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From: sappho@SRI-NIC.ARPA
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: Re: Taxes
Message-ID: <12231710869.14.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Mon, 18-Aug-86 02:34:34 EDT
Article-I.D.: RED.12231710869.14.MCGREW
Posted: Mon Aug 18 02:34:34 1986
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To: KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU

I can't think of any reason that state and local governments have a
greater right to take money from me than the federal government, so I
can't see why they wouldn't be included.  Social Security is also
included.  Sales tax and phone tax would be eliminated; it would be
unwieldy to use this method of taxation on them, and I can't think of
any reason for their existence except to hide the amount of taxes the
government is demanding.

Certainly some people would refuse to pay any taxes.  They would get a
free ride.  But there would be enough people paying taxes to cover
them, just as enough people pay taxes now to cover those who cheat.
And it is better for them to get a free ride than for people to be
compelled to pay for something which violates their conscience.  The
advantage of this system over only relying on donations is that people
wouldn't not pay because they had been too lazy to get around to it or
because they had underestimated their share, but because they didn't
believe they should be paying.  They could object to the use of the
money either because it is intrinsically bad or because it is not
appropriate for the *government* to use the money in that way (I
shouldn't have to object to people spending money to teach children
"secular humanism" to object to the government spending taxes in this
way).

I don't see why it is an invasion of privacy for the government to
know which of its programs I object to.  How else can it not put my
money there?  Unless the government collects no money at all (in which
case it can't exist) or takes money from everyone, whether they like
it or not (which is an even greater invasion of privacy), it will be
able to know to which of its programs I have given money and to which
I haven't.  People who don't want the government to know that
information will just be stuck with a choice between refusing all
their taxes and paying all their taxes.

I suppose if we instead had the other plan you mentioned, where people
pay the same tax as now but allocate it as they choose, then it would
be possible to separate the allocations from a person's name by having
the person just list income and how to allocate the money on a
separate form from the income tax form.  But then there would be no
way to know which people are lying about their income on the
allocation form.

Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
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