[dragonwriter]

> Taxes also aren't coercive; even SCOTUS hasn't held that

They are, and it has; see McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819). Coercion doesn’t generally make them unconstitutional (coercion is, ultimately, what governments do,the states under their broad general police powers, and the feds, Constitutionally, under more limited powers, but including explicit taxation poeers), though it can when, e.g., states attempt to tax federal institutions (as was the issue in McCulloch).

[camgunz]

IDK if McCulloch established that. Maryland wanted to tax the Bank out of existence, and Marshall clearly addressed that use of taxation, not taxation in general:

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation. A question of constitutional power can hardly be made to depend on a question of more or less. If the states may tax, they have no limit but their discretion; and the bank, therefore, must depend on the discretion of the state governments for its existence. This consequence is inevitable."

This is about destruction, not coercion. In this case, an example of a destructive tax would be "we levy a tax 100% of the value of your property. That isn't what's happening here.

FWIW governments do more than coerce. Ours does stuff like pay millions of teachers and explore space. That takes money, so governments raise revenue. That's not coercion, that's funding stuff we want and need.

[humanistbot]

No, McCulloch said taxation can be coercion, but not necessarily. Maryland wanted to tax every local branch of the national bank $15k/year, which is $350k/year in 2023 dollars. That was seen an unconstitutional state usurpation of a policy that had been approved by the US Congress.