. . . if all of us small business owners just didn't send in our quarterly witholding tax payments?

A little background for ya: I own a small business that scans microfilm, rare and fragile books, maps, etc., to digital images. Since I started working full-time on the business two years ago, one of the fun things I get to do is to file quarterly payments for income tax witheld from my employees (me). Previously, I knew it was there, but I never paid much attention to it on the paystub because all I was really interested in was the amount that actually hit my bank account, my vacation days left (vacation days? What are those?!?!), and my 401(k) contribs.

Now, it's a different story. At the end of every quarter, I calculate the taxes owed, and make the electronic payments to the Feds and MD, as I did this morning. I know EXACTLY what's going out the door, to the dollar. And every time I do it, I feel sick.

After adding up Federal witholding, Social Security contribs (x2 because I'm self employed), Medicare contribs (x2 because I'm self employed), MD witholding, and MD "unemployment" tax (which just tripled -- and what am I going to do, lay myself off?!), my marginal tax rate is just under 50%. That means that for every dollar I make, I literally send almost 50 cents to some government entity. When I have to work 14 hour days onsite at a customer to meet a deadline, it's like seven of those hours of my peronsal labor don't count. Of course, this is all before the high property taxes we pay on our house, and 6% sales taxes we pay on just about everything we buy. Yet, only 50% of the people in this country pay any income tax AT ALL, and that percentage continues to drop.

Every day now, our government finds new ways to waste the money we work so hard to make. In the latest announcement, the Administration is going to spend another $2.3 BILLION (chump change to them) to create a whopping 17,000 "green" jobs. That's over $135,000 PER JOB. It's absolutely insane, and unending. All these people do is throw money around at the latest buzzword. The system is broken, and neither major party is at all interested in fixing things, or doing anything really except staying in power by pandering to the voters and / or bribing them with their own tax dollars.

My proposal is modest. What would happen if, on a select day, the millions of small business owners who provide 80% of the jobs in our economy, didn't send in their quarterly witholding taxes?

All things government would immediately grind to a halt. Government payrolls couldn't be met and operating budgets would immediately dry up, resulting in mass shutdowns of just about every branch of Federal, state, and local government. Newly out-of-work government workers would take to the streets protesting and perhaps rioting if the shutdown lasted long enough. Hyper-inflation would set in immediately as the Treasury frantically printed more money to try to keep things going until a "solution" could be found. At the end of the day, it would be a demonstration to the rulers that the serfs have had enough.

They can't jail all of us as there are too many, and even if they did, that would be counter-productive -- they still won't get the money they need to run the government. They need us (really, our money) to exist, but conversly, we do NOT need them. It would be the ultimate act of civil disobedience.

I can't really think of any other way to change things now, but I know this would at least make them take notice. I want the government to have to treat our money as if it were their own when they take it from us. I want them to be forced to make a budget and stick to it. I want an end to earmarks. I want it to be illegal to raise the debt ceiling. I want every single lobbyist run out of DC at the point of a rifle. I want them to pay off our debts. I want people held accountable for waste, fraud, and insane spending decisions. I want Madoff-type fraud to be a capital offense. Those of us in the real world still believe it should hurt when you touch a hot stove.

I know there are millions more in this country who believe this, yet I feel there is no viable political party which might represent them. Why is that?

What do you guys think?

-- Jim

Jim

I think you are right to despise the current scenario, which "dis-incentivizes" hard work. Further, the entitlement mentality is becoming increasingly common, since many people want "someone else" to pay for them

Unfortunately, if the quarterly payments were not sent in, the Govt WOULD "print money" so as not to grind to a halt, but they would do it in a stealthy fashion, so as to avoid the inflation trap. Oh, it would eventually get out, but we are now getting used to the fact that the govt is broke so I doubt it would have the effect we'd like.

the only way it might work is if there were enough Internet chatter/viral video AHEAD of the deadline, so that the anticipation could be built up....but then i think folks might worry that they would be targeted by the IRS, which treats you as "gulity til proven innocent"....in contrast, say, to an underwear bomber, who continues to be described as an "alleged" terrorist