Taxes are a necessary evil in urban settings. They help to fund services and maintain the infrastructure that allows the function of complex large scale communities. In this setting a person that do not want to pay taxes only needs to remove itself from said community and not use the infrastructure that tax payers support. You don’t have to pay for anything that you do not use, you only need to pay in equal amount of the use collective services.
Yet, there are three instances when it is a moral and ethical imperative not to pay taxes. Under any of these conditions an individual should be compelled to pay taxes:
1. When the resources levied by taxes are not invested in the community. If a community is able to produce more, it should be able to invest the higher yield of taxes in a better infrastructure and services. Any individual should be glad to behold when its taxes are used in pragmatic public works in its community. And be outraged when resources are not used in their communities.
2. When the resources are to benefit those who do not produce. To each according to the there is the vilest crime against the individual and society. You should be remunerated according to your talents and efforts. You should be able to keep what you make and you community should benefit from you effort. Those who do not work should not eat, mediocrity and failure should never be regarded with pity.
3. When the government is inherently corrupt. A government that is corrupt should never be supported. When services and privileges are assigned to the friends of politicians and not to the best qualified provider of services that is a clear sign of corruption. When government officials assign themselves more resources than what they produce; when their life style is superior to the citizen that they serve. That is a corrupt government.
When any person that produces and is intelligent enough to discern with logic and reason that the taxes paid are in the use of a corrupt government, support the failure and the weak, and do not benefit directly the community where the payer resides no tax is owe and no tax should be paid.
