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The purpose of taxation is to arm society with the means to provide civilization. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.”1 But, the Supreme Court, in McCulloch v. Maryland,2 noted, “The power to tax involves the power to destroy.”
We can’t begin to discuss here the “best” philosophy of taxation but were we to do so, we wouldn’t be among the first. For instance, in 1 Samuel 8:15-17, the God of the Hebrew Scriptures tells Samuel to warn the people that a king will take a tenth of their grain and flocks, and Plato notes that where an income tax is imposed, the just will pay more and the unjust less.3
An alternative to imposing taxes might be to have the government prin...
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