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Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Corporations as Tax Collectors

A large corporation is a branch of the government. The corporation's management receives many State-granted perks. The corporation is subject to so many laws and regulations that it functions like a government bureaucracy. The corporation's management receive many direct and indirect State subsidies.

There's one evil of corporations that's not frequently mentioned. It's the role that corporations pay as tax collectors.

Whenever you work for a corporation, that corporation's accountants have an obligation to report that transaction to the IRS, via a 1099 or W-2 form. If you're an employee, the corporation has an obligation to withhold taxes from your salary and directly pay them to the State. If you're a contractor paid on a 1099, then the State bureaucrats know about the transaction and will harass you to collect taxes.

This tax collection mechanism occurs without almost anyone questioning it.

Some freedom activists say you should refuse to sign a W-4 form or that you should claim 99 exemptions. If you do this, then the HR department will likely refuse to hire you. No corporation will hire someone who refuses to sign a W-4 form. If you claim 99 exemptions, the HR representative will probably reject your W-4 form as invalid. If you're a new employee and refuse to sign the W-4 form, then your job offer will likely be rescinded.

The practice of mandatory tax withholding was instituted as a "temporary emergency measure" during World War II. Once the bad guys claim an erosion of freedom, it becomes permanent and irrevocable. This "temporary emergency tax" is now permanent, with war as the excuse for imposing this restriction of freedom. As usual, War is the Health of the State. Freedom is eroded during war, and those erosions of freedom are permanent after the war ends.

Corporations control nearly the entire economy. If you refuse to work for *ANY* corporation, your employment opportunities are severely limited. Even if you work for a corporation as a contractor or consultant, the transaction is still reported to the State.

All economic activity must be reported to the State and taxed. This is a complete perversion of the idea that we live in a country of free individuals.

If you start an on-the-books business, you have an obligation to figure out how much tax you owe and pay it. If you're perform the calculation incorrectly, or refuse to do it, then armed thugs will come to kidnap/assault/kill you. All business owners are forced to work for the State as unpaid tax collectors.

What is the risk of State armed thugs assaulting you if you start an off-the-books business? The only way to try is to find out.

This is a very lucrative arrangement for the parasites. They don't have to perform any of the risks associated with operating a business. They get a cut of 50% or more out of *EVERY* transaction, while performing no useful work themselves.

If you start a small business and fail, you risk losing your savings and home and your time invested. The parasites take no such risk.

No "business" has greater profit margins than that of government.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

There was a hoo-hah a few weeks ago in the UK about Ministry of Defence bureaucrats getting bonuses when front-line troops don`t even have suitable equipment such as armour plating, heat resistant boots and duvets.

I always laugh out loud on the few occasions I hear about government employees losing their jobs and getting paid redundancy money.

Why?

Because the only people that actually obey employment law with regards to paying redundancy money is the government!!!!!

You only have to read the newspapers to find out how private employers wriggle out of paying statutory redundancy money to ex-employees. Plus you probably know people directly that have lost their jobs and got no money despite working for the same company for 5 years.

There was a documentary a few week ago on television about how quango (i.e. funded by government money) employees make hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. In fact there are a lot of quango employees that make more money than the Prime Minister.

The State really is a gravy train.

And I`ll say it again. It is a sick joke when the Government is the only body that actually obeys employment law!!!!

Anonymous said...

People gladly give their task of calculating a cumbersome tax liability to a corporation. Why not? Any time a state offers you to rob or enslave someone else, very few refuse. More time to watch the amazing race and get a bit more dumb.

Observe this anywhere: offer someone to legally enslave someone else and see how many refuse.

The one who seeks to enslave another, cannot remain free, right? It is only a question of time before he will see the shackles on himself.

So, I've been told this was Milton Friedman who designed this scheme for the government. He was asked how can we enslave Americans? He said, let them think it is possible to use someone else and not paying for it, make corporations do their work, the people won't reject this. Pretty soon, no one would know or want to do that work themselves. There will be the opportunity for the government to "make it up" to corporations, by giving them a way against the people in compensation for the above. So, you will have both, the people and the corporations enslaved to the state.

So, they did that.

Ask yourself why elections and taxes are spaced out in time so much. That too, was an intentional design.

Anonymous said...

There should be no such thing as employment law. This is a communist construct.

If you think that the company owes you something because you have managed to completely mismanage yourself to the point that no one needs your services, then you should also force productive employees to work for a redundant company for some time, for free, just because they worked for it 5 years or so.

Why are we talking about employment?

Anonymous said...

> employment law

Employment law is needed because of the huge power imbalance between employers and employees.

There is nothing to stop an immoral employer working workers to exhaustion and then firing them. Or just deceptively employing people to do the "heavy lifting" and then firing them.

If someone is just to be employed to do the "heavy lifting" they should be paid more.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I do realise talking about employment law with regards redundancy is a bit off topic with regards the original post.

However I did this because government can obviously afford to pay statutory redundancy pay in the United Kingdom, whereas private employers can't seem to be able to afford to live up to their legal requirements.

Alternatively employers know that employees are unwilling to take them to court (their references might be ruined) and so can screw them. However they can't screw the government out of taxes because the government is more powerful.

Think of it this way. The government pays its ex-employees generous severance money with money stolen from tax-payers.

The same tax-payers don't get any money at all when they lose their jobs. However it was their money that is paying to the redundancy money paid to ex-State employees.

It is unfair.

Good workers can be mismanged by incompetent management. Unless you have workers running the company (instead of incestuous management hiring of friends) then workers can`t be blamed all the time.

Anonymous said...

Consider this unfairness.

Government and banks have lots of money.

In a deep recession lots of employees lose their jobs, including me.

I have a undergraduate degree from an elite university. My entrance was gained on merit.

In a recession I don`t have a job and as I worked in the private sector don`t get any redundancy money.

Ex-bank employees and ex-State employees get tens of thousands of dollars in severance money.

With the money they can breeze into university and do a masters degree.

After the recession, employers now say undergraduate degrees are worthless and they will only employ people with Masters degrees.

Essentially now I have been screwed, because State and ex-bank employees have a big wodge of cash (essentially the cash is derived from my work) and can survive a controlled demolition of the economy.

Anonymous said...

On other websites (maybe prisonplanet.com) there is talk about the New World Order wishing to reduce the world`s population.

However in some way this is already happening - maybe incidentally.

Consider the hard-pressed middle-class worker. If he/she works in the private sector, there is no stable, continuous employment.

In a recession (which happens every 5 years) he/she loses his/her job. When in a job, the worker is pushed to work evenings and some weekends.

In a way, the worker has neither the time or the money to start a family.

Government workers with stable jobs can easily start a family.

Anonymous said...

Look, you're only considering a sufferings of an employee.

Consider a company that consist of idiots in management and retards owning it.

The new employee, say Steve Jobs comes along and due to a complete inequality if his charisma and creativity as compared to dimwitted management that are trying to survive on a no-barriers to-entry-product, he demands a high wage. Not only that, it later turns out that he used this job only to jump start his career! He just wanted them to do the heavy lifting, while he plans to reap the full benefits all by himself!

Is that fair? Is that a comparable power?

The dumbass company would love to keep him, but they simply do not make the money that would make him stay! Effectively, Steve fires the company and quits PAYING THEM THE WORK for them WORKING ON HIS RENT AND LIVING EXPENSES.

What's worse, he did fire them completely arbitrarily! He did not care a bit that they always send him his check on time and the check never bounced. He completely ignored the fact that the company of dimwits provided him with the best second-hand desk that has three legs in the corner of the owner's garage!

Now, may-be that wasn't good enough? May-be we should make the company to conform to a standard? You know, by averaging the working conditions from a wall street to a sweatshop? If the company he employed fell below the standard, then he was justified in firing them?

You see, he, Steve Jobs can get hired anywhere tomorrow. The question is, where the Jerkoff.inc is going to find another Steve Jobs? That's unfair too!

I am doing this in an attempt to show you, that the way you view the employer/employee relationships is from the point of useless worker who wants to get fed.

It is not enough to show up on time and to be hired once, to guarantee the food on your table forever. You actually have to be USEFUL to others, not just formally doing something for somebody.

Once you learn to be really useful, you will discover that there is more demand for your offer, to the point that you better chose carefully who you want to work for.

As for the "heavy lifting", do you really believe that just because I have hired ten guys to move my furniture, I now have to live with them until they decide to quit? Yes, I have hired them for the heavy lifting specifically! What is wrong with that?

One more thing:

You legitimately complain about your funds, being taken from you to insure you against possible redundancy, by law, and then not getting paid those very funds.

Yes. This is true. Except why not blame the f-ing thieving government that made the stupid law legal in the first place? What, you couldn't save that money all by yourself?

Actually, you couldn't! Because the real truth is, that you hoped to pay a little, and then collect a lot more. You hoped to collect from the contributions of those who are useful and did not get laid-off, but are still forced by YOUR government to contribute to your fund.

In the end, the government screwed you too. What a surprise!

It doesn't work this way. One can not get into heaven on someone else back. One can't get free by enslaving someone else. One can't dig someone's grave and not step in it himself. One shouldn't spit in someone's well, and not risk to drink from it. This is the ultimate justice.

All evil is created always by planning to worsen someone else share. All stupid laws are always approved by majority that hope to become a parasite on someone else. It always ends badly for everyone, except for those who become the parasite on everyone. Just consider taxes for instance. The whole principle behind taxation is parasitism.

I hope you do not take this personally. Obviously, I have no idea of your circumstances. I am simply using "you" as a figure of speech.

Anonymous said...

Yes, but if you have worked in a technical area, you will know that one reason you can get fired is actually caring about your work and/or doing good work.

The good work you are doing makes idiots jealous and so you get fired. This situation has been discussed elsewhere on this blog.

Or maybe a manager wants to hire some of his friends or former colleagues and you get fired to make room.

My next point has actually happened. I once worked at a company where a couple of managers had good relationships with recruitment consultants. So they would fire people and get a new person hired just to put money in the way of their friends. Plus the company also gave bonuses if you recommended someone that got hired. So one manager made money that way. Given only a finite number of jobs, people have to get fired to make room.

If a new director gets bought into a company, he/she will want to bring along some ex-colleagues. So people get fired to make room. All these things have happened.

A new manager wanting to look tough will fire people soon after his appointment or transfer. All these things happen in technical areas.

You need to free yourself from the viewpoint only bad workers get fired. Good workers start off by solving the difficult problems. When it comes to the easier parts of the work, the smart people get fired so management have a bunch of sycophantic fools working under them that will think the stupid management clever.

Or maybe you get into an artificial disagreement with someone as you want to do good work and a clown wants to mess things up just so he can be proved right.

Anonymous said...

I don't have any problem with your explanation. In fact, FSK has said that several times. I guess this is how things are going in tech companies.

The point was, that if you got laid off, then you were not useful. This may very well mean that you were the right thing! We must do what others need, not what we want or think is right.

I may want a mp3 player that doesn't require any stupid media library or drivers, and simply plays things from it's usb-storage. (I actually was looking for one). Now, you as tech expert may think that I should not be allowed to use usb storage. Who is right? Who will get the money, you or the guy that does what I want?

I have found my player and paid way less then all the ones with idiotic special connections and management software. The guy who saw my need and satisfied it, got paid. Others, however experts they were, - they got none of my money.

Do I suggest that you should become an idiot and level yourself with those who is not fired? No. May-be this wasn't a company for you. May-be there are too many specialists in your area of expertise and you should look for a different career. It is all up to you.

I can only say that obviously what you are offering is not required, at least by that company.

Gary North used to say: "There are many who would like to make money, and none wants to make it my way". He specifically applied this to tech workers, because, (and I work in IT as well), we are too often offer what we want, and not what our customer wants.

Think about it. The money, - is simply a bunch of accounting records, to record and account for the times when we satisfy someone need. You've got to make yourself needed. I believe Bill gates said the same thing or something close.
If they need you, you're not getting laid off. Find what is their need and work on satisfying it.

Chrono said...

The system is totally corrupt and rigged, but it is still possible to make enough money to support yourself, pay your taxes, and still have money left over. I would like to see you post a way to legally avoid taxes. With your mathematics education and your interest in reading about the gov't, etc, I find that you could help your readers a lot more by saying, "idiots claim 99 exemptions on their W-4, but if you do this this and this, you can claim whatever the norm is, and still not pay any taxes." This is far better than going on and on about how corrupt the system is.

I realize that this is what Stefan Molyneux does. I realize that he is a successful podcaster. But honestly, his podcasts cover far more than rants against the state. He actually provides useful advice for his listeners.

If I had time to post everyday, that's something I would put on my blog. Funny how I spend time writing pagelong comments on *your posts* when I could be publishing content of my own.

Anonymous said...

>The point was, that if you got laid >off, then you were not useful.

Again you obviously haven't worked in the same sort of companies that I have or fully read what I read.

Did you read the part of corrupt management hiring friends or just hiring people to pass money to their friends that work outside the company as recruitment consultants?

Yes, the management will bring down the company slowly by doing this, but they will still get their salaries and if the company goes down they can simply drift into another company or get their friends to get them a job (not on merit). FSK has talked about the problem whereby the management of the company manages resources they do not own. If you own a company and work in it, then you will be more honest and more careful.

You can do lots of useful work and still get fired/laid off?

Heard of office politics?

Bad workers will collude with each other to give each other good reports, will simultaneously giving bad reports to good workers.

A bad manager will blame the people under him if he manages badly.

It takes years for bad managers to get found out and in the meantime many good workers get fired. I have heard this story again and again for different companies.

If you have a manager that hires one good worker on merit and say bad mediocre workers just because they are friends of friends, then when crunch time comes the good worker will get fired and the two bad workers kept on.

Anonymous said...

I've been fired from more than one job. Or more accurately fired with lots of other people but without any severance payment and so you could call this being laid off in a way.

However I believe I am a good worker. I now run my own small company and hey every single day my software sells. It sells to little companies and it sells to big famous companies.

I have tens and tens of emails from people using my software saying how much they like it.

Yet more than one company fired me. Yet obviously I am a good worker because every day people buy my software and tell me how good it is.

The system doesn't keep people in jobs because they are good workers!

I will tell you a true story. Once I went to an interview. I didn't get the job. The manager lied and said I got a question wrong that in fact I got correct. I was very annoyed because there was no reason for him to be dishonest. He could have said I got all the questions right, but I didn't have enough experience in a certain technology as judged by what I had written on my resume etc. As the interview process had in total taken up 3 plus days of my time I was annoyed the thing ended in a lie.

But on my way home from the unsuccessful interview I found out 12 copies of my software had sold. One company that had bought my software is very big and famous. Ironically they had adverts all over the airport I was flying home from!

So basically a manager said I wasn't good enough for his job, but in the space of time he said that, 12 people purchased my software.

So the free marker says I am a good worker but companies and corrupt management say I am a bad worker.

Just accept the system is bent.

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