Taxes are great

Until you do, since people can't 'own' something which doesn't exist, it can't be 'theft' because theft presupposes ownership.

You guys just assert it over and over, following the old and cheap political tactic of 'tell a lie enough times and eventually people start to believe it', without ever demonstarting that anybody legitmately owns pre-tax income in the U.S. today.

Example: How you think this when the very dollar bills that the economy runs on are printed by the government is a good question. (How can you own what the government produces, btw, if the government can't own what you produce?) Try to imagine participating in the economy without using public roads, publicly funded communication infrastructure, publicly educated employees, publicly funded electricity, water, gas, and other utilities, publicly funded information, technology, research and development -- it's absolutely impossible. The only way to avoid public goods and services is to move out of the country entirely, or at least become such a hermit, living off the fruits of your own labor, that you reduce your consumption of public goods and services to as little as possible.

Or this:

Suppose the gang of ten men had helped you buy a car, pitching in with a loan that covered 40 percent of the sticker price (which is about the percentage of the GDP devoted in the United States to taxes). And suppose they simply wanted return payment. By not returning the favor, it is you who become the thief. If you want a car that is 100 percent yours, simply pay the full price of one. Of course, by accepting the loan from the gang of ten men, you were able to buy a better car than you could afford in the first place. The same is true with all government services: they helped you in ways we can't imagine to earn income.

For example, if lawyers never recieved any schooling, I'm guessing they wouldn't have been able to be lawyers. But almost all at some point recieved there schooling from the government. It's impossible to seperate the two; an individual's income depends completely on an inseperable combination of her effort and the government's. Therefore government creates the income right now. It doesn't matter whether or not it could be different; as long as we don't live in anarchy already taxes are not theft.

Arguments like "taxation is theft" are extremely egoistic. It's the equivalent of saying "Everything I make is by my own effort" -- a patently false statement in an interdependent, specialized economy where the free market is supported by public goods and services. People who make arguments like this are big on taking these goods but short on seeing why they need to pay for them. It doesn't matter that they believe these public services should be privatized -- the point is that the government is nonetheless producing them, and they need to be paid for. It doesn't matter that any given individual doesn't agree with how the government is spending their money -- many people don't agree with how corporations pollute the environment, but they still pay for their merchandise. It doesn't matter that any given individual thinks some government programs are wasteful and inefficient -- so are many private bureaucracies, but their goods still demand payment. If tax opponents argue that a person doesn't have to patronize a company he disagrees with, then liberals can argue that a person doesn't have to vote for a public official he disagrees with.

Ultimately, any argument against paying taxes should be compared to its private sector equivalent, and the fallacy will become evident.