Douglas Edwards 🇺🇦🇨🇦🇲🇽🇵🇦🇬🇱🇩🇰🇪🇺<p><span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://mstdn.social/@Remittancegirl" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>Remittancegirl</span></a></span> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://federate.social/@pgiulan" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>pgiulan</span></a></span> Since long before Trump even entered politics, or <a href="https://zeroes.ca/tags/Palantir" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Palantir</span></a> existed, I've been convinced that <a href="https://zeroes.ca/tags/surveillance" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>surveillance</span></a>, not revenue generation, was the real reason for <a href="https://zeroes.ca/tags/IncomeTax" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>IncomeTax</span></a> on working-class individuals (as opposed to plutocrats and corporations). There are many other ways to generate revenue, such as <a href="https://zeroes.ca/tags/VAT" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>VAT</span></a> and <a href="https://zeroes.ca/tags/LandValueTax" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>LandValueTax</span></a>, or just income taxation limited to corporations and very wealthy individuals. But those wouldn't enable the monitoring of everyone's economic life the way population-wide income taxation does.</p>