Blacknarwhal
Let's Go Brandon!
Here's a little something baffling to kick off your day.
Fair use cited so on and so forth.
slate.com
As told to Luke Winkie
April 13, 202412:00 PM
In What It’s Like, people tell us, well, what it’s like to have experiences many of us have not even imagined. In this entry, we spoke to Jim, a medical professional who hasn’t paid his taxes in a decade. (Jim, understandably, asked to be identified by first name only.) Jim talked to us about how his delinquency started, how it snowballed, and why he’s finally decided to come clean. In addition to being anonymized, this as-told-to interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I haven’t filed my taxes for a decade. Well, that’s not entirely true. I did file in 2020, but that was only so I could get the stimulus checks. I’m in my late 40s now, so I’ve been living tax-free since my late 30s. I was living in California, where my expenses are high, and I’ve worked a bunch of odd jobs: call centers, food service, hospitality, bartending, and so on. But most importantly, for a long time, I was an alcoholic. I needed to pay the bills, and the rest of my money went to alcohol. It was a vicious cycle. The IRS would ask me for money that I didn’t have, because I’d already blown
I wouldn’t advise anyone to do this. I knew, from the very first time I didn’t file my taxes, that I would need to face the music someday. But, simply put, I needed the money, and I was at a place in my life where I didn’t really care about the potential consequences. I have a middle-class lifestyle now, but when I first skipped Tax Day, I was making $30,000 a year. And when I looked at all of these billionaires—Bill Gates, Elon Musk—who were getting all of these tax breaks, while I was struggling, it was easy to justify my own delinquency. Those men were getting all of these write-offs, but when I’d go file, I’d either have to pay more or it’d be a wash.
For a while, I would claim nine dependents on my paycheck so my income wasn’t taxed as much each month. It was something I learned from an acquaintance years prior. You’d say that you have nine people dependent on you for half of the year, and for the remaining six months, you switch and say that you’re single—you know, before you actually have to file your taxes. But I never did that latter part. I just rolled through the last decade like I was supporting a gigantic family, without ever actually filing to the IRS.
And you know what? I basically got away with it. The only time I received a call from the IRS was after I filed to get my stimulus check. They told me I owed them some money—like, $700—and I said I’d get back to them. That was it. That was the extent of the conversation. They didn’t say, “Hey, we realized that you haven’t paid your taxes in years.” It was weird. I thought to myself, Man, I’m pretty sure I owe you a lot more than that.
The IRS has called a few more times since then, but I recognize the number and haven’t answered. Eventually, that started to drop off too, and I stopped hearing from them altogether. As it turns out, all you need to do to stop paying your taxes is, well, stop paying your taxes.
The irony is that I have a government job now. They did a background check on me where I had to acknowledge a few DUIs I sustained, and—yes—that I hadn’t paid my taxes. To my surprise, I was still brought on to the team. The hiring manager told me that I needed to get up to speed on my finances. I said something like, “Yeah, I’ll get right on it,” and we haven’t spoken about it since.
But that was still a wake-up call. I went through rehab a few years ago, I’m sober, and I really don’t want to lose this job, which means I figured it was time, finally, to catch up with the IRS and take responsibility for my actions.
So, in 2024, I have started making up for lost time. I filed the last three cycles of my taxes, as far back as 2021. I don’t really know what might happen to me or how the government is going to react. The only interaction I’ve had with the IRS since coming clean is a letter stating that the $70 I was set to get back from my 2023 paperwork would be going toward what I “owed.” The total of the bill is still a mystery to me, but I doubt it’s going to be anything good. One thing is for sure, though: Now that I’m officially in the system, I’m sure I’ll be hearing from them soon.
I’ve done some of my own research into the whole tax-delinquency economy. I saw this ad for a firm that keeps a roster of tax lawyers on staff who would manage all of the bad things that can happen to you if you don’t pay your taxes—wage garnishment, repossession of assets, things like that. The firm tells me that the fee is $8,000 for their services, and I’m like, If I had $8,000, I’d just go pay my taxes!
But I have hope that the IRS is going to treat me with empathy. Hopefully I’ll be able to get on some sort of installment plan and all of this will be behind me. Every April I’d think about how this could be the moment where everything would fall apart. Sometimes I’d even put my forms into TurboTax and stare at the filing button, knowing if I sent off my documents there was no going back: Am I going to get fired? Am I going to go to jail? But then the feeling would subside until the next year and I’d move on. You know what seems priceless to me now? Being free of the stress and anxiety, for the rest of my life.
Fair use cited so on and so forth.
One Day 10 Years Ago, I Stopped Paying My Taxes. I Don’t Regret a Thing.
I ignored the IRS for an entire decade and got away with it. I think.
What It’s Like to Stop Paying Your Taxes
As told to Luke Winkie
April 13, 202412:00 PM
In What It’s Like, people tell us, well, what it’s like to have experiences many of us have not even imagined. In this entry, we spoke to Jim, a medical professional who hasn’t paid his taxes in a decade. (Jim, understandably, asked to be identified by first name only.) Jim talked to us about how his delinquency started, how it snowballed, and why he’s finally decided to come clean. In addition to being anonymized, this as-told-to interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I haven’t filed my taxes for a decade. Well, that’s not entirely true. I did file in 2020, but that was only so I could get the stimulus checks. I’m in my late 40s now, so I’ve been living tax-free since my late 30s. I was living in California, where my expenses are high, and I’ve worked a bunch of odd jobs: call centers, food service, hospitality, bartending, and so on. But most importantly, for a long time, I was an alcoholic. I needed to pay the bills, and the rest of my money went to alcohol. It was a vicious cycle. The IRS would ask me for money that I didn’t have, because I’d already blown
I wouldn’t advise anyone to do this. I knew, from the very first time I didn’t file my taxes, that I would need to face the music someday. But, simply put, I needed the money, and I was at a place in my life where I didn’t really care about the potential consequences. I have a middle-class lifestyle now, but when I first skipped Tax Day, I was making $30,000 a year. And when I looked at all of these billionaires—Bill Gates, Elon Musk—who were getting all of these tax breaks, while I was struggling, it was easy to justify my own delinquency. Those men were getting all of these write-offs, but when I’d go file, I’d either have to pay more or it’d be a wash.
For a while, I would claim nine dependents on my paycheck so my income wasn’t taxed as much each month. It was something I learned from an acquaintance years prior. You’d say that you have nine people dependent on you for half of the year, and for the remaining six months, you switch and say that you’re single—you know, before you actually have to file your taxes. But I never did that latter part. I just rolled through the last decade like I was supporting a gigantic family, without ever actually filing to the IRS.
And you know what? I basically got away with it. The only time I received a call from the IRS was after I filed to get my stimulus check. They told me I owed them some money—like, $700—and I said I’d get back to them. That was it. That was the extent of the conversation. They didn’t say, “Hey, we realized that you haven’t paid your taxes in years.” It was weird. I thought to myself, Man, I’m pretty sure I owe you a lot more than that.
The IRS has called a few more times since then, but I recognize the number and haven’t answered. Eventually, that started to drop off too, and I stopped hearing from them altogether. As it turns out, all you need to do to stop paying your taxes is, well, stop paying your taxes.
The irony is that I have a government job now. They did a background check on me where I had to acknowledge a few DUIs I sustained, and—yes—that I hadn’t paid my taxes. To my surprise, I was still brought on to the team. The hiring manager told me that I needed to get up to speed on my finances. I said something like, “Yeah, I’ll get right on it,” and we haven’t spoken about it since.
But that was still a wake-up call. I went through rehab a few years ago, I’m sober, and I really don’t want to lose this job, which means I figured it was time, finally, to catch up with the IRS and take responsibility for my actions.
So, in 2024, I have started making up for lost time. I filed the last three cycles of my taxes, as far back as 2021. I don’t really know what might happen to me or how the government is going to react. The only interaction I’ve had with the IRS since coming clean is a letter stating that the $70 I was set to get back from my 2023 paperwork would be going toward what I “owed.” The total of the bill is still a mystery to me, but I doubt it’s going to be anything good. One thing is for sure, though: Now that I’m officially in the system, I’m sure I’ll be hearing from them soon.
I’ve done some of my own research into the whole tax-delinquency economy. I saw this ad for a firm that keeps a roster of tax lawyers on staff who would manage all of the bad things that can happen to you if you don’t pay your taxes—wage garnishment, repossession of assets, things like that. The firm tells me that the fee is $8,000 for their services, and I’m like, If I had $8,000, I’d just go pay my taxes!
But I have hope that the IRS is going to treat me with empathy. Hopefully I’ll be able to get on some sort of installment plan and all of this will be behind me. Every April I’d think about how this could be the moment where everything would fall apart. Sometimes I’d even put my forms into TurboTax and stare at the filing button, knowing if I sent off my documents there was no going back: Am I going to get fired? Am I going to go to jail? But then the feeling would subside until the next year and I’d move on. You know what seems priceless to me now? Being free of the stress and anxiety, for the rest of my life.
