Income Tax Day 2018

As I have said before, I've come to the conclusion that incomes taxes are in general immoral. I pay mine because there's no practical alternative. Yet they only exist because might makes right. In the case of republics like ours, what that means is fifty percent of the voters plus one authorizes the majority to dip into everyone's pockets however deeply they want to.

This isn't necessarily wrong I'll admit. Sometimes a crisis must be met with greater government intrusion into our lives. Yet by and large this is not the case; only extremes such as World War II demand it.

I know governments need money. But it should be gotten through user fees and sales taxes. And you know what? Such a system is automatically graduated. The rich will naturally pay more in taxes, the middle class less, and the poor nothing (I'd have no problem exempting them from any taxes) because those with greater incomes will buy and use more.

There are reasons I've cited before which support my point, but I'll stop here. Why? Because those agree with me know them, and those who don't have likely stopped reading anyway.

The immoral income tax

Yesterday, I sent copies of a W-9 form to two different companies I've sold to. And as every time I've had to do that, I resent it. You see, I've come to believe that the income tax, at least as a general rule, is immoral, and that W-9 forms and the like essentially make us spy on one another.

I'll keep paying taxes on my income, to be sure, because there's no practical alternative. Still, that doesn't mean the tax is morally right. It simply means the government is holding a figurative gun to my head.

Let me ask you this: does your neighbor have the moral right to know how much money you make? No? Then why does your neighbor named Uncle Sam or Lansing? Yet to tax our earnings they must be told that, again by compulsion. And even if you argue that an income tax is okay, what happened to innocent until proven guilty? Things such as W-9s presume guilt; now we see two reasons not to like the income tax. It allows the government to assume we will work against it. No matter how true that might be for many people, and I will readily concede that some try to circumvent it as they do many other laws, on a case by case basis it is still moral presumption and a violation of our rights as citizens.

But how else can the government get money, Marty, because even governments need cash you know. My answer is a system of sales taxes and user fees, all of which are factored against voluntary interactions. You want to drive? Pay gas taxes. You want to camp at a government park? Pay a user fee. We could easily make reasonable exemptions to this, but I think you get the point.

Yeah, nothing will come of this. I even expect many of you will disagree with me. But I felt like a rant this morning, so I give you one. There is little doubt in my mind that income taxes are immoral.