So who actually pays tax?
To begin in much the same way as the opening post, we all know the pro-Capitalists will argue that the richest pay it all and Social Democrats will argue that they don’t pay enough. But I want to push these notions further.
Consider, to start with, if employees incurred income tax, if that tax was removed and transferred to corporation tax and/or to sales tax incurred by the employer (to keep tax revenues the same), the effect would cancel out. The employer would simply reduce what was formerly gross wages to what was formerly net wages. The employee would take home the same amount and the employer would pay no more in wage expenses than before.
Now let’s say if this accumulated corporation tax and/or sales tax is removed and added to any existing purchase tax, to keep tax revenues the same, the extra profit or the reduced expenses from no tax being applied to either would be cancelled out by having to reduce prices so that with the extra tax added onto them, the consumer wouldn’t be put off their purchases by having to pay more. So far the burden of taxation has been passed on from employee to employer to consumer.
But now let’s say if purchase tax were removed it could… be transferred to income tax to keep tax revenues the same?! And prices could be put back up from what was formerly the net price to what was formerly the gross price, to keep them the same too. But now let’s say instead of income tax being transferred to a tax paid by the employer like before, what if wages were decreased so that together with tax they cost the employer the same. Now employees have less money to spend on consumption, meaning employers can’t charge the same prices and still sell in the same volumes. Their revenues are hurt, meaning they can’t afford to pay as much in wages and so on - showing how taxation can just as easily cause deflationary effects as inflationary. Usually inflation is assumed to occur due to taxation, because adding tax increases the numbers that were formerly in play.
So tax neither necessarily causes inflation or deflation, and the effects are also passed around the whole economy indefinitely - meaning it doesn’t actually land or pool in any one area over another. The same inequality distribution emerges with or without it. In fact all that does happen as a result of tax is that money is diverted through a government body and then back into the private sector as though it never left.
How can taxation be considered immoral (or even moral) if it ultimately has zero economic effect? It’s economically amoral.
The argument that force is immorally being applied when somebody is taxed now comes into serious question.
How can an effect that is cancelled out be an application of force? Taking nothing from someone without consent cannot be considered forceful.
So both the notions that the rich pay all the tax, or that the rich ought to pay more tax are meaningless in an unplanned economy - numbers are simply adjusted to compensate wherever tax is applied, preserving proportionality throughout.