Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 8/7/84; site ucbvax.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!fagin From: fagin@ucbvax.ARPA (Barry Steven Fagin) Newsgroups: net.politics,net.politics.theory Subject: Why taxation *is* coercive Message-ID: <4759@ucbvax.ARPA> Date: Tue, 12-Feb-85 15:13:03 EST Article-I.D.: ucbvax.4759 Posted: Tue Feb 12 15:13:03 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 13-Feb-85 04:37:27 EST Reply-To: fagin@ucbvax.UUCP (Barry Steven Fagin) Organization: University of California at Berkeley Lines: 40 Keywords: taxation, coercion Xref: watmath net.politics:7559 net.politics.theory:96 Summary: Numerous people have claimed that taxation is not coercive because those taxed (at least in the US) have the freedom to emigrate. In reply to this, I first note that the punishment for tax evasion is not deportation, but imprisonment. But let's ignore that for now, and instead suppose that government does indeed give each of its citizens a choice: pay taxes, or leave. By what right can a government force a person from her home if taxes are not paid? Does the government own the land upon which she lives? Does the government own her house? Does the government have a right to say whether or not this person can stay in a house that she owns, paid for with her salary, that she earned from selling her labor, eitc? Or is something more fundamental, more important at work here? It seems to me that if the state does not own the property in question, then it has no right to force a person to leave it, regardless of whether or not taxes are paid. In trying to understand why people think it legitimate for governments to offer this choice to their citizens, I can only conclude that people who find taxation noncoercive believe that people live in their homes *at the pleasure* of their elected governments, and therefore it's OK for those same governments to kick them out if taxes aren't paid. If there are other reasons why people think taxation isn't coercive, I'd like to hear them. If governments attempted to withdraw their services from those who didn't pay taxes, then taxation would be noncoercive. If governments presented delinquent taxpayers with a bill for services rendered and attempted to collect, then taxation would be noncoercive. But since the only choice people who refuse to pay taxes have is to leave the country or face imprisonment, a choice it could not possibly present people with if it did not have a monopoly on the initiaition of force, taxation is coercive. Whether or not this coercion is "necessary" is, of course, another matter, but it is still coercion and should be called such. --Barry -- Barry Fagin @ University of California, Berkeley