Comments for The Book of Mormon Has a Dim View of Taxation at http://www.ldsfreemen.com , comment 1 to 3 out of 3 comments http://www.ldsfreemen.com Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:17:58 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.ldsfreemen.com/chris-reeve/the-book-of-mormon-has-a-dim-view-of-taxation.html#comment-170 Indeed. But Mr. Reeve is not advocating anarchy. Even rigid Libertarians agree that a minimal amount of tax is reasonable to protect life, liberty and private property. Do we really get many services via our tax dollars? Even the most generous estimates show that the State is massively clumsy and inefficient with our monies. Cheers. - Magneto Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:00:51 +0100 http://www.ldsfreemen.com/chris-reeve/the-book-of-mormon-has-a-dim-view-of-taxation.html#comment-68 I have had similar thoughts about high tax rates but there are some differences and a lot of assumptions that are made. I would like to point out these flaws, not to criticize, but to help better articles be created on this site which will better stand against attacks. First of all, there is not indication that taxes are bad in the Book of Mormon. There is no indication government is bad. In fact the D&C states the opposite. Government comes from God. Government must be funded somehow. This means a government must have an perpetual income. This must come through some tax source as the sale of public holdings won't last forever. This tax must appear as a fee, income tax, property tax, etc. Just because the leader of a group doesn't rely on tax money for his income doesn't mean that no tax money is collected. Not even Ron Paul would get rid of all taxes in the government. I do agree that over taxation is a problem. It is hard to compare where they are in the Book of Mormon to where they are here. My understanding is that they did not get a lot of services with their tax dollars. Were their public schools provided by the government? Who paid for the roads? It seems that when Book of Mormon kings had high taxes it was very much to directly financially benefit them. It is very difficult for leaders to directly financially benefit from higher taxes. Any financial gains must be directly obfuscated through corporations, etc. I do agree with the point in the article that states we are overtaxed. Most of the services the federal government provides are unconstitutional and are used to secure more power. I hope was able to point out flaws in the article so it can be better strengthened in the future. Thank you for taking the time to write the article. - 3arwax Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:31:46 +0100 http://www.ldsfreemen.com/chris-reeve/the-book-of-mormon-has-a-dim-view-of-taxation.html#comment-63 Great article, Chris. Just think how much more freedom and charity we could express without the state claiming (at least in USA) about 50% of our life, liberty, property. I find it very ironic that the Nephites cried unto God because the tax burden was , yet the LDS (mostly) beg for MORE government. - ed42 Sat, 12 Apr 2008 21:03:06 +0100