I was going to start this out by saying, "If you hate paying taxes as much as me, you're going to love this," but let's be honest - who on this planet doesn't hate paying taxes? So let's skip that lame hallmark editorial start.
As a fellow long time despiser of paying income tax as well as being the occasional tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist, I've often seen and read sites and stories about how the laws of income tax in this Country are not valid and that you don't actually have to pay. Of course there are just as many arguments on blogs and forums that if you try this you will just get put in jail for a very long time. People usually use the well backed argument of "that's absurd" and "if it were true, people would have figured it out long ago." Honestly though, have you ever looked at the tax code? I don't own a Legalese-to-English dictionary, so I can't interpret a single word of it. Therefore, I've gone through the same process as everyone else, year after year. Well, maybe not everyone else.
I present Tom Cryer, an attorney from Shreveport, Louisianna who has successfully been acquitted of charges of failing to file his income taxes. The full official story is here: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007707130321
I've been discussing this story with a number of people this morning and of course a lot of people are still very wary of this decision. The biggest question of those that believe it's going to hold up is this: what about all the years I was unlawfully forced to pay taxes leading up to now? My personal take is that if it even gets to that point, the government will look at what was paid as a donated contribution. Still there are many other questions that will need to be answered:
- Is it the trust that he set up that allowed him to pull this off?
- If this decision holds up, how do you prevent your company from taking taxes out of your check? If I don't file, I no longer have the chance to earn money back if too much was witheld from my check.
- Is there a way to recover the money I've already given up?
- Can we survive a sudden cease of income tax collection as an economy?
Cryer's argument was simply that his income was not derived from "profit" since he traded his time and effort for the money, he didn't necessarily profit from it. The trust was nice to have but was just something they indicted on. I'm not sure how to stop your company from taking money out of your check, but I'm open for suggestions. As I said before, if your money is gone, it's probably gone. Finally, eliminating income tax will force the government to stop trying to control programs that our government was not meant to sponsor and fund in the first place.
From a realistic standpoint, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that a store can make billions of dollars and yet only be taxed on dollars earned after expenses, and yet a worker for that store gets taxed from dollar one. If this does indeed hold up, expect yours truly to be the next person on the bandwagon.
Bobby
Live, Love, Laugh - You Only Do This Once
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