Tax Surveillance State: Abolish IRS & Regressive Progressive Taxes.

I try to keep this blog original; the content and the style are not fare you will get elsewhere, thus I don’t do the clickbait ploys of daily quotations and links. That said, hat-tip Café Hayek, the below two links flow directly from one of my major themes.

Firstly, Richard Rahn writing for the Washington Times on why the IRS must be abolished (for same reason as every Western proxy secret police force masquerading as Revenue must be abolished): quoting from how the current tax system damages both the economy and, what the Left refuse to grok, civil liberties:

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has said the government must have an IRS to collect the taxes to fund the government. Mr. Koskinen is right that no matter what kind of tax system we have, there needs to be a tax collection bureau. But those in favor of abolishing the present IRS are correct in that the United States certainly can get along perfectly well without the politicized, abusive and rights-trampling tax agency the IRS has become.

Mr. Koskinen and others who defend the IRS claim the problem is with the tax law, which is written by Congress. A tax system ought to be designed to obtain the necessary revenue with the least amount of damage to the economy and the civil liberties of the citizens. The present tax system gets a failing grade on both accounts. Promising special provisions to those who will provide campaign funds is a temptation that some politicians seem not to be able to resist. A simple flat tax or consumption tax would take care of many problems.

That said, there is still no excuse for much of what the IRS does ...

[Snip.]

If the folks at the IRS want respect, then they need to start treating hardworking taxpayers with respect and understanding and not as government-owned slaves.

Secondly, a nice piece by George Leef on how regressive progressive envy taxation is; this being the economic argument (not forgetting the more important philosophic argument of how the tax surveillance state is built on the total destruction of privacy and what should have been our sacred right to be left alone by the state if harming no one). From What LeBron Can Teach You About Economics, quoting the relevant section:

On taxation, the conventional wisdom is that high taxes on businesses are necessary to make them pay “their fair share.” Most people also believe that the money extracted from them goes to the government where it is spent “for the public good.”

In his first chapter, Tamny argues that taxes are merely “a price placed on work” by the government. To demonstrate how, he doesn’t start with an economist or a chart, but instead with Keith Richards, the lead guitarist of the Rolling Stones. Richards explained that the band decided to leave England because of the high taxes: “We didn’t know if we would make it, but if we didn’t try, what would we do? Sit in England and they’d give us a penny out of every pound we earned.”

Progressive taxes (in England, the United States, and everywhere) are more of an impediment to people who are trying to become wealthy than to those who are already wealthy.

And what happens with all the money the government rakes in? Largely, it is squandered by politicians who want to buy popularity. Rock musicians make wiser use of money — the money they’ve earned — than do politicians who dip into the vast pot of tax dollars taken by force.

Referring to the first sentence, I have my own post on the abused use of that word ‘fair’, when related to the tax take: Taxing Language: A Question for the Politicians – Fair: What Do You Mean?

My next post will be regarding my increasing frustration and anger at the statist nonsense and worse, falsehoods, being peddled by identity politics feminism regarding the gender pay gap in New Zealand – identity/Marxist feminism as opposed to my own classical liberal individualistic (that is, non-bigoted) freedom advocacy feminism. Marxist feminism has turned from deconstructing our universities into safe places worshipping the power of big sister government with mindless, fist punching, chanting state servitude, and has become one of the major forces of a rampant statism ... read my next post.

National’s Tax Cuts Are (Importantly) Symbolic.

I don’t vote National, they’re almost the socialists, and every bit the statists, that Labour are, just a tad more fiscally responsible, given Cunliffe’s besotted Keynesianism. However the mooted minor tax cuts three years out are important symbolically in a way the LeftTwits cannot understand having turned their backs to the free society, though is plain to Libertarians who realise that tax is the truncheon on our backsides of the tax surveillance state. I explained it to Labour candidate, tax lecturer, Deborah Russell, and I publish my advice merely as a service to the confused, tormented Left who’re also flailing about in their anger and ignorance over #dirtypolitics having not changed the polls one bit – I give of myself like this, no charge, because I’m a helpful soul:

 

It's a bit hard to have a "stark choice" on tax and the economy when one side just waves its hands in the air and says, "whatuver".
— Deborah Russell (@BeeFaerie) September 8, 2014

@BeeFaerie Nats move was symbolic to highlight under the Left taxpayer is slain by raft of new taxes & higher rates. In end, thankfully 1/2
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) September 8, 2014

@BeeFaerie ... Workers & business vote 4 lower tax as that means less State interference in their lives. #Freedom
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) September 8, 2014

 

Response to Tony Molloy, QC; Piketty and our Philosophy Bereft Judiciary; The Desertion of France Under High Taxation.

Tony Molloy, QC, wrote a piece for this weekend’s NBR: I don’t need to parse it here, the title says enough – Opinion: Piketty is Right About Taxing the Rich (paid content).

 

Below is my comment to that article, posted to NBR under my own name for the IRD data miners on Monday. Following that in update 1 is a clip showing what happens to a country when it follows Piketty's, and Tony's, prescription of taxing the rich; they leave. And the economist's home country no less: as a famous twentieth century philosopher said, you can ignore reality for so long, but you can't ignore the consequences - France, will the last one out close the door please. Well worth a watch.

NBR comment follows.

 

* * *

 

Tony Molloy, and his unholy desire for taxing the rich on the false cross of inequality, is an example of why IRD now win every major (and non-major) tax case, and why if you are a taxpayer it is pointless litigating a tax case before our socialist, worse, statist, judiciary.

 

For the record, Piketty's economics are full of holes, indeed, it borders on the simplistic unto negligent. Perhaps Tony might want to peruse these references: first economic; then philosophic. And many more: just Google.

 

For myself, could Tony answer to the following:

 

For him to take the view he does he must assume that wealth/capital is fixed in quantity, that if I take 'some' then that is not available for others, hence the rich ‘are the cause’ of the poor. That is a childish (socialist) viewpoint. For example, can Tony explain to me, if I create, say, $3 million from intellectual property, or from selling widgets, how does that stop someone else making $3 million also? From this, if a rich person's wealth does not explain a poor person's lack of wealth, then what use punishing the rich – who pay the bulk of tax as it is - by destroying their property rights (and with it, their privacy before the state)? If there is no connection, such state confiscation and redistribution, will not help 'equalise' the poor, indeed, via the creation of dependence through the welfare state, it may well just breed the poverty, thus inequality, men like Tony want to fix, compounded by destroying innovation and entrepreneurship and so the opportunities made for employment and increasing our living standards, via a vibrant business sector (with qualification I am referring to laissez faire, not our current crony command economies.)

 

It is not surprising in current times that innovation in the West is falling rapidly.

 

Finally, regarding another point made, can Tony cite one country where the overall tax take is down *and* state sector spending is down in dollar terms? It’s certainly not in NZ; every English budget has spent more than the previous year.

 

Every reasonable human being wants to end poverty, but Tony, as with Piketty, is typical of that socialist ethic that would emote on such issues, without thinking on them. Which is why the Free West has been lost to increasingly Orwellian surveillance states, as an individual’s right to be left alone if doing no harm, has been swept aside with collectivist relish by our state-centric judiciary quite willing to sacrifice every individual on the bloodied altar of the common good, (noting it was always my belief the legal system was supposed to be, historically, our buffer against an out-of-control state.) Not a skerrick of thought to property rights in Tony's piece: he, as with the rest of the judiciary, take it as granted our incomes, wallets and bank accounts - our effort and risk taking - belong to the government. And given this socialist rot, which takes us far from the classical liberalism and individualism that made the West once the pinnacle of civilisation, where the only role of state was to protect its smallest minority, an individual, is so far instilled in the judiciary, I assume there’s no way back. We’re stuffed.

 

One more thing: regarding Tony’s reference, and perhaps unholy reverence, of FATCA - aka US tax colonialism known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act - by which the US has broken the secrecy of Swiss banking (which even the Nazis weren’t capable of), I would note via the IGA - Intergovernmental Agreement - that implements FATCA in New Zealand, government is using IRD’s police state powers above our Privacy Act to implement what amounts to a surveillance program in New Zealand that has nothing, repeat, nothing, to do with our New Zealand tax take. If one government can misuse IRDs powers in that manner, to cynically, illegitimately override our privacy, so the precedent is set for every future government. What does Tony think about the ethics of that? I've made my opinion plain, and given IRD ignored the submissions against it in their totality, I'd love to see a QCs opinion on New Zealand's IGA from a legal perspective, especially in light of there will soon be a case brought in the US attacking FATCA for being unconstitutional.

 

This really is an interesting piece, but not in the way Tony intended. Wonder no more why everything is tax avoidance in New Zealand, now, and everything is illegal. And a last thought: perhaps Tony might want to read my piece on the evil that befalls us when we use the coercive state to force equality on a population, because he's playing for the wrong side.


Update 1:

Perfectly timed. A stunning clip just in for Tony: over half of France's young would leave France if they could as they see no future in a country that 'hates the rich' at political level; and French businesspeople are leaving the country in droves in protest at its 75% income tax rate on the rich and its unsustainable addiction to welfare.

Of course, as we know, ahem, Mr Piketty hails from France, a country which has adopted his recommendation to tax the rich to solve inequality. Not working too well. Perhaps his next book should be a retraction :)

 Tax it, destroy it, including countries, where whole populations can become equal in poverty:


 

The Great Train Wife's Robbery and a Truth Uncovered Over the Story on Feminine Sanitary Products.

TV 1’s Sunday program played a great piece this last weekend, in the form of an interview with Frances Biggs, wife, then ex, to great train robber Ronnie. She had a raw deal no matter which way you look at it. Having had nothing to do with the robbery, yet arrested and reviled by the public, then divorce, with the only money she ever saw from the whole episode being what she earned after selling her story to the media while Ronnie was sunning himself in Rio. However, the state then only compounded her victimhood:

#sunday Biggest theft in Biggs Great Train Robbery story was his ex's tax bill of £45k on the £60k receipt 4 her story.
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) August 18, 2013

That’s quite a tax bill: the thing about the great train robbery was, it was a oncer. There’s two thieves featured, the other has grown only stronger, assuming all the powers of the surveillance state. And I can explain, again, how that has happened.

Yesterday there was a story run by the MSM which ended up being a beat-up from misinformation fed by an anonymous – yeah, another one – blog, about Ms Beneficiary who was apparently denied money by WINZ to buy sanitary products. In the end the story was not true on all the facts, although if it had been, it would have been absolutely abhorrent: every human individual must be left their respect and dignity, to say nothing of this was also a matter regarding the most intimate sort of privacy.

There were many words written on it, and the Left Twitter was understandably appalled: my friend Deborah Russell, Massey University lecturer of taxation, socialist, penned her own piece also, and tweeted a link to it. To this I replied:

@BeeFaerie Agreed. Questn: do u agree IRD investigators querying shop owners on value of sanitary products taken 4 own use is as appalling?
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) August 19, 2013

At this stage, the next day, I still have no reply. I then tweeted the same question generally, and again no replies, until I pressed Lew Stoddart whom grudgingly ‘sort of agreed’, but only after being led through hoops of context that were not necessary, as that question needs no explication.

My question is where were the Marxist feminists in being rightly appalled for their sister Ms Businesswoman?

Or, I’m thinking, does she not count? Over and over on this blog I’ve been through the shock and awe powers of IRD: before those bureaucrats Ms Businesswoman has no right to privacy or to be left alone, despite she has done nothing wrong. And just as in a police state, the onus of proof is turned against her in the tax courts: it’s not up to the state to prove her guilt, they just have to say you’re guilty and owe us this, then she has to prove them wrong. Believe me, Ms Businesswoman goes from interrogation room 101 into that court system terrified given the power arrayed against her, and it’s not cheap to defend yourself.

All this to pay, remember, for Ms Beneficiary’s necessities. Fair enough you say? Okay, but then why is Ms Businesswoman apparently dismissed by the sisterhood herself? It looks to me as if Ms Businesswoman has been objectified by Marxist feminists to merely being a purse and a bank account; apparently she has no right to respect, or to her dignity: that is, her humanity. She’s just a filthy capitalist. Is that right?

As I read somewhere yesterday, if socialism didn’t have so many double standards, it would have none.

Here’s a word: wholly.

I’m wholly unhappy about this unholy society I find myself in, and for which a five figure sum called my provisional tax will be leaving my bank account in just eight days’ time, despite I have no philosophical agreement with this society, and with now two houses damaged in earthquake zones, for which that money would’ve been bloody handy at the moment, given the run around we’re getting from EQC. Pity my vote means nothing every three years, and as a classical liberal, this representative democracy mobocracy, doesn’t represent me, or Ms Businesswoman, at all.

Deborah?

Footnote:

I cannot prove that question of the value of the private use of sanitary products is on the list of an IRD investigator auditing, say, the corner dairy, although, I have certainly heard of one instance of it, and in that case the taxpayer rightly refused to answer. I suspect it would not be routine at all, however, in the context of this post, that is entirely not the point, which is this proves a point entirely on a hypothetical scenario.

Taxing High Income Retirees: Here We Go Again. To St Susan.

Redistributors: you have to love their total ignorance of ethics or philosophy.

We all know there’s a baby-boomer retirement problem coming; unfortunately this is providing more excuses for grand larceny by those people who would prescribe for a whole nation of adults, what would be morally abhorrent if I applied to their children. Hear me out, and look at this:

Retirement policy researcher Associate Professor Susan St John says an alternative could be looking at improving the tax system and the way it operates.

"For high income retirees, for example, who could pay a bit more without any undue pain, and help the immediate fiscal position."

Heaven help you if you earn money in this country.

What Susan is saying is who cares how hard retirees have worked through their lives, or the plans and aspirations for themselves in retirement they were planning for. As I said in this earlier post, it would be handy if legislation could deem when such people, let's call them victims, start feeling undue pain, given how many taxpayers are interrogated and broken down in IRD’s room 101 on the strength of it. And casting my eyes up from keyboard, I would note my neighbour here has three cars, but the one next to that just the one, so I’ll drop them a note to the effect Susan says simply take the excess one from next door and even yourselves up a bit. (Don’t mention the war, though: referencing that war fought for the free West based on property rights).

This breath-taking advocacy of theft is something I will always find takes the wind out of me.

My suggestion is leave people to their own decisions and the retirement beds they make with them. It’s the only way for a free society to exist, and it leads to better outcomes. As further example, from the same article:

A higher tax on retirees is one idea being floated in response to calls by Labour for the Government to sort things out ahead of the impending boom in baby boomers.

All I need do is point out, over and over and over, the contradictions leading to the unintended consequences of government interventions in the voluntary decisions of individuals.

Most retirees should have their own mortgage free home: selling this down in size and value, including to a licence-to-occupy in a retirement home, is probably one of the main sources of retirement funding in New Zealand. 

Unfortunately, Labour has a stated policy of wanting to sacrifice retirees to first home buyers by destroying the value in our housing stock, and thus the property market. They have various nefarious ways of achieving this from capital gains taxes through to restrictions on foreign buyers. I’ve written on this only last month, and in that post I stated New Zealand was fortunate to have a solution to the baby-boomers selling their homes into a dwindling market to fund their retirements, in the form of well-off foreigners wanting to bring their life-long savings from their country of origin, to our country, to give to Kiwi retirees for their homes and so fund their retirements. Labour's restrictions on foreign ownership would deny retirees this market.

So Labour are at the same time stating the need to tax retirees to cover retirees in retirement, while advocating policies that will destroy the single source almost all retirees will have to fund their retirement with: their homes.

Politicians – redistributors - just cannot help themselves. They seem to feel they have to be seen doing something, and so we get this hotchpotch of nonsense legislation marching out from the Fortress of Legislation with the iron fist of the state enforcing it saluting in our faces even as it reaches into our pockets. The ethical solution to the ‘problem’ of retirees is given by free markets, not redistribution. And by the by, lets never confuse legislating with law-making.

Finally, St Susan: this blasé attitude you have to my property, stop it please. You wouldn’t instruct your kids to go steal from kids with more toys than they have, because you know what type of adults such instruction would result in: well don’t make a national policy out of precisely the same immorality. In other words, and to all the people who have told me even over this last month by tweet and email, that if I disagree so much with the statism that rules here, why don’t I leave: no, thank you, I’m staying. Instead, why don’t you just grow up?