Taxation as a Measure of Trust

It is often claimed by a certain section of political society that taxation is theft. This is a spiritually bereft way to think about tax, in the same vein of those who claim that demonstrating care for others is “emotional labour”. In order to have such thing as a society, we all must contribute to it - and that includes financially.

What this does not mean, however, is that people should have every aspect of their daily lives taxed to the point that they cannot afford to live themselves; often paradoxically ending up reliant on some social program or another. Taxation must be applied effectively and equitably, and never used simply as a stick to punish people with.

Let’s examine the basics of 3 well-known taxes: income tax, value added tax (VAT), and inheritance tax. In the first, the government gets to skim some off the top of everyone’s remuneration for their labour above a threshold that they determine. In the second, the government gets to skim some off the top of every sale transaction except for the ones that they deem exempt. In the third, the government get to skim some off the top of any surplus gains, above a threshold that they determine, passed from one party to another in the event of the former’s death.

Laid bare like this, all 3 sound unfair. What did the government do to earn the cream? The superficial answer is nothing, of course - but they don’t need to earn it. Their role has already been legitimised through being elected to power by the people, and therefore have no need to further justify their authority. What is fundamentally important to discuss is not whether the government has the right to demand tax (it does) but what taxes they demand, why they demand them, and how they utilise their revenue. This is what governments should be elected on.

As it stands, I don’t agree with the baseline concept of taxing person-to-person interactions. It goes against the spirit of English trade, and as such I am inclined to be opposed to it. But much of what constitutes business in Britain these days is not a rosy scene of a village shopkeeper selling a paper and some milk to a local; instead it’s foreign-owned corporate enterprises subsidising their homeland ventures through fleecing domestic customers. Enter duties and levies.

Now we return to the cohort mentioned in the first paragraph. Duties and levies represent a limitation on the market, as they are intended to disincentivise aspects of trade, and as such this will be considered a restriction of the freedoms of the people. Now we’re at a crossroads: do we care more about the individual right to make financial interactions beneficial to them, or about the impact that potentially allowing a significant number of these transactions to take place will have on society? What matters more, the merchant or the industry?

Of course, the general public are unaware of the distinction between taxes, levies, and duties. The state can charge taxes on just about anything; levies are essentially taxes that have a punitive and/or dissuasive intention, and duties are taxes that are applied specifically to goods or services (such as VAT). Income and inheritance tax are theoretically neither levies nor duties; in practice, if the threshold is too low or the reach too expansive, they act as such, disincentivising prudent financial behaviour such as saving or hard work. A good government, obviously, does not want this.

So how do you apply taxes, levies, and duties in a way that benefits workers, bolsters industry, and still provides funds for the necessary social programs to keep the nation at a developed level? By disincentivising economic disloyalty, rather than trying to tax people out of collective social implosion. The ‘sugar tax’ didn’t work, the ‘alcohol tax’ didn't work - levies on vice rarely, if ever, work. (That’s not to say they should be tax exempt, just that tax won’t stop them.) The economic behaviour that the government should be wholly concerned with is any that directly undermines our domestic industry, which is what keeps our people solvent, which is what in turn gives them the self-esteem required to believe in concepts like higher moral values.

Reassessing our current system of taxation through this lens gives a new perspective on VAT, inheritance tax, and so on. Does it benefit or undermine our people to tax them on inheritance? What about taxing them on sales of goods or services? If there is a net positive on the tax, then it should be paid with grace, and in turn spent with the intention to honour that contribution. If there is a net negative - disincentivising positive economic behaviour for little return on social outcomes - then it should be abolished.

There is one area I would like to highlight as being unique yet very relevant to this entire debate: the estates of aristocracy. Inheritance tax in particular is designed to net public gains from the death of any individual who stands to receive tangible assets, specifically the titled class, and this is wrong. There are many arguments to be had about the ‘fairness’ of inheriting significant wealth, but what has become lost in the dance between conservatives and progressives is that society needs the gentry to act as stewards over our collective history, and largely because of the pressures placed on them by the state they are not incentivised to do so. We are, year by year, making our own honour system completely unviable.

To conclude on this rambling muse, taxation is only theft if it is not treated with the respect it deserves. A contribution from the working majority to the ruling minority made in trust is a feature of the sacred relationship between the people and the government, which together create a nation-state. When one tries to punish the other by withdrawing or encroaching more than is necessary, significant damage is done to the structure of the thriving society. The libertarian view starves society of its means; the socialist view starves the individual of its motivation. Only an ethnonationalist perspective can truly serve the economic interests of our people.