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ContrarianAgrarian | 7 months ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 In the US, the large percentage of people are employees and so taxes are “withheld” on their behalf thus there’s no way to not pay them even if one was inclined to. The filing is just to get your overpayment back.
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Bitcrazy 🛀 | 7 months ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 The question that I probably should have asked is why are we paying taxes when they can print it at will? We don't pay taxes out of kindness.
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ContrarianAgrarian | 7 months ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag +1 
 Ah, I see. Reasonable question. There’s a chapter (chapter 20) in the book “Fiat Ruins Everything” that addresses this. There they argue:
1) Speedbump/brakes on road to hyperinflation . If they just printed everything there’s more of a risk of hyperinflation whereas taxation slows this and keeps the system running longer 
2) Hide the Cantillion effect— they can hide behind calls for “taxing the rich” and try to conceal that that taxes and printing are just making those close to the money source disproportionately wealthier on net
3) Hide the inflation tax. Like a magician using smoke and mirror taxes hide the most fundamental/insidious tax of inflation