[prepend]

> analogous to burning your house down for the insurance money

It’s very different because insurance pays out to make whole. Taxes are just taxes.

It’s the equivalent of burning your house down and then writing off the depreciated value because it burned down. Totally legal. Because it’s worth less after burning it down. Assuming you burn it in a legal, controlled manner and not arson.

[lisper]

Every tax dollar you don't pay is a dollar someone else has to pay instead, or a dollar that gets added to the national debt. And burning your house down and writing off the depreciated value is absolutely not legal.

> Assuming you burn it in a legal, controlled manner and not arson.

Yes, well, that is a might big assumption. I doubt you could point me to a single instance of someone actually burning down their house in a "legal, controlled manner".

It ultimately boils down to details. If there really were a legitimate reason to destroy a film (or a house) rather than selling it to the highest bidder then you might have a case. But you'd be very hard-pressed to come up with a set of legitimate circumstances for either one.

[s1artibartfast]

>Every tax dollar you don't pay is a dollar someone else has to pay instead, or a dollar that gets added to the national debt. And burning your house down and writing off the depreciated value is absolutely not legal.

nobody is entitled tax revenue. Laws generally support taxes on income/profit, and arent just a bill.

It isn't illegal to work less and pay less taxes.

It is absolutely legal to knock down your house so you dont have to pay property or sales tax on it.

[gruez]

>It is absolutely legal to knock down your house so you dont have to pay property or sales tax on it.

Generally property taxes are on the land and its improvements (eg. houses), so burning down the house wouldn't relieve you of property tax obligations. Moreover, destroying the house would actually reduce your tax obligations, and AFAIK isn't illegal.

[s1artibartfast]

It would relieve you of property tax for the house, which is my point.

It would also allow you to avoid taxes on the sale of the house.

[gruez]

So you're saying that you can't demolish buildings on your own property (or at least not without rebuilding another of equal value), because that would lead to the city/county getting less taxes? That seems utterly absurd. What's next, not being able to paint the inside of your house puke yellow, which would also tank property values?

[s1artibartfast]

I think you misread my initial post.

>nobody is entitled tax revenue. Laws generally support taxes on income/profit, and arent just a bill.

>It isn't illegal to work less and pay less taxes.

>It is absolutely legal to knock down your house so you dont have to pay property or sales tax on it. You are making the same point.

[s1artibartfast]

>Every tax dollar you don't pay is a dollar someone else has to pay instead, or a dollar that gets added to the national debt. And burning your house down and writing off the depreciated value is absolutely not legal.

nobody is entitled tax revenue. Laws generally support taxes on income/profit, and arent just a bill.

It isn't illegal to work less and pay less taxes.

It is absolutely legal to knock down your house so you dont have to pay property or mortgage tax on it.

[lisper]

> It is absolutely legal to knock down your house so you dont have to pay property or mortgage tax on it.

Yes, that's true. But that's not the same thing as claiming the resulting loss as a deduction on your income tax.

[s1artibartfast]

>but that's not the same thing as claiming the resulting loss as a deduction on your income tax

which you can also do. If you knock down your house, then sell it, you will have a pretty heafty capital loss, which you can then use as a income deduction for up to 8 years, or until it runs out.

[lisper]

> then sell it

Yes, but you have to sell it, at which point it's a capital loss. And you can sell the movie and take a loss that way as well (assuming you actually sell it at a loss).

What you cannot do is delete the movie and then claim it as a capital loss -- because you haven't sold it.

[s1artibartfast]

If you kock down your house, you literally cant sell it. Also, there are multiple ways of changing asset value besides sale.