W hy aren't taxes officially considered theft? The simple answer is there are no laws that make them illegal. T he 16th Amendment of the Constitution sets taxes as a legal instrument of the state. N evertheless, there are people who strongly believes that mandatory taxes are a kind of theft and we should abolish them. A person has no choice in paying taxes and one is punished otherwise. In principle, saying taxes are theft is a reasonable argument given those conditions. T he main counter to that idea is the social contract theory. In a democracy, people agree to pay taxes in order to live in that society, including participating in choosing the folks who set the taxes. Social Contract Theory - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosopy H owever, as the argument goes, there really is little choice about being in this "contract." One could always emigrate, but there are no habitable places on earth at this time where taxes don't exist. The other alternative is s...