What makes taxation NOT theft?

[PetraG]

Perfect argument for the Death Penalty.

It is why the death penalty is not murder. It is not an argument why the death penalty is a legitimate and moral use of governmental authority under all circumstances. You yourself have posted why the legitimacy of government authority does not imply that everything a government does is moral. I have posted passages straight from the Bible that say that the teaching from the time of the early Church was that paying taxes is normally the duty of a Christian. This is why taxes are not inherently a form of theft. Considering the government to which St. Paul and Our Lord paid their taxes, the clear implication is that a moral conditions that would imply a duty to evade paying taxes would be rather extraordinary.

 

[Aquinas11]

No one in the Magesterium is teaching that tax evasion is the act of an upright conscience.

So now we should reject Church teaching and “follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or the teachings of the Gospel”? Two posts saying follow and don’t follow Church teaching

 

[Pai_Nosso]

No they spend most of it on social programs (Social Security, Medicare, Unemployment, etc)

Here is a breakdown of the spending of the USA budget in 2015.
54% on the military. Only 6% on medicare. Only 3% on social services, unemployment and labor.

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Here is a link to an article that tells us the the real figure is over 1 trillion.
https://www.thenation.com/article/tom-dispatch-america-defense-budget-bigger-than-you-think/
The fact is that most of America’s budget is spent on the military.

No its not what % go to services/infrastructure, its that an excess amount is being borrowed and stolen from unborn.

What you say here is true to the USA but you seem to have missed my point. My country isn’t in debt and so isn’t stealing from the unborn like America is.

and who is going to pay the tax for the cost of enforcing that?

Well to be fair I just wrote a suggestion that came to mind at the time without much thought. But to answer your question the tax payers would pay under the current system.

No, humans never do things better when they’re forced to do it. If don’t believe me , demand that someone do something for you and see what happens v. asking them nicely. I would not put more in the basket on Sunday if I was threatened with jail. I would put more in the basket on Sunday if I was choosing to, since it would give me more joy.

Never suggested no tax, see above

I was asking the op if there was a society without tax.
To you I would say if voluntary tax is such great idea then where are the societies that use this system?
Where and when has there ever been these “free societies” you speak of?

 

[PetraG]

So now we should reject Church teaching and “follow the directives of civil authorities when they are contrary to the demands of the moral order, to the fundamental rights of persons or the teachings of the Gospel”? Two posts saying follow and don’t follow Church teaching

Church teaching? No one has ever shown me a single line in which the Church has ever said it is theft when the government levies taxes or that Christians do not normally have a duty to pay them. That is because the Church has never taught that!!

Taxes are not theft. There is no moral duty to evade taxes. That argument has the strength of a sopping wet Kleenex. It does not hold up.

This thread does not deserve a long debate. It is a question with a straightforward answer. Those who want to pretend otherwise are welcome to continue lodging futile objections, but another four hundred posts would still not make a simple matter into a complicated one.

 

[OddBird]

Tax collectors sit in booths and are named Levi and Zaccheus and are often short and write Gospels.

You forgot to mention one can find some in trees.

 

[Aquinas11]

Here is a breakdown of the spending of the USA budget in 2015.

No that’s only part of the budget, here is the entire budget

As I said, you can see , most of spending is Medicare, Health, Social Security, Unemployment.

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The fact is that most of America’s budget is spent on the military.

Once again, not true. See above

My country isn’t in debt and so isn’t stealing from the unborn like America is.

Which country is that

 

[Aquinas11]

There is no moral duty to evade taxes. That argument has the strength of a sopping wet Kleenex. It does not hold up.

Ok so then you’re saying CCC can be ignored because it clearly spells out circumstances when one is obliged to ignore directives of civil authorities

 

[TULIPed]

Good catch.

Now that you mentioned it @OddBird , I’ve gone back and done a bit of research. It seems they also throw killer dinner parties (although said parties are attended by…ahem…some people of, shall we say, questionable character…)

 

[PetraG]

My country isn’t in debt and so isn’t stealing from the unborn like America is.

Since when is it “stealing from the unborn” when a nation issues government bonds? Newborns are not entitled to be born the citizens of a country that never takes out loans. (That is not saying that US monetary policy is perfect, but just objecting to the way the word “theft” is being thrown around in this thread…)

 

[Aquinas11]

Newborns are not entitled to be born the citizens of a country

Especially when 1,000,000 are slaughtered in the womb each year

 

[PetraG]

Ok so then you’re saying CCC can be ignored because it clearly spells out circumstances when one is obliged to ignore directives of civil authorities

I have given examples in which both the Apostle Paul and Our Lord Himself said there was a duty to pay taxes, which is the civil act under debate in this thread, even though the government they lived under undeniably used tax money for immoral purposes.
You have never given an example of the Church telling Catholics not to pay their taxes. It is beyond the pale that you are accusing me of ignoring the Catechism!!
More to the point, the thread is not about an immoral government but about whether or not taxes are inherently a form of theft. No.

 

[PetraG]

Especially when 1,000,000 are slaughtered in the womb each year

Wow. The need to take a commment out of context was so great that you had to resort to taking a sentence fragment? This, even though the Apostle Paul said taxes were owed to the same government that crucified Christ? The Romans persecuted the Church and slaughtered the martyrs, sometimes as public entertainment. Find where the Church ever taught that Christians have a moral duty to evade paying their taxes even to that government.

 

[OddBird]

Oh, right. I simply thought of trees because I’m an owl. Dinner parties, with or without questionable characters, are a bit out of my comfort zone.

 

[Pai_Nosso]

Since when is it “stealing from the unborn” when a nation issues government bonds? Newborns are not entitled to be born the citizens of a country that never takes out loans. (That is not saying that US monetary policy is perfect, but just objecting to the way the word “theft” is being thrown around in this thread…)

It was Aquinas11 who claimed that the government was “stealing from the unborn”. I just made the point that his claim didn’t apply to where I live. I agree that the word “theft” is being defined differently by people which makes things difficult.

 

[Bernoulli]

Newborns are not entitled to be born the citizens of a country that never takes out loans.

St. Paul says that “children ought not to lay up for their parents, but parents for their children.” (2 Cor 12) While it is not immoral to take loans, the tendency should be rather to save capital for the children, leaving the country in a better condition than it was received.

 

[TULIPed]

I simply thought of trees because I’m an owl.

That’s so weird?! Not that you’re an owl - that’s totally normal and cool (I call screech owls in to my back yard every evening BTW).

I thought of dinner parties with questionable characters because I am a questionable character (I’m totally depraved after all )

 

[SeekSalvation]

Personally, for me there is nothing on this earth I own. I’m a here as a steward to God’s possession on this earth that is bound to the temporal walls of time. There will come a day everything on this earth is burnt and destroyed. Including the tax man and his wealth.

 

[po18guy]

Whatever one calls it, it is legal. Those who exact taxes answer to God and so do we - for our obedience or disobedience.

 

[lexscripta]

I have been reading this and I just have to weigh in. I actually LOVE this topic and have studied it, and been the subject of it once or twice.

As the comments on Romans 13, and a few other NT references, there are some other considerations. Lets start with one.

Assume that the government brings a slanderous charge based on statutes and is completely supported by the facts. Suppose that the Government wins and the good Catholic boy goes to jail. Ah yes, the American judicial system.

Now suppose that the opportunity comes for our good Catholic boy to get a good lawyer to appeal. The question is put forth as to the constitutionality of the statute. Supreme court overthrows the lower court decision and then “remands” said case back to the lower court wherein the the “facts” are re-evaluated and the Cathloic boy is exonerated and freed from bondage.

Was this a legitimate step to do?

I know you agree that this is ok, and in fact we would champion such a success as good and right.

I’d like to point out something from Romans 13 (and in fact other verses that say we should “obey the ordinances of man”). You have to remember that even secular Government must obey the rule of law by their own admission. There are a couple of good references in the Bible that address this very topic. One is the story of Darius and Daniel in the Lions den. Remember what the King said? He said the the law of the Medes and Persians could not be overthrown - EVEN THOUGH he was KING! Even the King had no power to stop Daniels fate, even though he wanted to.

Why do I bring this up? Simple. Because even the Government has to follow the law.

The Bible does not make us accept ALL government edicts as true, otherwise it would be sin to challenge the rightness or “constitutionality” of a law even when we know it’s wrong. I hope God would not expect me to suffer evil from a bad law that I could win if I merely defended myself based on the very constitution that gives the authority for me to challenge it.

So, here is what I am getting to. The income tax must be implemented by a certain set of federal rules. You should check and see if those rules are being adhered to. If they are not, then perhaps - and I do mean perhaps you can challenge them. There are many people who have suffered greatly because they believe the income tax is not applicable to them. There are some who have made the taxman go away. I can tell you I have watched this argument for years and there are more casualties than wins.

In closing, I will say this. Governments do have the authority to tax in certain situations, but those situations must be clearly defined. They cannot be vague. They must be applicable. Learning where the applicability lies is the real power in this debate. But “narrow is the path, and few there be that find it”.

Be very careful, and know what you are doing before embarking on this journey.

 

[twf]

Not from a Catholic perspective. Natural law would still come into play.