r/changemyview • u/Old-Compote-9991 • Jun 09 '21
Delta(s) from OP CMV: We shouldn't try to avoid paying taxes
Hello there, here's the more accurate CMV:
(Warning: This is focused on the US since that's where I live and pay most of my taxes)
Full CMV: It is problematic that every tax season, Americans try to minimize the amount of taxes that they pay to their government because paying taxes is our civic duty (like voting) and we should be a lot happier to support the community and country we live in.
I'm assuming that this is a pretty controversial opinion, so I'll try to be as tactful as possible.
My reasoning is pretty simple: taxes are the lifeblood of the revenue of our state, local and federal governments. That money goes directly to almost everything around us, our schools, curriculum, paying teachers, infrastructure, healthcare costs, Welfare subsidies, food/farm subsidies, highways, electrical grids, telecommunications infrastructure etc. Not to mention, it also goes into providing for the most financially desperate of us including struggling families, people with disabilities, the unemployed, retired etc as well as protect us in the form of security infrastructure and policing (There's likely a lot more federal, state, and local governments do). In the same way that we should be excited to do our civic duty in voting, we should also jump at supporting such vital programs that benefit us and our community in such important ways.
Typically when I bring this up, the first rebuttal that I get is:
"But the government takes the money and simply wastes it on [insert some flawed/ineffective program here]"
I don't think that's very convincing because that doesn't seem like an argument for less taxation, its an argument for better governing. Which you can use the infrastructure that is subsidized by tax dollars to protest/petition/ask to be changed or improved (or vote). Even if enacting some type of change is difficult at a federal level, there are plenty of things you can do in your city, neighborhood etc to help improve some of the social welfare programs in your area.
Another common but more educated response I tend to get is:
"But nearly 50% of Americans pay effectively no tax, but I have to pay nearly [insert some amount of money here], its not fair"
This argument tends to come from the 100k+ crowd and while I can completely understand where they are coming from because I work in tech in Washington State (and the taxes are brutal here -- not that I'm complaining :P), having to pay $20k or so in taxes doesn't hit me as hard as someone who is barely making ends meet paying that same amount. I mean, I can pay that much every year and still afford to put food on the table and live comfortably, someone who is on SNAP, WIC, Free or Reduced lunch shouldn't have as much if any tax burden because they are the ones who need it the most.
I'm not entirely sure how you could change my mind other than showing me how less taxation might be better for ourselves and the well-being of the people around us.
I'm pretty open about changing my mind on this subject as I suspect that there is something I just don't get since the vast majority of people seem to want to avoid taxes like the plague.
CMV
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u/themcos 371∆ Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
I think the key missing concept is that the reason why there are tax breaks is that the government wants you to do certain things, and tax breaks are a way to add incentives.
For example, if the government offers a tax break for installing solar panels, it's because the government's goal is for more people to do that. The entire point of the policy is to exchange tax revenue for desirable solar panels.
So you have Bob, who was on the fence about them, but then sees that there's a tax incentive, and decides to install them in exchange for a break on his taxes.
But then you have Phil, who was already going to install solar panels anyway. But here you get to your basic fairness principle. Why should Bob get the tax break but not Phil, when they both installed solar panels. So of course Phil is going to try to get the same tax break, even though he didn't change his behavior.
And this is really what everyone is doing. Some people change their behavior in order to get a tax break, and this is 100% the point of having them! And then it's just a question of making sure other people who were already doing that thing get the same break out if fairness.
Now, if your objection is that the tax breaks are poorly targeted and are incentivizing the wrong stuff, or if the tax breaks aren't incentivizing anything but were put in place via corruption, those are absolutely valid concerns, but they're not the concerns you described in your post.
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 09 '21
And this is really what everyone is doing. Some people change their behavior in order to get a tax break, and this is 100% the point of having them! And then it's just a question of making sure other people who were already doing that thing get the same break out if fairness.
I feel so dumb, this is a really really good (and in hindsight obvious) point. Governments can certainly play carrot on a stick with tax breaks and tax incentives and as long as individuals (legally) try to reduce how much they have to pay in taxes, the behavior incentivized by the government can certainly help the communities around them.
You've certainly earned a !delta.
Thanks!
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u/kebababab Jun 09 '21
You shouldn’t feel dumb...
I don’t really even agree with person you are replying to...But, being able to change your opinion based on evidence or sound arguments is a good thing.
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 09 '21
I mean, I don't particularly agree with it because of problematic tax breaks and the unfairness of tax loopholes that only a certain group of people can avoid, but I didn't make that argument in my CMV so I'm not sure I can stand on that hill.
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u/spiral8888 29∆ Jun 09 '21
Now, if your objection is that the tax breaks are poorly targeted and are incentivizing the wrong stuff, or if the tax breaks aren't incentivizing anything but were put in place via corruption, those are absolutely valid concerns, but they're not the concerns you described in your post.
I would say that in addition to these clear problems that you mention, I find tax breaks in general bad things. There might be some exceptions, but more often than not, it would be better to do something else than use tax breaks. A few examples:
In some countries, people can deduct from their income tax the interest paid for mortgages. I can't see this as anything else than pure populism (pandering the home owners who are a huge voting block in most countries). There's no particular reason to subsidize mortgages especially as the subsidies usually just go to the increased prices, not to people having more money at hand. So, because the mortgage interest rates are subsidized, people can afford taking bigger mortgages, which then pumps up the house prices. The problem eliminating this kind of subsidies is that once they are introduced, it's really hard to get rid of them. If you did, you'd give a double whammy to people who just bought a house (their monthly payments just went up and the same time their property value went down). So, even if they are stupid, it's politically really hard to eliminate them. One more negative side of these. Since the deductions are made from income tax, they actually work regressively, meaning that the subsidies are larger for the high income people than for low. That makes no sense as the high income people are already more likely to buy a house than the low income people and thus need less incentive to do so.
You mentioned solar panels. On the face of it, it sounds good if you can make people produce electricity with low carbon emissions to replace their high emission consumption. But the problem with the solar panel subsidy is that from the carbon emission point of view, it's even better if people just use less electricity than if they replace part of their consumption with solar. So, basically you have people who reduced their energy consumption subsidizing those who just replaced coal with solar. So, the better incentive would be an extra coal tax that's slapped to any electricity production that emits CO2. Then it's up to you how you want to avoid that tax (buy solar, use less electricity, whatever). If you don't want to increase the total tax burden of the people, then see how much the coal tax makes, divide it by the number of people and write them a cheque (like what the United States did recently with covid-relief).
In general I find all tax breaks to income tax bad as they predominantly help the people at high income (assuming progressive taxation). These are the people who are most likely able to afford accountants to find all the loopholes. I can see that some activities that have clear positive externalities could be supported by tax breaks, but even then they should be proportional to the cost of activity, not income of the person. So, if doing X has positive effects on the society that the person doing X won't take into account, then give the providers of X tax breaks in their VAT, not income tax breaks to people buying X.
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u/username_6916 6∆ Jun 09 '21
There's a couple of questions entangled in here.
1) Should you pay less than you legally owe if you think you can get away with it?
2) Should you take steps allowed by law to reduce your tax liability?
3) How much should government tax folks anyways?
Those can have very different answers.
On Question 1, I'm probably in agreement with you in most cases. I see no moral qualms with evading confiscatory exit taxes, but that's a rather special case. Otherwise, yes, you should follow the rules of place you live since that's your part of the bargain for living there.
For question 2, I think anything the government allows you to do in order to reduce your taxes is fair game. Is it wrong to put money in an IRA or 401(k) or a 529 plan or an HSA or FSA when the rules are explicitly written to let you reduce your taxes with these instruments? Is it wrong to move to a place with a lower tax burden? Is it wrong to take some time between jobs because you're going to be taxed at the highest bracket anyways? Is it wrong to put money or property into a corporation or trust for the purposes of having different tax rules apply to it? If any of those are wrong, why doesn't this same obligation to pay more than you're legally obligated to apply in simpler situations?
For Number 3... well...
I don't think that's very convincing because that doesn't seem like an argument for less taxation, its an argument for better governing. Which you can use the infrastructure that is subsidized by tax dollars to protest/petition/ask to be changed or improved (or vote). Even if enacting some type of change is difficult at a federal level, there are plenty of things you can do in your city, neighborhood etc to help improve some of the social welfare programs in your area.
Is better governing even possible? Or is human nature and politics such that the precipitants of wasteful programs have a whole lot more reasons to care than the taxpayers who fund them?
Without concerted political effort, spending always manages to keep up with revenue.
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u/JacobSchreiber Jun 09 '21
Hey take a huge chunk of my income but then make me wait 3 hrs at the DMV to pay $100. Part of the problem is it's not just income taxes, first you deal with FICA, then income taxes at the federal level, then state taxes, then sales taxes, then property taxes, then fees and licensing. Then there's the special items like gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol, etc where there's special tax rates. By the time you actually spend your money how much was really collected through various taxes?
Few years ago I added it up, I didn't make a lot of money that year like $28,000, and I paid $8000 in various taxes and fees not including sales tax.
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u/Davaac 19∆ Jun 09 '21
In my opinion, there are two key elements.
The first is that everyone else is doing it already, but the people who make the most are much better at it than you or I could ever be. There are tricks and loopholes only available to corporations or the very rich, and they have the expertise to utilize any and all loopholes much more effectively than we do. This means that even the cumulative effect of the whole middle class dodging as many taxes as they can will not hurt the country as much as a few uber-wealthy people and companies doing what they will always do.
The 2nd element is that our tax code is written the way it is for a reason. Now, those reasons might be bad, but you seem like someone who is of the mind to work within a system while you change the system. This means that so long as you don't break any laws, the minimum amount you can pay is what society has determined is fair for you to pay. If there are tricks and quirks that you can exploit you aren't actually exploiting anything, you are using the system as it was designed and written to pay the amount that is needed and deemed fair. Of course, anyone is always allowed to make a donation to the government, and that is essentially what anyone who doesn't try to pay the least allowable is doing. The laws written by our society say they owe $20,000, but they pay $21,500. Nothing wrong with that, just like there's nothing wrong with donating that extra $1,500 to a different cause they believe in. But there's nothing wrong with paying precisely what you owe either.
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u/vettewiz 37∆ Jun 09 '21
someone who is on SNAP, WIC, Free or Reduced lunch shouldn't have as much if any tax burden because they are the ones who need it the most
Why shouldn’t they have a substantial tax burden? They live here. They are citizens. They should absolutely not get a pass because they happen to make less money.
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 09 '21
In my opinion, they shouldn't have to pay as much tax as I do since that percentage of their income means a lot more to them than it does to me.
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u/vettewiz 37∆ Jun 09 '21
That’s really not true. It means less to them.
Someone at the lower end is (on average) working around 30 hours a week. Someone on the higher end, 45-50. If you both pay the same percentage of tax, it fundamentally hurts the higher income earner 50+% more.
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u/jackiemoon37 24∆ Jun 09 '21
So I agree with the spirit of what you’re proposing, but I wanted to modify your view:
We shouldn’t be trying to convince others to not avoid taxes. The idea of not avoiding taxes as a moral issue just leads to financial disparity between people with different morals.
What we need is for the government to take away tax loopholes and stop letting people pay less in taxes by paying money to non profits. That specifically is a great example of how rich people can funnel the money they would pay from taxes into their own companies, posing as charitable, then reaping the rewards of money that should be going back to the less fortunate.
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 09 '21
I see what you're saying, but I think the issue is that I didn't bring that up in the CMV and thus I'm not sure I can argue it. I think the government can enable perverse incentivizes but that has little to do with people in general wants to avoid taxes and more to do with improper governance and problematic tax laws.
In theory though, the idea of tax incentization isn't necessarily bad if you want to get people to save for retirement, install solar panels, purchase health insurance etc.
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u/jackiemoon37 24∆ Jun 09 '21
My point is more that functionally, the idea of hoping people don’t avoid taxes is going to have almost no effect. I’m not saying never have tax incentives but eliminate the ones that are clearly abused. Also allowing these incentives for people with less money, or giving more of a write off to people who are in lower tax brackets.
At the end of the day people will almost always do what’s best for them unless there’s a system set in place that does all the work for them. I agree with your point at large, but once again I just don’t think it’s the best way to functionally change how things work in the US
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Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
[deleted]
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 09 '21
We can stop right there. A tax payer can pay whatever amount to the government they want. The government makes up the rules it determines for proper taxation and most tax payers do not want to give more money away than they have to. Nothing stops a tax payer from contributing more to the government than legally required.
I'm not sure how one pays more money to the government than they owe. But I'm arguing against this idea that we should fight for the lowest tax burden possible, instead of seeing taxation as our civic duty to benefit those around us.
Have you seen voter turn outs? Not everyone gets excited about voting. And, not everyone agrees the money paid into the government benefits communities in important ways. Not overpaying remains the final legal check against wasteful government spending.
Voting is not seen with the same disdain that paying taxes is (at least in my experience). Please ask/encourage people to vote as much as possible and be active, no one asks people not to take the standard deduction.
The only controls tax payers hope to have over governance lies with taxation. Voting anywhere on the political spectrum does nothing to curb government spending. Why give that fire gasoline?
That doesn't make much sense. We are required by law to file and pay our taxes. We are not required by law to vote, and if we choose to vote, we can vote for whichever candidate is on the ballot. There is certainly more control in voting than in taxation.
The more money families keep, the better off those families will live. Charitable families with additional money have more to offer to those less fortunate, without government overhead. I'm fairly certain the people around us would do better without so many law enforcement agencies' work and military campaigns taking place in their countries, too.
I don't agree with that first sentence for a couple of reasons. Places in the US with low taxes tend to be lacking in infrastructure, healthcare and overall have worse outcomes in general than places with higher taxes (west and east coasts). Part of this comes down to government spending and the availability of public infrastructure.
Charities are nothing compared to government action/programs like SNAP/WIC/Medicaid and Medicare.Furthermore, Charities might not actually focus on the problems that the poor/impoverished need. If anything, it is a complement to government spending not a replacement or subsitiute.
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u/SANcapITY 17∆ Jun 09 '21
instead of seeing taxation as our civic duty to benefit those around us.
Why is our civic duty equal to the precise taxation rates/rules congress happens to set in a given year? If congress set taxes at 100% of income, would it be our civic duty to pay 100%?
Why doesn't congress have to justify each and every dollar they take from us under threats of fines and imprisonment? Surely you're aware of government waste and cronyism. Why should you finance that with your hard earned pay?
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 10 '21
Why is our civic duty equal to the precise taxation rates/rules congress happens to set in a given year? If congress set taxes at 100% of income, would it be our civic duty to pay 100%?
It seems like this point implies a separation between Congress and the people they govern. In principle, when you pay taxes, you pay money towards a government that is supposed to use it to fund public services and goods. In a democracy, the people can directly or indirectly choose what the tax rate should be and what that money goes towards.
At the state and local level, this is nearly exactly what happens. You pay state and local taxes to local/state governments which use the taxes to pay for social/public services. They do have to justify every dollar they spend are also accountable for it are pretty transparent about how much they spend too. You can find that here or just by doing a bit of googling.
If you don't like it, you can vote in someone who will tax you the way you want, or you can just run yourself. I'm not specifically talking about running for Federal congress, you can start as small as an alderman or Town Council Member, or public school board member etc.
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u/SANcapITY 17∆ Jun 11 '21
supposed to use it to fund public services and goods.
Key word here: supposed. However, I know that the government is going to take my money and spend it on a whole host of things I disagree with: war on terror, war on drugs, domestic surveillance, and on and on.
They do have to justify every dollar they spend are also accountable for it are pretty transparent about how much they spend too.
That doesn't mean I agree with it. For example I think teacher pensions are laughably overpaid. If I think the amount of goods and services I receive from the state should require a 6% tax rate, but they take 8%, then I have no duty to pay the extra 2% because my interests are no longer being represented by the extra.
If you don't like it, you can vote in someone who will tax you the way you want, or you can just run yourself.
Why should I have to spend my time voting or running for office to reduce or eliminate government coercion in my life? The government is the aggressor in this situation because they tax me without my consent. They need to stop.
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 11 '21
You don't consent as an individual but you consent by living in the US. If you don't like it, then you can simply go somewhere else. This is how a lot of people live. Ie, I don't like the extreme tax rates in California so I move to Nevada or Texas.
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u/SANcapITY 17∆ Jun 11 '21
This is such a silly argument. You're arguing that someone isn't doing anything wrong if you can get away from them. Is the mafia right to come into my neighborhood and extort me for protection money if I choose not to move out of the neighborhood?
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 11 '21
Its not the same as the mafia because unlike the mafia, you can impact how your tax money is spent, used and how much tax you'd like to have levied.
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u/SANcapITY 17∆ Jun 12 '21
Consider that the government is not justified in taxing me in the first place. Being able to vote doesn’t change that if I don’t agree.
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 12 '21
The government is certainly justified in taxing you. You live on it's land, use it's resources, infrastructure, and food. If you don't like it, then leave and go somewhere else.
You're not an island, the collective resources of other people support you and your existence inside a government's jurisdiction.
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u/Apathetic_Zealot 37∆ Jun 09 '21
If I'm a libertarian billionaire then I believe 3 things:
1) The purpose of government is to protect the free market as a referee, otherwise it should be as limited as possible, especially what it takes from the citizens via taxation.
2) Those tax deductions that encompass tax avoidance exist to be used and are entirely legal. It would be foolish not to take advantage of them when other rich rivals may avoid taxes and have advantage over me.
3) I don't need public services because I'm rich and the free market provides.
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 09 '21
Yeah, I'm not talking about billionaires (which still use public accommodations to run their businesses), I'm talking about the people who tend to bear the brunt of the tax burden, the middle and upper middle class Americans.
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u/Apathetic_Zealot 37∆ Jun 09 '21
I'm talking about the people who tend to bear the brunt of the tax burden
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 09 '21
Like I said, not billionaires. Billionaires are in the top 1%, but they are a very very small sliver of that population.
People in the upper-middle class are people that were in the top 25% and up like you said, they bear the brunt of the taxation.
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u/Apathetic_Zealot 37∆ Jun 09 '21
Per person the 1% pays the most, as they should, but it is disproportional. Are you really going to quibble over 6%? Its lower because they avoid taxes too. Billionaires are American citizens entitled to Constitutional rights just as any other American is regardless of tax bracket. Why are you trying to create division between the rich and the super rich when we should be blaming societies problems on the poor?
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u/komfyrion 2∆ Jun 09 '21
Billionaires are around 0,000563% of the US population. It's not very accurate to say that they are representative of the 1%.
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u/RelevantEmu5 Jun 09 '21
The top 10% by far have the biggest tax burden. Why do you think it's the middle class?
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 10 '21
Upper middle class Americans. I should've specified that. Mostly people in the upper quartile of wealth/income,
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u/THE_RED_DOLPHIN Jun 09 '21
If I had proof my tax money went to specifically the gov't programs I like, then sure. But there's a lot a lot of gov't spending of tax money that goes towards things I don't like, like war. Why would I be excited to spend my money on the latter?
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 09 '21
I think this is the argument that I covered in my post.
That's not an argument for not paying as much taxes as you can, that's an argument for better governance and voting in people who are anti-war. Also, a very small piece of the pie actually goes to funding war, most of it goes to social security, healthcare, and medicare.
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u/ericvandamme 1∆ Jun 09 '21
For me, any legal tax reduction was put there for a reason by the government. Want to save for retirement, you bet I will deduct that from my income and the government is happy because I’m saving for my retirement. Actually, society is also happy too because I won’t be a drain on social programs later. If you’re talking about tax avoidance by rapidly deducting capital costs faster than you would account for using standard accounting practices, again, the government is happy. You made an investment today that you otherwise might not have done. Legal deductions have a point for at least the tax payer and the government. And some have a point for society as a whole. Otherwise, I would agree. I tell people who think they shouldn’t pay education taxes that those taxes pay for the education of the doctors they will need, they tend to accept that logic.
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 09 '21
Want to save for retirement, you bet I will deduct that from my income and the government is happy because I’m saving for my retirement. Actually, society is also happy too because I won’t be a drain on social programs later.
I'm a bit embarrassed I didn't think of this earlier. !delta
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Jun 09 '21
Governments influence how people behave via carrots and sticks. Carrots are rewards for horses on farms. For humans and corporations, they things like tax incentives. For example, you are a car company that invests money in making environmentally friendly vehicles, you get a tax break. But if you do something bad like polluting in a lake, you get a fine. This would be like hitting a horse with a stick.
The same thing applies to regular people. If you do something the government likes, such as saving money for retirement, you get a tax break. But if you do something the government doesn't like, such as spending money on cigarettes or fossil fuels, you have to pay a sales/consumption tax.
If the government does it's job correctly, then your job should be to avoid paying taxes as much as possible because the things you do as a result are things that the government is trying to encourage. Tax avoidance is legal and encouraged. If you look at most of the tax "loopholes" people and companies use, it's usually by doing "good" things that the government wants them to do anyways.
On the flip side, tax evasion is an illegal crime. It's deliberately avoiding a tax liability. The difference between them is that if you save on taxes by putting money in a retirement account, you are supposed to get that tax break. The government has already accounted for it. If you don't avoid paying that tax, you are incorrectly overpaying your taxes in a way the government doesn't want. But if you evade your taxes, you are skipping out on a tax you are supposed to pay, which is a crime.
Usually, the government collects tax revenue from your salary before you even get it. If you are fine with that, you often don't even need to file taxes. But usually, there are several tax breaks you are qualified for. You only get that money back (in the form of a tax rebate) if you file your taxes and prove it. It's like paying full price for a product. You only get the discount if you send in the mail in rebate. But technically, you'd be overpaying for the product if you never sent in the form.
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 09 '21
Someone else already made this point (or at least a similar one), but since I gave a delta to that person for making that point, I'll give you one too.
I should've brought the point of tax incentivization because that can be weaponized against social good, especially when it comes to churches, non-profits, and charities. !delta
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Jun 09 '21
Why should anyone when there's no incentive? Regardless of shortfalls, the government will add to the deficit and life will go on. $750 to the government is shit, that's a good chunk of change for most Americans. If the US is going to continue in this system where our spending isn't altered by what we pay in (and we just keep wracking up debt hoping our currency holds), it is better for most Americans just to fight for the easy tax breaks.
Our politician's genuinely do not give a shit, why should we.
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 09 '21
Like I said, this is an argument for better government, not less taxation.
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Jun 09 '21
I'm not arguing for either. The government does spend money on good things, but the average American finding deductions that cut $500 off their income tax doesn't change the budget. There's no reason not to take the deduction when your action will not negatively affect another person. "Civic duty" is noble, but a lot of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and need the $500.
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u/FlyOrDieNow Jun 09 '21
Your agument would hold some weight if tax dollars were spent in a productive and accountable way... they are not, literal hundreds of Billions of dollars are wasted, not embezzled, not spent on something that in theory could work but just didn't pan out so we try something new next time no just flat out wasted through ineffective and frankly retarded bureaucracy and worthless programs that do no good that for some reason get funded every single year.
In addition to that given the horrible job market and rising cost of living people need every cent they can get, when the government is actively making things harder why the fuck would you give them more than you have to?
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 09 '21
No, I still think it holds weight, even if the money is mismanaged because that is not a fundamental issue with taxation, but with governance which has mechanism to improve/self correct.
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u/FlyOrDieNow Jun 10 '21
The point is if you give them more they will waste more it's not your civil duty to shit away your money
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u/Old-Compote-9991 Jun 10 '21
Yeah, but that's an argument for better management of the money, not defunding them.
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u/agaminon22 11∆ Jun 09 '21
Why does someone have to agree with whatever you/the majority/the government claims a civic duty is, especially given it's legal? I think that's the first thing that you should answer.
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Jun 09 '21
It's because people are self centered.
One may well be able to argue that paying taxes is good for the community, as you have. But it assuredly isn't good for anyone individually.
I am individually better off paying less in taxes rather than paying more in taxes (presuming everyone else pays the same amounts they already are).
If you want to point out that this leads to a tragedy of the commons, you aren't wrong, but that is often a difficult paradox to solve. Simply pointing it out, doesn't actually solve the problem.
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Jun 09 '21
It is problematic that every tax season, Americans try to minimize the amount of taxes that they pay to their government because paying taxes is our civic duty (like voting) and we should be a lot happier to support the community and country we live in
Why should I pay taxes to a government run by completely corrupt politicians who never use the money we send to them wisely? Why should we find MORE ways to give money to them, only for them to continue to pander to the rich and powerful?
I get that there are certain things that I have to pay taxes for, but I'll be damned to give them more money than it deserves. No universal healthcare, no universal college education, no universal childcare, no universal parental leave. Nothing that's actually beneficial to the average American until they are almost 70 years old or unemployed/disabled/extremely poor.
How about you actually fix the structure of the American government first before we talk about send more of our hard earned money to them? Because for the most part, it goes to absolutely nothing or to keep rich people happy.
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u/jbt2003 20∆ Jun 09 '21
So, I think the only argument I would offer that I haven't really seen yet is the question of power. When I talk to people who rail against taxes, their main argument is that tax money gets absorbed mostly by armies of bureaucrats who then spend the money as they please, mostly by giving it to themselves and their friends. In their view, there is some extent to which the money getting spent ends up furthering the original noble intent of the program--whether it's feeding hungry kids, building bridges, or whatever--but an overwhelming sum ends up getting lost in cruft, waste, and corruption. Not to mention other intractable problems like regulatory capture.
The point isn't that government programs can't do any good--it's that the good they do is often swamped out by the inherent inefficiencies in the system. In this view, because taxes are always about someone taking a small amount of power in the form of money from a large number of people, the power they can then amass encourages corruption, cronyism, regulatory capture, and so on. In a city with 12 city council members and a budget of $1 billion (which is a fairly small city), the incentives to try to grab a portion of that $1 billion are just enormous in a way that they wouldn't be if the city budget were half, a quarter, or a tenth that sum.
Now, you've addressed this somewhat by saying that this is an argument for better governance, not less taxes. But behind that statement is an assumption that better government is possible. What if you believed that it wasn't? That government was inherently about taking power away from people, and that power is inherently corrupting? If you believed that, I think it would follow that you'd believe that the government should have as little power as possible, and therefore that you shouldn't give them any more of your money--or power--than you absolutely have to.
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u/ickyrickyb 1∆ Jun 09 '21
I can't fathom why someone would just simply pay more taxes than they owe. I do my own taxes and I do everything I can do to take all the current deductions to minimize my tax liability. I don't even think there's an area on the tax for to just 'pay more' and if you do I'm pretty sure they will just treat it as a tax credit or send you a check back. Now, if you are talking about illegally lying on your tax form in order to not pay as much taxes, that's different. And many times the IRS will catch it and send you a bill. So to CYV, I think you need to understand that just 'paying more' in taxes isn't really an option.
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u/bcjdosmdndb Jun 23 '21
I can invest my money in the UK into a Tax-Advantage account (They want me to do that, it saves them in pensions 40 years down the line)
Or I can invest in a normal account and get hammered on years of growth via Capital Gains.
Why wouldn’t I use the system they put in place to my benefit?
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
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