1431
Did you pay your taxes?
(thelemmy.club)
Related: Robert Reich posted earlier today that Tesla paid ZERO taxes on $5 billion in sales (earnings?), so that’s just fucking great.
That's a lot of people man. Poor and rich alike. Lots and lots of people cheat on their taxes, lie about their income, and use tax loopholes to reduce their tax burdens, both legally and illegally.
OP above doesn't have to report that 2500, and incredibly common for self employed people to vastly under report their income within about 10%. The vast majority will never be audited, but from those who have been audited the IRS draws the following conclusion:
https://isr.umich.edu/news-events/news-releases/self-employment-income-widely-underreported-u-m-survey-shows/
in other countries it's far worse. a major part of the 2009 Greek financial crisis was the fact 1/3 of Greek GDP is untaxed. that's 1/3 of the taxes missing entirely.
https://www.npr.org/2010/03/25/125125500/greeces-bottom-line-too-many-tax-cheats
Yes, I am very aware of this, I have known this since I started paying taxes. It's very, very abundantly clear. Legal loopholes are fine, I don't have to agree with the laws, but I do agree to follow them until we get them changed (which we must). But illegal tax dodging? Are you trying to convince me I should respect anyone for that? Even if I believed they have good motives or reasons, which I don't, there are lots of better ways to practice civil disobedience than withholding taxes like it's a fucking tip for good government.
it's not a matter of you respecting them. it's a matter of whether or not it's economically or legally worthwhile.
if the fine for cheating on my taxes is less than the tax i'd pay (and the returns I'd get on investing those taxes) it's worth it.
People behave according to incentives. If the penalty for under reporting your taxes was 20 years in jail and it was rigorously enforced, people would not cheat on their taxes as much. However, the punishment is:
So basically if I get caught, all I do is pay more tax, which might be scary to lower income people, but for rich people who can get MASSIVE returns on their untaxed income, it is stupid not to do it. if I can save 10,000 per year and invest it and turn it into 400K after ten years, then the 20% extra tax I'd pay on that withheld 100K is a not much of a penalty at all. It's 20K or 5% of the money I now have from cheating on my taxes. and even if i only double my money to 200K, I'm still only paying 10% of what I have earned.
shouldn't the penalty be 500K? that would make cheating on my taxes more costly than not cheating.