Just how deep does the rabbit hole go?
Posts tagged taxation
Should anyone be taxed over 100% of income? Happened to some in France for tax year 2011
04 days ago
Source: http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org
Should anyone be taxed over 100% of income? Happened to some in France for tax year 2011.
Photo: http://www.againstcronycapitalism.org
Vive le France? Well, one of the reasons there is less “vive” in France these days is because of asinine policies such as the one imposed by France’s current Socialist government which is highlighted below.
Eat the rich? See how many of the rich stick around to be eaten.
How on earth would a country ever turn itself around with this sort of economic mentality? The French are basically saying that they don’t want capital creation within their borders.
(From Reuters)
“…the exceptionally high level of taxation was due to a one-off levy last year on 2011 incomes for households with assets of more than 1.3 million euros ($1.67 million).
President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government imposed the tax surcharge last year, shortly after taking office, to offset the impact of a rebate scheme created by its conservative predecessor to cap an individual’s overall taxation at 50 percent of income.”
Taxation is Theft
01 month ago
Source: http://spreadlibertynews.com
Source: http://spreadlibertynews.com
With a tax code that exceeds 72,000 pages in length and consumes more than six billion person hours per year to determine taxpayers’ taxable income, with an IRS that has become a feared law unto itself, and with a government that continues to extract more wealth from every taxpaying American every year, is it any wonder that April 15th is a day of dread in America? Social Security taxes and income taxes have dogged us all since their institution during the last century, and few politicians have been willing to address these ploys for what they are: theft.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry caused a firestorm among big-government types during the Republican presidential primaries last year when he called Social Security a Ponzi scheme. He was right. It’s been a scam from its inception, and it’s still a scam today.
When Social Security was established in 1935, it was intended to provide minimal financial assistance to those too old to work. It was also intended to cause voters to become dependent on Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Democrats. FDR copied the idea from a system established in Italy by Mussolini. The plan was to have certain workers and their employers make small contributions to a fund that would be held in trust for the workers by the government. At the time, the average life expectancy of Americans was 61 years of age, but Social Security didn’t kick in until age 65. Thus, the system was geared to take money from the average American worker that he would never see returned.
Over time, life expectancy grew and surpassed 65, the so-called trust fund was raided and spent, and the system was paying out more money than it was taking in — just like a Ponzi scheme. FDR called Social Security an insurance policy. In reality, it has become forced savings. However, the custodian of the funds — Congress — has stolen the savings and spent it. And the value of the savings has been diminished by inflation.
Today, the best one can hope to receive from Social Security is dollars with the buying power of 75 cents for every dollar contributed. That makes Social Security worse than a Ponzi scheme. You can get out of a Ponzi investment. You can’t get out of Social Security. Who would stay with a bank that returned only 75 percent of one’s savings?
The Constitution doesn’t permit the feds to steal your money. But steal, the feds do.
At one of last year’s Republican presidential debates, a young man asked the moderator to pose the following question to the candidates: “If I earn a dollar, how much of it am I entitled to keep?” The question was passed to one of the candidates, who punted, and then the moderator changed the topic. Only Congressman Ron Paul gave a serious post-debate answer to the young man’s question: “All of it.”
Every official foundational government document — from the Declaration of Independence to the U.S. Constitution to the oaths that everyone who works for the government takes — indicates that the government exists to work for us. The Declaration even proclaims that the government receives all of its powers from the consent of the governed. If you believe all this, as I do, then just as we don’t have the power to take our neighbor’s property and distribute it against his will, we lack the ability to give that power to the government. Stated differently, just as you lack the moral and legal ability to take my property, you cannot authorize the government to do so.
Here’s an example you’ve heard before. You’re sitting at home at night, and there’s a knock at the door. You open the door, and a guy with a gun pointed at you says: “Give me your money. I want to give it away to the less fortunate.” You think he’s dangerous and crazy, so you call the police. Then you find out he is the police, there to collect your taxes.
The framers of the Constitution understood this. For 150 years, the federal government was run by user fees and sales of government land and assessments to the states for services rendered. It rejected the Hamiltonian view that the feds could take whatever they wanted, and it followed the Jeffersonian first principle that the only moral commercial exchanges are those that are fully voluntary.
This worked well until the progressives took over the government in the first decade of the 20th century. They persuaded enough Americans to cause their state legislatures to ratify the Sixteenth Amendment, which was designed to tax the rich and redistribute wealth. They promised the American public that the income tax would never exceed 3 percent of income and would only apply to the top 3 percent of earners. How wrong — or deceptive — they were.
Yet, the imposition of a federal income tax is more than just taking from those who work and earn and giving to those who don’t. And it is more than just a spigot to fill the federal trough. At its base, it is a terrifying presumption. It presumes that we don’t really own our property. It accepts the Marxist notion that the state owns all the property and the state permits us to keep and use whatever it needs us to have so we won’t riot in the streets. And then it steals and uses whatever it can politically get away with. Do you believe this?
There are only three ways to acquire wealth in a free society. The inheritance model occurs when someone gives you wealth. The economic model occurs when you trade a skill, a talent, an asset, knowledge, sweat, energy or creativity to a willing buyer. And the mafia model occurs when a guy with a gun says: “Give me your money or else.”
Which model does the government use? Why do we put up with this?
Ron Paul’s Free Competition in Currency Act Lives On
04 months ago
Source: http://spreadlibertynews.com
Rep. Paul Broun Jr. of Georgia has introduced the “Free Competition in Currency Act of 2013″ in the 113th Congress. This bill contains the same provisions as bills previously introduced by former Congressman Ron Paul, which seek to repeal legal tender laws and prohibit taxation on certain coins and bullion.
The newly introduced bill H.R. 77 seeks to repeal Section 5103 or title 31, which states “United States coins and currency (including Federal reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal reserve banks and national banks) are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues. Foreign gold or silver coins are not legal tender for debts.” This would be replaced by “5103. [Repealed].”
The bill also provides that no tax may be imposed with the respect to the sale, exchange, or other disposition of any coin, medal, token, or gold, silver, platinum, palladium, or rhodium bullion, whether issued by a State, the United States, a foreign government, or any other person. Further, no state may asses any tax or fee any any currency or monetary instrument used in the transaction of interstate or foreign commerce which is subject to the enjoyment of legal tender status under article I, section 10 of the United States Constitution.
Finally, the bill would repeal superfluous related sections of the United States Code by striking Title 18, sections 486 and 489, which relate to uttering coins of gold, silver, or other metal and possessing likenesses of coins. These are treated as anti-counterfeiting statutes. It is provided that any prosecution under these sections shall abate, and any previous conviction under the sections shall be null and void.
After its introduction on January 3, 2013, H.R. 77 was referred to the Committee on Financial Services, in addition to the Committees on Ways and Means, and the Judiciary. The bill currently has no co-sponsors.
When introduced by Ron Paul in the 112th Congress, the Free Competition in Currency Act of 2011 garnered one co-sponsor and had hearings held by the Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology. The bill was not voted on by the House.
Rep. Paul Broun Jr. has also reintroduced Ron Pauls’ legislation calling for an audit of the Federal Reserve. The bill H.R. 24 currently has five co-sponsors and has been referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and in addition to the Committee on Financial Services.
Ron Paul’s “Audit the Fed” bill had passed the House in the last session of Congress 327-98 with 274 cosponsors. The Senate failed to act on the bill before the end of the 112th Congress.
In a statement included in a press release, Rep. Broun indicated his desire “to pick up right where Congressman Paul left off.”
Image Reference
http://www.makethelist.net/gold-ira-vs-silver-ira-which-one-is-better/
Lew Rockwell: Ron Paul Has ‘Secret’ Plans for Continued Leadership For The Liberty Movement
06 months ago
Source: http://libertycrier.com
Lew Rockwell appears on the Alex Jones show and discusses what’s next for the liberty movements fight against statism. At the beginning of the interview Lew tells us that Ron Paul has big plans for the liberty movement but cannot reveal them until he is out of congress. Lew says that Ron Paul will be more powerful now that he is out of politics.
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Related Post: Lew Rockwell Owns the Gang of Overlords
Californication Draws $3.2 Billion From States For High-Speed Rail
0Source: http://freedomoutpost.com
By Tim Brown
As if things weren’t bad enough in California, lawmakers there not only have tried to be politically correct by passing a stupid “anti-Arizona” immigration bill, but now they are funding a high-speed rail line that connects Los Angeles to San Francisco.
According to the Big Brother mapper Google, the drive would take approximately six hours and 20 minutes to drive the 381.8 miles from LA to Shaky Town. Of course that would cost individuals two tanks of gas or maybe three to drive there and back. I’m sure most people are not commuting from LA to San Francisco on a daily basis in the first place. So why does California need to put a high-speed rail line in?
It’s to be “first.” That’s right this initial segment, proposed by lawmakers in California, will be the first dedicated high speed rail line in the nation.
While the Governor and the Obama administration are touting this as having to do with the economical growth of the state, the real issue is about being first and attributing such things to the person who is in office at the time.
According to the U. S. Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, “No economy can grow faster than its transportation network allows. With highways between California cities congested and airspace at a premium, Californians desperately need an alternative.”
Democrat Governor Jerry Brown echoed LaHood’s comments, “The Legislature took bold action today that gets Californians back to work and puts California out in front once again.”
“Literally, this project means tens of thousands of jobs,” said Mark Kyle, director of government affairs for the Operating Engineers Local Union No. 3, which was among the bill’s supporters.
This same tired rhetoric was used in North Carolina too. Only in N.C. the issue was light-rail which was proposed by neo-con RINO Pat McCrory. It neither grew jobs, nor expanded the economy. It’s also one of the reasons the man lost to a Democrat, Bev Perdue, for the race for governor.
Geithner Wants To Get Rid of Physical Currency
01 year ago
Source: http://lewrockwell.com
Geithner Wants To Get Rid of Physical Currency (Better Tracking)
By Gary North
Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, wants to get rid of paper money. He says it’s part of a cost-cutting measure.
Nonsense. It’s part of the government’s attempt to track our purchases. Its a plan to get rid of the underground economy, where people buy what they want, sell what they want, and leave no digital trail.
The government cannot control the cash markets. It wants to tax them. But paper money resists taxation.
A good article on this appeared last week by Austrian School economist Joe Salerno. It is posted here. He wrote this.
Under cover of its multiplicity of fabricated wars on drugs, terror, tax evasion, and organized crime, the US government has long been waging a hidden war on cash. . . .
Despite this enormous depreciation, the Federal Reserve has steadfastly refused to issue notes of larger denomination. This has made large cash transactions extremely inconvenient and has forced the American public to make much greater use than is optimal of electronic-payment methods. Of course, this is precisely the intent of the US government. The purpose of its ongoing breach of long-established laws regarding financial privacy is to make it easier to monitor the economic affairs and abrogate the financial privacy of its citizens, ostensibly to secure their safety from Colombian drug lords, Al Qaeda operatives, and tax cheats and other nefarious white-collar criminals. . .
Fortunately, the free market provides the prospect of an escape from the fiscal police state that seeks to stamp out the use of cash through either depreciation of central-bank-issued currency combined with unchanged currency denominations or direct legal limitation on the size of cash transactions. As Carl Menger, the founder of the Austrian School of economics, explained over 140 years ago, money emerges not by government decree but through a market process driven by the actions of individuals who are continually seeking a means to accomplish their goals through exchange most efficiently. . .
Just like the highly publicized war on drugs that the US government has been waging – and losing – for decades, it is doomed to lose its surreptitious war on cash, because the free market can and will respond to the demand of ordinary citizens for a reliable and convenient money.
The ATM is our friend. No matter how hard the government tries to stamp out paper currency, people will use it. They buy freedom with it. They buy privacy.
To read about Geithner’s plan, click here.
April 2, 2012
Gary North [send him mail] is the author of Mises on Money. Visit http://www.garynorth.com. He is also the author of a free 20-volume series, An Economic Commentary on the Bible.
Copyright © 2012 Gary North
Taxation by Citation: Connecticut State Police E-Mail Reveals Ticket-Writing Quotas
01 year ago
Source: http://www.republicmagazine.com
By William Grigg
Ticket-writing by quota is a competitive sport in which all motorists are fair game, as depicted in an internal e-mail memorandum written by Lt. Frank Schirillo of the Connecticut State Police.
Starting at midnight, March 30, patrols would be expanded, and encouraged to engage in a ticket-writing binge, Schirillo explained. “I am asking that everyone, myself included, contribute to this effort,” stated the e-mail, which was obtained by WTNH-TV. “[W] have to issue at least 60 infractions / Misdemeanors each shift for a total of 180 infractions in order to outperform both Troop F and Troop G…. One day Troop F issued 301 tickets. Troop G responded by issuing 345 in one day. We can do better…” The State Police Troop that harvested the greatest amount of citations would be rewarded with pizza.
“NOTE if we happen to issue 350 tickets in one day that would be stellar,” Schirillo concluded.
Seeking to maintain the official fiction that ticket-writing is something other than an exercise in “taxation by citation” carried out by unionized revenue farmers, Connecticut State Police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance fired off an angry e-mail missive to WTNH denying that the ticket-writing binge followed a “quota system.”
“This is not a joke or a game,” protested Lt. Vance said. “It’s a troop commanders’ attempt to stimulate his personnel to enhance highway safety and this goes on all across the state. You will see enhanced enforcement as we continue along in the spring months.”
Ironically, some of the most pointed criticism of the quota system-by-any-other-name was offered by Andrew Matthews of the state police union.
“Troopers are expected to do their job,” Matthews insisted. “We will do our job, but we don’t need to be told we need a certain number of tickets within a specified period of time.”
That “job,” of course, is primarily to rake in revenue. Matthews, like practically everybody else in the racket called “law enforcement,” concerned primarily with the holy imperative of “officer safety,” and points out that imposing quotas and other performance goals on officers will enhance the risks they face. However, he is also concerned about the fact that revenue-collecting rampage will have a huge and painful impact on economically afflicted motorists: “Whether it’s motivational or a quota, it’s disturbing to us because at a time when the taxpayers are out of work ’cause they’re unemployed, or gas is $4 a gallon and unemployment is like around 9%, now is not the time to be just issuing tickets to generate revenue.”
Actually, there is no proper time to use tickets as a revenue stream. The practice is forbidden by statutes in every state – and quietly carried out by police departments in every jurisdiction.
Kevin Wall on KXNT Las Vegas – VETERANS FOR RON PAUL!
01 year ago
[CIM Comment]
Now more than every we need the Champion of the Constitution!
Please visit Ron Paul’s official campaign site by following the link below and donate today!
The End Of The Affair
01 year ago
Source: http://www.tnr.com
By Timothy Noah
Jon Corzine’s testimony before the House agriculture committee may mark the definitive end to the Democratic party’s love affair with Wall Street.
Once upon a time, Wall Street bankers were Republicans. Not terribly ideological, they preferred whenever possible a minimum of taxation, regulation, and government in general, but they didn’t make a fetish of it. As the GOP moved right starting in the mid-1960s the east coast Republican establishment began to crumble, and by the late 1980s it was mostly gone. These silk stocking conservatives had been driven out of the Republican party by a social agenda that frightened them, a budget deficit that threatened their livelihoods, and a base that increasingly viewed moderates as RINOs (“Republicans In Name Only”).
By the early 1990s Wall Street was ready to go Democratic. In his new book, Back To Work, former President Bill Clinton writes,
“For every person on Wall Street who resembles the character Michael Douglas played in the Wall Street movies, there are many others who give lots of money every year to increase educational and economic opportunities for poor kids and inner-city entrepreneurs.
“Most of these people are grateful for their success and know that because of current economic circumstances, they’re in the best position to contribute to solving our long-term debt problem and to making the investments necessary to restore our economic vitality. Many of them supported me when I raised their taxes in 1993, because I didn’t attack them for their success. I simply asked them, as the primary beneficiaries of the 1980s growth and tax cuts, to help us balance our budget and invest in our future by creating more jobs and higher incomes for other people.”
In crafting his first budget bill, Clinton was mindful of the bond market to such a degree that James Carville famously complained, “I used to think that if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the President or the Pope or as a .400 basball hitter. But now I would like to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody.”
The Wall Street-Democratic Party love affair came out of the shadows and into the sunlight when Robert Rubin, former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, became Treasury secretary. The economy was booming, the budget deficit was disappearing, and all was right with the world. The romance deepened through most of the aughts, so much so that in 2010 Rich Lowry of National Review complained, “the Democratic majority was bought and paid for by Wall Street and corporate money.” In 2008 the finance sector actually gave more to the Democrats than to the Republicans, something that hadn’t happened since 1990.
It all started to come apart in the late aughts as Democrats realized that Rubin’s distaste for financial regulation (and that of his deputy and successor, Larry Summers, which was more pronounced) had contributed to the 2008 financial meltdown, in part because Rubin and Summers had outmaneuvered Brooksley Born, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, when she wanted to regulate derivatives. Summers (who wasn’t from Wall Street but was a Rubin acolyte) became director of the National Economic Council during President Barack Obama’s first two years in office and the economy floundered. That deepened the alienation between Democrats and Wall Street.
Passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law drove the lovebirds further apart as Wall Street enlisted Republican goons first to weaken the bill (and succeeded in many instances) and then to neuter it by pressuring federal agencies to write regulations that created as little accountability as possible.
White House mulls idea of mandatory ID cards for Web users
01 year ago
Source: http://www.digitaljournal.com
By Nancy Houser
The White House Cyber Security Adviser Howard Schmidt and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke have recently announced a proposal for mandatory virtual ID cards for Internet users, called the “National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace.”Two additional agencies had been in the running for the proposal, in addition to White House Cyber Security, all willing to prepare a comprehensive strategy meant to improve safety in cyberspace. One was the National Security Agency and the other was Department of Homeland Security.
A one-stop process for online transactions
In its current proposal standing, the proposal for a mandatory Internet ID card is meant for compulsory usage—designed to be used for all government online transactions or online business transactions that will accept it. This will make trailing a person’s online activity a one-step process as it would be centralized, with positive and negative arguments.
“We are not talking about a national ID card. We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy, and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said at an event Friday at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, according to Fox News.
FoxNews reports that the idea is causing concern to some, with Jim Dempsey of the Center for Democracy and Technology saying, “The government cannot create that identity infrastructure. If I tried, I wouldn’t be trusted.” In rebuttal, the White House Cyber Security Coordinator, Howard Schmidt, fully endorses the Internet ID cards as, “… ‘the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government’ to centralize efforts toward creating an ‘identity ecosystem’ for the Internet.”
Privacy and civil-liberties groups
Andrew John
With an early version of the Internet proposalgoing public on June 25, 2010, the Internet ID card for Americans is being supported by privacy and civil-liberties groups who are concerned over dual roles being played by intelligence agencies and the police departments, in addition to a mounting lack of privacy and online safety. Others feel it is an infringement on personal privacy and their rights, which doesn’t seem to affect invading hackers, insecure connections or security threats. A quick scope of the draft “focuses on ways to establish and maintain ‘trusted digital identities,’ a key aspect for improving the security of online transactions.” The transactions involved represent the private sector, individuals and governments—while addressing their international nature if applicable.
Facebook ID cards
As a sign of what’s to come, Facebook has just filed for “Facebook Trademark on business cards and ID cards,” a non-magnetically encoded identity card. Similar to using Facebook to enter another website, the Facebook ID card will have an array of uses—banking, employment, citizenship, passports, census, taxation, welfare fraud, child-support, social security, and criminal identification— with an “extremely secure and accurate computer record.”
This is a work in progess, a self learning tool and fun little project. Please excuse the slow development as it seems the needed proper time is always lacking. It is my hope that the combination of content and links to other sources of information in this simple blog may help awaken a few of the sleeping masses and encourage and inspire others to initiate their own research, ultimately for each person to be a light to help awaken others. Opinions expressed belong to me, myself and I. Also, a big thank you to all that take the time to visit, it is appreciated :)
