wellspring/03-treasury-and-taxation/03-1-taxation-apologia.md

Wellspring taxation: Apologia

Basics

Valid forms of taxation:

We do not wish to allow the government to have any avenue for the imposition of double-taxation on any indepagent. For this reason taxation may only be levied as a direct individual income tax.

To ensure that it's abundantly clear: the prohibition on taxes on wealth also applies to inheritances.

Evasion:

The difference between the denial of access to the courts for tax evasion and outlawing is that government agents such as police, will continue to protect in an immediate sense, the physical property of the non-taxpayer, but will deny any legal actions set in motion to enforce claims on that person's rights. An outlaw has no recourse to physical protection, unlike the non-taxpayer.

We cannot allow people to opt out of funding the courts and army because this would compromise the monpoly enjoyed by private property law, and without any room for negotiation, private property law must enjoy an undisputed monopoly in legislation within WS polities. At the end of the day, when a conagent enters the jurisdiction of WS, it accepts at minimum, without any offer of redress, to be governed by private property law. If it prefers not to accept this, then it is not compelled to come.

As a caution to residents of WS polities, since taxation cannot be avoided or made voluntary (beyond the Right to Leave) because private property law must enjoy an unchallenged monopoly, conagents should be wary to carefully control the tax rate and to guard against any attempts by the legislature to expand taxation beyond the individual income tax because the politicians will certainly try.

Upper limit on taxation:

This number, 10%, can obviously be changed by constitutional amendment, obviously - but only by that means. This number is by no means a divine mandate and should not be considered to be sacrosanct. To clarify for politicians' benefit: this number is also not an aspirational target.

Incentives via tax discounts:

In order to claim the tax discounts herein discussed, individuals should have their income streams have, as much as possible, a single, unambiguous purpose. It is perfectly fine for a business to pay its employees in separate income streams, each falling under different categories. It is perfectly fine for businesses to spin out sub-companies which specialize in one or more of these tax discounted areas. If a business' purpose is ambiguous, the income streams it give out will be taxed againt the highest of its tax classifications so as to preclude companies from claiming the tax discounts for merely auxiliary functions.

These tax incentives are meant to give preferential profit outcomes to certain species of enterprise in order to ensure their relative abundance and thereby overtune their supply so as to err on the side of caution. These preferred industries (they are not preferred in moral terms but in expediency terms as well as for polemics) will have a greater chance to sustain profitability due to their preferential tax status.

Below are listed the reasons for each category of tax discount:

• Heavy tax discount on certain insurers:

  • Private security firms and investigators: We want to ensure that where the government's police service is not meeting the security needs of population segments, those segments can meet their needs through private means. In particular, where government investigative services are not acting as a sufficient deterrent from crime, private investigators should not be too expensive to purchase.
  • Legal aid: It should not be difficult for indepagents to avail themselves of the courts. Ideally, it should be a smooth process.
  • Pension funds and healthcare insurance: There should be an abundance of options for pensions and healthcare insurance so as to give indepagents little excuse for not contributing to pension funds and health insurance programs to care for their future.
  • Bank depositor insurance: This should ensure that the private sector provides sufficient insurance against bank runs, so as to keep the banking system stable, and ensure that big banks can be left to go bankrupt when they are irresponsible. Let the depositors be insured, and let the bank fall.

• Medium tax discount on addictive substance assistance and waste management services:

  • In a polity where addictive substances are not illegal, we should incentivize an abundant supply of professional services (therapy, etc) for assisting the addicted with their addiction and moreover, with the circumstances that pushed them into addiction.
  • To ensure that it is cheap for Homeowner Associations, gated communities, individuals and families and so on to pay for waste management services, we incentivize their abundance. In addition, we incentivize sorting and resale services which re-sell materials to factories/industries for re-use and vertical re-integration.

• Light tax discount on schooling and education:

  • In a knowledge based economy, there should be an abundance of options for education, retraining and continual learning.

• Negligible tax discount on non-profit corporations:

  • We aren't yet sure whether or not we should keep this one.

No deceptive illusions

Most governments create the illusion that all members of the polity pay their due in taxes and that taxation is a burden borne by everyone. However, the income streams received for government employment are not tax contributions, but tax payouts. Such income streams should never be taxed again to give the illusion that their receipients are not paid by the tax payers. The same applies to the recipients of any form of government program income stream. A policeman, judge, soldier or other government employee should have no delusions about who pays his salary.