Different occupations have different expenses. A Grocery store would have high COGS, and a lawyer woudl have none.
Alphonse claimed he was a “Secondhand Furniture Dealer”, and if he had claimed his real income and expenses, he wouldn’t have gone to prison.
Drug dealers do not have to list any specific occupation. However, in general, crooks do not report their income on a 1040 under any occupation, after all, they are crooks- defrauding the government is just another crime. Sometimes bookies, whose “crime” is perfectly legal in other juristictions, do report on a 1040.
You have to report your income, you can’t just say “prove me wrong”. If indeed, you did post some unbeleiveably low amount, the government can then dismiss it, and use soemthing like a “cash T” or Soruce and application of funds" to show that
A: your stated income is clearly and obviously bogus, and your occupation clearly has the possibility of unreported cash
B: Your expenses are (for example) $500,000
thus
C: Your income is thus $500,000.
Note that step A only works if the reported income is clearly bogus to a reasonable man- if you reported $400,000 they’d have to actually uncovered the specific income.
You are expected to disclose the truth.
First, it’s amendment, as everyone else in this thread had properly stated.
Second, earning money is most definitely income. I realize that tax fraudsters often say something like this in their idiot argument but you would do well not to pay any attention to those.
As is mandatory in these threads, I have to give a link to the Tax Protesters FAQ, which gives all the arguments that people have tried and failed to put forward against the IRS and the court cases that have shot them down.
In any event, since income tax was made constitutional by the Sixteenth Amendment, can it be argued that for purposes of taxation the Sixteenth overrules the Fifth?
You are evidently woefully misinformed by Schiff-style propaganda not only about the income tax system but also about history. Normal criminal law was not “powerless” against Capone. If the Chicago political and legal systems hadn’t been so thoroughly corrupt, he would likely have been in a state prison long before his IRS troubles. The Federal agents, prosecutors, and judges weren’t bought off and so applied the laws they had available.
That’s what we pay them for, after all. Not coincidently, that pay has to come from somewhere.
Capone’s actions were also pre-RICO. These days, proving conspiracy and RICO charges is easier and removes some of the evidentiary barriers a 1920’s prosecutor would have faced.
No, it does ask you for your occupation: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040ez.pdf
I made a mistake. What I mean is earning honest money is not a “crime”. I didn’t mean it’s not income (though it’s another interseting piont of view).
Sorry for the confusion.
Yea it sucks that you lose some privilege because your act is NOT a crime. o figure.
It isn’t even an interesting point of view. It’s something to fool the rubes and mildly amuse the knowledgable. It’s a drab, hackneyed little part of a much larger scam that still isn’t all that interesting.
No, the real problem is the attitude that paying taxes is somehow wrong.
Taxes are the cost of a civilized society. All societies have had taxes, back into antiquity. Civilization cannot exist without them.
People have always complained about taxes, of course, back into antiquity. Taxes can be too high or unfairly allocated.
But the notion that asking a citizen to honestly report taxes is a punishment, or a lack of privilege, or wrong in any way is always at the base of fraudulent anti-tax schemes. It’s this false understanding of how society works that needs to be attacked before the technical details of taxation are addressed.
I couldn’t disagree more. How did we survive from 1776 to 1913 (a few times excepted) without an income tax?
The first state sales tax was passed in 1921.
The problem people have with taxes is not that they have to be paid, but the fact that they are an increasing burden with a growing government.
In Florida, my property tax relative to my income is absolutely confiscatory. Yet, we still are told that we have to buy paper towels and copier paper for the schools.
It seems that if someone argues that their taxes are too high or that the government has too much waste, or gets involved in things they shouldn’t, that somehow means I think I should pay zero taxes. I don’t know anyone who makes that argument.
You may accept that you have to pay taxes, just want them lower, but there certainly are those who argue that they don’t have to pay any taxes. Irwin Schiff, mentioned in the OP, is one such character. There are others.
I can’t speak for Irwin Schiff (and he is a real douchebag) but I think that his only beef is against the federal income tax. If he weren’t in prison, I don’t think he would have a problem paying a tax on a bottle of wine, for example.
Being against one form of taxation does not equal being against ALL taxes…
Tariffs were huge, something that in todays economy would be impossible, the USA would be a pariah.
Booze taxes were about 10X as high in the dollars of that period. And so forth.
Taxes were a huge burden on some and small for others- but irregardless of their ability to pay. In other words, taxes were non-progressive by and large.
And of course, our Army was a small self-defense cadre, there was no Space program, and all welfare and education was paid for at the State and Local level.
Every single industrialized nation on the Earth has a Income tax, most of them quite a bit like ours.
He didn’t say all societies have had income taxes, he said all societies have had taxes. And that is true. All governments have found some thing to tax. Even in feudal times the tax was a portion of the serf’s harvest.
Ed
You include a clue to the answer in your response. When the government expanded and needed money, in the Civil War era, it turned to an income tax.
Every year today is a war year. The difference between today and that supposed past paradise is that the world economy has totally transformed and so has the role of the government, and the social contract has been irrevocably altered. There is no comparison between the U.S. government in 1890 and today.
Everybody (barring an infinitesimal number of anarchists) wants government to play a role, and they want that role to increase continually. This is true at every level from the smallest local government to the federal government. There is some disagreement about what services they want, but the sum total of their wants always increases. Even those who claim to want smaller government almost always turn out to want smaller government for others but more government to serve their needs.
So everybody wants more services and nobody wants to pay more taxes. This is an impossible dilemma.
However, it is totally irrelevant to the Schiffs and other tax fraudsters of the world. They don’t want to pay taxes at all. They are parasites on society. There is no justification for any of their actions.
My point is:
You steal -> Bad -> It’s crime -> Hence you’re protected by the 5th amendment
You earn honest money -> Good -> Legal -> You’re not protected by 5th amendment
Normal pattern
You do bad -> It’s a crime -> You’re so fucked
You do good-> It’s legal -> Congratulations you’re protected
So you see how the pattern is not abnormal?
So you see how requirement to file income tax return is an affront to our intuitive sense of justice.
In a sense, income is not even a fair way to measure financial success till it’s consumed.
Think it this way, say you buy a house. The price of the house increase. Do you pay tax on that? No. You buy a stock, the price of stock increase. Do you pay tax on it? No. You sell your house to pay for luxury, now that’s tax.
Yet, you earn salary. Your bank account market value increase. Do you pay tax on that? Unfortunately yes.
In a sense, income not spent yet is not “income yet”. There are many tax loopholes derived from this principle.
Another way to solve the issue is to simply tax non basic expenditures rather than income.
There are many taxes that can be done without compulsory self incrimination. Land tax and gasoline tax, for example. Those taxes are usually more fair. Gasoline taxes are proportional to the use of road. Majority of land value increase are due to successful governments’ development of infrastructure and hence due to externalities.
During deflation, governments can also increase money supply by performing government’s project and paying it with newly printed money. (I am not an expert monetarist and still confused my self, but governments do give free money from helicopter like what friedman say to keep us from deflation).
I am not even against socialism. Wealth tax, tax capital owners. Income tax, tax workers. Karl Marx would be proud if all income tax is changed into wealth or land tax.
I am not against democracy either. Most tax are undemocratic. States that require a referendum before tax increase never has a tax increase. The government is doing fine there. Most governments’ expenditure are just part of an ever growing government schemes that want to control more and more of your money. Power, after all, is the true wealth.
Oh by the way can anyone pinpoint the case where the supreme court decide that it’s constitutional? I’ve heard it’s a 5 vs 4 case. It’s not a frivolous argument. It’s a worthy argument that persuaded 4 out of 9 SUPREME court judges. Can anyone verify this? So how come those who argued in court because of this got jailed for frivolous argument? Many arguments are frivolous but don’t carry $50k fine. This is another cruel and unusual punishments where the penalty is far bigger than damage caused.
Property taxes go up based on the assessed value of the house. So, your basic premise is already flawed.
You really should read the page that Expano links to. Particularly this section, which might address the case you’re vaguely remembering.
No, I don’t. I assume from your statements that you only think so because a) you don’t understand how the current tax system works; and b) you don’t understand how the system evolved slowly over time through a series of legislative agreements about what constitutes income, what should be taxed and to what extent, what should, as a matter of social policy, should not be taxed or be taxed at a lower rate, and what additional factors should be taken into account when taxation is determined.
Without any of that knowledge, your attempts at telling us what is or isn’t an affront are going to fall on deaf ears.