There was a recent post on lesswrong, which also got highlighted on AC10, that struck my interest. It claimed that he had been avoiding taxes for 20 years through "one simple trick:" filing, but not actually paying them. The idea is that the IRS is so small and incompetent that they basically won't do anything against this sort of passive resistance.
Is this too good to be true? I'm not any sort of "effective altruist," I just don't want to pay taxes. And as it happens, I have a lot of capital gains income this year. According to the rules, I'm supposed to write the IRS a big check by Jan 15 for "estimated taxes." I can afford it, but it would make my life better to keep that money for myself. Can I just... not...? This feels like a real Matrix, red pill moment-
"You're telling me that I can dodge taxes?" "No. I'm telling you that when the time comes- you won't have to."
Then again... I really, really don't want to go to prison. even just getting my passport suspended would be a major hassle. And the guy who wrote that post seems like a real hippy... no bank account and no salary income??? how does he live?
Perhaps it would be better to set up a shady small business and claim all sorts of vague tax deductions. Thoughts on this?
btw: long time lurker, first time poster. I'm asking here because you seem like people who are smart, outside-the-box, and not simps for the government.
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Notes -
The IRS may be slow and incompetent, they may ignore the accounting error for a bit, but this scheme has to blow up in your face years from now once some bean counter decides he hates you in particular or enough people start doing the same thing and policy changes to reflect that.
And then you at best end up paying everything at once with a 25% markup and at worst a felon in pound-me-in-the-ass federal prison.
In fact it's so stupid a scheme it sounds like entrapment. If you're dumb enough to believe not paying what you declared you owe and bragging about it on the internet is a good idea because people getting sentenced for the crime you are committing is "almost unheard of", you're either profoundly retarded or are yourself a fed trying to pad his numbers by building a pile of easy to close cases. But I repeat myself.
Stick to the other perfectly legal method: just don't owe any taxes.
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