I disagree with the other commenters here who say that tax evasion is theft. I think theft requires taking someone else’s property, and I don’t think the government generally has a strong moral claim to your property.
That said, the penalty for deliberate tax evasion can be severe. You can easily find people convicted for tax evasion who face years of prison and large fines. I believe this downside outweighs the potential benefit of donating your money instead.
Tax evasion is frankly underprosecuted in many jurisdictions. I’m certainly not endorsing it, but I wouldn’t assume the cost/benefit analysis is unfavorable if the costs are largely limited to the risk of civil and criminal sanctions.
Of course, we’d need to know where someone lived and the type of evasion they had in mind before constructing such an analysis. For various reasons, I have no interest in doing that or in encouraging evasion—I just think “crime doesn’t pay” without an analysis is too easy/comfortable an answer.
I disagree with the other commenters here who say that tax evasion is theft. I think theft requires taking someone else’s property, and I don’t think the government generally has a strong moral claim to your property.
That said, the penalty for deliberate tax evasion can be severe. You can easily find people convicted for tax evasion who face years of prison and large fines. I believe this downside outweighs the potential benefit of donating your money instead.
Tax evasion is frankly underprosecuted in many jurisdictions. I’m certainly not endorsing it, but I wouldn’t assume the cost/benefit analysis is unfavorable if the costs are largely limited to the risk of civil and criminal sanctions.
Of course, we’d need to know where someone lived and the type of evasion they had in mind before constructing such an analysis. For various reasons, I have no interest in doing that or in encouraging evasion—I just think “crime doesn’t pay” without an analysis is too easy/comfortable an answer.