Taxation is theft, of course
Taxation is collected under the threat of punishment such as fines, asset seizure, or imprisonment, making it non-consensual. If an individual took our money under threat of force, it would be considered theft. The fact that it is done by the state doesn't change the moral nature of the act.
Many people would claim that individuals have a natural or moral right to the fruits of their labor and property. Certainly it is a right we agree to give to others in order to justify claiming it for ourselves. Taxation forcibly takes a portion of someone’s income or wealth, violating that fundamental right.
The government enforces tax collection through coercion, and any action done under duress, such as paying taxes to avoid punishment, is not a free act, and is inherently immoral.
Simply being born in or residing in a country does not constitute legitimate consent to taxation. Real contracts require explicit, informed agreement, which taxpayers do not provide.
Since taxation takes money without voluntary permission, it is morally equivalent to theft, even if it is legally sanctioned. The state uses its monopoly on legal force to do what would be criminal for anyone else. This monopoly does not justify immoral actions such as taking property without consent.
Critics often argue that taxation often funds inefficient, wasteful, or morally questionable government programs. This is well-established by everyday observation. Being forced to fund things one opposes, such as wars, subsidies, or tariffs adds to the moral wrongness of taxation.
Most people believe that they could spend their money far better than the government does, and that waste and bureaucracy are in the very nature of public spending. Because this is so, forcing people to pay for them through taxation is simply immoral.
Despite all of this, and with much complaint, most of us accept that some taxation is necessary. We want to be guarded against foreign invasion. We want to live under the rule of law, and see our persons and our property protected. We know these things cost money, and that they represent justified taxation.
Coercion is an evil. We can perhaps justify the use of force against people if it forestalls some even greater evil, such as arresting intended terrorists, for example. That is simply choosing the lesser of two evils. It does not prevent taxation from being evil; it simply ranks it as a lower evil than the others that it might prevent.
Coercion is a serious business: it imposes an awesome responsibility on the authorities to ensure that the money that is raised through it is spent wisely and effectively on purposes that its citizens approve of. This is plainly not the case in modern Britain, and raises the question of whether there could be put in place some constitutional restraints upon it. Don’t hold your breath.
Madsen Pirie