[zenogais]

Taxes are a bit different from wage slavery or even slavery, and shouldn't be confused with them. Taxes and wage slavery, however, do have a mutually re-enforcing relationship.

Wage slavery is a system in which a person can only subsist by exchanging their labor for money - essentially forcing them to work for others for a living in exchange for means of subsistence.

Taxes, in a democracy at least, are intended to be merely a yearly collection to pay for products/services used in common with a state managed agency typically overseeing the apportionment of those funds.

However, if taxes are extracted through coercive means (as they are in most present-day states), then they can be viewed as coercing individuals into a choice between either wage slavery or poverty. In that way taxes and wage-slavery are two ends a coercive system.

[pdkl95]

Nonsense. we don't[1] have a debtor's prison in the USA and I believe most laws that criminalize a simple inability to pay would be unconstitutional by the 13 Amendment.

Now, this is a very fine legal line to walk, because intent (mens rea) to withhold taxes is indeed a crime. Failing to file any required paperwork may also be a crime in some situations. IF by some chance you cannot pay, but still file on time and explain the situation to the IRS, they will only be able to impose financial remedies. So you can certainly get some sort of payment plan, or wage garnishes, or liens on any property you own - but not jail time or forced labor.

In practice, of course, this applies to only a very small set of people. It is cleasrly a attempt to work around the moral issues to allow tax laws to exist. If slavery is the concern, tax law is way to minor of an issue. I suggest looking into the current trend of trying (and succeeding, to some degree) to bring back slavery in the form of prison labor. For-profit prisons are a bad enough idea, but allowing way-below-minimum-wage labor and a lack of oversight and regulation is creating a huge moral hazard.

[1] I realize that there are currently trying to reverse the current situation a bring back various forms of criminal penalties and/or a type of debtor's prison. While concerning, they have had only limited, local success so far.

[nickff]

The parent said:

>"if taxes are extracted through coercive means (as they are in most present-day states), then they can be viewed as coercing individuals into a choice between either wage slavery or poverty."

You never actually addressed the issue of coercion as a whole, you only addressed what happens when there is an 'inability to pay'; as you state:

>"So you can certainly get some sort of payment plan, or wage garnishes, or liens on any property you own - but not jail time or forced labor."

But you do not address what happens when one hides the money, in foreign accounts, or domestic locations. If one does either of these, they are subject to imprisonment, though it may not be called a 'debtor's prison', this is still coercion.

TLDR; If I demand money from you, under threat of confinement, it is coercion, whether or not you have the means to pay.

[pdkl95]

> under threat of confinement

In the area of taxes, nobody is making such a threat.

As I said above, "confinement" (jail) is the one thing that that would be the one thing that can't happen for only inability to pay.

> hides the money

See, that's not what I'm talking about. By attempting to hide what would otherwise be taxable money, you are committing a different crime, which is really a type of fraud (or possibly, if a court was involved, perjury).

After facing whatever penalty there is for fraudulently filling out tax forms[1], someone who evades taxes (any way) would still owe the outstanding back taxes.... which cannot result in further jail time.

So yes, the government will make your financial life hard if you fail to pay taxes. They can (and do) coerce your property very harshly. The government should only start using coercive force against you (instead of just your property) if there are other related crimes involved.

{ For the record: this is not legal advice, see a lawyer for better information. Especially see a lawyer before attempting some sort of scheme to move money around in the hopes of hiding taxes. That is getting harder and harder to pull off in the modern "big data" world and and clever analysis techniques[2] }

[1] note: lack of filling them out still counts, as the IRS simply files a substitute tax return in your place. Obviously, they will not be filling it out in your favor. Their minimal filing doesn't even include the "standard deduction". So

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law#Accounting_frau...

[zenogais]

My apologies for not being clearer, but then again this honestly this strikes me as overly pedantic. By coercion I meant coercion in the broadest sense as anything designed to influence your behavior - eg induce pain or potential hardship so that paying taxes seems more desirable than not paying them. Therefore, while the legal classifications of the particular offenses may vary and be debatated ad nauseum, I don't think they detract from the fundamentally coercive, or even at least perceived coercive, reality underlying them.

[pdkl95]

I would agree that the interpretation being used here by the government (and others) is indeed waling a fine line. I see it as mainly a historical thing: guaranteeing at least <i>personal</i> liberty in a system that uses taxes was a huge improvement over what came before it. We should, of course, try to improve the situation even further in the future.

I jsut think the tax issue is somewhat less important than aquite a few of the other threats to freedom that currently exist. (the prison labor mentioned above being a good example. There are other concewrns, too, of course.

[zenogais]

We are in total agreement here. Taxes are far less concerning to me (and honestly seem like a distraction) compared to any number of other more impactful and coercive systems in existence.

[nickff]

If one takes the trouble to define a modern tax system, you will see that there is no significant difference between it and the exactions imposed on a slave. One might distinguish between a democratically enacted tax and a slave's duties by the opportunity to vote, but Nozick made a strong case against that being a significant difference.[1]

If we are discussing situations similar or equivalent to slavery, I would be remiss if I failed to mention conscription. I have never been able to find a principled difference between conscription and slavery; if you can, please explain it to me.

[1] https://web.duke.edu/philsociety/taleofslave.html

[nyolfen]

except that you must make over a certain amount of money to qualify for income tax? if you're flat busted you're not paying any taxes besides incidental ones like sales. it's a really gross disingenuous argument to draw equivalences between the historical monstrosity of chattel slavery (the indignity of humans being reduced to property) and having an apportionment of your income siphoned for collective costs. at that point you're just saying that any form of social obligation is the same thing as not having legal standing as a human being

[nickff]

You are describing one specific implementation of the income tax. I have three arguments against your attempt at distinction; the first being that what you are proposing is essentially Nozick's 'gracious master' who takes a portion of your earnings (income tax), while retaining the ability to recall you (conscription or jury duty). Another point would be to simply point out that you are specifying 'income tax'; a poll tax with no cutoff is also possible, whereas I never limited my argument to this single implementation, and you have constructed a straw man. My third argument would be that you never took the trouble to define 'tax', and that if you did, you would see the fundamental similarity.

What you call a 'social obligation' seems to be a construct for the rationalization of abhorrent behavior, especially because the moneys collected via taxation have frequently been used to finance the oppression of a great number of people.

[nyolfen]

i form my views on material reality, not nebulous hypotheticals

[nickff]

I have used no nebulous hypothetical, only cited a noted philosopher, given the example of a real system of taxation, and pointed out your failure to address my argument. And I should point out that I am part of material reality, unless my existence is a hypothetical construct (which may very well be true).

[vacri]

I would call equating anyone who pays tax (including powerful CEOs of major companies) as having an experience 'not significantly different' to a slave as 'nebulously hypothetical'. Paying a bit of income tax and sales tax while holding the ability to move around, go off the grid, retire, or emigrate (amongst a vast range of options) is not even remotely similar to being lured to another country with lies, having your passport confiscated, and being forced into prostitution and having your every waking movement dictated.

The extent to which libertarians demand to be painted as hapless victims is incredibly frustrating.