Progressive taxation schemes can redistribute some of the incredible amounts of wealth that have been amassed by the few to the rest of the population.
But the non-conservative governments are also the ones that drove prices so high by preventing building new homes and making it harder to start businesses.
Or you could think of it like sharing. Generally speaking people create governments to help solve collective problems and then create laws. Charging tax is not considered a crime; it's one of the functions of government.
Sharing is usually voluntary. If the government levied a 100% tax on your income and assets, kept the vast majority of it, and then redistributed you a year supply of beans, rice, and a tent you would consider that to be a violation of their taxing authority wouldn't you? Should the power of the government to levy taxes be considered limitless?
If the government did such a thing, what power would I have to stop them? And if I don't pay my wealth taxes, the state of Texas will indeed put me out of my house, but they won't bother to give me a tent or any beans. So it goes.
Well this whole thread is regarding whether or not someone ought to vote for a non-conservative government. So the first thing you could do to avoid such a situation is vote to elect individuals who are true to their word and argue against policies that would rob you of all your wealth through taxation and inflation. Another step you might take is to promote a vision of society where we limit the government to a certain degree so that it does not acquire so much power that it can simply rob individual citizens without recourse.
Further, this particular question is whether the government legally ought to be able to tax without limits. You seem to be conflating that with if the government is able to tax without limits.
Well, I agree with you that the wealthy should vote for conservatives if money is their primary concern. I'm however not in the tax bracket that US conservatives are interested in helping though.
> Further, this particular question is whether the government legally ought to be able to tax without limits. You seem to be conflating that with if the government is able to tax without limits.
I fail to see a distinction here. The government defines what is legal. I suppose one can appeal to some higher power as the source of all law or something idealistic like that, but that's not how the IRS or the Texas State tax assessor work.
The old taxation=theft trope grows a bit tired...and frankly, I say this as someone who leans libertarian. At the end of the day, businesses derive value through infrastructure and in some cases, even regulation, without which the income streams being taxed would not be as readily available. Do I love the systems by which taxes are decided upon, or how the money is often allocated? Absolutely not. But taxes on income that benefits from the caretakers of the environment in which a business operates are no more theft than is operating such a business without compensating those who are caretakers of said environment.
Now, you can absolutely argue that the taxes being imposed or suggested are unnecessarily high, or perhaps that most of the money being levied is being squandered on things that those paying see no benefit from (which perhaps one could argue is theft, but that last part is crucial), and I'd not argue one bit with you in many cases. I'll be the first to say that the use of Western tax dollars in Ukraine is an absolute slap in the face for the taxpayers who see no benefit therefrom, and who had nothing to do with the coups that led to the war in the first place.
But taxation in and of itself isn't theft, any more than property, in and of itself, is theft. As long as the left and right just keep shouting "THIEF!" at each other, we don't really have any hope of getting anywhere.
Not all taxation is theft. However, taxation taken specifically from one person or group in order to benefit another is theft. Taxation for the purpose of maintaining the military, police, roads, and other necessary public infrastructure is not theft. For example, it is not theft for the Senate to pay for reasonable military salaries. It is theft to levy a 100% tax on billionaires in order to redistribute those funds to all non-billionaires whether in cash, benefits, or other property.
The "benefit of the public" is a better standard than no standard - but is in and of itself insufficient to contain the state to its rightful domain.