Taxation is theft. "But who will build the roads" argument is really old and dumb, people are not some stupid monkeys who can't figure out things if no one guides them, there's nothing that can not be done privately and through voluntary cooperation (which is the same as privately).
Yeah, they can be done. But they aren't
Why? Because
they fail.
People are always happy to see they won't be paying taxes for roads, hospitals etc, but when times comes to pay for private healthcare private roads, private water company they tend to do the same. Not pay.
It's Greece all over again
Just like Bitcoin have decentralized economy, some day people will decentralize power to the point when every individual will be independent from others.
Nice, in theory.
Let's talk about roads then, who will decide if the next highway is going to build 100 or 200 meters from the last house in the city? The only option is voting, so....independence my ****
Private army? How much is this going to cost us? How do we decide? Oh, the vote of the majority
What happens if you are in a third world country and there is massive corruption? You pay taxes and there are no roads, schools, or any essential public utilities. What you do see is the politicians and their cronies getting richer. Would you still argue that everybody should continue paying taxes?
I'm wondering who keeps electing those corrupt politicians.......
Although the current government is doing its best to curb out corruption like increasing the salary of the policeman, there are a lot being tempted to accept bribe money. That's why you can't really blame someone doesn't want to pay their taxes because we know that it will just go to the pockets of corrupt government officials.
So basically it's not the government alone, it's also about the policemen, probably doctors, judges, administration and let's not forget that they can demand bribe but the ones paying and encouraging this practice are also guilty of this.
Since I live in Eastern Europe and my country is also a bit or more corrupted, I know this pretty well, people complaining about doctors demanding money, but still paying up the bribe and encouraging this practice...
This is the main reason why countries are trying to scare their citizens and make them pay upfront. You don't know where your taxes go and they can always think of some reason why this or that hasn't been done. A great improvement in this system is local taxation. In this system your money go directly to your local city council and are spent on roads, parks, pavements, schools, police, and so on, and you can demand them to give you the budget and value of the projects completed in the previous tax year. It makes it much harder for the money to vanish. Unfortunately not many countries allow for that. Most prefer all taxes to go to the capital and then be divided between local governments, so that they all get equal share (equality is another socialist idea that never seems to work as intended).
You can't really do that...
There is a small town close by, around 20 km from my home.
I can almost bet than 80% of the population is older than 70 and probably less than 5% is employed.
With no help from the central government and distribution of funds, how would they be able to afford police, doctors, firefighters?
Or do you think you have it in you to knock at their doors and say
"Yeah, I know you lived here for almost a century, you paid taxes all your life, but now you have to move cause I don't want my money paying for your bus or ambulance?"
Be honest, what would you do with those settlements?
Don't get me wrong I hate socialism from all my heart, second only to communism in which unfortunately I've lived but there is a huge difference between socialism and providing equal services for all the population.
After all, Denmark is not socialist (although many want to believe that)
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And now on the subject, I think a lot of people are having the wrong idea about it.
Rather than being openly against taxes and avoid paying them, why not concentrate the effort on electing a parliament and indirectly a government that will not play around with our money?
My colleagues at work are one hell of an example, every coffee break they criticize the government, the mayor, the local council, but less than 1/4 have voted in the elections...