternative?

The only reason I need to provide is that I don't consent to it. I didn't sign a social contract agreeing to something that you're deciding benefits me. Property tax is taking money from me simply for owning a house and land. That's literally stealing.
There isn't a clear cut alternative because there's trillions of dollars handled by our economy and the federal reserve. I'd love to be in a position to cut the ever living shit out of the waste that goes on in the federal and state levels of government
And comparing bridges in 1913 to 2016 is borderline autistic
There's a difference between morally objecting to something and demanding it be immediately removed. Property and income tax should be one of the first things to be removed and replaced with a simpler and more individual friendly revenue
But yes I would agree that to cut them both tomorrow without an adequate replacement in some form whether it's budget cuts or new revenue would be necessary
Ridiculous*

You actually do consent by living here and utilizing the resources. That is a social contract which you should've learned about in high school.
Good thing I don't have to decide it benefits you, it's actually a fact that it does. Crime is lower because there are publically funded police, you likely went to school and learned something valuable. You drive on public roads inluding the freeway and collect a paycheck from the government. Unless you really want to try to tell me that you don't do any of those things.
Property tax is a red herring. We're talking income tax here
Great, I'd love to regulate things a different way too.
Now since you admit there's not a clear cut alternative, why is the income tax solution such a bad idea?
Dude saying that we got along fine before income tax in 1913 is just as autistic, and you actually missed my point, which was that the government does alot more than it did prior to 1913. Hence the increased budget and income tax.
Where would this revenue come from? An increased sales tax and increased tariffs on foreign goods like it did prior to income tax? That'll make things more expensive. And so you are still paying. So at the end of the day if you are alright paying for government revenue, what's your objection to income tax?

Telling me that I consent to something merely by being born is the same thing as saying I consent to being mugged because I can just choose to get shot otherwise
"But who will build the roads!?" Is essentially a communist outcry. The free market has been proven to handle every aspect of life better than government
Why are you even picking this fight for the 5th time this year? We disagree
Globalist

Strawman. What I said was that you consent by staying and utilizing the system and benefiting from it.
lol just like the free market built the interstate system and provided public schooling to you for free. I mean after all private institutions such as colleges are so much better with their statistically highest paid person being the football coach of all things...
Because you agreed with something and treated it as a fact, and I don't think it is, therefore I'm challenging it. It's called discussion
You know calling me names doesn't make you right (in fact it makes you look autistic and retarded)

"Consent by staying" is by far your weakest argument. Human rights and individual rights shouldn't be dictated by borders. Nobody has a right to force me to pay them simply because I own land. Private ownership and religious freedom are the two most important American values.

Ahem: WHICH PART OF "Property tax is a red herring. We're talking income tax here" DO YOU NOT GET? I agree with you on the property tax part. I am arguing income tax only
Consent by staying AND USING THE SYSTEM'S BENEFITS WHICH ARE PROVIDED IN RETURN FOR TAXES. See above paragraph about the property taxes, so private ownership and religous freedom are not on the line here nor do they have anything to do with it.
So to re ask my question above:
"Where would this revenue come from? An increased sales tax and increased tariffs on foreign goods like it did prior to income tax? That'll make things more expensive. And so you are still paying. So at the end of the day if you are alright paying for government revenue, what's your objection to income tax?"
Or to get to the important part: You want to get rid of income taxes. We are in agreement that they would need a replacement, and if we go with the solution pre 1913 of indirect sales tax basically, you will still be paying taxes just in a different way. So do you just object to having taxes calculated from your paycheck? or is it something else?

After that point he doesn't really respond and just starts making jokes.

So I was wondering what people's thoughts on the issue of income taxation are? Is there a better alternative? Is it really theft and if so why?

[The Romulan Republic]

When Libertarians bring up the "tax is theft" argument, I don't even try to argue that it isn't theft. I simply concede that it is theft, but that it is morally justified theft, in the same way that Robin Hood stealing from the rich to give to the poor could be considered morally justified theft.

That said, income tax is not my preferred form of taxation. I prefer sales taxes on non-essential goods, and heavy estate/inheritance taxes on the wealthy.

[Alyrium Denryle]

When Libertarians bring up the "tax is theft" argument, I don't even try to argue that it isn't theft. I simply concede that it is theft, but that it is morally justified theft, in the same way that Robin Hood stealing from the rich to give to the poor could be considered morally justified theft.

That said, income tax is not my preferred form of taxation. I prefer sales taxes on non-essential goods, and heavy estate/inheritance taxes on the wealthy.

You do realize that there is no way in hell you could run a government on that, and that sales taxes are the absolute most regressive of all taxes, right?

[Tribble]

It depends on how the taxes were made out to the public. In Canada's case a lot of the taxes could be seen as illegitimate:

Income taxes were introduced in ww1 and were explicitly stated to be temporary in nature in order to raise money for the war.

Many of Canada's taxes were created after the government was elected on a mandate not to create new taxes.

Many of Canada's taxes (such as Ontario's health care tax) does not actually go towards the stated purpose of the tax, and is usually dumped into general revenue.

And that's not getting into all the government waste of tax dollars...

All in all in Canada's case you could certainly make the argument that many of our taxes amount to unjustified theft and that we are effectively in a state of taxation without representation.

Of course this doesn't mean that taxes are unnecessary- of course they are. But the way they are usually implemented here was via lies and deception, which is not the way to go.

[The Romulan Republic]

Post by Tribble » 2016-12-27 05:20pm

A lot of it depends on how the taxes were made out to the public. In Canada's case a lot of the taxes could be seen as illegitimate:

I'm not saying I support the abolition of the income tax- I did just say that I consider it morally justified (at least to the extent that it is necessary to pay for a properly functioning government).

In what way do you consider sales tax particularly regressive? I could guess, but I would appreciate a more detailed understanding of what your argument before attempting to formulate a response.

Edited to fix typo.

[Tribble]

Post by Tribble » 2016-12-27 05:20pm

A lot of it depends on how the taxes were made out to the public. In Canada's case a lot of the taxes could be seen as illegitimate:

I'm not saying I support the abolition of the income tax- I did just say that I consider it morally justified (at least to the extent that it is necessary to pay for a properly functioning government).

In what way do you consider sales tax particularly regressive? I could guess, but I would appreciate a more detailed understanding of what your argument before attempting to formulate a response.

Edited to fix typo.

I did not go into sales taxes being the most regressive, I was merely pointing out that many of our current taxes in Canada could be seen as unjustifiable since the governments frequently lie about implementing them, lie about their duration and lie about their stated purpose and how the taxes will be spent.

[blahface]

Saying income tax is theft is like saying paying rent to a land lord is theft. Taxes are the cost of citizenship. If you think the cost is too high then move to a country that gives you a better deal.

[Elheru Aran]

Not Alyrium, and don't have much time, but off the cuff:

Sales taxes tend to hurt people without money more than people with money because the tax rate on most things is pretty consistent. Groceries are taxed at one rate, consumer items at another, cars at a different rate, etc.

However, the wealthy don't need these things more than people without money. They might buy more, or more expensive, versions of these things, but thanks to the Sam Vimes Law of Economic Inequality, their stuff tends to last longer/work better than the stuff that people who can't afford it can get, so those without tend to have to replace their stuff more often, etc. So they end up spending more money for the same return, thus paying more in taxes in the long run.

That's not a terribly nuanced view, but that's basically the idea that I've always understood about sales taxes being regressive.

[Rogue 9]

It's more than the Sam Vimes theory; it's the fact that since sales taxes are constant, the poorer you are, the greater percentage of your income you pay into the sales tax. Having to replace worn out cheap goods more often exacerbates the problem, but the root cause is much more fundamental.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Post by Tribble » 2016-12-27 05:20pm

A lot of it depends on how the taxes were made out to the public. In Canada's case a lot of the taxes could be seen as illegitimate:

I'm not saying I support the abolition of the income tax- I did just say that I consider it morally justified (at least to the extent that it is necessary to pay for a properly functioning government).

In what way do you consider sales tax particularly regressive? I could guess, but I would appreciate a more detailed understanding of what your argument before attempting to formulate a response.

Edited to fix typo.

*sigh*

What percentage of people's income do you think goes toward buying things? For the poor and middle class, it is a relatively large percentage. Food, consumer goods yadayada. Rich people reach a point where their nominal spending on goods and services levels off because they are literally at a point where they have to think pretty hard about what to actually do with their money and lots of what they do purchase are either one-time or very dispersed products (like a Yacht). The things they do replace periodically (like their computer) are not that much more expensive than what a middle class person would buy--but are a much smaller percentage of their income.

Plus, you cannot actually fund a government on them. Take Gary Johnson's 23% sales tax proposal. IIRC, he could not even get close to funding the current government. Not by like, half. And that is just at the federal level.

[Darth Tanner]

Sales tax (VAT) is around 17% of UK tax take, inheritance is less than 1%... about £111bn in total - you could just about keep the army, police and roads going with that but nothing else.

I think our income tax was introduced as a temporary measure to fight Napoleon... the French are still running about so we have to still pay the tax.

[Vendetta]

At no point are you ever going to convince a Libertarian that taxation is a necessary and sensible way for the functions of a nation state to be paid for.

If pressed they will ignore the many and various benefits they get from being part of a nation state (the rule of law, enforcement of contracts, public health and services, the general education of the populace, and so on) and claim that because they do not currently draw a specific and limited range of financial benefits they are "independent" or "self made".

Income tax might not be the best way to do taxation (land value tax is a potential alternative), but taxation itself is necessary.

[Simon_Jester]

This argument is basically the most popular and (unjustly) dignified form of the usual sociopathic loner fuckwit argument "waaah I never signed the social contract I shouldn't have to follow it!"

The counterargument is straight out of Hobbes- bluntly, it's a crappy political argument, so a crappy excuse for a political philosopher was able to refute it.

There is literally no such thing as a community where individuals don't sacrifice some fraction of its resources and options for whatever aims the community collectively shares. A group of people who didn't do that wouldn't be a community, they'd gain no benefit from association with one another.

Human beings evolved to do this- we instinctively form clannish small groups in which each individual cedes a lot of their hypothetical 'freedom' in the interests of being able to work together as a group.

There are only two ways to experience real 'freedom,' where you aren't stuck with a social contract that existed before you were born.

The first is to run off into the hills as an outlaw mountain man. This only works if nobody decides to bother you and very few other people make the same choice you do. If either of those things happen, your life is going to be, as Hobbes put it, "nasty, brutish, and short."

The second is to be that rare, lucky, and often short-lived individual: the tyrant. One person can enjoy near-perfect freedom... if they command the resources and labor of a large group of other people who live and die at their whim. One person can be free from any laws they don't agree to... if they're the one person who gets to write their own legal code that everyone else has to follow. The problems with such an arrangement are obvious.

So basically, people who want to live in a civilization, or even a Stone Age tribe, ARE forced to accept that they're going to have to give up freedoms in exchange for other benefits.

People who resent this arrangement aren't resenting government. They're resenting community. They're resenting the idea that man is a social animal, that we hunt in packs and gather for the benefit of our extended families, rather than hunting like solitary tigers and gathering purely for "me, myself, and I."

As a normal person living in the world who isn't magically the king of the universe, you can't have the benefits of community without sacrificing. You have to sacrifice resources, and freedom of action, in order to get the physical, emotional, and logistic benefits of having other humans around who are willing to work with you.
_____________________________

Anyway, I wrote, like, an essay-ramble about this below. But to make a long story short, resenting the social contract is basically resenting that human beings are social animals who need one another.

As a political philosophy, it doesn't deserve nearly as much respect as it's received in late 20th century America.

---

Now, sociopathic fuckwits committed libertarians have long argued that there's a way around that. You could have no laws and everyone lives independently, only obeying consensual agreements between private individuals. If individuals can't agree, you have a court adjudicate the issue as a matter of contract law. Right?

Well, maybe that would work, and maybe it wouldn't. But it wouldn't matter, because even if you did

Even in a hypothetical voluntarist-anarchist community, hell yes you are agreeing to sacrifice certain things. Among the sacrifices that are being made:

(1) Ban on compulsion.

Everyone has to agree not to use compulsion, including nonviolent compulsion, to pressure other people into an undesirable position. This is a big sacrifice. People who are doing poorly under a certain system often like to use compulsion to make it change. While people who are doing well under the existing system like to use compulsion to keep it the way it is, or reshape it to be even more stacked in their favor.

If this agreement is breached by any powerful person, and it will be, then the voluntarist community reverts to a very common equilibrium state among real life societies. It's called a tyranny. More on that later.

But even without that, even assuming the pencil stays balanced on its point and the voluntarist-anarchists aren't just taken over by the first autocrat or gang of oligarchs to gain enough power to hire a brute squad... you're still giving up a huge part of your freedom, by agreeing to live in a voluntarist society. You're agreeing to reject compulsion.

So in a stable voluntarist community, everyone has basically agreed that no matter how angry they get, they won't use violence. Just saying "I was mad" is never an excuse. It can't be, because if it is, then you don't have voluntarism. You have an oligarchy ruled by the short-tempered and heavily armed individuals everyone is afraid to cross.

No matter how profitable it seems to blackmail someone into signing a contract, they won't use blackmail. Saying "I made a LOT of money off of this" is not an excuse. It can't be, because if it is, you don't have voluntarism. You have an oligarchy ruled by whichever groups are most efficient at gathering (or faking) embarrassing secrets about everyone else.

No matter how good an idea it seems like to use emotional manipulation to convince someone that they have to keep working on your behalf forever or be ungrateful, they can't do that. Because if people can do that, then you end up with, say, a clan structure of extended families, each ruled by a paterfamilias who ostracizes anyone that pisses them off. That's not voluntarism.

So basically, everyone is giving up their power to compel others. Even through mechanisms we instinctively use for compulsion... Because a truly voluntarist society is not a natural state for humans; Stone Age hunter-gatherers live by all kinds of rules they didn't explicitly consent to. And yet "no compulsion, even the kinds everyone takes for granted" is a requirement for the voluntarist society. If people don't all agree to that, then again, you have tyranny or oligarchy. Not freedom.

So that's a big thing to give up.

(2) Nothing is against the rules until after it's already happened.
If you live in this voluntarist society, you're paying a huge opportunity cost by converting all interpersonal disputes into something to be resolved by the courts, after the damage is done.

For example, there are no laws saying you have to get a driver's license to drive, so idiots will drive with no training whatsoever, and people will die. Including people who are not the idiots. It's not just a straightforward Darwinian elimination of fools from the gene pool.

There are no laws saying you can't pour toxins into the drinking water. Only an unwritten rule saying that in the unlikely event that the affected population manages to sue and prove harm was done

And this has to happen after each successive chemical spill- at no point can a chemical be straight-up banned pre-emptively because that would be coercion. Nor can safety rules be imposed, because that would be coercion. Anyone who wants to handle dangerous materials recklessly can, until after someone dies or is seriously hurt, at which point they might face consequences unless they have a better lawyer than their victims.

And there's no mechanism whatsoever to do anything about things like "our river is so polluted it just caught fire," either. Because then who do you sue? No one defendant is responsible for more than a tiny fraction of the overall harm. Who pays the bills for it all?

Likewise, in a voluntarist society, there are no laws saying a bank can't be a fly-by-night scam organization, or defining what does and does not constitute a bank. Sure, after the fact, the bank's clients may be able to file a lawsuit to recover the damages. But a fake bank scam can gather a lot of money very efficiently. It's not hard for such a person to flee the territory and escape to a region beyond the reach of local lynch mobs. At which point they cannot be held accountable, because it's too late to fix the problem after the damage is done.

America actually used to run this way... and back then, a lot of people buried their money in holes in the ground rather than entrust it to the bank. Many businesses kept their capital in strongboxes on the premises, guarded by their own resources, rather than invest it in a bank that might be a fraud or that might engage in reckless financial dealings that would destroy their savings.

The financial system was very anemic compared to day, because it ran entirely on voluntary associations and limited public trust. People would sit on their money rather than making it available for investment and fractional lending systems. Because you can't trust banks that aren't regulated. We know that because people didn't trust banks when they weren't regulated.

So generally, you will see a collapse of social trust and large-scale institutions, because no one can assure themselves "this group is honest, if they weren't they'd be in trouble with the law" already. There is no law, and the easiest explanation for "they're not in trouble" is now "they haven't gotten caught yet."

(3) Inconsistent Outcomes
By replacing laws with 'mutually consensual' arbitration or whatever, you create a society in which there is little or no predictability as to the consequences of one's actions. For someone who carries a pistol and isn't afraid to draw it, insulting an ordinary person is quite safe. But suppose I insult that one guy over there. The one who will carry a disproportionate grudge, and is willing to follow someone home and commit murder (trusting on their own ability to escape the very limited investigation carried out by the 'authorities.' So you have a lot of cases where people grow up in this society and, thanks to their own good lawyer, skill at violence, or luck in avoiding assertive people... they believe there are no limits, no conseqeunces for actions.

Then suddenly they turn out to be wrong, and they're shocked, and they suffer disproportionately heavy consequences they were poorly equipped to foresee at first.

(4) Noncompliance
This is the big one. Others on this site have pointed out that contracts aren't really two-party agreements. There is a third, 'silent' partner in all contracts. Namely, the person who enforces the contract. Without a designated enforcer you don't have an agreement at all, because there's no reason not to breach the contract if it becomes convenient.

In a voluntarist society, no one is formally agreeing to enforce those contracts. There is no easy way to tell in advance which contract provisions will be enforceable and which ones won't. You can't do that without having a set of standards about what does and does not constitute a valid contract... which involves breaching the 'voluntary association only' rules. Furthermore, you have to be able to enforce contracts other people think are invalid, but which follow those standards... which is pretty much impossible to do on a voluntarist basis. Sooner or later, you have to punish someone who doesn't want to be punished. Otherwise, again, you have a messy oligarchy.

[Canis_Dirus]

Simon you kind of put in words how I've been feeling about it, I've just been having trouble explaining it. I commented on the original post and am now arguing against several libertarians who are basically pulling the "I never agreed to the Constitution and social contract"

I don't think that's a legitimate position since at least when I learned about contract law, if you start using the benefits agreeing to the contract would provide, its assumed you agree to it, and everyone uses the benefits of living in a country, therefore they agreed to pay taxes whether they realized it or not.

[Tribble]

IMO that's all well and good when the government is being honest about the purpose, degree and duration of the tax. When the government lies about any of those things IMO that tax loses a lot of its legitimacy, especially if the government in question had been elected on a mandate not to raise the tax rate / create the tax in the first place.

It's unfortunate that where I live governments seem to have the habit of campaigning on not raising taxes, getting elected on that campaign, raising new taxes without debate the moment they get into office, then dumping those taxes into general revenue instead of their stated purpose. And that's not even getting into how those taxes are spent (we've had our fair share of multi-billion dollar fiascos over the years, believe me). While taxes are necessary I can certainly understand why a lot of people get bitter over them, at least over here.

[Canis_Dirus]

Yes, but it should be understood that a source of income is needed for the government so it can fulfill its obligations and duties. The details of which should be established honestly with the citizenry.
Which is why I'm irritated at the attitude some of the people I'm arguing with are taking. It seems like a case of wanting to have the cake and eat it too.

In addition, it seems odd that people would bring up taxation prior to 1913, unless the person isn't aware that taxes existed before that, just in a different form. Either way there is a tax.

[Tribble]

Yes, but it should be understood that a source of income is needed for the government so it can fulfill its obligations and duties. The details of which should be established honestly with the citizenry.
Which is why I'm irritated at the attitude some of the people I'm arguing with are taking. It seems like a case of wanting to have the cake and eat it too.

In addition, it seems odd that people would bring up taxation prior to 1913, unless the person isn't aware that taxes existed before that, just in a different form. Either way there is a tax.

I agree. I think the legitimacy of the tax is just as important as the tax itself. And by that, I don't just mean whether or not the tax is legal- If citizens feel that their views are being completely ignored and that they are being lied to they are bound to be opposed to the tax regime regardless of its benefits... and I'd have hard time blaming them.

I often get irritated when people defend a tax the government had absolutely no mandate to impose, and continue to defend that tax even after it becomes clear it was just a general money grab rather than the tax being spent on what it was allegedly for. Taxes are a necessity, but the government must be upfront about things.

[The Romulan Republic]

Post by Tribble » 2016-12-27 05:20pm

A lot of it depends on how the taxes were made out to the public. In Canada's case a lot of the taxes could be seen as illegitimate:

I'm not saying I support the abolition of the income tax- I did just say that I consider it morally justified (at least to the extent that it is necessary to pay for a properly functioning government).

In what way do you consider sales tax particularly regressive? I could guess, but I would appreciate a more detailed understanding of what your argument before attempting to formulate a response.

Edited to fix typo.

*sigh*

What percentage of people's income do you think goes toward buying things? For the poor and middle class, it is a relatively large percentage. Food, consumer goods yadayada. Rich people reach a point where their nominal spending on goods and services levels off because they are literally at a point where they have to think pretty hard about what to actually do with their money and lots of what they do purchase are either one-time or very dispersed products (like a Yacht). The things they do replace periodically (like their computer) are not that much more expensive than what a middle class person would buy--but are a much smaller percentage of their income.

I suppose you didn't register the part where I specified that I supported sales taxes on non-essentials? I don't know how it is in the US, but here in Canada, most food items in grocery stores are free of sales tax, and those that are taxed in stores or restaurants are taxed at only five percent, rather than the usual rate of sales tax.

I have no desire to penalize poor people for buying food- what do you take me for, a Republican?

Plus, you cannot actually fund a government on them. Take Gary Johnson's 23% sales tax proposal. IIRC, he could not even get close to funding the current government. Not by like, half. And that is just at the federal level.

Then it is fortunate that I never advocated trying to fund a government entirely on sales tax.

Honestly, do you people even bother to read my points before assuming I said the stupidest possible thing and responding accordingly?

[Simon_Jester]

Simon you kind of put in words how I've been feeling about it, I've just been having trouble explaining it. I commented on the original post and am now arguing against several libertarians who are basically pulling the "I never agreed to the Constitution and social contract"

I don't think that's a legitimate position since at least when I learned about contract law, if you start using the benefits agreeing to the contract would provide, its assumed you agree to it, and everyone uses the benefits of living in a country, therefore they agreed to pay taxes whether they realized it or not.

That's the legal side of it, yeah.

The sociological side summarizes as:

Look, whether you admit it or not, human beings are social animals.

Every group of humans that's ever existed does this. They naturally form social communities. We evolved living in such communities Every known human group has had rules, rules that all members of the group are expected to obey. Every group has had the expectation that members would contribute resources for the common good.

And every group larger than a hunter-gatherer tribe takes these rules and turns them into a regulatory code of law. Every large group takes the expectation that people will contribute, and turns it into some kind of taxation system.

At no time have humans ever had a functional community that worked on the basis of everyone only following the rules they wanted to follow. Humans have never had a functional community that worked on the basis of people only contributing to the group's needs if they felt like it, without being pressured or compelled to do so by others.

The idea that you can 'drop out' of the social contract because no one handed you a piece of paper to sign goes against the entire weight of human history, and the entire sciences of sociology and anthropology.

I've already mentioned that it's wrong to try and weasel out of the social contract. You'd be doing it after you've taken the benefits of living under it. Like getting to grow up in a stable society that isn't dominated by battling gangs or megacorporations that own you as an indentured servant or whatever. That's a major benefit of our social contract, and one you'd already received long before you were in a position to 'opt out.' It is profoundly spiteful to try and duck out of fulfilling the 'sour' parts of the contract after you've already gotten the 'sweet' parts.

But on top of that, the idea that we could weasel out of the social contract and succeed is laughable. We can see examples of societies where the social contract breaks down. They're not functional. We can't live that way- literally, many if not most of us would die if we all tried to live that way. So trying to advocate for a society without a social contract is like trying to advocate for an airplane with no wings- while you're flying in it.

[Gerald Tarrant]

In addition, it seems odd that people would bring up taxation prior to 1913, unless the person isn't aware that taxes existed before that, just in a different form. Either way there is a tax.

1913 was when the 16th Amendment was passed in the US, if you're debating an American then he's referring to the fact that prior to 1913 federal income tax was unconstitutional.

[Lord Revan]

In addition, it seems odd that people would bring up taxation prior to 1913, unless the person isn't aware that taxes existed before that, just in a different form. Either way there is a tax.

1913 was when the 16th Amendment was passed in the US, if you're debating an American then he's referring to the fact that prior to 1913 federal income tax was unconstitutional.

even if the current form of income tax was unconstitutional pior to 1913, I'd be very surpriced if there wasn't other tariffs or fees that served a similar purpose if not as efficiently or equally.

As for the whole "I didn't sign this social contract!" thing, I've noticed that people who say it aren't so willing to let go of the benefits (when they're even aware of those) of said social contract, while ranting that they should not be made to pay for the costs that entail from enjoying those benefits. Hell from what I've seen they even argue they should be allowed to keep those benefits while contributing nothing to paying the costs, while saying that others who do pay should be not enjoy the benefits (the sadly common thing of arguing that unemployed are just parasites and there shouldn't be any unemployment benefits what so ever).

[Canis_Dirus]

[quote="Gerald Tarrant]1913 was when the 16th Amendment was passed in the US, if you're debating an American then he's referring to the fact that prior to 1913 federal income tax was unconstitutional.[/quote]

Yes, but I meant is that before 1913 there were still taxes in the form of a sort of sales tax, in addition to tariffs, that were used to fund the government. So unless the person is not aware of this, then it seems a bit odd to bring up the "We did fine before sales tax started in 1913" argument since you will be paying for the tax either way.
Unless of course the person is against taxation in general, in which case then I would have to ask how they intend to have a government which can perform any duties.

[Canis_Dirus]

EDIT

In addition, it seems odd that people would bring up taxation prior to 1913, unless the person isn't aware that taxes existed before that, just in a different form. Either way there is a tax.

1913 was when the 16th Amendment was passed in the US, if you're debating an American then he's referring to the fact that prior to 1913 federal income tax was unconstitutional.

even if the current form of income tax was unconstitutional pior to 1913, I'd be very surpriced if there wasn't other tariffs or fees that served a similar purpose if not as efficiently or equally.

As for the whole "I didn't sign this social contract!" thing, I've noticed that people who say it aren't so willing to let go of the benefits (when they're even aware of those) of said social contract, while ranting that they should not be made to pay for the costs that entail from enjoying those benefits. Hell from what I've seen they even argue they should be allowed to keep those benefits while contributing nothing to paying the costs, while saying that others who do pay should be not enjoy the benefits (the sadly common thing of arguing that unemployed are just parasites and there shouldn't be any unemployment benefits what so ever).

I think there's a WH40K meme that sums up how it makes me feel when people whine that way.....

I would love to know their mental justification for saying that they should be able to enjoy benefits like that even though they don't want to be part of the system that provides them. Especially when they say its so corrupt and terrible.... (well I suppose in some ways it might be but opting out is not the way to go about things).

On a somewhat related note, the same friend just liked a meme from the Libertarian page saying something to the effect of "Why should we pay taxes when the government can just print money?" Suffice to say I'm hitting my head against the wall.....

[Gerald Tarrant]

[quote="Gerald Tarrant]1913 was when the 16th Amendment was passed in the US, if you're debating an American then he's referring to the fact that prior to 1913 federal income tax was unconstitutional.

Yes, but I meant is that before 1913 there were still taxes in the form of a sort of sales tax, in addition to tariffs, that were used to fund the government. So unless the person is not aware of this, then it seems a bit odd to bring up the "We did fine before sales tax started in 1913" argument since you will be paying for the tax either way.
Unless of course the person is against taxation in general, in which case then I would have to ask how they intend to have a government which can perform any duties.[/quote][/quote]

So glancing at your argument, the person who you are debating has stated an opposition to income tax and property tax, specifically, and then in then in your final quote, you personally talk specifically, about income tax. It makes perfect sense to contrast the pre 1913 and post 1913 America because Federal income tax was not available until 1913. So when whoever this is argues about how well things were or weren't run pre 1913 he's claiming it was possible, to do the stuff the federal government needed to without income tax. If you press him he'll probably argue that standing armies, FEMA and welfare aren't things we need. Although I believe he called you autistc because your argument about bridges neglects that there technically is a tax for highways already, the gas tax; arguments about it being too low notwithstanding.

Without knowing more about the previous conversations you've had, all I can do is speculate. But, a common libertarian argument is that many other taxes can be escaped by changing behavior, and the tax theoretically goes directly to things that enable the normal behavior. So theoretically, gas taxes pay for the roads that are driven on, sales taxes go to state agencies, city property taxes pay for things the city does, and at one point tariffs could pay for everything else. And if you aren't paying those taxes you generally aren't benefitting either. In fact you can choose not to pay for many things(mostly) by choosing different behavior, not driving/whatever. Google "redneck stonehenge" for an example about how to avoid a lot of stuff associated with incorporated areas. Income tax is different, it's essentially a claim on your time. People that are self employed particularly love to gripe about this because they have to write a lump sum check. There's a "holiday" that some of these folks like to celebrate, Tax Freedom Day, it's the point at which everything you earn is all yours. It's just an outgrowth of the argument that time is money, and depending on your tax bracket, a proportion of your time has no value to you. So this is probably the core of your friend's argument, that income tax is essentially an inescapable claim on someone's time.

So to sum up, the reason he refers to compares pre and post 1913 America, is that from a libertarian stand point, it feels like overreaching to claim that some fraction of everyone's labor belongs to them.

[Simon_Jester]

The thing is, the Sixteenth Amendment received widespread popular support at the time it went into effect, ironically including a lot of support from many of the same states that now produce swarms of antitax advocates. Because it was seen as a way to reduce the economic power of the financial elite, who at that time were overwhelmingly concentrated in the Northeast.

The catch is that it was originally conceived as a tax that would primarily hit the rich, not small businessmen or workers. Thirty-five years of Republicans have done their best to make it a much flatter tax than it was originally designed to be.

The first ten states to ratify the Sixteenth Amendment were: Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, Illinois, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Maryland, Georgia, Texas, and Ohio.

I'm not even making fun of the underlined states for buyers' remorse. I'm making fun of them because their populations have forgotten their great-grandfathers' old wisdom: that a progressive income tax is good for the average American citizen, while funding a government through regressive taxes is bad for the average American.

I was tempted to underline Ohio, but they only vote to have regressive taxation imposed on them about half the time, so maybe there's hope for them.