[cassianoleal]

> Many people share it explicitly. 99.99% of the people believe it somehow.

I think this is mostly a US-centric thing. In Europe taxes tend to be much higher and people mostly acknowledge that they are a necessary evil and when used appropriately they are good. How do you fund good roads, public illumination, universal healthcare, publicly-funded schooling, etc without everybody chipping in?

Sure, there are many discussions about how much people pay, about tax evading, about whether the systems in place are the fairest, etc. but in general from my experience (and personal opinion) they're not seen as theft.

[autarchprinceps]

Can't say anything about statistics, but I don't mind paying taxes, if the result is a better working society, or one at all, given whatever some people think the world would look like without nations at all. I would just like it, if I had more influence or at least transparency at what they are used for. Like what if you had to pay x amount of taxes a year, but everyone got to choose for what branches/areas at least and kind of "vote" a bit that way. If a program is unpopular, it wouldn't receive its funding, if you think something is underfunded, you can reallocate at least your money, but unlike purely optional donations, greed doesn't stop you, because you need to pay anyway. I heard that in Australia they print the percentage of your taxes going to what general category on your tax return. Kind of a neat idea, and probably not that hard to do, since it really is just dividing your final tax value by the official percentages. Not like ones taxes actually get used differently from another person, but it makes for good visibility of what should be already tracked and published information.