From: Black Unicorn <unicorn@schloss.li>
Date: Sat, 18 May 1996 19:22:44 +0800
To: Jean-Francois Avon <jf_avon@citenet.net>
Subject: RE: Why does the state still stand:
In-Reply-To: <9605152158.AA06933@cti02.citenet.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.93.960515183337.10635H-100000@polaris.mindport.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Wed, 15 May 1996, Jean-Francois Avon wrote:

> On 15 May 96 at 17:32, Black Unicorn wrote:
> 
> > > Again, depending on the context, AP might wery well be the only
> > > solution or be no workable solution at all.
> > 
> > Now, tell me how AP is a solution if everyone in the corporation is
> > double blinded?  Who do anonymous parties put out betting pools on?
> 
> Agreed.  I just supposed there might be some of the involved entities 
> that are not totally anonymous.  I don't think that you'd deliver 
> completely anonymously a bulldozer or any other physical goods to 
> some "anonymous" address.  Somehow, if the transaction involves 
> anything physical, there is potential for a anonimity breach.

Potential, but you can manage risk with things like dead drops from
trusted parties to forwarding agents to offshore drops to....

> > Income tax and currency taxes depend on realization events.  Even in
> > the strictest sense, realization is a thin and vague concept.
> 
> Since I am not a layer, would you care to elaborate a bit more on 
> that?

Realization means that their is a changing of hands or of forms of assets.
Income tax and taxes on currency now are dependent on such transactions.
Someone already noted the problems with just taxing possession on a given
date of e.g., inventory.  To tax efficiently you have to tax an event of
transfer.

I'm not going to spend hours typing in all the kinds of realization the
U.S. system employs.

>  
> > Your only remaining option is to tax possession of currency.  Good
> > luck.
> 
> Why?  Don't they already do that through Tax on Capital?
> 

No.  The tax is a tax on Capital _Gains_.  Even this is not taxed until
the gain is "realized" (the stock sold or exchanged.. etc.)  There is an
exception for Personal Holding Companies, or Subpart F income for example,
but that's only to the extent there has still been a gain.

If you taxed currency based merely on possession, then do you just tax
on the first of every year?  That makes it so that if I have $10,000 under
my bed, I pay tax on it one year, then I pay tax on it again the next
year.  Boy, talk about an incentive not to save.  There goes the banking
industry.

> 
> > Again, who are you going to kill?
> 
> Nobody.  I thought that through you long law studies, you did learn
> to read... Or is it my english that is too imperfect?

Relax, I wasn't calling you a murderer, I was pointing out, a second time,
that in anonymous corporations there was no one to kill.  "Who are you
going to put pools on?"

> Dear Unicorn, what in the hell makes you concludes that my
> "disclaimer" means that I am going to kill somebody?  I just say that
> after having turned the idea around for some time, I see it as
> ineluctable that *some* groups will implement it.

> Just bring me
> *one* single fact of reality that will show me that it is not
> possible to implement and you will have made my day.

Give me context.  It's possible to kill the president too.  That doesn't
mean it will become the basis of government.

> Even if it is
> implemented for any entirely wrong reason, I do not think that we
> can prevent it's implementation.

That's that anonymous transactions are for.

> BTW, since I was off from CPunks for a while, would you please tell 
> me if you published the suite of you writings on assets concealement?
> I would then proceed to get it from the archives if it was published.

I forwarded two large segments of the work to the list, yes.  If you,
or anyone else on the list, would like copies, let me know.

---
My preferred and soon to be permanent e-mail address:unicorn@schloss.li
"In fact, had Bancroft not existed,       potestas scientiae in usu est
Franklin might have had to invent him."    in nihilum nil posse reverti
00B9289C28DC0E55  E16D5378B81E1C96 - Finger for Current Key Information
Opp. Counsel: For all your expert testimony needs: jimbell@pacifier.com