You sit at home and come up with a great new piece of software that’s worth 250 million and sell it IBM. Why should you pay more taxes than the bum sitting at home next door? After all you did not use land or resources protected by your countries military and police forces. You did not use public infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams) or government backed institutions (banks, phone lines), or even workers or customers educated by the public school system.
Ask yourself why would IBM pay for such a thing? Well they have customers that use land and an educated workforce. And what about your bank? How do they keep from being robbed? Heck, what’s to stop your bank or IBM from simply shooting you vs. letting you keep the money?
Face it, without a government service there is no way to generate extract and keep 250 million in value. Because even Drug Lords depend on governments banning their drugs.
PS: If you disagree you can always leave and renounce citizenship.
Edit: You completed edited your comment since I replied... the new version is a lot more reasonable. Here's what I originally wrote, which doesn't 100% apply any more:
Did you actually read my comment? I think you're reacting to something I didn't say - taxes are fine, and you'd wind up paying for services you use in property taxes.
Land, resources, military, police, roads, bridges, dams, banks (really shouldn't be government provided as that causes all sorts of problems like we've recently seen, but that's a side discussion), schools - those are all local-based services. You'd pay for where you were using them, when you were using them.
> PS: If you disagree you can always leave and renounce citizenship.
Totally unnecessary and counterproductive to a decent reasonable discussion.
Yea, sorry I messed up the comment in editing and had the "After all you" stuff twice.
Anyway, I wonder what your thoughts are on the central idea. Mainly our ability to generate value is directly related to the value the government provides us. The ability to walk the streets unmolested is hard to quantify but the economic value is directly related to our income. Also, murder investigations are independent of the amount of land we own. And things like food safety and public vaccinations are cheap and valuable so bundling all of that stuff up and simply taxing income seems more reasonable than trying to have individual taxes on every transaction with the government.
As to leaving I think that's an important option. It's what separates slaves of the state from people that can accept the deal or move on. A young talented American can has many options for relocation to another area, the fact that so few do suggests our system has many benefits even if they are not all obvious.
Banks are not government provided. They are private. And all the time saying that is Government fault when the market turn to shit, it means that it is not science just something you want to be true, no matter what.
> PS: If you disagree you can always leave and renounce citizenship.
I see this argument all the time: "If you don't like it, leave." While that's always an option, I think it's disingenuous to suggest that's the best option or even a reasonable one.
This is a democracy! You can affect change in your government. Get out there and vote, run for office. You don't have to just lie down and accept things the way they are.
You sit at home and come up with a great new piece of software that’s worth 250 million and sell it IBM. Why should you pay more taxes than the bum sitting at home next door? After all you did not use land or resources protected by your countries military and police forces. You did not use public infrastructure (roads, bridges, dams) or government backed institutions (banks, phone lines), or even workers or customers educated by the public school system.
Ask yourself why would IBM pay for such a thing? Well they have customers that use land and an educated workforce. And what about your bank? How do they keep from being robbed? Heck, what’s to stop your bank or IBM from simply shooting you vs. letting you keep the money?
Face it, without a government service there is no way to generate extract and keep 250 million in value. Because even Drug Lords depend on governments banning their drugs.
PS: If you disagree you can always leave and renounce citizenship.