Funding Government Schools: A Study in Tax Evasion, Ethics, Public Finance and Governance and the Morality of Forced Tax Collection

ABSTRACT: This article examines the ethics and public finance dimensions of tax‑funded government schooling through a simple hypothetical case set in the fictional village of Fahrquat Corners. In the scenario, a majority coalition of parents uses the political process to compel dissenting residents, under threat of violence, to contribute to the cost of educating other people’s children. The case is used to probe whether such compelled transfers differ in any morally relevant way from armed robbery when carried out by private individuals, and whether democratic authorization or legislative form can convert an otherwise impermissible taking into a legitimate method of funding education. The analysis connects this thought experiment to the broader literature on tax evasion, the morality of forced tax collection, and the governance of public finance, and asks whether refusal to pay for government schools should be viewed as unethical tax evasion or as a defensible response to coercive redistribution. The study aims to open a normative discussion that has been largely neglected in both the ethics and public finance literatures on the funding of government education. KEYWORDS: Tax evasion, Public finance, Government schools, Ethics of taxation, Forced tax collection, Governance, Property rights, Majority rule, JEL Codes: H24, H26, H41, H52, I22.