How does a tax exemption for an action = penalty for inaction?
"What it means is that you can always come up with alternative framings where the difference between two options is stated as a gain or a loss, but the effect is the same in either case.  For instance, if I offer to sell a T-shirt for $10 and offer a cash discount of $1, you pay $10 if buying with a credit card or $9 if buying with cash.  If I instead offer the shirt for $9 with a $1 surcharge for credit card use, you still pay $10 if buying with a credit card or $9 if buying with cash.  The financial result is the same in either case, but psychologically people may perceive them differently and make different buying decisions. In a tax situation it may be more complicated since exemptions wouldn't directly reduce your tax, but only your taxable income.  However, you can still see that, in general, having to pay $X more in tax for not doing some action (e.g., not purchasing health insurance) is the same as being able to pay $X less in tax as a reward for doing the action.  Either way, doing the action results in you paying $X less than you would if you didn't do it; the only difference is in which behavior (doing it or not doing it) is framed as the ""default"" option.  Again, these framings may differentially influence people's behavior even when the net result is the same." "There's a significant difference between ""discount"" and ""surcharge"". For starters - legal difference. If you have a list price of $X - that's the price you're committed to sell regardless of the payment method. So it doesn't matter if I pay with cash or credit - I'll pay $X. However, it costs you more when I pay with credit - so you want to pass that cost on me. You charge me surcharge - an addition to the price. In some States in the US and in some other countries - that is against the law. You cannot add on top of the listed price any amount regardless of the payment method. However, you can say that the list price is $X, which includes the assumed credit card surcharge of $Y. And then you give discount of $Y to anyone not paying with credit card. The list price is still $X, regardless of the payment method. You don't have to give the discount, the discount is your cost of doing business. But that would be legal in some places (not all!) that forbid credit card surcharge. So the main difference from legal perspective is that you're not allowed to add to the list price, but you're allowed to discount from it. Regarding taxes - exemption/deduction is not a penalty for negative. Exemption/deduction is an implementation of a social policy. For example, it is for the public benefit for everyone to own a house. So the Congress comes up with a deduction of mortgage interest. However, you're not penalized if you don't own a house by paying higher taxes. Your tax rate doesn't change. You just don't get to deduct something that you might be able to deduct had you owned a house with a mortgage. This is, again - a discount of a list price, not a surcharge. You're not penalized if you don't have a house or don't have a mortgage, but if you do - you get a break. The author you're quoting claims that bottom line would be the same as if you considered the absence of a deduction as a penalty. But that's not true, because even if you do have a mortgage you may not be able to deduct it because your income is too high, the mortgage is for too much, or your mortgage is not on the primary residence. So mere existence of the mortgage doesn't directly correlate to the existence of the deduction. Similarly with credit card surcharges - you may get a cash discount, but you may get the similar amount of money back even if you use a credit card. Not as a cash discount but rather as rewards, cash-backs or points. However, if there's no cash discount, you won't be getting these if you're paying cash. So again - you're not penalized for having a credit card by not getting a discount, because you may still get it in a different way - and if you don't, you still may end up not getting it. So the quote is a rather simplistic and negative view and more of an opinion than stating a fact."
IANAL but I'd think common sense would say that if you take advantage of one of the special cases that allow you to withdraw from a retirement plan without penalty, and then for whatever reason you don't use the money for a legal purpose, you would have to either return the money or pay the tax penalty. And I'll go out on a limb here without any documentation and guess that if you lie to the IRS and say that you withdrew the money for an exempt purpose and instead use it to go on vacation and you get caught, that you will not only have to pay the tax penalty but will also be liable for criminal charges of tax fraud. If the law and/or IRS regulations say that the only legal exceptions are A, B, and C, that pretty clearly means that if you do D, you are breaking the law. And in the eyes of the government, failing to pay the taxes you owe is way worse than robbery, murder, or rape. No, inaction is not always the rational choice in your scenario. To give an extreme example as proof: Let's say that you have $1,000. The expected value of inaction is $0 - you will end up with the same amount (minus inflation, but we can ignore that for this exercise). If your only other option is an investment which has a 75% chance of losing all of your money, and a 25% chance of doubling your money, then your expected value is ((75% * -$1,000)+ (25% * $1,000)) = -$500. In that case your best option is obviously inaction. However, let's say that you have a 75% chance of losing all of your money, but a 25% chance of making $1,000,000 on your investment. In that case, the expected value of investing is ((75% * -$1,000)+ (25% * $1,000,000)) = $249,250. This means that the rational thing is to make the investment. Basically, the 25% chance of making $1M is worth the 75% chance of losing everything. Taxes and exemptions &amp; credits from tax exist is to encourage behavior that the government wants to promote. National and international corporate taxation is this case encourages putting capital under a mattress. By setting up a system encouraging hoarding of capital, the national and international taxing regimes fail us. You can do that, you aren't missing anything. It is supposed to be punishment, but as you are moving to a European country your non-penalized income would likely be taxed higher as is. I don't have info on whether you will be taxed a second time by the European country. "I did a little research and found this article from 2006 by a Villanova law professor, titled ""No Thanks, Uncle Sam, You Can Keep Your Tax Break"".  The final paragraph of the article says: Under these circumstances, it is reasonable to conclude that a taxpayer is not required to claim a allowable deduction unless a statutory provision so requires, or a binding judicial precedent so specifies. It would be unwise, of course, to forego a deduction that the IRS considers mandatory such as those claimed by self-employed individuals with respect to their self-employment,    whether for purposes of the self-employment tax or the earned income tax credit. Until the statute is changed or some other binding authority is issued, there is no reason taxpayers who wish to forego deductions, such as the dependency exemption deduction, should hesitate in doing so. (The self-employment tax issues in the quote cited by CQM are explicitly discussed in the article as one of a few special kinds of deduction which are mandatory.) This is not a binding statement: it's not law or even official IRS policy.  You could never use it as a defense in the event that this professor turned out to be wrong and the IRS decided to go after you anyway.  However, it is a clear statement from a credible, qualified source." "That's an example of the Act applying to an adviser to a fund, not a fund being exempt from the Act.  An adviser to a 3(c)7 fund in this case is taking advantage of a safe harbor pertaining to performance-based compensation set forth in the Act.  The reasoning is that a 3(c)7 fund will by definition most likely be comprised of ""qualified clients."" The prohibition does apply to other private funds - such as 3(c)1 funds.  To the extent that their investors are not ""qualified clients,"" they are unable to charge a performance-based fee." You have two different operations going on: They each have of a set of rules regarding amounts, timelines, taxes, and penalties. The excess money can't be recharacterized except during a specific window of time.  I would see a tax professional to work through all the details. "When you say ""set aside,"" you mean you saved to pay the tax due in April? That's underpaying. It's a rare exception the IRS makes for this penalty, hopefully it wasn't too large, and you now know how much to withhold through payroll deductions.  Problem is, this wasn't unusual, it was an oversight. You have no legitimate grounds to dispute. Sorry." "It says that you are exempt ""as long as such interest income is not effectively connected with a United States trade or business"". So the interest is from money earned from doing business with/through AirBnb, a US company. So you will have to report it. Even if your bank doesn't send you a 1099-INT, you have to report it, unless it is under $0.49 because the IRS allows rounding." "Maybe, in that the government gets interest on the money it takes in, and has to pay interest on the money it spends or has agreed to spend (pensions, etc.). So depending on which interest rate is higher, the disadvantage shifts a little.  It's also not a question of ""deeming"" things, but a tax credit would be more like taking a cut in pay rather than spending more money. Thinking of it as ""spending tax money"" should only be a way of helping to show that it makes this disadvantage." Yeah I agree. What Cat did was likely illegal, but a lot of that was due to incompetence. If done properly, they could have ended up in the gray range where they could potentially justify their tax position to the IRS.   To the larger point though, it just seems wasteful to play these games. I understand everyone does it and that it's part of the system, it just all seems a bit ridiculous and I wonder if there's a simpler solution that could benefit all stakeholders. Governments get similar revenues  without dealing with ridiculous complexities of tax avoidance schemes, companies are more efficient, and then efficiency or revenue gains can be passed onto workers. My main worry however, is that these gains would be passed onto executive bonuses instead. "There's no ""183 days"" rule. As a US citizen you must pay taxes on all your income, where you live is irrelevant." The 2012 return was due 4/15/2013 (I'm assuming it didn't fall on a weekend). No late filing penalty if there was no tax due, but he has until 4/15/2016 to file for a refund or to document anything that should have carried forward. didn't pay the extra underpayment penalty on the grounds that it was   an honest mistake. You seem to think a penalty applies only when the IRS thinks you were trying to cheat the system.  That's not the case. A mistake (honest or otherwise) still can imply a penalty. While you can appeal just about anything, on any grounds you like, it's unlikely you will prevail. It matters because that is the requirement for the 83(b) selection to be valid. Since the context is 83(b) election, I assume you got stocks/options as compensation and didn't pay for them the FMV, thus it should have been included in your income for that year. If you didn't include the election letter - I can only guess that you also didn't include the income. Hence - you lost your election. If you did include the income and paid the tax accordingly, or if no tax was due (you actually paid the FMV), you may try amending the return and attaching the letter, but I'd suggest talking to a professional before doing it on your own. Make sure to keep a proof (USPS certified mailing receipt) of mailing the letter within the 30 days window.