From The Quotable Mises — surrounding passage

Planning for Freedom , p. 16 Taxing profits is tantamount to taxing success. Planning for Freedom , p. 121 Estate taxes of the height they have already attained for the upper brackets are no longer to be qualified as taxes. They are measures of expropriation. Planning for Freedom , p. 32 Progressive taxation of income and profits means that precisely those parts of the income which people would have saved and invested are taxed away. Economic Policy , p. 84

“The metamorphosis of taxes into weapons of destruction is the mark of present-day public finance.”

Human Action , p. 734; p. 741 Taxes are paid because the taxpayers are afraid of offering resistance to the tax gatherers. They know that any disobedience or resistance is hopeless. As long as this is the state of affairs, the government is able to collect the money that it wants to spend. Human Action , No Entry; p. 719 Taxes are necessary.