I have never claimed that and I would never claim that. But the fact remains that if you take bitcoin which belong to someone else, then you are stealing. I don't care if you give someone a pre-initialized hardware wallet, or you hack a software wallet, or you stumble across a paper wallet, or you find someone's seed phrase, or a newbie shares their private key online, or even if you managed to find an address collision. Taking someone else's bitcoin is morally wrong.

I don't understand why you keep bringing up taxes and the government, as it is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand, especially when you know very well my disdain for governments and their surveillance regimes. I have never stated that OP should hand over the wallet to his government, but taking the funds for himself is still theft.