7 ms·
>I don't think I could fully embrace the Amish way of life but I suspect my local community mostly farmers and ranchers could implement a barter system if we ha
by daenz 5y ago
>I don't think I could fully embrace the Amish way of life but I suspect my local community mostly farmers and ranchers could implement a barter system if we had to.
Funny thing, bartering is still subject to taxes from the IRS[0]
0. https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420 https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc420
- jxramos 5y agobartering income, that's funny I always perceived bartering as an equal trade of no net difference. But that may be a perceptual thing, the value to the individual is equal but perhaps not on the open market of whatever the corresponding price tag differences are on the two goods?
- adastra22 5y agoAny purchase is definitionally an equal exchange of value. It is still income.
- f7ebc20c97 5y agoSo the income tax is essentially a ~30% transaction fee. Imagine a world without that deadweight loss. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss#Deadweight_loss_of_taxation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss#Deadweight_los...
- adastra22 5y agoCosts are deducted though, so it is only 30% of the profits.
- f7ebc20c97 5y agoTechnically everything is a cost, though, right?
- adastra22 5y agoThese things are precisely defined in accounting terms though. Whatever you bartered away had a cost basis, and whatever you got in exchange has a fair market value. The difference is income.
- f7ebc20c97 5y agoWhat if you live in a closed bartering community of abstract economic business entities and everything is a cost basis for something else?
- tagami 5y agoYeah it’s inefficient, but that “deadweight loss” gives you the common infrastructure required for a modern society (roads, police, fire, et al)
- tengbretson 5y agoIn the US nearly all of your examples of what we get in return are funded by sales and property taxes
- HideousKojima 5y agoSpecifically, roughly 70% of the federal budget is spent on the military, social security, medicare, and medicaid.
- stuxnet 5y agoNot to mention a gigantic military budget including all the alphabet agencies... all funded by that inefficiency.
- f7ebc20c97 5y agoPerhaps there is a way to pay for these things besides taxes? Unthinkable!
- daenz 5y ago>Both parties must report as income the value of the goods and services received in the exchange. [0] My understanding of it is the good/service you receive is considered income at the fair market value, regardless of what you traded for it. I suppose if you gave a good/service away to "purchase" something as a business expense, you could deduct the value of your good/service on your taxes. But IANACPA 0. https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/four-things-you-should-know-if-you-barter https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/four-things-you-should-know-if-...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- artificialLimbs 5y agoNot if you don't tell them about it.