Maymin: Good morning Tony. Thank you.

Savino: And Zak, tell us first of all about the title of the book, “Publicani,” what does that refer to?

Maymin: “Publicani,” those are tax farmers, tax collectors during biblical times. It’s like IRS agents who were during the time of Jesus Christ, collecting taxes.

Savino: I see. Okay. And the book is about government intrusion. It’s about the government that has a way of taking the thoughts or the intelligence from one person, transferring it to another. Tell us about that, a little bit about the plot of the book if you could. Without giving away, too much because you want people to read it.

Maymin: That’s about it! <Laughter> What you just mentioned.

Savino: But is it your scenario that this could happen in real life or is it a metaphor for something else?

Maymin: It is both. Actually, mainly it is a metaphor, a metaphor for something that people get used to, and don’t even pay attention, don’t even think twice about it, which I find very disturbing, and may be the main problem that we have right now in America. Namely, it’s the income tax. So, it is a metaphor for this.

But also it is entirely possible that in the future it will be happening. Because there is technology already developing that analyzes certain spots in our brain, where smart people would have certain activities, and there are new studies coming everyday and…I can see it is possible.

Savino: Uh-huh, and the question that’s asked throughout is that… well, first of all, two…two things perhaps. One is that it has public support; the other is that, well, if it’s for the good of society, then what’s wrong with it.

Maymin: Okay, the end justifies the means — that’s a problem and it’s a huge… you know, I don’t want to even…I came from Russia in 1980, and I know that, sometimes I feel even that I came from the future to United States. I have the experience that not many Americans had, namely, I know that it’s possible that the entire country is wrong.

People that you know, people that are smart, that you like, and they could be very much wrong. Like, it happened in Germany during Hitler’s time, it happened in Russia, during Communist Russia, when I was there.

And Americans, it’s hard to understand this, to have this experience and I already had it. And also, the fact that the income tax is becoming…it’s especially an important threat right now, because we’re becoming strong and stronger everyday. I can see that in 10, 15 years, one person may have means to destroy an entire nation, maybe, with you know, nukes, H-bombs, and stuff like that.

So we have to learn not to initiate force. And whatever we think is good, we shouldn’t force people to do this.

Savino: Your son, of course, is Phil Maymin, who ran for Congress a couple of years ago, and is on the Libertarian Party -

Maymin: Yes.

Savino: And yet, you say you’re not a member of the Party, but you believe in a lot of the tenets.

Maymin: Right, I’m not a member of the Party. But I believe, I do not necessarily agree with all the policies of the Libertarian Party, but I certainly believe in libertarian principles, and those were the principles of our founding fathers.

Savino: And one of the questions I had is I’ve heard some people that are libertarians say that especially, now with threats of terrorism, things like that, that we’re going to be giving up our rights for the good of society. Do you see things in those terms also?

Maymin: Yes. We are already giving up our rights. You know that America is about 5% of the world population and there are about 25% of all prisoners are sitting in prison in America. We are losing our rights everyday, we were losing our rights under the Clinton Administration and the Bush Administration. And it is terrible.

It’s again… the government was created to protect our rights, not to give up our rights to protect us from something else.

Savino: Uh-huh. Now as far as the book is concerned, this is the first book you’ve written?

Maymin: Yes, yes.

Savino: Okay. And, what made you want to write the book?

Maymin: Well, I see that we are losing this fight against income tax by using reason only. People just ignore it. You give all kind of logical reasons; I think it’s possible even to mathematically prove that you cannot be free if you have income tax.

It’s like telling a slave, “Ah, you are free to vote. You have all other freedoms. It’s just you can’t keep fruits of your labor.” So you’re a slave by definition if you have income tax, and we are losing this logic. So I thought maybe, I can put it in the moral stance, and maybe in an entertaining way, I’ll force people to think, “Is it moral or not to come to somebody, take something that belongs to him, and give it to others because it’s for the good?”

Savino: Uh-huh. You had many biblical references, other cultural references; did you do a lot of research on those?

Maymin: Yes, yes I did. I found out by the way, not many people know what happened to Jesus Christ. It looks like according, you know many people think that he was born, and then suddenly about 30 years later, he showed up when he was 30 years old, and started making all these miracles. And there is an interesting period during which he was trained, and prepared for this mission, and I write about it in the book.

Savino: And one thing that I remember you wrote is, it could be controversial among other things, would be in the Garden of Eden. You’re calling basically, you were calling, Eve, Eve disobeyed God, but you’re saying, God is like the government.

Maymin: Yes. Exactly. Yes and there is meaning, the book has certain references to the Bible, and the Torah which is for Jewish religion. And I think the entire Bible is a story of people fighting for freedom. If you look at it, if you analyze it, that’s what actually, the message the bible sends us is, you have to fight for individuals’ freedom, for freedom of individuals.

Savino: And are you planning on writing any more books?

Maymin: I’ll have to see how well this book is accepted, and you know, it’s a very time consuming, it takes a lot of time, and resources from you, and you really have to like it. I like it, but you have to be sure that it produces some results.

Savino: Right, because there was about 200 pages, but how long did it take you to write it?

Maymin: Several years.

Savino: Is that right?

Maymin: Yes.

Savino: All right, Zak. Thanks very much for joining us this morning. And the book is available if people want to get it?

Maymin: Yeah, on Amazon, “Publicani,” and also you can read it free online on publicani.com.

Savino: All right great. Zak Maymin, of Greenwich, our guest this morning. The name of the book is “Publicani.” Thanks very much for joining us Zak.

Maymin: Thank you Tony.

Savino: WGCH News Center time is 8:28. Traffic and weather together coming up next.

]]> http://www.publicani.com/what-if-the-government-could-transfer-the-intelligence/feed/ 0 http://www.publicani.com/i-hate-income-tax/ http://www.publicani.com/i-hate-income-tax/#comments Mon, 04 Aug 2008 18:15:46 +0000 Zak Maymin http://www.publicani.com/slaying-the-dragon-seven-reasons-to-remove-the-greatest-evil-facing-americans-%e2%80%93-the-income-tax/  Iraq… world’s highest percentage of people in prison… warrantless phone and email searches… Fed printing money as if there’s no tomorrow… state prevention of medical use of marijuana and other drugs… suspension of  habeas corpus… searching your shoes at the airports… government’s new authority for taking private property from one citizen to selling it to another for profit because of the “public benefit” in higher tax revenue…

…these are examples of the modern state of the USA. 

Those are just some examples: not necessarily the best examples, just indicators pointing to a rotten state.

Before we discuss what is the root of these problems, who do you think the enemy is?  The lobbyists? Potential terrorists? The rich?

It feels like a seven-headed dragon is conducting a full-scale assault on our life, property, and liberty, attacking us from the left and right – both Republicans and Democrats voted for the Iraq war and the Patriot Act.  Attacking us from above and below – both the government makes laws assaulting our liberties and the people keep voting for such a government.

How do you fight a dragon? Face to face, or rather face to seven faces fighting will not work: even if you are successful and you cut one head/government program, two others will grow in its place right away. The right approach is to hit the red bird with the silver arrow to start a needed chain of events: the bird will drop a key from a lockbox with a magic sword that you use to fight a tiger guarding bottle with the dragon’s heart …

So, where is the red bird? What is the single target I should aim at?

My answer is: Income Tax.

Just hear me out. I know there is a social perception that taxing the rich is fair. Try to say in front of your friends, “I hate the income tax.” You’ll feel uncomfortable because the social pressures for taxing the rich are too high. To say “I hate the income tax” to other people is as hard as in the famous psychological experiment to ask strangers in subway to give up their seat for you.

I don’t want to argue that the income tax is illegal or unconstitutional. Such arguments have been made and even recently have been tried with partial success in the court of law. But the laws are made by the people and could be changed by the people.

Also, let’s put aside for a moment the belief that without income tax we are not able to function. The highways. The schools.

Because actually, we can. Income tax is about one trillion dollars a year. This is as much as we spent every year in Iraq. We could do without Iraq, couldn’t we? Even if we couldn’t, one trillion dollars is about as much as we spend every year on our foreign bases in Germany, Japan, and hundreds of other places. We could do without them, couldn’t we? Even if we couldn’t, one trillion dollars is about the difference between the federal budget now and the budget ten years ago when the government was of a reasonable size, well-funded.    

The income tax is immoral and is the source of all evil facing Americans. Deep inside, everybody knows what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong, and here are seven reasons why the income tax is wrong and evil:

1.      Income tax steals from others

Stealing means taking by force from others what belongs to them.

This definition opens three ways of attacking the uncomfortable truth that income tax is stealing: a) it’s not by force, b) it did not belong to others, and c) the end justifies the means.

Argument a) is the weakest. People who say that paying income tax is a volunteer action assume that they can talk on behalf of every tax payer, and they cannot. If a single tax payer does not want to pay income tax and has to anyway, it means that the income tax is collected by force.

The second argument, b), is also in my opinion not very strong. Proponents say that people owe part of their income to other people in the country for the opportunity, safety, and infrastructure. If this is true, then this price for these services should have been announced in advance and the tax payers should have been given a choice, whether to pay for such services or not, and the decision of how much they are willing to pay should have been theirs. 

The “end justifies the means,” argument c), on its face sounds reasonable. If society wants something strongly enough, then why can’t it ask all its members for small sacrifices? The right answer is: if many people in the society want that, let them pull their resources together voluntarily and achieve that goal for themselves or their beneficiaries without forcing anybody else to participate in their saving of the world. If they are not able to convince that part of the society essential for their project, then their project is not worth it and it’s not up to them to claim that the project is so important as to force others to participate.    

2.      Income tax identifies you

It’s impossible to have privacy in a society where the government is able to uniquely identify you and keep a file on you. You may not care so much that there is a unique number that identifies you.  You may even think that that’s the cost of living in society.  But again, by following these laws, you are inadvertently forcing your neighbor who may not want an identifier to have one.  In the US, it is done by the number which is erroneously called the social security number (SSN). In actuality it is the income tax number. You can not drop out of social security and ask the government to dismiss your social security number.

Soon, the Federal ID is coming. It will be based on SSN.  The draft and government healthcare will be obviously based on SSN.  Personal number gives the ultimate control. In Nazi camps, identification numbers were tattooed on the forearm of the prozoners.

3.      Income tax corrupts you

Income tax seduces people to form groups to make political cases to rob other groups. Why should people be subsidized in any activity by somebody else? Farming, buying a house, healthcare, having children? Why should somebody else be forced to assume this responsibility for the subsidies?

Also, about 50% of the wage-earners don’t pay income tax at all. This means that only a small part of the population is paying income tax. Why? Noisy majority free-riders will say: “Yes, it’s fair, because the rich can afford it.” Do you think it’s fair?

4.      Income tax slows down your path to success

The rate of income tax, considering state, federal, and local income taxes, is about 50%. It may appear to be less, but if you take into account that you pay a much greater price for your goods and services to compensate the producers for their income tax, 50% is actually a conservative estimate.

Given this rate, it means you have to work twice as long to achieve your goal. So if you started working at 20, and could have achieved financial success at 60, without income tax you could have achieved it by 40. That argument alone should be enough to convince anybody that income tax is evil.

5.      Income tax ruins your family

Because of income tax, both spouses have to work in order for your family to make as much money as if one spouse worked alone with no income tax. Then, your kids don’t have enough supervision. Then, they might not study as well, and might get into bad influences and end up on drugs.

A non-working spouse at home could be a ticket to a financial freedom to the entire family by going into a real estate, developing a small business, or writing a book.  

Because you don’t have time for house/family management (financial decisions, home improvement, medical appointments, vacation planning, dealing with mail), something that non-working spouse could have taken a lead, you are both under a greater stress.

6.      Income tax is insulting

It’s demeaning to keep receipts if you have a dinner with a business associate to claim it on your tax return in a few months. Regardless of the government’s low time estimates, filling taxes is a hard, stressful job and takes a lot of time.

7.      Income tax claims all your money

The fact that somebody else decides what part of your income you have to pay in taxes means that this somebody has 100% control of money you “earned.” So your money in fact belongs to this somebody who then decides how much of it to give you back.

Next time when people around you discuss any political topic, have the courage to say: “I hate income tax!”

Because I hate income tax, I wrote “Publicani.” You can read it for free on http://www.publicani.com/book. [Added: I took the link off. It sells on Amazon for $8.65, and it's returnable. You can check first pages there and read other readers comments. So, for the time being, I've decided that if somebody doesn't want to buy the book, he's not realy interested, and by posting the book on line I make this person even less interested in reading it. Nevertheless, I am not 100% sure in this logic and I might put the book back online in the future. ] The word “publicani” originally meant the same as an IRS agent during biblical times.

Amazon has two POD (Print-On-Demand) publishers: BookSurge and CreateSpace. Amazon owns CreateSpace and, I believe, “almost” owns BookSurge.

For additional cost, BookSurge offers complimentary services while CreateSpace does not. I used some of the services BookSurge provides and was always happy with those. BookSurge does a good job and is practically always on time. You get a team working for you: your publishing consultant (mine was Zach Coddington and I was happy with him), your Product Fulfillment coordinator (mine was Douglas Thompson, also a good fellow) and other people who gently guide you through the process of publishing your book.

CreateSpace, on the other hand, is completely Internet driven – there are no people you can talk to, and your emails are answered with Do-Not-Reply’s return address.

Yet both CreateSpace and BookSurge produce identical final products. I couldn’t see a difference between my books whether published by CreateSpace or BookSurge. So, if you are able to format the text and design the cover for your book yourself, I see no reason why you should use BookSurge, especially because in one aspect CreateSpace is much better. A major factor in deciding which publisher to use, from my pont of view, is the minimum price they charge for the book. CreateSpace lets you have much lower price than BookSurge does.

For Publicani, Booksurge couldn’t go lower than $16.99 despite my numerous attempts trying to make them change their mind. I am not even sure they could change the price even if they wanted to – I suspect they are stuck with Amazon’s determining prices algorithm.

Publicani exposure is important to me, so when I learned that CreateSPace can offer the same book for $7.95 I decided to switch. Before I did, I told BookSurge about CreateSpace and asked them again to lower the price. They couldn’t.

So the good news for Publicani readers is that the book is available on Amazon for $7.95 and is even eligible for free shipping under some Amazon’s conditions.

And as an additional benefit, preparing the book to a new publisher, I made some small formatting changes and corrected a few typos. I think the price is so low, that instead of correcting the free online version, I discontinued it altogether. I might bring online version back at some future time though.

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