Pirates (try to) tax you regardless of your ship and it's cargo.Police (tries to) fine you if they catch you smuggling, and the destroy your cargo. If you refuse, you fight and/or get a bounty on you.
It's messy enough that you have to dig through pirate bases to get random equipment (since Issos no longer sells jack shit) - introducing licence based rep would turn CF more faction based... I think that wouldn't be in CF spirit.