Topic: why do people agree to pay taxes? - page 135. (Read 51023 times)

the French had their own network
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CYCLADES

The academy was already working on packet switching before ARPANET even existed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Kleinrock

Google, Facebook, Youtube, all top 10 of the most popular websites on the internet were made by private companies.


in America before the fed was created in 1913.
the situation started to deteriorate from then until in 1971 America completely defaulted on its promise to redeem dollars for gold and started to print huge amounts of money effectively manipulating the money markets.


the first attempt in America to establish a minimum wage was in 1933, back then the supreme court actually declared it to be unconstitutional.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_States#Prior_U.S._minimum_wages_laws


only in 1938 did the government finally manage to bend the constitution over and enact this socialist law.
making it illegal for you to work if your labor is worth less than the minimum.

Source?

That's entirely subjective and opinion based, and source for "all of which were created by private companies"?

Back when the West had free markets? Hahaha, when was this magical time exactly?

Again, when was this?

arpanet was not the only packet switched network, the idea existed in multiple places back then and would have been developed anyway, government money or not.
what made the internet truly great are the services on top of it, what good is a network if you have no websites or services running on it, all of which were created by private companies.

bus subsidies, pre-k education, daycare for young parents, GED/AS programs, food subsides, cheap government backed loans for college and mortgages - have to be paid for somehow.

the government has no money of its own, it only has what it takes from the citizens.

having the government rob Bob to help Joe is called central planning, and has proven time and time again to fail.
the most extreme example is North Korea, where everything is provided by the government.

that standard of living you are talking about was created by the private sector, back when the west had free markets without the government printing a trillion dollars to bailout failed businesses.
and without a minimum wage, basically almost zero regulation on business, thats when the wealth we are destroying today was built.

I think you should Google what the "internet' began life as haha. After Arpanet, the NSF funded a lot of the research than went into networking technology, data storage and transmission, hardware and architecture, and on and on. Surprise! It wasn't a bunch of well-meaning private companies, it was also a lot of well-meaning scientists across lots of organizations and schools using federal money.

The fabled "working population" that the big bad government is stealing from is also the group that reaps the most benefit from taxes. Again, it goes back to standard of living. Internet people like to apply ideology and perfect imaginary standards because it is easy to do so behind a keyboard. In practicality, bus subsidies, pre-k education, daycare for young parents, GED/AS programs, food subsides, cheap government backed loans for college and mortgages, and lots more contribute to a standard of living that is truly the best in the history of humanity. It's easy to poke holes "but mortgages collapsed" and "food stamps are abused" and I get it, there is no perfect system. But that's really my point; there is no perfect system. The utopian internet capitalistic society is just a fabrication that Bitcoin kiddies scream about from behind a screen.

the internet was not created by the government, all the routers and switches that makeup the backbone of the internet were created by private companies.
all the hosting infrastructure was created by private companies.
pretty much anything you'd like to use on the internet was created by a private company.

the government doesn't create anything.
it is a useless middle man that uses its monopoly on force to steal money from the working population and buy stuff from the private sector (that actually makes stuff) because a bunch of people in the government decided they know best the needs of millions of people and can allocate that money better.

Why would I assume taxes fund those things? Well, because you can look up my state and national government budgets and see where the allocations go. I've also been involved in two foundations that got federal grants via taxes for scientific research.

Would we be in Star Trek? No, that's pretty silly, and that's what you're saying, not me. That's called creating a strawman. A "government run situation" is equivalent to paying taxes? That's what you're saying, again, not me. You've either misquoted, intentionally misunderstood, or ignored what I said because you don't like it.

You do realize that the internet that we're using to carry out with this discussion was created by a United States taxpayer funded program, right?  It's no Star Trek, but let's face it, reality isn't as quick as science fiction.

Don't get me wrong, I live in the United States and I don't like a lot of things taxes pay for, like wars.  I'd love to be able to dictate precisely where my tax dollars went, but unfortunately, I don't have that luxury.  My point is that while it's not the most efficient way of creating things, government programs have created some pretty awesome things.

Why would you assume we get those things because we pay taxes? By your logic if we paid 100% we'd be in Star Trek by now. Heck we even saw first hand what a government run system looks like ( USSR and its satellites states) and it ain't pretty.

Because taxes fund the pretty amazing standard of living that we experience today. Folks on the internet like to compare our living standard to some subjective perfect standard they have in their mind, rather than historical standards. Taxes pay for, and have paid for, an incredible explosion in infrastructure, education, medicine, and subsidies to the sciences that have given us things like this here internet.

It's not popular in this community to say so, but taxes fund things I want and need.

why not?

"You don't pay taxes , taxes are taken away from you."

I forgot who said it but it sums it up perfectly.

Because the majority of people want to lead a peaceful life and mainly also because we don’t have any other choice or alternative. Fact is fact and this is what we have been taught and programmed into our mind

People not neccessarily have to agree on paying taxes. It was written on the law and if you aint paying, naturally, the "Law" will gonna force you to pay for it. I am not going to write on where our taxes go coz I know you know it more that I. But come to think of it, where would the government get its fund to run a whole nation?

One state that you forgot to mention is Alaska. That is probably the only state that will effectively have no taxes if you make little enough money (the threshold is probably slightly above the national average income level) as they will give you a stipend of several thousand dollars per year that is from alaskian oil revenue. You will have to pay property, sales and income taxes (I think they have all three) but the total of these taxes will potentially be less then what you get from the oil refund

Why the fuck are you even here then, Shak? Cash in every bitcoin you own and ever receive, and send 100% of it to the charity-raping human rights violators you worship with tl;dr tyrannical bullshit propaganda, then. Oh, and welcome to my ignore list, pig.

Unsuprisingly to see the people of a complete desocialised society arguing against taxes. You just let your poor rot instead of helping them over there, hm? But your state shouldnt tax your few cent income because maybe your funny american dream shit comes true for you and you are finally on the top. Everone should just have what he can achieve? Including the one who had an accident while working in his yard and now can't lift heavy things anymore, rendering him unable to continue working in his profession? Is this really the society you want to live in? Do you have kids? Do you also determine how much food you give to them based on their grades at school? Is that your praised fairness?

Hilarious to see people argumenting against proper education for their kids, argumenting against help when you loose your job with 50 years and never ever will get a new one because you are too old, declining a level of healthcare you wouldn't be able to afford on your own.
Guess you are already so brainwashed by your media that you actually like staying poor with low taxes without even noticing that the rich are even more happy about that. They can amass even more money without having to spend it on help for those rows of people waiting in line for just one warm meal a day at the soup kitchen.

Furthermore, saying that everyone should take care of his own and only his own is especially interesting in the context of the religious background of the majority of people in the USA. It is also a contradiction to the reasons we formed societies at all. One who had a good harvest won't let the one with the landslide on his fields starve to death. When our society grew, more and more help was needed while on the other hand more and more people profited from staying together in groups. It became complicated to deal with the self-centered assholes and people who tried to obtain things by trickery. People with time were needed to work things through to ensure noone gets advantaged or disadvantaged. The first employees of society, paid by everyone in form of taxes.

Cut everything down again and you will still have streets and stuff. Of course. But not everywhere, only where it is nice to have them in the eyes of people with enough money to afford to build a street. Of course you will still have a society, but one thats extremely dependant on just a few rich people in your direct vicinity.

Sarcasm: Ah, and remove taxes/government/police/military and hey, maybe i come over with a few well trained and armed dudes and take your land, while you can do slavework on my fields. Look at countries with extremely weak governments like Syria, Irak or Ukraine Thats how it rolls

Ah, and you say that this ideas of socialism failed? Think about that: Can you imagine that for a third of the population of the US today, the living conditions of a failed socialist state like eastern germany, the DDR, would be an improvement compared what they have right now? In terms of housing, crime rate, education and perspective for their kids and so on? That a greece retired worker would love to be in the DDR in its last few years of "downfall", because he would be better off compared to his living conditions right now? You don't? Well, then there is nothing to do about you anymore, because you are denying hard facts.


The baseline is: We pay taxes to employ people and equip them with money to ensure they take on the task of improving society as a whole. To work out and pay for an improvement that benefits everyone. To make sure that a society prospers. Maybe they decide that it would be good for everyone to have free access to education, so everyone can get the most out of his abilities. Maybe they decide to improve the infrastructure, so companies can prosper. Maybe they decide that the harshness of live can be grossly unfair at times and people who suffer shouldn't get discarded, instead providing them with a minimum of funds to live a life in dignity. But all in all, it's still a democracy, and if your opinions aren't represented by the current political parties, then go on and found one. But please, please, stop crying in the internet. It won't change anything.

I don't agree, at least at this rate.
But there's not much choice space left, right 

whoevers paying taxes is initially paying the person whos in control to government programs etc, that goes back to those banks.

or the paid lobbyist pretty much.

scarsbergholden is correct.  Washington and Nevada don't have an income tax, Oregon doesn't have a sales tax.  The price, at least for Washington and Oregon, of not having one or the other is that by necessity the remaining tax has to be higher in order to be able to provide the services to the state.  Nevada may be an exception to that since they get so much revenue from gambling that they probably don't need to raise sales taxes to make up for the lack of income tax.

It's turned taxation in Washington state into a regressive system.  If you're a multimillionaire, it's a great place to live because you're spending taxes only on your consumption / spending.  If you're not making much, it's lousy because the bulk of your money is spent on things you need and thus you probably pay more in taxes than a place like California which has both.

There are some of both. Some states have no sales tax and some have no income tax. Most have both. I don't think there are any states that have neither. Pretty much all states have a property tax.

You do agree to pay the taxes because you are not forced to live in a locality that has taxes, as you could move somewhere that has lower taxes (or no taxes - although I doubt there are very many places like this because the government will provide services to it's citizens).