The destructive nature of taxes

Taxes are often considered as justified because they are necessary to finance useful public expenditures; and it is even said sometimes that taxes are the price to be paid in order to get desirable “public goods†. However, there is a great difference between taxes and prices on a free market because, contrary to private prices, taxes are obtained by the use of coercion. This has an important and destructive consequence, since taxes are therefore destroying productive incentives (for instance incentives to work, to create and develop firms, to save and to invest, etc.), except in the case of a “poll tax†(which is scarcely used). Thus taxation is an important cause of a low growth rate and of a high unemployment rate. It is always justified to try to decrease taxation. It may even happen that a decrease in taxation can increase public revenue, as is stressed by the “Laffer curve†. Taxation must also be criticized because in many cases there is a lack of transparency: He who pays a tax to a tax administration is not necessarily the one who completely bears its weight.