Simon Black runs a site called Sovereign Man that is designed for people who suspect that international financial and imperial powers are on the verge of an ugly collapse, and who want to make sure their own assets don’t go down with the ship.
The site recommends a radical geographical diversification: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t bet your whole life and future on one single country. You don’t have to live, work, bank, invest, save for retirement, own real estate, store gold, operate a business, etc., all in the same country of your citizenship.”
The site sells a variety of products and services designed to help you get this diversification going.
As Black explains, in a recent post on his site, tax resistance was one of his motives for expatriating to Chile. Excerpts:
On Joe’s life changed forever when he stepped on an IED in Afghanistan.
His story left me dumbstruck.
Like many veterans, Joe was left out in the cold by the US government.
He had a unique medical situation due to the nature of his amputation, and the FDA refused to allow him to undergo a new procedure that could help him walk again.
Needless to say, it was perfectly fine for the government that Joe take the risk of going overseas and getting his leg blown off. But getting his leg fixed was too risky.
Unbelievable.
So after being rejected by the very government he had served, Joe set out to get the procedure done himself.
It was going to get very expensive; since the FDA had outlawed the new procedure he needed, Joe would have to go overseas.
In total he needed to raise $80,000, and Joe was nowhere near making a dent in that goal.
After spending some time getting to know him and asking some close friends of mine who are renowned physicians to help me research the procedure he needed, I told Joe that I would pick up the tab for the surgery.
I’m pleased to say that Joe’s operation was successful…
Now I’ll let you in on a little secret: one of the reasons I was able to do this for Joe is because I’ve taken every legal step at my disposal to reduce and even eliminate the taxes that I owe to the US government.
Long ago I realized that every penny I paid to the federal government was being squandered on waste, debt, and war.
I was effectively footing the bill to send more guys like Joe overseas to get their legs blown off.
And I knew that I had to do something about it. I couldn’t in good conscience continue to support such mindless destruction.
But rather than take out my frustration in a voting booth, or putting a sign in my front yard with some candidate’s name on it, I went down a different path: taking completely legal steps to reduce my taxes.
In his case this meant expatriating and taking advantage of the fact that if you’re earning your money elsewhere, the U.S. government won’t tax you on the first hundred thousand or so that you earn.
I recognize this is a touchy subject. Lifelong tax propaganda tells us that “it’s a privilege to pay taxes” and that “taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”
And most people believe this drivel despite every objective shred of evidence showing that taxes fund war, destructive bureaucracy, and debt.
Just look at the numbers from last year’s US federal budget—
Nearly 80% of the individual income tax collected went to war and interest payments on the debt. It is the antithesis of civilization.
Is this really where you want your money to go?
If you love your country, or at least the ideas that it’s supposed to represent, then reducing politicians’ powers to destroy it should be considered an act of patriotism.
And there is no more effective way of doing this than by restricting their financial resources.
Using the completely legal rules from their own tax code to reduce what you owe not only makes financial sense, it is an incredibly powerful, nonviolent way of affecting real change.
So another rare example of a tax resister who straddles the line between the “sovereign citizen”-style tax protester and the conscientious objector-style war tax resister.
