No Name, We Need Your Help
No Name,
Today is a very important day for your federal government. We need your help to keep it going, and we need you to send a sizeable portion of your annual income to make sure it does. Just think of all the things that your federal government does for you. Things like:
- Tax you
- Spend your money on things people wouldn’t voluntarily buy themselves
- Borrow money
- Fail to secure the border
And so much more!
Last year, with your help, we raised over $3 trillion in taxes. To exceed that limit, we need your help.
We want you to be able to look into your children’s eyes and know that their future in America is going to one burdened with a crushing and unpayable debt. No Name, in order to make those dreams a reality, we are asking for your immediate support. To be honest, we’re not asking for it. We are demanding it.
Won’t you stand with us on this federal income tax day and make your contribution of 10%, 25%, 35%, or even 39.6% of everything you make?
No Name, we’re not going to run your typical kind of federal government, full of smokescreens and empty promises. We promise to regulate businesses into submission, rewrite tax provisions so that they bear no relationship to what Congress wrote, and manage the economy with a group of elites headed by a political appointee. These are not empty promises, No Name. You can take them to the central bank, where we will redeem them in pieces of paper that we promise will lose more value every year.
Remember: the other countries around the world are watching our intake like hawks. The amount we raise over the next 24 hours will be scrutinized and viewed as a symbol of the strength of our country. That is why we urgently need your support right now.
Thank you for your devotion and commitment to taking back our country. And remember: if you don’t make your voluntary contribution, men with guns will be at your door, to take you to a room with locked doors and no windows, to spend a few years with a violent rapist.
So won’t you make your contribution today?
Ding.
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/15/2015 @ 7:29 amIf I give you more money, can I water my lawn more often?
Patricia (5fc097) — 4/15/2015 @ 7:38 amPatricia: Thank you for your request. We appreciate all requests from the citizens we serve and strive to answer them in a timely manner, to serve you better. The answer is no.
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/15/2015 @ 7:40 amYay, Lincoln!
Matador (35621d) — 4/15/2015 @ 7:41 amgod i hate these people and the boehner pelosi medicare boondoggle is gonna scoot this laughable pathetic self-styled coward-ass “superpower” even further down the road to third whirl destitution and squalor
Losers.
happyfeet (a037ad) — 4/15/2015 @ 7:41 amI don’t know whether to laugh or weep.
DRJ (e80d46) — 4/15/2015 @ 7:42 amThis music video from Reason is funny in the same truthful, uncomfortable way.
DRJ (e80d46) — 4/15/2015 @ 7:50 amA bigger, greedier, more corrupt IRS is Obama’s glorious, shining legacy.
Mark (6c31df) — 4/15/2015 @ 7:54 amAfter I give you the percentage you demand on the money I have worked for, when I die I can at least leave what I have left to my kids, right?
Georganne (e37667) — 4/15/2015 @ 7:56 amGovernment, the gift that keeps on taking.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/15/2015 @ 7:59 amto protect and to serve
mg (31009b) — 4/15/2015 @ 8:07 amthemselves.
“To Serve Man”
Kevin M (25bbee) — 4/15/2015 @ 8:18 amThis will hardly hurt at all and the forms are simple and take virtually no time to complete.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 4/15/2015 @ 8:36 amIf the leviathan mass media would ever deploy their resources and influence to honestly and responsibly cover the IRS and the people who run the IRS, along with some of the true “everyday” horror stories about how decent people are regularly brutalized by the IRS, things could be different in this country. And that doesn’t even start to address most of the issues Patterico addressed in this excellent post about how the taxes we citizens pay to *fund* the government seem to be misused at every turn by politicians funding things and programs many of us hate and believe to be counter-productive to this nation’s well being.
elissa (ec0953) — 4/15/2015 @ 8:46 amMr. govmnt, no one shows you more love than we, the bussiness (kisses!)owners who pony up four times a year on Jan., Apr., Jul., and Oct. Not just for ourselves, but for each and every person we employ. ’cause Partiotism!
felipe (b5e0f4) — 4/15/2015 @ 9:02 amIt’s OK – just go vote for some representatives who will actually listen to your input.
/rimshot
Leviticus (f9a067) — 4/15/2015 @ 9:18 amThe hacks in d.c. need to hear something with no language barrier.
mg (31009b) — 4/15/2015 @ 11:09 amthe universal sound of shells heading into a 12 gauge.
the forms are simple and take virtually no time to complete.
It’s just a box in which you enter your income.
Then, send it in.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 4/15/2015 @ 11:54 amJoking aside, this country has an almost unique history of voluntary compliance with tax law. That is eroding.
Theodore Dalrymple in this essay points out how Britain has declined due to a culture of law abiding citizens. Italy lacks this.
The infant mortality rate in the year in which I was born was at least three times higher in Italy than in Britain. Now, half a century later, it is lower than in Britain, and Italians in general live longer and healthier lives than Britons. Not only is Italy noticeably richer than Britain, but it is also considerably cleaner. Recently, the newspaper La Repubblica carried an article wondering why the British food supply was so unclean and unsafe.
This is an astonishing reversal: for two and a half centuries at least, Britain was much richer than Italy in almost everything except its past. Britons pitied and condescended to their Italian contemporaries. Italy was a country of inexhaustible charm, sybaritic pleasure, and cultural wealth, of course, but it was not to be taken quite seriously in an economic or political sense. Even Mussolini concluded toward the end of his life that Italy was not really a serious country.
What has happened ?
Foreigners who have lived in Italy invariably recount their epic struggles with public utilities, the legatees of state monopolies, to have a telephone connected, for example, or to pay the gas bill. How can a modern economy not only function but flourish in such circumstances?
The Italian public administration has traditionally had one saving grace by comparison with its British counterpart, however: its corruption.
Admittedly, corruption is a strange kind of virtue: but so is honesty in pursuit of useless or harmful ends. Corruption is generally held to be a vice, and viewed in the abstract, it is. But bad behavior can sometimes have good effects, and good behavior bad effects.
Where administration is light and bureaucracy small, bureaucratic honesty is an incomparable virtue; but where these are heavy and large, as in all modern European states, Britain and Italy not least among them, they burden and obstruct the inventive and energetic. Where bureaucrats are honest, no one can cut through their Laocoönian coils: their procedures, no matter how onerous, antiquated, or bloody-minded, must be endured patiently. Such bureaucrats can
neither be hurried in their deliberations nor made to see common sense. Indeed, the very absurdity or pedantry of these deliberations is for them the guarantee of their own fair-mindedness, impartiality, and disinterest. To treat all people with equal contempt and indifference is the bureaucrat’s idea of equity.
The solution, if you read his essay,is simple. Do not obey the law.
The thoroughly obvious corruption of Italian officials convinced the population that the state was their enemy, not their patron or protector, and they regarded it with profound mistrust. Accordingly, people of all classes evaded taxes, without moral opprobrium; everyone regarded the idea of revealing one’s entire income to the authorities and paying the taxes upon it as laughable in its naïveté. As far as possible, people concealed their economic activity from the eyes of the state, giving rise to Italy’s notorious “black” economy, a kind of parallel market, which is by common consent larger and more sophisticated than in any other European state. The size of this parallel market probably explains why the country, with an official per-capita GNP the size of Britain’s, looks very much more prosperous than Britain.
There is our future.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 4/15/2015 @ 11:59 ami’m finding that Chicago has a notably greater number of “cash only” businesses than I ever found in LA
happyfeet (a037ad) — 4/15/2015 @ 12:12 pmI would say that the Apple pay system and all such (credit/debit) payment systems are designed to combat the rise of a “black” economy. If only the government could stop the citizenry’s love affair with cash, then would they get full tax compliance.
felipe (b5e0f4) — 4/15/2015 @ 12:26 pmAs a temporarily poor person I still mailed out nearly 10% of my income to Federal employees.
This cannot work.
DNF (208255) — 4/15/2015 @ 2:22 pm“Defenseless against your own government”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/frustration-with-mistaken-tax-refund-seizures-continues/
elissa (1d838c) — 4/15/2015 @ 5:41 pmLOL, Patrick, at least your response was timely!
I once had a running email and snail mail dispute for about a year with a certain utility company, and the fellow in charge of my claim, unreachable by phone for some reason, signed his name “Kafka,” I kid you not.
Only when I threatened suit did the malefactor pay up the claim. I think someone feared outing as the mysterious Mr. Kafka.
Patricia (6539d7) — 4/15/2015 @ 8:39 pmMike I, that future is now.
I remember about five years ago, I would watch in horror the parade of immigrants clattering by with the house with their stolen grocery carts filled with goodies (paid for by the generous taxpayer, I assume). Of course, no one ever stopped them, let alone a police officer! That would be unkind and stupid too, as it would inflame the permanent class of protestor.
Now the immigrants are gone, back home where the grass is greener, but their legacy remains. The stolen shopping cart is now a fixture of the neighborhood. It’s quite handy and free! Everyone does it.
Patricia (6539d7) — 4/15/2015 @ 8:47 pmPatricia,
You can still find them on Sunset Blvd toward Echo Park selling anything and everything rolled up in a tortilla from those stolen grocery carts.
Dana (86e864) — 4/15/2015 @ 8:56 pmSo this blog likes cops and dislikes tax collectors. A little strange as they are two sides of the same coin.
James B. Shearer (da3f60) — 4/15/2015 @ 10:17 pmIs that a federal coin or a state coin?
If you can show me that every tax dollar collected by the federal government goes towards law enforcement, James B. Shearer, I’ll retract my statement that your IQ resembles that of par golf.
Patterico (9c670f) — 4/15/2015 @ 10:23 pmthe FTB here in #Failifornia just filed a tax lien on any & all real property i own here in Lost Angels county, due to unpaid taxes.
2 minor problems with that:
1. i don’t own any real property, and likely never will, due to the booming economy and my age.
2. they claim i owe taxes on years when they received a W-2 or 1099 where i made less than the minimum filing amount, but, because i hold a professional certificate from a state licensing board, they, in their infinite wisdom, decided that i had obviously earned the income the state agency said was the average for someone with my papers.
the fact that they had no W-2 or 1099 to back up this alleged income was immaterial to them. i have the certification, so i obviously am employed. (would that it were true: i’m tired of living off of charity)
since they didn’t get any papers in 2013, i haven’t heard about that year, yet, but, once they notice the W-3 for last year, made out for the munificent sum of $127, i’m sure they will be adding to the total of back taxes i “owe”
redc1c4 (dab236) — 4/15/2015 @ 11:24 pmi will be filing this year, eventually, with the feds at least…
seems i qualify for about $10 in EIC, so i will claim that, just so the IRS can seize it for the back taxes and penalties they say i owe…
a few years back, when i did have *some* income, i filed my taxes, with all my documentation, like a good little zek.
in due time i got a letter from the IRS stating that they had reviewed my filing, made an adjustment, and did i want to contest it. being no fool, i went with their numbers, and, eventually got my money.
shortly there after, i signed a petition @ whitehouse.gov, using my Army e-mail addy.
a few weeks after that, i got another email from the IRS: it seems that they had just re-reviewed my filing, and now i owed them my refund, plus penalties & taxes, dues and payable immediately.
i’m sure it was just a coincidence, what with the timing and all.
😎
redc1c4 (dab236) — 4/15/2015 @ 11:30 pm“another letter”, not email in #30.
redc1c4 (dab236) — 4/15/2015 @ 11:31 pmredc1c4, that’s awful!
Ask the FTB if they are also seeking back taxes from all the people (many of them immigrants, of course) who work in cash businesses. Last time the FTB admitted it, they said this resulted in $6 billion in lost revenue.
Patricia (5fc097) — 4/16/2015 @ 7:50 amIf you can show me that every tax dollar collected by the federal government goes towards law enforcement …
I am not claiming this. My claims are:
1. Law enforcement and tax collection are both essential functions of the state. They can be done in various ways but you aren’t going to get rid of them.
2. I see little evidence that our tax laws are any more fouled up than our laws in general.
3. In any case individual revenue agents like individual cops are tasked with enforcing current laws.
4. Most people who have problems with the tax man like most people who have problems with cops have done something to contribute to their difficulties.
5. Stories of abuse by tax collectors like stories of abuse by cops are often biased and leave out important facts which means they should not be accepted uncritically.
James B. Shearer (19ef3c) — 4/16/2015 @ 5:51 pm