&gt;When it comes to the question of how much of the money that I earn must be surrendered to prevent me from going to jail, the state is my adversary.<p>The fact that you earn anything at all, or that you don&#x27;t get robbed, or that you have any property rights at all, is a function of the state. I&#x27;m sure you consider the state your ally for those reasons.<p>The state would publish a simple tax table, if people just followed it without going into legal word games and battles over verbiage and what the word &quot;income&quot; means.<p>&gt;they all have the dual purpose of raising revenue and discouraging behavior that the state wishes to limit.<p>The state limits the behavior that they have been elected to limit. Occasionally, such limits get repealed when the citizenry chooses that they no longer wish to have that behavior be controlled.