Everybody has long term goals and charitable dreams that they work or think about on the side, right? For example, one may hold dear the desire to eliminate world poverty or to help others convert to ones religion.
So, instead of just thinking about it, why not incorporate as a charity organisation with tax exempt status, with the stated goal of achieving your charitable dreams, but working towards them no more no less that you normally work towards them. All of that while your true purpose is tax evasion. Libertarians don’t look at intentions, therefore it is considered as morally just if you help others to avoid paying taxes as if you were to do it for the purposes of helping other - the same good is created in each cases.
Could it be possible to start such a charity religious organisation and avoid paying taxes? You could invest in property or land that could be justified as of use to your charity and still make money. For example, instead of building a home, build a small church (home with an agora) and live in it, telling the IRS you are a priest - but not taking yourself too seriously with the role. How could the IRS know your not serious? Could something like that work?
I understand that US tax-exempt status cannot be placed on commercial operations, religious or otherwise.
Yes you are correct. But here is what I am uncertain about. You are allowed to trade a box of wood for a hammer with your neighboor, right? Furthermore, this exchange of goods does not need to be report nor is it taxed, correct? However, if you were to buy this hammer from a hardware store, that sale would be taxed. Similarly, if your neighboor would buy that same box of wood, it too would be taxed.
Let my try to explain it this way; I am trying to “hide” commercial transactions of a group “virtual corporation” under the veil of a mother corporation. In such a scenario, each individuals will be employed by the mother corporation with no salary. Each individuals will perform transactions with other individuals using gold-backed voucher as a medium of exchange. Under such a system, the mother corporation would make no profit, hence would pay no taxes. However, each employee of the corporation will be able to earn a “salary” and increase their total wealth, by exchanging and creating real goods. Since their wealth is denominated in private vouchers and not in dollar, they would not need to report any of it. And if the IRS tries to argue that these are indeed commercial transactions, it can simply be claimed that private vouchers are a revolutionary new method to organise corporate labour.
I think instead of trying to sneak around the state, people should just organize and challenge the state directly.
When someone goes to court, 10,000 libertarians show up outside the courthouse demanding liberty and justice. 50,000 libertarians donate $10 to their defense, and libertarian lawyers offer to work for a discounted rate.
As a political block, and I mean political reaction, not voting, libertarians are terribly unorganized.
Sneaking around the state is never effective. As a movement, we have to be able to scale our efforts to large #s. That’s why ideas like Agorism are internally self-limiting, because they require incredible discretion and secrecy, which makes it very hard to scale it into a movement proper.
What you are describing sounds like a Pachinko house. In Japan these are places which avoid gambling laws by trading in ball-bearings. It is very smart, but it doesn’t really address the wider problems of living in a unfree society. That said, I would love to see such an operation become succesful.