Saying taxation is extortion is fact. You can argue that it is benefecial because it pays for educations, roads, security, etc... Still it fits the definition. I could do a direct comparison with rhetoric used by gangs, but I don't think it would help. Let me link to a definition instead : "obtaining money, property, or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion."
" you benefit from these things therefore you owe a debt for their use": That's not what the common theory of contracts in use says. When I take the metro, there are often musicians playing music that everybody benefits. They rely on donations. You don't have to go out of your way and take a different station not to donate.
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I know all about contract law hence why I was very careful not to use the word. Your grasp of law on the other hand is as cherry picked and oversimplified as your grasp of the realities of politics.
there is a quote from Abraham Lincoln that is commonly repeated by those in the profession even over here across the Atlantic it goes something like this:
He who represents himself has a fool for a client
For those reading the thread this is what Lincoln meant by that quote and I hope also a warning as to what happens when lay people cherry pick legal doctrines.
Tax law is not a contract. Its routes are older and pre-date contract law as we know it. In origin tax law ultimately comes from Roman law and developed from the maxim
nemo locupletari potest aliena iactura or
nemo locupletari debet cum aliena iactura. That maxim survives in modern civil law, distinct from contract law and in the English speaking hybrid courts in Scotland, South Africa and Louisiana as the Law of Unjustified Enrichment. To simplify the concept as i'm on my lunchbreak- the law is that where a man profits at the expense of another he is bound to make good the loss.
When you hear a busker you have profited but at no cost to the performer. When you are educated, when you are defended by the military of a state, when you travel upon the states roads you are profiting at the expense of the state. This is where your obligation to pay taxes comes from.
you might be tempted to argue that the law of unjustified enrichment is different in common law systems but it is irrelevant because all common law jurisdictions were established on the ruins of the Roman administration and as such all tax law ultimately has its source in that doctrine. They all inherited and accepted the doctrine that citizens are obliged to pay taxes in exchange for the state providing them with benefits of society.
The myth that legal obligations arise only from contracts is something that is peddled by OPLCA and tax deniers- it has failed every time it has ever come before a court. As has the myth that taxes are extortion. Yes there is a punishment for failure to pay- but the punishment is for failing to meet your obligations not part of a racket.
I sincerely hope you are a layperson and that this is an honest mistake. If it isn't and you are a professional and I ever get your name and jurisdiction I will report you to your law society and ensure you are sanctioned. The beliefs you are peddling have been proven false time and time again and I know of more than a few unscrupulous lawyers who were debarred and disgraced for selling them as snake oil to the vulnerable.
Your definition of extortion is actually quite good but it does not accurately describe taxes which are 'payments leveled to pay for the services enjoyed by the taxpayer and paid for by the state'. extortion is forcing someone to
gift you things under threat of violence it is not seeking compensation for the use of services you provide.
"It is no coincidence that those nations with little to no effective tax regieme often have to make do without the benefits of more stable societies and have corresponding lower life expectancy." If we try to argue every point about the government in the same discussion, it will never end.
If we argue any point in politics without giving prime place to what actually works then we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. It is an empirical fact that without taxation society cannot function at more than a tribal level and that those tribes inevitably fall into a might makes right power system.
Optional taxation does not work this is proven by the state of those countries where tax avoidance is so rife and so tolerated it may as well be a choice. you cannot respond to evidence that proves your theories on taxation to be unworkable by saying ah well we cannot discuss everything- the two are linked there is a reason modern tax law has evolved the way it has with literally thousands of years of people scrutinising it to try and find it unfair and get out of paying it and it is not because of coercion.
