President Donald Trump's alarming threats to deploy the military in US cities sparks criticism. Experts warn against using military for domestic law enforcement.
This idea keeps coming up and while it sounds great it has the slight problem that states don’t pay taxes, people do. Basically your suggestion is then that people living in blue states should stop paying their taxes. Now, the majority of those taxes are collected for them by the companies they work for. You can reduce (maybe eliminate I’m not actually sure if you can opt into 0% withholding) how much is collected by your employer by filing out a new W-4 form, if they let you. But even setting that aside there’s the problem that none of that will matter in the slightest when the IRS comes for you with an arrest warrant for unpaid taxes. Or they might just start garnishing your wages, I’m honestly not 100% sure how that would play out. I just know that number 1 rule is you don’t fuck with the IRS.
There likely wouldn’t be enough IRS agents to audit that many people at once. There aren’t enough to go after tax cheats when people abide by the system en masse, so if there were a concerted effort to stop paying, they would probably have trouble with enforcement.
Now, I’m 100% certain that the Trump admin would push the IRS to “make examples” of a few unlucky people, and I’m not expecting a large enough pool of people participating in the new viral meme “just don’t pay your taxes, they can’t arrest us all” for it to matter.
The states do pay taxes to the federal government. States are some of the largest employers, and they pay federal payroll taxes. Those could be withheld.
Further, virtually all these state accounting and payroll systems are privatized. States don’t pay federal payroll taxes. Officials simply administer contracts to private firms that handle payroll and deductions. And you’re not going to like who the managers of these mega-accounting and payroll management companies supported in 2024.
What you’re asking these officials to do is issue an obviously illegal order to a subordinate who will simply ignore them and report them to the IRS for prosecution.
No court would uphold the federal government, and specifically the executive branch, withholding congressionally appropriated funds destined to states. And yet here we are.
Yes, it would be very logistically challenging. However if it were to succeed it cannot be piecemeal, it must be organized from the top down, with state-funded resources to help bail out those who the IRS retaliates against.
Blue states should stop paying taxes. See how well funded his stupid military would be with fucking North Dakota trying to pay for it
This idea keeps coming up and while it sounds great it has the slight problem that states don’t pay taxes, people do. Basically your suggestion is then that people living in blue states should stop paying their taxes. Now, the majority of those taxes are collected for them by the companies they work for. You can reduce (maybe eliminate I’m not actually sure if you can opt into 0% withholding) how much is collected by your employer by filing out a new W-4 form, if they let you. But even setting that aside there’s the problem that none of that will matter in the slightest when the IRS comes for you with an arrest warrant for unpaid taxes. Or they might just start garnishing your wages, I’m honestly not 100% sure how that would play out. I just know that number 1 rule is you don’t fuck with the IRS.
I looked it up the last time this was discussed, the IRS can override and put back the withholding you requested taken off.
There likely wouldn’t be enough IRS agents to audit that many people at once. There aren’t enough to go after tax cheats when people abide by the system en masse, so if there were a concerted effort to stop paying, they would probably have trouble with enforcement.
Now, I’m 100% certain that the Trump admin would push the IRS to “make examples” of a few unlucky people, and I’m not expecting a large enough pool of people participating in the new viral meme “just don’t pay your taxes, they can’t arrest us all” for it to matter.
The states do pay taxes to the federal government. States are some of the largest employers, and they pay federal payroll taxes. Those could be withheld.
No court would uphold that.
Further, virtually all these state accounting and payroll systems are privatized. States don’t pay federal payroll taxes. Officials simply administer contracts to private firms that handle payroll and deductions. And you’re not going to like who the managers of these mega-accounting and payroll management companies supported in 2024.
What you’re asking these officials to do is issue an obviously illegal order to a subordinate who will simply ignore them and report them to the IRS for prosecution.
No court would uphold the federal government, and specifically the executive branch, withholding congressionally appropriated funds destined to states. And yet here we are.
States don’t collect taxes on behalf of the federal government.
Yes, it would be very logistically challenging. However if it were to succeed it cannot be piecemeal, it must be organized from the top down, with state-funded resources to help bail out those who the IRS retaliates against.
That’s been the hang up for a while. How much are state officials willing to do in defiance of the federal government?
To date, not much