[pdkl95]

Failure to pay income tax is not a crime punishable with prison time. If you cannot pay, all the IRS will do is arrange for future payment through civil methods (e.g. garnishing future wages, putting a lien on your house, etc). If your poor, the IRS won't throw you in jail. However, if you have a reasonable source of income, you will be asked to pay your share of the services you're using[2].

Note that tax evasion/fraud[1] is illegal, which may be difficult to distinguish in some cases.

[1] not to be confused with tax avoidance

[2] services like national security, various types of infrastructure, verification and enforcement of safety regulations (e.g. no melamine in your food). You may not like all of these services - I certainly disagree strongly with some - but citizenship is not à la carte[3]. If you don't like some things your tax money is going to, I encourage you to participate in the political process so your opinions are heard, or even run for office yourself.

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSQCH1qyIDo#t=219

[aminok]

Refusal to report your private income (surrender your financial privacy) is punishable by prison.

>If your poor, the IRS won't throw you in jail. However, if you have a reasonable source of income, you will be asked to pay your share of the services you're using.

This is false. The government does not ask. The government demands and punishes non-compliance with expropriation of private property and or prison.

[pdkl95]

> Refusal to report your private income (surrender your financial privacy) is punishable by prison.

Of course. You still have to file tax forms, and if you have the money you have to pay it. The situation I'm referring to is how not having the money to pay taxes is only a civil offense. Failure to file or filing fraudulently are, of course, offenses that risk jail time.

> This is false.

I suspect you're conflating filing the tax paperwork (i.e. 1040 and related forms) with the actual payment. These are separate requirements with different potential punishments for non-compliance.

> The government does not ask.

Obviously.

[aminok]

>Failure to file or filing fraudulently are, of course, offenses that risk jail time.

So the income tax is a grotesque violation of Human Rights and should be abolished.

[Dylan16807]

I fail to see how it's a violation of human rights to make fraud illegal.

[aminok]

It's a human rights violation to demand someone give up their privacy and disclose their income, and then to demand that they hand over a share of the currency they receive in private trade.

To even categorise refusal to disclose one's personal income as "fraud" (which is an entirely different behavior) is political language to rationalise this human rights violation.

[Dylan16807]

I was only asking about actual fraud, not failure to file. I thought you were calling both violations of human rights.

[Dylan16807]

>The government demands and punishes non-compliance with expropriation of private property and or prison.

In your ideal world, when you legitimately owe someone money and you're past due, what should happen when you refuse to pay, and you're willing to escalate as far as possible? You seem to object to the idea that repeated noncompliance can increase the severity of punishment. But what's the alternative? To not enforce small crimes at all?

[aminok]

Difference is that those debt obligations were voluntarily assumed, whereas tax debt is an odd form of debt that is imposed on someone without their agreement.

[Dylan16807]

That's a valid distinction to make, but as long as you accept that small punishments like fines will have the full force of the legal system behind them, it's disingenuous to pretend the punishment for not paying taxes is anything other than a fine backed by the legal system.

Or in other words: You started the discussion by saying it's terrible to "threaten to throw someone in prison" for X. The normal interpretation of that phrase is that the direct punishment you get is prison. But that's not true, the direct punishment you get is a fine. The sense in which you could go to prison is equivalent to the statement "the law is actually enforced". You have to fight pretty hard to end up in prison over it. It's not a violation of human rights to have some fees for things, and it's not a violation of human rights that laws are actually enforced.

[aminok]

>The normal interpretation of that phrase is that the direct punishment you get is prison.

I'm arguing that this interpretation is wrong, as it ignores the violence and force that ultimately backs all government mandates.

The violent/forceful quality of government mandates is why we should not be making morally legitimate behavior, like refusing to honour a debt that one did not voluntarily assume, or refusing to surrender one's privacy, a civil or criminal offence.

[Dylan16807]

The thing is, you can reach prison for even a $5 voluntary debt if you keep escalating hard enough. So it's not meaningfully bad that X thing could theoretically escalate to prison, because everything can, even a $5 debt. The end impression once you take in the whole situation is not "the government is going too far with this law", it's "the government is going as far as it would with a $5 voluntary debt, meh".