HELP: Avoiding taxes and escaping the system
 

Hey guys.

Right. In order to avoid paying government protection money and so I dont have to work 24/7 (in my supermarket) just to get by like basically everyone who I know does, I was going to take a tent to the national park near where I am currently stationed and live the rest of my life out there.

I will be right near the town so I will be able to access showers at the local swimming pool (for a price), several free water supplies, computers at the library, the hospital, my work and the dry cleaners. I will still be near family but obviously what I am planning to do is something that they will not understand and will not immediately accept. I will take a lockable suitcase lined with heavy stuff (perhaps bricks) to put my clothes in so they dont get stolen when I leave them behind in the tent.

I am going to have a 'try out week', during the Summer, with my best friend. This is something that I will, at first, present as a camping trip to my family, so I wont have any trouble moving my stuff up there.

I have yet to work out the costs in great detail but it seems that I can get away with working only one or two (or maybe three at the very most) days a week for the rest of my life.

I was wondering if you guys could do me a favour and pick holes in this plan. Please be as harsh as possible. I also would like to know what you guys think about it. Thanks!

Given the climate change you would likely freeze your tushy off.

Sounds to me like it's gonna get old real fast. I'd come up with a more ambitious plan.

Chas

If by government protection money you mean taxes, you'll still have to pay them. Playing boy scout doesn't make you immune to taxes. I like the woods and camping as much as the next guy and actually spent two whole summers in a tent while working at a scout camp. What you're doing sounds fun enough when you're still young and free, but the fun won't last long IMHO.

Hope you enjoy celibacy. The babes tend not to dig it when their man lives in a tent in the park...

...unless you also aim to start a commune in the park.

Why?

I'm pretty sure I wont have to. I'll only be working part time and they dont tax you if you dont work full time.

I wouldnt have to stay there during the day, at least. Over night I'm sure I'll be able to wrap up warm enough.

Doesnt bother me. And, also, I'm sure some girls wouldnt mind it.

This is a future possibility which would likely cause problems but its not something that I'm thinking about right now.

I have slept in a tent midwinter in Canada - I don't recommend it as a long term pastime.

I lived in a tent camper for awhile, so I have an idea of what I speak.

It's hot in the summer, cold in the winter, tents leak, they're full of bugs, big storms tend to destroy them, even the camper with a table and booths wore a flat spot on your ass, cooking is primitive, the bathroom facilities are primitive...it's just a primitive way to live.

Why not just purchase a small parcel of land and build a well insulated small house? Taxes and utilities will be cheap, and you'll be far more comfortable.

But don't let me ruin your fun. After you find a snake in your sleeping bag, or a bumblebee stings you on your lip early in the morning, or the whole shebang collapses in a downpour, then you can view rejoining society in a different light.

Even a week at fishing camp, where the cabins have all of the comforts of home (besides a telephone or wireless access) is about all I can stand at one time.

My old bones miss my easy chair.

Chas

we are compelled to be a part of the capitalistic system but it's a free country. What a joke.

ROTFLMAO!!

Although Karl, I say, go for it. At least you're following your own path. And I don't have to take consequences for my advice if I'm wrong :D

Pete

Part timers don't pay taxes in England? At all? They do here.

Here, we have people who do just as you described...We call them "homeless". Older terms would be "vagrant" or "bum".

Anyhow, as a "Great Indoorsman" who must have electricity to run my telly, stereo, a/c, computer and refridgerator, I must state that I think your idea sucks. I would never do it. I hate "roughing it". Screw that, I'll just continue to work, pay my taxes and fall asleep in my recliner watching "The Colbert Report".

Dave

Go to Berkeley, they have a resources guide at the main library. Through charitable doings you can get 1 to 2 hot meals served a day, a couple places to shower with supplied soaps and towels, cops won't mess with you up by the college in the commercial areas to sleep and there are "sleep shelters" too. There are still Vietnam Vets there doing just that, panhandling is very good especially if you take BART over to Market St. in SF.

Carl

Some of you guys seem to think that I live in the Americas. I dont. I live on a European island which has very mild weather and non-dangerous wildlife. I also am NOT going to be in the middle of nowhere. I am going to a area above a town which has public places with free running water, free public toilets, a free library and shops.

I work part time now and I dont get taxed.

Last time I saw the news there was a considerable amount of snow on the sceptered isle.

http://weather.yahoo.com/united-stat...eley-12797420/

What's snow? :D


Carl

Nothing is "free". The English taxpayer bought those toilets, libraries, etc., etc... And, if you use them without doing your part to help pay for them, what does that make you? Do you think your fellow Englishmen who work hard and pay their taxes would appreciate that?

Not trying to be adversarial, just offering you some "food for thought".

Dave

You'll be a real hit at the pubs.:D

I can't help but remark on the irony of "escaping the system" while remaining close to publically funded running water, toilets, libraries and shops. As Dave noted, what you describing is considered by many (or most) people a vagrant, something that most don't consider admirable or desirable.

FWIW, while travelling through the UK with my girlfriend years ago, we dropped in her eccentric uncle's place at Freathy Cliff in Cornwall. He was off the grid, using windpower to charge a battery bank in his cliffside abode high above the ocean. All of his essentials (stereo, TV, lighting, etc.) were battery powered and I think he used propane for cooking. He had amazing ingenuity and had quite a comfortable existence.

I'm with Chas. Save some money, buy a small plot of land and build a cabin. Unless you have the requisite skills/experience, you won't last but a couple of miserable, rainsoaked weeks in your tent.

Done right, a cabin could be pretty comfortable. Having the capacity to live off grid would be nice, but I'd still run electricity if I could. You're buying watts, just set yourself up so you don't buy many of them.

Even the local Black Hats have electricity, at least in the barn.

Don't guess there's chiggers in England?

Chas

Unfortunately I haven't been to Europe so I can't tell you about where you live but I can tell you about where I live. And it is doable if you so choose. You can also do the sleeping under freeways like the hardcore driuggies. They seem to do ok too.


Carl

An older term would be Pinoeer or Explorer.

It's a quandry. Thre's really no where left on Earth you can live like humans lived for hundreds of thousands of years. Not that I would choose to. But we're suposed to be all "free" and stuff. Yet, as noone said, we're compelled to live in a Capitalistic system. We're not "free" to say otherwise unless we're willing to live pretty badly, as parasites on socieity.

Not sure where you live, but in Europe, at least you would probably get single payer health care. And here in the U.S., living in the park, or anywhere else you don't pay for, is illegal. But you can get your health care down at the emergency room with the other illegals.

Decisions have been made that we have no say in and we have to do things the way people who came before us decided was going to be the only way. Here in America we used to have a system that let people stop working at some point before they die, but we're trying real hard to get rid of that now and replacing it with a new retirement plan. We call it "become independantly wealthy". Oh, and don't get sick. Otherwise, just work and make us money, then have the decency to die quickly and quietly at a reasonable age so society doesn't have to drag you along.

Capitalism American style really is becoming “contribute to the greater good we call ‘the economy’ for as long as you can then die”. If you think about it, it’s kinda more Socialist than Socialism. Only drawback is everyone contributes but only a few benefit.

Freedom my brothers! That is real freedom!

What else can I say...........................Bravo, again, old Boy!!!

Dave

Planing permission
 

Just to chip in, in both England and Scotland, even to build a log cabin on your own land needs planing permission. If you can find cheap land it will almost certainly be agricultural or a bit of woodland; chances of getting planing permission, zero. As long as you move it from time to time (so it is not regarded as permanent) you might get away with a caravan. There could be an alternative though; Scoraig http://www.scoraig.com/ Although there's a track of sorts, there is no vehicle access. Only way in or out is by boat. If you contact them, you could say the man who sold them the steel sink suggested it.

This is the only permanent community of this type that I know of, but there may be others out there with a lower profile. Try looking at old Ordinance Survey maps showing coastal communities with no road access. Then check with a new map and see which ones are no longer on it.

Remember though, remote abandoned communities were abandoned for a reason.

Given our standard of living, I'd say everyone benefits.

Pete

"Given our standard of living............."

Which has been steadily declining for the last thirty years, or so.

Dave

It started pretty high.

And funny, 30 years ago central AC was a rarity (at least in my 'class'), 1 tv was the norm, and houses were a lot smaller.

I suspect if we went back to that our national debt could be taken care of.

Pete

I never left that model.

My house is tiny.-Check.

One T.V.-Check.

Didn't have central A/C until five years ago.-Kinda check.

Two stereos-Kinda uncheck.

Two vehicles, one of them is a $40,000 raging monster of a muscle car.---Okay,-uncheck.

Three outta five aint so bad.......Is it?

Dave

It happens every now and again during the winter. Last winter, it was the most snow I have ever seen in my life. I can deal with a bit of snow for occuing for about a week during some winters.

Please do be adversarial.

I stated, in my introduction thread, that I do not consider myself to be any nationality at all. I am not English. I have no allegiance to any nation or any state.

I dont not intend on escaping the system altogether... Just a little bit. Furthermore, I am an anarchist. My political ideology is something that I have avoided mentioning until now because I did not wish to be pre-judged on the basis of the usual misconceptions.

I will not discuss anarchism on this thread. If you wish to discuss anarchism I will happily do so on another thread.

Land is far more expensive here than it is where you are. I am poor. I also dont wish to wait for a long time because my immediate personal situation is something that is pushing me in this direction.

Whats a chigger?

England.


Thank you all for your comments so far. You've all been very helpful. Please continue commenting for as long as you see fit. Its a great help. Thanks.

Ends justifies the means.

I'd say you've not experiences everyone's standard of living.

In other words, you're English. Everybody's gotta belong to the club, maybe not the same one, but to one. Gotta have papers when you're born, gotta have papers when you die, and ya gotta pay taxes in the meantime.

I suppose if you went far enough up the Amazon the powers that be might leave you alone, but the people who already live there might cook you up for supper.

"What's for supper, Grandpa?"

"It's you, laddie!"

Now I've got a pretty independent streak, and I don't much like people telling me what I'm gonna do...but I'm hardly an anarchist. Can't say I'd prefer to live in a Mad Max world...I like my air squezzer and easy chair too much.

To tell the truth, I think your main complaint about society and the nature of things is due to the fact that you consider yourself to be poor.

Look at it in another way. If you want an orange, can you not only afford one, but is it not easily accessible? A couple of hundred years ago even a king couldn't have an orange whenever he wanted one.

Count your blessings, and look around. You aren't truly poor, you just want more money. People really ARE starving to death in Africa.

And in closing, I'll address the dreaded chigger.

It's a little bug you can't see with the naked eye. When one of them bites you, you get a big red welt which itches like mad for a good week. Most of the time when you get into them, you wind up with several hundred bites, they prefer your feet, the backs of your knees, your crotch, and your balls. And when that happens, you are miserable for a LONG time.

They're lousy in Missouri, only good thing is they can't stand DEET. DO NOT live in a tent where there are chiggers.

Chas

"Seems like the government's got more interest in a dead man than a live one."

-Tom Joad

Chas, when I was just a sprout, maybe 8 years old, I got Chiggers one summer on the farm in KY. In the most miserable place they can get got. Wouldn't wish it on any human.

I went out with the astronomy club one warm summer night in sandals and shorts, I thought the place we were headed had concrete pads to set up on. It didn't. It was an open grassy field. The next morning, my feet were so swollen up with chigger bites I couldn't get my feet into my work boots. Had to stay home for three days, nursing my feet. Miserable, miserable experience that cost me three vacation days.

I like what you said about oranges, too. It's easy to forget that people once lived short, brutal lives. And that it really wasn't all that long ago. Unfortunately, some still do. We in the "developed nations" are very fortunate, despite our grievences. I'd rather live in an apartment in Europe, North America, or the more "developed" Asian countires than a mud hut in Rwanda anytime.

Dave

I generally scratch chigger bites until they bleed and then wipe them down with lacquer thinner. It burns like hell, but it stops the itching within two or three days.

I think if you get bit enough you will eventually build up something in your bloodstream which causes them not to bite you. But I'll be damned if I'm going to use myself as a guinea pig to find out.

Chas

Here it is ticks, stay on the mown part of the lot and you are pretty much free of them, but go into the edge of the woods and they will get you. Off is your friend.

Yep. I did a bout with Lyme Disease a few years back. Nasty, nasty illness.

Ticks don't much like me, for some reason.

There's a lot to be said for appreciating nature from the confines of a 17 footer...chiggers and ticks don't swim so good. And a 12V oscillating fan keeps the skeeters away.

Chas

I am still trying to get the kitties used to me so that I can get some Fronline Flea and Tick juice on them. The big orange tom we used to have let me put it on him all the time, hell he used to follow me around the yard like a puppy.

This is simply an explanation of how the most fortunate of us will be living when the Oil stops flowing and becomes unaffordable due to all of the riots in Minnesota, Mexico, Libya, Algeria. Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Tunisia, Bahrain, Iran, etc., etc.

Don't forget George Soros!

Sorry chum, the house is all electric and local power generation is either coal or nuke. Get a life. If there is no gas we can use the golf cart.:D

Karl, the more I think about your idea the more I like it. I wish I would've done something similar when I was younger, it becomes impossible later.

Radioactive waste or greenhouse gasses? Bad leftie, bad! :D

Pete