TurquoiseB wrote: > --- 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?"
Maybe a little harder in these days of "electronic filing" because the computers would flag if they stopped filing. However in the 1980s the IRS wasn't all that computerized. I helped computerize the Fed's worker comp program and it was a dreadful process. The local MOR radio station (KGO) has ads all the time from lawyers who advertise helping people who failed to file or have never filed. I had a lot of musician friends who never filed for years but were eventually caught. Of course your friends probably aren't planning on collecting any Social Security either. Of course many self employed get enough right-offs to pay little or no taxes anyway. That's not quite fair to the wage earner but there I would like to see a tremendously reduced tax burden and put it on the scamsters and lucky fucks who have made out like bank robbers. Oh wait, they are the banks(ters).
