About

Taxation is Theft refers to a phrase meme parodying libertarian and anarchist philosophies, especially anarcho-capitalism.

Origin

The idea that taxation is theft originated in Murray Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty in 1982. Rothbard compared government tax collectors to thieves demanding to know what valuables one may have in one's house.

"Just as no one is morally required to answer a robber truthfully when he asks if there are any valuables in one's house, so no one can be morally required to answer truthfully similar questions asked by the State, e.g., when filling out income tax returns."

Spread

While it is unclear where exactly the philosophy became a meme, one of the earliest examples comes from /r/libertarian^[4] in a comment, shown below.

A page devoted to Taxation is Theft Memes appeared on Facebook^[3] on March 14th. The Free Thought Project^[2] wrote one of the first articles on the phenomenon on March 26th, 2016.

On March 28th, 2016, Tumblr user shittyopinionsofficial posted an image (below) combining it with Hey girls, did you know…" It obtained nearly 3,000 notes in about 5 months.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References