Taxation

Frank Chodorov

[Reprinted from: The Freeman, 1946]

When you unmask it, ... you see that taxation is highwaymanry [highway robbery] made respectable by custom, thievery made moral by law; there isn't a decent thing to be said for it, as to origin, principle or its effects on the social order.  Man's adjustment to this iniquity has permitted its force to gain momentum like an unopposed crime wave, and the resulting social devastation is what the socialists have long predicted and prayed for ...

In principle this income tax, as the founders of the Constitution realized, is more vicious than any other, for it is a direct attack on the sanctity of private property. ... If you follow through on the principle involved, you come to the conclusion that the individual's right to property is a temporary and revocable stewardship.  The Jeffersonian ideal of inalienable rights is liquidated, and substituted for it is the Marxist concept of state supremacy.