Why Taxation is Reasonable

Of late, it has become the fashion that Americans Hate Taxes. If one hates something, one must look carefully into what it is about it that one hates. In his blog, Mano Singham carefully explains the role of taxes in society, and why one should look carefully at anyone who earns a good living, but hates taxes. His explanation (link no longer available) is based on levels of need.

1. If I find it hard to keep body and soul together, it would make no sense to pay taxes at all. For the poorest Americans, paying taxes is something they would rightly resent.
2. If I earned more than I needed simply to keep body and soul together, if I had a little more money, Mano Singham points out, I would be interested in such things as security, a decent police force, decent schools, decent services which I could not afford by myself. It makes no sense to return my taxes to me and withdraw the security provided by the community, unless I was so wealthy I could hire my own private security service. So, at this level of income, it makes sense to pay some taxes, for these benefits.
3. Once my level of income rises still higher, Mano Singham speaks for himself: it is satisfying to know that by paying higher prices for groceries, for instance, that agricultural workers would earn a better wage. In other words, he says, for some of us, the satisfaction of alleviating suffering and hardship is something that we would be willing to pay taxes for.
4. [Added later]: such things as airports and stadiums, often built at taxpayer expense, are usually only enjoyed by those in fairly high tax brackets, or more frequently enjoyed by the wealthy. In addition, there are publicly funded resources that can be used only by a very few, such as luxury accommodations at airports and national parks. This list is by no means exhaustive; I suspect that there are things the wealthy can enjoy whose existence the rest of us are unaware of. The better off you are, the more you can enjoy what the government provides, and so the tax system should tax those of higher incomes at higher rates.

Mano Singham's beautifully, clearly and lucidly presented explanation of the costs versus benefits of taxation from the point of view of the socially conscious individual can hardly be improved upon. What is dismaying is that many of us have friends who are so comfortable saying that the needs of those less fortunate than ourselves are not an important consideration when it comes to complaining about taxes. In short, they say, there is so much waste in government that it excuses the blanket condemnation of taxes altogether.

Archimedes