Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at intelligent and rational individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

"No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it." Ayn Rand

"Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not." Ayn Rand

"The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice', but integrity." Ayn Rand

For "a human being, the question 'to be or not to be,' is the question 'to think or not to think.'" Ayn Rand

14 April 2009

Tax Slavery

We should all be keenly aware that we not only pay taxes, but we also bear costs in the time it takes to keep records for tax purposes and to fill out tax forms. We should also be very aware of the costs in general of our time to abide with such government regulations as are irrational and excessive.

It is not really the tax money itself that we should be focused on. We should be focused on the cost in our time to taxes, regulations, and mandates. Viewed that way, it is much clearer that we are not the masters of that time. Our masters in Washington and in our state and local governments are taking those hours of our lives from us. To the degree that those governments exceed their proper role of serving as the protectors of our sovereign individual rights, they are enslaving us. In our time, government violations of this rule for good government are so prevalent that the great majority of the time represented by taxes, regulations, and mandates is that time we serve as Slaves.

Most Americans greatly underestimate the amount of taxes that they pay. We are taxed on our incomes for Social Security, Medicare, unemployment taxes (both state and federal), and Workman's Compensation Insurance. You may argue that the employer pays some of these taxes, but that is a pretense. They all really come out of your pocket. You are generally hit with sales taxes, utility taxes, luxury or bad habit taxes, tariffs, corporate taxes, capital gains taxes, license fees, car registrations, title fees on cars and homes, real estate taxes, higher food costs due to farm subsidies, fuel taxes, inflation, and death taxes. Very few people have any idea how much they are paying in taxes. Almost everyone thinks it is far less than it is. For instance, almost no one thinks they pay corporate taxes. But they do every time they buy something made by a corporation. And how many realize that the time their employer spends on accounting, on paying payroll taxes, on filing other taxes, and paying real estate and property taxes is all taking away other uses of money and time which could have been used to make the company stronger.

I am sure that many of you are still busy filing your taxes. I still have to do mine. But, when you can, you should pay more attention to the many costs of government that you are paying with your time and money. You should then carefully assess whether the services you get are really worth what is taken from you. You should also think about whether governments taking your time and money has a moral or an immoral justification.

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