zlacker

>>WaitWa+(OP)
My wife got flagged as an extremist and started getting notices from Facebook yesterday every time she logged in.

Which I mean, my wife believes that the government using the threat of violence to collect taxes is immoral, unethical, and that all transactions between all individuals should be voluntary and nonviolent. Which in terms of popular discourse, is very "extreme". She was thinking about running for local public office an a platform of "the government will not take away your propery for failure to pay taxes" which a surprising number of local people on Facebook supported. She's been going to Meetups and having people say "oh yeah I saw your meme, the government sucks, keep it up!" She bugs local politicans on Facebook, their ads keep popping up in her feed, so she'll ask them things like "do you think it's moral to seize someone's property when they can't pay their taxes?" which of course gets bullshit nonanswers from politicians. Nobody wants to say "I think it's moral to seize someone's house because they're behind on taxes".

An authoritarian government wouldn't like someone like my wife, and they certainly wouldn't want her getting likes on Facebook. After all, what if she DOES run for office? What if she wins? What if other people like her win?

>>wincy+n7
Total off-topic: out of curiosity, what levers does she think are moral to pull to encourage folks to pay taxes?

>>zucked+Md
Same as what happens when you don't pay your utility bills, your services stop.

>>Wincys+Vr
How do you enforce that? Taxes pay for roads, parks, local goverment offices, etc. Is somebody who is behind on taxes prohibited from using public roads? Are they prohibited from entering the courthouse?

>>jdlsho+at
Roads and other services can be paid for by their users, in driver license fees and vehicle registration fees. If you don't use the roads, you don't pay those fees. Sure, you will pay them indirectly if you have to have other people drive you around or deliver things, but it's still all voluntary.

>>throwa+tz
That’s a different argument. You’re arguing that all taxes should be replaced by service fees. It’s also a problematic argument, because it’s highly regressive, extremely annoying or intrusive in practice (do I swipe my credit card every time I step into a park or call the fire department? Do I carry a tracker that monitors my activities and automatically bills me?) and also doesn’t address the question of social services.

But that aside, WincysWife isn’t arguing for a change in how money is collected, but how non-payment is penalized. The statement was that you lose access to services. My question, which hasn’t been answered, is how that is enforced when so much that the government does isn’t a simple “service” that is provided to you directly.

(It may be tempting to respond with another non-answer, such as “the government shouldn’t do those things,” but again that’s dodging the question. The government does do those things, and I’m trying to get at a real-world answer, not a hypothetical.)

>>jdlsho+3F
I'm trying to reply but the website makes me wait between comments, probably because I have a new account.

There are lots of ways to raise money that don't involve throwing people in jail or confiscating their property for not paying. Pay per service is one, but not the only one. One should be able to cancel their subscription to government services and not have to pay. The Amish already do this for payroll taxes, do they are exempt because they have a mutual aid society that takes care of their medical and retirement needs.

We already live under a regressive tax system, especially for local governments which rely on sales and property taxes. Our current tax system is not convenient, and we pay a lot for poor service.

It would be silly to make a fuss over someone using a park if they don't pay taxes, but it could be dealt with like any other trespassing. My local park is paid for by the HOA, not the government, and it's not that big of a deal. We already have a system in place for paying for the roads. We pay the gas tax, and we have a system where you have to have a driver's license and insurance, and in many places you have to pay property taxes and/or sales tax on your car, and pay registration fees. It would be a simple matter to suspend someone's license for not paying taxes. Or you could decide to allow non-tax-payers to drive as long as they pay the gas tax when they fuel up.

I'm not saying that the government shouldn't necessarily do those things, but people should have the option to get their needs met by different organizations and not have to pay if they wish. For social needs like healthcare, education, welfare, that is very easy to do, just like the Amish do. Subscribe to a different organization that takes care of those things, and they will probably have a tithe or fee requirement, and rules, and that's fine as long as the person agrees to it. The only problem with the government system we have now is that we have no way of consenting or not consenting, and if we disobey, even if we are being peaceful and aren't violating anyone else's rights, we can be thrown in jail or have our property confiscated. It would really be quite simple to fix the flaw in the system. The only reason we haven't is because we're going off of a system made by people who were thinking outside of the box by rejecting monarchy. We then rejected slavery, gave rights to women, etc. We are still figuring out how to be moral.