… this would provide for enough time for a small low value colony, on a marginally habitable planet, to evacuate nearly all their wealth.
But the planet is precisely what’s being taxed! Why stage a tax rebellion only to forfeit your taxable assets?
If the lands are marginal, they would be taxed very little, or not at all.
Even if they left the planet, couldn’t the counter strike follow them? It doesn’t matter if you can do more economic damage if you also go extinct. It’s like refusing to pay a $100 fine by doing $1000 of damage and then ending up in prison. The taxing authority can precommit to massive retaliation in order to deter such behavior. The colony cannot symmetrically threaten the tax authority with extinction because of the size difference.
All of this ignores the practical issues with these weapons, the fact that earth’s value is minuscule compared to the sun, the costs of forfeiting property rights, the relocation costs, and the fact that citizens of marginal lands would receive net payments from the citizens dividend.
But the planet is precisely what’s being taxed! Why stage a tax rebellion only to forfeit your taxable assets?
If the lands are marginal, they would be taxed very little, or not at all.
Well the planet would not be paying the tax, the colonists would be paying the tax. They likely won’t have to forefeit anything at all since the mere threat is enough to prevent any attempts at taxing them.
If the tax was literally zero, and the authority of Earth only nominal, then maybe the issue could be sidestepped, but then the issue of what kind of taxation would be redundant.
But if it’s above zero I’m not really sure how you imagine the situation enfolding or what sort of things can pay tax or be used as tax payments. As you mentioned there’s mass, energy, space-time, plus information. Small colonists obviously can’t pay anything with space-time since this is not something they can relocate. So it will have to be either mass, energy, and/or information as the unit of settlement for taxes in any plausible future.
Maybe there will be a common currency but more likely not since currency controls are impossible with a time lag of many years, so it would be a very unstable system.
Regardless, even on 2022 Earth it’s clear that some folks, and not just a few, thousands upon thousands, are willing to die for abstract principles of one kind or another, including the matter of taxation. I can easily imagine a future world of millions of very independent colonists that are more than willing to fight to the death if they even have to pay a single dollar of taxes. And unlike the present day they will be on a nearly level playing field even against a polity with 1000x the resources.
There’s also no plausible way to give representation in exchange for taxation, since the communications lag is so massive, so I really can’t see how anyone could compel even a single dollar out of distant colonists due to the previously discussed reasons.
Even if they left the planet, couldn’t the counter strike follow them? It doesn’t matter if you can do more economic damage if you also go extinct. It’s like refusing to pay a $100 fine by doing $1000 of damage and then ending up in prison. The taxing authority can precommit to massive retaliation in order to deter such behavior. The colony cannot symmetrically threaten the tax authority with extinction because of the size difference.
There is no way that the counter strike can ‘follow’ them to other planets because that would guarantee destruction of more value then any tax of a single planet could ever collect. Plus it would be pointless if they get sufficient advance warning. It doesn’t take centuries to pack up and move on.
All of this ignores the practical issues with these weapons, the fact that earth’s value is minuscule compared to the sun,
How does the value of the Sun relate to this discussion?
the relocation costs,
The relocation cost would be there but like I said it would be many orders of magnitude less for the colonists than for Earth.
and the fact that citizens of marginal lands would receive net payments from the citizens dividend.
If Earth simply wants to send payments to the colonists then that renders the choice of taxation system moot. If they want to send payments a few dozen years after taxes are collected then they still first have to collect the taxes. Which is the same problem. Promising large rewards at some future date without an enforceable guarantee doesn’t work, since after all the colonists also can’t compel the payments to be sent out either.
I feel like something important got lost here. The colonists are paying a land value tax in exchange for (protected) possession of the planet. Forfeiting the planet to avoid taxes makes no sense in this context. If they really don’t want to pay taxes and are fine with leaving, they could just leave and stop being taxed; no need to attack anyone.
The “its impossible to tax someone who can do more damage than their value” argument proves too much; it suggests that taxation is impossible in general. It’s always been the case that individuals can do more damage than could be recouped in taxation, and yet, people still pay taxes.
Where are the individuals successfully avoiding taxation by threatening acts of terrorism? How are states able to collect taxes today? Why doesn’t the U.S. bend to the will of weaker states since it has more to lose? It’s because these kinds of threats don’t really work. If the U.S. caved to one unruly individual then nobody would pay taxes, so the U.S. has to punish the individual enough to deter future threats.
The colonists are paying a land value tax in exchange for (protected) possession of the planet. Forfeiting the planet to avoid taxes makes no sense in this context. If they really don’t want to pay taxes and are fine with leaving, they could just leave and stop being taxed; no need to attack anyone.
Who’s stopping them from simply just staying at their planet, doing whatever they want, while not paying tax?
But the planet is precisely what’s being taxed! Why stage a tax rebellion only to forfeit your taxable assets?
If the lands are marginal, they would be taxed very little, or not at all.
Even if they left the planet, couldn’t the counter strike follow them? It doesn’t matter if you can do more economic damage if you also go extinct. It’s like refusing to pay a $100 fine by doing $1000 of damage and then ending up in prison. The taxing authority can precommit to massive retaliation in order to deter such behavior. The colony cannot symmetrically threaten the tax authority with extinction because of the size difference.
All of this ignores the practical issues with these weapons, the fact that earth’s value is minuscule compared to the sun, the costs of forfeiting property rights, the relocation costs, and the fact that citizens of marginal lands would receive net payments from the citizens dividend.
Well the planet would not be paying the tax, the colonists would be paying the tax. They likely won’t have to forefeit anything at all since the mere threat is enough to prevent any attempts at taxing them.
If the tax was literally zero, and the authority of Earth only nominal, then maybe the issue could be sidestepped, but then the issue of what kind of taxation would be redundant.
But if it’s above zero I’m not really sure how you imagine the situation enfolding or what sort of things can pay tax or be used as tax payments. As you mentioned there’s mass, energy, space-time, plus information. Small colonists obviously can’t pay anything with space-time since this is not something they can relocate. So it will have to be either mass, energy, and/or information as the unit of settlement for taxes in any plausible future.
Maybe there will be a common currency but more likely not since currency controls are impossible with a time lag of many years, so it would be a very unstable system.
Regardless, even on 2022 Earth it’s clear that some folks, and not just a few, thousands upon thousands, are willing to die for abstract principles of one kind or another, including the matter of taxation. I can easily imagine a future world of millions of very independent colonists that are more than willing to fight to the death if they even have to pay a single dollar of taxes. And unlike the present day they will be on a nearly level playing field even against a polity with 1000x the resources.
There’s also no plausible way to give representation in exchange for taxation, since the communications lag is so massive, so I really can’t see how anyone could compel even a single dollar out of distant colonists due to the previously discussed reasons.
There is no way that the counter strike can ‘follow’ them to other planets because that would guarantee destruction of more value then any tax of a single planet could ever collect. Plus it would be pointless if they get sufficient advance warning. It doesn’t take centuries to pack up and move on.
How does the value of the Sun relate to this discussion?
The relocation cost would be there but like I said it would be many orders of magnitude less for the colonists than for Earth.
If Earth simply wants to send payments to the colonists then that renders the choice of taxation system moot. If they want to send payments a few dozen years after taxes are collected then they still first have to collect the taxes. Which is the same problem. Promising large rewards at some future date without an enforceable guarantee doesn’t work, since after all the colonists also can’t compel the payments to be sent out either.
I feel like something important got lost here. The colonists are paying a land value tax in exchange for (protected) possession of the planet. Forfeiting the planet to avoid taxes makes no sense in this context. If they really don’t want to pay taxes and are fine with leaving, they could just leave and stop being taxed; no need to attack anyone.
The “its impossible to tax someone who can do more damage than their value” argument proves too much; it suggests that taxation is impossible in general. It’s always been the case that individuals can do more damage than could be recouped in taxation, and yet, people still pay taxes.
Where are the individuals successfully avoiding taxation by threatening acts of terrorism? How are states able to collect taxes today? Why doesn’t the U.S. bend to the will of weaker states since it has more to lose? It’s because these kinds of threats don’t really work. If the U.S. caved to one unruly individual then nobody would pay taxes, so the U.S. has to punish the individual enough to deter future threats.
Who’s stopping them from simply just staying at their planet, doing whatever they want, while not paying tax?