Is Progressive Taxation Discrimination

[Ramo]

I am being consistant. The seller determines his price based on his cost. If he chooses to absorb sales tax - he chooses. The government doesn't set the price.

The bottom line is that the gov't is coercively taking away the fruits of someone's labor (if not the consumer's, that of the workers and owners of the business that's sellling me goods).

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Deity Dude


I am being consistant. The seller determines his price based on his cost. If he chooses to absorb sales tax - he chooses. The government doesn't set the price.

Yeah, but the seller doesn't have a choice about which items are taxable and which aren't. In a sales tax scenario, the vendor has to fork over the required amount of tax per item sold - whether the vendor pays that out of his own pocket or passes it along to the consumer, it's still a coerced payment to the government.

Also, it's hardly just non-essential items that have taxes levied on them. Depending on where you live, aren't most food items or clothing taxed?

[Sava]

"Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay.
That is the only American principle."

--FDR

Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society.

--FDR

[Az]

FDR

[Sava]

yeah, what a concept FDR thought about... hmm... in getting revenue for the government, we should tax those who are able to pay.

It's the same techniques corporations use in marketing. They market their products to their targeted consumer base... those ABLE TO PAY.

And what are tax-payers getting for their money? How about freedom... protection by the most powerful country the world has ever known... a system that should be fair to all...

I'm still waiting for the intelligent argument about how it's unfair that the rich pay more in taxes...

[Deity Dude]

This whole currency argument as a legitimization of Income Tax makes no sense.

Income Tax is not a currency usage or currency transfer tax. If so everytime I made change I would have to pay a tax.

Non-currency Income is taxed at the same rate as currency generated income. The US Tax Code reads "Income from whatever source derived" and mentions nothing about currency as a qualifier.

The following cases have been adjudicated:

Illegal income transactions are taxable.
Pure barter income transactions are taxable.
Foriegn currency income transactions are taxable.

Currency is not the property of the government. As I said earlier it is a bearer note. Whoever owns the currency owns it and the value it represents.

Whats funny about this currency argument is that the government doesn't even make it.

The government's stance is simple. It's the law and we have the power to enforce it.

As some people have said if you are a citizen of a country you have made an implicit contract with the state to follow the laws. I don't agree with that terminology because a contract involves a consentual agreement between 2 informed parties. A baby upon birth cannot make an informed agreement yet they are a citizen and subject to all of the countries laws from birth. And to say that this type of relationship is consentual is hogwash.

If you live in a country you make a personal decision, not an agreement, to follow its laws, to break it laws at your own peril or to attempt to move somewhere else.

That is true. And I have made a personal decision that the states power thru threat of imprisonment is worse then following the law. I have also made the personal decision that it is impractical to leave a country everytime I find one of its laws immoral, especially when the same immoral law exists in most other countries.

But when I make this decision I am not upholding my end of a contract. I do this out of pure coersion. No different then if I owned a store and the Mafia came and said "we need $2000 a month protection money" and I felt that the police could do nothing about it. I could choose to pay it, not pay it and take my chances or close my store. Just because I have that choice doesn't mean that the act isn't a form of theft.

Suppose I live in a country that legally requires involuntary servitutde for a certain class of people. The state defines these people as worker-citizens. Have I upon birth entered an implicit contract to be a slave? I don't think so. Furthermore, I have the choice to follow the law (be a slave), break the law (escape and risk death or capture) or go somewhere else (escape to a country that has the same laws). If I choose to stay am I not still a slave?


My stance that the income tax is immoral isn't necessary a "libertarian" point of view. I realize that governments need some sort of funding to carryout thier legitimate functions. Libertarians, socialists, communists etc will argue about what the functions are and how much of the goods and services a society needs should be free market and how much should be state-run.

In theory you could have a very socialist society and not have an income tax.

MY stance is a moral one. IMO the Income Tax is organized theft by the state because it involuntarily takes your money or your labor from you.

Other taxes I have mentioned allow the taxpayer to decide if they want to pay the tax and still not break the law.

Lots of different issues hav coem up here and alot of people are mistakenly trying to lump them together.

[Sava]

MY stance is a moral one. IMO the Income Tax is organized theft by the state because it involuntarily takes your money or your labor from you.

you are wrong... it is not involuntary... it is a social contract... you can always LEAVE AMERICA if you don't like it. Hence, taxation is voluntary because you are choosing to live in this country.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

and where is tha contract written? i dont remeber signing any.

[Deity Dude]

Originally posted by Kontiki


Yeah, but the seller doesn't have a choice about which items are taxable and which aren't. In a sales tax scenario, the vendor has to fork over the required amount of tax per item sold - whether the vendor pays that out of his own pocket or passes it along to the consumer, it's still a coerced payment to the government.

Also, it's hardly just non-essential items that have taxes levied on them. Depending on where you live, aren't most food items or clothing taxed?

I wasn't referring to the way it is, I was referring to how it should be.

First of all the buyer not the seller pays the sales tax. If a seller decides to absorb that, that is no different then if the seller offers free shipping or a 10% off sale etc. In that scenario, the seller has voluntarily offered a price concession to the buyer in an attempt to increase sales (I presume). If the price concession happens to be equal to the sales tax that the seller is required to pay and the buyer markets it that way, it still does not change the voluntary nature of the transaction.

As for your other point. Earlier I said Income Tax and any sort of tax to the purchasers of essentials is immoral because they are both involuntary. The Income Tax is pretty cut and dry, whereas essentials could be debated. Either way it doesn't change the theory.

[Deity Dude]

Originally posted by Sava
you are wrong... it is not involuntary... it is a social contract... you can always LEAVE AMERICA if you don't like it. Hence, taxation is voluntary because you are choosing to live in this country.

You obviousl didn't read my entire post or just choose to ignore it.

I explain why it is not a contract.

I also explain that just because you are given choices does not mean you have made a voluntary decision

[Sava]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
and where is tha contract written? i dont remeber signing any.

it's a social contract... go read some John Locke and educate yourself.


and it is VOLUNTARY if dopes don't want to pay taxes, they can leave... it's as simple as that...

hey, I'm not happy about the prices I might have to pay for a lot of things, but I don't sit here and whine like a ***** how it is stealing...

taxes are just the price for living in America and in this society... don't like it? leave...

now stop this inane and incessant libertarian BS

You obviousl didn't read my entire post or just choose to ignore it..

I'm not about to waste my time... it doesn't matter how much you write or what you say, you cannot prove a point to be right when it is inherently (and by definition) wrong. You could write a thousand-page book on why the sky isn't blue... you are still wrong.

and it only takes one small sentence for me to say why you are wrong

[Ramo]

You're still ignoring the clear fact that sales taxes are involuntary. Even if consumers didn't have to pay any of it because businesses would absorb it (which is certainly not the case; as BC pointed out, this occurs only in the rare circumstances where the price is extremely inelastic), businesses would have to pay, which takes away the "fruits of labor" of the businesses' owners and employees.

In fact, sales taxes are more coercive than income taxes since sales taxes disproportionately affect the poor, and the poor have far less of a capacity to pay taxes than the rich (the standard of living of a poor person decreases from sales taxes far more than Bill Gate's standard of living decreases from income taxes).

[Ramo]

All this crap about sales taxes being moral, but income taxes being immoral is equivalent to saying that it's ok for the gov't to coerce money out of people, as long as those that suffer from this coercion are poor.

[Ramo]

and it is VOLUNTARY if dopes don't want to pay taxes, they can leave... it's as simple as that...

Income taxes aren't voluntary. Not to say that they're necessarily wrong, but saying that they are voluntary is silly. Using reasoning like that is like saying, "Concentration camps are voluntary. If you don't want to go to a concentration camp, leave Germany."

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Azazel

The rule is that all people should be treated equally.

what do you mean by "treated"? there are many things that are utilitarian, but aren't completely egalitarian. Like different paychecks for different professions, different goods for different amounts of money paid, etc.

I mean society should treat every citizen equally. That is never discriminate. What can I say? Only equal is truly equal. :

Originally posted by Azazel

I think you can make all of them happy.

So do I. I don't think that they must be COMPLETELY EQUALLY HAPPY, though. The important thing is that as much people would be as happy as possible. equality is only in the importance of the happiness of different individuals.

I don't agree. You have to take each persons happiness into consideration. In my opinion it is unethical to force people to give up a kidney because there is no just compensation to that individual. Therefore the person who the kidney was taken from was treated unfairly - an injustice has occured, and I don't care if the recipient is happier than the victim is sad. Injustice is not ethical.