Tax protestors have tried it in court, and lost.
The issue for tax refusers is whether they can keep their assets and also refuse to pay taxes, not whether they are compelled to pay taxes.
It is not a crime to refuse to pay your taxes, but 'tax refuser' is an official status, in the same way that 'conscientious objector' is an official status. One must apply for this ... I don't know what all is involved because I have not done it myself but I knew a whole group of people who have, and most of them are Libertarian, jbtw. They cannot be arrested but they do have to file every year and the courts have held that the government has the right to seize their assets for payment of back taxes, so they have to jump through hoops to keep their assets in someone else's name.
Some of them have very funny Robin Hood stories about how they've outwitted the government ... but the underlying story is not usually very funny because people have very serious reasons for undertaking a protest of that magnitude. Usually there is quite a passionate conviction underlying this decision.
Ah, it's only socialism if the government owns the means of production.
Strictly speaking, yes. It is true that 'socialism' has become a slur, like 'commie' or 'pinko' to cover everything that sociopaths don't like, but this interests me not at all.
I'll have to conceed that one because negative income taxes and maximum income levels aren't ownership of the means of production.
That's right. Taxes are not ownership of the means of production. Income caps (referred to as an Incomes Policy) were part of the Republic platform of 1972. They protect the property of stockholders as well as the incomes to labor and they increase the investment potential of publicly traded corporations. That is why incomes policies are discussed. Negative income tax is proposed by free market economists as a less wasteful way of ensuring provision of basic needs, given that we as a society have already accepted that as one of our goals.
There is free market economic theory behind proposals such as these. I would be glad to discuss the
ideas behind some of these proposals, but to listen while you cast words that are to you slur words at anyone who entertains these ideas or would like to see them made part of the public discussion, this does not interest me.
tell you what ... when I see a Green give all her welath to the poor then doing without public utilities and eating nothing but home grown organic food, then I'll take her seriously.
I know plenty of people who are doing this. People who are voluntarily changing their lifestyle at great personal expense so that it will be more in keeping with their principles.
You talk about government being intrusive ... if you want to go off the grid here in Pennsylvania, for ten years you had to pay an exit tax to the utility companies for the electricity you were not using! This was a State law.
The poor in our country not only receive zero net handout from the government - that is, taxes paid by the lowest income quintile equal benefits paid to the lowest income quintile - not only is there NO net handout to the poor, the lowest income quintile gives to charitable causes ten times the amount given by the highest income quintile as a percentage of their income.
Practically everyone I know pays significantly more for organically grown produce, not only because they are personally afraid of contamination but because they feel obligated to support the market while it tries to achieve scale economies.
The USDA undertook a whole new approach to chemical insectides about thirty years ago at the urging of the farmers themselves because the cancer rates among farmers were skyrocketing. Those original chemical protocols were advertised by the government. The training in their use was done by the government. The distribution was facilitated by the government. Much like the timber industry today - where the government undertakes so many costs of production on behalf of timber companies that the trees in our national forest actually have a negative price.
You want to get rid of public lands thinking that the cost of business will go down. I assure you that the cost of business will skyrocket! All the public lands in the US are used to subsidize mining companies and timber companies and insurance companies that own the vast cattle ranches of the west. Those subsidies come at the expense of the middle class. I would LOVE to see them eliminated. I dare the Libertarians to undertake such a platform. You'll be murdered for it, I assure you. And I am not speaking metaphorically.
Meanwhile all the significant efforts in environmental areas - lowering carbon costs, reducing ag chem, creating wetland and carbon sequestration reserves for water and air purity - they are being done under private initiative. When the EPA does get involved it is only to set standards or to propose legislation that will create private markets.
This is the thing that fanatic individualism seems unable to grasp ... that there are groups of people within our society who DO suffer tangibly, who lose their right to life and to property, because of 'mistakes' made by our choice of production processes. If the government was responsible for the dissemination of these mistakes, then it is reasonable to expect the government to get involved in their correction. This should be a matter of efficiency and not a matter of ideology. The original argument in favor of government helping business was 'efficiency and productivity,' so let's see big business sleep in the bed it has made.
If it is a matter of ideology, then government welfare should be withdrawn from all corporations. That would terminate about 80% of our government budget, which in all cases takes the form of turnkey contracts and not ownership of the means of production, and it would be the end of the Fortune 500.
It is utter nonsense to talk about the drop of pee in the bucket that takes the form of children's lunch programs and health insurance. When the government intrudes, it busies itself redistributing income to the top executives of corporations and transferring property to the wealthy, not to the poor.
Jn