But do you know what Fret is? Have you heard about Deeksha?
Fret stands short for fluorescence energy transfer. It’s an application of nanotechnology developed by the scientists at Stanford University and the Carnegie Institution a few years ago. It transfers the levels of crucial chemicals in living brain cells involved in everything from learning to memory to mood and perception to nanosensors. See here.

Deeksha is a transfer of spiritual energy to the brain. Sounds a bit non-scientific, but there may exist some supporting evidence. Judge for yourself. Check pdf here.

Publicani is based on the assumption that it is possible to transfer intellect from one person to another. This thriller looks into social problems that such transfer would create. How far-stretched this assumption is? With explosion of Fret research we may not be too far away scientifically.

But socially, we are already there. The government creates special programs and allocates resources to people who in the government’s opinion need it the most. Programs like “No child left behind” and affirmative actions help certain group of people to get better education. The programs are based on transfer of money from one group of people to another to make the recipients smarter. The donors, “the rich,” could have used their money themselves to improve their intellect. What if they pay the money to the best scientists to get private lessons in whatever they want? Unfair?

Obama famously said: “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” What if he spreads your intellect around?

Maymin: Good morning Tony. Thank you.

Savino: And Zak, tell us first of all about the title of the book, “Publicani,” what does that refer to?

Maymin: “Publicani,” those are tax farmers, tax collectors during biblical times. It’s like IRS agents who were during the time of Jesus Christ, collecting taxes.

Savino: I see. Okay. And the book is about government intrusion. It’s about the government that has a way of taking the thoughts or the intelligence from one person, transferring it to another. Tell us about that, a little bit about the plot of the book if you could. Without giving away, too much because you want people to read it.

Maymin: That’s about it! <Laughter> What you just mentioned.

Savino: But is it your scenario that this could happen in real life or is it a metaphor for something else?

Maymin: It is both. Actually, mainly it is a metaphor, a metaphor for something that people get used to, and don’t even pay attention, don’t even think twice about it, which I find very disturbing, and may be the main problem that we have right now in America. Namely, it’s the income tax. So, it is a metaphor for this.

But also it is entirely possible that in the future it will be happening. Because there is technology already developing that analyzes certain spots in our brain, where smart people would have certain activities, and there are new studies coming everyday and…I can see it is possible.

Savino: Uh-huh, and the question that’s asked throughout is that… well, first of all, two…two things perhaps. One is that it has public support; the other is that, well, if it’s for the good of society, then what’s wrong with it.

Maymin: Okay, the end justifies the means — that’s a problem and it’s a huge… you know, I don’t want to even…I came from Russia in 1980, and I know that, sometimes I feel even that I came from the future to United States. I have the experience that not many Americans had, namely, I know that it’s possible that the entire country is wrong.

People that you know, people that are smart, that you like, and they could be very much wrong. Like, it happened in Germany during Hitler’s time, it happened in Russia, during Communist Russia, when I was there.

And Americans, it’s hard to understand this, to have this experience and I already had it. And also, the fact that the income tax is becoming…it’s especially an important threat right now, because we’re becoming strong and stronger everyday. I can see that in 10, 15 years, one person may have means to destroy an entire nation, maybe, with you know, nukes, H-bombs, and stuff like that.

So we have to learn not to initiate force. And whatever we think is good, we shouldn’t force people to do this.

Savino: Your son, of course, is Phil Maymin, who ran for Congress a couple of years ago, and is on the Libertarian Party -

Maymin: Yes.

Savino: And yet, you say you’re not a member of the Party, but you believe in a lot of the tenets.

Maymin: Right, I’m not a member of the Party. But I believe, I do not necessarily agree with all the policies of the Libertarian Party, but I certainly believe in libertarian principles, and those were the principles of our founding fathers.

Savino: And one of the questions I had is I’ve heard some people that are libertarians say that especially, now with threats of terrorism, things like that, that we’re going to be giving up our rights for the good of society. Do you see things in those terms also?

Maymin: Yes. We are already giving up our rights. You know that America is about 5% of the world population and there are about 25% of all prisoners are sitting in prison in America. We are losing our rights everyday, we were losing our rights under the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration. And it is terrible.

It’s again… the government was created to protect our rights, not to give up our rights to protect us from something else.

Savino: Uh-huh. Now as far as the book is concerned, this is the first book you’ve written?

Maymin: Yes, yes.

Savino: Okay. And, what made you want to write the book?

Maymin: Well, I see that we are losing this fight against income tax by using reason only. People just ignore it. You give all kind of logical reasons; I think it’s possible even to mathematically prove that you cannot be free if you have income tax.

It’s like telling a slave, “Ah, you are free to vote. You have all other freedoms. It’s just you can’t keep fruits of your labor.” So you’re a slave by definition if you have income tax, and we are losing this logic. So I thought maybe, I can put it in the moral stance, and maybe in an entertaining way, I’ll force people to think, “Is it moral or not to come to somebody, take something that belongs to him, and give it to others because it’s for the good?”

Savino: Uh-huh. You had many biblical references, other cultural references; did you do a lot of research on those?

Maymin: Yes, yes I did. I found out by the way, not many people know what happened to Jesus Christ. It looks like according, you know many people think that he was born, and then suddenly about 30 years later, he showed up when he was 30 years old, and started making all these miracles. And there is an interesting period during which he was trained, and prepared for this mission, and I write about it in the book.

Savino: And one thing that I remember you wrote is, it could be controversial among other things, would be in the Garden of Eden. You’re calling basically, you were calling, Eve, Eve disobeyed God, but you’re saying, God is like the government.

Maymin: Yes. Exactly. Yes and there is meaning, the book has certain references to the Bible, and the Torah which is for Jewish religion. And I think the entire Bible is a story of people fighting for freedom. If you look at it, if you analyze it, that’s what actually, the message the bible sends us is, you have to fight for individuals’ freedom, for freedom of individuals.

Savino: And are you planning on writing any more books?

Maymin: I’ll have to see how well this book is accepted, and you know, it’s a very time consuming, it takes a lot of time, and resources from you, and you really have to like it. I like it, but you have to be sure that it produces some results.

Savino: Right, because there was about 200 pages, but how long did it take you to write it?

Maymin: Several years.

Savino: Is that right?

Maymin: Yes.

Savino: All right, Zak. Thanks very much for joining us this morning. And the book is available if people want to get it?

Maymin: Yeah, on Amazon, “Publicani,” and also you can read it free online on publicani.com.

Savino: All right great. Zak Maymin, of Greenwich, our guest this morning. The name of the book is “Publicani.” Thanks very much for joining us Zak.

Maymin: Thank you Tony.

Savino: WGCH News Center time is 8:28. Traffic and weather together coming up next.

]]> http://www.publicani.com/what-if-the-government-could-transfer-the-intelligence/feed/ 0 http://www.publicani.com/i-hate-income-tax/ http://www.publicani.com/i-hate-income-tax/#comments Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:15:46 +0000 Zak Maymin http://www.publicani.com/slaying-the-dragon-seven-reasons-to-remove-the-greatest-evil-facing-americans-%e2%80%93-the-income-tax/  Iraq… world’s highest percentage of people in prison… warrantless phone and email searches… Fed printing money as if there’s no tomorrow… state prevention of medical use of marijuana and other drugs… suspension of  habeas corpus… searching your shoes at the airports… government’s new authority for taking private property from one citizen to selling it to another for profit because of the “public benefit” in higher tax revenue…

…these are examples of the modern state of the USA. 

Those are just some examples: not necessarily the best examples, just indicators pointing to a rotten state.

Before we discuss what is the root of these problems, who do you think the enemy is?  The lobbyists? Potential terrorists? The rich?

It feels like a seven-headed dragon is conducting a full-scale assault on our life, property, and liberty, attacking us from the left and right – both Republicans and Democrats voted for the Iraq war and the Patriot Act.  Attacking us from above and below – both the government makes laws assaulting our liberties and the people keep voting for such a government.

How do you fight a dragon? Face to face, or rather face to seven faces fighting will not work: even if you are successful and you cut one head/government program, two others will grow in its place right away. The right approach is to hit the red bird with the silver arrow to start a needed chain of events: the bird will drop a key from a lockbox with a magic sword that you use to fight a tiger guarding bottle with the dragon’s heart …

So, where is the red bird? What is the single target I should aim at?

My answer is: Income Tax.

Just hear me out. I know there is a social perception that taxing the rich is fair. Try to say in front of your friends, “I hate the income tax.” You’ll feel uncomfortable because the social pressures for taxing the rich are too high. To say “I hate the income tax” to other people is as hard as in the famous psychological experiment to ask strangers in subway to give up their seat for you.

I don’t want to argue that the income tax is illegal or unconstitutional. Such arguments have been made and even recently have been tried with partial success in the court of law. But the laws are made by the people and could be changed by the people.

Also, let’s put aside for a moment the belief that without income tax we are not able to function. The highways. The schools.

Because actually, we can. Income tax is about one trillion dollars a year. This is as much as we spent every year in Iraq. We could do without Iraq, couldn’t we? Even if we couldn’t, one trillion dollars is about as much as we spend every year on our foreign bases in Germany, Japan, and hundreds of other places. We could do without them, couldn’t we? Even if we couldn’t, one trillion dollars is about the difference between the federal budget now and the budget ten years ago when the government was of a reasonable size, well-funded.    

The income tax is immoral and is the source of all evil facing Americans. Deep inside, everybody knows what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong, and here are seven reasons why the income tax is wrong and evil:

1.      Income tax steals from others

Stealing means taking by force from others what belongs to them.

This definition opens three ways of attacking the uncomfortable truth that income tax is stealing: a) it’s not by force, b) it did not belong to others, and c) the end justifies the means.

Argument a) is the weakest. People who say that paying income tax is a volunteer action assume that they can talk on behalf of every tax payer, and they cannot. If a single tax payer does not want to pay income tax and has to anyway, it means that the income tax is collected by force.

The second argument, b), is also in my opinion not very strong. Proponents say that people owe part of their income to other people in the country for the opportunity, safety, and infrastructure. If this is true, then this price for these services should have been announced in advance and the tax payers should have been given a choice, whether to pay for such services or not, and the decision of how much they are willing to pay should have been theirs. 

The “end justifies the means,” argument c), on its face sounds reasonable. If society wants something strongly enough, then why can’t it ask all its members for small sacrifices? The right answer is: if many people in the society want that, let them pull their resources together voluntarily and achieve that goal for themselves or their beneficiaries without forcing anybody else to participate in their saving of the world. If they are not able to convince that part of the society essential for their project, then their project is not worth it and it’s not up to them to claim that the project is so important as to force others to participate.    

2.      Income tax identifies you

It’s impossible to have privacy in a society where the government is able to uniquely identify you and keep a file on you. You may not care so much that there is a unique number that identifies you.  You may even think that that’s the cost of living in society.  But again, by following these laws, you are inadvertently forcing your neighbor who may not want an identifier to have one.  In the US, it is done by the number which is erroneously called the social security number (SSN). In actuality it is the income tax number. You can not drop out of social security and ask the government to dismiss your social security number.

Soon, the Federal ID is coming. It will be based on SSN.  The draft and government healthcare will be obviously based on SSN.  Personal number gives the ultimate control. In Nazi camps, identification numbers were tattooed on the forearm of the prozoners.

3.      Income tax corrupts you

Income tax seduces people to form groups to make political cases to rob other groups. Why should people be subsidized in any activity by somebody else? Farming, buying a house, healthcare, having children? Why should somebody else be forced to assume this responsibility for the subsidies?

Also, about 50% of the wage-earners don’t pay income tax at all. This means that only a small part of the population is paying income tax. Why? Noisy majority free-riders will say: “Yes, it’s fair, because the rich can afford it.” Do you think it’s fair?

4.      Income tax slows down your path to success

The rate of income tax, considering state, federal, and local income taxes, is about 50%. It may appear to be less, but if you take into account that you pay a much greater price for your goods and services to compensate the producers for their income tax, 50% is actually a conservative estimate.

Given this rate, it means you have to work twice as long to achieve your goal. So if you started working at 20, and could have achieved financial success at 60, without income tax you could have achieved it by 40. That argument alone should be enough to convince anybody that income tax is evil.

5.      Income tax ruins your family

Because of income tax, both spouses have to work in order for your family to make as much money as if one spouse worked alone with no income tax. Then, your kids don’t have enough supervision. Then, they might not study as well, and might get into bad influences and end up on drugs.

A non-working spouse at home could be a ticket to a financial freedom to the entire family by going into a real estate, developing a small business, or writing a book.  

Because you don’t have time for house/family management (financial decisions, home improvement, medical appointments, vacation planning, dealing with mail), something that non-working spouse could have taken a lead, you are both under a greater stress.

6.      Income tax is insulting

It’s demeaning to keep receipts if you have a dinner with a business associate to claim it on your tax return in a few months. Regardless of the government’s low time estimates, filling taxes is a hard, stressful job and takes a lot of time.

7.      Income tax claims all your money

The fact that somebody else decides what part of your income you have to pay in taxes means that this somebody has 100% control of money you “earned.” So your money in fact belongs to this somebody who then decides how much of it to give you back.

Next time when people around you discuss any political topic, have the courage to say: “I hate income tax!”

Because I hate income tax, I wrote “Publicani.” You can read it for free on http://www.publicani.com/book. [Added: I took the link off. It sells on Amazon for $8.65, and it's returnable. You can check first pages there and read other readers comments. So, for the time being, I've decided that if somebody doesn't want to buy the book, he's not realy interested, and by posting the book on line I make this person even less interested in reading it. Nevertheless, I am not 100% sure in this logic and I might put the book back online in the future. ] The word “publicani” originally meant the same as an IRS agent during biblical times.

I recently started a discussion on RonPaulForums. com forum with this question: What is the best argument against income tax? Here is a shorter version of this discussion. Paraphrasing Einstein, I still don’t know the answer, but I don’t know it on a much higher level.

Publicani: I will be interviewed on TV this Tuesday about my new book, Publicani. The major topic will be the Income Tax, which I passionately hate. Help me to make an argument against it. What do you think is the most convincing reason for abolishing the income tax?

Danke: Because it is enforced against those generally not liable. Mainly due to the convoluted way the IRC is written.

[IRC stands for Internal Revenue Code.]

Truth Warrior: It’s theft AKA robbery by and under threat of force and violence for non obedience and non compliance.

Publicani: I believe it is a theft. It’s not hard to make this argument. It’s immoral. It’s invasion of privacy. But why the income tax is the greatest evil?
And why if we abolish income tax, things will be good?

torchbearer: In a monarchy, the Kind had the Divine right. And he had the Right to tax his SUBJECTS.
The subjects had no rights.

Now ask the question.
What happens if I don’t pay the income tax?
You will be imprisoned.
How does the government get that right? Well, the government must have Right over your labor.
Thus, you don’t own your labor, the King, I mean, the government owns your labor. Thus have RIGHT over it.

That is why the income tax is immoral.

Same with property taxes. Property Taxes makes you a serf of the King, i mean, government. Who has the RIGHT to take your property if you don’t pay the Kings taxes, i mean, the government property tax.

Publicani: I believe it is a theft. It’s not hard to make this argument. It’s immoral. It’s invasion of privacy. But why the income tax is the greatest evil?
And why if we abolish income tax, things will be good?

Truth Warrior: Was the USA a better place to live, in many many respects, before 1913?

Publicani: OK, in what respect?
There are also countries without income tax, such as Bahamas, Bermuda, Kuwait, Somalia. Are people there better off than here? More freedom?

Truth Warrior: What was the budget of the Federal government in 1913?
What is the budget of the Federal government in 2008?

Zolah: There is no income tax for individuals in Monaco, I’d say that is a much better example in relevance to the United State’s income tax, look into Monaco’s history for more info.
What price salvation?

Cleaner44: I would argue that the Federal Income Tax is not nessesary.

The revenues gained are not used for any of the services that most Americans feel they need from the government. Without the Federal Income Tax we would still have our roads maintained by the taxes on gasoline, we would still have 911 service from the taxes on our phone service, we would still have all of the essential services as provided by the many other taxes we pay.

The Federal Income Tax is simply not needed and robs money from our economy that Americans would otherwise spend on products and services that they find valuable.

Since most people would rather not have the Federal Income Tax and we the people govern ourselves, why do we continue to have the Federal Income Tax?

ClayTrainor: what tax funds the military? actually a better question would be…

What exactly does the income tax pay for?

my point being, having a strong military is necessary…

weslinder: I understand the philosophical arguments, but there’s also the practical ones. There is a general rule of thumb for public policy that when you tax something, you get less of it. A tax of income suppresses income. The more progressive that income tax is, the greater the effect.

Danke: According to RP, if we went back to the year 2000 budget, we wouldn’t need the revenue from the income tax.

So I guess, cut spending is the answer.

Cleaner44: I would also mention that nine states currently do not collect income tax and they are perfectly able to provide the required services.

Seven states that have no state income tax:
Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

Two states that tax only dividend and interest income:
New Hampshire and Tennessee.

ClayTrainor:The Grace Commision found in 1984 that the Federal Income Tax pays for one thing, the interest on our national debt.

We do need to have national security as provided by our military and that can be paid for without a Federal Income Tax. Certainly we were not weak and unable to defend our nation before 1913, right?

Publicani: My point is that even if the income tax is used for good purpose, whatever it is, defense or something, and is not wasteful, income tax is still evil, immoral, and should be abandoned. Would not you agree? How do I convince others?

Cleaner44: The list of good causes could be long enough to tax 100% of our income, so where do we draw the line? The government must operate within a budget just like the citizens.

In my opinion, 6% of our income should be the limit. These days we pay in the neighborhood of 30%. Even at that rate our government is still spending more than they take in and that is quite immoral. Spending too much, creating a debt, interest payments for our children that will consume their income, all quite immoral.

I don’t know that you can convince others but you can ask questions.

Do you feel you pay too much in taxes?
Do you believe our government is wasteful?
Do you believe in borrowing money to give military dictators?
Do you believe in wealth redistribution?

Publicani: Suppose we cut spending and have, as somebody suggested here, only 6% income tax. I don’t see a big difference.
It’s still a theft of my property. It’s still a violation of my rights. It’s still somebody deciding how much pain could be inflicted on me for the good of others.

BillyDkid: Do you mean legal argument or practical argument? There are all sorts of practical reasons why taxing income is very bad. I am less clear on the legal part. I have heard it said that it is unconstitutional, but I don’t know enough to say. It is horrible the way we get taxed on the same money over and over again. I would be curious to know just how much of our money actually goes to taxes. I know we have that “tax freedom” day thing, but that only takes into account income taxes. There is a boat load of other moneys we pay out of that same money to various levels of government, sales tax, registrations fees, import taxes and on and on and much of it is hidden from us so never really get a good feel for just how much of our incomes goes to the government.

JenHarris: There are a lot of reasons why Income tax is bad but for me the biggest reason is that you are penalizing the productive people of society for doing their best to earn a living and at the same time you are positively reinforcing negative behavior from all the people who get stuff for free from the taxes we pay. Why would someone go out and get a job when they can take advantage of all the programs out there and be better off? It’s just one more way that the government is stripping the people of this country of their personal responsibility.

Publicani: “Do you mean legal argument or practical argument?” Neither. A moral argument.
I think the income tax is bad. I am not sure it’s illegal. I don’t care if it’s practical or not. At least for the purpose of this discussion.
The book I wrote, Publicani, is based on the assumption that somebody can come and take a part of your intellect. Whether it’s legal, or practical, I think it’s immoral.
The same way it’s with the income tax. That’s why I fully expect the interview will discuss the income tax and I want to use the opportunity to change people’s opinion. What do you think is the best argument? Is there a single argument that would convince any reasonable person that the income tax should be abolished?
What would convince you?

hypnagogue: I agree that I see no inherent wrong, and certainly not evil, in income taxes. Obviously service related taxes are superior, ie gas tax for roads, but what then should be taxed to cover those things which all citizens utilize? Things like the military, the courts, etc.

Obviously it must be a tax which applies to everyone, and the more equally it applies the better. Honestly, I can think of nothing more indispensable and universal than income. If anyone has a superior suggestion, I’d be very eager to hear it, since I’ve actually thought on the alternatives fairly heavily.

I will say though that a sales tax seems to me to be inferior to an income tax, as it would more heavily affect the poor than the rich, since the rich have the option of saving much more of their wealth than the poor. Additionally, a sales tax would artificially encourage savings over spending, which ideally should be left to the market. An income tax by contrast is neutral to the issue of spending vs. saving, and in my opinion, less likely to alter the actions of those subject to it. It’s easier to influence someone to buy less, than it is to encourage them to make less money.

Publicani: “Learn why they came up with the income tax and to whom it applies.” My income is my property. Why should I care about their reasons to take it from me?

Cleaner44: Let me make myself clear, I am 100% against any Federal Income Tax. The number I used of 6% was meant to illistrate the point that I believe our government does need money to operate, but much less than what they currently take from us. I think that an income tax is the worst possible way to collect the needed revenues.

Collecting taxes to send to Saddam Hussien, Osama bin Laden, Israel, Pakistan, Peru, South Korea, or any other bullshit, I am completely against. I am also against redistribution of wealth in any way and believe our taxes should be very low and are only needed to fund very limited things, such as police departments, fire departments, small military, roads, etc.

Collecting taxes to pay for these services is not theft in my opinion. I would gladly pay taxes to have a fire department and most Americans probably would too. Having a 6% national sales tax to pay for all services would work for me. Then it would be up to our representatives to budget accordingly.

BillyDKid: Well, for one, and doctor paul is explicit about this, it amounts to slavery. You legally obligated through the threat of force to work for half the year and give your earnings to the government. It is forced labor and not different that the way serfs were required to give half of their crop to the nobles. I would say that is immoral. But even if it were not immoral, it punishes productivity and hard work.

micahnelson: 1) We are a government of the people.
2) An overwhelming majority of people do not want to pay an income tax.

There. Thats a pretty simple thought process.

Publicani: I am not sure about 2). 50% of the income earners don’t pay any tax – why should they be against it? And even if 99% are for it – does it make it right? Moral? What if we all vote to force Bill Gates to pay all his income in taxes? We have the majority, does it make it right?

And I am not sure whether “practicality” is a factor in deciding whether income tax should be abolished. What if for some reason it does not punish productivity?

Cleaner44: I have never in my life met someone that wants the Federal Income Tax.

I have to question your 50% figure, that does not sound at all acurate to me. Did you make this up or do you have some evidence?

No need to worry about 99% of the people unless you live in a Democracy. Democracies are bad which is why our founding fathers setup a Republic.

Publicani: The Top 50% pay 96.54% of All Income Taxes

Another reference – According to the National Taxpayers Union
http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6

For the year 2005
Top 1% pays 40% of all taxes
Top 5% pays 60%
Top 10% pays 70%
Top 25% pays 86%
Top 50% pays 97%

Cleaner44: Yes, but you said:
Quote:
50% of the income earners don’t pay any tax
This is quite different.

It is not true that 50% of income earners do not pay any (income) tax.

hypnagogue: This all just seems to me to be anti-tax sentiment rather than anti-income-tax. It would be useful if those who declare income tax ‘evil’ to give an example of a just tax and to demonstrate the material difference between that and the income tax.

micahnelson: Arguments against any tax are all philosophical. We are made to pay because they have the monopoly on force. It is like telling the mob how unethical it is for them to collect dues.

You do raise a valid point, however. Taxes are needed to carry some legitimate functions of government.

As far as I am concerned, taxes should raised specifically from people who make use of the service funded. For instances, gas taxes which pay for roads make sense to me. If you are buying gasoline, you are making use of the roadways and therefore should contribute. Building roads is a legitimate government function. (not trying to anger the libertarians here, i realize you dont NEED government for roads, but its part of how we do things here.)

Low taxation in general, apportioned specifically to those who will benefit from the program. Some form of broader taxation would be needed to fund the military, but certainly not an income tax.

States have a broader brush with which to paint to cover whatever civic programs the state determines to be of value. I personally would want to be in a state with low low taxes and little government expansion, but certainly places like California would want to extend the arm of government. Thats up to the Californians.

DriftWood: Appart from the moral argument taxes are bad because of its consequences.

Tax is bad because it diverts capital from where it is most needed, to where it will be wasted. If people where allowed to keep all their money they would use it for whatever thing they needed the most. When govt takes money from people only to give it back by charity, some is lost to corruption and other is wasted on things that each person does not need the most. Say if the money goes to public schools, some of the people in the school would rather have used the money to buy food, medicals, clothes or something else instead they get something that is not as urgently needed. Taxes translate into central spending plans, one size fits all. One size does not fit all, everyones needs and priorities are different. This is why taxes are bad. It destroys wealth.

Also when the govt take money from productive people and give it to unproductive people, they are encouraging unproductivess. You get more of it. The problem gets worse the more govt tries to fix it.

Curlz31: Well the best argument for me is the base philosophical argument. Income tax is stealing. The government claims it requires the tax to fund government programs that help poor people, however it is not justified to steal people’s money just because you want to help others.

People need to make an individual decision to help poor people. If they are forced to pay the government then they start becoming dependent on government and start to see government as all-knowing. This actually compounds problems because people have no sense of self-responsibility when it comes to the proportion of their income they get to keep. This further compounds government intervention. This is why socialism is self-perpetuating. It’s like Heroin. You start needing more and more, even though it is killing you. You become dependent.

Then you can argue the practicalities. it is inefficient etc etc. but to me, this is secondary to the basic immorality of stealing property.

TruthWarrior: The income tax is a plank in the “Communist Manifesto”, as are central banks, BTW.

Publicani: Thanks, everybody. Interesting arguments, stimulating discussion. Helpful. Sorry if I misunderstood or misquoted anybody.
This post does not mean to end the discussion, please keep your comments coming.
The book, by the way, is a fiction. It never mentions income tax even though the plot is driven by a similar concept. It is available free online at
http://www.publicani.com/book/
if you like it, please comment on
http://www.amazon.com/Publicani-Zak-…/dp/1419683497
- maybe somebody else will read it and start thinking about the issue.

ams5995: Theft is aggression. Taxes are theft. Taxes are aggression. We could run this whole mother country without one single tax. YES WE CAN!!!! CHANGE!!!!!!!

CuriousOnlooker: Where would the funds be raised to pay for a strong national defense? (NOT offense.)

torchbearer: the states would be responsible for their own territories.
The federal government was never ment to have a standing army. Only the states.

hypnagogue: You need only contrast the requirements for a modern effective armed forces to recognize how totally impracticable that would be. Could you imagine getting 50 independent armies to function as a single responsive unit. The logistics and POLITICS should run a man’s blood cold.

I know this is a reviled argument sometimes around here, but it’s undeniable that times have changed. The science of modern warfare nowhere near resembles what the founders had to provision for, and no doubt would have been unimaginable even in their wildest nightmares.

It’s pretty serious. I’ll tell you what my sources are – please let me know if I am making a mistake in my numbers.

The first quote is from Harry Browne, who referred to the U.S. Census Bureau:

“Today federal, state, and local taxes consume 47% of the national income. “

In fact, it is a very conservative estimate because it is based on the year 1995, after which the government publications stopped publishing this series. I suspect the percent of the government intake did not become smaller after the nineties.

Another reference is from another Brown, Gordon Brown:

“Net debt is now … 47% in America,…”

Where do I go wrong?.

April 17, 2008

Fight income tax and we could save the United States

Section: Editorial
Page: 6A

To the editor

Iraq, the world’s highest percentage of people in prison, warrantless phone and e-mail searches, the Fed printing money like there’s no tomorrow, bans on medical use of marijuana and other drugs, suspension of habeas corpus, searching your shoes at the airport, transferring private property from one citizen to another for higher government tax revenue – these are examples of the modern state of the United States.

Those are not necessarily the best examples, just some indicators pointing to a rotten state. Who do you think the enemy is? The lobbyists? Potential terrorists? The rich? It feels like a seven-headed dragon is conducting a full-scale assault on our lives, property and liberty. It attacks us from the left and right – both Republicans and Democrats voted for the Iraq war and the Patriot Act. It attacks us from above and below – both the government makes laws assaulting our liberties and the people keep voting for such a government.

How do you fight a dragon? Face to face, or rather face to seven faces will not work: even if you are successful and you cut one head/government program, two others will grow in its place. The right approach is to shoot a silver arrow at the red bird so that it drops a key from a lockbox with a magic sword that you use to fight a tiger guarding the bottle with the dragon’s heart.

So, where is the red bird? What is the single target we should aim at? It is the income tax. There is a social perception that taxing the rich is fair. Try saying “I hate the income tax” to other people. You will find it is as hard as in the famous psychological experiment to ask strangers on the subway to give up their seat for you.

I don’t want to argue that the income tax is illegal or unconstitutional. Such arguments have been made and even recently have been tried with partial success in court. But the laws are made by the people and could be changed by the people.

Also, let’s put aside for a moment the belief that without income tax we are not able to function – the highways, the schools. Because actually, we can. The income tax is about one trillion dollars a year. This is as much as we spent every year in Iraq. We could do without Iraq, couldn’t we? Even if we couldn’t, one trillion dollars is about as much as we spend every year on our foreign bases in Germany, Japan, and hundreds of other places. We could do without them, couldn’t we? Even if we couldn’t, one trillion dollars is about the difference between the federal budget now and the budget 10 years ago. We could make do with the budget of 10 years ago, couldn’t we? Because I hate the income tax, I wrote “Publicani.” You can read it for free on Publicani.com/book. The word “publicani” originally meant the same as an IRS agent during biblical times.

Zak Maymin

So, if I understand correctly, you would support green taxes that charge for resource use, such as water taxes, oil taxes, pollution taxes, land taxes, food taxes, etc? To me that seems realistically achievable in our lifetimes.

Ryan

Suppose there are three countries: one has no taxes at all, another has indirect taxes, such as “water taxes, oil taxes, pollution taxes, land taxes, food taxes, etc.,” and the third one has only income tax. I guess we both, you and I, would have preferred the first country. But suppose furthermore that the first country does not exist and the only choice we have is between the remaining two countries, equal in all aspects except that one has only income tax and the other has indirect taxes. Let’s say the other has the food tax. It makes it harder to argue against this indirect tax, as opposed to, say, tariffs, because it eliminates right away one of the main reasons why indirect taxation is better than direct taxation: you can avoid activity that leads to indirect taxation. With the food tax, you can’t.

There are still at least five other reasons why income tax is worse than the food tax.
1. With the food tax, I am anonymous to the government; they only see my activity at the time of my purchasing the food. They know nothing else about me, and once I have bought the food and paid taxes, I disappear. I become inseparable from the rest of the people. The Feds don’t have my social security number. They only point their guns at me, from their point of view a completely unknown person, each time when I show up to buy the food again. With income tax, they have a pointer to me, my Social Security Number, at all times. And they watch over my shoulder at any work that I am doing and at any activity that might be related to my income, such as gambling, education, marrying, having dependants in my household, buying computers, meeting customers in my house and so on. So the difference is between driving a highway with occasional toll booths, or driving the entire highway cuffed in a back seat of a police car.

2. What adds insult to the injury of the income tax is the fact that you yourself have to collect the necessary information that the government needs to collect taxes from you and potentially to prosecute you. Not only the tips you received. You had a lunch with your customer – you are supposed to keep the receipt until the filing time, to show it as a proof to uncle Sam when you beg to be allowed to deduct a part of the cost from the money you earned – disgusting.

3. Income tax is a substantial loss of freedom for everybody. Suppose your combined Federal, state income tax, and FICA bring you to 25% bracket. To simplify my argument, I am intentionally on a conservative side here. The real bracket could be about 50%. I am convinced that state income taxes will disappear once the Federal income tax is abolished because of the competition between states and because of the complexity of tax collection. I also consider FICA to be a part of the federal income tax because it is.
FICA is 7.65%, (forget about another 7.65% paid by your employer) and let’s say the state tax is 4% (NY state income tax is 4.0-6.85%). Therefore your federal income tax rate comes to is 13.35%, which is less than the rate of 15%, which is the minimum rate that everybody (people making more than $8,025) pays.

So, suppose you are in the 25% bracket. It means that with every dollar you earned, you are left with 75 cents and you pay in income tax 25 cents, a clear third of the money you keep. Think about it. The government takes from you forcefully as much as the third of your money. Think hard what you got for this third: Iraq? A military base in Japan?

Also, think about this way. Suppose you need to work thirty years before you retire in the food-tax country. It means you have to work forty years in the income-tax-country. Ten years of slave labor when you are not getting a penny for your work! This is true for most of the citizens of the income-tax-country. How can anyone call such a country free?

4. Also the risks are different. People are known to end up in prison or dead because of the difference of opinion on how much they owe the government in income tax. It’s also possible that the government comes to you and says you made a mistake two years ago, and therefore that’s how much you have to pay. Or the government decided that you intentionally avoided paying your taxes and this is your jail term. Such a risk is a very unrealistic remote possibility with food tax.

5. Another reason is social. With the food tax, all people are on the same side against the government. It’s the pain that everybody feels. Therefore, there are greater chances that this tax will be kept at modest levels and possibly abolished. Also there is a greater chance that charitable services will spread out helping the folks who suffer the most. The income tax, on the other hand, glorifies victimization of the people and corrupts people into lobbying for the benefits of their particular group against other groups.

So the food-tax country is freer than the income-tax country.

P.S. And as always, freedom brings prosperity. Given the chance, entrepreneurs and capital will flow to the food-tax country from the income-tax country, which will make the food-tax country not only freer but much more prosperous as well.