141–150 of 234 posts
Not uncommon in some cities in Canada to find out you're working for a criminal outfit if writing point of sale/restaurant software where they want you to produce one receipt for the customer and a different one for the restaurant or salon or shady car mechanic that then pockets the unreported tax aka a 'zapper'. Profitek was busted once, InfoSpec Systems, zappers are in high demand
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Here in North America, you just donate 2% of your ill gotten gains to your local Congressperson!
Doesn't US have an "ill gotten gains" field on the tax form? EDIT: Apparently, your illegal income is regularly taxable, and expenses related to (most) illegal activity are tax-deductible. Cool! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_of_illegal_income_in_... . "The U.S. Supreme Court in Tellier reiterated that the purpose of the tax code was to tax net income, not punish unlawful behavior." I do appreciate this senti…
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The point was happily . North Korean regime is at the point where they don't have any other sensible option than to tolerate the black markets.
There's also another reason: black markets and widespread corruption make everyone a possible target of regime purges. Remember Al Capone, folks...
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Am I the only one getting depressed with all the excuses and rationalizations in this thread? It's the same with "adtech" and the like... "Hey, I'm not killing anyone, what's the harm?" Technology has the potential to raise humanity above its current conditions and limitations. But we can't have it, because we are selfish and short-sighted monkeys. Take a big dump on all the ideals if this delivers the paycheck. "Bus…
You're not the only one. And don't even get me started on adtech. I share your sentiment 100%. See [0]. -- [0] - http://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html .
Another one for you: in Berlin, buildings under renovation are allowed to place gigantic ads on the scaffolding. I imagine the original ideas was benign, to sort of subsidize the loss of revenue by business owners and renters, and thus encourage maintenance for the good of the city. Of course, there is nothing that marketers won't try to pervert, and this is an easy one. In the most desirable advertising locations, buildings tend to enter states of perma-renovation. This got particularly horrible during the last Word Cup, with historical buildings in my area covered with gigantic ads with tacky things written on them in gigantic letters, such as : GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL! BUY THE NEW XYZ VR HEADSET
What depresses me to no end is how apathetic everyone is to this relentless erosion of culture and quality of life.
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Ethics. Where were yours?
Yeah, look, ethics is great and all but when you risk being homeless or hungry, it quickly goes out the window. Especially for "victimless" (i.e. no one is directly affected) illegal activity.
Also, ethics include one own integrity, it is not about sacrificing everything to others - at least not all ethical inquiries will conclude that.
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> It's a funny one because [Tax Evasion is] potentially one of the most serious crimes. You're stealing from everybody, undermining the basis of trust in the entire system in which we live and probably in the long term eroding the basis of democracy. You're creating a non-level playing field. This is true, and in addition, it's a very unequal crime. To properly evade taxes and get away with it, you need professional…
>Most standard W-2 employees can't afford it, i.e., for most, the cost to hire professional help evading taxes is larger than the taxes they could save. . >than saving 20% on $200k/yr income Erm, that's not a standard W2 employee's income. Not even close. The median U.S. household income was $63,179 in 2017.
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> black and grey market activity are also I think quite an important counter-balance to the possibility of totalitarian government. I don't really buy this: plenty of totalitarian regimes have illegal black markets, that governments often tolerate because they don't see a threat to their power. A better way to counter a totalitarian government is via open communication and coordination of the government's subjects. G…
> that governments often tolerate because they don't see a threat to their power. You think for example the North Korean government happily tolerates the black markets there? No way. If it would be easy for them to control them they would close them down. The black/grey markets happening in totalitarian countries are more like compromises - it would be too difficult to stop the activity without murdering half of the…
Not uncommon in some cities in Canada to find out you're working for a criminal outfit if writing point of sale/restaurant software where they want you to produce one receipt for the customer and a different one for the restaurant or salon or shady car mechanic that then pockets the unreported tax aka a 'zapper'. Profitek was busted once, InfoSpec Systems, zappers are in high demand
Years ago the Portuguese government encouraged consumers to submit their receipts in a portal and each submitted receipt was a entry to a raffle where the prizes were luxury cars. This way they could match the receipts from consumers with the ones reported by the shops. It felt wrong to put citizens policing the shops but it worked.
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>Most standard W-2 employees can't afford it, i.e., for most, the cost to hire professional help evading taxes is larger than the taxes they could save. . >than saving 20% on $200k/yr income Erm, that's not a standard W2 employee's income. Not even close. The median U.S. household income was $63,179 in 2017.
In lieu of the accuracy, you missed the essence.
40k of 200k doesn't make a big difference, 3016 of 15,080 (federal minimum wage @ 40 hours a week for a year) makes a HUGE difference as does 12,635.90 of 63,179.
Why do you think waitstaff and the like prefer cash tips? because they feel that no one will know if they don't report some or all of that income. Go ask any waiter, waitress, bartender, etc if they want you to give them that tip on credit card where they get taxed or cash where they don't. The same goes for electricians, plumbers, handymen, etc as they'll happily take cash first because they can fudge their numbers some.
Not uncommon in some cities in Canada to find out you're working for a criminal outfit if writing point of sale/restaurant software where they want you to produce one receipt for the customer and a different one for the restaurant or salon or shady car mechanic that then pockets the unreported tax aka a 'zapper'. Profitek was busted once, InfoSpec Systems, zappers are in high demand
Years ago the Portuguese government encouraged consumers to submit their receipts in a portal and each submitted receipt was a entry to a raffle where the prizes were luxury cars. This way they could match the receipts from consumers with the ones reported by the shops. It felt wrong to put citizens policing the shops but it worked.
The GST/HST system in Canada sort of serves the same purpose. It is an overarching tax system that seems redundant in that every business then can claim back every bit of GST they've paid out. But to do so you have to have receipts for everything, from every source, and when they randomly do an audit they aren't checking you as much as they're building a profile of every other business you interacted with.
Tax avoidance is a problem in every country.