eltigrechico:

sugashane:

eltigrechico:

sugashane:

eltigrechico:

sugashane:

eltigrechico:

how complicit are we in the U.S. Government’s various crimes if we pay income taxes?

How complicit is someone who gets robbed at gun point and then their money is used to buy explosives. 

I guess it depends on the person’s opinion of taxation. Like, if you like taxation, you’re complicit. If you pay taxes out of fear of violence against you, you’re just a victim in a long chain of victims. 

Well it’s not the same as getting robbed by a mugger on the street. This is more like a mugger that comes around once a month, and the less money you have on you the less he takes, etc etc. by which I mean,

There are ways to avoid taxation because you know its coming. And, unlike the mugger, you know what these people are doing with the money, and it’s damned awful.

My point is just to what extent do we have a duty to avoid/resist/evade taxation? And to what extent does our failure/refusal to do so make us complicit in U.S. Government crimes done partially with our money?

Just a question I think we need to think about

It’s easy to say that one can avoid taxation or the violence of taxation. But I’ll tell you as someone who had a very, very (VERY) expensive 8-year legal battle with the IRS. It’s not fun. And they have all the power in the world. Even if they are wrong and admit that they are wrong, the paperwork and red-tape process can literally kill someone who doesn’t have alternative means of support. 

Maybe one day I’ll share my little story of how the IRS wrongly thought I owed then a million dollars and took 5+ years to correct their own stupid accounting error. 

Yeah, never said it was fun.

Turns out ethics isn’t fun.

Wow, all the revolutionary anarchism stuff goes right out the window when you have to actually do something that might cause you trouble, huh?

Wait, what? What’s going out the window? You lost me there. 

You just dismissed the whole question of the moral necessity (or not) of tax resistance by saying “its easy to say you can avoid taxes, but boy howdy dealing with the IRS sure ain’t fun.”

as if that has anything to do with the moral question

im not saying we definitely have a moral duty to not pay taxes, but i don’t think the question should be so easily dismissed because the results aren’t “fun”.

I mean, you’re an anarchist for god sakes and you’ve just introduced the principle that a criteria for judging the necessity of a given strategy for combating the state should be whether or not its ‘fun’

Ahh. No, you misunderstood me to a degree. And I guess I misunderstood you. 

I think that you should avoid the highest amount of taxes you can without landing yourself in prison. That means that if you can get your tax rates down to 10% by donating and investing, you should.

I think it’s almost pointless to try and pay zero taxes. In fact, I take it back. It is pointless. 

Here’s why:

1. You not paying your taxes does not convince anyone else that they shouldn’t pay their taxes. Most people (idiots) think that taxes are either necessary or a ‘patriotic duty’ (whatever that bullshit means). It’s actually a very tiny percentage that think that we shouldn’t pay any taxes. This isn’t even an argument that you can convince these people of. It’s amazing but taxes is something that’s been beaten into the mentality of Americans and I think it will be the last domino standing if we ever start to strip away the state. 

2. The gov’t doesn’t actually need your tax money so it’s not like you’d be starving the beast. Most of the taxes that regular people pay, they don’t even have a say over. It’s siphoned from their paycheck before they even get paid. 

Besides this little scheme of theirs, individual income taxes only make up a third of gov’t spending. The rest they get from other means including just making it up out of thin air. 

3. Not paying taxes is the fastest way you can get yourself locked up for non-violent action. Once in prison, then what? You’re exactly where the government wants anti-government people, locked up and encased away from the rest of society. Where your ideas and theories and movement have zero impact on other taxpayers. 

The biggest problem is that the public doesn’t sympathize for tax evaders. Don’t know why, but they don’t. If they did, more people would evade them and take their chances in court, as would I. 

I think that you should pay as little taxes as you legally can but find better ways to fight taxes. Don’t circumvent them, help abolish them. Just like speeding laws are a product of the state but anarchists don’t go driving 100 mph in front of cops just to give them the finger.

You pick your battles wisely to maximize your ability to abolish as much of the state as possible. 

New Hampshire is a great example. Enough people hated paying taxes that they legally got together and abolished state income taxes. If their arguments are heard and their experiment is effective, they can spread their movement to other states. Hopefully, that movement will grow until there is no more income tax for anyone/thing. 

If all anarchists stopped paying taxes tomorrow, we’d all be locked away within a few years and the liberty/anarchy movement would be dead. And not a single taxpayer would be coming to our rescue. Go ask any of the well known anarchists, even the crazy ones and most of them will tell you that they pay taxes. 

Instead, we choose to stay free and fight the state in other ways and help fight for free speech, gun rights, habaes corpus, etc. 

I know it sounds unprincipled to you, but it’s not. As you get older you’ll realize that you can’t live life in absolutes. You will realize that there comes a point that you need to eventually compromise until you can win enough support for your ideas that you no longer have to compromise. 

eltigrechico:

sugashane:

eltigrechico:

how complicit are we in the U.S. Government’s various crimes if we pay income taxes?

How complicit is someone who gets robbed at gun point and then their money is used to buy explosives. 

I guess it depends on the person’s opinion of taxation. Like, if you like taxation, you’re complicit. If you pay taxes out of fear of violence against you, you’re just a victim in a long chain of victims. 

Well it’s not the same as getting robbed by a mugger on the street. This is more like a mugger that comes around once a month, and the less money you have on you the less he takes, etc etc. by which I mean,

There are ways to avoid taxation because you know its coming. And, unlike the mugger, you know what these people are doing with the money, and it’s damned awful.

My point is just to what extent do we have a duty to avoid/resist/evade taxation? And to what extent does our failure/refusal to do so make us complicit in U.S. Government crimes done partially with our money?

Just a question I think we need to think about

It’s easy to say that one can avoid taxation or the violence of taxation. But I’ll tell you as someone who had a very, very (VERY) expensive 8-year legal battle with the IRS. It’s not fun. And they have all the power in the world. Even if they are wrong and admit that they are wrong, the paperwork and red-tape process can literally kill someone who doesn’t have alternative means of support. 

Maybe one day I’ll share my little story of how the IRS wrongly thought I owed then a million dollars and took 5+ years to correct their own stupid accounting error. 

eltigrechico:

how complicit are we in the U.S. Government’s various crimes if we pay income taxes?

How complicit is someone who gets robbed at gun point and then their money is used to buy explosives. 

I guess it depends on the person’s opinion of taxation. Like, if you like taxation, you’re complicit. If you pay taxes out of fear of violence against you, you’re just a victim in a long chain of victims. 

(via eltigrechico)

I usually skip these since I write the script and build yhe spreadsheets anf slides.

It’s been years since I’ve attended because it’s redundent info but today we’re discussing Obamacare/PPACA impact on the company.

Should be interesting.