Yes, aerodynamic and also it's like a flying saucer, but with a tail, it's great.
--
If I was building a space ship, I'd probably have it be a giant rock, so that it would have its own gravity and could hold an atmosphere and people could walk on it without falling off and things wouldn't need to be screwed and glued on to stay on though.
Why? I don't understand this thinking at all, why shouldn't a person do everything in his power to minimise his taxes? I am amazed at the response to this story actually.
I actually think that the rest of the FB shareholders (including Zuckerberg) would have been better served by renouncing their citizenships as well, and by the way, I think those who do not do it, just don't understand the reality of what they are getting themselves into now, that USA is becoming more and more USSR like.
The wealthy are looking for ways out, they are moving their production out. Jim Rogers lives in Singapore though he didn't renounce his citizenship yet, I don't know why.
The problem with leaving is that there is a huge exit tax and IRS forces the person to liquidate all assets and then pay large taxes on them, but this means that a rich person, running a company has to sell, the entire thing or piece by piece, or however, and this is really ridiculous, given that you don't have to be a citizen in USA to own parts or entire companies, after all, anybody with any stock in a USA based company is a part owner, and you don't have to be a US citizen or resident to own US company stock.
Your parents consented to it for you when they either gave birth to you in the US or brought you here.
- ha, nobody can consent for you without you signing authorisation with a lawyer, and when you are a kid, you can't sign it, so you consented to nothing, you are not a slave of either your parents or the government just because you are born.
Presumably you are now of legal age. If you wish to no longer be bound by that contract
- again, nobody is under that contract just because they were born. There is no contract.
You didn't sign a contract. You are not a slave of your parents. You are not a slave of your government. You freedom cannot be signed away by some proxy contract that you didn't sign and didn't give legal authority for anybody to sign on your behalf.
This is a pure nonsense argument.
attained some sophistication, discovered empathy, and got a clue.
- the most humanitarian people are the most libertarian, the ones who understand that a totalitarian government and lack of liberties is what causes poverty. Be it a socialist or a communist or a fascist government, be it a dictatorship or a monarchy, whatever, all this stuff destroys societies and prevents real wealth from being created.
USA was a Republic and as a free republic it allowed for the free people and the free people came to USA and now those who are still free are leaving. USA was built as a prosperous nation without government, now the government took over and ridiculous ideas about 'contract' that nobody signed are imposed upon children.
It is money of the investors who are willing to pay for FB shares, and you are not paying for it.
FB has thousands of employees, who are paying income taxes.
But beyond that, there shouldn't be income taxes, there shouldn't be corporate taxes, payroll taxes, death taxes, there shouldn't be dividend taxes or capital gains taxes.
All of the above assumes that you are property of the government, who lets you keep some of the money, because trying to steal all of it is impractical, because you will do less work and you will be busier searching for more ways to hide it.
Also Eduardo Saverin is very smart that he is doing this, for him to do this later would have been impossible. USA requires a huge exit tax, which would force him to liquidate his entire position in FB and then pay taxes on the gain.
I salute Eduardo, he is just doing what is absolutely rational and morally right. He shouldn't be putting himself in a position where he is owned by the government.
However for people who do it to try and escape from taxes? Fuck them
- so you are of the opinion that people actually belong to their governments, sort of like property? They should be forced into labour for the purposes of the government? Sort of like slaves were? Well, that is what income taxes are of-course, and you sound like you usually sound.
That's just a bunch of baloney, the USA was actually becoming a manufacturing superpower, a major creditor nation while the income taxes didn't exist.
Neither did any of these: capital gains taxes, death taxes, dividend taxes, payroll taxes, corporate income taxes.
So all of the real progress was made, the USA was put on the map not as an afterthought to the European nations, but as a true economic powerhouse, and all of this was done with:
1. Competition and constantly falling prices. 2. No income taxes and other taxes mentioned above. 3. No agencies and departments, such as Fed, IRS, FDIC, EPA, FDA, HUD, FHA, dep't of energy, education, commerce, interior, transport, agriculture, small business, etc. No SS, Medicare, EI, any business regulations, any inflation hiding agenda, such as minimum wage. No money printing, no artificial interest rates.
The economy was growing, the infrastructure was growing, and government was mostly living on sales and excise taxes, with 50% of it coming from alcohol sales.
Oh, did I mention the government wasn't killing US citizens, holding them without trial in indefinite detention, wasn't stealing property and wasn't messing with most of other individual freedoms? No standing army, no undeclared wars either.
No bail outs to 'too big to fail' monopolies and oligopolies that are created with the help of government moral hazards.
Yeah, taxes buy something, but ain't civilisation.
those of more modest means renounce, too. They say leaving America is about more than money; it's about privacy and red tape.
Two filing requirements affect Americans abroad: the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts - which has been around since 1970 but now carries penalties for noncompliance - and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, passed in 2010 with the aim of reducing offshore tax evasion.
The first regulation requires all Americans, including those living abroad, with at least $10,000 in overseas bank accounts, to file a supplementary form disclosing all of their foreign accounts.
That includes any accounts in which the U.S. citizen has a financial interest. That could include a joint account with a spouse or child, accounts for corporations in which the American owns more than 50 per cent of the value of shares of stock, or any trust or estate that benefits the U.S. citizen.
The tax compliance act - the newer law - asks foreign financial institutions such as banks, hedge funds, and private equity funds to provide the IRS with information on U.S. clients.
The additional compliance costs for companies to ensure that Americans they hire are filing the correct U.S. tax returns and asset-declaration forms are at least $5,000 per person, said Ledvina. Where individuals are getting their returns prepared, the expense may amount to $1,500 to $2,000, which is pushing expatriates to consider giving up citizenship.
âoeThe compliance costs are high and theyâ(TM)re getting worse,â Ledvina said. âoeItâ(TM)s hard to serve two authorities and the problem for Americans abroad is that the IRS doesnâ(TM)t care.â
Read more: Flood of Americans Give Up Citizenship to Dodge Tax Probe
(EU and US citizenships are basically the most favorable ones to hold).
- I don't think so personally.
US and EU citizenships are a liability, not an asset, especially not to the people who actually can produce wealth (and producing wealth means creating products and services that the market wants).
People are running away from USA now more than ever, though the absolute numbers are only in a couple of thousands a year right now, a couple of years ago it was only a couple of hundred. The wealthy French are looking to exit now into other countries.
I am wondering when will Jim Rogers drop his citizenship, or will he wait until the IRS tries to come after his entire wealth, once the interest rates skyrocket and the US gov't goes into totalitarian overdrive mode.
There is a death tax. The person who died already paid the taxes, and his wish is to leave the money to whoever he pleases, but not the government, but the government comes in and says: you can't do so. We taxed you while you were alive and we'll tax your wealth once you are dead too for good measure, just to remind everybody who's the boss.
As to "dynasties that don't have to work" canard, the money that is not spent is working all the time. What do you think the money is doing, just sitting there? About 96% of the wealth that Steve Jobs created he never spent on himself, that's the companies that he was part of, that's what the government wants to tax - a productive investment is reduced by a huge amount, which means holdings must be liquidated at firesale prices, and to what end? The people who are the heirs wouldn't have spent it anyway, but the taxes on the wealthy are not 100% and they leave more than 4% of the wealth anyway, and since Jobs only spent about 4% in his entire life, his heirs still can live their entire lives and not work really even with that money, so that logic is flawed.
The money that is stolen is NOT the money that would have been spent on consumption, it is the productive investment capital that is doing work.
As I said on many occasions, the regulations, the taxes, the inflation is destroying the investment capital - pushing it into the other countries, this FB guy here is just one example of that.
Inflation is a bitch, alright, and it is created by the government.
It didn't exist during USA's most prolific era - 19th century to beginning of 20th century, until the Fed was created and started the inflation. In fact during the times when USA had the most competition in the market, the falling prices, the value of the dollar was rising.
That's right, the anathema of governments - deflation of monetary supply, was happening while USA was actually freest and growing most prosperous.
Inflation is what USA government is giving you, that's what you are getting from the Fed and that's what has destroyed you.
Oh, it's coming. It's coming. The forms to renounce the citizenship used to be free, up to this year, now they are 450USD. The IRS can deny or revoke your passport now if you owe more than 25K in taxes to them, so never mind quitting the citizenship, you can't even leave the country to go anywhere, not even a vacation.
The exit tax is huge actually, it's gigantic, in order for somebody to leave, they have to LIQUIDATE THEIR BUSINESS and all estate in USA, which is ridiculous, why is that the case? Foreigners can own businesses and houses in USA, why can't a person, who is a former citizen own stuff in USA, it's still his property?
No, the IRS wants the exit tax, and now the exit tax is punishing enough, that people with businesses can't legally get rid of their citizenship without destroying the company or selling it off, soon enough the exit tax will be ridiculous enough that even people WITHOUT savings, investment capital and possessions won't be able to leave.
You are BORN into this system, right, so you MUST uphold this ridiculous 'social contract' that you were born into? That's the argument - you are a slave of the system.
Soon enough you won't be able to renounce your citizenship at all unless you can pay out not only insane taxes, but also your portion of the national debt (why not?) and then you won't be able to leave just because you have to stay in the country, somebody HAS TO WORK, to pay for this 'socialist paradise', this 'social contract', the SS and Medicare and all that nonsense.
Admit it - USA is now USSR.
We weren't allowed to leave USSR, we weren't allowed to have real money or real investments or businesses or anything for that matter. The government owned us through and through, cradle to grave ownership of the persons.
We could be arrested and executed by the government for reasons that were completely political in nature. We could not leave our address even without the authorities letting us.
Nobody could leave the country really, very few travelled abroad, and most of those who travelled were KGB agents etc.
Admit it: USA is USSR.
---
There is absolutely NOTHING WRONG with a person wanting to leave the country if he believes that the country is abusing him, he doesn't want to pay the taxes - this is an EXCELLENT REASON to leave.
But when you fill out that form and when you bring it to the officials, don't you make a mistake and tell them that you want to escape the insane taxes and that's why you are renouncing the citizenship, they will not let you, and that is total bullshit. They own your ass.
And look at the pathetic/. crowd response: "fucker, take everything from him" or "fucker, don't let him in ever", etc.,etc.
You are in a thread, where I am replying to this comment:
So, just for clarity let's make sure everyone understands that the USPS is being deliberately engineered to fail by the same vandals and saboteurs who are deliberately engineering our economy to fail.
The real reason is that the price of stamps is mandated by the government, and since the government is doing everything it can to pretend that the inflation is low, they won't allow USPS to raise the prices to be able to survive.
Out of all the places I have been, I had the scariest taxi ride in Russia, St. Petersburg. We were going 120-150 through small streets, roads, on the turns, it doesn't matter. I drive fast myself, I like autobahn and going a few hundred km/h, but this was not it, it was just nuts. We almost ran over 2 people and the driver didn't bother with the seatbelt either.
You are right of-course, major turmoil is coming, it is all about the economy and it is in critical condition.
Now step back and think for a moment: if it is not a good sign that political freedoms are being limited this way because the government is expecting problems with handling of the people down the road, then is it a good sign that economic freedoms are stolen from people?
My proposition of-course, is that the economic liberties that are stolen at some point, eventually lead to economic downturn, and the more government involvement there is, the worst the downturn is.
In turn this leads to serious social problems and eventually disruptions and the government wants to stay in power (by definition), so it uses whatever resources it has to grow bigger and get itself more powers over the people so that they can be controlled via more and more force.
What we have now is it is cheaper to hire five people to use hand tools to do landscaping work than one person with a power mower.
- that is because the investment capital is not there. Tools require actual investment capital - somebody overproducing and under-consuming, that difference is what makes savings and investment capital, that then can be used to make somebody more productive (get a tool, get a better tool, design a better process, all these things make somebody more productive but require an investment).
In USA with all the money counterfeiting, fake interest rates, insane regulations and taxes, there is no real investment capital left. Whatever comes out of the Fed's helicopter shoot is not real money, so it's used to gamble (people don't gamble with real investments, but if it's not real and there is a search for return, which is very hard to come by in a negative return territory, then people take insane risks - thus various bubbles and strange IPOs, etc., but that's the point of the Fed, to create this environment).
But it is also cheaper to replace a $800 TV than it is to bring it to a technician to look at it because his labor is incredibly expensive.
- OTOH the consumer products are subsidised to the point of 52 or 54 already Billion USD/month by the foreigners (that's the trade deficit per month).
With this in mind, you can easily see why the productive tools are expensive and hard to come by, while consumer goods are relatively cheap, and since the productivity of the people in USA is very very very low given the absent investment capital, their real earnings are also very low, and so it's cheaper to hire people for manual labour than to acquire various productive tools, because there is are no investments.
The fake interest rates set by the Fed, which allows monetising the debt and other forms of subsidies and fake money is driving savings and investment capital elsewhere, that's the basic problem.
1. Most important - the moral objection. 2. Less important, but very practical - economic objection.
Moral objection is the most important one - income taxes mean that you are property of your government. The premise is most disgusting, it is that the government owns you, owns your productivity, which means it owns your life. The only question that the government is asking is whether taxing your income at a certain rate is going to maximise the revenue of the government. Their question only asks: can we tax these people more and get more revenue, or will taxing them more will get us less revenue.
It isn't even a consideration that taxing somebody's work is actually immoral, turns the people into forced labour, which means simply turns them into the property of the government - slaves.
Economic objection, the practical one - income taxes take money away from savings and investment, take money out of hands of people who have shown that they are good at making profits and give this money to the wasteful, corrupt bureaucrats. This causes people to modify their behaviour in order to find a way to pay minimum taxes, rather than putting that same effort into improving their business. Income taxes worsen the economy directly and indirectly, and there is a multiplier, when some of the income taxes of some people are distributed towards other people, so this takes money out of the hand that can produce and put the money into the hands that can't, that only consume.
There is a very stupid notion, that taxing producers to subsidise consumers is good for economy, because it's good for sales, but this is really perverted, as the producers then face robbery, their productive capital is diminished, and their money is given to people who don't produce, but instead consume what these producers create. So the money is taken away from the producers and then somebody comes to them with this very money and buys their product, so there, there is a real economic multiplier that hurts the economy multiple times.
1. The producer has less investment capital. 2. The producer has to give away his product for his own money, so he has to work more, to produce more for no profit. 3. The consumer is allowed not to produce, but simply to steal, as he doesn't have to exchange his own production for the production of those, he buys from. 4. The gov't gets bigger, because it really takes 90% of the money that supposedly goes towards 'the people' it is distributing to, so more and more taxes have to be collected or money printed or borrowed to feed this ever growing government.
That depends on the nation. There are certainly some (Somalia comes to mind) that would fit that definition.
- not at all. Somalia had huge governments. Just in the fifties it was still a British colony and until the early nineties it was a Communist dictatorship. They fought for their freedom from being oppressed by the totalitarian regimes of the world and they are getting quite an unfair rap, yet they actually now have a growing economy and even steady money - old currency, that's because nobody is printing it.
They have no income taxes, but that is not their issue.
And could the U.S. get money in the same way?
- it was very much able of getting enough money for the government from excise, sales taxes. 50% of federal income came from alcohol sales prior to 1913. Clearly the economy of USA was growing, after all, by the time the Fed was established USA already was the largest creditor nation, no debt, no deficit, it was the largest exporter as well, and none of it was done with income taxes and it did require plenty of infrastructure.
And certainly in USA the government was much smaller and it absolutely DID NOT take over private enterprise at the time.
Shilling for government much? It is of-course NONSENSE that a nation without INCOME TAXES is a nation without public streets, without other infrastructure, without even laws.
How in the world was USA surviving and thriving before income taxes were introduced I wonder? How in the world was the productivity going up, production and consumption going up and all those cities were being built, roads, etc., and no income taxes?
If Apple is forced to pay any income taxes and their effective rate is over 0%, then it is too much, and it's not only true for Apple either, it's for everybody.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, aerodynamic and also it's like a flying saucer, but with a tail, it's great.
--
If I was building a space ship, I'd probably have it be a giant rock, so that it would have its own gravity and could hold an atmosphere and people could walk on it without falling off and things wouldn't need to be screwed and glued on to stay on though.
Why? I don't understand this thinking at all, why shouldn't a person do everything in his power to minimise his taxes? I am amazed at the response to this story actually.
I actually think that the rest of the FB shareholders (including Zuckerberg) would have been better served by renouncing their citizenships as well, and by the way, I think those who do not do it, just don't understand the reality of what they are getting themselves into now, that USA is becoming more and more USSR like.
The wealthy are looking for ways out, they are moving their production out. Jim Rogers lives in Singapore though he didn't renounce his citizenship yet, I don't know why.
The problem with leaving is that there is a huge exit tax and IRS forces the person to liquidate all assets and then pay large taxes on them, but this means that a rich person, running a company has to sell, the entire thing or piece by piece, or however, and this is really ridiculous, given that you don't have to be a citizen in USA to own parts or entire companies, after all, anybody with any stock in a USA based company is a part owner, and you don't have to be a US citizen or resident to own US company stock.
Your parents consented to it for you when they either gave birth to you in the US or brought you here.
- ha, nobody can consent for you without you signing authorisation with a lawyer, and when you are a kid, you can't sign it, so you consented to nothing, you are not a slave of either your parents or the government just because you are born.
Presumably you are now of legal age. If you wish to no longer be bound by that contract
- again, nobody is under that contract just because they were born. There is no contract.
You didn't sign a contract.
You are not a slave of your parents.
You are not a slave of your government.
You freedom cannot be signed away by some proxy contract that you didn't sign and didn't give legal authority for anybody to sign on your behalf.
This is a pure nonsense argument.
attained some sophistication, discovered empathy, and got a clue.
- the most humanitarian people are the most libertarian, the ones who understand that a totalitarian government and lack of liberties is what causes poverty. Be it a socialist or a communist or a fascist government, be it a dictatorship or a monarchy, whatever, all this stuff destroys societies and prevents real wealth from being created.
USA was a Republic and as a free republic it allowed for the free people and the free people came to USA and now those who are still free are leaving. USA was built as a prosperous nation without government, now the government took over and ridiculous ideas about 'contract' that nobody signed are imposed upon children.
It is not your money.
It is not your government's money.
It is money of the investors who are willing to pay for FB shares, and you are not paying for it.
FB has thousands of employees, who are paying income taxes.
But beyond that, there shouldn't be income taxes, there shouldn't be corporate taxes, payroll taxes, death taxes, there shouldn't be dividend taxes or capital gains taxes.
All of the above assumes that you are property of the government, who lets you keep some of the money, because trying to steal all of it is impractical, because you will do less work and you will be busier searching for more ways to hide it.
Also Eduardo Saverin is very smart that he is doing this, for him to do this later would have been impossible. USA requires a huge exit tax, which would force him to liquidate his entire position in FB and then pay taxes on the gain.
I salute Eduardo, he is just doing what is absolutely rational and morally right. He shouldn't be putting himself in a position where he is owned by the government.
However for people who do it to try and escape from taxes? Fuck them
- so you are of the opinion that people actually belong to their governments, sort of like property? They should be forced into labour for the purposes of the government? Sort of like slaves were? Well, that is what income taxes are of-course, and you sound like you usually sound.
That's just a bunch of baloney, the USA was actually becoming a manufacturing superpower, a major creditor nation while the income taxes didn't exist.
Neither did any of these: capital gains taxes, death taxes, dividend taxes, payroll taxes, corporate income taxes.
So all of the real progress was made, the USA was put on the map not as an afterthought to the European nations, but as a true economic powerhouse, and all of this was done with:
1. Competition and constantly falling prices.
2. No income taxes and other taxes mentioned above.
3. No agencies and departments, such as Fed, IRS, FDIC, EPA, FDA, HUD, FHA, dep't of energy, education, commerce, interior, transport, agriculture, small business, etc. No SS, Medicare, EI, any business regulations, any inflation hiding agenda, such as minimum wage. No money printing, no artificial interest rates.
The economy was growing, the infrastructure was growing, and government was mostly living on sales and excise taxes, with 50% of it coming from alcohol sales.
Oh, did I mention the government wasn't killing US citizens, holding them without trial in indefinite detention, wasn't stealing property and wasn't messing with most of other individual freedoms? No standing army, no undeclared wars either.
No bail outs to 'too big to fail' monopolies and oligopolies that are created with the help of government moral hazards.
Yeah, taxes buy something, but ain't civilisation.
Are you a slave? Are you property of IRS or any other part of the US government?
Record number of Americans renouncing their citizenship to avoid paying taxes.
those of more modest means renounce, too. They say leaving America is about more than money; it's about privacy and red tape.
Two filing requirements affect Americans abroad: the Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts - which has been around since 1970 but now carries penalties for noncompliance - and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, passed in 2010 with the aim of reducing offshore tax evasion.
The first regulation requires all Americans, including those living abroad, with at least $10,000 in overseas bank accounts, to file a supplementary form disclosing all of their foreign accounts.
That includes any accounts in which the U.S. citizen has a financial interest. That could include a joint account with a spouse or child, accounts for corporations in which the American owns more than 50 per cent of the value of shares of stock, or any trust or estate that benefits the U.S. citizen.
The tax compliance act - the newer law - asks foreign financial institutions such as banks, hedge funds, and private equity funds to provide the IRS with information on U.S. clients.
Also practically speaking, do you have money to waste?
The additional compliance costs for companies to ensure that Americans they hire are filing the correct U.S. tax returns and asset-declaration forms are at least $5,000 per person, said Ledvina. Where individuals are getting their returns prepared, the expense may amount to $1,500 to $2,000, which is pushing expatriates to consider giving up citizenship.
âoeThe compliance costs are high and theyâ(TM)re getting worse,â Ledvina said. âoeItâ(TM)s hard to serve two authorities and the problem for Americans abroad is that the IRS doesnâ(TM)t care.â
Read more: Flood of Americans Give Up Citizenship to Dodge Tax Probe
(EU and US citizenships are basically the most favorable ones to hold).
- I don't think so personally.
US and EU citizenships are a liability, not an asset, especially not to the people who actually can produce wealth (and producing wealth means creating products and services that the market wants).
People are running away from USA now more than ever, though the absolute numbers are only in a couple of thousands a year right now, a couple of years ago it was only a couple of hundred. The wealthy French are looking to exit now into other countries.
I am wondering when will Jim Rogers drop his citizenship, or will he wait until the IRS tries to come after his entire wealth, once the interest rates skyrocket and the US gov't goes into totalitarian overdrive mode.
There is a death tax. The person who died already paid the taxes, and his wish is to leave the money to whoever he pleases, but not the government, but the government comes in and says: you can't do so. We taxed you while you were alive and we'll tax your wealth once you are dead too for good measure, just to remind everybody who's the boss.
As to "dynasties that don't have to work" canard, the money that is not spent is working all the time. What do you think the money is doing, just sitting there? About 96% of the wealth that Steve Jobs created he never spent on himself, that's the companies that he was part of, that's what the government wants to tax - a productive investment is reduced by a huge amount, which means holdings must be liquidated at firesale prices, and to what end? The people who are the heirs wouldn't have spent it anyway, but the taxes on the wealthy are not 100% and they leave more than 4% of the wealth anyway, and since Jobs only spent about 4% in his entire life, his heirs still can live their entire lives and not work really even with that money, so that logic is flawed.
The money that is stolen is NOT the money that would have been spent on consumption, it is the productive investment capital that is doing work.
As I said on many occasions, the regulations, the taxes, the inflation is destroying the investment capital - pushing it into the other countries, this FB guy here is just one example of that.
Inflation is a bitch, alright, and it is created by the government.
It didn't exist during USA's most prolific era - 19th century to beginning of 20th century, until the Fed was created and started the inflation. In fact during the times when USA had the most competition in the market, the falling prices, the value of the dollar was rising.
That's right, the anathema of governments - deflation of monetary supply, was happening while USA was actually freest and growing most prosperous.
Inflation is what USA government is giving you, that's what you are getting from the Fed and that's what has destroyed you.
Oh, it's coming. It's coming. The forms to renounce the citizenship used to be free, up to this year, now they are 450USD. The IRS can deny or revoke your passport now if you owe more than 25K in taxes to them, so never mind quitting the citizenship, you can't even leave the country to go anywhere, not even a vacation.
The exit tax is huge actually, it's gigantic, in order for somebody to leave, they have to LIQUIDATE THEIR BUSINESS and all estate in USA, which is ridiculous, why is that the case? Foreigners can own businesses and houses in USA, why can't a person, who is a former citizen own stuff in USA, it's still his property?
No, the IRS wants the exit tax, and now the exit tax is punishing enough, that people with businesses can't legally get rid of their citizenship without destroying the company or selling it off, soon enough the exit tax will be ridiculous enough that even people WITHOUT savings, investment capital and possessions won't be able to leave.
You are BORN into this system, right, so you MUST uphold this ridiculous 'social contract' that you were born into? That's the argument - you are a slave of the system.
Soon enough you won't be able to renounce your citizenship at all unless you can pay out not only insane taxes, but also your portion of the national debt (why not?) and then you won't be able to leave just because you have to stay in the country, somebody HAS TO WORK, to pay for this 'socialist paradise', this 'social contract', the SS and Medicare and all that nonsense.
Admit it - USA is now USSR.
We weren't allowed to leave USSR, we weren't allowed to have real money or real investments or businesses or anything for that matter. The government owned us through and through, cradle to grave ownership of the persons.
We could be arrested and executed by the government for reasons that were completely political in nature. We could not leave our address even without the authorities letting us.
Nobody could leave the country really, very few travelled abroad, and most of those who travelled were KGB agents etc.
Admit it: USA is USSR.
---
There is absolutely NOTHING WRONG with a person wanting to leave the country if he believes that the country is abusing him, he doesn't want to pay the taxes - this is an EXCELLENT REASON to leave.
But when you fill out that form and when you bring it to the officials, don't you make a mistake and tell them that you want to escape the insane taxes and that's why you are renouncing the citizenship, they will not let you, and that is total bullshit. They own your ass.
And look at the pathetic /. crowd response: "fucker, take everything from him" or "fucker, don't let him in ever", etc.,etc.
And this was a 'free country'? A 'free society'?
You make me sick.
I guarantee, you've not put more than 15 minutes into studying the political shenanigans that are destroying the USPS
here, choke on your own words, you slow kid.
you must be at lest 3 years old, your UID and the manner, in which you express yourself. Shouldn't you put 'are too' in there?
This thread - place where you don't belong, you need to go home and watch teleboobbies, or whatever they brainwash kids with nowadays.
You are in a thread, where I am replying to this comment:
So, just for clarity let's make sure everyone understands that the USPS is being deliberately engineered to fail by the same vandals and saboteurs who are deliberately engineering our economy to fail.
So you are the moron here.
No, that's not the reason.
The real reason is that the price of stamps is mandated by the government, and since the government is doing everything it can to pretend that the inflation is low, they won't allow USPS to raise the prices to be able to survive.
Out of all the places I have been, I had the scariest taxi ride in Russia, St. Petersburg. We were going 120-150 through small streets, roads, on the turns, it doesn't matter. I drive fast myself, I like autobahn and going a few hundred km/h, but this was not it, it was just nuts. We almost ran over 2 people and the driver didn't bother with the seatbelt either.
You are right of-course, major turmoil is coming, it is all about the economy and it is in critical condition.
Now step back and think for a moment: if it is not a good sign that political freedoms are being limited this way because the government is expecting problems with handling of the people down the road, then is it a good sign that economic freedoms are stolen from people?
My proposition of-course, is that the economic liberties that are stolen at some point, eventually lead to economic downturn, and the more government involvement there is, the worst the downturn is.
In turn this leads to serious social problems and eventually disruptions and the government wants to stay in power (by definition), so it uses whatever resources it has to grow bigger and get itself more powers over the people so that they can be controlled via more and more force.
What we have now is it is cheaper to hire five people to use hand tools to do landscaping work than one person with a power mower.
- that is because the investment capital is not there. Tools require actual investment capital - somebody overproducing and under-consuming, that difference is what makes savings and investment capital, that then can be used to make somebody more productive (get a tool, get a better tool, design a better process, all these things make somebody more productive but require an investment).
In USA with all the money counterfeiting, fake interest rates, insane regulations and taxes, there is no real investment capital left. Whatever comes out of the Fed's helicopter shoot is not real money, so it's used to gamble (people don't gamble with real investments, but if it's not real and there is a search for return, which is very hard to come by in a negative return territory, then people take insane risks - thus various bubbles and strange IPOs, etc., but that's the point of the Fed, to create this environment).
But it is also cheaper to replace a $800 TV than it is to bring it to a technician to look at it because his labor is incredibly expensive.
- OTOH the consumer products are subsidised to the point of 52 or 54 already Billion USD/month by the foreigners (that's the trade deficit per month).
With this in mind, you can easily see why the productive tools are expensive and hard to come by, while consumer goods are relatively cheap, and since the productivity of the people in USA is very very very low given the absent investment capital, their real earnings are also very low, and so it's cheaper to hire people for manual labour than to acquire various productive tools, because there is are no investments.
The fake interest rates set by the Fed, which allows monetising the debt and other forms of subsidies and fake money is driving savings and investment capital elsewhere, that's the basic problem.
There are 2 objections to income taxes.
1. Most important - the moral objection.
2. Less important, but very practical - economic objection.
Moral objection is the most important one - income taxes mean that you are property of your government. The premise is most disgusting, it is that the government owns you, owns your productivity, which means it owns your life. The only question that the government is asking is whether taxing your income at a certain rate is going to maximise the revenue of the government. Their question only asks: can we tax these people more and get more revenue, or will taxing them more will get us less revenue.
It isn't even a consideration that taxing somebody's work is actually immoral, turns the people into forced labour, which means simply turns them into the property of the government - slaves.
Economic objection, the practical one - income taxes take money away from savings and investment, take money out of hands of people who have shown that they are good at making profits and give this money to the wasteful, corrupt bureaucrats. This causes people to modify their behaviour in order to find a way to pay minimum taxes, rather than putting that same effort into improving their business. Income taxes worsen the economy directly and indirectly, and there is a multiplier, when some of the income taxes of some people are distributed towards other people, so this takes money out of the hand that can produce and put the money into the hands that can't, that only consume.
There is a very stupid notion, that taxing producers to subsidise consumers is good for economy, because it's good for sales, but this is really perverted, as the producers then face robbery, their productive capital is diminished, and their money is given to people who don't produce, but instead consume what these producers create. So the money is taken away from the producers and then somebody comes to them with this very money and buys their product, so there, there is a real economic multiplier that hurts the economy multiple times.
1. The producer has less investment capital.
2. The producer has to give away his product for his own money, so he has to work more, to produce more for no profit.
3. The consumer is allowed not to produce, but simply to steal, as he doesn't have to exchange his own production for the production of those, he buys from.
4. The gov't gets bigger, because it really takes 90% of the money that supposedly goes towards 'the people' it is distributing to, so more and more taxes have to be collected or money printed or borrowed to feed this ever growing government.
That depends on the nation. There are certainly some (Somalia comes to mind) that would fit that definition.
- not at all. Somalia had huge governments. Just in the fifties it was still a British colony and until the early nineties it was a Communist dictatorship. They fought for their freedom from being oppressed by the totalitarian regimes of the world and they are getting quite an unfair rap, yet they actually now have a growing economy and even steady money - old currency, that's because nobody is printing it.
They have no income taxes, but that is not their issue.
And could the U.S. get money in the same way?
- it was very much able of getting enough money for the government from excise, sales taxes. 50% of federal income came from alcohol sales prior to 1913. Clearly the economy of USA was growing, after all, by the time the Fed was established USA already was the largest creditor nation, no debt, no deficit, it was the largest exporter as well, and none of it was done with income taxes and it did require plenty of infrastructure.
And certainly in USA the government was much smaller and it absolutely DID NOT take over private enterprise at the time.
People other than you understand that we need civilization.
- people other than me also should understand that you are a government shill, equating CIVILIZATION to INCOME TAXES.
Shilling for government much? It is of-course NONSENSE that a nation without INCOME TAXES is a nation without public streets, without other infrastructure, without even laws.
How in the world was USA surviving and thriving before income taxes were introduced I wonder? How in the world was the productivity going up, production and consumption going up and all those cities were being built, roads, etc., and no income taxes?
Must have been 'naked power'.
If Apple is forced to pay any income taxes and their effective rate is over 0%, then it is too much, and it's not only true for Apple either, it's for everybody.
So you have property rights in USA, ha?