Why "Taxation" is the Moral Equivalent of Theft

What is "Theft?"

The Eighth Commandment is "Thou shalt not steal" (Exodus 20:15)

• Exposition of the Eighth Commandment in the Westminster Larger Catechism

"Theft" means taking something that belongs to someone else without their consent.

I, for one, do not consent to your systematic theft.

It is crystal clear that "taxation" is "theft." The "prima facie" case is inescapable. The logic is air-tight. But there are all kinds of evasions and high-sounding rationalizations. 

At the end of the day, "But I want my free stuff" is the real argument against the conclusion that "taxation" is the moral equivalent of theft.

It is important to remember that government interference always means either violent action or the threat of such action. The funds that a government spends for whatever purposes are levied by taxation. And taxes are paid because the taxpayers are afraid of offering resistance to the tax gatherers. They know that any disobedience or resistance is hopeless. As long as this is the state of affairs, the government is able to collect the money that it wants to spend. Government is in the last resort the employment of armed men, of policemen, gendarmes, soldiers, prison guards, and hangmen. The essential feature of government is the enforcement of its decrees by beating, killing, and imprisoning. Those who are asking for more government interference are asking ultimately for more compulsion and less freedom.
       [I]n face of the modern tendencies toward a deification of government and state, it is good to remind ourselves that the old Romans were more realistic in symbolizing the state by a bundle of rods with an ax in the middle than are our contemporaries in ascribing to the state all the attributes of God.

Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, 1949

"Patriotism" is just a name for the unjustified belief that you're getting more than you're paying for.

The Bible says pay your taxes, but that does not justify levying taxes. Jesus said "Render unto Caesar" (Matthew 22:15-22; Mark 12:13-17; Luke 20:20-26), but that command does not mean Caesar will not get off the hook on the Day of Judgment for militarily invading Israel before Christ was born, slaughtering thousands of Israelites, and then setting up soldiers in Israel to occupy Israel and put the people under tribute. Military invasions and plundering people are sins. But Jesus said "Resist not evil" (Matthew 5:39-44). Taxation is evil.

Jesus commanded His followers to be pacifists.

• Thou shalt not kill (Mark 10:19, quoting Exodus 20:13)
• Thou shalt not confiscate property (Matthew 19:18; Exodus 20:13-16; Deuteronomy 5:17-20)
• Forgive enemies (Matthew 6:14-15)
• Love enemies (Matthew 5:44)
• Bless enemies (Romans 12:14)
• Pray for enemies (Luke 6:27-28)
• Give gifts to enemies (Romans 12:20)
• Exhort your enemy to repent (Matthew 18:15-17)

And if all that fails:

• Leave vengeance to God (Romans 12:19-21)

Christians have a moral obligation to "be subject to" (Romans 13:1-7; 1 Peter 2: 13-23) unjust laws which politicians have a moral obligation to repeal. Politicians have a moral obligation to repeal the income tax and all other taxes.

Here are a half-dozen articles in favor of the claim that when thieves calling themselves "the government" take money against the will (without the consent) of the rightful owner, it is not "theft."

Actually, none of these articles actually refute the claim that taxation is immoral, sinful, and a violation of the 8th Commandment. Some of them even concede that point. But all of them say that we must still have taxes, arguing on some pragmatic or patriotic basis. None of theses arguments will hold up on Judgment Day. Just because theft is the easiest way for you to fund your project does not make it moral. But nobody cares about morality any more. Certainly not God's morality.

• Taxation Is Not Theft
  • "What they ignore, time and time again, is the crucial role of democratic consent. Taxes are not arbitrary impositions decreed by a faceless government. Rather, taxes are the dues we pay in exchange for membership in a society and access to all the services it offers."
    • Response: "Majority rule" does not make evil moral. "Democratic consent" is an evil (because deceptive) phrase. An election in which two million people "vote" to take money from one million people does not create real "consent." The electoral losers were voting in self-defense. They do not consent. This is theft dressed up in lies. [Against "democracy."]
    • Response: What if I don't want the government's "services," or wouldn't buy them voluntarily at the government's suggested retail price?
  • "If you don’t want to pay, if you dislike its terms, you can leave that society and seek another one. But you are not free to unilaterally demand that society rewrite its terms to favor your particular preferences."
    • Isn't this an "undemocratic" sentiment? What if a majority of voters become libertarian and vote to abolish all taxes? Does not one lone individual have a right to build a majority through persuasion and argument? Does this undemocratic attitude even qualify as an "argument" against the moral equation of taxation and theft? (No, it doesn't. "If you don't want to be stolen from, leave" concedes that theft is going on.)
  • "Going hand-in-hand with the fallacious equation of taxation to theft is another libertarian fallacy: the belief that a free market is the natural state of affairs and will spontaneously arise if only the economy is left to itself. This is wrong. A free market is a kind of infrastructure, and like all other infrastructure, it requires investment to create and effort to maintain."
    • Yes, a market requires infrastructure. But infrastructure does not require theft.  Government did not create fiber-optic cable and cell-phones. There is nothing in the infrastructure of global capitalism that requires theft; nothing that venture capitalists would not have funded voluntarily in order to make a profit.
    • Yes, a "FREE market" is not natural. In a fallen world of sinful human beings, empire, slavery, domination, and "the government" are normal. The "free market" exists only by the grace of God and the guidance of the "Invisible Hand" of Divine Providence. A "Free Market" requires self-sacrifice and refraining from the "easy" way of theft.
    • Eternal vigilance -- not "taxation" -- is the price of liberty.
  • "Any power can be abused, but that is not a reason to get rid of all power, which is impossible in any case. If taxes are spent unwisely or wasted, the answer is to elect better politicians or put in place more stringent legislative safeguards."
    • Any legitimate power can, perhaps, be abused. But "theft" is not a legitimate power. Getting rid of all immorality, all theft, is always a proper goal.
    • It's not that theft -- the power to extort -- can be abused. The problem is that theft is abuse.
       
• Why Taxation Is Not Theft | Whistling In The Wind
  • "The state owns the land and if you want to live on the land you must pay rent."
    • How did Barack Obama and his friends acquire just title to 50% of the land west of the Rockies?  (This includes 84.9 percent of land in Nevada, 64.9 percent of Utah, 61.6 percent of Idaho, 61.2 percent of Alaska, 52.9 percent of Oregon, 48.1 percent of Wyoming, and 45.8 percent in California.).
    • How The Feds Got All That Western Land (and Why It's a Problem)
    • Why does Obama get to pass this title to Hillary and her friends, or to Trump and his friends?
  • "It is not theft if you receive something in return."
    • What if you don't want what I give you in return?
  • So libertarians make the bizarre argument that the government is a thief who gives more than he steals (due to economic inequality most people receive more than they pay in taxes).
    • The Keynesian miracle of "stones into bread." John Maynard Keynes actually described credit expansion -- the heart of his economic system -- as the "miracle...of turning a stone into bread." 
    • "Credit expansion" -- like taxation -- is theft. "There is no such thing as a free lunch." "Something for nothing" is either an immoral (covetous) delusion on the part of the recipient, or theft on the part of the "giver."
  • There’s nothing stopping a libertarian party from being set up and winning an election. If taxation really was theft, then such a party would easily win a landslide and could promptly end the theft.
    • Except for the fact that the democratic majority is dominated by covetousness and immoral delusions that they get something for nothing, or something for more than they paid (were taxed).
  • The problem with most libertarian arguments is that it assumes we have only rights but no responsibilities. It assumes that we have no duties to the poor, the sick, the elderly or even to children.
    • No, it assumes that you do not have a right to steal from someone who is deemed (or may truly be) "irresponsible." Use education and persuasion with an irresponsible person, not extortion.
  • Libertarians make the mistake of thinking of people as isolated individuals isolated from the rest of the world. They act as though, I and I alone earned my wage and therefore it belongs to no one else. In reality, we are hugely dependent on others and society. Would we earn anywhere near enough money if we did not have public roads, education, health, energy etc?
    • If we really benefit from the government's roads, schools, bureaucracies, and wars, wouldn't capitalists fall all over themselves to provide them -- at a profit -- to eager consumers?
    • Roads: Many of America's Founding Fathers -- like Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Calhoun -- did not want the government to get involved in the business of "internal improvements" like roads and canals. They reasoned that if politicians were able to take money from taxpayers and build roads, they would build roads that served political purposes rather than the needs of consumers. Politicians would build roads that benefited campaign contributors or special interests.
    • Education: Government "education" is a total failure. Education is not a legitimate function of politicians; it belongs to parents as consumers.
    • Health: We have health because of capitalism, not bureaucrats.
    • Energy: Nixon was one of the first politicians to promise "energy independence" in the 1970's. How's that working for you?
    • The idea that creating health, education, and energy are legitimate functions of "the government" shows how far Americans have departed from the ideals of America's Founders, the "enumerated powers" of the Constitution, and have adopted the religion of statism, the belief that government is our savior. I'll cut him some slack -- as a victim of educational malpractice in government schools -- for believing that only politicians can outsource road building to private road building businesses.
  • response: Inside McFloogle's Mind / Taxation is not theft?
     
• Loren Lomasky: Taxation is Not Theft | Bleeding Heart Libertarians
  • "it may even be the case that taxation is as morally reprehensible as theft; nonetheless, and with apologies for the repetition, it is not theft."
    • Huh?
  • that pronouncement denies the legitimacy of the social order"
    • it denies the legitimacy of "the government," yes.
  • "and announces that I regard myself as authorized unilaterally to override its dictates as I would the depredations of a thief. 
    • Christians are commanded to pay taxes to the demonic "powers that be" (Romans 13), as a species of not resisting evil (Matthew 5:39; Romans 12). Taxation is evil. IRS agents should be excommunicated from Christian churches.
  • It says to my neighbors that I regard them as, if not themselves thieves, then confederates or willing accomplices to thievery.
    • Um, yes. A difficult, but inescapable conclusion to draw. James 4:4; Genesis 18:32; 19:24-25, but see Romans 11:3-5.
       
• Debate: Income Taxation Is Not Theft | Debate.org
   
• Yes, Taxation Is Theft: Now What? | PJ Media
   
• Taxation is not theft. | Argument Map
   
• Sorry Libertarians, Taxation is not theft
  • "Second, I believe that your claim is rooted in an individualism which threatens the foundation of our shared social order. Individualism I believe, is exceedingly toxic, and as it works its way deeper into our society it undermines the philosophical roots of many of our most cherished and necessary institutions."
  • How does "shared social order" differ from "armed mass aggression?"
    You don't like "individualism," so you and your friends gang up on any individualist who does not consent to your acts of theft?
     
• Philosophy, et cetera: Why Taxation Is Not Theft
  • The argument seems to boil down to unanswerable questions about the initial acquisition of property. The answer to these questions is to question "property" itself, as PJ Proudhon did, where "property" is defined as "I claim it even though I cannot possibly ever use it, but if you want to use it you must pay me rent, and if you don't pay me, Agents of the State will violently expropriate "my" land from you." This is a huge complex question, but it doesn't justify theft. It justifies further ensuring freedom and absence of government coercion. In other words, we should not use the "property" quagmire to move in the direction of more government/more theft, but we should use our doubts about "property" to explore how a society free of government coercion and protective of genuine "private property" can arise and be maintained. See here and here for explorations of this issue.

Not a single one of these arguments would hold up in the case of an individual ("Smith") taking money from another individual ("Jones"). Example: Smith says "I'm using the money I extorted from Jones for a project I deem valuable to all of society, not just for myself personally (although I take my cut of the money for my salary)." 

If taxation is theft, then "anarcho-capitalism" (or "anarcho-something-ism") is the only moral position. No taxation, no "State." This is a tough pill to swallow, but it is necessary medicine.

Arguments against the claim that when "the government" takes money against the will (without the consent) of the rightful owner, it is not "theft."

• Is taxation theft? - YouTube
• Taxation Is Theft | Andrew P. Napolitano
• Is All Taxation Theft? | Michael S. Rozeff
• Is Government a Thief? | Laurence M. Vance
• Sound Tax Policy | Laurence M. Vance
• The Taxation Is Theft Hangup and Panarchism | Michael S. Rozeff
• 10 Other Things You Absolutely Need To Know About Taxes | Laurence M. Vance
• Taxation, Forced Labor, and Theft - Independent Institute
• Are Taxes Theft? | Talking Philosophy
• Is taxation by definition a form of theft? Why or why not? - Quora
• civil government - What is the theological background to the belief that taxation is theft? - Christianity Stack Exchange

Taxing authorities take their cut from tax revenue to pay their own salaries.

Comparing salaries of public-sector employees with similar private-sector employees.

• Comparing the Compensation of Federal and Private-Sector Employees
• Unequal Pay: Public vs. Private Sector Compensation in Connecticut | Yankee Institute for Public Policy
• Study: Government Workers Make 78 Percent More Than Private Sector - Washington Free Beacon
• Are Public Sector Workers Paid More Than Their Alternative Wage? Evidence from Longitudinal Data and Job Queues
• Comparing Government and Private Sector Compensation in Canada

Joseph in Egypt

From time to time, I hear churchmen claim that taxation is moral based on what Joseph did in Egypt. By being faithful to God and willing to serve the Egyptians, Joseph rose in Pharaoh's favor to the #2 position in the Empire. God gave Pharaoh a dream and the interpretation to Joseph. The dream involved a massive famine that would have killed millions of people in Egypt, but God gave Joseph the wisdom to plan ahead and avoid mass death. Does this divine revelation to Joseph and the centralized planning and collectivization of Egypt by Joseph under Pharaoh give God's moral approval for George Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump to confiscate wealth from those who created it?

Taxation and Planning

It is important to remember that no politician in history has ever taxed "his" people in order to hoard the money in his basement and never spend it.

.

Sure, they always take their cut and live in luxury, but socialist planners are always saviors at heart. They have monuments to build. They have enemies to murder. All this takes money. Your money.

Taxes are what tyrants need to execute their plans. Taxation always means central planning. <— Please check out that link. Politicians do not engage in planning as effectively as consumers. Capitalism does a better job of planning than socialism. Those who tax always say "I have a plan." That socialist plan is always the worst way to spend that money. To say that tyrants have God's moral approval for stealing is also to say that they have God's moral approval for their plans for the loot. Gary North comments:

It might be argued that Joseph's experience in Egypt serves as a biblical justification of central planning by the civil government. Such an argument, while no doubt tempting, overlooks the key fact in this incident: Pharaoh had been given a direct revelation by God, and Joseph came to him as God's prophet with the ability to interpret Pharaoh's dream perfectly. Only on this assumption, namely, that we can expect truly prophetic omniscience from salaried or elected officials of the central government, can a biblical case be made for universal central economic planning. If this assumption is rejected, then central economic planning initially has no greater claim to biblical sanction than private economic forecasting does.

Is the assumption correct? Is there some feature about becoming a State official which in some way endows a person with a prophetic mantle? What biblical evidence do we have for such an assumption? Is any foreign prisoner who has served two years of an indeterminate jail sentence a predictably effective interpreter of visions given to national leaders? Would anyone wish to build a theory of political economy on such a premise? Could we create a governmental planning structure in terms of such an operating presupposition about the nature of civil government?

The consequence of Egyptian economic planning by Joseph must also be borne in mind. The entire nation, excepting only the priests, went into bondage to the Egyptian State (Gen. 47:13-22). All land, except that owned by the priests, became the possession of the Pharaoh. The people survived the famine, which they might not have been able to do had it not been for Joseph's entrepreneurship, but they and their heirs became servants of the Pharaoh and his heirs.

It was basic to the religions of antiquity that the State was in some fundamental way divine, or linked to the divine through the ruler. Egypt's theology was especially notable for its adherence to the theology of a divine ruler. The Pharaoh was supposedly the descendent of the sun god. Only the Hebrews, with their doctrine of the Creator-creature distinction, avoided the lure of a theology of immanent divinity. The outcome of such a theology, when coupled with a mechanism of State economic planning, was enslavement. This was the curse of what Wittfogel has called oriental despotism.⁸
8. Karl A. Wittfogel, Oriental Despotism: A Comparative Study of Total Power (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1957).

The Hebrews, in stark contrast, were told to worship God, and only God, as divine. The State, clearly, is not divine, and any attempt to make it divine - the sole representative of God on earth was understood to be demonic. Officials were constantly told to remain honest stewards of the great King. The office of prophet was decentralized, and prophets continually challenged kings, princes, priests, and average Hebrew citizens when they turned away from God and His law. God sent a shepherd like Amos to speak to the people; they were expected to' heed this shepherd's word, not the king and his court priests. The civil government is no more trustworthy than any other human institution. All institutions are to be under the jurisdiction of God. There is no monopoly of sovereignty on earth, except God's written word, the Bible.

By decentralizing the office of prophet, God insured that His people would not be compelled to listen exclusively to false prophets catering to the civil government rather than serving God. When the people were stiff-necked, refusing to heed His word, He punished them by allowing them to believe the false reports provided by the court's false prophets (Ezek. 14:1-5). The curse on their ethical rebellion was quite specific: the imposition of centralized decision-making by corrupt kings and their officially sanctioned prophets.

We never face a choice of "planning" vs. "no planning." The only question is: "Whose plan?" When economic planning is decentralized, and decisions are made by owners of private property, society is shielded from the risks of massive, centralized error. An erroneous decision made by a particular privately owned firm may cost its shareholders dearly, and consumers who would have purchased the goods that would have been made, had the firm not embarked on its error-filled course, no doubt are harmed. There has been waste. Nevertheless, the majority of consumers are protected because competing firms and suppliers can step in and satisfy consumer demand. The rival suppliers help to smooth out the disruptions caused either by the unforeseen external circumstances or the operations of the misallocating firm.

When a monopolistic central planning agency makes an error in forecasting the economic future, large segments of the population suffer. ...  By monopolizing the entrepreneurial function, the State creates a planning structure that is far too rigid, far less sensitive to shifts in consumer demand and resource supplies, than the decentralized planning of profit-seeking entrepreneurs. This inflexibility in the face of ceaseless change drastically increases the risk of devastating, centralized, universal failure. And even when the State's bureaucrats turn out to be successful forecasters, as Joseph was in Egypt, the citizens who benefit from this accurate forecasting run the risk of becoming increasingly dependent on the State. As those in Egypt learned during the reign of the Pharaoh of Moses' day, successful State planning in one period in no way guarantees the continued success of central planners in subsequent periods. But successful State planning does increase the share of capital assets controlled by the State and its bureaucratic functionaries, thereby insulating them in subsequent decisions from private competition in the total decision-making process. The Egyptians learned this lesson the hard way.

It must be recognized that Joseph was in Egypt. No system of centralized economic planning was created at Mt. Sinai. God did not tell His people to imitate the experience of Egypt. He told them to avoid all contact with the "leaven" of Egyptian culture. Joseph brought the theological slaves of Egypt under bondage to their false god, the Pharaoh. God does not want His people to turn to the legacy of Egypt's bureaucratic tyranny as a model for a godly social order.

This exegesis of Joseph in Egypt outrages your typical State-promoting evangelical, especially college professors. They have tied their classroom lecture notes to the State-worshipping worldview of the tax-supported, humanist-accredited universities that awarded them their Ph.D.'s. They are the Pharaoh-worshippers of this era. Had they been in Egypt in Moses' day, they would have been the Hebrew foremen working under the authority of Pharaoh's Egyptian taskmasters. They are the people who would have come to Moses and Aaron and told them to go away, because they were making Pharaoh angry (Ex. 5:20-21). Their high position in the slave system was dependent on the continuing bondage of their people. So it is with humanism's chaplains in the Christian college classroom and the pulpit today. Freedom would require them to revise their notes and begin to promote economic freedom in the name of Christ rather than bondage to the would-be savior State.

Gary North, The Dominion Covenant: Genesis, 227-229.

To say that Joseph's example in Egypt makes taxation by modern Secular Humanist socialists and fascists moral in God's sight is a breathtaking example of statist idolatry and ignorance, which all too frequently characterize today's Christians.

What About "The Head Tax?"

Some will say that Exodus 30:11-16 justifies imposition of taxes, though perhaps a very limited tax. Is this true?

No. Here are some resources to answer that question:

• An Anarchist Weighs In on the Debate over the "Head Tax"
• James Jordan: State Financing in the Bible - Appendix D - Law of the Covenant
• Gary North: "Blood Money, Not Head Tax" Tools of Dominion, Chapter 32
• Dr. Robert Fugate on the "Head Tax" + Reply by a Theonomic Anarchist

Taxation is the Moral Equivalent of Theft -- KEVIN CRAIG - "Liberty Under God" Beginning in Missouri's 7th Congressional District