Is it just me, or does it seem wrong that millions of Americans pay no income taxes?
Everyone paid taxes on April 15, right? Wrong. Tens of millions of Americans will pay no federal taxes this year.Obviously some people are poor and can't pay much in taxes, but I don't like the idea that anyone pays zero. What incentive is there for them to control government spending and encourage fiscal responsibility? Why should someone who pays no taxes hesitate to raise my taxes and then spend the money on himself?
Americans will file about 132 million tax returns this year and all will pay less in federal taxes due to three Bush tax cuts. But 44 million people will pay no federal taxes at all — that's the highest number in U.S. history and it translates to 33 percent of all tax filers.
No reason, that's why.
Oh wait, I forgot to mention: that number doesn't even include poor people.
In addition to these 44 million zero-tax filers there are another 14 million whose incomes are so low, $20,000 or less, they are off the tax roles entirely. Add to that the dependents, children, family members and those who aren't taxed at all — it equals 122 million Americans who live completely outside the federal tax system.Upon discovering this information, those who are fond of crying "chickenhawk" will no doubt immediately call for these non-taxpayers to be disenfranchised.
Michael, you think that number's bad, wait until enough people see this:
http://www.861.info
The web version is just the beginning. This thing's in mass production right now on mini-cd's. The first printing is a modest 300,000 copies, with twice that number to follow in round 2.
Michael, you've pointed out a very serious problem that does a lot more than just give poor people a break. As you point out, when a majority of citizens has no direct economic stake in tax rates or the efficiency of government, well, we are seeing the results.
As I'm writing this, it's clear that the topic really deserves a more thorough treatment. As things stand, we have nothing structural that counteracts the tendency for a citizenry to want more and more from government, while thinking that "the rich" or "big business" is picking up the tab. What's happening in France right now is a good example of how far things can go.
We will never see a system where those who don't pay taxes are excluded from voting (and I don't think we'd want one), but there was a reason that in other times only property owners could vote -- because all tax revenues arose from property ownership.
JP: What's the motivation? I don't get it.
DS: I think it is a huge problem, and something the Constitution would prevent if it were interpreted correctly. But, alas, we are but men.
No motive on my part, if that's what you were asking- Just an interesting development I've been keeping tabs on for the last few months.
but they are treated unfairly! those people Didn't Get GWB's TAX BREAK! Didn't you hear? GWB didn't give tax breaks to the working class!
:)
in California, we keep skirting this problem already re: property taxes and other "boutique" taxes. Right now, it takes a 2/3 rds majority to overturn proposition 13, which essentially froze property taxes to be based on the buying price of your home. So hey, if you rent, what do you care? But we're quickly coming up to a time when property taxes won't be paid by enough people to be able to hold off the other 2/3rd.
similarly, boutique taxes are All the Rage. California's got a ballot measure to raise taxes on millionaires: a 1% surcharge on earnings above 1 mil. The money would "mostly" be distributed to counties to expand mental health services. It's effectively a tax increase of ten percent for people earning over a million.
Lovely, ain't it? Pick a minority, and Tax 'em!!
the problem ain't gonna get any better; not federally, not locally. more and more people will vote to have themselves out of the tax world, and vote someone else into it more deeply.
Eat the Middle Class!
Slightly remeniscent of a point I made in the comments of your previous post... Steps to Reforming the Government. Our founders knew what they were doing when they insisted on a representive republican form of government as opposed to agrarian democracy. Democracy in of itself is nothing more than mob rule, and we all know what that leads to. Unfortunately, we are spiralling further from our republican (little r) roots and deeper into the democatic (little d) insanity.
Saw Mel Gibson's "The Patriot" the other day... relevant quote:
"I'd rather have one tyrant 3,000 miles away, than 3,000 tyrants one mile away."
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."
- Alexander Tyler, writing in the 1800s about the fall of the Athenian Republic. I would put us somewhere between selfishness and complacency today.
I did some reading on the Section 861 argument. On the surface, it looks valid, but a quick perusal of the IRS website finds that they've been dealing with this one for a long time and are well equipped to handle it.
Regardless of the validity of the argument, courts have been ruling in the government's favor on this one since the first time it appeared. (As you would expect, since the dissolution of the income tax system would cause the collapse of the federal government.) My guess is that this is a battle that may be correct, but isn't winnable because all parties charged with its enforcement have a direct interest in perpetuating the violation.
For more information on the IRS arguments in this instance (none of which really address the core of the 861 issue, which is direct taxation against severed income, which was ruled to be personal property by the Supreme Court in 1919), see this document (PDF) on the IRS website, section B-2.
Cypren: I agree that the IRS is equipped to handle that issue. Of course, anytime the public is out financed, outgunned, and outclassed, even IRS lies would suffice as "handling it".
Personally, I have investigated the argument from both sides of the table, and have found numerous credible individuals willing to discuss it at length.
I have also attempted to initiate conversations with those individuals that one could loosely label "pro IRS", and they are afraid to even entertain the issue, as if it were a hot potatoe. "It's frivolous because we say it is", is the extent of their conversational substance.
Yes, the IRS does have info on their website about it; treating it as possible propoganda and researching the facts presented in their documents yields some surprising results, however.
No court that carries any significant weight (ie...the Supreme Court) has ever heard this issue; as a matter of fact, they refuse to. I find that very telling.
MW: Sorry if I pushed this one way off the track. But you caught my interest.
Like I said, I don't dispute that the argument looks correct (at least as far as I can understand, without formal legal training); I just believe that no one will enforce the law as it is written. As you said, the higher courts won't hear these cases (possibly because they think they're as stupid as someone claiming space aliens told him not to pay taxes, or possibly because it's easier to dismiss them as ridiculous and avoid publicizing the charges), and like it or not, law in the United States is determined by court rulings more than the letter of legislative text.
By way of example, if the executive, legislative and judicial branches (and their subservient agencies) collude to squelch freedom of speech, then, regardless of the text of the Constitution, speech is no longer free. It doesn't make it morally right, but it does make it reality -- they have the military (and the FBI, etc) at their disposal to enforce their whims via armed force. Right now, what stops that secenario from occurring is the dedication held by the individuals that compose those organs of state force to the letter of the document above the orders of the men above them.
However, in the case of tax code, the law is so confusing that the individuals tasked with employing force against the citizens likely believe that they're following both the letter and spirit of the law. Moreover, the salaries of all federal employees are paid by those same taxes, meaning that they have no interest in discovering the truth. To enforce the law in this case is to risk ending their own livelihood, not to mention causing mass chaos as the government crumbles under its lack of funding. Hence, it's easier to stick to the simplistic reading of the 16th amendment, sweep under the carpet the inconvenient court rulings, and let the system continue. And until some significant financial interest is found for government employees to alter the tax system, that's the way it will stay.
Alexander Fraser Tytler was absolutely correct in his assessment of democracy; you can see it in the advanced stages in Europe, but America will be there, too, given enough time. The government (federal, state and local) currently directly employs about 14% of the population -- over a quarter of the labor force -- and the number of companies funded by government contracts increases those totals further. Every one of those employees is a substantial voice in increasing the funding and spread of government further, because they are disproportionate beneficiaries.
Is anything going to stop this trend? Well, honestly, I don't hold much hope. I'm mostly hoping that it stays fairly stable within my lifetime, and that by the time it does collapse, a new nation has risen elsewhere from the shackles of tyranny, more appreciative of the gifts of genuine liberty and more inclined to hold to the principles that preserve them. I shudder to think of a world controlled entirely by tyrannies and socialist "republics."
JP: I meant the motivation of the site, not yours. The idea that income tax is unconstitutional after the 16th Amendment is just silly. You may not like it, but it's a fait accompli. The solution isn't to press for a different interpretation, the solution is to change the tax structure by repealing the 16th and instituting a national sales tax, or by shifting to a flat income tax.
You've got to propose forward-looking changes, not just argue against things.
Cypren: No trend continues forever.
Cypren: Very well said! A mirror of my own assesments.
MW: What's that about the 16th ammendament and the tax laws being unconstitutional? I don't understand where you were going with that.
Nothing personal, but most people I converse with about this subject seem to respond that way, and that is actually opposite to what I am advocating.
The tax laws are very constitutional as written. The missapplication of the laws are not constitutional. Cypren said it best: Too many government entities and individuals with too much to lose = not a chance this will ever fully come out and/or be changed.
JP: Don't misunderstand me. The income tax laws as they are currently implemented and enforced are Constitutional. That doesn't mean I like them, it just means I think you're fighting the wrong battle.
MW: Hey, it's okay. We can agree to disagree. Until a significant amount of time is put into thorough research, it's easy to come to the conclusion that they are being enforced correctly.
I myself spent 5 months, armed with a Black's law dictionary, 3 revisions of 26 USC, the CFR's, and lots of patience. It was no easy journey. I guess it just struck me as odd one day, that although I had a good understanding of a lot of law that governs my daily life, I had never looked at the laws governing my yearly habbit of coughing up dough to Uncle Sam.
When I was done, I wished I had not discovered what I had. No one in their right mind should spend the kind of time that I did, doing this. The conclusion was depressing, and I had to come to grips with the fact that God was gently whispering that my time had better uses than to engage so deeply with yet another worldly system.
Unfortunately, it's still a "hot button" for me now. At any rate, good post. It got a lot of play.
BTW, nice work on the HIV scare comments. I caught that story a couple days ago and figured you'd run with it.
JP: The thing is, it doesn't matter what the law books say, or even what the law says. Ultimately, even beyond the Constitution, we're ruled by common law, and in this case the income tax is so firmly established that it's a moot point.
To the case of "income tax". Saying that that's the way things are because there are people who will still support it even if it's wrong is just sticking your head in the sand. Do you for one instant believe this is the same thinking our forefathers had when Britain continued to raise the taxes on the colonies? I for one do not like giving my money to a greedy government that is out to get every cent they can whether legally or otherwise. I say enough, it's time for another TEA PARTY.