ACCEPTANCE

The second element is the acceptance part. Obviously if contracts must be voluntary, then there must be a party that accepts an offer. But what are the legal conditions for an acceptance to be considered…well… legal and valid?

The rules of acceptance are not so clear, however the most important is:

There must be a communication of acceptance (unless the contract is unilateral)

This makes sense. If a contract must be voluntary and there must be an offer and an acceptance, if there is no communication of acceptance the offeror has no idea if there is a contract in existence with the oferee.

And so the question stands. Is there a communication of acceptance between a taxpayer and the government? Most certainly not. As a matter of fact, this is also stated in laws where ignorance of the law is not a legal defense. And yes, ignorance of tax laws is not defense against tax laws. Which means that the government itself rejects the legal need for the oferee to communicate his/her acceptance and it does so in written with the full force of the law! Which means that the government is in breach of this requirement too. What a surprise…not!

But, we are not done yet. Some people would argue that taxes are unilateral contracts and as such a communication is not required.

Fair enough. Let's analyze this point of view.

A unilateral contract is a contract where an offer exists but the oferee needs not to communicate acceptance but to do something. For example, the use of medication XYZ implies that the patient implicitly accepts the risks of using said medication.

For our situation it would mean that a taxpayer need not to accept a tax contract but only do something a government deems sufficient proof of acceptance. But what cold this "something" be?

Well, we don't know because governments don't tell us. But even this is academic because the reality is that there is no way for any citizen in any country in the world not to do something that the government may consider an acceptance. As a matter of fact, in most countries just because a person is a citizen or resides within a country is excuse enough to be taxed. In other words, it is simply not physically possible to avoid doing something a government wouldn't take as an acceptance.

This scenario is ludicrous because if the oferee has no real choice, then there is no choice! People have no physical way to refuse. And if there is no choice then the contract cannot be voluntary and hence there is no contract!

COMPETENT PARTIES

Yet another requirement is that parties to a contract must be competent. This is, of course, common sense. If a contract is a voluntary agreement between parties, such agreement cannot be voluntary if one party cannot understand what the agreement is all about. For example, a person with a mental disability is limited in his/her capacity to understand contracts. As such, even if such a person signs a contract, chances are it will be legally void and null (redundantly redundant so).

And so the question is this. Are we, the taxpayers, competent to enter into a tax contract? Sure! Unfortunately, we are. Just because we, the taxpayers, choose to act stupidly and keep paying taxes, this does not mean that we are not capable of understanding them. And yes, we are ignoring the fact that in reality taxes are so complex that even tax lawyers have tax lawyers and accountants to calculate their taxes.

But the question is, are governments competent to enter into tax agreements with taxpayers? This is a sticky point. It so happens that the only people in governments legally allowed to legislate taxes are our "representatives". But are they competent to do so? We argue that they are not.

How come?

Representatives are certainly competent to understand regular contracts. The problem is that taxes operate differently. Governments typically operate based on political "promises", which, conveniently enough, are not binding. Thus, a representative may issue a tax to fulfill a political promise but then higher up politicians may not fulfill such promise. In other words, representatives are not competent to enter into taxable agreements simply because they are not competent of reading the mind of the people who actually disposes of the tax money. The sticky point is that although representatives are legally entitled to issue taxes, this legal process imposes no obligations on the executive branch; at least not to a meaningful degree.

In normal circumstances if a true representative would enter into a contract, the represented party becomes legally bound to fulfill the contract… but not so much when it comes to governments.

LEGAL CAPACITY

For a contract to be legally valid, parties in it must have the legal capacity to enter into contracts. Typical legal capacity is defined as a certain age (minors are excluded), or being the owner of the money you will be using in the contract.

Therefore the question stands. Are taxes contracts between parties with the legal capacity to enter into them?

We argue that this is not the case. Governments are, by definition, the "representatives" of the people. But those representatives are not your "typical" representatives. Legally speaking there is one rule that states "he who can the most can the least". Which means that if the politicians that were voted into government are truly our representatives, they must obey our wishes. You are the rights holder and they are the privilege holders. Rights trump privileges. You can revoke their privileges anytime you want. Yet, with elected politicians this is not the case. You cannot revoke their privileges. You cannot issue your orders to them, even when you "can the most" because you are the rights holder. Thus, they do not have the legal capacity to act in your name simply because they act independently from you. But if this is so, they do not have the legal capacity to enter into a legal contract. Which means that they do not have the legal capacity to issue and demand taxes!

EXCHANGE OF CONSIDERATIONS

The next requirement for a contract to be valid is that parties must exchange "considerations". But what is a "consideration"? It is anything of value promised by one party to another.

Most laws consider that both parties must offer considerations before the contract may be considered binding. This makes sense. If one party is not offering anything to the other and viceversa, there can be no contract about exchanging nothing.

We know that we, the taxpayers, offer "money" as a consideration into the tax contract. But what are governments offering in return? Nothing. Take a look at government budgets. Those documents do not say that you personally will benefit from a given government expenditure. They only state how much money will a government spend on a specific issue. This issue may or may not benefit you, but the important part is that the government is not offering you, specifically you, anything! It only seems so. This is the mirage of budgeting. It creates the illusion of offering something but in reality you have no idea if that something will actually be relevant to you.

Thus, there is no offer of "consideration" during a tax transaction and therefore we must conclude that, again, taxes do not fulfill the legal requirements to be considered contracts.

MUTUALITY OF OBLIGATION

What this means is that unless a contract specifies obligations to both parties, there is no contract. Again, this makes sense.

• If one party only takes while gives nothing, this is fraud.
• If one party gives and takes nothing, this is a gift.

None of those scenarios represent a contract. From this perspective it is abundantly clear that through the mountain of tax laws, we, the taxpayers, have the "obligation" to pay taxes. However, what kind of obligation does the government has? We argue that the government has no obligations. Or at least it does not have them to a large degree.

How is this possible?

Simple. Politicians promise anything but then they deliver whatever they want. Our "representatives" issue taxes. Our money is collected but there is no obligation to actually fulfill said promises. Governments have the formal and nominal duties to many things, for example to maintain "free" schools. But do they? In reality? No.

How come?

Because there are no exact descriptions of what they need to deliver, we get whatever they want to give us. For example, does a government has the obligation to provide "free" schools? Sure. Does the government has the obligation to provide a certain level of academic performance? Not in the least.

Can they close schools? Sure.

Can they fire teachers? Sure.

Can they provide pathetically sub-standard education? Sure.

The devil is in the details, so to speak.

When it comes down to actual details, where it matters, governments are simply not bound to do anything.

Thus, we must conclude, yet again, that taxes do not fulfill the conditions required to be contracts.

CONCLUSION

We have now made it full circle. We began with the assumption that taxes are legally valid contracts and we know now this is not the case. It is for this very reason that taxes are not legal contracts, they are obligations imposed to us by governments at gunpoint. It is for this very reason that tax laws never deal with the legality of taxes themselves because they are illegal according to all other laws!

Why do you think that governments enact special Tax Courts? Because tax laws stand alone in the middle of a gigantic legal vacuum.

Tax laws are not even broken contracts because they were never contracts to begin with! And this conclusion could not have ended in any other way simply because taxes originate in Social Contracts and Social Contracts Are A Scam. Even the most idiotic legal mind recognizes that anything originating from a scam is, by definition, illegal!

Furthermore, please note that we have done nothing but to apply standard contract law to taxes! Truly mindboggling.

Unless you enjoy paying taxes. Unless you believe in the tax fairy. Unless you believe in governments and democracy. That's all right. It is entirely up to you to so believe. Just one thing… when they tax you to death (as will inevitably happen), we don't want to hear a squeak. You have been taxed!

Note: please see the Glossary if you are unfamiliar with certain words.