re: #247 Obdicut

I agree with that. But for the individual concerned, if they had an obligation and they are forgiven that obligation, that is worth money. Real money. And taxes are not something that the government steals from you, they are legal, decided upon by our representatives, and we really are honor-bound by them. Government is not, and cannot be, free.

How we tax is worthy of a lot of debate. Saying that all your money is ‘yours’ and the the government ‘takes’ some muddies the debate a great deal. If I make a deal with someone that while I’m on their land, I’ll give them one out of every ten fish that I catch, that tenth fish is theirs the moment I catch it. It’s never mine.

I agree that government isn’t free and needs to be paid for.

Back before the Federal Government got the ability to levy income taxes, most taxes were on trade. Individuals were taxed from time to time via capitations. Income tax opened a new frontier even though it was initially intended to only tax rich people. The ability to motivate individual economic activity via the tax code was quickly discovered.

Think about it - home ownership as a means of building a storing wealth for the middle class was a social and economic policy implemented via the income tax system. It would make an interesting book to write a political history of the US’ 20th century in terms of tax policy.

People alter their behavior all of the time (and even irrationally) because of taxation. i have a friend who 1) constantly tells me how WalMart is destroying my town, and 2) has bought just about everything he needs via the internet over the last 5 years to avoid sales tax. At least WalMart collects sales tax for my town.

I get and agree with the rhetoric of “my money” being over the top. But we really do need to do some serious thinking in this country about what activity we want to incentivize and what we don’t. and the top-of-mind moral analysis has to which invites rhetoric like “tax the rich” needs to be punctured. We should be figuring out ways to get the rich (and the wannabe rich) taking risks and investing in business creation.

We don’t tell major league pitchers to go pitch a no hitter, but warn them that if they do we will amputate a finger so as to even the playing field for the next game. Instead we pay them big fat bonuses which motivates them and other players to play their best.