The Ethics of Talking to Tax Nuts

[LPC]

Hatfield, Michael W., Tax Lawyers, Tax Defiance, and the Ethics of Casual Conversation (July 16, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1645569

Abstract: This Essay addresses the increasingly common social situation in which tax lawyers are confronted with tax protester arguments and similar anti-tax system comments. This Essay seeks to place these conversations in a greater context of tax policy and ethical considerations, urging tax lawyers not to walk away from the conversations but rather to engage with hopes of educating the public, improving the law, and protecting the interests of the vast majority of Americans who pay their share of the price of civilization and expect others to do the same.

I guess I don't get out enough, because I have never been confronted with tax protester arguments in a social situation.

[The Observer]

But this could be a blessing in disguise and that you will realize that you now have a reason to not get out more often. After all, who would want to actively engage a tax nut in a conversation at a dinner party?

[Famspear]

Hatfield, Michael W., Tax Lawyers, Tax Defiance, and the Ethics of Casual Conversation (July 16, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1645569

Abstract: This Essay addresses the increasingly common social situation in which tax lawyers are confronted with tax protester arguments and similar anti-tax system comments. This Essay seeks to place these conversations in a greater context of tax policy and ethical considerations, urging tax lawyers not to walk away from the conversations but rather to engage with hopes of educating the public, improving the law, and protecting the interests of the vast majority of Americans who pay their share of the price of civilization and expect others to do the same.

I guess I don't get out enough, because I have never been confronted with tax protester arguments in a social situation.

Same here. But the problem might not be that we don't get out enough. Maybe we're just not hangin' with the right crowd.

[Evil Squirrel Overlord]

I guess I don't get out enough, because I have never been confronted with tax protester arguments in a social situation.

I haven't since I stopped going to all-age garage keggers. (Where the beer is free -- TPers don't like to pay for anything. )

[Number Six]

You would find a fair number of tax deniers in generally rural-based clubs and organizations. The Bible Belt seems to be a fertile ground for many far-out ideological theories. And if you are hiking the Appalachian Trail in the Bible Belt, you will have trouble fending off fundamentalists prosyletizing in their various forms, if you are not "saved".

Tax protesters are few and far between in cities and wealthy towns, or they keep it to themselves, and most people who cheat on taxes accept that the end justifies the means, and cheat through their accountants, who like father confessors, hear all manner of tax abominations and absolve the tax payers of their sins through artifice. Those who take an ideological stand that they will not file if doing so involves perjury or complicity with the system, are very few. Most are war tax protesters who are in the tragic situation of following an ideology at odds with an entirely pragmatic American system tracked through computers and profilers.

The author of the article makes this assertion: "Ultimately, it is also a matter of civic duty. Those who refuse to comply with the tax system are
criminals threatening the fabric of our system–and cost each honest American who pays what she
owes when she owes it. Ultimately, there must be an appeal to the gratefulness Americans
should have for our standard of living and our mode of government, and an urging to use the
latter to try to improve the former, but not to undermine both through tax defiance."

Tax protesters challenge this principle at every turn. And no sensible person is going to post on this site and put themselves at jeopardy with site managers who are experts at identifying the individual, contacting relevant government agency and nailing the perp's hide to the wall.

[Judge Roy Bean]

...

I guess I don't get out enough, because I have never been confronted with tax protester arguments in a social situation.

A lone TP who isn't trying to make something off the scam rarely knows enough about the issue to actually defend the mythology, which means in a public setting where someone might actually be something of an authority, the risk of being made a fool of is too great.

[Arthur Rubin]

...

I guess I don't get out enough, because I have never been confronted with tax protester arguments in a social situation.

A lone TP who isn't trying to make something off the scam rarely knows enough about the issue to actually defend the mythology, which means in a public setting where someone might actually be something of an authority, the risk of being made a fool of is too great.

Actually, I have run across a number of libertarian TPs in science fiction fandom. At least some of them appear to be confusing reality with fiction, at least in terms of group marriages and taxation. (I decline to name names; especially since I don't knos if the individuals whose names I do not recall actually practice what they preach (in Fan gatherings).

[bmielke]

I have never ran into a TP, I have run into birfers.

[Imalawman]

I guess I don't get out enough, because I have never been confronted with tax protester arguments in a social situation.

Growing up in the circumstances that I did, I was confronted numerous occasions with TPs. Since I still have some contact with some old family friends and their children, I have had conversations with TPs on a semi-regular basis in "social situations". I also have just randomly run into them at various places and times.

Interestingly, most TPs I've met are very nice and usually polite - different from the jerks on the internet. It's the sovereign folks that are universally raging assholes, in my experience. Though, I will say that it is kind of rare, lately, to meet plain vanilla TPs. Most nowadays are sovereign/TP mixes. I think Demo would agree that this is a growing trend.

[Number Six]

I have tried to figure out what culture tends to spawn tax deniers, non-filers, sov'runs, and then the "end-justifies-the-means" type of tax cheat. There is a difference and a rationale that goes with each. You will meet a fair number of people who have had big tax issues in AA and other 12 step meetings, and since the program is about keeping people sober on one hand and helping those coping with the "qualifier" on the other, it becomes difficult to address legal matters in such a fellowship. If people get sick and tired of being sick and tired they can get help and get out of the stinking thinking of blame and resentment, backward looking judgments that do not help progress. The 12 steps are not an enforcement program. Attempts to "get" people into compliance can end up being like a Greek tragedy, not helpful. So it leaves government in a predicament in an increasingly legally-regulated society--forced compliance and interventions can lead to unpredictable results. That's why the carrot extended to the taxpayer needs to be something that is appealing and the stick should not lead him/her to desperation.

[Duke2Earl]

The actual fact is tax denial is usually a symptom, not a disease in itself. Tax deniers are usually people that have a whole panopy of other issues with their relationship to society and especially authority. And the reason why they can't be treated is because it is usually not effective to treat a symptom apart from the disease. There are exceptions, of course, people who have been led astray on this one issue but they are the minority... and they often do see the light. But for most tax deniers, tax denial is only a single manifestation of a much larger problem.

[Famspear]

The actual fact is tax denial is usually a symptom, not a disease in itself. Tax deniers are usually people that have a whole panopy of other issues with their relationship to society and especially authority. And the reason why they can't be treated is because it is usually not effective to treat a symptom apart from the disease. There are exceptions, of course, people who have been led astray on this one issue but they are the minority... and they often do see the light. But for most tax deniers, tax denial is only a single manifestation of a much larger problem.

I believe this encapsulates a fundamental truth about many tax protester/tax denier types.

[The Observer]

The actual fact is tax denial is usually a symptom, not a disease in itself. Tax deniers are usually people that have a whole panopy of other issues with their relationship to society and especially authority. And the reason why they can't be treated is because it is usually not effective to treat a symptom apart from the disease. There are exceptions, of course, people who have been led astray on this one issue but they are the minority... and they often do see the light. But for most tax deniers, tax denial is only a single manifestation of a much larger problem.

I think this is pretty much on target. I had a distant cousin who worked in aerospace and never had any issues with authority or observance of the law. One day a TP promoter got in touch with the workforce and "educated" them about how they were not liable for income tax and convinced them to go exempt and submit new W-4 forms to the employer. Once word got out to the IRS about this, apparently the IRS started contacting the employees (after advising the employer to put no exemptions down for the offenders). My cousin immediately complied with the IRS and got his life straightened out in that regards. And he has had a successful life. It is obvious that he thought that this was something that he could get away with, but once he realized what sort of trouble he was getting himself into, he stopped doing it.

On the other hand, the TPs that we have come to know and love so well, could never accept the fact that they are playing a losing hand and would continue to keep raising the pot, all the while the IRS is showing 3 aces on a 7 card stud hand.

[Number Six]

Usually there has been a crisis in the life of the tax protestor which may be the source of the tax denial or protest. The Collyer brothers became tax protestors, but the larger issue was psychological and social. I have known several like this who also had the hoarding habit, defiance of authority, etc.. If you hear their stories, usually a crisis happened to them, which may be at the core of anger and resentment around which other paranoias developed. Certain political crises and warnings tend to draw numbers such as the Y2K event--the question "what if it is true?" may be hard to refute. I met a cop who was maxing out all his credit cards in the fall of 1999 and was looking for his "omega" property in preparation. A solution for many is to get back into the mainstream, join a church, submit to pros who have seen dozens or hundreds of cases like their own, and who know the way to relative normalcy.

On the War Tax Resister front, there is an interesting book on this movement: http://www.nwtrcc.org/PDFs/WTR2010Update.pdf There were relatively few WTR's before the Vietnam era. Most of those adhering to this movement are doing it for more noble reasons, the next generation, than self-interest. The result, however, may be the same: Government trouble.