Assuming the US survives more or less intact and is able to find some common sense, illegally avoided taxes can be collected for quite a long time. The IRS says:
"The IRS generally has 10 years – from the date your tax was assessed – to collect the tax and any associated penalties and interest from you. This time period is called the Collection Statute Expiration Date (CSED).
Your account can include multiple tax assessments, each with their own CSED. Examples may include:
Original tax amounts you owe when you file your federal tax return
Additional taxes you owe when you amend your return
Substitute for return tax balances
Additional tax we find that you owe due to an audit
Civil penalty amounts
Certain penalties and interest"
Note the "each with their own CSED" part. So an audit in year 9 has another 10 years to be collected.
I remember reading some time ago that one of the biggest differences between USA and Italy is that US citizens largely pay the taxes they owe voluntarily. Whereas Italy has a compliance problem, as well as an underground economy that starves the government for revenue. There are other downsides as well... who wants their economy to look more like Italy's? It seems we are headed that direction, and of course wealthy scofflaws love that shizzle. The rules never did apply to them, did they?
I am wondering why paying income tax is so important, even punishable by loss of liberty, when state and US constitutions were originally ratified under the provision that a physical threat to a person or society was a necessary condition to lose liberty. Debtors' prison of England were exceedingly unpopular.
Especially since the Framers of Constitutions didn't want income tax. It had to be ratified as the 16th Amendment approximately 140 years after the founding of the US. How did Americans survive without it?
Answer? Rothschild bankers, who were the "angel funders" of JD Rockefeller Sr. that resulted in an enormous oil empire, had pushed through income tax in Britain, Germany and were trying in France.
US citizens were told it would be a 2% tax on the rich. That got it ratified.
Rothschild and Rockefeller bankers wanted citizens to be forced to pay "king's ransom" to ensure the large holdings of government bonds that they owned would never default on debt service.
They also used Congressmen in their hip pockets to award large government contracts to companies that they owned (sometimes via trusts and other companies that conceal ownership). This removes the competitive market forces, so that they get the contracts and can charge way too much for what they delivers.
In simple, feudal terms: Income tax is a government-sanctioned King's ransom, except that the public supposedly is the boss, not some sovereign.
The government robs citizens of the income that would allow the citizens to support their families and plan for the future.
Then the citizens must go to the bankers and borrow back their money, only at interest.
Even if $1 in tax enforcement yields +$12 in net federal revenues, you have to remember the DOGE Principles: the value of govt spending is -$3 per dollar spent, and the social value of a billionaire's dollar is +$4. So (-$1)+12*(-$3)-12*(+$4) = -$79. Terrible!!!
Sadly, the DOGE Principles hadn't yet been discovered when I was an MIT student. But I'm sure, now that they are known, that Trump will require them to be taught in every economics department.
Assuming the US survives more or less intact and is able to find some common sense, illegally avoided taxes can be collected for quite a long time. The IRS says:
"The IRS generally has 10 years – from the date your tax was assessed – to collect the tax and any associated penalties and interest from you. This time period is called the Collection Statute Expiration Date (CSED).
Your account can include multiple tax assessments, each with their own CSED. Examples may include:
Original tax amounts you owe when you file your federal tax return
Additional taxes you owe when you amend your return
Substitute for return tax balances
Additional tax we find that you owe due to an audit
Civil penalty amounts
Certain penalties and interest"
Note the "each with their own CSED" part. So an audit in year 9 has another 10 years to be collected.
I remember reading some time ago that one of the biggest differences between USA and Italy is that US citizens largely pay the taxes they owe voluntarily. Whereas Italy has a compliance problem, as well as an underground economy that starves the government for revenue. There are other downsides as well... who wants their economy to look more like Italy's? It seems we are headed that direction, and of course wealthy scofflaws love that shizzle. The rules never did apply to them, did they?
Bezos must not have been paying attention.
I had the same thought!
I am wondering why paying income tax is so important, even punishable by loss of liberty, when state and US constitutions were originally ratified under the provision that a physical threat to a person or society was a necessary condition to lose liberty. Debtors' prison of England were exceedingly unpopular.
Especially since the Framers of Constitutions didn't want income tax. It had to be ratified as the 16th Amendment approximately 140 years after the founding of the US. How did Americans survive without it?
Answer? Rothschild bankers, who were the "angel funders" of JD Rockefeller Sr. that resulted in an enormous oil empire, had pushed through income tax in Britain, Germany and were trying in France.
US citizens were told it would be a 2% tax on the rich. That got it ratified.
Rothschild and Rockefeller bankers wanted citizens to be forced to pay "king's ransom" to ensure the large holdings of government bonds that they owned would never default on debt service.
They also used Congressmen in their hip pockets to award large government contracts to companies that they owned (sometimes via trusts and other companies that conceal ownership). This removes the competitive market forces, so that they get the contracts and can charge way too much for what they delivers.
In simple, feudal terms: Income tax is a government-sanctioned King's ransom, except that the public supposedly is the boss, not some sovereign.
The government robs citizens of the income that would allow the citizens to support their families and plan for the future.
Then the citizens must go to the bankers and borrow back their money, only at interest.
Even if $1 in tax enforcement yields +$12 in net federal revenues, you have to remember the DOGE Principles: the value of govt spending is -$3 per dollar spent, and the social value of a billionaire's dollar is +$4. So (-$1)+12*(-$3)-12*(+$4) = -$79. Terrible!!!
I'm guessing you didn't use that math back at MIT.
Sadly, the DOGE Principles hadn't yet been discovered when I was an MIT student. But I'm sure, now that they are known, that Trump will require them to be taught in every economics department.
How is this even allowed? I thought Bezos banned everything except "personal liberties and free markets".