Happy Tax Unfreedom Day From The Dollar Vigilante!

Friday,April 24, 2015
Happy Tax Unfreedom Day From The Dollar Vigilante!

[The following post is by TDV Chief Editor, Jeff Berwick]

Today is “Tax Freedom Day,” in the US, but that is already an oxymoron of terms as no such day can exist in reality because tax (extortion) is the opposite of freedom.

But, yes, if you are an average person who lives in the USSA, today is the final day where almost all of your earnings are extorted from you and from this day forward, theoretically, you can actually keep what you have worked for.

Yes, nearly half the year working to pay your master(bater)s, your (mis)leaders.  In times not so far removed, in 1900, your days of being extorted ended on January 22. In 2015, it is April 24. Soon, it will be January 1st, the following year.

Tax Foundation explains how the exact day is arrived at:

Tax Freedom Day is computed by dividing total tax collections by the nation’s income, as reported by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Every dollar that is officially called income by the government is counted, and every payment that is officially considered a tax is counted. The resulting percentage is then converted into days of a 365-day calendar year

This indicator does not include the untold amount stolen in the form of licenses, ticketing, asset forfeiture and so on and so forth. It doesn’t include, very importantly, debt nor inflation. For many Americans, their tax freedom day might be more like October.  Just in time for the holidays.

Tax Freedom Day was thought up in 1948 by Florida businessman Dallas Hostetler, who came up with the phrase, and worked to calculate the date for the next twenty years. When Hostetler retired, the trademark was transferred to the Tax Foundation. The Tax Foundation has calculated Tax Freedom Day ever since. It is used today to demonstrate how much of the national income is used to fund government. Tax Freedom Day does not include debt nor inflation. As Wikipedia plainly states:

  1. Debt is the tax on future labor. Governments secure debts by promising creditors to service and repay debts by taxing future labor.

  2. Inflation or currency debasement increases the supply of currency. This new currency could be used to pay for government, but the increased supply results in a decrease in value of each unit of currency. As the value of currency decreases, commodity prices increase as a result.

Here is a look at the US’s tax burden over the past 115 years.

Year

TFD

Percentage tax burden

1900

January 22

5.9%

1910

January 19

5.0%

1920

February 13

12.0%

1930

February 12

11.7%

1940

March 7

17.9%

1950

March 31

24.6%

1960

April 11

27.7%

1970

April 19

29.6%

1980

April 21

30.4%

1990

April 21

30.4%

2000

May 1

33.0%

2001

April 27

31.8%

2002

April 17

29.2%

2003

April 14

28.4%

2004

April 15

28.5%

2005

April 21

30.2%

2006

April 26

31.2%

2007

April 24

31.1%

2008

April 16

29.0%

2009

April 8

26.6%

2010

April 9

26.9%

2011

April 12

27.7%

2012

April 13

29.2%

2013

April 18

29.4%

2014

April 21

30.2%

2015

April 24

31%

When the income tax was first introduced in the US, in 1861,  the rate of three percent was nothing compared to today’s tax levels. A corporation is taxed at 35%! And that’s not including the bureaucratic red tape it must go through.  But, even corporate tax is a tax on the individual (another hidden tax) as no company can exist that does not profit and if taxes are raised again a company those costs are passed on to the consumer.

The original income tax was repealed as unconstitutional (amen to that) in 1872, but in 1913 the “Sixteenth Amendment” paved the way for the modern income tax system in the USA. 1913 was an interesting year to re-introduce the income tax as that was the same year, and passed on the same day, as the Federal Reserve Act, which would put the US into perpetual debt slavery.

If slavery is someone taking 100% of your income, then what do you call it when they take 40%? Some slave owners treated their own slaves better than world governments treat their own citizens. Some slave owners let their slaveskeep earnings, gambling profits and buy their way out of slavery.   Many people, no matter the color of their skin or their creed, are more enslaved than blacks were in the US in the 1800s.

Slavery has never ended in the US (and almost everywhere in the world), it has just been improved in how it portrays itself.

“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.”, said Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Look around you in the US as slaves actually worship the ensignia (flags and symbols) of their own slavemasters, drink “beer” (which is not truly beer at all, but more like an adult soda pop), and shout out about “America, the land of the free!”

They cheer as their oppressor’s military machine fly over the circuses (football games) and chant the name of their owners, “USA! USA!”, who allow them a small portion of what they rightfully own, themselves.

There are still ways, however, to be semi-free in an incredibly unfree world.  One way is to live a lifestyle such as I have lived for the last 15 years, called the Perpetual Traveller/Permanent Tourist or Prior Taxpayer (PT) theory.

Thanks to the internet living this way has become much easier and, by escaping your own tax farm and living in freer places (almost anywhere outside of the USSA) you can live a much freer life (subscribe to the TDV newsletterfor more specific advice on doing so).

However, as long as governments encompass this entire planet like a skin disease, we will never truly be free.  In fact, the entire planet has never been less free.  You need permission from your overlords for almost everything including “travelling”, called a passport and travel visas.

Government, in ANY form, is an antonym to the word freedom.

Perhaps take this “tax freedom” day to ponder upon this question.  Who owns me?  If you are honest with yourself you might be surprised to realize it isn’t you.

From there, stick with us at TDV to find some clues on how you can reclaim some ownership of yourself… and if enough people do, finally, eventually, ownership of yourself will be returned to its rightful owner.  You.