Tax Freedom Day

Apparently, Tax Freedom Day here in the U.S. arrived yesterday, April 17th. I know it comes sometime in June up in Canada. So to me, April 17th doesn't seem that awful. Speaking of which, Jane Galt has a note on marginal tax rates that looks at whether its really OK to take half of someone's income away from them by force. Take home message:

I don't have any problem with really rather high marginal rates of taxation, but when it gets to the point where majority of your hours are spent laboring for a third party in an involuntary contract the terms of which you can't control, even to refusing to enter it, the words "taxation is slavery" do begin to have some bite.

I'm not really a "Taxes Are Evil" person, either (we do get a lot of services for them, and these benefits are often overlooked). But it does strike me as borderline immoral that the rates are as high as they are, even for the wealthy. And I like to think that if the government got out of doing all the business it does that it probably shouldn't, and back down to a reasonable size, we could have tax rates that would seem to be worth it for what we get out of them. Because right now, there's a disconnect there.