I mean was it legal when the local Baron came and levied a tax on your wheat? Under the King’s laws, or maybe it was just tradition, but if the alternative is you’re killed and your land is taken and given to someone more loyal, then you just had a tax levied upon you and the payment was your life.

Similarly, merchants which snuck into cities rather than paying the tax at the gates were not entitled to protections from whoever was the guarantor of laws, a city guard or the like.

So what’s going to happen if you don’t pay your taxes? Turns out the IRS, the States and the equivalents in other countries have legal means of taking what you own for what you owe. We can discuss the tradeoffs on this, but in practice it’s not overly different from a Duke or a King or a mobster. What’s different is the process, the expectancy of it, and the legality.

At the end of the day, what we’re paying for is the protection of our police, fire departments, Armies and Navies.