What do you guys think about tax (as a concept )

[AwakenFreddy]

Edit: forget to mention it, let just assume that the one manage the tax is what it should be, no deviate from what the rule are, no mismanagement, no alignment, it run like it should be.

Little story time, dont need to read if you dont want to

Spoiler: Story

While i read some manga, there is a moment when mc sell monster crystal, the mc said that they need to pay 45% for tax. While still don't know how much average adventure get, the upper echelon can get 20 billion yen monthly (prob after tax). From what we can see, the dungeon have fortified wall build, a room to change, medical staff on site (prob free).

Somesay that tax is a legal thief, other say that tax is bs and we should not pay tax.

So what do you guys think tax (how someone missmanage tax money is outside of this scope)
Do you think it necessary?
And where do you learn about tax? Because personally i dont learn tax in school, you just expected to know about it.

 

[LiteraryWho]

Taxation is definitely theft, and what's worse, it's theft by the most objectively evil people in society. You should only pay taxes for strategic reasons, but if you can get away with not giving your money to psychopaths, you definitely should.

Anyway, this is terribly off topic for this board, so to bring it to a relevant point, in a story, taxation is a great way to generate instant camaraderie with an adult audience (because we know the pain), or a good way to demonstrate that some given government is (unusually) evil (via excessively high rates, or by selectively applying the rate to different people).

Otherwise, if you want a more elaborate (anarchist) perspective on taxation, you can look up "Liquid Zulu" on Youtube and watch his "Taxation is Theft Debate" video. That should do it, or I'm sure there's other libertarians and anarchists who can explain it.

Otherwise otherwise, I have a story on "https://github.com/LiteraryWho/TheClassB" that doesn't actually discuss taxation, but it offers a naive perspective on the state (and I think it's a great story too).

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

Many will say that taxes are theft, but they overlook a fundamental problem with this view.
The government is the only reason that money has value in the first place. Ultimately, it belongs to the state that mints it as legal tender. Other countries don't have to recognize foreign currencies as having value intrinsically, but do so because of the power of the trade partner.

If a government were to suddenly disappear, do you think that its money would have any actual value on its own?

 

[DeepWater]

Tax is great until you have to pay it.

 

[Tatsuo]

I would say it depends on the government and where it is being used.

 

[Corty]

Tax is needed and a must. But its application is the issue most of the time.

In my country… let's not even talk about it.

The only good part about it here is that the government does it for you. Here, filing your tax returns is heavily automatized. In most cases, accountants take care of reporting monthly (if you are an employee) so when time comes for filing tax returns in the following year, the Tax Authority already has all our data, and there is very little to adjust or reclaim.

The Tax Authority will create a draft based on the data submitted to them over the course of the year, and we only have to review the draft and make any corrections as necessary. I just press accept and be done with it. And the whole procedure is free of charge.

 

[Tempokai]

Taxation is all about trust in the system. Taxation is generally bad unless the taxed people can see where their taxes are going. When you don't know where it's going and why you're paying for it, taxes are bad. Basically, taxes are contribution to society to make that society function. The less trust the people have in government that it will keep the quality of life outside of your control, like in infrastructure, roads, even medical, the lesser incentives they have to pay taxes.

Let's take your example, Japan. Japan has high infrastructure quality, and the general embezzlement is lower compared to China and Korea. Because the people know that the quality of life is high and they can prove that by seeing where the money goes (usually), they have more trust in government that this money they contribute will not go to waste or into pockets of bureaucrats (again, usually, because you can't remove the incentives for gaming the system that leads to corruption).

That trust in the system varies on the one who supplies that system. I personally wouldn't trust the Chinese, Russian or Chadian tax systems, where it's highly incentive for the system to line their own pockets without delivering the infrastructure unless it's for clout. I would suspect my own country's tax system, only because I don't pay them besides VAT because I don't own any land or vehicles, and my country is mostly financed by oil of all things, so my contribution is minimal. I would suspect USA's tax system, because it's designed on the loopholes, to use them to pay taxes less, even though the transparency where the money is going is great enough with some caveats. I would’ve trusted the Norwegian tax system if I was Norwegian, but I'm not lmao. Imagining 50% of my revenue disappearing even if the quality of lie is high don't sit well with me.

All of those examples, if you didn't catch the grip, is about the trusting the system that you will not get screwed over for nothing. If that fantasy Japan is trustable with infrastructure, has robust anti-corruption units, and it's generally safe on the streets without any dead zones, why not pay 45% tax on highly sought out luxury? You know that money will go towards something to make the society better, and if not, there's always the option of destroying those pocketing charlatans with OP powers. Writing systems is fun when you know how they interact with other systems, and tax system is linked to every system in that society you want to worldbuild. Bruh.

 

[Puji-Maki]

It depends on the government.

 

[Deleted member 206441]

Interestingly, there is an International Corruption Perceptions Index.

https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2024

The CPI generally defines corruption as an "abuse of entrusted power for private gain"

Generally, taxes are important, but in more corrupt countries... taxes don't... really get to where they need to go, like infrastructure, health, education, police, libraries and roads etc.

Also interesting is that taxes are also used to discourage certain behaviours; that is, when taxes on tobacco and sometimes alcohol are high in certain countries, high taxes on the sale of tobacco make cigarettes more expensive, therefore discouraging people from buying them.

 

[Placeholder]

Libertarians will tell you tax is theft. Based on a scifi book by Ayn Rand.

Libertarians also like having water treatment plants, public schools, and emergency rooms around, but will not point at a working model of society without taxes but with water treatment plants, public schools, and emergency rooms.

In the US, they get suckered into defunding public schools by religious fundamentalists who want to direct funds to religious schools, they get suckered into defunding public schools by racists who got pissed off about desegragation "the Southern Strategy", and they get suckered into defunding public schools by rich oligarchs who hate paying taxes.

Star Wars and Star Trek larpers are much less silly than Ayn Rand larpers. Who probably should pay more attention in school.

 

[HisDivineShadow]

Just read Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Nietzsche, and you’ll understand everything about the state, taxes, and mass media

 

[ShrimpShady]

We should point at one person and have them pay all the taxes. This is the natural evolution of human sacrifice, an integral part of our cultures and civilizations.

But in all serious, idk, just make sure the rich pay their dues (they still won't)

 

[Placeholder]

We're fine as long as the rich don't buy out the newspapers, tv news stations, and social media companies in order to promulgate hate, malicious nonsense, and tax avoidance.

 

[Anonjohn20]

Many will say that taxes are theft, but they overlook a fundamental problem with this view.
The government is the only reason that money has value in the first place. Ultimately, it belongs to the state that mints it as legal tender. Other countries don't have to recognize foreign currencies as having value intrinsically, but do so because of the power of the trade partner.

If a government were to suddenly disappear, do you think that its money would have any actual value on its own?

Before paper currency, we used valuable coins, and they did retain their value. Gold, silver, copper, etc could just be smelted and reminted.

 

[Golden_Hyde]

I don't know what type of political utopian bullshit some people here want to say, but in ideal condition, taxes are for the betterment of your own country. You can shit on me all you want, but the Scandinavian countries are the clear testaments on what to do with those tax money for the people, even though the goods aren't as cheap as we all think.

Alright, enough of me ranting and let's go to the point. If you're here trying to worldbuilding, taxes are a must, otherwise a kingdom will have nothing to build not just for their nobles, but also their own common folk. You can try to bullshit your way with that anarchist ideas, but expect people pointing out the glaring flaws... unless the thematics are about zombie apocalypse.

 

[ShrimpShady]

Alright, enough of me ranting and let's go to the point. If you're here trying to worldbuilding, taxes are a must, otherwise a kingdom will have nothing to build not just for their nobles, but also their own common folk. You can try to bullshit your way with that anarchist ideas, but expect people pointing out the glaring flaws... unless the thematics are about zombie apocalypse.

I'm sorry but this just reminded me of the anarcho-syndicalist commune bit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail

 

[Kenjona]

Without Taxation, we would have no services. How good those services are depends on how much in taxes goes towards said services and how much corruption is in the system. If taxes did not exist, then everything would have to be paid for out of pocket immediately when used. Usually the disagreement that happens, is where or on what we spend those taxes on. That is where one form of accusation that "taxes is a form of theft" come from, the lack of choice on where the money is spent. The other is of course when corruption rears its ugly head.
No one wants to spend money on invisible services, or on services you do not see, until said services are needed.

A good example of a semi-invisible service is Fire Protection. Fire Protection fees ensure there are trained emergency responders available, with the equipment that is maintained by those fire protection fees, to engage and mitigate emergencies. How those protection fees are calculated varies by each government or local entity that provides said services.
There are in the US Fire fighting districts where you pay a Fire Protection Fee directly to a local fire department to have your house protected; if your next door neighbor does not pay for this protection fee, and have a fire or other emergency the Fire Department will show up when called, but unless someone's life is in danger, they will only act to protect your property, if they do act, they will bill you for services rendered and it is not cheap compared the the normal fee.
In other ways those fees are paid for the municipality takes those fees from either the water service bill, property taxes, income tax or direct/special tax levies; with those the taxes are not voluntary and you can have a lien put up against you for non-payment of said taxes/fees.

Do you want the homeless off the streets, got to pay for it. Do you want some modicum of Health protection in a local area to prevent contagion? Got to pay for it. Like how nice the park looks? Got to pay for it. Protected Equality for all? Got to pay for it.

 

[Minx]

I hope irl tax stays as concept.

 

[Assurbanipal_II]

Taxation is one of the core foundations of civilisation~. Without it, we would still be a bunch of hunters and gatherers~.

 

[miyoga]

You should learn about taxes and taxation in a civics/politics class before you graduate high school and again in an economics class. That's assuming you don't go into finance in college/university, of course, because that has an entire sub-track devoted to taxes.

As for whether or not they are necessary, that depends on how a government is funded and what services you expect the government to provide. In a perfect world, taxes would be collected and used only for the functioning of the government, the safety of the country and the public services that the government is supposed to provide. After taking care of all of those things, any extra should be returned to the tax payer and nobody should be charged any more than what they had already given.

The world isn't perfect, though. Governments over-spend their budgets and require that the common person (who they are supposed to be working for) give them that much more to cover those "additional costs" (aka a tax increase). Any extra money isn't given back to the people, not really; instead it's funneled away into secret accounts that the public doesn't have access to or doesn't know about (for accountability and transparency). In fairness, some of that money might be used for civil defense, but more of it goes to line the pockets of those who know how to game the system (just looking at the state of the world today). Taking the US as the prime example here, they went to war over unfair taxes from the king back in the 1770s, and now they've put in their own unfair taxes (anyone who's taken an econ class knows 100% that tariffs are a tax on the consumer, not the company or the supplying country). That tariff money has been going into frivolous things like a military parade for someone's birthday and golf outings.

Unfortunately, the tax systems of the world won't be able to work in that near-perfect (near because perfection doesn't exist) way until absolute world peace has been achieved. Without the threat of all-out war, governments would have no choice but to turn their attention to improving the lives of the people and maintaining certain societal values and services.