[maxander]

“Eating food you grew yourself” is a tax dodge? What about making your own improvements to your house? Cooking your own food? Doing your own laundry? You could pay for any number of services, with the associated tax. So you’re about as much of a tax dodge as these folks. But that’s a radical expansion of the notion of taxable economic activity. The IRS trying to get that notion accepted as law would be practically unthinkable.

There was a time, for that matter, where most of the U.S. economy was agrarian. The world still worked. There were fewer government services, to be sure- but if most people are members of semi-self-sufficient communities, fewer services would be needed.

[jlawson]

Growing food yourself is one thing. But that's not what we're talking about.

Eating food grown and prepared by other people in a community of 70+ people, in exchange for your labor in other areas, and paying no tax on any of it.... tax dodge.

How many people does it have to be, in your opinion, before it's a tax dodge?

[neekburm]

I've given this one a lot of thought. Ordinarily, you're supposed to pay tax on the fair market value of goods and services received in return for your labor in barter transactions.

However, East Wind is incorporated as a 501(d) organization, which is what monasteries use. For more info on 501(d) orgs: https://www.irs.gov/irm/part7/irm_07-025-023

I can't find anything specific, but I think that since they share their income and produce as a collective, they're only liable for taxes on their share of the income that the collective produces. Monks don't have to pay taxes on the value they get from the monastery vegetable garden.

Tax avoidance is a time-honored American tradition. This is one way to do so. It sounds like they've done their legal homework if they've managed to survive 30 years without IRS trouble.