For me: Cancelling paid subscriptions should be as easy as subscribing. I hate the fact that they actively hide the unsubscribe option or that you sometimes should have to write an e-mail if you want to unsubscribe.

  • markovs_gun@lemmy.world
    14·
    6 days ago

    Pretty much any tax avoidance loopholes. The more money I have the more I see how ridiculously skewed in favor of the rich everything is. My income is taxed at a lower rate than my capital gains, meaning that not only did I make several thousand dollars last year on stock sales I did literally nothing to earn, but I paid very little on taxes for it. There is also a scheme a friend of mine uses to reduce his tax burden even more by recording losses that only exist on paper by swapping between essentially equivalent assets. The system is designed to punish poor people for being poor and reward rich people for being rich.

    • Yaky@slrpnk.net
      6·
      6 days ago

      A popular scheme I have seen is:

      Owner registered and de-facto runs an incorporated Company. Company employs Owner and pays them a small salary (down to state minimum wage even), so Owner minimizes the income tax they pay.

      The car Owner drives is owned by the Company for “business purposes”, which allows the car to be operated within 50 miles of the Company (and farther with supplemental insurance). Company counts the car purchase/lease, maintenance, gas as expenses, bringing down the bottom line.

      Flights, travel, meals could be paid by the Company, as long as it’s tangentially “business related”.

      The house Owner lives in (or several houses for the family) is owned by the Company and is rented to Owner for very cheap, so Company pays the taxes, maintenance, etc, breaking even, or taking a loss on this house. Again, this brings down the company’s bottom line.

      Somehow, purchases for a Company can be exempt from sales taxes, too.

      In the end, on paper, the Company is barely making any profit, but the Owner might be enjoying a nice car, nice house, and vacations. All for “business purposes” of course. While you pay taxes on your income and purchases like an idiot

      • Wilco@lemm.eeEnglish
        2·
        5 days ago

        It gets worse. CEOs take out zero interest, or exteremly low interest loans on corporate assets. They then use the money tax free.

      • markovs_gun@lemmy.world
        2·
        6 days ago

        I will say a lot of what you’ve discussed here is actually illegal but very rarely enforced. Pretty much every small business owner I know is pulling shit like this but it’s basically never enforced even though it’s illegal fraud.

        • Yaky@slrpnk.net
          1·
          5 days ago

          I was always under the impression that the fraudulent intent (outside of extremly blatant cases) would be very difficult to prove in court or otherwise. If a car is used to meet clients or haul some company-related cargo, it is used for business. If a company is a real estate developer, it is expected for them to own and lease residential properties. If the owners’ family members work for the company, they must collect salary. And so on.

  • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
    253·
    6 days ago

    Shooting plainclothes cops that execute a no-knock warrant on your home.

    Seriously.

    All states–ALL states–have a castle doctrine that allows you to use lethal defense to protect yourself inside your home. A no-knock warrant being executed by cops out of uniform means that you have a reasonable belief that your home is being invaded, and that your life is at immediate risk. Now, admittedly, you probably aren’t going to survive that exchange of gunfire. But the state is going to have a really hard time charging you with shooting at/killing a cop if you do.

    • bort@aussie.zoneEnglish
      72·
      6 days ago

      I’m gonna assume by “all states” you mean “all states within the USA”.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
        32·
        6 days ago

        I believe that most other countries call them provinces rather than states. But yes, if you live in a country that has a normal police force, and you don’t have to worry about out-of-uniform cops using no-knock warrants to kick your front door in, then this is definitely not going to apply to you.

      • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
        1·
        5 days ago

        Even better: you have a specific legal right to resist police attempting to illegally enter your home. :D IIRC, the law was passed after the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that under then state law you had no right to resist even blatantly illegal actions by police.

        • y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          2·
          6 days ago

          In some parts of the US (at least, maybe nationally) the castle doctrine even extends to your car. It is thought of as an “extension” of your home/castle.

          Edit: spelling

  • Empricorn@feddit.nlEnglish
    18·
    6 days ago

    For subscriptions, I highly recommend using disposable cards like Privacy.com (no affiliation, just a customer). If I want to try out Prime, or Starz, or a “free until…” promotional offer, I just spin up a card. It’s connected to my bank account, locked to that single merchant, and they can’t charge more than whatever spending limit I put on that card. Honestly, I don’t always even sign in to a service to cancel, it’s much easier to just pause or delete a card, and then they can’t charge you anymore. It’s free for us because they collect a small portion of the transaction amount (like Visa, PayPal, etc)…

    • linearchaos@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      6 days ago

      I used them for a couple of years. But I kept finding that when I went to re-sign up for new vendors they wouldn’t support the cards for some reason. Has this gotten better?

  • frezik@midwest.social
    8·
    6 days ago

    Non-profit scams. You can set one up, put out a call for donations claiming you do some blah blah blah work, and give yourself most of the money in the form of a salary/bonus. Only a small percentage of the money ever needs to go to anyone in need.

    This happens in all sorts of corporate and religious charities. The NFL was technically non-profit for many years, and that should say it all.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.dev
    4·
    6 days ago

    Spam calls. Like, if you’re willing to spend, what, 50 dollars?, you can absolutely destroy people’s sanity with never ending calls from disposable numbers

  • Camelbeard@lemmy.world
    10·
    7 days ago

    I don’t know how this works in the US, but where I live after a year subscription (let’s say for your internet provider or something). They can only renew per month. So if the year subscription is over you can cancel any service every month and they can’t hit you with any fees.

    Back in the day if you’d forgot to cancel your plan you’d be stuck with them for another year. It sucked!

  • Gustephan@lemmy.world
    1·
    4 days ago

    This isn’t an illegal thing but more of a tip for the thing you hate. Most credit card companies will let you open and close virtual credit cards tied to your main account, but with a new card number etc. I make a new virtual card for every subscription I have. If I want to cancel the service and it takes more than 5m to do so through the company that provides that service, I just turn off the virtual credit card they will try and fail to charge for the next payment.

  • daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    3·
    6 days ago

    I think in the eu we have some legislation about it. I have the feeling of reading about a law like that before. Subscription buttons needing to be as clear as unsubscribe.