Well, if yesterday were not a holiday (Good Friday) and today were not the weekend (Saturday) today would be tax day. Instead we have until Monday to pay our annual tax bill.
If you think you’ve got it bad (and you do!) then consider the case of two well-to-do Texans, a husband and wife, who made $735,180 and paid federal income tax of $187,768. That’s a hefty chunk of change (about 25% of their actual income) coming out of their pocket as tax. And who are these two Texans? George W and Laura Bush, as reported by the NY Times.
The IRS is about to allow tax preparers (think H&R Block) to sell tax return data to marketers. Yes, there are some safeguards, like requiring written consent from the taxpayer, but what if they make it part of their requirements for preparing your tax return?
If you think there’s a problem with taxes in our country (and who in their right mind doesn’t!) then please support the Fair Tax and help us abolish the IRS. Americans should not have to keep this many records and waste this much time to pay the tax man.
This blog on the income tax is dated, allow me to bring it up to date.
The solution to the income tax is to educate people as to its exact nature. There are two versions of the income tax … as written and “everybody knows”. “Everybody knows” because nobody bothers to read, or, at least very few. The income tax is, according to the US Supreme Court, an excise tax, which is a tax on privilege. While the tax is levied on govt. granted privilege, it is MEASURED by the income derived FROM the privilege. Here is an example to simplify the concept: Suppose the year is 1824 or thereabouts, before all manner of restrictive laws, rules, regulations, etc. It is winter. You constructed a shack on the ice on one of the great lakes and cut a hole thru the ice to fish. It took a great deal of effort but you did it, and now you can fish. You get to catch and keep as many fish as you like, because you are fishing in your own fishing hole BY RIGHT. But you have a friend who isn’t nearly as handy as you are when it comes to building a shack or cutting a hole in the ice, and he asks permission to fish out of your fishing hole. You say sure, BUT … you want something in return, and you charge him by the fish. You can do that, because the fishing hole is yours, and he is fishing in it by PRIVILEGE that you grant him. The big question with the income tax is this … what are you doing to fish in the federal fishing hole?
If you work for the federal govt. … that is taxable privilege. If you work for a federally owned corporate entity such as the US Post Office … that is a taxable privilege. If you are a non resident alien with US sourced income … that is a taxable privilege. If you are a citizen here working abroad under protection of the US flag … that is taxable privilege. But what about everyone else who works at a regular job in the private sector in any of the several united States? Where is the privilege? The answer is that you COULD work for your local auto repair shop or factory or retail store WITHOUT use of any privilege and then what you earn would NOT be the subject of the tax … HOWEVER … there is a certain social welfare program that is 100% voluntary by law that people routinely volunteer for … it is known as Social Security. According to the govt. it is 100% voluntary but try getting a job without an SSN. Virtually everywhere you might want to work insists upon an SSN, but they do not insist upon that number due to any law, they insist due to corporate policy based upon ignorance and fear.
One of the inalienable rights we are born with is an unlimited right to contract. If you were born here and are a citizen here you have a right to work here to earn a living and to contract with others to do so, and the govt. has no authority to interfere. When you use an SSN you are inviting them in as a third party and, in effect, you are electing to be first and foremost a federal employee who is actually farmed out to the private sector employer. You are “protected” by minimum wage laws, OSHA regulations, maternity leave, regulations preventing excessive overtime, and, pretty soon, Obamacare. That is the privilege. Use an SSN and you are making yourself a federal employee for tax purposes.
The solution to the income tax, which is deliberately mis applied, are laws requiring full disclosure in plain language anytime anyone anywhere for any reason asks for an SSN. The disclosure statement should be both oral and written, to be initialled off point by point, signed and witnessed at the bottom, and must include easy to understand definitions for all legal terms (these terms have special definitions for commonly used words like wage, employer, employee, salary, commission, taxpayer, etc.) and a full disclosure of all powers of attorney granted, privileges invoked, rights waived, and all liabilities incurred including tax liabilities. If someone was stupid enough to want to participate after a full disclosure, that is their business.
Meanwhile, if everyone dropped out of paying Social Security and income tax, how would the govt. get by? The answer is they got by just fine without those taxes at one point, and, since there is no gold and silver in circulation as money these days, all the tax really does is express social policy and control the effects of inflation on prices. Eliminating the income tax without providing an alternative would force govt. into fiscal responsibility.
Pete
Thanks, Pete –
I don’t agree with everything you’ve said here, but you make some valid points. The fiscal responsibility we want from our US Government is just one part of the platform of the Tea Party, but it is an important part. As the old saw goes, “the power to tax is the power to destroy”, and they’ve certainly done plenty of that in an effort to steer society in particular directions that those of us growing up in the middle of the last century neither needed, wanted, nor expected.