On the way to jury duty yesterday I heard on the radio that 79% of Americans polled believed that it was morally wrong to underreport your income to the IRS. Unless they are just trying to avoid being marked as a potential tax evader and are lying, shame on them.
Is it immoral to hide your property from a thief to prevent his stealing it? Is it immoral to fail to tell a mugger about your secret money belt?
I pay my taxes because I don’t want to be kidnapped or killed by government thugs. I have no moral duty to do so. In fact, you might consider my payment of taxes an act of deplorable cowardice in view of the immoral uses to which the money is put. But I liken it to payment of protection money to mobsters. What good is it to get yourself killed to make a point? Would I be seen as a martyr to my moral principles or, given the poll results cited above, just a crazy tax cheat and a cautionary example to others who might resist?
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2 comments:
Nah, you'd be seen as just one of those bloggers.
Between the alternatives of coughing up income tax to the war makers and being hounded by their tax enforcers is a third way: get under the tax line. See: http://sniggle.net/Experiment/ for good ideas on how to do it (and an outlook on politics & ethics that harmonizes well with your blog).
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