More IRS Agents

 People who say taxation is theft are of course right. The income tax is the moral equivalent of feudal barons seizing the food raised by their serfs. The property tax is the moral equivalent of 1920s Chicago gangsters shaking down shopkeepers for protection money. The estate tax is the moral equivalent of one of the slimy bounty hunters in The Wild Bunch asking another for his knife because one of the corpses of the men they had just killed had some gold in his teeth. All governments are funded by criminal activity.

This does not mean there should be no governments. In a world where enough people were fair, just, rational, and honest, there would be no need for governments and thus no need for taxes. We do not live in such a world. In this world police, courts, armed forces for national defense, and various other activities of government are necessary and make Americans more free than the would be in their absence (Rothbardian fantasies notwithstanding). It does mean that people should be skeptical of their governments, that many things that can be done voluntarily should be, and that the amount of criminal activity by the state should be kept to a minimum.

This week the Democrats decided that what this country needs to solve its problems is eighty-seven thousand more tax collectors and passed a law authorizing hiring them. They tried to pass it off as a scheme to squeeze only rich people but voted down amendments requiring that the new hires would molest only the rich. So one may assume they will be coming after plenty of other than rich people. With Trump still around it sometimes is difficult for people to remember the Republicans usually are less bad than the Democrats. This bill is a reminder. Claims that only “cheaters” have anything to worry about are nonsense. Federal tax laws are so vague and complex and subject to capricious individual bureaucratic interpretation that even conscientious taxpayers can get tripped up in audits, sometimes after relying on a statement by one IRS employee that the auditor decides to contradict. (The IRS states explicitly that reliance on what one has been told by one of its employees is no defense.) There is also plenty of evidence that people and organizations whose political views dissent from those of the Democrats will have a lot to worry about. One can guess that interpretations of things in gray areas will not be going their way. Even an audit that results in no charges is unpleasant enough for the threat of being selected for one because of one’s political opinions to be a good tool for keeping political dissidents quieter. Then there is the simple fact of adding eighty-seven thousand people who want to work as tax collectors to the government’s payroll. Without going too far into that, it is enough to ask what sort of person would seek a career as a shakedown artist, and whether we want thousands more of them running around with authority to harm others.

It seems likely that Republicans will take control of the house and the senate this fall. If so, the appropriations they pass should defund the eighty-seven thousand and shrink the IRS back to its present size or smaller.