Income Taxation Is Not Theft

It is often more difficult to take the position of PRO, and I applaud my opponent for putting forth this resolution. That being said, I look forward to an engaging debate. Ex Mutatio Victoria. Now, I will expose the fallacies presented by my opponent. C1: We have no legal property rights to our pretax income My opponent's entire first argument can be summed up with the statement “Property rights do not precede the law but follow from the law and this law includes income taxation. ” My opponent is assuming that all rights, including property rights, which is an idea, came after laws were passed declaring them so. Therefore, applying the principle of “I got here first, therefore it’s mine,” my opponent claims the government owns all property, and by extension our rights, and is merely licensing it/them to us. Not only does this defy the second pargraph of the founding document of the nation, the Declaration of Independence [1], this clearly defies logic. Laws do not fall out of the sky, or magically appear in a book. They require action by a human to exist. All human actions start with a thought, or idea. Therefore, it is logically impossible for the law expressing and enforcing the idea of property rights to be written before the idea. It is impossible for a government formed to protect our rights to come before those rights. My opponent argued that because the law came before the idea, the entity that created the law, government, can lay claim to property rights on pretax income. Since the scenario is the opposite, in that the idea, and the people who created it, came before the law, my opponent must accept that people have legal property rights to pretax income. This removes one pillar of their argument. C2: We have no moral property rights to our pretax income The U. S. dollar is not created or distributed by the government, and it does not own the currency [2]. Since the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 [3], the U. S. government has borrowed from a private bank, the Federal Reserve, and promising to pay that money back with interest. Though this is an aside, it demonstrates that my opponent does not understand the American monetary system on which this debate rests. This will be evident as their arguments continue. My opponent claims that without our current monetary system, American incomes would be nonexistent. This is incorrect. Income is anything, whether currency, coin, barter, or other compensation for services provided, not just currency. [4] In fact, all of these are taxed as income by the Internal Revenue Service. [5] Many of these would still be in existence long after the failure or removal of the U. S. dollar and the U. S. government (you don't need the government to trade a Xbox for a TV). My opponent further claims that our income depends on government services. As I alluded to above, were government services to disappear it would not prevent people from gaining income. Even if one were to argue that our government assists us in gaining income, morally we could only pay for the exact amount of services offered, and if we did not use a service, we would not be obligated to pay for it. Imagine you are taking a taxi to downtown NYC. When you get into the taxi, you agree to pay a certain amount per mile for the service of the taxi driver. When you reach your destination, you pay the driver. However, in the building you enter as a result of that taxi ride, you strike a deal worth $1 million. The next day, you get a call from that cab driver claiming you owe him half of that money for the service of taking you there. You refuse, and he takes you to court to get “his share” of the profits. He is followed up by the man who delivered your pizza that afternoon, arguing that the food helped you achieve the deal, your doctor, dentist, grandmother, former job trainer, and college professor all arguing that since they helped you in some way, you are legally obligated to pay each of them a cut. You are very grateful to them for their help, and note that you have already paid them for their services to you, but you need this money to pay for your sister’s leukemia treatment. You are then thrown in prison as a tax resister. Absurd, right? It’s just as absurd as the government demanding some of your income they may have helped you in some way achieve, instead of for the services they render to you. My opponent is arguing that the above scenario is morally okay, just replace the individuals with individuals in government. But even still, the government has no right to your income, since it did not create it. National money flow goes as such: The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States (FED) creates and distributes money to several regional FED banks and loans money to the Federal government with stipulations. These regional FED banks distribute this money to other, non-FED, private banks with stipulations. These private banks loan money to private individuals with stipulations. [6] The bicycle example my opponent stated applies to all of the above steps in the American money creation system. However, because the government did not create the currency, it has absolutely zero right to any of the currency or income. My opponent then states "To postulate that one has a moral right to one’s pretax income further implies that the market based distribution is presumptively perfectly just. " Since my opponent's argument by extension is a person does indeed have a moral right to after tax income, this would mean my opponent believes government is presumptively perfectly just. Since neither myself nor my opponent, I presume, believe government is wholly just, this argument should be entirely discarded. The flaws highlighted above take care of pillar number two. C3: Taxation is not without consent In order to see the flaw in my opponent’s first assertion, we will rephrase their statement: Slavery is not without consent. When one is born into a human slavery system, by using the food, clothing and housing delivered by the slave master, one implicitly enters into a social contract which includes slavery. You agreed to the terms and conditions by participating in the system by being born into it. If it seems extreme that I would put this in such a position, know it is necessary to follow the logic of their argument in order to expose the flaws in it. If implied consent can mean taxation, it can mean any kind of taxation. If implied consent means whenever the government, or a large group of people, puts forth a stipulation, your consent is automatically assumed, it would lead to extreme oppression, abuse, and, eventually, slavery. To put it in perspective, what if implied consent were applied to sexual assault? You cannot morally be forced to honor a contract you never entered into, whether verbally or written. Thus, the government is stealing, immorally, the property of another and forcing its citizens to honor a contract they never entered into. Finally, my opponent makes a haphazard, confused, argument that taxation is not coercion based on two points. 1. Taxation is not coercion because you can always leave. Coercion is defined as making someone do something using force or threats. It has nothing to do with whether or not you can leave. If a woman is coerced into sex by her boyfriend, she has the possibility of leaving that relationship, but no sane person would say that because she stayed he had justification to rape her. 2. Taxation is not coercion because society has a say in the matter. If 51% of people agree with massacre, does that mean massacre is now somehow moral? Does it mean that those massacre victims should accept their social contract of death, as it has been democratically selected? Of course not. Simply because others disagree you have rights, does not eliminate their existence. This eliminates pillar number three. I strongly urge a vote in the negative. Sources: . http://pastebin.com...