What Would Zoe Do? Avoiding Taxes and Alternative Currencies

My name is Zoe, and I’m what you might call a rebel — against the state, that is! I hope that you have checked out the  to my upcoming movie Silver Circle, in which I am in the starring role! I am here to offer my advice and to answer your questions related to freedom fighting on a weekly basis. Please submit your questions to !

Zoe,
I recently heard Judge Andrew Napolitano say that we needed to “remove the lifeblood of the Federal Governments’ excess, which is cash” by abolishing the income tax. Great idea, but can non-law makers do in our everyday lives? What other ways can we starve them, so that they “heal” like a good dog?

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What effect would using alternative currencies instead of their inflated, taxable fiat paper have?

- Wondering

Wondering,
Avoiding the income tax can be risky business and could end up with you in serious trouble with the IRS, fines and even jail.  Instead of giving them the opportunity to use a threat of force against you, why not use a tactic that strikes them from within and can be undetectable?

Even common practices can help the cause, such as using swap services instead of buying new (and taxed) items.  Bartering is actually taxable, but I haven’t heard of undercover agents busting this practice on a small scale — remember to remain as undetected as possible.  I definitely do my part in this by minting my own coins with the Rebels.  You can work on using your own alternative currencies by finding a local bartering group, purchasing silver, and trading without using FRNS.   Art is also always going up in value, so it may be something else to look into investing.  A good homework assignment for you would be to find at least 5 things in your house that you can put up for sale on Craigslist or offer to give/trade to a friend.

Because of the high unemployment rate, working under the table and for barter has become more common.  You can join in this by doing such work or hire someone for help cleaning, for personal training, babysitting and other services.  Doing this will keep the greedy government’s hands off incomes!

If you want to go all out, you can reduce your income to below the taxable level, keep your money out of the banks, invest in precious metals or put in tax free municipal bonds, and attempt to make as much income without reporting to the government as possible.

More information about these methods can be found from the W4 Resistance.  Here is an inspiring story of someone who has avoided taxes since the beginning of the Iraq War, and you can definitely use it to set goals in your own life, such as finding ways to live modestly, cooking from scratch, recycling and more.

And now your second question.

Rather than using Federal Reserve Notes (paper money), people are beginning to use a voluntary barter currency whose purchasing power is at relative parity at any given time.  These currencies can triumph over inflation and grow in value, which makes them very desirable — and they are typically always valuable in some way.

Using alternative currencies would have an interesting affect on the market.  While I doubt bartering and trade would “end the Fed,” if it was used, suddenly, on a large scale, it would have them scrambling for the mint presses — but you won’t be affected by their inflation!

You have probably seen in the news for the past few years, headlines reading, “People investing all their money, not spending, economy is in trouble!”  Common sense tells me that this should have nothing to do with the free market economy, supply and demand, and it is definitely a problem only to the state.  Sadly, however, this could also be a problem for alternative currencies and bartering because people might not even want to promote commerce at all due to the relation to the fiat currency system that is so prevalent in society.  This “sad but true” phenomenon will hopefully begin to dissipate as more and more people get involved with alternatives and establish a legitimate competitive system.

However, this is why investing in precious metals is perfect — they still have ties in with the dollar system — so if you are skeptical about bartering with other items, this option still has legitimacy in the government system.  Otherwise, just think about it.  Precious metals have no real value besides the fact that they are shiny and rare — but otherwise they are just pretty rocks.  It is the connection to the market that gives them value.  Items such as food, water and housing technically have more value because they are necessary to live, so attempting to barter these can be profitable, but more difficult to do freely due to government regulation and taxes — and they are not really too rare at the present time.

Another result of using alternative currencies may be a strong, stable economic future for both yourself and others.  Using items that will retain or grow in value can only result in prosperity.  The government has to see the inevitable failure on a monopoly on currency — let them fail!  It is tough to “save” everyone in this world or get them to think like us, but if enough of us bind together, we can find a solution to this mess!

Personally, I’m hoping for some kind of philosophical revolution to take place, where people wake up to these ideas and embrace them as workable.  Sure, they’re not as simple as swiping a card or paying in paper, but they are worth the time and effort.

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Thank you for your questions this week!  Remember to  with some more for next time!