Most of the ones most affected by Trump’s cruelty would get something back on their federal tax return, not owe.

And the government would not be able to pay tax refunds during a shutdown.

The people who owe are less affected by Trump’s cruel policies, if they are at all. They will most likely pay to avoid the penalties. (Which ironically won’t fund tax refunds for the poor.)

If you mean like sales tax? So you’re saying you buy an item that is $20, pay with a $20, and refuse to pay the sales tax? That’s stealing. The store still has to pay the sales tax, so, just to use nice round numbers, say the tax is $1. You’ve paid the tax and $19 of the $20 item, so you’ve stolen a dollar from the store. Not the government. It’s a bit more complicated than that. They pay the tax regardless of whether the item sells. Even if the item is straight up stolen. Stores account for this (it’s called “shrink”) in their pricing, actually. So some shoplifting/theft is subsidized by paying customers. But in any case, the tax is paid regardless. Now if the store were to just not pay the tax… well, they wouldn’t. They have more to lose, and again, aren’t affected by Trump’s cruelty.

Now if you mean like states not sending money back to the feds? That’s been threatened, but the federal government also funds a lot of state level stuff, so they’d just withhold more, so there’d be no point to doing so.

If there were a serious threat to the tax system, the IRS would just fix it. That’s all we’ve ever wanted for years. For taxes to make sense, and for there to be no need to file every year because they already know what we make and what we owe — and tax our checks accordingly. Nothing over, nothing under. Maybe slightly over to account for errors, and any runoff goes back into the community. That’s the ideal, anyway.