When the Government Thinks They Own Your Labour, Your Money, Your Art

From time to time I've been known to do what would probably be considered "illegal trading" by the "government." By this I mean that I've hired friends to work for me and I've been hired by others. We traded our labour and our money and didn't alert the authorities or give them a cut. I know, right? I'm so bad. This brings me to a recent transaction....

Buying and Bartering Art and Music

My brother is a composer and a damn good one too, don't take my word for it! As a filmmaker, it's really convenient for me to have a close relationship with someone who can write and record music. I make the movies, he creates the scores. Usually I pay him in government fiat (far less than he deserves, but hey! We're both struggling artists, we can't afford much) but this time we came to a different arrangement. Like the good Anglican he is, he wants a tattoo that combines the Chi-Rho with an Orthodox Cross.

So this time, instead of requesting payment in money, I'll be paying him with a tattoo design. But did you know that even this arrangement is not free by law from the clutches of the tax man? According to the IRS both parties must declare the market value of the exchange and pay taxes on it when filing for the year that the barter occurred. I'm citing the IRS because I'm assuming my readers here are more likely to be residents of the U.S.A. than Canadian like I am, but if any of my fellow Canucks are curious the CRA has similar rules.

We Make, They Take

I doesn't surprise me that the parasites want to get in on this action. It surprises me that most of the world believes they have a right to. Granted, even your average "law abiding tax payer" would likely scoff at the idea of reporting this transaction the the government. They might even agree with me that it's ridiculous that this should be taxed. However, they have no qualms with the government taking a cut out of similar arrangements. So let me be clear about this: there is no moral difference between paying with money, property, labour or favours. In any example of a transaction, each party is giving up at least one of those four things in return for at least one of the four. The transaction is seen as mutually beneficial to each party (I value X amount of money more than my time, I value my groceries more than X amount of money, I value a film score more than the labour required to design a tattoo.) Both parties work for each other, pay each other, create for each other. **The government creates nothing.** The government doesn't add anything to this or any exchange. They simply see two parties coming to a peaceful agreement and decide that part of that agreement belongs to them. Well... screw that. Thanks for reading! **~Seth** P.S. This is my second day here and my second post. To anyone who read my first post, Spreading Anarchy Through Animation you may recall that I said that I wouldn't be making many posts for the next few months because I want to focus on my animation. But I wasn't expecting that first post to be such a success, so now I think I'll post more frequently. Even if my introductory post was just a fluke, I'm still going to try this out and see where it takes me.