{"id":17661,"date":"2013-04-15T00:00:36","date_gmt":"2013-04-15T05:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=17661"},"modified":"2013-04-15T09:55:23","modified_gmt":"2013-04-15T14:55:23","slug":"have-you-finished-your-tax-return-thats-a-do-it-yourself-mugging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=17661","title":{"rendered":"Have you finished your tax return? That’s a ‘do-it-yourself mugging’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Murray<\/a><\/p>\n

When you file a tax return, you’re a victim of armed robbery. Although a dishonest politician such as U.S. Sen. Harry Reid can claim that\u00a0filing a tax return is voluntary<\/a>, we all know that men with guns will eventually pursue us if we decline to hand over our money. So filing a return and paying taxes are about as voluntary as it is to hand over your money when a mugger pulls a gun on you.<\/p>\n

The late libertarian economist Murray Rothbard<\/a>, above, cut straight to the heart of the matter — and it’s something everybody ought to be thinking about today.<\/p>\n

“Completing your own income tax return is something like a do-it-yourself mugging,” Rothbard said.<\/p>\n

I can’t add much here to what I’ve said about taxes before, so I’m going to keep this brief. But I’m going to suggest you take a look at what I’ve said about taxation before. I see it as a moral issue. We didn’t agree to any so-called “social contract.”<\/a> We didn’t agree to obey whoever won elections. It’s theft when those people take our money<\/a>. And we’ve been socialized to accept the theft as legitimate.<\/p>\n

So if you’re filing a tax return today and writing a check to the moochers in Washington, I understand why. You’re doing it to avoid the consequences. That makes sense. When a mugger pulls a gun on you, you hand him your money, because the consequences of not complying are too great. It’s the same here.<\/p>\n

But even if you’re just obeying to avoid the consequences of resisting, remember that it’s a mugging. Don’t let the lying thieves make you believe that you owe them a penny. Remind yourself — and remind others — that your money is being stolen.<\/p>\n

Don’t give the thieves moral sanction for what they’re doing, even if most people are too brainwashed to understand what’s really going on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you file a tax return, you’re a victim of armed robbery. Although a dishonest politician such as U.S. Sen. Harry Reid can claim that\u00a0filing a tax return is voluntary, we all know that men with guns will eventually pursue us if we decline to hand over our money. So filing a return and paying Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-4AR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17661"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17673,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17661\/revisions\/17673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}