this post was submitted on 07 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 39 points 6 months ago (4 children)

No, because then the government wouldn't have the funds to keep society running.

I like paying taxes.

The money has to come from somewhere. And if I didn't pay taxes, it means everyone else will have to pay more.

If every company/individual/... paid the taxes they were owed, we would have a tax rate of like 10-20%

[–] themeatbridge 26 points 6 months ago

It also serves to increase the difficulty of hoarding wealth and creating dramatic economic imbalance. Billionaires are really bad for the economy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I like paying taxes

I don't. Every time a child is burned alive, every time hundreds are made homeless by a drone strike, every time a book is banned, every time an innocent is murdered by police, I'm part of that, I funded that. I hate it.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The tough part is that you are both correct.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Yup. Like with most things related to governing, it's necessary, but exploitable. It needs regulation, but the bigger it gets, the harder it is to regulate, but if we made it smaller, it wouldn't be effective enough.

[–] partial_accumen 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Every time a child is burned alive, every time hundreds are made homeless by a drone strike, every time a book is banned, every time an innocent is murdered by police, I’m part of that, I funded that. I hate it.

With zero taxes modern society would fall and the outcomes don't change for the better either.

  • lawlessness would rule the land
  • industrial capacity to produce books wouldn't exist, so bookbinding would revert to artisan level so there likely wouldn't be a book to ban because there wouldn't be enough of them to ban.
  • "police" would be paid/fed by the local strongman that would happily kill you for whatever arbitrary reason he or bossman wanted.
  • homelessness would be so shockingly common it would be the norm and not the exception

All of the problems you listed would be minuscule compared to finding something to eat or a dry place to lay your head to sleep where you would be safe.

[–] SkyezOpen 12 points 6 months ago

"But what if I was the local strongman?"

-Libertarians

[–] TrickDacy 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Right, child murder is required when you pay taxes. That's international law

[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's not like I get to choose what is spent on, and yeah a shitload of it goes towards child murder. More of my money is spent hurting people than helping them.

[–] candybrie 13 points 6 months ago

If it makes you feel better, that's not true. More discretionary spending is on "defense." But roughly 2/3 of the full budget is mandatory spending which largely is social security, Medicare, medicaid, TANF, and SNAP and also includes education and transportation as smaller pieces.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Depends. I don't really like to pay taxes because you have no real say where you tax money goes. Like when there is a huge pothole in front of my house but you read in the newspaper that they rip apart apartments where people live and build new luxury apartments for the ultra rich, i'm like... Cool stuff.
Or you're american and pay taxes becuse the most important thing is that you have another 13 billion dollar airplane carrier, because 20 or however many aren't enough.

[–] Cryophilia 6 points 6 months ago

Your government builds luxury apartments with tax money?