Rodent Regatta

Tax Fairness versus Tax Morality

by Craig J. Cantoni

Honest Americans Against Legal Theft (HAALT)

Politicians, especially Democrats, talk about tax fairness but never talk about tax morality. That’s because their notion of a fair tax is really an immoral tax, for it is based on theft—on some people taking money from other people for themselves. Let’s look at examples of moral and immoral taxes and four principles to use in determining which is which.

The first example is gas taxes. Gas taxes are a moral tax if the revenue is used for roads. The taxes are moral because the users of the roads pay for the cost of the roads and do not take money from nonusers.

On the other hand, gas taxes are an immoral tax if part of the revenue is used to subsidize riders of light rail, as is being done today. It is wrong for mass transit riders to take the money of car drivers and other taxpayers instead of paying the full cost of their ride in fares.

If you think this is a minor matter, think again. Someone who takes the typical light-rail system to work everyday over a 25-year career will receive $100,000 in ”subsidies,” which is a euphemism for ”stolen money.”

Direct taxes and fees are the most moral way of paying for government services, because the users pay directly for the services and cannot stick their neighbor with the bill. An example is a water bill based on household usage. An opposite example is a hidden telephone tax in which city dwellers subsidize the telephone service for expensive vacation homes in rural areas.

This leads to our first principle of taxation:

PRINCIPLE ONE: Direct taxes and fees are the most moral way of funding government services.

Of course, it is not practical to charge citizens directly in taxes or fees for many government services. In such cases, general taxes are necessary, and the following principle applies:

PRINCIPLE TWO: General taxes are moral if they are taken from all citizens in equal proportions and used to the extent practical for the equal benefit of all citizens—for the true general welfare, in other words.

An example of the above principle is taxes for national defense.

Some would argue that taxes that fund what they see as an unjust war are immoral. They would have a point. But in such a case, the war would be immoral, not the taxation. This leads to a third principle:

PRINCIPLE THREE: The morality of taxes should be judged separately from the morality of the use of the taxes.

Applying this principle in the national defense example, the use of the taxes, war, may be immoral, but the taxes are moral, since they do not take money from some citizens for the benefit of other citizens.

Contrast this with Medicare taxes for prescription drugs. In this case, the taxes are immoral, because they are a form of intergenerational theft. They take money from younger generations for the benefit of the retired generation. However, the use of the taxes, buying medicine, is not immoral, for there is nothing wrong with seniors buying medicine.

Similarly, it is moral for citizens to help those in need. Not only that, but a case can be made that it is immoral for someone not to feed the poor and care for the sick. But this is a separate issue from the issue of taxation. Not only is the government lousy at distinguishing the truly needy from the phony needy, but it is not moral for the government to force some citizens to support other citizens through the tax code. Which brings us to our fourth principle:

PRINCIPLE FOUR: Compassion and charity are personal and religious matters, not matters for the tax collector.

Violating the four principles has resulted in over half of government revenue being taken from some citizens for the benefit of other citizens. Politics has become a gigantic Monopoly game in which the objective is to have the government take someone else’s money before the other person has the government take your money. Stated differently, over half of government activity is involved with theft. Thus, the power and reach of government and politicians would be cut at least in half if the four principles were followed.

Violating the principles also has resulted in uneconomic decisions, wasted capital and rising costs. When someone else is picking up the tab, cost is no object to the recipient. It is not a coincidence that the two most socialized areas of the economy, health care and K-12 education, are the most inefficient and costly.

Admittedly, there are gray areas with the principles as there are with any philosophy of government. In such cases, the best course of action is to discuss why the foregoing principles apply or don’t apply, and then to vote on the issue. That is quite different from what happens today, when there is no discussion of guiding principles and voting is based solely on self-interest.

What about public education? Is this a gray area?

The answer is no. Public education taxes are clearly immoral.

Sure, a case can be made that public education benefits all citizens by ensuring an educated populace—that the use of the taxes is moral. However, the ugly fact is that the taxes are immoral, for they are based on theft, and a huge theft at that.

Take two families with four school-age kids. Let’s say that Family A will pay $80,000 in public school taxes over a lifetime; Family B, $100,000. The kids of Family A attend public school, for a cost to the school district of $400,000 for 12 years. The kids of Family B attend parochial school, because their parents want to exercise their right of religious freedom and pay dearly to exercise that right.

Under this very real scenario, Family A gets a fivefold return on taxes (ROT), because it will pay $80,000 in taxes for a $400,000 benefit. Family B gets a thoroughly rotten ROT of zero, although it is saving the school district $400,000 on top of paying taxes of $100,000, for a net benefit to the district—and indirectly to Family A—of $500,000.

There are a number of practical ways of eliminating or at least reducing public education theft: 1) Users of public schools could pay a direct tuition to use the schools; 2) states could issue education vouchers to be used at the school of one’s choice, public or private; or 3) private school parents and homeschoolers could get a tax credit for the public school taxes that they pay while their kids attend private school or are homeschooled.

Of course, those who take other people’s school tax money would whine about the unfairness of the three options. Which leads me to conclude with the following tax maxim, or ”taxim” for short:

TAXIM: Citizens who take other people’s money always say that it is unfair to stop them from stealing.

Don’t believe the taxim? Listen to Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media.

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Mr. Cantoni is an author, columnist and founder of HAALT. He can be reached at ccan2@aol.com.