ok, good.
It’s a stretch to view taxation or some forms of it as immoral. I can imagine some kind of retrospective law that incorporated a deception - and that would be immoral, but these are not commonplace.
No. First, government programs must first be within the enumerated powers, but that’s an American issue.
Is there a Supreme Court challenge to cease government spending money on programs directed to assisting the poor? And do the State legislatures have a right to assist the poor financially?
If the trillions had not been spent, the poor would have been better looked after. Is that your assertion?
This is not true. Government does not have the right to tax. It has the power to tax, and that power is only legitimate when the people have granted government that power, as the US did, sadly, under the 16th amendment, for example.
Sadly, no, and the founders must be spinning in their graves over what we are doing to our republic.
No, because governments do not have rights.
If not in quantity, certainly in quality, for the reasons I just stated.
The distinction is when it is the legitimate authority acting for the public good. This terminology and the concept is referred to in the catechism (a document we both claim as authoritive), so I defer to that document. As for an example, consider the death penalty for crimes. Only a legitimate authority acting for the public good can morally put a confined prisoner to death. A band of robbers cannot do that morally
You can be subject to penalties, including in extreme cases the confiscation of your goods. That too is a legitimate and moral function of government and not theft.
It is not as if the government can choose between their program and private charities as the means to help the poor. They can only choose to do something or do nothing, hoping that private charity will do it. The government program may not be the most efficient overall, but it is the most efficient among the choices open to it.
The only taxation that is, by any stretch moral, is taxation that provides for the legitimate functions of government. such as providing for the common defense of the people, enforcing border security, providing a system of justice and providing for the common good through things like infrastructure. Charity is a function of The Church and the government is only doing Satan’s work when it usurps that role.
There is no Catholic doctrine that so limits the legitimate functions of government. There is a Libertarian doctrine that says that, but that is a different religion.
The truth is not limited to what is understood by whatever given person. If you recognized the truth, you would acknowledge the bitter fruits of ruin resulting from the illegitimate actions of governments.
However as the CCC states, the state derives its power from the consent of the governed. I cannot authorize an agent to do something that I have no moral authority to do. So your distinction is without difference.
So if you do not pay up, the state deprives you of your ability to use the property. The only other similar relationship is a landlord and a tenant. Property taxes are rent paid to state. Nobody can truly own property if they pay property taxes. They are a direct assault on property rights.
Are you trying to argue that you, in concert with your fellow countrymen, do not have the moral authority to levy taxes? Of course you do. Well, not you all by yourself. But you as a member of the community. The CCC clearly says that you have a duty to pay your taxes. They would not say that if the government did not have the moral authority to levy the taxes.
No, that is quite different.
No, property taxes are just taxes. Period. They are not rent.
Property taxes are not simply taxes, because the place the government in a position to confiscate private property. It is worse than rent. It is more akin to legalized protection payments.
Your analogies are faulty. They ignore the fact that taxes - whether they are based on property, or income, or purchases, or inheritance, or whatever, are taxes. Their legitimacy is based, not on the exact means of calculation, but on the nature of the entity that is levying them. If it is your own community that is a legitimate authority, acting in the common good, the taxes are legitimate. If it is a self-empowered entity that is not acting for the common good and not representing the people, it is not.
I’m not saying they are illegal, or illegitimate. I am not saying taxation, per se, is immoral. I am only speaking to the issue of property tax, which I find unamerican in the sense that it places government in the position of overlord of private property.
Property tax is not unique in that sense. If you do not pay your income tax, or sales tax, and obstinately refuse repeatedly to pay what you owe, non-payment of any one of these taxes could eventually result in the loss of your private property. Although in any reasonable scenario, many other less extreme remedies would be attempted before it came to that.
Agreed about income tax, and it is the main reason I oppose it. When the government takes whatever amount it wants off the top, there is an implication that the money belongs to the government and they allow us to keep some.
The exact mechanics of how the tax is collected is not what makes it moral or immoral. The fact that income tax withholding is done by the employer on behalf of the government is just a mechanism and has no moral implications. If you are self-employed, for example, there is no withholding - just periodic estimated tax payments. So this “off the top” notion is not a fundamental characteristic of income tax - just an implementation detail.
That is not a distinguishing characteristic. You could just as well say that one chooses how much income tax to pay, based on how much one chooses to earn. If you don’t want to pay so much sales tax, don’t buy so much. If you don’t want to pay so much income tax, don’t earn so much. They are the same in this regard.
Are you sure about that? I think with sufficient due process, one’s already owned property could be in jeopardy to satisfy any debt, including private debts, taxes, fines, whatever. The ownership of property is almost sacrosanct, but not completely so. It would be the last resort to satisfy a debt.