They are going to reach into your pocket no matter what.
They aren’t even in your pocket, relatively speaking. At the local level, you’re a drop in the bucket beside the big land owners and corporate industries. At the state level, you’re even less relevant. At the federal level, between intentional trade and deficit spending, you might as well not exist.
The joke of modern taxation is how it’s largely unnecessary at the individual level. If the state simply planned it’s economy and managed it’s natural resources, everyone could do the Alaska thing where they pay you to live there.
California hosts multiple trillionaires, ffs. Nobody with an income under seven figures needs to pay a dime to support that state’s spending plan.
gusgalarnyk@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I don’t know if I love that phrase’s use here as it sets up the government as some foreign entity that is stealing from you when, at least in theory, it should be the price you pay for your community’s betterment. Of course that’s not what it feels like in the US (maybe anywhere, maybe federal taxes feel bad always), but that’s an argument for redistributing power and fixing the underlying systems more so than it is to be upset that taxes are a thing (or paint them as… Evil or something which this phrase does).
UnspecificGravity@piefed.social 3 days ago
That is the point. The taxes are reality, you are going to pay them. Whether they are evil or not depends on what that money is used for.
anarchy79@lemmy.world 3 days ago
“Reach into your pocket” makes it sound as if they’re stealing from you. Which, if you live in the USA, is mostly true.
In functioning democratic societies those taxes pay for things that benefit the citizens. At least that is the states goal, and if they steal it, they get votes out.
I think you guys need to start voting with your bullets.