Notes From My Journal
What I Believe: About Taxation
Taxation is a necessary evil.
The logic is this: Societies cannot exist without law and order. Law and order cannot exist without government. Government cannot exist without income to support its work. Since the government doesn’t create wealth, it must pay for its programs through taxation. In other words, you can’t have civilization without taxation. But for a society to be free and democratic, the rules of taxation must be freely given to the government by its people. And even that is not enough. Taxation must also be sustainable.
Economic history tells us that when tax rates are too high, economic productivity gets lower. To make taxation work over the long term, it must be high enough to support at least the minimum responsibility of the government (maintaining law and order), but not so high that it reduces economic growth.