Category: Gummint

Yet Another Tax

Gummint, Taxes and Theft

So Britishland is going to implement a wealth tax — whereby one is taxed (annually) not just upon income, but upon one’s total “wealth”, including such things as property.

How do I know this?  From this statement by their Labour Government:

A minister has opened the door to Labour introducing a wealth tax at some point amid pressure from backbenchers to change course ahead of sweeping welfare cuts.

Emma Reynolds said that the Government would reject demands for a 2 per cent levy “for the time being” but did not rule out such a tax at future financial events.

If you’re at all familiar with politician-speak, “did not rule out”  means “we’re gonna do it, and sooner than you think”.

And lest you think this villainy is confined to places across The Pond, be aware that it’s a staple position among the Wealth Envious (i.e. most Democrats) Over Here as well.

Step forward, Sen. Pocahantas Warren:

The wealth tax is a cousin of the property tax, but it encompasses all forms of wealth: cash, stocks, jewelry, thoroughbred horses, jets, everything. Warren calls the policy her “Ultra-Millionaire Tax.” It would impose a 2% federal tax on every dollar of a person’s net worth over $50 million and an additional 1% tax on every dollar in net worth over $1 billion. Economists estimate it would hit the 75,000 richest households and raise $2.75 trillion over ten years.

The minute you hear the “t” word (“trillion”) applied to tax revenue, you can see the Socialists’ ears prick up.

Now here’s the fun part.

In 1990, twelve countries in Europe had a wealth tax. Today, there are only three: Norway, Spain, and Switzerland. According to reports by the OECD and others, there were some clear themes with the policy: it was expensive to administer, it was hard on people with lots of assets but little cash, it distorted saving and investment decisions, it pushed the rich and their money out of the taxing countries—and, perhaps worst of all, it didn’t raise much revenue.

Lest you think that this precedent would prevent socialists like Warren and the Labourites from initiating such a tax, you don’t know much about Socialism — where history (especially of failure) is always brushed aside with the airy comment of “But this time, we’ll do it better!”

After the loathsome Emma Reynolds’s little aside, that roaring you hear will be the sound of more (taxable) private jets being readied for takeoff on one-way flights out of the UK — although it should be noted that the roaring has been going on ever since Labour was returned to power last year.

Quote Of The Day

QOTD, Taxes and Theft

From our old buddy Senator Schmuckie Schumer (Soc-NY), talking about taxes:

“You know what their attitude is?  ‘I made my money all by myself. How dare your government take my money from me?’ “

Couldn’t have put it better myself, asshole.  And it’s not just “greedy business owners” who feel that way, either — something your Party Of Thieves is going to discover soon enough.

Technical Thuggery

Government Thugs, The Gun Thing

Well, when I saw this headline, I thought “Wow, this must be pretty bad, considering their history.”

One of the worst things ATF has ever done

And it was.

Not one of the guns or gun parts the ATF seized from former sailor Patrick Tate Adamiak was illegal. Not a single gun or gun part required any additional paperwork beyond a Form 4473, and most didn’t even require that. Adamiak was always extremely careful and did absolutely nothing wrong. 

Every single item that the ATF seized from Adamiak’s home is still sold to anyone who wants one. Most don’t even require an FFL for the transfer since they’re not even firearms but are instead legal gun parts. 

So, why is Adamiak serving 20 years in a federal prison?

Good question.  Here’s why:

(ATF Agent) Bodell’s incredible deceptions have become almost legendary. He actually turned toys into firearms and legal semi-autos into machineguns.

    • Bodell inserted a real STEN action and a real STEN barrel into Adamiak’s toy STEN submachinegun and got it to fire one round, even though the toy’s receiver wouldn’t accept a real STEN magazine. Bodell actually classified the toy, which are very popular, as a machine gun.
    • Bodell fired five of Adamiak’s very expensive and extremely collectible legal semi-autos, which fire from an open bolt. All the ATF technician could achieve was semi-auto fire, but that didn’t stop him. He classified all five highly sought after firearms as machine guns.
    • Bodell ruled that several receivers that had been cut in half were actually machine guns. The same receivers are still legally sold online and do not require an FFL or any paperwork.
    • Bodell actually rebuilt three inert RPGs, which had holes drilled into their receivers and were stripped of internal parts. ATF’s “expert” added parts from real RPGs until they would fire a single subcaliber 7.62x39mm round. As a result, he classified the RPGs as destructive devices.

So the ATF took Adamiak’s toys, turned them (partially) into (sorta) weapons, and had him sent to jail.  For 20 years.

Somebody explain to me why this cocksucker Bodell shouldn’t be swinging from a lamp post?  And ditto the fucking judge who allowed this bullshit to be taken as “evidence”?

Note to President Trump:   Pardon Adamiak yourself, and have Kash Patel take action against Bodell, just prior to closing down the entire ATF.  If you don’t, then why did we elect you?

Augean Stables

Bureaucracy, Trumpism

From Jeff Tucker:

For more than a century, even dating back to 1883, the civil service has grown and grown without check from the elected branch, either the presidency or the legislature . The bureaucracies have ballooned from a few to 450 or so. The bloat and absurdities have grown too. Get this: no one has ever known what to do about it. Not Coolidge, not Hoover, not Nixon, not Reagan, not Clinton, no one. No president has been able to crack this nut.

The only reforms ever to have made it through are those that make the administrative state bigger, never smaller. Countless cabinet secretaries have come and gone, always with the intention of making a change but leaving saddened, demoralized, outwitted, outgunned, and ultimately devoured. No president has seriously taken on this problem because they simply did not know how. The unions are powerful, the intimidation from the deep institutional knowledge is overwhelming, the fear of the media as been powerful, and every single president comes to power vaguely feeling threatened by the intelligence agencies. The industries that have captured every single agency were also far too powerful to unseat or control.

This combination of institutional inertia has blocked serious reform for a full century. No one has dared. No one has even had a theory or strategy about what to do about this problem. It had become so terrible that most people in politics have simply surrendered, like homeowners who know there are rats in the basement and bats in the attic but long ago gave up trying to fix the issue.

All this time, the American people have felt themselves ever more oppressed, weighed upon, taxed and regulated, spied upon, brow beaten, and otherwise overwhelmed. Voting never made any difference because the politicians no longer controlled the system. The bureaucracies ruled all.

But now we have a chance.  It may be our last, because right now, in the paraphrased words of John Adams, we have men worthy of the time:  a president who has a burning desire to make the changes necessary, an associate of towering intellect and inherent power who may be able to execute that change, and the subordinates who are just as willing to make those changes with the necessary authority (in the shape of presidential appointees), and others (the twenty-something hackers and geeks) who have the knowledge, skills and the tools to be able to root out the corruption and deadweight of accumulated bureaucracy and perverted, un-American policy.

Transferable Rights

Rights

I would have thought that things you do in your home country are no problem — I mean legal stuff and such, of course.

And of course too that would apply to your freedoms — in our case, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and so on.

But that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore when it comes to the UK and Europe.  Because they seem to be obsessed with policing speech — you know, the “hate speech” bullshit — they seem to be getting a leeetle too big for their britches.

Consider this, in Britishland:

Police officers questioned a grandfather for more than an hour after he called his neighbour “Mrs Twat” in a row about his dog.

Laurence Meir, 73, was visited twice at his home in Gorsley, Herefordshire, by police who warned him not to use the term again.

Background:

In January last year, Mr Meir’s dachshund Dixie strayed into his neighbour’s front garden, prompting the neighbour to allegedly call him a “twat”.

The neighbours had another run-in several weeks later, during which Mr Meir said “Hello Mrs Twat”.

Days later, two officers from West Mercia Police arrived at his home and questioned him for more than an hour about the incident, before warning him not to get “involved” with her again.

What about that second visit?

The police then visited his home for a second time after the neighbour complained that he poked his tongue out at her children.

“I was livid that the police had come to see me again about such a pathetic matter and couldn’t believe that they were wasting more of their time,” he said.  “I told the officers that I didn’t stick my tongue out at these kids and that they should go and catch some real criminals. But the police warned me that if it happened again then they would be forced to take further action. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, it really shows that the police have got their priorities completely wrong.”

“Further action”?  What the actual fuck are these idiots doing Over There?

But it gets worse.

A grandmother was spoken to at her home by police after she criticised Labour politicians online for sending offensive WhatsApp messages.

In a series of Facebook posts Helen Jones called for the resignation of a councillor embroiled in the WhatsApp scandal which led to the sacking of Andrew Gwynne, the former health minister.

The 54-year-old school administrator, who was not accused of committing a crime, said she was left feeling scared to post on social media following the unannounced visit by two officers on Tuesday.

Mrs Jones said two plain-clothes officers arrived at her home in Stockport last Tuesday at around 1.30pm, but she wasn’t in and they spoke to her husband Lee via an intercom. She rushed home fearing something had happened to a relative.

At 2.15pm she received a phone call from an officer thought to be the same sergeant who knocked on her door and was told the police had received a complaint about her recent social media posts.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, Mrs Jones said: “It was actually quite scary. It made me think I best just keep quiet for the rest of my life, because you just can’t say anything these days.

“I asked the police officer, have I committed any sort of crime – why did you call at my door? They said, ‘Someone has spoken to us about your social media posts’.

“I then said: ‘If I don’t take your advice and continue doing what I am doing, will I be committing a crime?’ He said no. I then asked: ‘What will you do about it?’ He said: ‘There’s not a lot we can do, we are just giving you advice’.”

Of course, to Americans, the concept of the fuzz coming over to your house because of something you posted on the Intarwebz is almost a joke, because we have that pesky inconvenient First Amendment whereby we can call (say) Barack Obama or Chuck Schumer a fucking asshole without the fear of a knock on the door from the police.  Furthermore, I am equally free to call BritPM Keir Starmer a fucking moron Commie who’s going to destroy Britishland because he’s well, a fucking moron Commie, he and all his little Labour Party lickspittles together.

Now pay careful attention to this.

Do you realize that through British and European law as currently written, if I were to visit the UK (as I am wont to do), I could be denied entry because of my predilection for “hate speech” — or even if I were allowed into the country, the cops might very well show up at, say Free Market Towers or wherever I was staying and arrest me for something I said in the United States?

Look at it this way.  Thanks to my Second Amendment freedom, I own a handgun (quit sniggering).  Now imagine that I went to Britishland and was arrested for possessing a handgun, because that’s streng verboten over in Airstrip One — and I don’t mean arrested for carrying a handgun in the UK (which I wouldn’t do, because I’m not stupid), but for possessing a handgun in my home country.

That sounds ridiculous, of course.  But if it’s ridiculous for the Second Amendment, it’s equally ridiculous for the First.  That my fevered rantings are available to oh-sensitive Brits and Europeans via Teh Intarwebz is just one of those things;  it may be inconvenient to the Powers That Be, but them’s the breaks.

I could be arrested Over There for pointing out on this blog Over Here that a whole lot of Muslims seem to be child molesters — using as examples, oh, the Rotherham grooming gangs who systematically raped non-Muslim minor girls, or the fact that Iraq just lowered the female marriage age to 9 years old — which wouldn’t matter to the “authorities” because that’s considered “hate speech” against a group of people and is subject to punishment.

Yeah, well fuck you, your fascist “hate speech” laws and your tender sensibilities.  If you fuckers think you’ve seen hate speech before, I haven’t even begun to hate.  You totalitarian thugs.

And no, I won’t be frightened by the threat of arrest.  If I feel like going over to Britishland or France to visit my friends, I will, and be damned to you.

Here’s the above-mentioned Mrs. Jones:

“It was actually quite scary. It made me think I best just keep quiet for the rest of my life, because you just can’t say anything these days.”

Yeah, well I’m not like Mrs. Jones.  Your pissy little laws don’t frighten me, and nor do your Stasi-wannabe enforcers.  I’ve been threatened by apartheid-era Afrikaner secret police, and to be frank, your petty little enforcers don’t impress me.

Sorry if I’ve pissed in your morning porridge, but say hello to my freedom of speech, you bastards.  And yes, I do own a handgun.

Quote Of The Day

Taxes and Theft

From Bill Hoge, in discussing POTUS’s plan to close over one hundred I.R.S. offices:

“Why do we need taxpayer assistance centers? Why are our taxes so freaking complicated that people with graduate degrees have to fork over thousands of dollars to their CPAs because the tax code is so convoluted that only a full-time tax nerd can figure them out?”

That’s a really good question.  My favorite story about the I.R.S. is the one where someone called a few of these “assistance centers” because he had a problem with something on his return.  Every single one of the centers gave a different answer to his question — in other words, the I.R.S.’s own staff couldn’t navigate their way through the code.

I remember Mr. Free Market’s tale of paying his income tax in Hong Kong, back when he lived there (pre-CCP takeover).  Every December he would go to the local tax office with the HK equivalent of an IRS Form 1099 from his employer (which stated only that his salary was $x — there were no deductions or withholdings whatsoever).  He would then write out a cheque for 5% of that amount, the clerk would stamp his 1099 as proof of payment… and that was it.

Frankly, I would have no problem with paying a flat (and fixed-forever) tax rate of 7% on that basis.  (“Why 7% and not 5%, Kim?”  Because unlike Hong Kong, we need to pay for things like naval carrier groups and interstate highways, which I like and support).  I would even support paying 7% of my Social Security, as long as everybody — including welfare recipients — paid the same tax rate on gross income, without exemption (or deductions).  Only if you have skin in the game should you be allowed to vote on the subject, e.g. raises to the rate, which I’d want protected by a Constitutional amendment anyway.

Feel free to explain to me why I’m wrong.  Good luck with that.