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What seceding from the U.S. will cost you
Marketwatch ^ | 11/17/2012 | Brett Arends

Posted on 11/17/2012 11:02:27 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Your state wants to secede from the union. What will this mean for your taxes?

I have good news and bad news. The good news is really good. But the bad news is really, really bad.

We’ll get to them in a moment.

Talk of secession is in the air. The White House this week confirmed that residents in all fifty states had submitted petitions asking to leave the union. Will the last one left please turn out the lights?

Residents in seven states, all in the former Confederacy, submitted more than 30,000 signatures each — enough that some hapless bureaucrat or intern will now have to take a look at their petitions.

The news comes 150 years after the Civil War, and just in time for Steve Spielberg’s biopic of Abraham Lincoln, the man whom we have to thank — if that’s the word I want — for the continued forcible marriage of the once-independent states.

It’s only a couple of years since Texas governor Rick Perry hoisted a rhetorical secessionist flag in response to Obamacare. In the last few years, anti-federal “10th Amendment” resolutions, emphasizing the primacy of states’ rights versus those of the union, have passed the legislatures of 12 states in the South and West. In five states, the governors signed them, too. (The 10th Amendment to the Constitution says states’ rights come before those of the federal government. The last time anyone in Washington actually paid attention to it, the ink was still wet.)

But what would any of this actually mean for your taxes?

The upside is you will be liberated from the sheer living hell of the federal tax code.

I don’t care where you live, and how badly run your local state government is. Nothing could be worse than this monstrosity.

(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: secession
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To: SeekAndFind
The upside is you will be liberated from the sheer living hell of the federal tax code.

I don’t care where you live, and how badly run your local state government is. Nothing could be worse than this monstrosity.

Yes it could and will!

The so called fiscal cliff is just the excuse our out of control Congress needs to make the tax code even more arcane.

Our congress critters have learned long ago how to make friends and influence campaign donors by strategically writing tax law to reward their friends and punish those that are not their friends.

With an impending tax cliff straight a head there is ample opportunity to wring campaign cash out of those wealthy individuals and corporations for a few favorable lines of tax law.

21 posted on 11/17/2012 11:50:24 AM PST by Pontiac (The welfare state must fail because it is contrary to human nature and diminishes the human spirit.)
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To: SeekAndFind
If the premise of the article were even vaguely true, the FedGov wouldn't allow these states to secede, it would expel them!
22 posted on 11/17/2012 11:51:32 AM PST by null and void (America - Abducted by Aliens...)
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To: SeekAndFind
There is a national debt that I would not have to pay my share. The total unpaid amount of debts of Uncle Sam is almost $150Trillion. I could succeed and live a third world existence and be rich next to Uncle Sam when he collapses.
23 posted on 11/17/2012 11:54:05 AM PST by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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To: x

Lets see no onerous tax burden and federal regulation. Energy that is actually exploited for the peoples need. Some back water, the only back water is flowing in the heads of the federal apologists.


24 posted on 11/17/2012 11:54:19 AM PST by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Secession will probably become necessary to save/restore America (the culture and the founding principles), but there really is a bad side that has to be resolved.

The U.S. federal govt would retain control of the military assets, the currency, and federal property.

On the micro level, what happens to the SSN/Medicare/military “pensions” that individuals have paid into if these individuals reside in a Free State? Would folks have to self-deport to a Slave State in order to retain their earned benefits?


25 posted on 11/17/2012 11:57:22 AM PST by UnwashedPeasant
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To: UnwashedPeasant

Confederate soldiers received state pensions. Actually it was pretty good and transferable to the spouse. A lot of old men exploited this to get fairly attractive younger women to marry them The last Confederate bride died only a few years ago.


26 posted on 11/17/2012 12:02:03 PM PST by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: CodeToad
It would cost me about 750,000 illegal aliens that would leave the State once no free money was available.

And all of a sudden employers would no longer want cheap labor?

Nice dream.

27 posted on 11/17/2012 12:04:24 PM PST by x
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To: Windflier

I don’t trust that this government wouldn’t go to ANY lengths to get their way.
Well, they already have - Fast and Furious for one. I’m sure there are more plans waiting on the back burners.


28 posted on 11/17/2012 12:05:39 PM PST by Aria ( 2008 & 2012 weren't elections - both were a coup d'etat.)
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To: UnwashedPeasant
The U.S. federal govt would retain control of the military assets, the currency, and federal property.

Secession means complete and total political dis-unification. States leaving the union would no longer be a part of the federal union, and therefore not subject to any claims by that now 'foreign' government.

29 posted on 11/17/2012 12:05:47 PM PST by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: UnwashedPeasant

If the state is successful in secession then the new “state/country/province” would have standing to extract from the social security and military retirement systems amounts equivalent to what their citizens paid in. Those moneys would then be invested in the province operated retirement programs which would probably mean more cash for the recipients.

I don’t see those funds as an impediment.


30 posted on 11/17/2012 12:06:16 PM PST by msrngtp2002 (Just my opinion.)
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To: Aria
I don’t trust that this government wouldn’t go to ANY lengths to get their way.

Again, do the math.

90 million armed citizens versus 600,000 federal troops. Not even the worst fool would challenge those odds.

Just what do you think is holding them back now?

31 posted on 11/17/2012 12:08:39 PM PST by Windflier (To anger a conservative, tell him a lie. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth.)
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To: Windflier
Secession means complete and total political dis-unification. States leaving the union would no longer be a part of the federal union, and therefore not subject to any claims by that now 'foreign' government.

Because you say so? Because it feels good?

Any kind of dissolution of the union is going to involve cooperation, compromise, and give and take between various authorities.

Shortsightedness and overreaching did a lot to doom earlier attempts at disunion, and would derail any future effort.

32 posted on 11/17/2012 12:14:11 PM PST by x
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To: x

“And all of a sudden employers would no longer want cheap labor?”

Sure, that’s why they are here. /s


33 posted on 11/17/2012 12:16:57 PM PST by CodeToad (Padme: "So this is how liberty dies... with thunderous applause.")
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To: Windflier

Half the US Army is comprised of red staters. Also more than have the Army is on the other side of the world.


34 posted on 11/17/2012 12:16:57 PM PST by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: SeekAndFind

So this genius is saying that states that seceded would have trouble paying for the goodies for illegals, fat welfare mommas and the golden retirement plans of fascist bureaucrats.

I’d call this guy an imbecile but it’s too obvious.


35 posted on 11/17/2012 12:18:11 PM PST by sergeantdave (The FBI has declared war on the Marine Corps)
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To: Windflier

Bingo! Correct answer. You win the door prize.


36 posted on 11/17/2012 12:19:46 PM PST by teflon9 (Political campaigns should follow Johnny Mercer's advice--Accentuate the positive.)
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To: CodeToad

It’s certainly one reason. There were illegal immigrants before their was much welfare spending. You’re naive about local and regional economic and political elites, which aren’t that different from elites elsewhere in the country and which won’t lose power with secession.


37 posted on 11/17/2012 12:25:16 PM PST by x
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To: central_va

Breaking up the US simply hastens the advent of the Chinese century. The Chinese have plenty of places they can invest. Texas or some new Confederacy won’t have any privileged place on their list.


38 posted on 11/17/2012 12:25:16 PM PST by x
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To: SeekAndFind

This blather totally ignores the insane $1.5 TRILLION burden of fedgiv regulations!


39 posted on 11/17/2012 12:26:12 PM PST by piytar (The predator-class is furious that their prey are shooting back.)
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To: piytar

Fedgov...


40 posted on 11/17/2012 12:26:48 PM PST by piytar (The predator-class is furious that their prey are shooting back.)
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