QUESTION: Hi Martin,
You are unique in your insight into the growing theft of our money and dignity by the increasingly draconian authorities. Sometimes it’s hard to tell in this era of clickbait and fake news whether something you read is real. In the case of Councils, however, which universally seem to be repositories for people with no skills and not enough guts or street smarts for real politics, anything is possible. How do we, especially the elderly, defend ourselves from these rapacious thieves?

Regards,
Pete

ANSWER: I wish I had an answer for you. For governments there in Britain to proposed to charge £25.92 to help an elderly person who has fallen is outrageous. This is beyond belief. As lawyers often say, “If you hit someone with your car, back up and make sure you kill them. It’s cheaper than to have to pay for the rest of their lives for an injury.” This seems to be the policy adopted by governments. As the crisis in finance builds, we will see more and more of this sort of thing to “save” money.

In the USA, all I can do is recommend moving to one of the 7 states without an income tax. If you are elderly and need medical services, Florida is probably the best spot. They also have Homestead, so nobody can take your house and throw you out on the street. The Florida homestead exemption is a Florida constitutional provision which protects Florida residents by providing them with legal benefits and protection. Thereby, a resident’s primary home is secure from levy and execution by their judgment creditors. A judgment creditor cannot force the sale of your homestead to satisfy a money judgment. Florida is THE BEST spot to protect property.

QUESTION: You said that if you owe taxes the government can deny you a passport? I never heard that one.

ANSWER: Oh yes. This has been in place for several years. The Wall Street Journal just reported that “at least 362,000” Americans will be unable to renew their passports because of back tax bills. They can take your homes, garnish your wages, and deny you the right to leave the country. Effectively, the IRS can actually starve you to death with all the rules they have and nobody on the other end will ever be there to look at the combined damage.

Judgment creditors can garnish your wages in order to collect the judgment up to a maximum of 25% of your disposable income. However, creditors of a few types of debts such as back taxes, child support, and student loans, can garnish your paycheck without a judgment. In other words, you have no right to actually contest this in a court of law. They can just garnish your wages on a whim or even on a mistake, placing the burden on you to argue with them.

The U.S. Department of Education or anyone collecting on its behalf can garnish up to 15% of your disposable income to collect on defaulted student loans. These agencies do not have to sue you first and get a judgment in order to garnish, but they must provide you with notice of the garnishment ahead of time. You can thank the Clintons for that one who eliminated the right to even go bankrupt from student loans even if a university charges you for a degree in which you cannot find employment, which today is over 60% of graduates. Universities could care less if you are getting a degree that is actually worth something. They just want the money.

Ever since 1988, child support orders include an automatic wage withholding order, even for child support that is not delinquent. The child support is withheld from your paycheck and your employer sends the money directly to the other parent. If you are required to maintain health insurance coverage for your child, the payment for that will be deducted from your paycheck as well. You can agree with the other parent to pay child support on your own, without resorting to wage withholding. The limit is up to 50% of your disposable earnings that may be garnished to pay child support if you are currently supporting a spouse or a child who isn’t the subject of the order. If you aren’t supporting a spouse or child, up to 60% of your earnings may be taken. An additional 5% may be taken if you are more than 12 weeks in arrears. Federally, child support payments and not considered taxable income. However, child support payments are also not deductible by the payer.

Taxing authorities, on the other hand, have their own limits for wage garnishment which is very subjective. The IRS bases the amount on how many dependents you have and your standard deduction amount. State taxing authorities may have their own formulas and they are all different. The IRS will send you a notice before it begins garnishing, but it does not have to get a judgment before doing so. They can take your funds BEFORE and you may not be able to afford a lawyer to help

The American Embassy personnel in Haiti are still under an order to take shelter and remain in place. They have been instructed: “Do not attempt to travel at this time.” Riots began on Friday in Haiti and have continued for three days when the government, instructed by the IMF to reduce government subsidies for fuel, resulting in a rise in prices on gasoline, diesel, and kerosene. The prices virtually doubled. While Haitian officials said they would increase social services spending and improve infrastructure, they are also directed to enforce collecting taxes. The IMF has directed many countries to engage in the hunt for taxes because deficits are rising. There is no long-term solution here for a simple exercise of math demonstrates that as increases rise, the interest rate cost of rolling the debt will crowd out all other spending forcing taxes to rise exponentially over the next decade.

The civil unrest has turned to set up flaming roadblocks, bringing travel around the city to an absolute halt, and looters are raiding stores and supermarkets just taking everything they can carry. Others have targeted hotels and businesses to just rob whatever they can find. Haiti is not unaccustomed to such riots. They tore the capital apart just back in September 2017 over politics. There were riots over food back in 2008 and were even attacking UN personnel

If there is a possible scam, someone will always figure it out. In Australia, they hunt money with unbelievable audacity and hand out tickets to motorists for everything. Someone has figured out a way to beat the government at its own game. They are cloning valid license plates and then racking up the fines. A BMW owner got a ticket for speeding while his car was parked in the driveway. When he looked closely, he discovered the ticket was for speeding 1,000 miles away from his home. The scammers figured out a brilliant way to beat the cameras. Just clone a license plate and you can speed and go through all the tolls absolutely free.

The Supreme Court’s decision to allow every state to tax the internet is complete insanity. Sources in Illinois are warning that the state is bankrupt and it now intends to wage an all-out assault upon the internet. They may, in the end, simply force many small companies to REFUSE to do business with anyone who lives in Illinois. From a business perspective, all you get are costs. They do not pay you to collect their taxes, and in the end, they subject you to huge fines, penalties, and prison for a job that amounts to indentured servitude. Where are the class action lawyers to make that argument? On top of that, if a policeman from New Jersey has NO JURISDICTION to arrest someone in another state, then how can the state impose forced employment on persons from other states? Constitutionally they cannot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They also violate the Commerce Clause.

Expect California to be next. We are looking at the real destruction of the economy. What if every nation then follows the same design because everyone is going broke trying to cover their own pensions? So to sell anything on the internet you suddenly have to file papers even stating you sold nothing in 50 states inside the USA. Using the same legal principles, then at the United Nations, the member states are 193 in total. Would a small business then have to file also in 193 countries and then state and provinces within each stating they DID NOT conduct business in their jurisdiction or go to prison?

If you asked how the West could collapse and everything move to China, the Supreme Court just delivered the means to accomplish that result. The problem is that Congress could overrule that, but they will not because they are NOT the representatives of the people. They represent the government. Someone MUST create a petition to Donald Trump directly. He would at least understand the problem.

Illinois should either dissolve itself or go bankrupt to end the pensions they cannot renegotiate.