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I’m anti-income tax, or indeed any direct tax, and I’ve spent my working life doing my utmost to pay as little of it as possible.
Now you may think that tax avoidance is morally wrong, but I consider it not only my right but my moral duty, as far as possible, not to support a system with which I profoundly disagree.
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The hardest thing in the world is to understand the income tax.” — Albert Einstein
For me, income tax makes no sense. Surely people should be incentivised to work, invest, and employ others but no, we make it costly for employers to create employment and we incentivise people not to work by subsidising them and taxing the worker to pay for it. And worse, progressive tax rates mean that should you be financially rewarded for hard work or upskilling, a larger proportion of your hard-earned is appropriated by the government. The harder you work, the more you pay. Now how does that compute?
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“I don't cheat on my taxes, you can't cheat on something you never committed to.”Woody Harrelson
When I ran a legal services business in Ireland in the 1980s and 90s with over 50 staff, we had more fiddles going than a symphony orchestra. We ducked and we dived and well, let's just say cash was king. But one by one the loopholes were closed in the government's inexorable hunt for taxes.
As it stands in Ireland now, in many cases it is more profitable to collect social security than to take a job and pay the associated taxes, a predictable outcome to paying people not to work and taxing them when they do.
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And to those who would contend that all of us must contribute to financing the follies of government, I say there are far more equitable ways than taxing income, but of course, these would not prove so burdensome for the working man.
There I will rest my case without touching upon the immorality of forcibly, yes forcibly, depriving a man of the fruits of his labour, of compelling people to fund with their time and effort things such as war, to which they are morally opposed, or indeed addressing the question of the need for income tax at all considering that of late, governments seem intent on printing money into oblivion.
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Posted in response to @galenkp's weekend experience challenge to discuss income tax in any way you choose in a post of at least 300 words.
The random images are by yours truly
I often think the same about income tax and feel it is such a rotten system, the more over time I used to do, the more I got shafted.
The least they could do is give you some say on how your contribution is spent etc...
The system has created a class of people who don't want to work and incentivised to not work and instead rely on handouts. That becomes a hard cycle to break.
It's almost as if 'they' want everyone dependent and lazy. Thousands of positions vacant but more to be gained by taking government handouts. What kind of fuckery is that?
I totally agree with you. Taxes is mostly theft. I do not mind paying a bit but we pay taxes on everything then have no say in how it is spent. History repeats itself and we do not learn. They do what they want and the masses accept it as it must be for the public good. It is so frustrating because it seems that the majority have become complacent although they talk a lot.
Yes, indeed history repeats because human nature never changes. Given the same circumstances, humans will always respond in the same manner. Yes, we complain but what else is to be done? Change the faces of the men in power? When has that ever made any difference? Protest en masse? When has that ever made a difference? We're doomed I tell you, doomed:)
I must agree with you although I want to remain hopeful. However the last years seems to confirm your thoughts. 😔😔
No, no, direct taxes are OK. For example, road toll is a fair and natural way to maintain traffic infrastructure. Indirect taxes (like VAT) are a source of corruption and manipulation, and they should be cancelled.
The problem with that is taxes aren't ringfenced so road taxes don't necessarily go to road maintenance.
I would argue that if you are not forced to pay a tax on your labour or your property, then you at least have some choice on which indirect taxes you pay.
But I believe all taxes are immoral and should be abolished. In their current form, they simply provide a big pot of everyone else's money into which the government can dip willy-nilly for anything they please.
Thank you kindly for the comment.
That is the problem of corruption and centralized state budgets, and not a direct tax, @deirdyweirdy. We have to make a difference between good and bad things, because generalization like ‘all taxes are immoral’ usually leads to even greater mistakes.
It is not immoral to tax vehicle owners for using road infrastructure. You don’t drive, you don’t pay. It would be immoral to tax me, who does not have a car, to pay for the road infrastructure. So, you have to know which taxes are immoral, and which are not. Then we can start the decentralization of the State and reorganizing the idea of a ‘State’ towards the level of humanity.
I'm with you on decentralisation. To me that would solve a lot of the current problems. The closer the taxpayer is to the people spending his taxes, the better his oversight.
Immoral is taking people's money to pay for roads and spending it on government junkets, spy planes or NGOs while the roads fall into disrepair. If you had a budget for road maintenance and then all road users paid to cover it, that would be different. The same goes for social insurance . Everyone pays and there's no medical care available when you need it.
Right on, Taxes are theft. Governments exist only to enrich themselves and never stop growing
Absolutely! Government will always steal because it cannot create wealth. We're fooled into thinking that if we can elect the 'right' people we'll all live happily ever after. But of course, it's the system itself that's rotten.
Thank you most kindly for the comment.
Thanks for yours ...
"A woman of few words" has written much more really wise words;)
A tax topic is really very discussable and complicated
the more you work, the more you have to give away
'Have to' is the operative word! Relationships between you and the government are involuntary. It's not as if you can call them up and cancel your membership to the tax club.
Thank you kindly for taking the time to visit.
Couldn't agree more... Someone recently asked me if how do I pay taxes as a freelancer and I was like Are you kidding me? Our president said the other day we'll be buying a lot of weapons over the next few years... I won't give any of my hard-earned money for that, thank you very much!
Ah sure you're a girl after me own heart! 🙃
Here the government is giving 6 billion to 34,000 NGOs! It's beyond insanity and I ain't payin' for some woke upstart to buy billboard advertising to tell me how racist and homophobic I am. Gimme strength!
I agree, it is better to evade than to pay them, enriching others who in the end do nothing good for the country.
Absolutely! The government steals from us so we're entitled to steal a little bit back.
Thanks for the visit.
Perfect post, excellent reading,
resteemedreblogged.I am ready to subscribe to your every word. You are truly on fire here... I feel it the same way, but I could never articulate it so well. There is almost nothing left for me to add, only one thing (rather, it is a philosophical thing, reflection):
As modern state collect taxes more and more , due to this in the 20th century the states became too strong... too fat... and now they act accordingly - from a position of strength of some superior highest creature that always have the Right and entitled to evrything; now they need more and more, now it turns so that the State do not exist for the Citizen, but the citizen exists for the needs of a state - and this is a very bad existence.
In a nutshell; the part about taxes: the state should be given as little money as possible, just enough so that it has enough to "stretch its legs". It's time to make the State weaker, that is an emergency already.
ps.
my comment definitely abuses the community's guides, in the part 'No political or religious content'.... dunno, maybe I should not implicit my thoughts here 😨 I feel pain every time I am being muted at our decentralized platform
Thank you, thank you and thank you.
I entirely agree with your point. The natural order has been turned on its head and the servants have become the masters. Government does what it likes and we have zero power to stop them other than to vote in a different load of shysters.
p.s. Rules are made to be broken:)
pps. where there any other intresting posts on given prompt, did you notice any?
No, only a couple of people took on the tax prompt, and neither had anything much to say.
PPPS: I hope they don't read this and downvote me🙃
🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃
I hope they neither will read this below, as, uhm, I never get tired to repeat that the Hive is a place where there are 101 writers per one reader :)))
I pay for criminals to make laws regulating my actions, I pay for criminals to murder millions of people all over the world, I pay for alphabet agencies to force us to submit to medical experimentation, I pay for schools to teach perversions to our children, I pay for Bill Gates er al to have favorable coverage in the media, I pay for poisons in my tap water, I pay for anti-Russia/Iraq/Iran/Syria propaganda, I pay for many who simply do not want to work. I get nothing for my taxes. Why do I pay them again?
Principally because it's preferable to incarceration. I've tried to 'drop out' as much as possible...but I have a bug-out bag ready:)
lol we are in a different kind of prison on the outside. Slaves to regulations and associated paperwork, slaves to taxes, slaves to public opinion.
I figure if it becomes necessary to have a bug out bag, I won't survive, so I am planning to hunker down right here. I have a medicinal and financial bug out bag though, and know a bit about foraging.
And it is getting harder these days seeing that we don't pay cash for anything anymore. The Germans never warmed to the whole debit card thing. Cash is still king over there. I find in Ireland we are relatively easy to co-erce.
You're right there! We've got zero backbone. We just roll over and play dead. What has happened to us?
For the record, I use only cash, other than in the local bakery where I pay in crypto!
in crypto? in Tipperary? Jaysus.
I'm one of those annoying people who talk to strangers, so a coup,e of days after I arrived in the sticks I discovered a baker up the road, got talking to him, and found out he was into crypto. Now I have a slate and when it reaches 100 quid I send him crypto. Now if I can just work that deal with Supervalu!:)
Couldn't agree more :)
Well fan my brow if it isn't something I thought I'd never see...perceptualflaws .....the return? How have you been? Weren't you renovating a house? How's it all going?
Hey my friend - hope you're keeping well. Long time no speak!! :) I'm good thanks, yeah the house is now renovated and liveable - just about lol. I've also been working loads and trying to write a book. I was considering making a return - have loads of articles to share. Just have to remember how to buy some #hive so I can post lol How have you been keeping? Hope life has been treating you well.
Stop with the aul considerin' and do it! We're sorely missin' some deep deep dives. This month has already seen the return of nonameslefttouse, sift666 and frot, so you'd be in excellent company 🙃
I'm doing grand. I've moved into the wilds of the countryside, am growing my own veggies, keeping chickens, and have managed to get off-grid. Life is good! The only problem is @blanchy is skulking about in the next town. I've been doing my best to avoid him but my luck is bound to run out.
P.s I hope you don't mind but I delegated you a little HP so you have no excuse to continue sitting on your backside:)
Ah man - you didn't have to do that. But thank you very much. :D Glad life is treating you well - and you two are managing to avoid each other, for now. lol
Get up ourra that. don't believe a word that comes out of her mouth @perceptualflaws . She keeps texting me to meet her for coffee in Clonmel so she can offload a few of her organic carrots and she told me she would throw in few drumsticks. 😃 I know her game! I hear she's going around Horse & Jockey selling heads of cabbages from a pram and they are riddled with earwigs.
Not true! It's the Horse and Hound, they're cauliflower and I have to get rid of those woodlice somehow!
This is Tipperary , we don't eat none of that posh cauliflower down here. Flawed business plan.
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