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A recent article reported a record number of Americans have renounced their citizenship in order to avoid paying taxes. Where to start? Allow me to take this opportunity to take both sides in this issue.
Pro:
Our level of taxation in the United States of America has reached such a high level that it should be called tribute instead of taxation. Our forefathers started a revolution based on a simple premise: No Taxation without Representation. If you are a working American, your effective tax burden is over 50% of your paycheck. Add in matching Social Security and Medicare taxes, gas taxes, state and local tax, sales taxes in combination with additional fees and permits to see your true, effective tax rate. Since the voice of the people is no longer heard (remember the crowds outside the Capitol in Washington when health care was passed), why should the people be required to pay taxes? I will take the fruits of my labor, leave for Brazil and watch my former country implode.
Social engineering to buy votes and voter fraud have made the vote of working Americans moot. Even worse, government spending last year was estimated to be 43% borrowed for every dollar spent:
This means that the money that Americans are allowed to keep is being devalued at the fastest rate in history in an unprecedented attempt to bankrupt our country. Actually, the United States is bankrupt nine times over and the individual taxpayer’s liability today stands at $1.004 million. So who can blame me for abandoning a sinking ship to preserve my life’s work instead of paying for a corrupt government where I have no representation or hope?
Con:
If America falls, there is no free world. Anyone who would abandon America because our government has become evil is welcome to leave. We will forget that you were our countrymen:
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”
Samuel Adams
Patriots have a decision to make. I will never have to tell my children and grandchildren that I sat by as freedom was replaced by slavery. Will you?
David DeGerolamo
