Recently in taxes Category

 There has been for some time now a tax protester movement on the fringes of the libertarian movement. These are the people who claim tax law is illegitimate, that for statutory or constitutional reasons the income tax is illegal. It's a rather silly argument, and No Third Solution accurately reflects my views on the subject:

For the record, it doesn't matter whether a tax on wages is "legal" because as a rule, the various taxes on wage-income are handled as though they are legal and case law has been adjudicated in such a manner as to render impotent the "statutory" defenses like those raised by the Browns. So it doesn't matter if they're "legal" or not, the law has proven powerless to uphold itself.

The only appropriate tax rate is zero, and the only real argument is not whether income taxes are "legal" but rather, whether they are proper.

No man in his individual capacity would be justified in extracting "taxes" from any other man. And what would not be tolerated of any man ought not be tolerated of any men.

I've always been bemused/perplexed by the idea that people collectively can circumvent morality that applies to individuals. It takes a lot of rationalizing to believe that, yet that belief seems nearly universal.

 Previous related thoughts here.