phil, thanks for clarifying your position. I went too far in interpreting your words
> The government has no right to tax people simply any amount they decide to. Taxes have to be fair, they should not have a devastating financial effect on people and their families. A government demanding heavy taxes is stealing from its citizens.
I may want to government tax us less, but we live in a democracy where voters make certain decisions in a generally fair way. Is each of us allowed to decide what is “fair” and what is “devastating” and not pay extra? There are a lot of suboptimal, and sometimes simply silly, decisions by the government in how they tax and distribute funds. For example, FAFSA recently (quietly) changed (by Biden admin) from “family index” to “student index”, which means that family income is considered for every college student in the family instead of being divided by number of current students in college (this is while forgiving loans to those who work in non-profits, mostly democrats). So, we are paying way more than planned. Am I justified to fudge my income to correspond to the “fair” value?!
In the particular case of SS tax, even this seems not to work – government forces you to pay into a program that has a reasonable chance to benefit you in the future and that, presumably, your parents and grandparents are/were beneficiaries of. The case of income tax, this seems like a really heavy burden to pay it in both in a local high-tax country (Israel or EU) and in USA – is this actually happening? can someone clarify please.