File it and pile it
Another interesting quora.com question: When in prison, do you still have to file taxes?

Caught my attention because I just finished filling out 1040 and paying taxes on my software royalties and Social Security.

The answer in theory is yes, as spec'd by the answerers so far.

In practice no, and not just because it's unenforceable!

Very few prisoners have legitimate income that could continue in prison because the criminal lifestyle is all debt and no savings, all taking and no making. So the 99%ile criminal won't have dividends from a mutual fund or royalties from a publisher. When I was in jail at age 19, I hadn't MADE ANYTHING USEFUL yet, so I didn't have any royalties.

IF I HAD BEEN MAKING THINGS INSTEAD OF GOING TO COLLEGE, I WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN IN PRISON AT ALL.

It was college, both the craziness of theoretical classes and the loneliness of a low-status Deplorable, that drove me to do illegal things like owning a few seeds of a prohibited plant. ("Prohibited plant" is yet another crazy theory.)

So the taxation question is mutually exclusive and self-nulling. If your life has created income that might be taxable in prison, you aren't going to BE in prison.

There are a countable handful of giant asshole exceptions like Martin Shkreli, but they aren't exceptions on the moral level. Shkreli's income is entirely from taking, not making. His crime was running a billion-dollar racket without belonging to the correct Tribe.

= = = = =

The quora answers also mentioned that all barter exchanges are theoretically taxable, as per IRS Pub 525. Fat chance.

Here's a hint for the Sorosian prison activists. You could expose a WHOLE LOT of evil shit that goes on in prison by organizing all prisoners to file PRECISELY DETAILED 1040s and 1099s for all barter activities. List every single sex act plus the price in smokes or ramen or mack. List every day of protection from sex acts, plus the payment. List every debt that was canceled by a beating, and define the fair market value of a beating. FILE IT AND PILE IT. All of the data would then be part of IRS records, nondiscardable and FOIA-able.

I hate your goals, but this would accomplish a virtuous goal along with the Sorosian evil.

Labels: engineer-guillotine, Make or break

  ¶ 12:53 AM