(The Economic Collapse Blog)—The entire system has been designed to generate as much revenue from your activity as possible until someday you eventually drop dead. It is tax season, and that means that it is time to feed the largest and most bloated government in the history of the entire planet once again. Of course the federal income tax is just one of the ways that they are systematically draining your wealth. As you will see below, there are literally dozens of taxes that Americans must pay each year. Many of our politicians seem to revel in inventing ways to extract money out of us, and that needs to stop.
Most Americans are working extremely hard, and yet money seems to keep going out the other end faster than it is coming in.
The truth is that the entire system has been designed to take what you have away from you. There are many ways that this is accomplished – taxation, inflation, debt, interest, fines, fees, tickets, government seizures and good old-fashioned corporate greed.
If you decided to just sit back and do nothing but hold on to the wealth that you already have, you would find out that it would disappear quite rapidly.
It is not an accident that most Americans are experiencing a declining standard of living. The system is rigged, and the rigging has not been in our favor.
The following are 55 ways that everything that you think that you own is being systematically taken away from you…
#1 Do you think that you own your home? You might want to think again. Most Americans that “own a home” are paying a mortgage. If you stop paying that mortgage you will lose that home. The number of foreclosures in the United States last year was up 174 percent from 2021, and mortgage delinquencies have been rising in recent months.
When homeowners get booted out of their homes, they don’t get their down payments back. They also don’t get all of the mortgage payments that they have made back. The banks get to keep the money and the homes.
Perhaps you have paid off your mortgage. Does that mean that you now “own your home”? No, not really. Just refuse to pay your property taxes and see what happens. At best, you can say that you have the right to rent your home from the government.
In any event, the reality is that the banks now own more of “our homes” than we do. Just check out your most recent mortgage statement and see how much “home equity” you actually have. If you recently purchased your home, it probably isn’t much at all.
Things used to be far different in this country. Once upon a time, ordinary Americans owned most of the homes and most of the land in this nation.
But now the banks own most of it. Sadly, most American families that believe that they “own homes” are actually enslaved to 20 or 30 year debt contracts.
And if something happens and you are unable to keep making payments, you could lose everything.
#2 Do you think that you own your vehicle? You don’t own it if you are still making payments on it. Of course if you stop making payments you will rapidly lose that vehicle.
But even if it is paid off, you can only operate that vehicle if you do the following…
- *You must pay the license fee.
- *You must pay the car registration fee.
- *You must pay the emissions inspection fee.
- *You must pay the property taxes on that vehicle if that applies in your area.
- *You must pay the tire taxes.
- *You must pay the gas taxes.
If you have paid all of those taxes, then you are permitted to drive only where the government allows you to drive and only under the rules that the government sets for you.
But at least you “own” your vehicle, right?
#3 What about your possessions? Do you own them?
Well, yes, you probably own some possessions. But that doesn’t mean that they are not enslaving you. After all, did you use a credit card to pay for any of them? If so, you could end up paying far more for your possessions than you originally thought that they cost.
#4 Do you own your education? Well, it is undeniable that nobody can ever take it away from you. But if you took out student loans to get your education, that debt may end up enslaving you for decades.
The borrower is the servant of the lender and student loan debt is more of a financial drain on Americans than ever before. Americans now owe more on their student loans than they do on their credit cards.
Today, Americans owe more than 1.7 trillion dollars on their student loans, which is a new all-time record.
#5 Will you protect your wealth if you put your money in the bank? No, in fact your wealth will be systematically destroyed in the bank.
Inflation is a hidden tax on every single dollar that you own, because it destroys the value of all dollars in existence.
There are some Americans that have been saving money for decades, but those savings are being taxed into oblivion by inflation.
Just compare the price of a carton of 12 eggs five years ago to the price of a carton of eggs today. When the cost of living goes up, the value of the money that we have put in the bank goes down.
#6 Insurance costs continue to soar. After insuring virtually everything in our lives, many of us barely have any money left over to actually live our lives with.
#7 State and local governments all over the nation have turned to ticket writing as a primary revenue source. They know that most people do not carefully follow the speed limit, and so they have turned that behavior into a revenue-generating tool.
#8 Some states have decided to simply confiscate wealth even if nothing has been done wrong. For example, some states are now aggressively seizing “unclaimed” safe deposit boxes. If you have a safe deposit box that you have not checked on in a while, you might want to make sure that it is still there.
#9 You might end up losing your valuables when you cross the border. U.S. border agents regularly seize laptops and other electronic devices as people cross the border. In many cases those items are never returned.
#10 If you don’t pay your property taxes, you will lose your home and it will likely be a big Wall Street bank that will end up owning it. The big Wall Street banks have been buying up thousands of tax liens and are making a killing by socking distressed homeowners with predatory interest, outrageous penalties and almost unbelievable legal fees.
#11 Of course the federal income tax is one of the biggest ways that our wealth is being drained. One of the primary reasons why the Federal Reserve and the IRS were established back in 1913 was to redistribute wealth. Wealth is transferred from hard working Americans to the U.S. government, and then it is redistributed to those that aren’t working or spent on some of the most wasteful programs imaginable.
Needless to say, federal taxes are just one of the taxes that we pay. The truth is that the average American pays dozens of different taxes each year. The following are just a few examples of the insidious forms of taxation that drain our wealth…
- #12 Building Permit Tax
- #13 Capital Gains Tax
- #14 CDL License Tax
- #15 Cigarette Tax
- #16 Corporate Income Tax
- #17 Court Fines (an indirect tax)
- #18 Dog License Tax
- #19 Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
- #20 Fishing License Tax
- #21 Food License Tax
- #22 Fuel Permit Tax
- #23 Gasoline Tax
- #24 Gift Tax
- #25 Hunting License Tax
- #26 Inheritance Tax
- #27 IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
- #28 Liquor Tax
- #29 Local Income Tax
- #30 Luxury Taxes
- #31 Marriage License Tax
- #32 Medicare Tax
- #33 Payroll Taxes
- #34 Phone Taxes
- #35 Property Taxes
- #36 Real Estate Tax
- #37 Recreational Vehicle Tax
- #38 Road Toll Booth Taxes
- #39 Road Usage Taxes (Truckers)
- #40 Sales Taxes
- #41 School Tax
- #42 Septic Permit Tax
- #43 Social Security Tax
- #44 State Income Tax
- #45 State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
- #46 Toll Bridge Taxes
- #47 Toll Tunnel Taxes
- #48 Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)
- #49 Trailer Registration Tax
- #50 Utility Taxes
- #51 Vehicle License Registration Tax
- #52 Vehicle Sales Tax
- #53 Watercraft Registration Tax
- #54 Well Permit Tax
- #55 Workers Compensation Tax
When you take all forms of taxation into account, there are some people that hand over more than 50 percent of their incomes to various levels of government each year.
Even the future is being taken away from us. The future is literally being stolen from our children and our grandchildren. They will be inheriting the 36 trillion dollar national debt that we have accumulated.
What we have done to future generations is unthinkable, and yet we continue to borrow colossal mountains of money.
When you base an entire economy on debt, eventually you end up with money problems that never seem to end. As a nation, we are now enslaved to a vicious spiral of debt that threatens to destroy everything that our forefathers worked so hard to build.
As the debt loads of our federal, state and local governments become even more burdensome, they are going to want even more money from us. For decades we gave in to new tax after new tax thinking that it would finally satisfy them.
But it never seems to be enough. They always want more.
Unfortunately, most Americans are so caught up in the “rat race” that they never take much time to think about who designed the race or why they are running it.
It is time to wake up.
We are being systematically abused by the control freaks that are running things, and it is time to say that enough is enough.
Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
Both sides steal, but the Left has figured out that the more you give for free to people, the more they want to take. There will be a Revolution when people figure out that they cannot feed their families. If you can keep the working class “working”, so they do not have time to figure out that they are broke, ……that is the goal of most politicians, as they only think about re-election for themselves. Let us be honest. The US is lost if people do not stand up and refuse to go along with the scam. Most people are just too busy working to watch the news, look at the computer, read what they should, and talk to who they need to talk to. That is all by design, I am afraid.
This is the facts, as they say. Elected officials are guilty, drugged by power and until Trump, were unwilling to do a simple “right thing”. Every “fee” is a tax of sorts. You pay for your local government to function, then you pay a fee for every little thing there is, even the right to have a dog. You thought you had already paid for the government but they used that money for something else you probably don’t even know about. Only elect people who are pushing back on this issue.
Sorry, but this article permanently dissuades me from ever returning to Discern Report. A tax simply adds to the cost of acquisition; it doesn’t rob you of possessing it. And not repaying your loan shouldn’t entitle the lender to recovery?
Do better.
An eternally expanding cost of acquisition doesn’t preclude ownership?
Do better sister.
Btw: Why is there no outrage that the District of Columbia owns the lion’s share of state lands?
In my state 70% of the public lands are federally owned.
Looks as though the civil war wasn’t over the small minority of the people that owned slaves but over the majority of people being enslaved by the District of Columbia. That actually independent city (like the city of London and the Vatican) has No right to be owning our lands and stomping upon the citizenry. When they drafted our youth to go die in Indochina for no gain we were reliving the same tyranny that the Lincoln administration and the Davis admin perpetrated.
I was sickened and disappointed as well, Pam. Snyder desperately tried to find connections that don’t exist. He insisted on making loans and devaluating dollars, and insurance premiums part of his claim, when they have NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with each other. He ended up simply listing a bunch of taxes, which all of us could agree are too high and are examples of govt meddling, in a silly attempt to say we don’t own things because of them. His logic was weighed in the balance and found wanting. You are right, we readers deserve better than this hot steaming mess. But please give the site another chance, if for nothing else, your comments. Not all articles are THIS tragically hilarious!!!
Cowardice is the root of it all. just say NO
Modern taxes are the highest in history. Even the Romans only taxed Judea like 1 days wage for the year. That’s .27 of 1%. That tax that caused the revolt. Then there was the 2% tax on tea that kicked off the US revolution.
You will have more when you demand more.
Missed one. Get laid off and see over 50% of it get stolen in payroll taxes. That one time check briefly slams you into the upper tiers of earners. And no, it doesn’t work itself out on the next 1040 tax day.
I brought up the subject of property taxes on Fox recently. I already knew so I was not surprised to find that the vast majority of conservatives are unconcerned that nobody owns their homes. To them I invoked my stock line – the only people I despise more than every liberal on the planet are a whole lot of conservatives. After that experience, I had to rethink that. “a whole lot” may now be “most.” Oh, and I loathe Fox. Most people don’t realize it’s the worst censor on the Internet, and they coddle liberals. Just today I told a liberal his “hate was groundless.” That failed to post.
Your Hero,s in the USMilitary have a plan…their going to set off suite case nukes all over America and blame it on ( enemy countries) but it’s them and the FBI who are guilty…good luck if you live in the cities they targeted… plagues and mass death are coming…
Think of it this way; anything you had to borrow money for, you don’t own anyway, and never did.
Deut 10:14 Indeed heaven and the highest heavens belong to the LORD your God, also the earth with all that is in it.
I don’t disagree with this article but God ultimately owns it all. We are just allowed to use it. A day is coming when he will make all things right for those who belong to him. This is the way of the world because sin has entered the world. Until then:
Proverbs 22:7 The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.
What can you do about it? Deny yourself, follow him, and get out of debt! Pay cash or don’t buy it! You may not be able to repeal the taxes, but you do not have to pay the interest!
What ridiculous claims. Of COURSE if you still haven’t paid something off, it’s not completely yours yet. It was as if Michael has ever heard of loans or repaying them. I almost snorted coffee at the author’s insistence that my house and car are not mine. I get it; Snyder is furious about loans and banks and interests and taxes. But the things he stated here, with a straight face, are absolutely ludicrous to the point of insanity.
When he pivoted to the idea that when we must continue paying taxes on something like a home, his claim made a bit more sense. But dollars in banks? That says everything about devaluation, and NOTHING about you really owning them. The same with high insurance costs; they have ZERO to do with owning something. And his claim that our education is not really ours if we haven’t finished paying our loans was sadly, hilariously false.
At the end of this nonsensical rant, Snyder showed just how spittle-spewing mad he was. He called those in authority “control freaks” and insisted that we must say “Enough is enough!” It’s interesting that he never gave one example of how we could / should fight back against The Man. How we could resist all this unjust tyranny (like being forced to pay back money we were loaned. Oh, the humanity!) I honestly don’t know if I am supposed to laugh, or cry, at this mess.
If you talk to most people, they want GODvernment to intervene in our lives because they believe they “even” things up between the rich and the poor and there will always be the covetous who want you to put them in power for the same reason.
Most want big GODvernment because they believe God didn’t play fair with them and damn, they are gonna even things up, and aye laddie, that’s where the trouble starts and now EVERYBODY is going to lose everything.