As We “Celebrate” Tax Day, We Are Reminded that Taxation is Theft

There is no day more deflating than Tax Day.

After an entire year of arduous work, the government demands that you either give them a slice of your hard earned money, or go to prison.




See, if anyone else were to act exactly as the government does and go around demanding that everyone pay them money or be kidnapped, they would be swiftly arrested and imprisoned for extortion. But because the thieves taking your money today call themselves the government, they get away with it.

The detractor will often rebut, “But without taxation, there would be no roads, defense, and justice!” However this simple minded rebuttal offers no answer to whether or not taxation is theft, and is instead acts as a mere justification for it. Some will say taxation is the price we pay to live in a civilized society, though this is not true either. It is akin to slave master in the 1800s saying “But without the slaves, who will pick the cotton?”

When the government demands that you give them your money or go to jail, we call this taxation. Because of the perceived benefits of taxation, many deem it to be legitimate, necessary, and justified. But for them to take your money without your consent, this would infer that it is the government’s money. For if you were the rightful owner of the money, they would require your consent first, just as I would require your consent before asking for your money.

To say taxation is legitimate is to then say that the government owns everyone’s wealth, and therefore everyone’s property. For taxation to not be theft, we must all be slaves of the government, living on their plantation. And I would venture to guess that when Americans begin to view taxation in this light, they may start to think differently about the matter.

We are not slaves, and the government does not legitimately own our property. We own our own property, and no man has the right to forcefully take that which someone else owns.

Taking someone’s property without their consent is THEFT, and no perceived benefit makes this any less so. If I were to forcefully take your money and donate it to St. Jude’s Children Hospital, this would still be theft. If I stole your car to go get it washed for you, this would still be theft.

Taxation is no different, and no number of roads will change this.

Taxation is theft.

“Taxation is theft, purely and simply even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State’s inhabitants, or subjects.” – Murray Rothbard