Is Taxation Lawful?

Like Pirates on the Beach

Political Dualism - Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, March 07, 2011

I received a question from a reader who agreed with my general thinking about government robberies, but wondered if I believed that any taxation whatever amounted to theft. And if I thought that some taxation was, and some was not, then how to tell the difference? Is it simply done on the basis of what I think is prudent?
So there are basically three questions. The first concerns whether or not there is such a thing as taxation which is not theft. And the answer is yes -- there is such a thing as lawful taxation (Num. 3:47; Rom. 13:7). It does exist. To maintain that all taxation is theft by definition is to take a hard libertarian/anarchist view of civil government which is not warranted in Scripture.

The second question is whether, given the lawfulness of taxation as a general question, it is possible for a government to steal. If taxation is can be lawful, it is possible for a government to steal? And again, the answer is yes. If Ahab had gotten Naboth's vineyard by means of "land reform," or "zoning adjustments," or "eminent domain," it would not have made it any less stealing. Or if Ahab had just applied property taxes to the vineyard (total, 5,000 dollars) with the entire vineyard (worth five million) being the collateral for the tax liability, then that would have been another form of stealing.

So some taxes are simply legalized stealing. Jesus tells us that the sons are exempt from taxes, and yet He has Peter pay a tax voluntarily to prevent the giving of offense (Matt. 17:25-26). The principle that can be gathered here is that a government entity claimed that a tax was owed, and Jesus said that it was not really owed. In such a circumstance, if the government takes that amount by force, the only way we could define it would be by the word "stealing."

Take this another way. If a throne can be "unrighteous" in general (Prov. 25:5), then a throne can be unrighteous in the specifics. God's law provides us with the very definition of unrighteousness, and this means that governments can steal.

So the third question is, how do we tell the difference? Before answering, we should note that every Christian who grants that a government can steal is obligated to tell us where he thinks the dividing line is. The only alternative would be to maintain that the civil government has an absolute claim on all property, and that while it might let the peons "use" some of it some of the time, this is just because they are being nice.

If you believe (as I do) that it could be possible for a man to rape his wife, then you have the obligation to be able to distinguish lawful intercourse from unlawful. No human authority is absolute. If you believe (as I do) that governments can (and do) steal, then you have to be able to state where and why you think that.

Boondoggles and redistribution of wealth are clear symptoms that something has gone wrong, just as a drunken band of pirates divvying up the booty around a bonfire on the beach is a similar indication. But the act of piracy occurred earlier. Waste, fraud, and abuse are also symptomatic. That is what happens when pirates spend the money. What is the heart of the thievery? Where is the point when pirates get the money?

I would suggest that Samuel tells us. When he is warning the people of Israel about the coming predations of a king, there are numerous aspects to that warning, but one of them has to do with taxation. Samuel says that if they take a king "like the other nations," then it is conceivable that the tax rate might actually get up to ten percent (1 Sam. 8:15-17). We are so far gone in our folly that we would give anything to get back to ten percent.

And so here is where I would draw the line. Ten percent is significant because that is what Almighty God claims. The tithe of God is a prerogative of God. I don't believe that it is possible for a king, or a congress, or a parliament, or a president, to claim that much or more without setting itself up as a rival to God, which is exactly what our governments have done.

So, in sum, I would be happy with an 8% flat tax. The government may want more than that, for governments always do. But they certainly don't need more than that.