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mcantelon

You seriously think the IRS is going to go after you for an order on Overstock?

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Perhaps if you are a political enemy of $political_party_in_power.

I'm a political enemy of anybody who habitually doesn't pay their taxes, and thus by extension, raises mine.

Are you, by extension, raising the taxes for everybody else by ideologically supporting the current system?

Do you feel responsible for all negative consequences caused by your tax dollars?

> Do you feel responsible for all negative consequences caused by your tax dollars?

I've got other political enemies as well. If by "negative consequences of my tax dollars", you mean "things our governments spend money on that I disagree with"...no, I don't feel wholly responsible for them, since I fight the proponents of those things, too.

So are those who avoid paying taxes but fight for lower taxes also your political enemies?

You must boycott a lot of corporations.

I don't see how being a political enemy implies that an individual would boycott a corporation. If my "enemy" is offering me a deal that is beneficial to me, then I make that deal.

I don't buy things from the vast majority of corporations in existence.

There's a difference between using legal tax structures to reduce (or eliminate) your bill, and simply not paying your taxes.

The end result is the other guy has to pay your fair share of the taxes.

So how do you define "fair share" if it is not defined by following the tax laws as written?

Fairness is defined by law? Interesting idea. By "fair share" I mean, unsurprisingly, a share that is fair. Corporations are subject to taxation. A corporation that makes healthy profits, in part driven by publicly funded infrastructure, should be required to give back to maintain said infrastructure.

Typically corps accused of avoiding tax earn no profits after their myriad coats are applied, that's how they avoid taxes. While governments could probably do more to charge corps tax, this is a complex grey area and there is no simple way to define fair or collect taxes as accounting rules are so complex. If you tax revenue you penalise new companies, if you tax profit it is easy for corps to find costs or transfer funds to shield profits.

They play lots of shell games to hide the profits, yes, and it is complex. I'm more talking more about the big picture than specifics because, as you point out, this is an involved topic which involves a great deal of money. A lot of effort has gone into creating arguments to justify the idea that workers should have to pay all costs of public infrastructure.

I would say "intent" of law, rather than what actually happens. e.g., the reason we call tax loopholes, "loopholes", is because the consensus is that they're being used to defeat the intent of law. Megacorp with a shell company of zero employees in Ireland using the double irish[1] I think means the company isn't paying their "fair share".

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

Do you pay sales tax on all of your internet purchases?

In New York, we can opt pay a flat yearly "Use tax" for an unlimited number items purchased over the Internet from outside of NYS that cost less than $1,000 each. For me, it's about $100, and yes I pay it.

Items purchased online in NYS are subject to sales tax at the time of the transaction, and the burden is on the vendor to collect it.

Thank you.

Pretty sure you're supposed to. . . . .

Yes, but most people only do so for purchases where the website forces you to at the time of purchase (i.e. the company operates in your state).

Good point.

The IRS thinking might be: (a) People who order on Overstock using Bitcoin are likely to be dodging a small amount of tax. (b) People who dodge a small amount of tax in one transaction are more likely to be dodging a large amount of tax on another transaction.

Therefore, an Overstock order in Bitcoins could be a 'red flag' that causes the IRS to look into your other tax arrangements.

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