When you understand the immorality of taxes, there’s nothing immoral about getting your money back from a government that took it while repudiating the taxes.
But I don't think taxes are in and of themselves immoral.
A human being is a social animal, and each gets a lot of value from the people around us.
These are nice to have:
- clean streets
- police
- non-corrupt judges
- a stable legal framework
- living among educated people
- fire department that just shows up
- not getting bombed and invaded by a foreign army
- much more
These are "true expenses" in that if you didn't pay for them... you'd eventually pay the price for them when you're the victim of crime, fire, or exposure to the illiterate.
If you lived in Galt's Gulch or some gated community in an anarchic society, you'd pay a regular fee for these services, like voluntary taxes.
Taxes are infamously as inevitable as death because the expenses it's meant to pay for are also inevitable. We might as well set up a system.
Government waste is held up as an example of immorality, and some/most governments certainly should be leaner, but some waste & inertia would happen in any large organization, public or private. The only other time a government could be straight-up immoral is if it's persecuting innocent citizens or foreigners for no reason. Thinking through the implementation details of Galt's Gulch makes me think taxes aren't so bad after all.
What makes taxes immoral? People want their government to provide certain services. Those need to be paid for. What services should be funded depends on who you ask. It's interesting how the Nordic people are fine with paying more for strong social safety nets. They see it as an investment in society.
