What is the ideal method of Taxation for libertarians?

[ClayTrainor]

i see alot of talk from people around here about how they are against direct taxes, and even some who are against any form of taxation whatsoever.

What, in your mind is the best way to go about funding a constitutionally sized government? Taxing the Free Market? the government needs at least some money to function right?

[Andrew-Austin]

lol, well.... I'm not sure where other libertarians stand, but I'm primarily just against property tax and income tax.

[Brassmouth]

A voluntary tax system. If the government was doing a good job, people would be happy to pay.

Same for local level, most people would see the importance of police, fire stations, so they'd pay anyway.

This way it isnt coercive and the government is limited by what we the people see fit to give it.

[OKRonPaul]

Voluntary is nice, but I can't see it ever working. I'd like to see taxes in logical places as much as possible.

gas tax pays for roads - makes sense to me. Not sure you can do that for everything.

I live in a rural area, volunteer fire department. I pay a couple bucks extra on my electric bill for the fire department. I could choose not to, but then if they did have to come out I'd get a bill. It's basically insurance.

[Kade]

lol, well.... I'm not sure where other libertarians stand, but I'm primarily just against property tax and income tax.

You and I agree on something. I too am against property tax and income tax.

[Mini-Me]

I am absolutely against property tax and personal income tax. Inherited assets cannot always be objectively differentiated from personal income tax, so unless a non-privacy-invading way could be found for collecting on inheritance, I'm absolutely against that one as well. Except for logical taxes like gas taxes to pay for roads, I'm absolutely against excise taxes as well, because moral high-horses can use them to effectively ban the sale of products they don't like...and even when you're dealing with "logical" taxes like gas taxes, you have to be careful. After all, lobbyists could easily push for taxes against the kind of products their competitors sell. (That's not to say alternative energy wouldn't be a better idea in the long run than gas anyway...but still...)

I feel that the federal government should only be able to levy tariffs (uniform, as yongrel says below) and tax the states. At the state level, I wouldn't object to one of the following: Business income tax, sales tax, tariffs, VAT's, etc...but whatever tax is chosen, it should be very low and only enough to fund the absolutely essential functions of government (from the Constitutional rights-protection perspective). I don't like any taxes, but I'm not an anarchist, and I'm pragmatic enough to see that certain government functions, like high-tech defense, cannot be paid for with user fees alone.

[yongrel]

If we must be taxed, I think it makes sense to have a universal border tax for both imports and exports. Say a .05% tax on goods imported and exported across the border. It would apply equally to all products from all countries, and would be rather slight, so as to not interefere in any meaningful way with the markets. Also, this border tax would essentially be charging for a service, since the goods are either entering or exiting from the law enforcement jurisdiction of the government levying the tax. As someone paying this fee, I would either be preemptively or retroactively paying for the services of law and order granted to me within the border of the country.

This is just my fanciful musing.

[dannno]

If we must be taxed, I think it makes sense to have a universal border tax for both imports and exports. Say a .05% tax on goods imported and exported across the border. It would apply equally to all products from all countries, and would be rather slight, so as to not interefere in any meaningful way with the markets. Also, this border tax would essentially be charging for a service, since the goods are either entering or exiting from the law enforcement jurisdiction of the government levying the tax. As someone paying this fee, I would either be preemptively or retroactively paying for the services of law and order granted to me within the border of the country.

This is just my fanciful musing.

I made a similar post yesterday.

[jblosser]

A voluntary tax system. If the government was doing a good job, people would be happy to pay.

Same for local level, most people would see the importance of police, fire stations, so they'd pay anyway.

This way it isnt coercive and the government is limited by what we the people see fit to give it.

This. People pay for what they want, and if they fail to pay for it, it doesn't happen.

Voluntary is nice, but I can't see it ever working. I'd like to see taxes in logical places as much as possible.

This means you assume people are not smart enough or logical enough to pay for things they want, and must be forced to do so.

gas tax pays for roads - makes sense to me. Not sure you can do that for everything.

Usage fees make complete sense, and are voluntary in that if you don't want to pay them, you don't use the service. But how often are gas taxes today used for anything related to highways?

[rbu]

Free Market

[ClayTrainor]

Free Market

you mean, tax the free market?

[IPSecure]

What is the ideal method of Taxation for libertarians?

Just like marriage: "'Till Death Do Us Part!"

[SeanEdwards]

If we must be taxed, I think it makes sense to have a universal border tax for both imports and exports. Say a .05% tax on goods imported and exported across the border. It would apply equally to all products from all countries, and would be rather slight, so as to not interefere in any meaningful way with the markets. Also, this border tax would essentially be charging for a service, since the goods are either entering or exiting from the law enforcement jurisdiction of the government levying the tax. As someone paying this fee, I would either be preemptively or retroactively paying for the services of law and order granted to me within the border of the country.

This is just my fanciful musing.

I agree with this.

In addition to massively simplifying the tax code, this would have the added benefit of increasing the friction that opposes globalization.

[JosephTheLibertarian]

i see alot of talk from people around here about how they are against direct taxes, and even some who are against any form of taxation whatsoever.

What, in your mind is the best way to go about funding a constitutionally sized government? Taxing the Free Market? the government needs at least some money to function right?

no taxes

second best is voluntary contributions

the third is to leave taxes to states

the fourth would be a flat tax

ordered from ideal to less ideal

[nickcoons]

As a libertarian, I oppose all forms of taxation. I don't understand how a libertarian can support any taxation.

Conventional wisdom puts the so-called “necessary evil” of taxation on par with death—inevitable, unavoidable, the way the world works. Our society seems to believe that taxation is indispensable to civilization. Our ancestors once believed the same thing about slavery.

Today, we know better. Slavery is not only unnecessary to civilization, but hinders its development. What we call “evil” has a way of doing that.

One day, the “necessary evil” of taxation will be recognized for what libertarians know it to be: legalized theft, a hindrance to civilization, prosperity, harmony, and happiness.

- Dr. Mary Ruwart

I love going into all the different ways of answering the question "but how do you pay for things without taxes?", but that's already been done.

[Truth Warrior]

i see alot of talk from people around here about how they are against direct taxes, and even some who are against any form of taxation whatsoever.

What, in your mind is the best way to go about funding a constitutionally sized government? Taxing the Free Market? the government needs at least some money to function right?

I'd say the current Federal government is "constitutionally sized".

Lysander Spooner once said that he believed "that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize." At the same time, he could not exonerate the Constitution, for it "has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." -- Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

[TheEvilDetector]

1. User Fees.
ie. Pay per use, or pay flat fee per year.
User choice as to which within practical constraints.
Users go to a web page, pick level of government, pick what they want to pay for and how.

2. Minting/Storing fees of Gold/Silver by government
(private sector competition in minting and storing is allowed, but small tax is payable to government in case of minting,
because government delegated their responsibility allowing for a profit to be made)

3. Interest on loans of Gold/Silver by government
(private sector competition in lending is allowed)

4. No Taxes otherwise.

5. No Tariffs otherwise.

[Kalifornia]

in a minarchic society, we must have some means to pay for minimal government. I think that taxes should be levied in the order that they impact personal individual liberty, with preference on those that impact liberty less.

1. Universal Tarriff - People are free to choose to import and export or not, and could likely avoid this tax altogether without too much difficulty. A minimal 1% tax on all goods imported or exported (with a preference on taxing imports) would provide ample resources to fund the necessities of a national federal level government.

2. Land and natural resources tax - Those who have not thought this through may disagree with me. But even Jefferson (google "jefferson usufruct") recognized the utility of requiring payment from those of us who hold access to marketable natural resources (land, water rights, mineral deposits, timber, etc...) as a means of providing a balancing force to counter the natural inherent tendency in a society for some families to acquire and horde these resources, or also to deincentivize individuals from destroying the land. A fair tax levied only on the value of the land itself (say anything over 40 acres) and the natural resources it provides, or on the despoiling of natural resources, not only incentivizes good stewardship, but it also gives incentive for unused land to be returned to the market, increasing access to land by nonlanded people.

To avoid this tax, people simply would not purchase large parcels of land or resource rights.

Consider this a 'use tax' on an excessive share of the one true unavoidable commons that exists in any society (land and natural resources).

3. Corporate Income taxes - So long as corporations enjoy liability limitation as an incentive to pool capital, they ALWAYS will be creating damage to society that they can externalize to others. it is only fair to create a countervailing disincentive that will benefit society at large. Since availing ones self of the corporate business entity is voluntary, I see no intrusion of personal liberty to require corporations to pay income taxes. If one does not wish to pay corporate income tax, he must simply take full responsibility for the liabilities he incurs in the course of his business.

4. Sales Tax - While it would certainly be harder to do than the above examples, a universal, minimally invasive, sales tax on all goods provides a revenue stream, while also allowing people to withhold their support of the government. Say, for example, the government decides to go off on some foreign intervention that is not supported by the people. Well, all they have to do is retreat to their homesteads and avoid engaging in the marketplace for a while. Soon the government will cease receiving funding, and will have to stop their expenditures or soon go bankrupt. this concept applies to the tarrif equally.




Other taxes such as the personal income tax are abominations and too intrusive upon individual liberty to be contemplated.

[Matt Collins]

I live in a rural area, volunteer fire department. I pay a couple bucks extra on my electric bill for the fire department. I could choose not to, but then if they did have to come out I'd get a bill. It's basically insurance.

Why not just have everyone who wants fire protection simply pay in a voluntary fee to the fire department? Your insurance rates would be lower which would be an incentive to do so.

[Matt Collins]

I am absolutely against property tax and personal income tax. Inherited assets cannot always be objectively differentiated from personal income tax, so unless a non-privacy-invading way could be found for collecting on inheritance, I'm absolutely against that one as well.

Inheritance and capital gains tax are just as, if not more, insidious than the income and property tax.


The income and inheritance taxes are designed whether on purpse or not to limit upward class mobility. That's right, these two taxes keep the middle class from moving into the wealthy category. If my parents parents had left them a few hundred thousand dollars, and then when my parents pass if they leave me a few hundred thousand plus what they inherited, and then I build my own wealth and then leave that to my kids (assuming I ever get an opportunity to mate ha ha), my kids would probably be millionaires and have an enitrely different world of options available to them throughout life. It's called changing the family tree. The inherentence tax and the capital gains tax stop this process.

The Kennedy and Bush families are prime examples. Their long ago ancestors were not wealthy. Both of which just a couple of generations ago were able to amass wealth and then pass that onto their kids. Look at the opportunities members of both families have had because of it.

[Matt Collins]

If we must be taxed, I think it makes sense to have a universal border tax for both imports and exports. Say a .05% tax on goods imported and exported across the border. It would apply equally to all products from all countries, and would be rather slight, so as to not interefere in any meaningful way with the markets. Also, this border tax would essentially be charging for a service, since the goods are either entering or exiting from the law enforcement jurisdiction of the government levying the tax. As someone paying this fee, I would either be preemptively or retroactively paying for the services of law and order granted to me within the border of the country.

Exactly. And securing the borders is one of the jobs of the federal government (common defense) it makes sense to largely fund the federal government through this method. And it also encourages domestic sale / production of goods.

[Mini-Me]

Inheritance and capital gains tax are just as, if not more, insidious than the income and property tax.


The income and inheritance taxes are designed whether on purpse or not to limit upward class mobility. That's right, these two taxes keep the middle class from moving into the wealthy category. If my parents parents had left them a few hundred thousand dollars, and then when my parents pass if they leave me a few hundred thousand plus what they inherited, and then I build my own wealth and then leave that to my kids (assuming I ever get an opportunity to mate ha ha), my kids would probably be millionaires and have an enitrely different world of options available to them throughout life. It's called changing the family tree. The inherentence tax and the capital gains tax stop this process.

The Kennedy and Bush families are prime examples. Their long ago ancestors were not wealthy. Both of which just a couple of generations ago were able to amass wealth and then pass that onto their kids. Look at the opportunities members of both families have had because of it.

This is another good point. I guess when I was thinking of inheritance taxes being less egregious violations compared to some other taxes (assuming they can be differentiated from income and collected without privacy invasions, which they can't), I was thinking more along the lines of the Hilton fortune than middle class inheritance. In any case, you're correct here.

Anyway, I forgot to mention capital gains - that's another one I'm firmly against no matter what.

[Truth Warrior]

What is the ideal method of THEFT for libertarians? That is the corrected question.<IMHO>

ANSWER: The Non Aggression Principle.

[Mini-Me]

As a libertarian, I oppose all forms of taxation. I don't understand how a libertarian can support any taxation.



I love going into all the different ways of answering the question "but how do you pay for things without taxes?", but that's already been done.

Hey, can you point me to where Ruwart addresses funding high-tech defensive weaponry and such, assuming she does? It's always seemed to me that without some minimal level of taxation to fund the armed forces, we'd be sitting ducks. Sure, militias can prevent ground invasions, but only expensive technology can protect us from airstrikes, high-tech weaponry, etc. I know a lot of people would certainly willingly donate to a voluntary defense fund, but because skimping in this particular department is such an existential threat (unlike pretty much anything else), it's one of very few areas where I feel it's "better to be safe than sorry" and better to violate property rights on a small scale than allow for a potential totalitarian takeover by a hypothetical Nazi Germany type of enemy. That said, I'm open to persuasion on this if the argument is convincing enough.

I can see how user fees would pay for police work and fire departments. Fire departments at the very least could be easily privatized, and police station could feasibly work much as hospitals do now: They'd handle emergencies without hesitation, and then they'd discuss payment and costs afterwards. If people can't afford it, then it should be put on their tab. In any case, this is a complete non-issue at the federal level anyway.

However, there ARE several areas where I feel user fees may not suffice:
One is roads - highways, in particular. On one hand, under a private road system, the businesses along a road would almost certainly be the actual owners of that road, and they'd have financial incentives to maintain the roads themselves and not explicitly charge people for using them (because that would drive away customers). I see this as a very feasible alternative to our current system. On the other hand, I think that highways are an exception here. Unless I'm mistaken, I think they'd be owned by companies that specifically deal in the business of roads, and they'd require payment from travelers. Here's an excerpt from an old post of mine where I discussed some of these problems (I had some misconceptions at the time I wrote the post, but I still stand by this part of it):

Aside from that, though, there's another problem: I also wonder how much more inefficient and congested toll roads would be. After all, if you have to go through a toll booth bottleneck on every single road, your trip time is probably going to at least double as you're getting nickeled and dimed. On the other hand, if roads were paid for on a subscription basis, the only feasible scenario I can think of is one where a camera scans every license plate (which inherently requires people to possess license plates ), and anyone who passes through without a subscription gets served up with a subpoena and sued for trespassing. Clearly, that's not exactly desirable either, since it raises some obvious privacy concerns. (Note: Obviously, owners of private property have every right to monitor you on their property. However, I can totally see the road companies using their information to collude with law enforcement...in contrast, with tax-funded public highways, a small, limited government could be denied the authority to monitor traffic, since they don't actually need to in order to fund the roads. This is merely an argument of practical consequences, but I think it's worth considering.) You can't just have a pass hanging from your rear-view mirror, because you'd need one for [every such] road you might travel on - and actually, it seems that toll booths are probably inevitable, considering you won't be buying subscriptions for roads you travel infrequently (then again, it would be a moot point if everything in a large area was owned by a single monopoly - but that would completely undermine any practical arguments about competition). As a side note, roadside advertising wouldn't likely cover the costs either (you could litter every road with a hundred advertisements, but then it would look horrendous and they wouldn't fetch a high price anyway, since people are unlikely to notice one out of a hundred).

So, in other words: If we were to privatize [all] roads, I think the overall inefficiency of facilitating payment would be such a time drain and a hassle that its impact on the economy and our lives would be much greater than the impact from public roads paid for by taxes.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm somewhat leery of the idea of private highways.

Another potential issue here is prisons. Now, I certainly see the merits of requiring convicted criminals to either pay for their own costs or be productive in prison, so that they carry their weight and aren't leeching off of society as a whole. However, some very good safeguards must be in place to prevent prison systems (or even just guards or wardens) from making profits off of this. Otherwise, prisons would essentially be profitable sources of slave labor, and that would provide ALL of the wrong incentives to prison wardens, prison owners, and the legal system as a whole. Such a practice would corrupt the legal system by incentivizing the conviction of as many people as possible of as many trivial crimes as possible and sentencing them to prison for disproportionately long amounts of time. Unless such issues can be adequately addressed, prisons must be paid for via tax dollars. That said, I DO support a legal system that's focused on compensation for victims anyway. In other words, after sentencing, the victims of convicted criminals should be able to bargain with those criminals for suitable victim compensation if they so choose, in return for the convict not having to be incarcerated in the first place.

Anyway, the final area I can think of where I feel user fees may not suffice is in the court system. Yes, plaintiffs in civil suits can pay the court up front, and the loser of the case can be ultimately made to pay all costs (or owe the money). However, there are two scenarios that I consider user fees insufficient to handle:

1. If a person with no family or friends is murdered, who is going to take up that person's case and press charges, if not a designated state prosecutor paid via taxes? Now, it's quite possible that charitable private organizations could fund such prosecution, but hypothetically speaking, what do you think should happen if they can't?
2. If a poor person with no family or friends is charged with a crime, how is that person to pay for his or her defense, if not with a public defender paid via taxes? It's similarly quite possible that charitable private organizations could fund such defense attorneys, but hypothetically speaking, what do you think should happen if they can't?

You said above that you don't understand how a libertarian can support any taxation whatsoever. I'll explain my reasoning, based on the above example dealing with poor victims and defendants: Now, everyone has rights and the obligation to respect other people's rights. I understand that from a rights-based perspective, nobody truly has the obligation to protect other people's rights. Every person is technically well within their rights to just say, "It's not my problem." However, if we permit the rights of the most helpless people to be infringed without recourse, what does that say about our values and how important we really consider the practical exercise of our natural rights? Scenarios like these are why I support minimal taxation which should only be used by government to protect people's rights to life, liberty, and property (though I'm contradicting myself in the case of public highways, which protect none of those). I do see the inherent contradiction in legitimizing even small violations of property rights through low taxation levels (say, tariffs or sales tax for instance). Still, I feel that maximizing the degree to which everyone's rights are respected and protected as a whole takes precedence over simply not wanting to legitimize any violation of property rights.

[johnrocks]

I personally would love all this to be tied in as for Federal taxes ar concerned. Abolish the 16th AND 17th Amendment and each state pay their apportioned share of taxes to the Federal government. You would then see the most statist individuals turn into tight wads

[slothman]

Another potential issue here is prisons. Now, I
certainly see the merits of requiring convicted
criminals to either pay for their own costs or be
productive in prison, so that they carry their weight
and aren't leeching off of society as a
whole.

In other words, after sentencing, the victims
of convicted criminals
should be able to bargain with those criminals
for suitable victim compensation if they so choose, in
return for the convict not having to be incarcerated
in the first place.

I am against forced work in prisons.
It sounds like slavery.

For the second quote what if Bill gates kills someone.
Does he have to pay 10 billion dollars to the family of
the victim?
Spending a few thousand like a poor person like me would
mean he could kill galore and not lose much money, relatively.

The income and inheritance taxes are designed whether on purpse or not to limit upward class mobility. That's right, these
two taxes keep the middle class from moving into the wealthy category. If my parents parents had left them a few hundred
thousand dollars, and then when my parents pass if they leave me a few hundred thousand plus what they inherited, and then I
build my own wealth and then leave that to my kids (assuming I ever get an opportunity to mate ha ha), my kids would
probably be millionaires and have an enitrely different world of options available to them throughout life. It's called changing
the family tree.

I am for inheritence taxs but for a much larger number.
Maybe 1 million or 5 million or whatever.
200K isn't much now-a-days.

[nickcoons]

Hey, can you point me to where Ruwart addresses funding high-tech defensive weaponry and such, assuming she does?

In Chapter 20, she goes into some detail on this. Aside from describing the practical methods of implementing such a system, there's also a bit to describe why the threat would be significantly lowered:

More importantly, non-aggression provides us with the best deterrent of all, because it stops most would-be Husseins and Hitlers from ever coming to power.

Historically, we have felt that national defense is too important to put in the hands of ordinary, everyday people. However, if we are willing to force others- at gunpoint, if necessary - to provide time and money toward defense, don't we become the invaders? We are trying to protect our lives, liberty, and property from those who would choose differently for us. If in the process of defending ourselves, we turn on our neighbors and make their lives, liberty, and property forfeit, haven't we become what we most fear?

I can see how user fees would pay for police work and fire departments. Fire departments at the very least could be easily privatized, and police station could feasibly work much as hospitals do now: They'd handle emergencies without hesitation, and then they'd discuss payment and costs afterwards. If people can't afford it, then it should be put on their tab. In any case, this is a complete non-issue at the federal level anyway.

In the case of police, courts, and prisons, Dr. Ruwart introduces the idea of work prisons in Chapter 13. Criminals are responsible for not only restitution to the victim, but police and court costs as well as the cost of their own imprisonment. These costs are paid either from the criminal's personal savings (making crime very expensive, much more than what they would have gained had they not been caught) or through productive labor while in prison, such that their prison sentence is complete when their debt is paid, not in an arbitrary amount of time. It also incentivizes police to find the right person (wasting resources on the wrong person won't lead to a conviction and therefore police would not gain by trying to convict anyone and everyone).

This also addresses your question about how a person with no family is murdered will have the case handled. And to protect the misdeeds of wardens and prison guards, criminals can have the choice where they will serve out their sentence. Some prisons may offer better amenities but will cost more, meaning that the criminal will spend more time there working off the debt.

On the other hand, I think that highways are an exception here. Unless I'm mistaken, I think they'd be owned by companies that specifically deal in the business of roads, and they'd require payment from travelers.

I would think that most highways would be owned by transportation companies (like UPS, FedEx, and a multitude of others) for the purpose of delivering the packages that their clients ship.

Aside from that, though, there's another problem: I also wonder how much more inefficient and congested toll roads would be. After all, if you have to go through a toll booth bottleneck on every single road, your trip time is probably going to at least double as you're getting nickeled and dimed.

I wouldn't be concerned about the "nickel and dimed" aspect, as the overall cost would be less than what we're paying now. But congestion with a completely toll-based system could be an issue, if you assume that we traditional toll-booths where the drivers has to stop to make payment. I think your comment about scanning license plates for a subscription-based system could be implemented for one-time use as well. But I would modify it a little.

Instead of having a license plate, your car could contain a token of some sort that would tie in with a credit card or clearinghouse of some sort, such that when you drove by it would automatically record that. The clearinghouse, someone like Visa or Mastercard, could tie your payment method (i.e. bank account, etc) in with the provider, similar to the way you can make a payment at the point-of-sale with a credit card issued from your bank even though your bank and the merchant have never met. If you weren't subscription-based, then you may be billed a fee for entry on to the road. Someone without the token might be stopped by a hired patrolman the same way I might hire a security guard to protect my business from trespassers.

Obviously, owners of private property have every right to monitor you on their property. However, I can totally see the road companies using their information to collude with law enforcement...in contrast, with tax-funded public highways, a small, limited government could be denied the authority to monitor traffic, since they don't actually need to in order to fund the roads.

Most of the arguments in this message are derived from Dr. Ruwart's work, but some of the ideas in here I've literally come up with as I write this message (like the electronic token). Given that I haven't put a lot of thought into this particular piece of the process, there are certainly flaws in it, such as the privacy issues that you mention. I wouldn't be concerned with private property owners colluding with law enforcement though. If we're taking this in the context of a free society (and it would most likely be, as roads would probably be one of the very last things to be privatized if we were moving towards libertarianism), then law enforcement would enforce the laws of a free society. That is, protecting individuals from the initiation of force and fraud by other individuals. If we have private roads in the context of today's society, then I would be very concerned about collusion with law enforcement because of the multitude of unjust laws that they work to enforce.

As a side note, roadside advertising wouldn't likely cover the costs either (you could litter every road with a hundred advertisements, but then it would look horrendous and they wouldn't fetch a high price anyway, since people are unlikely to notice one out of a hundred).

I'll start by saying that I have no idea what it costs to build and maintain a road, so any discussion on my part as to whether a given method would sufficiently fund a road is purely academic.

Road owners, if they chose to go the advertising route, would need to balance the advertisement such that their advertising customers gain the maximum ROI if they planned on sustaining those relationships. It's the same reason that a newspaper or magazine isn't filled to the max with ads.

Additionally, if the road owners were transportation companies, then they don't need to charge travelers (or advertisers, depending on their business model) the full amount to build and maintain the roads, because the companies themselves derive benefit from the roads, which would be the purpose of investing in the road being built to begin with. They would only need to charge an amount equal to what the wear and tear of the additional use would cause plus whatever profit they deemed necessary. So it's not true to say that the driver or advertiser (or all drivers and advertisers combined) need to bear the full costs of the road.

Such a practice would corrupt the legal system by incentivizing the conviction of as many people as possible of as many trivial crimes as possible and sentencing them to prison for disproportionately long amounts of time.

This is assuming that we switch to a private-prison system in our current society.

If a poor person with no family or friends is charged with a crime, how is that person to pay for his or her defense, if not with a public defender paid via taxes? It's similarly quite possible that charitable private organizations could fund such defense attorneys, but hypothetically speaking, what do you think should happen if they can't?

If someone can't provide their own defense, and no one will provide it for them, then no one should be forced to provide for them. If you make an argument that defense is a necessity, a right, that an individual's life or property can be sacrificed for the benefit of someone else, then the logical conclusion of that is socialism; because you can make all the same arguments for why the state should take care of education, health care, food, housing, etc.

You said above that you don't understand how a libertarian can support any taxation whatsoever. I'll explain my reasoning, based on the above example dealing with poor victims and defendants: Now, everyone has rights and the obligation to respect other people's rights. I understand that from a rights-based perspective, nobody truly has the obligation to protect other people's rights. Every person is technically well within their rights to just say, "It's not my problem."

Agreed.

However, if we permit the rights of the most helpless people to be infringed without recourse, what does that say about our values and how important we really consider the practical exercise of our natural rights?

How are we permitting this?

Anyone who has had their rights violated can prosecute. Since all of the costs are paid for by the convicted criminal, the financial status of the victim is irrelevant. A prosecutor, paid by the convicted criminal, wouldn't take part in a case if he didn't feel a reasonable chance of victory. Defendants are also protected by frivolous claims with a "loser pays" system.

No matter what system we use (taxpayer funded or otherwise), the only perfect one is the one that has access to perfect knowledge. If someone rapes someone else in a dark alley and is able to do so while leaving zero evidence and no witnesses to the point where the criminal cannot possibly be identified, then it doesn't matter what system we have in place. The free market system itself would not be to blame for the inability to protect either the prosecution/plaintiff or the defendant.

Still, I feel that maximizing the degree to which everyone's rights are respected and protected as a whole takes precedence over simply not wanting to legitimize any violation of property rights.

I feel that maximizing the degree to which everyone's right are respected and protected as a whole and not legitimizing any violation of property rights are interdependent. You cannot violate people's rights to ensure that their rights are not violated.

[TheEvilDetector]

...

However, there ARE several areas where I feel user fees may not suffice:
One is roads - highways, in particular. On one hand, under a private road system, the businesses along a road would almost certainly be the actual owners of that road, and they'd have financial incentives to maintain the roads themselves and not explicitly charge people for using them (because that would drive away customers). I see this as a very feasible alternative to our current system. On the other hand, I think that highways are an exception here. Unless I'm mistaken, I think they'd be owned by companies that specifically deal in the business of roads, and they'd require payment from travelers. Here's an excerpt from an old post of mine where I discussed some of these problems (I had some misconceptions at the time I wrote the post, but I still stand by this part of it):

Anonymous (Not assigned to licence plates or users) Prepaid Tags, installed inside vehicles, scanned at toll points operated by road owners.
Scanning is done automatically when the car comes close to the toll point, the car does not need to slow down.
If a car passes a toll point without paying, big red light comes on as the car exits, photograph of the car is taken with the light in the shot automatically
and if any patrol car is on duty monitoring the toll point, it will pull the car over and issue a ticket, the officer issuing the ticket, will be able to download via wireless,
the photo from the toll point digital storage and present the photo along with ticket.

Tag Rechargeable via web site or at counter where available.

Another potential issue here is prisons. Now, I certainly see the merits of requiring convicted criminals to either pay for their own costs or be productive in prison, so that they carry their weight and aren't leeching off of society as a whole. However, some very good safeguards must be in place to prevent prison systems (or even just guards or wardens) from making profits off of this. Otherwise, prisons would essentially be profitable sources of slave labor, and that would provide ALL of the wrong incentives to prison wardens, prison owners, and the legal system as a whole. Such a practice would corrupt the legal system by incentivizing the conviction of as many people as possible of as many trivial crimes as possible and sentencing them to prison for disproportionately long amounts of time. Unless such issues can be adequately addressed, prisons must be paid for via tax dollars.

Prisoner given a choice to work off the debt while in prison or be saddled with a debt at the end of the term.
Prisoner assets/estate seized depending on levels of estimated/outstanding debt (chance of certain assets being returned depending on how much debt is payed off).

However, there are two scenarios that I consider user fees insufficient to handle:
[LIST=1][*]If a person with no family or friends is murdered, who is going to take up that person's case and press charges, if not a designated state prosecutor paid via taxes?

Under normal circumstances, loser pays, otherwise, general court fees.

On the government website with government fees, courts would be an entry like anything else.

ie.
Police
Firefighters
Defence
Courts
Prisons
etc.

Choices of:
a) Payable per use

or

b) annually

are offered either together or separated within practical constraints (ie. what makes sense).

[*]If a poor person with no family or friends is charged with a crime, how is that person to pay for his or her defense, if not with a public defender paid via taxes?

See above.

[Matt Collins]

I am for inheritence taxs but for a much larger number.
Maybe 1 million or 5 million or whatever. 200K isn't much now-a-days.

But that money has already been taxed via income.

And taking the money from one group of people and not another (in other words punishing people for receiving a bigger insentience than their neighbor) is not only unfair but it's not equal under the law.

[nate895]

A small, universal, tariff of 2% I think is good, after we can successfully shrink the government, and we can attempt to lower it from there.

US Imports of goods and services, 2007, DEA: –2,336,873,000,000

A tariff of 2% universally should yield around: $467,374,600,000

A 250,000 men army being payed, on average, at $40,000/year would cost: $10,000,000,000

Incorporating an annual equipment budget, as well as research and development budget, the cost of the US Army shouldn't cost more than $50,000,000,000

The annual budget of the US Navy, if we maintain a Navy with 10 Aircraft Carrier Task Forces (one Supercarrier, its air wing, 2 missile cruisers, 3 missile destroyers, and two attack subs), and a submarine fleet with 40 attack subs, and 10 missile boats, with, let's assume, ~350,000 men getting payed the same as the Army, the Navy should cost around $100,000,000,000

The Air Force shouldn't cost more than $25,000,000,000

The Marine Corps shouldn't cost more than $25,000,000,000 as well

The other functions that would cost money for the Federal Government would be immigration policy enforcement, and the enforcement of the tariff and inspection of foreign goods shouldn't cost more than $25,000,000,000

The governments total net income, in today's dollars, would be $242,374,600,000. I'd like to see that money saved until we reach 2 Trillion in today's money in reserves to pay for any emergency war spending, without increasing the tax burden for at least several years. As soon as we reached that amount in reserves, we could reduce the tariff to around .8%.

That is enough to maintain a decent size Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, and to carry on with the other Constitutional functions of the United States Government.