Do Wizards and Witches... pay Muggle Taxes?

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 54172

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "larryngocnguyen83"
<larryngocnguyen at h...> wrote:
> .... whether ... folks that have jobs in both the Muggle world and 
> the Wizarding world paid both taxes to the Wizarding World, 
> ...(and)... the Muggle world of Britain.
>
> ...edited...
>
> Obviously, income tax from an entirely muggle job
> would have to be paid, but property tax and other taxes? 
> ...edited...

>Thanks everyone!
> Larry, 

bboy_mn:

They say that there are two things in life that you can never escape;
death and taxes.

The only way you /might/ get out of paying taxes it to live totally in
the wizard world, but even then it would be difficult. Take the
Weasleys, they seem to live very separate from the muggle world, yet,
I asssume, they own the Burrow. To own it, they had to buy it. If they
bought it then there is a public record of the sale. The reason there
is a public record is so the tax man knows who to send the property
tax bill to.

Once the tax man has your name, then they have some type of tax ID
number. The tax ID number will then tell them that Mr. Weasley is in
his 70's (roughly) and has never filed an income tax return. Then as
they say, the fertilizer will hit the ventilator.

There really is no way to earn income in the muggle world without
paying taxes on it. You can deal in an all cash business so there is
no record of the earnings, but as soon as you start buying things with
the money, you create a paper trail that will eventually lead the tax
man to you. In the US now, it's next to impossible to buy anything
with a large sum of cash. If you walk into a car dealer and want to
pay for the car with cash, the police will be there before you ever
get out the door, demanding to know where you got the cash. Any time a
bank receives a large cash deposit or withdrawal, the government is
informed. Even if you are caught by the police with a large amount of
cash (several hundred dollars), it likely the police will confiscate
it until you can prove where you got the money. Banks today won't even
cash a check anymore because it leaves no record of the cash. You have
to deposit it in an account, then make a withdrawal from the account
so the government has a record of the transaction.

I think this is one of the harsh realities of life that we are suppose
to suspend when reading the story. If JKR tried to account for taxes,
the whole series would be an endless explaination of how they get
around it to the point where there wouldn't be room for the story itself.

Just some thoughts.

bboy_mn