-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SANDY SANDFORT Reply to: ssandfort@attmail.com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C'punks, Hal Finney wrote: I don't agree with the extreme position that cryptography will lead to the failure of the income tax and the destruction of the government. Consider: untraceable, anonymous transactions occur every day - not through cryptography, but through simple cash purchases at the local grocery store, gas station, department store, restaurant, and so on. There are many occupations which primarily involve cash transactions. Are these people immune from income tax? Of course not. Do these people pay such income tax? Of course not. The government's own figures peg tax evasion at "only" 20%. Yeah, and Elvis lives in my closet. The government has many ways of extracting tax in these cases, ranging from periodic audits with heavy penalties (which keep people honest) to imputing income (as in the case of tip income by waiters), to fraud investigations for those living beyond their means. Think "cost-benefit analysis." Duncan has already pointed out that the modal number of years spent in prison by tax evaders is "zero." Hal should get friendly with a weekend mechanic or a waitress. He might want to re-think his belief in the voluntary tax compliance of alternative economy. Perhaps Eric Hughes will recap the "crypto point-of-sale" rap he gave at the previous Cypherpunks meeting. (Or maybe he won't.) What it demonstrated was that the types of economic transactions that can benefit from crypto-privacy is much broader than Hal is imagining. We have already won. S a n d y
Please send e-mail to: ssandfort@attmail.com <<<<<<
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.3a
iQCVAgUBK1IgLE5ULTXct1IzAQFC0QP/fWrSeauH3xnD7CFofRO8dTIdVN31etSO
LPqw+XOC2us01cBRCyR6BNArbjpscLgiYjdvbEaMGBGbjPw8JFlVlDTI2+WV/b7h
6fLIFgCkUzmFaZKBHaNmiCIQarii8xucVaM8lHt8rZ3tQE9mCe8i6mosagcuDO5B
+9/f0an++6g=
=sZO9
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----