but, even if everyone stopped paying extra income tax owed on April 15, the government has still already stolen most people’s money by having the income tax taken out of their checks before they even get it.
How can all of us come together to get businesses to stop paying income tax to the federal government before they take it out of our checks?
Until we do that, I don’t think we’ll be hurting them too much, just making them very nervous of what we could do.
You’ve just hit upon the fact that most people do not pay taxes, only businesses pay taxes. That is how government gets away with so much taxing.
Precisely. We are a minority, and will always be a minority, because the masses are net tax consumers, not net tax producers.
@limitedgov, have you read Atlas Shrugged? You might enjoy it.
By doing like I do: Run your business without telling the government about it!
That’s to create a little bit of a “Galt’s gulch”, in some aspect of it. It’s much easier in some industries than in others, though. But in general, the government is amazingly dependent on paper work. If the paper work about your business isn’t generated to begin with, then they have little chance of ever taking notice of it. Most bureaucrats sit in cubicles and process paper work. They don’t scout the streets for suspect productive activity. And few of them would even recognize it if they ever came to see one…
It is a risky activity though. Much like that of the black market operator during war. If caught, there is the option to bribe. Because the bribe-price must be mutually attractive between bureaucrat and entrepreneur, it is of course lower than the going tax rate (and much higher than the bureaucrat’s salary). And if the bureaucrat understands that the legal and operating nature of the business is such that it could easily avoid confiscation of physical property, then that is an advantage in negotiating the bribe-price. It is my potential loss which weights against his potential gain. The loss or gain of the government doesn’t even enter this equation. It’s not really a market, but it is a “commercialization” of state bureacracy.
I think we should read this instead:
We see the desire for political action. We need is a consistent effort to transform it into actual policy.
No I haven’t. I’ll check it out. There are so many books I keep learning about from lewrockwell.com that I want to read. one of the first is Man, Economy, and the State by Rothbard…
You sure about that? Public servants are something like 20 - 25 % of the labour force and people on SA are something like 5 - 15 % of the population. How are there more net tax consumers than net taxpayers?
The key word is “net”. This means, that even if they pay taxes, they receive more back in benefits than they paid.
The number of people who pay more than they take out is relatively small.
How do you manage to know that ?
Oh noes! The government has bribed the support of the majority!
If it is this bad, we need to stop this madness immediately!
I know what you mean. I’d like to know how you draw that conclusion. I would assume and still do that the number of net tax-consumers is small compared to the number of net tax payers. I find Hoppe’s argument that the number of parasites must be small compared to the number of hosts for the parasites to be able to live a comfortable existence pretty convincing. But I’m open to contrary arguments.
And I think everyone should ignore Juan.
Just my observation. I don’t have any statistical proofs. I think workers, and workers who pay a large portion of their wages at the top of the progressive scale bear the costs for illegal immigrants, foreign aid, military adventurism, growth of government. And I think that the number of people who pay near 50% tax (in Canada) are few and far between relative to the people on the dole, or receiving some form of indirect government subsidy. The people who earn more, are less likely to use government help, and the people who earn less, are more likely to use more state services.
And to Stranger’s point, ultimately, the employer is the one who pays, not the employee. Just like government contractors, while technically private, receive 100% tax income, and the taxes they pay back, are only a rebate.
With inflation, the parasites can do whatever they want. Most people are too stupid to know what the FED is, let alone what it does.
Setting aside the effects of tax incidence, which are indirect and most people are not aware of, how many people actually write tax checks to the government?
Haha. Anyways, the point is that as the great Hoppe notes, since the system has not collapsed yet, net production and producers must be bigger than the number of parasites. Which contradicts what LS asserts (without any backing). LS is probably pandering to the vulgar libertarians who see the ‘elite’ as unconditionally good while the unwashed masses are just ‘tax consumers’.
100% of profitable businesses, but not 100% of profitable workers. [;)]
We’re on the same page with this I think.
I’m gonna have to look up some statistics tm when I have more time. I don’t see how inflation vis. a. vis other forms of taxes changes the fact that the number of parasites has to be small compared to their hosts.
If my business didn’t pay it’s taxes and keep a whole stockpile of paper reciepts in filing cabinets, I would be thrown in jail so fast. I still have a hard time deciding what is more painful an IRS audit or a combination of a root canal and full rectal exam. That being said, I would like to give a salute to some great shady accountants. A good accountant is a truley under rated job, real heroes they can be.
Agree w/ both of you here. It’s the business that pays income tax in most cases, not the worker.
I think the point may be that taxing the employee is more of a formality, the money all comes from the same source of production. I don’t view it as elitism, just the taxing of production, which is ultimatly on the shoulders of the entrepenur.
What we have now is the merchant state; the political class makes its money by collecting bribes from businesses. The merchant state has its origins in England. The Crown discovered it could never extort enough money through direct taxation, because Parliament would fight back. So, instead, he set up monopolies and engaged in colonialism, which benefited the British aristocracy.
The best way to fight the state right now is to boycott big business, resulting in less tax revenues and bribes from lobbyists.
Don’t buy expensive items. Be tight with a buck. Don’t buy name brands. Don’t put money in the banks. Buy silver and gold. Don’t watch tv.
Mahatma Ghandi got rid of the British by boycotting them. The Indians, among other things, refused to work in factories or buy British goods. When the occupation was no longer profitable for the British government, they left.