Taxation is theft. The basic argument is simple:
- Taking that which is another's without their consent is theft.
- Taxation is taking that which is another's without their consent.
- Therefore, taxation is theft.
The common objections are answered below. I plan to update and improve this FAQ as new objections and arguments arise.
But who will build the roads? or pay for police etc.? Wouldn't it be anarchy without taxation?
Doesn't "Taxation is theft," mean you are being selfish and a freeloader?
Isn't supporting basic governmental functions a shared responsibility that you owe?
You benefitted from the state, therefore don't you owe the state?
Don't you consent by using public infrastructure?
Don't people consent by remaining in the land? It's not force/immoral because you are free to leave.
Isn't taxation like rent? You either pay the rent or have to move.
Aren't you consenting by remaining a citizen (instead of renouncing citizenship)?
Don't people consent by choosing to engage in a taxed activity, like buying/selling?
Don't people consent by using state currency?
Doesn't a person consent by participating in society?
Doesn't a person consent via the social contract?
Don't people consent by voting?
Isn't taxation okay if the people voted to approve it?
Doesn't the state have the authority/jurisdiction to tax people regardless of their consent?
Isn't taxation like a private club, requiring dues in exchange for club benefits?
Only illegal taking is theft, but taxation is legal.
But doesn't the state define property and what is whose?
Doesn't "taxation is theft" presume that all current property holdings are just?
But who will build the roads? or pay for police etc.? Wouldn't it be anarchy without taxation?
If no taxes meant no government it would not contradict taxation being theft. Both may be true without contradiction, and many people affirm both that taxation is theft and that it is a necessary evil. If both are true, then that would be a hard truth, but we'd have to face it head on, and not ignore the truth because it's hard.
Others disagree with the premise that no taxes means no government, and say that taxation is unnecessary. But whether taxation is necessary, and whether there can be such a thing as a necessary evil are questions different from whether taxation is theft.
Doesn't "Taxation is theft," mean you are being selfish and a freeloader?
Not at all. We, like most people, are glad to contribute to good causes and joint projects, and to pay for goods and services we use. It's just that we can't take what is someone else's to fund things we want and pretend that isn't theft. Do I have a moral responsibility to give charitably/liberally for the common good? Sure, but that doesn't give me a right to take from other people.
Voting for taxes because you are willing to pay it is selfish. You are always able to give as much as you want to the state regardless of the existence of a tax. Therefore, voting for a tax is only about taking from other people. It's voting for theft.
Isn't supporting basic governmental functions a shared responsibility that you owe?
If it were, then any person, group, or organization that wants to produce any of these functions, could start taking money from everyone to fund their own projects without it being theft. Any security company, school, energy company, civil engineering company, or insurance company would be able to take the money it wants from everyone else without it being theft, by claiming that the service they provide (e.g. security, education) is a "shared responsibility." Thus this objection would lead to a kind of anarchy of everyone plundering everyone.
You benefitted from the state, therefore don't you owe the state?
Unilaterally benefiting someone doesn't give you a license to take from them. And a forced exchange is a form of theft. Otherwise it would not be theft for any random jerk to force you into whatever exchange he wants.
Consider the case if anyone else besides the state were to do the same thing (e.g. if you personally unilaterally benefit someone, and then try to take what is theirs). It's recognized as theft if anyone else does the same thing.
Moreover, the state had to tax people in order to be able to fund the benefit in the first place. The production of the benefit was already paid for (via theft) by the taxpayers. For the state to then turn around and claim that the taxpayers owe the state for having provided them the benefit is rather perverse.
Don't you consent by using public infrastructure?
If the state is freely giving away use then this falls under the question You benefitted from the state, therefore don't you owe the state?. Or if fees are charged for usage--such as with water, electricity, garbage collection, toll roads--then this is still no justification for taxation, since users are already paying for the usage.
So the objection being raised here is the idea that the state, as the owner of the resource in question, requires that users pay taxes as payment--that usage is implied consent to the terms of use contract. Firstly, infrastructure is only a tiny fraction of taxes in modern, Western states, so this argument could justify only that tiny fraction. Secondly, this objection falls flat because it's not how taxes work; refraining from using state resources doesn't get you out of taxation. And thirdly, it begs the question because it presupposes that the state justly came to own the public resource in question but the state taxed to fund the construction of the resource in the first place. And in most cases the state is suppressing or banning competition.
Don't people consent by remaining in the land? It's not force/immoral because you are free to leave.
This objection begs the question because it presupposes that taxation is not theft. Because if taxation is theft, then there's no reason the victim should have to opt out or leave.
It would be a form of victim-blaming to to say the victim consented or deserved it for being in the neighborhood. So because this objection assumes that it is not victim-blaming, it assumes the very thing to be proved.
It's seen as obviously theft if anyone else were to do the same thing. Imagine if your neighbor starts stealing from you and his other neighbors, and claims it is okay because he'd stop taking your money if you move away. Your living in your house would not at all imply that you consent to his takings. You never consented to his unilateral impositions in the first place.
Isn't taxation like rent? You either pay the rent or have to move.
In the case of rental property, you have to move because it's someone else's property. This theory would work only if there were no property owners in the land except for the state. But throughout history there have been private landowners (except perhaps in communist countries). There is private property, and there is government property (e.g. government buildings or state parks). (Note however that the state generally obtained its property by theft, such as purchase with taxed money, eminent domain, or arbitrary claims to vast tracts of land.)
To get around this people come up with complex theories of different kinds of property ownership in which the state is the real owner and what we normally think of as ownership is only a conditional permission slip. This theory comes to us from feudalism--the idea of fiefdoms, where an overlord would grant some power (but not real ownership) over some land to a vassal in exchange for allegiance. It is a theory that reduces us all to vassals at best.
There is no reasonable historical argument that any actual existing state owns all the land. Certainly not in the case of rule by conquest or arbitrary claims over land. And in the case of governments purportedly formed by the people, people wanted government to protect them from things like theft, so it would be bizarre to suppose that in doing so they gave up their property. Every landowner would have had to consent to give up his property. And there's no evidence they did.
Aren't you consenting by remaining a citizen (instead of renouncing citizenship)?
Most people became citizens at birth, apart from consent. And non-citizens are forced to pay taxes too.
Don't people consent by choosing to engage in a taxed activity, like buying/selling?
A voluntary exchange involves two parties (buyer and seller). And those two did not consent to the third party's (the state's) unilateral demands. Indeed, consider what happens if the buyer and seller try making the exchange without consenting to pay the tax.
Don't people consent by using state currency?
People had and used money prior to the state making currency. And you can't get out of taxes by using other money (e.g. gold, bitcoin).
For example, if you were to receive your wages in the form of gold or bitcoin, in the U.S. that is counted as taxable income (at the "fair market value" of the gold or bitcoins). You would be forced to pay income tax in U.S. dollars (unless you can persuade the IRS to accept alternative payment). Not possessing any U.S. dollars is not accepted as an excuse for not paying income taxes. It would be up to you to figure out how to obtain the U.S. dollars demanded from you in tax. You would need to exchange your gold, bitcoin, or other assets for U.S. dollars. That exchange may incur additional taxes such as capital gains or sales taxes.
Doesn't a person consent by participating in society?
Society is not the state. Society includes any peaceful, voluntary human interactions including families, friends, division of labor, and buying and selling. Engaging in such interactions does not imply that any of the participants consents to you or anyone taking what is theirs. If it did then it would never be theft for any participant in society to take from another.
People engage in human interaction because it is mutually beneficial. People remain friends because they each value their society. People engage in voluntary division of labor because each party benefits. In trade, both parties become wealthier. It is already reciprocal, voluntary benefit, thus not a one-sided debt. Yes, people are better off by participating in society, but that doesn't mean we may steal from one another.
See also: You benefitted from the state, therefore don't you owe the state?
We also have society with citizens of other countries, in this ever-more-connected world, but you have not therefore have consented to pay the taxes of all the other countries. Nor do states claim to be able to tax the incomes of all people with whom its citizens have society.
Doesn't a person consent via the social contract?
This is circular reasoning because "social contract" is just another way of claiming the person consented. You would still need to explain exactly how the person consented.
Don't people consent by voting?
You still are forced to pay taxes even if you don't vote.
Also a person may vote against taxes or for the candidate most likely to support the least taxes. Neither of which would suggest any consent of taxation. At most the people who actively voted for the taxation could be said to have consented.
Neither does voting imply consent to the system of voting itself or its outcome, because a person can vote merely in self-defense against those who might vote for injustice, and because the outcome is imposed upon him regardless whether he votes.
Isn't taxation okay if the people voted to approve it?
Theft by majority vote is not any the less theft--just as murder by majority vote is still murder. There's nothing magical about a majority that makes it okay to do things that is immoral for anyone else to do. Majorities can't convert injustice into justice. It would be a form of might-makes-right to say that the group with the largest numbers may do what they will to smaller groups. And it is unreasonable to suppose that everyone consented to stake their rights to be won or lost by mere numbers.
Likewise it is not meaningful to suggest that anything goes because "we" are the state. A democratic state could vote to enslave a minority, and it wouldn't follow that it's okay because the enslaved were only doing it to themselves, because "we are the state".
When the older political philosophers (e.g. John Locke and the U.S. Founders) talked of consent of the governed, they meant it as a principle of limiting the state, not a principle that can create new power. The point was that the state has no legitimate powers but what the governed delegate to it, and nobody can delegate any powers but what he already possessed. Ordinary people may not steal from each other, and so they can't delegate any such right to the state.
Doesn't the state have the authority/jurisdiction to tax people regardless of their consent?
How did it get such authority? It is an organization of human beings created by human beings, none of whom have the right to steal. There is no way they could grant to themselves or their organization authority they don't have.
Isn't taxation like a private club, requiring dues in exchange for club benefits?
In the case of a private club, subscription to a magazine, phone service, apartment rental, or whatever, they can claim payment only if you consented to subscribe or become a member, and consented to the terms of the contract. Taxation is a unilateral imposition by the state, taking from people regardless of their consent.
I consent to be taxed, so the state isn't stealing from me, so it's not the case that taxation is always theft.
The issue is that not everyone consented, thus taxation always entails stealing from someone.
Only illegal taking is theft, but taxation is legal.
We aren't talking about theft as a merely legal concept, but in the sense of (in)justice. Any random unjust thing could be be made "legal" or "illegal" by any state. But justice is prior to man-made statutes, as seen in that we often judge statutes as just or unjust. If (in)justice were defined by the state, then nothing the state did could be said to be unjust, and we could eliminate injustice in the world by abolishing the state. But of course injustices like murder and theft are the reason people propose government in the first place. If we defined "murder" in terms of mere legality we could never say that Nazi Germany ever murdered anyone, or that Stalin murdered millions of his countrymen. And common dictionary definitions do often define theft as unjust or wrongful taking.
Sure, one can define a term however one wants, and "illegal taking" is another dictionary definition. Words can have multiple definitions, but to shift a term to a different definition in an argument is dishonest, and fails to respond to what we are talking about here.
But doesn't the state define property and what is whose?
Picture the first human to set foot on a particular area of land, and they decide to settle there on this unowned land, painstakingly clearing and cultivating a field to grow food, building a house, barn, etc. If someone else comes along later and seizes the house and buildings, driving out the builder, we can see the inherent parasitic nature of the act and identify it as theft. (And it is very different from the case of recipients of unilateral beneficence. This is unilateral taking.) We understand the injustice of it, and the concept of property, regardless of the existence of a state, or what laws a state has made. The reason people would propose government in the first place is to defend themselves against such violations--including to protect their property.
Furthermore a state with license to define and assign property as it wants would have absolute power. There would be no tyranny not permissible. It would be antithetical to the idea of a republican or liberal state.
Doesn't "taxation is theft" presume that all current property holdings are just?
No. Taxation would not be a just way to correct for unjust possession. Such a problem needs to be corrected through due process on an individual basis. In each particular case, the particular rightful owner of the particular property in question would need to be identified, with all the relevant evidence considered.
