BITCOIN TAROT - 10 of WANDS
BURDEN, OBLIGATIONS, RESPONSIBILITY, STRESS
WHAT THE INITIATE,
Satoshi might be saying carrying the wait of life walking through The 10 of Wands card:
I am challenged to use my mind to its fullest potential. If I do not have a productive outlet for my mind to express its talents and dreams, stress and difficulties will increase.
It is always ok to delegate. All the burden do not have to be only carried by thyself! You can ask for help!
BITCOIN WORLD:
What if you were forced to go into business with someone you didn't choose?
How big a burden would it be?
Let’s say you live in Australia, and you’re an average income earner taking home around $55,000 per year. At that level of income, you’re in the bracket where the top part of your earnings is subject to a 32.5% income tax.
Now you might not mind paying almost a third of your income to your government overlords each year, especially considering Australia has world-class schools, roads, and medical care. You might be fine with that.
But here’s where the big lie of income tax begins.
In Australia, every time you make almost any kind of daily purchase, you’re hit with a 10% Goods And Service Tax that goes to the government. This is called GST in Australia, but is more commonly known as Value Added Tax (VAT) in the rest of the world.
Basically, any kind of VAT means that you’re being taxed just for the privilege of spending the money you worked so hard all year to earn. Money that is already being taxed by your government.
You might be thinking "Well, that’s not so bad. Australia’s VAT is some of the lowest in the world. I’m happy to pay an extra 10% in tax." Sure, that might be true. In France, my current country of residence, I pay 20% VAT, one of the highest in the world.
But still, my point here isn’t how much the VAT rate is in your country. It’s that you’re being taxed again.
Now let’s say you’ve worked hard enough to own your own car. And not only that, your car is a necessity for you to get to and from your job, so you can earn a living.
When you buy a car in Australia, you’re of course hit with the 10% GST. And then, depending on the state you live in, potentially an extra $1,500 in on-road taxes just to register that car, and to be able to legally drive it on the road.
But that’s not the end of the taxes on your car. Chances are, your car needs to be filled up with fuel to operate. Otherwise, it’s nothing more than a useless chunk of metal on wheels.
As I write this, the average price for petrol or diesel in Australia is around $2.05 AUD per litre. Of that cost, you have two extra taxes within the price that go directly to the Australian government. Firstly, the mandatory 10% in GST. But on top of this, an additional 42.7 cents per litre in fuel excise duty.
So, every time you fill up your car in Australia, almost 30% of the total cost is additional tax.
But haven’t you already paid your tax? Not according to the government, you haven’t. Well, at least you haven’t paid all your tax.
It’s tax on tax on tax on tax on tax.
These are only two of the additional taxes levied by the Australian government that I’ve listed above. However, this is only just scratching the surface; according to the Henry Tax Review, most Australians pay 125 additional "hidden taxes" each year, on top of their income tax.
125 additional taxes. It’s insane.
(And don’t think just because you’re Australian, you don’t pay these additional hidden taxes. No matter where on Earth you live, you’ll be paying at least some of these—or potentially even more.)
When you take these hidden taxes into account, someone earning $55,000 per year is tax is likely actually paying more than 50% of their income to their government. That’s like having a silent business partner that you didn’t choose to be in business with, taking more than half of everything you earn.
And to me, that’s ludicrous.
But here’s something you may be surprised to hear me say:
I’m not against paying tax.
In fact, I believe everyone should be paying some kind of tax to the country they live in, if they benefit from that nation’s services. But my entire point here is that most people are paying tax to whatever nation they were born in, without considering their other options.
I was born in Australia. And for the most part, I consider myself lucky to be able to say that. But being born in Australia meant that for the vast majority of my early life, I was bound to Australia’s system of education, culture, banking… and of course, taxes.
Australia – whether I liked it or not – was the silent business partner I didn’t choose, that was getting more than half of every dollar I made. And if my business partner wanted to use my income to fire missiles through the windows of unsuspecting civilians in the Middle East, I had to be okay with that too.
If I chose not to pay Australia? Well, they could put me in prison, or take my rights away.
For the last few years of my life, I’ve often dreamed of new business partners.
There are 195 countries that exist on Earth at the time of this writing. 195 potential partners for you to do business with when it comes to where you want to pay your tax, and where you choose to live.
For example, Croatia’s new digital nomad visa will allow someone to live and work in the nation for a year or more, while legally allowing them to pay zero tax. And the same can be said for many other nations, including those who choose to live in the jungled paradise of Costa Rica.
Or if you love Bitcoin, then there is El Salvador. But that is just the beginning. I can actually see places around the world having city state that cater to the people owning Bitcoin like Monaco, Luxemburg or Hong Kong does for tax purposes.
Imagine having to pay taxes just once. As an entry fee paid in Bitcoin. Then the city state managing the fund and run the city state. You pay once and then the government caters to you, rather than having the heavy burden of being a silent partner in a sinking ship. A ship that sails in any direction it wants, and make you a slave.
Then if you do not like the way your city Bitcoin state runs the fund, you get to claim back your investment and move to another city state.
Suddenly you are not a silent partner anymore. You really have rights! You have the freedom to choose.
As of today it takes 3 Bitcoins to acquire the El Salvadoran nationality and live in the country tax free. They are building a city state funded by volcano bonds.
You can read more about it, in this article.
And that is just the beginning. I can see a world were countries and city states will start offering more and more to people. Rather than been a slave born in a country that you have to serve your entire life, your individuality gets rewarded and you get to choose in full consciousness who you want to partner with.