--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "WillyTex" <willy...@...> wrote: > > Most working people can't stop paying federal income taxes > - it is automatically withheld by their employer.
Au contraire, Pierre. If they work as <spit> an employee, there is withholding. If they are good enough at what they do to work as consultants, there is none. *And* if they are weird enough to want to *not* pay taxes, chances are high that they can get away with it. On my recent trip back to the US I ran into several friends who last paid federal and state income tax in the early 1980s. Each of them originally stopped because one year they overspent and didn't have enough money in April to pay their tax bill, so they just didn't file. Nothing happened to them. So the next year they didn't file again. Nothing happened to them. This started for each of my friends in 1983 and 1984. They have not filed since then, and nothing bad has happened to them. No one has even noticed. At this point they have all of their money stashed in offshore accounts and have "escape plans" to beat feet out of America if anyone ever *does* notice. But at this point it's also become somewhat of a challenge for them -- "How long can we live and work in the United States of America without paying *any* taxes except sales tax, and have no one notice?"
