Why?
It's the price we pay for civilization.
***
Consider successful businessman Ben Franklin's view of taxes:
Benjamin Franklin to Robert Morris -
"The Remissness of our People in Paying Taxes is highly blameable; the Unwillingness to pay them is still more so. I see, in some Resolutions of Town Meetings, a Remonstrance against giving Congress a Power to take, as they call it, the People's Money out of their Pockets, tho' only to pay the Interest and Principal of Debts duly contracted. They seem to mistake the Point. Money, justly due from the People, is their Creditors' Money, and no longer the Money of the People, who, if they withold it, should be compell'd to pay by some Law.
All Property, indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it."
***
"Politics and Economics: The 101 Courses You Wish You Had"
***
Rebounding economy fills state coffers with record tax revenues. "State governments collected more than $846 billion in tax revenue in the last fiscal year, the highest amount ever reported, as a rebounding economy boosted coffers hit hard by the recession. The Census Bureau reported Tuesday that states collected $309 billion in individual income taxes last year, a 10 percent increase over the previous fiscal year. Income taxes make up more than a third of total state tax revenues. Corporate income tax collections rose to $45 billion, up almost 8 percent from the year before....State tax collections have rebounded after a recession that dried up individual and corporate income tax revenues. In Fiscal Year 2008, just as the recession began, states collected $779 billion in total tax revenue. That number fell off a cliff in the following two years, to $713 billion in Fiscal Year 2009 and $705 billion in Fiscal Year 2010. Those shortfalls forced harsh cuts in state budgets." Reid Wilson in The Washington Post.
The economy is also helping cut the U.S. deficit. "The budget gap last month was the smallest deficit recorded for the month of March since 2000, when economic growth was running at a much faster pace than it is today. The red ink had been expected to ease this year. But Thursday's announcement underscored just how quickly tax receipts have been increasing as economic growth speeds up and the stock market surges. While some of the increase was a result of tax increases that took effect at the beginning of 2013, budget experts said it also reflected who was benefiting the most in the current recovery. 'It's higher-income people and it is mainly from the stock market; it's not mainly wages,' said Alice M. Rivlin, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton administration." Nelson D. Schwartz in The New York Times.
No comments:
Post a Comment