Outside of a W-2 salary, there are ways, more applicable to businesses, also to independent contractors. Even for those with a salary, they ought to do their best to collect all the legally qualified benefits that they can.
Lots of independent contractors get paid as W-2 when they could be getting paid as a corp, for which they could write off a portion of the taxes via deductibles and in various other ways.
Lots of people could be ordering online at websites that don't deduct a sales tax. Instead, they pay a substantial amount in sales tax.
Using a Delaware corp for various transactions can also go a long way.
I don't think anyone voluntarily pays more taxes than they ought to. People DO collect all their legally qualified benefits. It's why software like turbo tax is still around despite being a shitty company.
I disagree completely. There are all manner of loopholes and benefits that people fail to avail. Even the people with only a salary end up paying too much in sales tax and property tax.
If you've had a successful career already you probably already paid a lot of taxes, unless you're a billionaire in which case you're not paying taxes anyway.
There’s not really another good solution. At some point it will collapse on itself due to ever-compounding errors, but until then, the current structure simply absorbs all attempts to fight it. I can’t remember who pointed this out (I think it’s derived from a point originally made by Marcuse) but the difference between what we are facing in the West versus “traditional” authoritarianism is that all opposition in the West is commodified and co-opted before it can become a real threat. This is partially because our domestic oppression is typically subtle (economic and systemic) rather than obvious (forceful and directional). Force may be used in isolated instances or against already marginalized groups, but it’s not felt as a daily threat by most of the population as it is in more openly violent regimes. There is no real fear of stepping out of line, in fact stepping out of line is celebrated as long as you can then be steered into a commoditized and controlled “protest” channel.
If you aren’t able to leave, the next best thing is getting to know likeminded (and intelligent/effective) people and setting up mutual aid networks, or failing to find that, to acquire the tools, resources, and skills needed to ride out the coming years as best you can.
That would be an unfair reframing. The original intent was that erasing their tax revenue weakens the authoritarian regime by draining it of the resources needed for enforcement of unfair laws.
I understood the original intent. I just don't think it's a viable solution. The US govt has not been shy about borrowing and printing more money to do whatever they want.
That borrowing funds only the federal government, not the state government. The states don't get to borrow in the same way. Also, that borrowing will increasingly come with a high interest rate and high inflation.
Sure but these problems exist at the federal level too. And yes the consequences are real but it still happens and is why we can't just hit the federal govt in the wallet. For the time being, elections are still free, so voting is still the most effective way, but raising awareness of stuff like this makes people more aware of who NOT to vote for next office.
It's happening at the state level at this time. In any event, we don't need to hit the federal government in their wallet as they're too busy doing it to themselves with their immense exponentially-growing loan that will crush them soon enough.
Sure if you wanna put it that way. I don't like paying taxes because our government doesn't use it well. But I also know that if I don't pay taxes I'm gonna have a bad time.
