Re: Tax

Craig Presson (dhr@iname.com)
Thu, 5 Feb 1998 08:43:59 -6


On 5 Feb 98 at 6:10, Doug Bailey wrote:

> Furthermore, (and these are questions of personal opinion), is it
> unreasonable that the ones who reap the most from the American system
> pay a higher portion (though still retaining ample amounts unto
> themselves) in return for that opportunity? I say no. If the tax
> system was such a dire spectre then people would not make money,
> people would not take risk... but they do. Why? Because despite the
> tax system there is still significant rewards to be wrought from
> taking risk. The rewards are still there. Taxing them is not unfair.
> But hording your gains to the detriment of the system that gave you
> the opportunity to reap them is, in my opinion, unscrupulous.

This is a question of policy and economics about which people have
opinions, not merely a matter of opinion.

Your statement might make sense if tax proceeds, oxymoronically, went
to support free markets, but they don't, and free markets don't need
it. Commissions, at most, suffice there. The money that government
expropriates instead goes into wasteful and disastrous programs that
transfer wealth, distort markets, and create perverse incentives.

Taxation is not *unfair*? That's the least of it. It's armed robbery,
of which "unfair" is a very mild description.

I could go on and on, and I expect others will.

Oh, and as for Monaco -- I am sure a lot of us will opt out at some
point. I can't see us carrying the clunky machinery of government into
the far future, we can do MUCH better.

-- dhr@iname.com (Freeman Craig Presson)