“Just” Taxation

People often claim that it’s “just” a small tax, that it’s a “just” tax for this reason, that reason, or the other. But doesn’t the tax system itself, in its convoluted codes and coercive enforcement, offer enough of an admission that it is fundamentally unjust, and doesn’t history demonstrate that “just” is just the beginning?

Aren’t programs like health savings plans (HSAs) and college savings plans (529s), as well as tax credits, deductible expenses, and financial accounts subject to special or preferential tax treatment, evidence of the fact that taxes are not just “tolerable” but “justifiable” (in the generally-accepted sense) only so far as they not only serve the (ill-defined) “common good” and “pay the price for civilization” but they make sufficient allowances, guarantee essential exemptions, and offer special treatment in critical cases? At least, this is the mode of thinking that, for those willing to approve or accept the ever-expanding institution, offers any chance at “justification”.

Given the fundamental contradictions, it seems improbable, at best, that taxation in the West, in jurisdictions such as the United States, could ever remotely approach a standard of actual “reason” or “logic” or “ethics” — considering that the latter three are never absolutely guaranteed, that they are always subject to change or revocation, and that they can only chase aims (i.e. “positive” political outcomes) where they are even taken seriously at all (given the fact of political ambition and that the “aims” and goalposts are constantly moving); and considering the fact that virtually every tax represents “just” a small imposition or is likewise “justified” (at first, at least) by imposing “just” so much upon the property and the rights of the individual; and considering that political administrations have proven to be and will (by all appearances and recorded histories) remain steadfast in “justifying” their impositions — even claiming that (while entirely ignoring the principles at stake) “they will pay for themselves”; and considering their failure to reconcile contradictory tax policies (i.e. taxes assessed on sports drinks as “unhealthy sugary beverages”, as part of their claimed effort to discourage unhealthy consumption, while continuing to assess taxes on medical supplies and fitness equipment, while charging the citizenry through both taxes and entry/use fees at “public” parks where recreation stands to actually promote healthy living), and considering their demonstrated incapability or otherwise their proven unwillingness to adequately capture the minimum conditions for what could actually (assuming sufficient understanding) be popularly regarded as morally or ethically “justifiable” taxation.

Likewise, it appears that the incoherence of the system will and perhaps can remain “valid” only by the approval or acquiescence of those unwilling, incapable, or otherwise yet to pursue or acknowledge the truth; it appears, thus, improbable that inhabitants of these zones could ever even dream of a scenario in which the tax code is made coherent or the institution of taxation itself is ever even remotely made logical, ethical, or reasonable, let alone practical, in either truth or the estimation of those who make a habit of actually examining the theories and carefully studying logic, ethics, reason, and the all-important record of history — those precious few who reject incentives (or face none) to distort the truth, those precious few who err in their pursuit of truth but who, upon revealing it, have the courage to acknowledge it, and who (it turns out) often have the same kind of courage to admit their own errors. And the latter, that courage to be honest, is often “just” enough for the others, somehow compromised or incredulous, to consider them discredited, or worse, “politically incorrect” or “cancelled”, to continue adjusting the rules and the people to their liking (or to what they loosely consider “just”).