We are country based on the rule of law, we say. Perhaps even more important, we are a country of norms. One of those norms is voluntary income tax compliance.

We grumble about it, but almost all of us pay the tax. We may not think of our payments as voluntary. There are laws enforcing it, off course, but in fact I pay the tax expecting that you will pay it. There is little legal enforcement of it. Even so, the American compliance with the income tax is strikingly higher than in many countries. It is one of our important norms. Oh, sure, we may do some fudging—overstate how much we drop into the church collection plate or “forget” to report some minor income, but overall, we pay the income tax.

The norm of voluntary tax compliance is part of a great compact. I pay taxes expecting that, as the Constitution sets forth, congressional representatives will decide how that money should be spent for the good of the country. That, of course, does not mean that we all agree on how the money is allocated and spent. Even so, we pay the tax.

We occasionally have had tax protesters who, because they don’t like the way the country is performing, have not voluntarily paid their taxes because they did not like how the moneys were being spent. They objected to a war, or healthcare policies, or land management decisions. They, in essence, wanted to withdraw from the great compact because they did not like the congressional decisions on how to spend tax money. Even so, the compact—the people pay taxes, and Congress allocates them—continued on. The results may not have been what some wanted, but the compact persisted.

That compact, however, has now been shattered. Now it is one person, not Congress, who has seized the power to determine how to spend our tax moneys. Congress may have allocated funds, but Congress seems to have reneged on its responsibility to see that the funds are spent. That is not the law; it is not the Constitution; and it breaks our norms. The compact dependent on voluntary tax compliance no longer exists.

I wonder, then, should I continue to be part of a compact that is gone. Should I continue to voluntarily pay federal income taxes? While the government overwhelmingly depends on people like me participating in the compact, it does have enforcement mechanisms. I don’t want penalties or seized bank accounts and certainly not jail. However, the odds of any of those things happening are small. First, of course, conservatives have done a good job of decimating the IRS. There are fewer and fewer IRS personnel, and its computer and other IT infrastructure is out of date. The odds of bad things happening decrease further the more “the people” opt out of a compact that no longer exists. Imagine that ten thousand withheld their taxes. What if that number were a hundred thousand? Over 150 million tax returns are filed each year. If a fraction of one percent dropped out of the compact, the number would be a million non-taxpayers. The odds are hundreds of thousands to one that an individual would suffer any severe consequences. (Anyone giving up voluntary compliance should continue to pay state and other taxes and put the estimated federal income tax into an escrow account, not spend it.)

Will I refuse to pay my federal income tax? Probably not. At heart I am more than a bit of a coward. But if many others were not going to pay their taxes until the compact was re-established, I might join in.