What would happen if we all decided to not pay the government taxes anymore?

IvaBigWun

I was watching Zeitgeist: The Movie earlier












No wait! Come back!




I know its full of inaccuracies and exaggerations, Ive yet to watch a conspiracy theory film that isnt. What was interesting, however, was when they spoke to ex IRS agents who now themselves refused to pay American taxes.

It got me thinking; what if those in Ireland who had to self assess, i.e. limited companies and the self employed, simply stopped doing so en mass?

What if those who were prosecuted took it to the Supreme and EU courts arguing that their taxes werent being spent correctly, as is evident in the HSE and more.

For starters the prosecuting system wouldnt be able to cope with such a large protest, the backlog would span decades.

What would happen if we all decided to not pay the government taxes anymore?

TheMilkyPirate

THE COUNTRY WOULD RUN OUT OF MONEY!!!!!!!!!

hatrickpatrick

Nobody really knows, because sadly, you'd never manage to get enough of a majority with the balls to try it.
"Stability" has somehow become the ultimate goal, even if stability means stable sh!te. A lot of people prefer the predictable crappiness to the idea of an unpredictable unknown.

Until that somehow changes, we won't see that kind of revolution happening, unfortunately.

IvaBigWun

TheMilkyPirate wrote: »

THE COUNTRY WOULD RUN OUT OF MONEY!!!!!!!!!

It already has.

Hownowcow

IvaBigWun wrote: »

What would happen if we all decided to not pay the government taxes anymore?

Whatever the opposite to democracy is.

joe swanson

No dole
No health service
No pensions
No water
Etc
Etc

IvaBigWun

joe swanson wrote: »

No health service - this is a shambles anyway.
No pensions - what pensions? They're fúcked.
No water - no longer free

.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

Banjo String

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

I'd buy that for a dollar.

Timeless12

Death,famine, disease and poverty.

KyussBishop

If everyone did it at once such that jail time was impractical, government would probably put pressure on an essential service/utility provider, such as electricity providers, and have them collect the tax from you in bills, with the threat of having your electricity cut off.

Unless you actually got up, protested, and overthrew government, it wouldn't be that hard to make it impractical to avoid the taxes.

Annasopra

joe swanson wrote: »

No dole
No health service
No pensions
No water
Etc
Etc

No schools, hospitals, buses, police

All state maintained infrastructure would deteriorate to the point that it would be dangerous to use.
Potholes would be the least of your worries.

Skylinehead

IvaBigWun wrote: »

No health service - this is a shambles anyway.
No pensions - what pensions? They're fúcked.
No water - no longer free

Health service, shambles or no shambles, is infinitely better than no health system.

What pensions? The pensions. They do exist ya know.

Water - what does it matter if it isn't free? No taxes = no money = no water infrastructure = no water.

Also add:

No police = no order.
No schools = no education.

Inevitably, no services of any kind. How do you like electricity and heat?

kkelly77

If everyone had the the basics for living, then a world without money would be possible.

Money is an illusion.

NuckingFacker

kkelly77 wrote: »

If everyone had the the basics for living, then a world without money would be possible.

Money is an illusion.

Sounds dull.

glass_onion

They would probably pile it on somewhere else ie diesel/petrol/motor tax.

Mint Aero

IvaBigWun wrote: »

For starters the prosecuting system wouldnt be able to cope with such a large protest, the backlog would span decades.

What would happen if we all decided to not pay the government taxes anymore?

Yeeeeeeeah, because that tactic worked so well for the property tax

Face it OP, country's over run with civil servants whose lives are a bit too cushty for that sort of carry on.

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

jobeenfitz

kkelly77 wrote: »

If everyone had the the basics for living, then a world without money would be possible.

Money is an illusion.

Give me all your money.

keith16

Deleted User wrote: »

All state maintained infrastructure would deteriorate to the point that it would be dangerous to use.
Potholes would be the least of your worries.

He fixed the road?

martingriff

Can't happen for 2 very good reasons PAYE the taxes are paid before you get your pay packet. Also VAT is on everything you pay when you pay it. So I do not see anyway for taxes not been paid

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

hatrickpatrick

martingriff wrote: »

Can't happen for 2 very good reasons PAYE the taxes are paid before you get your pay packet. Also VAT is on everything you pay when you pay it. So I do not see anyway for taxes not been paid

PAYE is reliant upon employers choosing to follow the law and forward it on to the government. VAT is reliant upon sellers choosing to follow the law and forward the 23% on to the government. If employers and retailers joined this boycott then no, these taxes would not be payed either.

IvaBigWun

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

PAYE is reliant upon employers choosing to follow the law and forward it on to the government. VAT is reliant upon sellers choosing to follow the law and forward the 23% on to the government. If employers and retailers joined this boycott then no, these taxes would not be payed either.

Then this kind of protest *is* possible

An Coilean

IvaBigWun wrote: »

What would happen if we all decided to not pay the government taxes anymore?

The state qould come down like a tonne of bricks on the leaders of any such movement and most people would be desuaded from joining it as a result.

To be fair though, most people have to sense to realise that anarchy is not really all that desirable.

mikemac1

A few hundred quangos would disappear and nobody would miss them

hatrickpatrick

IvaBigWun wrote: »

Then this kind of protest *is* possible

I never said it wasn't possible - anything is possible with enough people behind it. What I was saying was, too many people have been conditioned to believe that "stability" is the ideal - just think how often we've heard that awful word thrown around over the last couple of years - without thinking it through. A pile of sh!te could be perfectly stable, yet wholly undesirable. Technically the Egyptian regime under Mubarack was "stable" for a long time, because he crushed any potential opposition. Stable merely means predictable and unlikely to change drastically.

So basically what I'm saying is, this kind of thing is possible, but too many people are too afraid of the unknown to take the leap of faith and give it a try. And as long as people continue to believe what is rammed down their throats by the establishment, media, those in authority, it will remain that way.

28064212

Why not create a political party with the stated aims of repealing taxes? There's a general election due in a maximum of 3 years, plenty of time to get a movement off the ground. I'm sure there'll be a huge groundswell of support for such a well-thought out proposal

You know, instead of a noisy-but-ineffective token protest by a couple of malcontents for whom the freeman movement isn't quite nonsensical enough

Us PAYE desk-monkeys would have to swallow even more pain, that's what would happen

stimpson

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

PAYE is reliant upon employers choosing to follow the law and forward it on to the government. VAT is reliant upon sellers choosing to follow the law and forward the 23% on to the government. If employers and retailers joined this boycott then no, these taxes would not be payed either.

Considering very few employers or retailers are 2nd year sociology students, I think the government are pretty safe.

goose2005

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I never said it wasn't possible - anything is possible with enough people behind it. What I was saying was, too many people have been conditioned to believe that "stability" is the ideal - just think how often we've heard that awful word thrown around over the last couple of years - without thinking it through. A pile of sh!te could be perfectly stable, yet wholly undesirable. Technically the Egyptian regime under Mubarack was "stable" for a long time, because he crushed any potential opposition. Stable merely means predictable and unlikely to change drastically.

So basically what I'm saying is, this kind of thing is possible, but too many people are too afraid of the unknown to take the leap of faith and give it a try. And as long as people continue to believe what is rammed down their throats by the establishment, media, those in authority, it will remain that way.

Not the most convincing argument for revolution i've heard

wexandproud

i know its a hypothetical situation, but when the money runs out at least the people who receive all the handouts might realise that nothing is free and its the tax payers off this country who pay for everything

kippy

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Nobody really knows, because sadly, you'd never manage to get enough of a majority with the balls to try it.
"Stability" has somehow become the ultimate goal, even if stability means stable sh!te. A lot of people prefer the predictable crappiness to the idea of an unpredictable unknown.

Until that somehow changes, we won't see that kind of revolution happening, unfortunately.

what would this revolution be and what would its aims be?
stability is a good thing particularily the stability most of the developed world experience.

IvaBigWun

Deleted User wrote: »

Us PAYE desk-monkeys would have to swallow even more pain, that's what would happen

Not necessarily if companies took part in it too

hmmm

There's two groups of moaners. One group on the dole who think "de gubernment" is stealing their "entitlements", and the other group of moaners are college kids who think the rest of us could do with a good dose of anarchy and chaos. Both would lose their funding from the taxes those of us who bother working are paying.

Now you mention it, what a great idea!

MJ23

Some of those doler wasters wouldnt have money they didn't earn or deserve to blow in the bookies and buy fags.

Skylinehead

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

So basically what I'm saying is, this kind of thing is possible, but too many people are too afraid of the unknown to take the leap of faith and give it a try. And as long as people continue to believe what is rammed down their throats by the establishment, media, those in authority, it will remain that way.

You sound like you actually want a complete stop to all health, security, utility and education services. Do you?

KyussBishop

There are a lot of problems with both revolution and anarchy:
1: Anarchy, of either the capitalist or socialist variety, is unproven and its viability on the scale of an entire economy is untested and mainly theoretical - needs a lot more thought/experiment applied on a small scale, to see what does/doesn't work, before real alternatives can be discovered and implemented on a wider scale.

2: Revolution is bad. If it turns violent, then you don't get a revolution shaped by the people, you get a revolution shaped by the most violent faction within it - so the faction most willing and experienced with using force would win; this is how fascists and other totalitarian types get into power.

So, we have to work with the solutions/alternatives we do know of (and there are many which are more than good enough to resolve our problems), and we have to implement them as an evolution of our current political/economic system - we have to work within the current system, not replace it through revolution (which is a rather romantic but naive view of how to go about changing things).

AtomicHorror

IvaBigWun wrote: »

It got me thinking; what if those in Ireland who had to self assess, i.e. limited companies and the self employed, simply stopped doing so en mass?

What if those who were prosecuted took it to the Supreme and EU courts arguing that their taxes werent being spent correctly, as is evident in the HSE and more.

For starters the prosecuting system wouldnt be able to cope with such a large protest, the backlog would span decades.

What would happen if we all decided to not pay the government taxes anymore?

Or we could just fire the people who mis-spend our taxes. Now, how would we go about doing that?

Frank Black

IvaBigWun wrote: »

It got me thinking;

I doubt it.

Gummy Panda

The hunger games would happen

Fred Swanson

This post has been deleted.

hatrickpatrick

Skylinehead wrote: »

You sound like you actually want a complete stop to all health, security, utility and education services. Do you?

I want a complete change to currency and how trade is conducted - and if everyone joined a boycott of the type the OP mentions, upsetting the established order completely, yes there would be short term chaos, but we would have a chance to start fresh with a new system instead of endlessly "reforming" this one which is fundamentally bonkers at its very core.

Annasopra

mikemac1 wrote: »

A few hundred quangos would disappear and nobody would miss them

Speak for yourself

Skylinehead

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I want a complete change to currency and how trade is conducted - and if everyone joined a boycott of the type the OP mentions, upsetting the established order completely, yes there would be short term chaos, but we would have a chance to start fresh with a new system instead of endlessly "reforming" this one which is fundamentally bonkers at its very core.

Short term chaos = many, many deaths, and crime. I think I'd rather stick to the current system rather than change it using your way.

hatrickpatrick

Skylinehead wrote: »

Short term chaos = many, many deaths, and crime. I think I'd rather stick to the current system rather than change it using your way.

Why assume it would lead to deaths and crime? Do you reckon there's even a tiny possibility that we could avoid all that?

Skylinehead

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Why assume it would lead to deaths and crime? Do you reckon there's even a tiny possibility that we could avoid all that?

I assume deaths and crime because no tax revenue = no health system, and no police. There's no way around that.

Wacker The Attacker

kkelly77 wrote: »

If everyone had the the basics for living, then a world without money would be possible.

Money is an illusion.

Quite an IF

KyussBishop

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Why assume it would lead to deaths and crime? Do you reckon there's even a tiny possibility that we could avoid all that?

What do you assume would happen though? Just dropping into anarchy without a plan, doesn't really lead anywhere good.

Probably the only possible (theoretical) way for anarchy to actually work, is a slow/gradual transformation of society that is carefully planned, and happens with the co-operation of the state - and I don't believe any anarchist group has a good layout of how this transition is supposed to actually work in reality (which is why it's just not viable at the moment, and why so much work needs to be done still on the theory behind it).

kippy

KyussBishop wrote: »

What do you assume would happen though? Just dropping into anarchy without a plan, doesn't really lead anywhere good.

Probably the only possible (theoretical) way for anarchy to actually work, is a slow/gradual transformation of society that is carefully planned, and happens with the co-operation of the state - and I don't believe any anarchist group has a good layout of how this transition is supposed to actually work in reality (which is why it's just not viable at the moment, and why so much work needs to be done still on the theory behind it).

Anarchy doesn't generally involve a plan, does it?