Fear monger and dehumanizing claiming freeloading and against patriarchy of freedom. (Divide and conquer) threats of repercussion and over media saturation of manipulated videos to make people believe they are enforcing mass punishment..
If the people stuck to there guns it would eventually make the public services less maintenance but would take a lot of power away from people trying to maintain the illusion of power and control
If the taxes never get collected, a little inflation happens because less money got removed from circulation, and the deficit goes up further because the government got less revenue.
Neither effect would really be extreme.
This is assuming you mean half of net tax payers, because as of now, half the population already doesn’t pay taxes.
Most Americans have their taxes directly deducted from their salary or wages before they get their paycheck or the employer direct deposits their pay into their bank. You can’t stop your employer from deducting your taxes – so you really have no choice but to pay them as long as you’re working for somebody else (as most of us are)
With any luck, we’ll get deported from this country and sent back to our heritage countries with a free plane ticket and then we can get free healthcare and a fair system somewhere else
Over half the population works and its auto taken out of paycheck we don’t have an option. Unless this is a hypothetical saying we can. In that case nothing would happen overnight but it would destroy the country quick.
So many numbers so little sources. Lots of opinion, what is the truth? Does it matter?
Good question OP! I assume you mean of the people who pay into taxes, not those who don’t. While you note ‘half’, you probably should qualify which half. If you asked what would happen if the people in the 22-24% tax brackets (after adjusted income and deductions) stopped paying, I suspect our government would notice almost immediately and would likely encounter serious cash flow uses within months. I don’t think it would be pretty.
I don’t have a source either, so this is my opinion.
Edit: changed quality to qualify as it should have been.
They would be corporations. The US debt clock has corporate taxes at 495 billion and falling. US payroll taxes are at 1.7 trillion…and rising. So in a very real way, US workers taken as a whole pay roughly 3.4x more in taxes than the corporations that employ them. And it’s getting better! Just, not for workers.
https://www.usdebtclock.org/ (click “open / close secret window” to get rid of the massive ad, button near top right of page)
What an interesting idea! I’ll just go talk to my employer, whom employs around 80k people and tell them I’d like my in cash. Also, I’ll not buy things I guess.
First, businesses would not sell to those people who would refuse to pay sales taxes. Businesses that don’t pay their sales/gross receipts taxes would have their permits and licenses revoked. Budget cuts would be most harsh at state and local levels as they can’t issue debt as easily as the federal government. Eventually, county assessors would put property up for auction if its owners are delinquent on property taxes. As governments that have managed to borrow default on those bonds, financial markets will devolve in to chaos if they haven’t already.
For income and payroll taxes, there would be budget emergencies for Medicare and social security almost immediately. There would be general cuts to discretionary spending programs throughout all levels of government. Social Security might be okay for a while but would need to sell its government bonds from the trust fund sooner which would lower value of government bonds for all holders of such assets. The federal government would issue more debt or just “print” the money, the latter causing inflation in the money supply. It’s a recipe for a great financial crisis like you can’t imagine.
But the federal government already withholding your taxes on your paycheck. How could you stop this? I file a tax return to get some of the money back that I already paid.
That would be interesting. All of sudden, money government take it for granted disappear so government services will come to grinding stop. And that will create domino effect that will impact the entire country and hell will break loose is what I think will happen.
If you’re talking about income tax in the US, then nothing would happen. As others have mentioned, a large portion of the population already pays no income tax. Another chunk already doesn’t pay the tax they owe. And another chunk is underreporting their income.
Income tax enforcement is basically always profitable, so if the numbers grew high enough, they’d hire more agents to enforce tax law and start seizing assets.
Asset seizure is already actively used by most State tax agencies, since states can’t afford to just let tax dollars go.
Things get more complicated if 50% of people in your community refused to pay their property taxes all at once. The remedy your local government has is to auction your house, but if suddenly 50% of houses were being auctioned, you’d have a real problem. Your community would likely depopulate as it became more and more economically stressed, with underfunded government services. A death spiral a la Detroit.
If 50% of people decided to boycott sales tax, the only way to do that would be to cut spending, and that would lead to a pretty severe recession and a massive death spiral for the economy.
Comments
The US government won’t spend all that money in nonsense.
That would only be 3% more than the population that currently pays no income tax
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it actually only takes something like 5-10% of a countries population to stop participating for it to completely collapse the society.
A few ringleaders get jailed for a long time, everyone else folds and pays, with late penalties.
Florida
The FED would print more money
Nothing.
Fear monger and dehumanizing claiming freeloading and against patriarchy of freedom. (Divide and conquer) threats of repercussion and over media saturation of manipulated videos to make people believe they are enforcing mass punishment..
If the people stuck to there guns it would eventually make the public services less maintenance but would take a lot of power away from people trying to maintain the illusion of power and control
Better question, if half the population decided to take a month off what would happen?
Tax collection by force.
They would figure out a new form of prison / incarceration
Considering that only half the population pays taxes anyway, either it would make no difference, or the revenues would drop the zero.
Hopefully, that will show them the power of the people.
That depends who the population is doing it.
I don’t know about the economic outcome, but the “taxation is theft” crowd would drown in their own jizz.
Which half?
If the taxes never get collected, a little inflation happens because less money got removed from circulation, and the deficit goes up further because the government got less revenue.
Neither effect would really be extreme.
This is assuming you mean half of net tax payers, because as of now, half the population already doesn’t pay taxes.
It would be even more like India than it already is
They should do this with everything that they keep rising food,gas ect
Nothing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_acts_of_tax_resistance
Which 50% of the population? The top 1% pays 40% of the taxes.
To the top 1% – Nothing
Will you people please get over this idea? Most tax in the US is paid as a payroll deduction. You cannot just stop it.
51% of tax payers pay 100% of the taxes so we are already there I need to find the article though
We’d be in n a sci fi movie
Depends on what half?
How would they do that?
Most Americans have their taxes directly deducted from their salary or wages before they get their paycheck or the employer direct deposits their pay into their bank. You can’t stop your employer from deducting your taxes – so you really have no choice but to pay them as long as you’re working for somebody else (as most of us are)
Half of the population does that already.
With any luck, we’ll get deported from this country and sent back to our heritage countries with a free plane ticket and then we can get free healthcare and a fair system somewhere else
How would that work? Taxes are automatically deducted from pay for the vast majority of people.
I’m guessing we are going to soon see many people not needing to pay income taxes due to job losses, so sit back and watch?
They would make examples out of a few hundred of the poorest and the media would show pictures of those ruthless tax evaders
Over half the population works and its auto taken out of paycheck we don’t have an option. Unless this is a hypothetical saying we can. In that case nothing would happen overnight but it would destroy the country quick.
The top earning 1% pay approximately 40% of all federal income tax. Might depend on who you get
Nothing, we would sell more debt to cover the shortage
Those masked guys would ship us off to the super prisons in El Salvador.
IRS will be overworked.
So many numbers so little sources. Lots of opinion, what is the truth? Does it matter?
Good question OP! I assume you mean of the people who pay into taxes, not those who don’t. While you note ‘half’, you probably should qualify which half. If you asked what would happen if the people in the 22-24% tax brackets (after adjusted income and deductions) stopped paying, I suspect our government would notice almost immediately and would likely encounter serious cash flow uses within months. I don’t think it would be pretty.
I don’t have a source either, so this is my opinion.
Edit: changed quality to qualify as it should have been.
Runaway inflation
Government would simply borrow the money to fund everything, same as they do now
You go first….
We’d run out of money to build more prisons to house the half that didn’t pay taxes.
Depends on which half. If all the rich people decided to not pay taxes, things will be interesting for a while.
They would be corporations. The US debt clock has corporate taxes at 495 billion and falling. US payroll taxes are at 1.7 trillion…and rising. So in a very real way, US workers taken as a whole pay roughly 3.4x more in taxes than the corporations that employ them. And it’s getting better! Just, not for workers.
https://www.usdebtclock.org/ (click “open / close secret window” to get rid of the massive ad, button near top right of page)
How exactly do you propose that happens? How does one stop paying taxes in this view?
The 99% will get prosecuted and punished. The 1% that didn’t pay won’t be looked at.
The govt would just increase indirect taxes on products
What an interesting idea! I’ll just go talk to my employer, whom employs around 80k people and tell them I’d like my in cash. Also, I’ll not buy things I guess.
Brilliant!
Depends on which half.
First, businesses would not sell to those people who would refuse to pay sales taxes. Businesses that don’t pay their sales/gross receipts taxes would have their permits and licenses revoked. Budget cuts would be most harsh at state and local levels as they can’t issue debt as easily as the federal government. Eventually, county assessors would put property up for auction if its owners are delinquent on property taxes. As governments that have managed to borrow default on those bonds, financial markets will devolve in to chaos if they haven’t already.
For income and payroll taxes, there would be budget emergencies for Medicare and social security almost immediately. There would be general cuts to discretionary spending programs throughout all levels of government. Social Security might be okay for a while but would need to sell its government bonds from the trust fund sooner which would lower value of government bonds for all holders of such assets. The federal government would issue more debt or just “print” the money, the latter causing inflation in the money supply. It’s a recipe for a great financial crisis like you can’t imagine.
But the federal government already withholding your taxes on your paycheck. How could you stop this? I file a tax return to get some of the money back that I already paid.
How would they not pay? Most of us have taxes taken out before we get our paychecks.
Well, they can’t arrest all of us can they?
How? Cuz that comes out of my paycheck and as far as I know, I can’t change that.
Their employers would still withhold it from their paychecks anyway.
The government would deduct it from your paycheck forcefully, same as always…?
Depends entirely on who that 50% is.
If it’s the bottom 50%, then nothing happens. They don’t pay taxes.
Ice would suddenly be absorbed by the IRS as tax collectors.
Pay it or end up in el salvador
Ohh yes the government, that prints their own currency, and creates a trillion a year from mid air, would be devastated!
lol you people crack me up. Guess what, they earn more through inflation than your w4.
I like this. What if half the population ALSO did a lisistrata on the fascists? boycotts don’t have to be just economic
Boycotting everything but the bare essentials would be more feasible
That would be interesting. All of sudden, money government take it for granted disappear so government services will come to grinding stop. And that will create domino effect that will impact the entire country and hell will break loose is what I think will happen.
If you’re talking about income tax in the US, then nothing would happen. As others have mentioned, a large portion of the population already pays no income tax. Another chunk already doesn’t pay the tax they owe. And another chunk is underreporting their income.
Income tax enforcement is basically always profitable, so if the numbers grew high enough, they’d hire more agents to enforce tax law and start seizing assets.
Asset seizure is already actively used by most State tax agencies, since states can’t afford to just let tax dollars go.
Things get more complicated if 50% of people in your community refused to pay their property taxes all at once. The remedy your local government has is to auction your house, but if suddenly 50% of houses were being auctioned, you’d have a real problem. Your community would likely depopulate as it became more and more economically stressed, with underfunded government services. A death spiral a la Detroit.
If 50% of people decided to boycott sales tax, the only way to do that would be to cut spending, and that would lead to a pretty severe recession and a massive death spiral for the economy.
Once we get to enough unemployed and immigrants removed. We won’t have to see what happens… it will just happen.
ICE and FBI agents would get new assignments.
Legally happened during COVID. 48% paid 0% federal income tax.
They would vote republican