Taxation Steals More Than Property, It Steals Dignity
- Tamara Shrugged
- Apr 17
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 19
“The theory of republican government is that sovereignty resides in the citizen, who lends it to his elected representative for a specified time. But a people whose wealth is siphoned into the coffers of its government is in no position to stand up to it; with its wealth goes its sovereignty, its sense of dignity. People still vote, of course, but handouts from their government unduly influence their judgment in the ballot booth, whether these be in the form of relief, parity prices, or orders for battleships.” – The Income Tax, Root of All Evil
In 2025, Americans were again required to file income taxes to the federal government by April 18, ironically, just one day following Emancipation Day, a holiday commemorating the end of slavery. What started as a call to “soak the rich” to punish the robber barons who were accumulating money too quickly in the land of the free has ended with a punitive tax code that penalizes everyone with incomes over a mere $15,000 a year. All while telling you it's a patriotic thing to do.
The 16th Amendment was signed into law in 1913, its sole purpose: to transfer more revenue to the federal government. That is, rather than taking home your gross salary, the government confiscates a significant portion and leaves you with a net return. As a result, by reducing the social power of its citizens and ultimately changing the people's character, self-reliance was slowly replaced with helplessness and dependency on the federal system. Income tax was not included in the original Constitution, as the people were still too close to the revolution and felt differently about freedom, understanding that the weaker the government was, the stronger the people would be.
In Frank Chodorov’s 1954 book, “The Income Tax Root of All Evil”, Chodorov shows how the implementation of the Income Tax has changed the dynamic of government, from one of a pauper status living within the purview of the Constitution, to that of a king, controlling every aspect of American life. By consolidating more power in the federal government, the income tax has diminished the concept of states' rights. The biggest shift was from a divided government to one controlled centrally in Washington, DC. The income tax further eroded the concept of natural rights by confiscating the fruits of its citizens' labor, their absolute right to property.
The Income Tax took a weak government and made it stronger, ensuring more intrusion over time. The 1929 Depression became the first watershed moment when American citizens exchanged freedom and autonomy for more security from the federal government. Perceived emergencies grew budgets and power, expanding the entitlement state, as the government sidestepped the Constitution with greater regularity. The country’s first income tax was to pay for the Civil War, and an endless array of needless wars followed simply because of the existence of the income tax.
To play on the idea of soaking the rich, politicians created the ability to pay provision, i.e., progressive taxation, to hook citizens to the idea of a social good, with taxation used as an equalizer. Here, the good of the masses overrides the sovereignty of the individual to keep the fruits of their labor. Believing that the state is a contributory factor to individual success, the government must acquire and then reallocate dollars through redistribution. Yet, no weight is ever applied to how one’s wealth was attained, or how progressive taxation might affect the economic well-being of a society.
When the government takes money from people and corporations, it shifts capital investment from entrepreneurs to politicians, from the productive to the unproductive. The private market produces wealth from new and continuing innovation, while the government can only consume or transfer what it seizes. The income tax under progressive taxation impairs the wealth structure because the more money someone makes, the more the government takes, leading to lower production, as individuals are compelled to avoid a higher tax bracket. If you tax wealth, society will have less of it, because wealth is nothing more than the cumulative earnings of all people; the government has no role. Class warfare, therefore, benefits politicians who pit citizens against each other.
In a constitutional republic, divided authority gives citizens a choice in competitive government markets, that is, between state and federal governments. It delimits power between the two entities and thus keeps a monopoly on power from becoming absolute. To repeal the income tax is to shift power back to the states and return autonomy to the states and the people.
The income tax violates the founding principle of the absolute rights of the individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The doctrine of natural rights is the idea that individuals have certain rights, granted by God, that cannot be restricted by government. After the enactment of the 16th Amendment, natural rights no longer existed, since the income tax is essentially a denial of private property. Socialism and communism begin by transferring property to the state. Then, any privilege one receives comes at the benevolence of the government.
President Trump’s ongoing flirtation with the idea of abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, using tariffs as the central source of revenue, may be America’s opportunity to begin to return sovereignty to its citizens.

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