Tax Slavery

As much as I want to believe there's a silent tax rebellion in North America, I don't see much evidence of it. Yes, people complain incessantly about it but no one really does much about it.

Until I see the media reporting on the injustices of our tax collecting practices, people just won't care much about tax evaders chased by tax agents - sometimes to the point of being thrown in jail.

Worse, if anything, we tacitly approve of higher taxes everyday without realizing it. Pundits will talk of taxes of being "price of civilization" (which is a misleading argument), while simultaneously deeming those who protest against higher taxes as "extremists." Not a good mix.

Here in Quebec, for example, people push more and more for "free" things like post-secondary education, which in turn, means higher taxes. On a superficial level, this is an intoxicating proposition for average people. They make the faulty determination that paying higher taxes is a better option than out of pocket.

In my view, this is irrational.

It will cost society more over the long-run; not less. Mostly in the form of lower disposable income.

Who in their right mind willingly accepts giving their money to a wasteful bureaucracy?

It makes zero sense to me.

But it does, alas, to many. Remember the New York Times in their op-eds about the need for big government for big problems?

What do you think that means at the end of the line?

It all depends how you see things I suppose. A friend of mine, from Massachusetts, believes the government is a necessary evil and a lesser one relative to the option of leaving wealth in the hands of corporations. By extension, he has a problem with inheritances being handed down and believe everything should be taxed to discourage "hoarding."

I think it's a terrible position to take but that's his view. He believes a "trust fund" baby is as bad and exhibits the behavior of a sloth every bit equal to a bureaucrat libertarians wail against.

There is some validity in that point but here's the rub: Assuming the gains were legit, the family earned that wealth.

It didn't expropriate it like the state does. Bureaucrats and civil servants who perpetuate the enabling welfare state are far more destructive.

The government doesn't distribute wealth in any fair or just manner. In fact, it worsens it. Capitalism may not be a perfect wealth distributor but the philosophy in of itself doesn't prevent people from becoming wealthy. It has no preferences. It only becomes so when the state involves itself with all sorts of bad taxes (like on dividends) and encourages and calcifies cronyism.

Naturally, I take the opposite position from him. In fact, I accept the government more than he does corporations by his own admission. Corporations don't erode my wealth is my bottom line.

The state does. Again, he accepts this since A) individuals can't be trusted to do the right thing (whatever that means) and B) the money printed is owned by the government.

To me, this is sad and cynical at the same time. I cannot take this position. All it means is you're a slave to a paternalistic state and its taxes.