A society is always about 3 days of hunger away from a violent revolution. Start your clocks.

  • sampao@lemmy.ml
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    18 hours ago

    Not an American but if the government shutsdown and they are cancelling programs, shouldn’t you not have to pay taxes for that time period?

    • Guy Ingonito@reddthat.com
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      3 hours ago

      It would be like withholding rent from your landlord until they repaired your heating. You’d have to still place the money in escrow to prove to a judge you had the money intended to pay.

    • Demonmariner@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      Most working people have their estimated taxes deducted from their pay before they receive it. They don’t have an option to not pay.

      • homura1650@lemmy.world
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        4 hours ago

        You can fill out a form and send it to your HR/payroll department to adjust your withholdings at anytime, and they are supposed to do so no questions asked.

        The employee not paying their income tax does not actually have an adverse impact on the employer, so they don’t care. Of course, the employee still has the legal obligation to pay; but breaking tax law is pretty inherent with tax protest.

      • Sunflier@lemmy.worldOP
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        17 hours ago

        Well, that one congressional district that has their congress person being kept out should definitely not have to pay because that would be a taxation when they have no representation.

        • fodor@lemmy.zip
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          17 hours ago

          Also, several congresspeople have said that they “don’t represent the Democrats” in their districts. I think that, too, should immediately exempt those residents from taxes.

      • Sunflier@lemmy.worldOP
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        14 hours ago

        They don’t have an option to not pay.

        Sort of. When you start employment, you fill out a whole bunch of paperwork related to taxes and pay. Most people opt to have standard tax withholdings, but you can opt to get the full paycheck with no withholdings. It just requires you to pay a huge bill at the end of every year out of your bank account.

        If you’re smart and time it right, you can take what would be deducted and put it into a 12-month certificate. Then, when the year ends, you take that principle and pay the taxes. You just get to keep the interest.

        Most people don’t because taxes and the deductions from the paycheck change so much every year. It can be hard to figure out and a pain to have to refile the paperwork to change the deductions to see what this paycheck’s deduction should be.

        • relativestranger@feddit.nl
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          5 hours ago

          i used to do that, claim exempt and just pay at the end of the year. if what you end up paying is over a certain amount, they will get you for penalties and interest.

          • Nollij@sopuli.xyz
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            59 minutes ago

            $1,000 is that number, or at least it was a few years ago. The IRS requires quarterly estimated payments. Although from what I could tell (not a tax expert), it would’ve been fine for me to just pay the whole sum on Dec 31.

        • Hildegarde@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          13 hours ago

          If your income does not have withholdings you are required to make payments quarterly. If you owe above a certain amount when filing your tax returns you have to pay a penalty.

          You can write exempt on the withholding form to stop your employer from withholding, but the forms are very clear that it is only to be done if you owe no tax. Unless you earn less than $16k or whatever the standard deduction is for you, it would be unwise to not make advanced tax payments.

          You can file your forms differently to avoid paying the feds, or delaying those payments, but you do so at personal risk.