I was catching up with a friend via text last night and he told me he was “done paying taxes” because of Trump’s current tax situation. He told me he will not file ever again. Once the IRS begins pursuing his situation he will delay until he dies, which, given his age/health could be soon.
Is this something others will do?
Probably not. And I suspect your friend is just using hyperbole. They’ll pay their taxes, if only because they don’t have the money to hire lawyers to fight it.
He’ll join the crowd of people who swore they would move to Canada after Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, or Trump were elected.
Anyone else, I’d suspect they were being hyperbolic, but this guy is a bit of a nut. He won’t file again, I’m sure of it. Then again I don’t think the IRS will be out much money.
The IRS will want it’s pound of flesh even if it’s only a milligram.
Most people have the majority of their tax liability withheld by their employer, so “not filing” isn’t going to cost the gov’t much money for those people. Others, of course, are self employed or otherwise have to send the IRS checks.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to emulate Trump in this or any other endeavor. I’ll pay my taxes and just hope Trump’s world goes to shit in a variety of ways over the next 12 months.
Pro Tip: They come after you if you don’t file. They don’t have time to check to see if you cheat like a Mother-Fucker, generally.
If my tax returns were published and put in a library, they would be in the ‘Fiction’ section. 
I doubt it will make much difference, since Trump not paying much in taxes is hardly a shocker.
The shocker is how much money he loses and how much in debt he is.
Overall, I expect that some people will try some dumb tax avoidance schemes and get caught, but not a really significant number. People who have the ability and willingness to avoid a lot of taxes already have accountants sorting that out for them, Trump’s willingess to do so isn’t really going to affect them. There may actually be more compliance, since people may be worried about a Democratic administration paying more attention than before.
As far as your friend goes, not filing taxes is no big deal to the IRS, it’s not paying money due that they get agitated over. What kind of money does he make - is it regular payroll, private contractor, runs his own business, investments, or social security/retirement? If it’s regular payroll, private contractor to regular businesses, or SS/retirement, then the IRS knows exactly how much money he took in and in many cases already has most or all of his tax payment. If the doesn’t file taxes and is owed a refund, he won’t get it unless he does (and never if he takes more than 3 years to file). If he appears to owe a small amount, they’ll catch it automatically and eventually send letters, but without much rush. If he appears to owe a lot (private contractors don’t usually have any taxes withheld), they’ll flag him quickly for not paying taxes, as it’s really obvious. If it’s investments or his own business, or he’s a private contractor in a case where the records aren’t as automatic, then they’ll flag very quickly for not paying at all after years of income.
His ‘refuse to file and fight them’ scheme is about the dumbest way to keep money away from the IRS, they’ll get it eventually. If he dies before they get it, that just means his estate will be tied up in tax court until they do, so his heirs will have to deal with the mess.
Evidently you can avoid paying federal income tax for years without going to jail. You just need access to and ability to pay good lawyers, as well as tolerance for living under a legal cloud.
One might expect that refusal to pay taxes is correlated with income tax rates more than the realization that some aren’t paying their “fair share”, but I’m not sure that’s the case.
This guy never married, has no heirs, and is self employed. I’m less interested in what will happen to him than what would happen if a significant percentage of Americans behaved similarly.
73% of Americans over withhold their taxes each year and get a refund, so there’s no “not paying” for them:
What do you mean by behaved similarly, and why would you expect a signifcant percentage of Americans to do so? According to the article Bort linked, around 73% of Americans filing taxes currently were owed a refund. So if any of them ‘behave similarly’, that would mean the IRS actually retains more money. That is, you could have 2/3 of Americans decide not to file taxes, and the result would be that the IRS would end up with more money! From that other 27%, if they owe an insignificant amount of taxes (I’ve had to write a check for $2.63 in state taxes, for example) then it won’t do much. If they already do a lot of tax avoidance, refusing to file taxes will mean that the IRS has to come after them, but will get more money from them since they will get audited to hell.
When almost 3/4 of the country has their taxes overpaid automatically and requires a tax return to get the overpayment refunded, ‘taxpayer noncompliance’ just isn’t a big deal.
Yes, I read that after posting. I did not know the percentages were that high. I’m self employed so I pay estimated taxes on my earnings quarterly.
Apparently lot of people don’t realize that - in threads about states being opposed to the federal government, I’ve seen people say things like ‘well, what if the state tells people to stop paying income tax?’. But they never seem to address the fact that, for the vast majority of Americans, paying income tax happens completely automatically by payroll processors who may not even be in the same state as them.
The real question is whether those good lawyers cost more than just paying your taxes.
Unless you’re some sort of whackadoo, and you’re trying to make some kind of obscure point that nobody cares about.
One way to look at Trump’s “precedent” is that if you’re self-employed or are an owner / partner in a non-publicly traded company, there’s simply no reason not to simply make shit up that results in you reporting a very small income then paying the corresponding small tax timely.
As a percentage of all Americans, that’s a small percentage. As a percentage of all the reported personal income every year it’s sure to be a much larger share. Every local fatcat who owns a car dealership, or a small factory making whatever, or a local chain of 5 diners could choose to run with this. Many lawyers, some doctors, lots of small businessmen making from $10K to $10M/year.
Ultimately, for the people whose income isn’t mostly reported by others via W2 or 1099, your revenue and expenses are whatever you tell the IRS they are.
Just as with mask enforcement or traffic enforcement, the system only works when 95+% (99+%?) of the populace are already complying. Once enough people collectively decide not to comply the outcome is anarchy that the police (in this case the IRS) simply can’t scale big enough to overcome.
In some sense the lasting legacy of Trump’s entire career, not just his POTUS term, may be to expose just how much our society is based on voluntary compliance and just how far you, any you, have practical impunity to ignore any/every rule you don’t like. At least until you get unlucky and get highlighted to some enforcer who cares enough to pursue your particular case.
Looking at the drivers with Trump flags around here, he’s certainly teaching them that laws, and courtesy, are only for loozers!! (booo!!) not Trumpers!! (Yaay!!).
Trump still paid millions. He had to pay the alternative minimum tax. It’s not technically the income tax but a parallel income tax.