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> Pay your taxes - not only the right thing to do I find it stunning anyone can deliver a line like this as if the issue is quite simple, just a matter of gree

by b6 9y ago

> Pay your taxes - not only the right thing to do I find it stunning anyone can deliver a line like this as if the issue is quite simple, just a matter of greed vs. personal responsibility, of paying what is owed, etc, seemingly without a shred of doubt. How many deaths of Iraqi children is it that the US embargo is thought to have caused again? Isn't the federal government still grinding toward the 50th year of the drug war? "The right thing to do," it is vastly more complicated than that, and the older I get, the more it looks like when I pay the IRS, I'm feeding a machine that causes misery to others to avoid inconvenience to myself.

gowld 9y ago
Your income is in large part due to the environment created and protected by the government, even the parts you find distasteful. If you feel guilty about that, you can donate your income to charity and deduct it from your taxable income.
- adsfasdfsad111 9y ago
  not in the case of bitcoin. sorry.
ridgeguy 9y ago
The better response to this situation is to vote in a different government, not to beggar our nation through tax fraud. If you don't like what our government is doing (and I'm with you on the examples you cite), put in the time and $ to make it different.
- abecedarius 9y ago
  Tell that to Thoreau and Gandhi? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau) I mean, I'm not advising anyone to not pay taxes either, but it's a protest tactic with a pedigree.
- b6 9y ago
  Honest question: how old are you? 20 years ago, I thought there was no way the drug war could continue. I thought the revelation of wiretapping in the AT&T datacenter would be the beginning of the end for illegal surveillance. I've given time and money continuously over that time, and watched the issues I care about most get worse. There seems to me to be no realistic mechanism for change. Do you really think that, in this situation, doing anything other than paying whatever the IRS demands is fraud?
  - ridgeguy 9y ago
    Honest answer: I'm 68 years old. I've seen the drug war, surveillance of US citizens (the two things you listed), the slide of America into oligarchy, and a host of other issues that I care about get worse, hardly believing it could be possible even as it happened. Yet here we are. As a driver of change, withholding taxes doesn't seem to do much in our time. Didn't shorten our war in Vietnam. Didn't deflect the savings & loan crisis in the 80s & 90s, nor the financial crisis of 2007 - 2008. People who commit tax fraud become easy targets for Draconian civil and criminal penalties, and it's really hard to scale that strategy up to where it might be effective. The IRS only has a right to demand what's legal. So I favor aggressive tax minimization (pay the absolute minimum the law allows), which is not tax fraud. I contribute my tax savings in hope of improving governance at all levels, and to other causes (shelters for battered women, etc.). But I have to say, the rapid increases of regulatory capture, surveillance, and wealth concentration, along with the 2016 Presidential election result have eroded my optimism. Gerrymandering + electoral college = effective barrier to honest government. Like you, I don't see effective peaceful means of change remaining, those means having themselves been captured. It's not good, and I don't have answers at present.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
  "vote in a different government," There is extremely impractical. First the voting system is extremely antiquated, and second your average American is not terribly smart, and will tend to prefer to get "free" stuff from the government paid for by people making more money.

by b6 9y ago

gowld 9y ago

Your income is in large part due to the environment created and protected by the government, even the parts you find distasteful. If you feel guilty about that, you can donate your income to charity and deduct it from your taxable income.

adsfasdfsad111 9y ago
not in the case of bitcoin. sorry.

ridgeguy 9y ago

The better response to this situation is to vote in a different government, not to beggar our nation through tax fraud. If you don't like what our government is doing (and I'm with you on the examples you cite), put in the time and $ to make it different.

abecedarius 9y ago
Tell that to Thoreau and Gandhi? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau) I mean, I'm not advising anyone to not pay taxes either, but it's a protest tactic with a pedigree.
b6 9y ago
Honest question: how old are you? 20 years ago, I thought there was no way the drug war could continue. I thought the revelation of wiretapping in the AT&T datacenter would be the beginning of the end for illegal surveillance. I've given time and money continuously over that time, and watched the issues I care about most get worse. There seems to me to be no realistic mechanism for change. Do you really think that, in this situation, doing anything other than paying whatever the IRS demands is fraud?
- ridgeguy 9y ago
  Honest answer: I'm 68 years old. I've seen the drug war, surveillance of US citizens (the two things you listed), the slide of America into oligarchy, and a host of other issues that I care about get worse, hardly believing it could be possible even as it happened. Yet here we are. As a driver of change, withholding taxes doesn't seem to do much in our time. Didn't shorten our war in Vietnam. Didn't deflect the savings & loan crisis in the 80s & 90s, nor the financial crisis of 2007 - 2008. People who commit tax fraud become easy targets for Draconian civil and criminal penalties, and it's really hard to scale that strategy up to where it might be effective. The IRS only has a right to demand what's legal. So I favor aggressive tax minimization (pay the absolute minimum the law allows), which is not tax fraud. I contribute my tax savings in hope of improving governance at all levels, and to other causes (shelters for battered women, etc.). But I have to say, the rapid increases of regulatory capture, surveillance, and wealth concentration, along with the 2016 Presidential election result have eroded my optimism. Gerrymandering + electoral college = effective barrier to honest government. Like you, I don't see effective peaceful means of change remaining, those means having themselves been captured. It's not good, and I don't have answers at present.
em3rgent0rdr 9y ago
"vote in a different government," There is extremely impractical. First the voting system is extremely antiquated, and second your average American is not terribly smart, and will tend to prefer to get "free" stuff from the government paid for by people making more money.