It is not too unusual for someone to attempt to profit from not paying – debtors, wages, income tax, GST, rent – while syphoning off the profits. Then declare bankrupt. And next year, do the same again with a new limited liability company, perhaps under the name of your husband/wife/child…

What if the same was applied, but only so that the government and major corporations lost out?

What if it was orchestrated, by a significant percentage of society?

What if they implied that – if the government doesn’t improve something – they’ll all default on government revenue and go bankrupt?

I’m sure that amongst all the legal structures, payment arrangements, tax obligations… someone can contrive a threat that would work at least once – a tax strike of sorts.

More extremely, don’t contrive. Simply don’t pay tax. If enough businesses do so, government action could damage the economy.

GDP

While we are at it…

GDP is everything to governments in advanced economies. Wanna hurt the government? Spend less!

Every business has discretionary spending:

• marketing
• R&D
• updating equipment
• staff bonuses
• Xmas parties
• pay rises
• prices can be reduced…

Now a drop of 0.01% in GDP, two quarters in a row, equals a “recession” in Australia.

Growth is perhaps averaging 1-2% these days…

So if everyone spends (maybe) 1% less for a short while we can create a recession. But businesses aren’t everyone. And few will get on board.

BUT! What if a recession was almost happening, and this year growth was predicted to be 0.1%?

Then, if for arguments sake, GDP is half created by business, and 10% of businesses are on board, then collectively a mere 2% less spending by those businesses, over 6 months, could cause a recession.

NOW, while perhaps doing the above could be a powerful message, the implicit threat of it could maybe be more powerful.