Survey Asks How Far Americans Would Go to Get Out of Paying Taxes

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At a time when the United States can seem like a country divided, Americans overwhelmingly agree on these two things: They don’t like paying taxes, and they detest the Internal Revenue Service.

Although Americans’ hatred for taxes likely comes as no surprise to you, what some taxpayers would be willing to do to secure themselves a tax-free future may shock you.

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According to WalletHub, which recently conducted its 2016 Taxpayer Survey, 27 percent of Americans said they’d happily get a permanent IRS tattoo in exchange for a lifetime of not paying taxes. But that’s not all. Here are some other things taxpayers would do to get out of turning over a portion of their income to the government for taxes:

  • Move to a different country: 16 percent
  • Clean Chipotle toilets for three years: 11 percent
  • Stop talking for six months: 10 percent
  • Name first-born child “Taxes”: 8 percent (poor kid!)
  • Sell a kidney: 6 percent
  • Kill someone (assumes not getting caught): 4 percent (yikes!)
  • Spend one year in prison: 4 percent

Americans also told WalletHub that there’s a whole host of unpleasant duties that they’d rather do than sit down to prepare their taxes, including: laundry (77 percent), cooking Thanksgiving dinner for the in-laws (47 percent), change a baby’s diaper (43 percent), having the awkward “birds and bees” sex talk with their kids (35 percent), fold 100 fitted sheets (32 percent), spend a night in jail (13 percent), and break an arm (8 percent).

To accurately portray how much Americans really hate the IRS, check out these relatively unpopular celebrities that taxpayers said they like more than the IRS: O.J. Simpson: (8 percent), Kanye West (10 percent), Vladimir Putin (12 percent), Bill Cosby (14 percent), Justin Bieber (16 percent).

WalletHub also asked taxpayers who they’d most like to punch. Donald Trump was the runaway winner there – collecting 54 percent of the vote. Trump was followed by Hillary Clinton (14 percent), the president (13 percent), a congressman (12 percent), and an IRS agent (4 percent).

Considering how much Americans hate taxes, this is interesting: 86 percent of taxpayers said they believe the IRS is necessary, though more than half (52 percent) said the government agency is in desperate need of improvements.

The survey results are based on answers provided by a nationally representative group of more than 1,000 American taxpayers.

What would you be willing to do to get out of paying taxes? Have you completed your taxes for 2015 yet? Share your comments below or on our Facebook page.

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