TPs to "defund" Govt.? (Part 2)

[AFTP]

This thread got locked here viewtopic.php?t=9598
so I'd like to clarify and try again.

Original opening comment:
"While I understand the frustration with the Govt. shut down, I'm seeing more BS of defunding the system.
People are advocating not paying taxes to do this on social media.
My response is "how do you plan on doing that?"

After all most wont stop filing a return because most will get money back and don't want to lose it and other are afraid of jail.
It's their boss that withholds money for taxes and they wont risk their business for the "cause".
Thoughts?"

To clarify TP is tax protester not tea party.
However, after thinking about this I don't think the people withholding taxes and not filing are TPs as known here.

They seem to be using the tax money as a weapon against the Govt. to essentially overthrow it. I'd venture to say they've never heard of most of the TP arguments.

So, do you agree with this assessment and do you think it's possible for them to do it and if so what would be the consequence if any?

[Cathulhu]

I've heard "defund the government" before, generally from people living off the grid (essentially, they've demoted themselves to the status of illegal aliens--working under the table with no protections at all, and for some strange reason they're always poor and trying to hit me for money) and generally it comes to nothing. The people who are advocating this are generally not paying their taxes in the first place, near as I can tell, and they think if they get enough people to join in, the IRS will be too busy to bother with the collection activities on them, since they have so little to assess against. If they came out from their hideouts, they'd likely qualify for CNC (currently not collectible) status. But they don't want to admit it.

[JamesVincent]

It doesn't sound any different then what people like Cindy Sheehan do. "I don't like what the government does on this issue so I'm not going to pay my taxes so they can't use my taxes for something I don't like" sounds like a good summary. I know very well I don't agree with the government on quite a few things but I still have an obligation to pay taxes and trying to withhold for one thing also means all the necessary things, like our soldiers, won't get their pay or benefits either. I'm going to leave it at that since I cannot discuss soldiers pay getting cut in a civilized manner.

[notorial dissent]

This is a VERY VERY old chant, I can remember this back well before Viet Nam, and it hasn't changed appreciably since then, just the window dressing. My personal supposition has always been that the ones chanting the loudest probably don't, or wouldn't qualify to pay taxes anyway for the most part. I know a good number of the TP crowd has used this occasionally, but the end result is always the same, they threw a party and no one came. I think it has maybe gotten more press of late thanks entirely to the internet, but it still isn't getting much in the way of traction that I have seen.

[Famspear]

This is a VERY VERY old chant, I can remember this back well before Viet Nam, and it hasn't changed appreciably since then.....

Dan, in his Tax Protester FAQ, cites this old case from the Vietnam era: United States v. Malinowski, 347 F. Supp. 347, 73-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) ¶9355 (E.D. Pa. 1972), aff’d, 472 F.2d 850, 73-1 U.S. Tax Cas. (CCH) ¶9199 (3d Cir. 1973), cert. denied, 411 U.S. 970 (1973), as do I, in one of the Wikipedia articles on tax protesters. This is the very earliest reported case I have found (so far) where a court uses the term "protest" or "tax protestor" (spelled "protestor" rather than "protester") in this way.

Dan's web site:

http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html

The Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_protester

(look under the heading "Origin of term" in the article)

And, here's the text of the opinion:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case? ... 93&scilh=0

[Lambkin]

People are advocating not paying taxes to do this on social media.
My response is "how do you plan on doing that?"

After all most wont stop filing a return because most will get money back and don't want to lose it and other are afraid of jail.
It's their boss that withholds money for taxes and they wont risk their business for the "cause".
Thoughts?"

It's just idle ranting, threatening and boasting; it means nothing. When I (and many of you) were in college, there was plenty of talk about smashing the state and it only taking a spark to ignite a revolution (c.f., Leon Trotsky). This kind of talk does not take into account the nature of the majority which is not inclined any kind of radical action and knows its self-interest pretty well (at least for the short-term). The prospective revolutionary with the "spark" view tends to be either a blowhard or delusional.

[JamesVincent]

The Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_protester

(look under the heading "Origin of term" in the article)

I always love going back through the Tax articles and reading all the byplay on the talk page with Famspear and Arthur Rubin. It is a worthwhile read. Almost as much fun as the 14th Amendment page.

[fortinbras]

[Moderator: The Observer: Post removed for being off-topic and moving into political discussion; this is in violation of the no-politics rule. Hint: topic is about TPs advocating defunding of the government, not Congress.]

[Dai Kiwi]

Speaking as one outside the US, this is a 'call to arms' which I have seen several times in several countries I have lived in in the past couple of decades. The theory is attractive - 'if enough of us stop paying tax they'll *have* to listen to us!'.

As others have pointed out it is mostly empty rhetoric. The people calling for it are usually those at the bottom of the earnings structure - often on some form of government support, university students, those living between the margins, or 'professional' protesters.

In most of the western world most people are wage earners and are subject to some variation of 'pay as you earn' taxation, where it is deducted at source by the employer. While the call may sound attractive there is no way that most of the population can 'opt out'.

In the end it is merely sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[LPC]

Larken Rose (remember Larken Rose?) admitted in emails that the government admitted into evidence at his trial that he didn't really care whether the 861 argument was "right" or not. His main interest was in encouraging people not to pay taxes, depriving the government of revenue and bringing about a "bloodless coup" (his words).

But that's rare, I think. Most tax deniers have no interests any grander than (a) not paying taxes and (b) getting the government to leave them alone. Some are anarchists like Larken Rose, but very few of them are interested in any big political movement. (How do anarchists organize?) They may pretend they do in order to maintain a facade of "principle," but most of them don't care about anyone or anything but themselves.