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In my country, and for at least dozens of years, many people evade taxes, especially in some professional groups. Tax evasion is recognized as a common behavior, even if accepted only in private (or at least not too public) conversations. There are some rough calculations about how big tax evasion is.

This has had many consequences:

a) Tax rates are a bit higher than they would be if there were no evasion;
b) Unions agree on salaries knowing that their members will have to pay for these hight tax rates or, on the contrary, that they will be able to evade taxes;
c) Professionals charge for their services knowing that they will be able to evade taxes;
d) Some professionals and corporations evade taxes because, if they wouldn't, they wouldn't be able to compete with low prices;
e) People who do not evade taxes, although they could, know that many other people do, and they do not evade either because they think that is the right thing to do, or because they are affraid that they are caught.

Do you think that this is a moral reason to evade taxes, so that one pays more or less only what one would pay if there were no tax evasion and tax rates were lower?

I understand that some of my descriptions may not be very accurate, but please answer as if they were.

February 5, 2007

Response from Andrew N. Carpenter on February 6, 2007

Even though determining exactly when one should or should not obey lawful authority is complicated, nothing that you describe here strikes me as a moral reason to disobey.

For a richly-nuanced discussion of breaking the law for moral reasons, see Henry David Thoreau's classic 19th century essay "Civil Disobedience," which addresses Thoreau's moral opposition to legalizez slavery in America, his desire not to be an "agent of injustice to another," and and his decision not to pay several types of taxes.

There are many other fascinating and relevant texts of political philosophy; Socrates's decision not to escape his execution is an especially interesting text to pair with Thoreau -- see Plato's Crito.

My basic point would is that there is a strong moral obligation to obey laws, and that none of the economica or social facts you mention raise the sorts of moral issues that might override that obligation. Theoreau's desire to resist lawful slavery might do this; the desire to compete in a capitalist marketplace with businesses that choose to break the law does not.


(You describe an unfortunate situation, and perhaps one that is untenable over the long term. So, there seems to be much reason to try to reform it through whatever legislative processes are available in your country.)


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