Taxes: To Pay Or Not To Pay

With tax filing season approaching again, I can’t help but think about all the people who keep bantering about the fact that income tax is illegal and they shouldn’t have to pay it. Well I am not going to even talk about the legality of income tax because to me it really doesn’t make any difference about its legality or lack thereof. The reason is I don’t recognize the governments supposed authority over me. Talk about legality or non legality doesn’t impress me and frankly I’m too interested in living my life to the fullest extent I can to even be bothered by legalities.  My advice is paying of taxes is completely up to the individual for two reasons.

Reason number one is based on the fact of self ownership and the nature of law in light of it. I believe in self ownership and live my life based on that belief. Just as Descartes built his entire system of philosophy on doubting all but the fact that he was thinking, I build my philosophy on denying all authority but that of self.  Self ownership is to me the most basic and self evident fact of human existence. If we don’t own ourselves, who does? So building from the idea of self ownership, I conclude that every individual of mature age is responsible for their own happiness and life’s direction and any intrusion from without, be it other individuals or entities such as religion or government is oppression. Any authoritarian and coercive force has no moral justification and should be rebelled against with all ones might. The only relationships that are justified for free persons are voluntary and equal relationships, devoid of hierarchy or coercive elements.

Law is by its very nature authoritarian and coercive. Law is also given a cloak of respectability because it is considered as timeless and immutable and as coming directly from God.  But law is simply a small group of individuals imposing their collective wills on a larger group under threat of punishment for refusal to obey. Law has no objective existence apart from the lawgiver and the lawgiver is a human being no different than the human beings the law is intended for.  Therefore, law is at best advice and nothing more; and like all advice it can be accepted or rejected.

Reason number two is based on the idea of property ownership, including money. While we do own ourselves, we are the only thing we truly claim absolute ownership of. Private property is a myth. If the government wants to take our property, it can. It can claim eminent domain, or it can take it for failure to pay property taxes. Additionally the government places restrictions and regulations on what we can do with “our” property. If it were truly ours, how could anyone rightfully tell us what to do with it? Face it; we are all renters and caretakers of government property. And while I would agree that private property is a myth, I also believe that government ownership of it is also a blatant lie; but that is for another day.

Just as real estate is not truly individually owned; likewise it is true with money. Printed right on all bills are the words “legal tender for all debts, public and private.” Money is just something we trade for commodities. We don’t own it any more than we own our properties. Therefore, it really doesn’t matter whether we pay taxes or not because the money isn’t ours to begin with. Money is just a tool; a means to an end and the government requires us to use it and nothing else for purchasing goods. But it belongs to the government despite its temporal location at any given time. So theft of money by refusal to pay taxes is impossible with perhaps one exception; it could honestly be considered theft if the money is literally being kept in an isolated location where it isn’t being used, but who does that? As long as it is being circulated in the form of spending or investing, it is in the public realm and is being used as the abstract tool it is. So unless we are hoarding money; we are using it for its intended purpose and therefore we are not stealing it. Whether we pay taxes or not, we are not stealing money from the government; we are only choosing to use it for a different purpose but ultimately it is still circulating within the economy.

I personally have not filed income taxes in three years. This was my choice and I do not regret it. I encourage others to do so as well, but that decision is ultimately an individual one.