So, I know some people who preach about how important it is to pay your taxes

There has never been a pure bartering system like Adam Smith described in history and taxes are important but what needs to be checked is how they are put to use.

The "taxation is theft" crowd are the most idiotic people ever and they seem to remind people to pay their taxes only cause they have to do it too but at the same time find excuses for ultra wealthy people and corporations evading taxes.

There’s a reason we quit the bartering system. Because someone’s item may not be as valuable as it is to them as it realistically is. Someone could try to trade a house carriage for a house

Or if someone desperately needed something like food someone could easily take advantage of that situation and take a very valuable item that belonged to said person in exchange for food because that person desperately needed it

Because things have fixed monetary value that is something that can no longer happen

Without taxes, we wouldn’t have a fire department police department to enforce rules. We wouldn’t have government assistance: food stamps, Medicaid. We wouldn’t have a post office. We wouldn’t have a courthouse. We wouldn’t have programs that give out free food to homeless people or roads or traffic lights

I don't the same people are saying those two things.

I want people to pay their taxes because we get stuff out of it. I want roads schools hospitals and a functioning welfare state. If I have to exist in this barely-functioning political system I at least want the public services to work properly and not to have sixty thousand private toll booths because we privatized the highways.

A bartering system doesn't make a lick of sense if you think about global logistics for a moment.

Taxes are only a good concept in a fair, mature society where you can count on that that the bulk of what you give to the government won't end up in the cars, villas, trips and expensive jewellery of the corrupt swines in the parliament.