Voluntary Alternatives to Taxation

Most Americans believe paying taxes is a patriotic duty. Yet this very nation was founded upon people evading taxes in 1776.

When individuals don’t pay taxes, the government goes after them with guns, even though they haven’t used force on anyone else. Thus, taxation is an initiation of physical force against the individual’s right to life, liberty and property.

If you don’t pay taxes, you can be jailed, hence depriving you the right to liberty.

And if tax “evaders” fight tax collectors to the very end, they can be killed. That’s against the right to life.

In fact, the first government agency to attack Waco, Texas’s Branch Davidian cult in 1993 was an IRS bureau, and it wasn’t to stop cult leader David Koresh’s alleged pedophilia or gun-stockpiling, but to collect the $200 gun tax it said he still “owed” it.

(Incidentally, the Oscar-nominated 1997 documentary, Waco: The Rules of Engagement, convincingly argued that the Clinton administration exhibited greater cruelty here than did Koresh.)

Isn’t that paradoxical? After all, taxes keep governments alive, and, without government, there’d be no police to protect our life, liberty and property in the first place.

So aren’t taxes required to keep society free? No. There are voluntary methods of funding government, with the state remaining able to adequately function.

First, government should allow individuals to say, “Because I refuse to pay you, you have no obligation to protect me from harm. In turn, you and I will leave each other alone, peaceably.”

Yet, if some refuse to pay for government protection, and the army still defends them from other nations, wouldn’t they be unfairly mooching off those who do pay?

No, because domestic crime is a closer threat than foreign invasion, and a fear of this is enough to scare a person into paying for the entire “package” of government.

Could the government collect enough money to run all its operations this way? Truth be told, most state operations should be cut. The National Endowment for the Arts, Amtrak and other government social services are monopolies that could be privatized (with competition allowed).

The government would need less money if its functions were limited to the police, military, and courts, and more funds could be diverted to these branches without all the other agencies around.

Furthermore, the federal government could raise revenue by selling off its many assets. It’s the nation’s largest owner of land and gold. The gold is going to waste, because it backs not a single dollar and it doesn’t earn any interest.

Our government could also hold lotteries, as France did to pay for building our Statue of Liberty. Some have argued that this isn’t feasible, because, in a free market, any private capitalist could out-compete a government lottery.

But the government lottery’s competitive advantage would be that it could honestly point out that money spent on it would help raise funds for the protection of everyone’s rights, while the private competitors’ wouldn’t.

That’d only be untrue if the private competitors donated some of their earnings to government, and that’d benefit the government as well.

The government could also own organizations that buy and sell stock in publicly-traded companies, thereby earning net profits, with no organization allowed a tax bailout. New Zealand’s mass transit system is run successfully that way -- because it isn’t allowed bailouts, it went from working at a loss to making profits.

Also, there’re still voluntary financial contributions. After all, what Americans voluntarily donate to the defense of Israel every year amounts in the billions.

Even if none of these measures were implemented, and the government were still funded by taxes, the system could still be made more humane by adding a “check-off” system.

A tax form could ask, “What do you want your money going toward?” and list items like, “Education, mail delivery, welfare,” etc., and people could check the boxes they liked.

But people shouldn’t settle for a “check-off” system, because the real issue is whether taxation is really necessary at all to run a government free of waste, limited in its functions to protecting rights through cops, soldiers and judges. This can be done without a hypocritical use of stolen money.

Yes, this issue is complicated, but it doesn’t have to be as much as the IRS has tried (often successfully) to make it.

Stuart K. Hayashi is the president of the Reason Club of Honolulu and an undergraduate in Entrepreneurial Studies at Hawaii Pacific University, though his opinions do not necessarily reflect that of either institution. He can be reached at radical_individualist@hotmail.com (If you would like to continue seeing Stuart K. Hayashi's editorials on The Hawaii Reporter, please let us know at info@hawaiireporter.com)

Yet this very nation was founded upon people evading taxes in 1776.

The quote, "No taxation without Representation" is hardly a call to evade taxes.

Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention June 12, 1788:

"the oppression arising from taxation, is not from the amount but, from the mode -- a thorough acquaintance with the condition of the people, is necessary to a just distribution of taxes. The whole wisdom of the science of Government, with respect to taxation, consists in selecting the mode of collection which will best accommodate to the convenience of the people."

Excerpt from a
Letter To James Madison
Thomas Jefferson (Oct. 28, 1785)

"Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise."

Furthermore, the Constitution was specifically authored to overcome the disablity of the Articles of Confederation making taxation all but impossible for the Continental Congress.

Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #21:

The principle of regulating the contributions of the States to the common treasury by QUOTAS is another fundamental error in the Confederation. Its repugnancy to an adequate supply of the national exigencies has been already pointed out, and has sufficiently appeared from the trial which has been made of it.

"The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned, in a great degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the celerity with which it circulates. Commerce, contributing to both these objects, must of necessity render the payment of taxes easier, and facilitate the requisite supplies to the treasury."

Hamilton, Federalist #31:

"A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible,

James Madison, Federalist #39:

"The difference between a federal and national government, as it relates to the OPERATION OF THE GOVERNMENT, is supposed to consist in this, that in the former the powers operate on the political bodies composing the Confederacy, in their political capacities; in the latter, on the individual citizens composing the nation, in their individual capacities. On trying the Constitution by this criterion, it falls under the NATIONAL, not the FEDERAL character;"

James Madison, Federalist #45:

"The change relating to taxation may be regarded as the most important; and yet the present [Continental] sic Congress have as complete authority to REQUIRE of the States indefinite supplies of money for the common defense and general welfare, as the future [Constitutional] Congress will have to require them of individual citizens;

There are voluntary methods of funding government, with the state remaining able to adequately function.

That experiment has been tried and failed repeatedly as the founders well knew.

James Madison, Elliots Debates Vol 3 p128:

Mr. Chairman, in considering this great subject, I trust we shall find that part which gives the general government the power of laying and collecting taxes indispensable, and essential to the existence of any efficient or well-organized system of government: if we consult reason, and be ruled by its dictates, we shall find its justification there: if we review the experience we hav had or contemplate the history of nations, here we find ample reasons to prove its expediency. There is little reason to depend for necessary supplies on a body which is fully possed of the power of witholding them. If a government depends on other governments for its revenues -- if it must depend on the voluntary contributions of its members -- its [*129] existence must be precarious. A government which relies on thirteen independent sovereignties for the means of its existence, is a solecism in theory and a mere nullity in practice. It is consistent with reason that such a government can promote the happiness of any people? It is subversive of every principle of sound policy, to trust the safety of a community with a government totally destitute of the means of protecting itself or its members.

Does not the history of these confederacies coincide with the lesson drawn from our own experience? I most earnestly pray that America may have sufficient wisdom to avail herself of the instructive information she may derive for a contemplation of the sources of [*132] their misfortunes, and that she may escape a similar fate by avoiding the causes from which their infelicity sprang. If the general government is to depend on the voluntary contribution of the states for its support, dismemberment of the United States may be the consequence."

Hence the Constitution:

Constitution for the United States of America:

Article VI: "This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

Article I Section 8: "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises,
to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States;
but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; "

Article I Section 8: "To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."

It would appear Stuart K. Hayashi is nothing more than an anarchist pushing his own brand of illogic and historical revisionism.

When individuals don’t pay taxes, the government goes after them with guns,

Yep, right from the very beginning, even by those who founded this nation in 1776, then called for a Constitution in 1785 for the Continental Congresses failure under the Articles of Confederation due to it's reliance on 'voluntary' contributions.

It is clear from the writing of Madison, Hamilton and others as well as history that no tax can be made voluntary and work. To say a tax is voluntary is to say it is not levied or the Congress does not intend or have the power to collect it.

One should consider the fact that when voluntary taxation was indeed proposed in the Virginia Ratification document to modify the unlimited power to tax under Article I Section 8 to one which requiring explicit consent of the people. Said proposed amendment was proposed, debated and not included in the Bill of Rights but rather rejected from those amendments.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/const/ratva.htm
Ratification of the Constitution by the State of Virginia; June 26, 1788.

***
Subsequent Amendments agreed to in Convention as necessary to the proposed Constitution of Government for the United States, recommended to the consideration of the Congress which shall first assemble under the said Constitution to be acted upon according to the mode prescribed in the fifth article thereof:
***
and no aid, charge, tax or fee can be set, rated, or levied upon the people without their own consent,

And George Washington, one of the priciples in the revolution that the author of this article refers, sent Troops against farmers to collect the still "Whiskey" tax levied against them. (one of the them excises levied for which individuals were expected to pay.):

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/proclamations/gwproc03.htm

I notice the language in the enacted law did not say "liable", or "imposed". That still tax said:

United States Statutes at Large, 1st Congress, 3rd Session Ch 15, 1791,
page 202, 204 Sec 21-24;

Sec. 21. And be it further enacted, That upon stills which after the last day of June Next, shall be employed in distilling spirits from materials of the growth or production of the United States, in any other place than a city, taown or village, there shall be paid for the use of the United States, the yearly duty of sixty cents for every gallon, English wine-measure, of the capacity or content of each and every such still, including the head thereof.
Sec. 22. And be it further encted, That the evidence of the employment of the said stills shall be, their being erected in stone, brick or some other manner whereby they shall be in a condition to be worked.

Sec 23. "... and the said duties shall be paid half yearly within the first fifteen days of January and July, upon demand of the proprietor or proprietors of each still, at his, her or their dwelling, by the proper officer charged with the survey thereof: And in case of refusal or neglect, to pay , the amount of the duties so refused or neglected to be paid may either be recovered with costs of suit in an action of debt in the name of the supervisor of the district, within which such refusal shall happen, for the use of the United States, or may be levied by distress and sale of goods of the person or persons refusing or neglecting to pay, rendering the overplus(if any there be after payment of the said amonunt and the charges of distress and sale) the the said person or persons.

One should note, the still did not even have to be producing, just in existance.
Sure seems as that law just required the government do it to em, even if it wasn't "voluntarily" paid.

No nonsense saying anything about proprietors being liable or a tax imposed. Nah, those folks just got to pay a "whiskey" tax on demand even if they didn't have any whiskey. The surveyor was ordered to collect by suit, or distraint and sale on refusal or neglect to pay; and if that didn't work, this government, founded under the Constitution, was quite willing and enabled under the Constituion to collect by force of arms from individuals.

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