6 December 2009

A new issue of More than a paycheck, NWTRCC’s newsletter, is out. Contents include:

• “Relationships: When One is a WTR” — about “mixed marriages” in which one partner is a resister and the other one isn’t, and the challenges this can present. There’s a short bit from me in this article, and a photo of me and my sweetie on the cover.
• News on the just-released war tax resistance film Death and Taxes. You can find out more about the Death and Taxes film at NWTRCC’s website.
• News about war tax resistance actions like the South-East gathering coming up in Georgia; outreach at the Gandhi-King Conference on Peacemaking, the anarchist bookfares in Tacoma and Seattle, and the School of the Americas mobilization last month; and two upcoming nuclear weapons abolition events.
• Notes about a new war tax resistance counselors’ packet, the case of long-time Maine resister Frank Donnelly (who may be facing jail time for his resistance), the possibility that health savings accounts may be levied for back taxes, and some notes about how tax liens affect your credit rating.
• A report on last month’s NWTRCC national gathering in Cleveland.
• Jason Rawn’s report from the 2009 New England war tax resistance gathering.

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A pair of reporters for Bloomberg.com report that tax evasion assistance is a booming business in Mexico:

In a cramped family printing shop tucked behind a taco stand in downtown Mexico City, a worker named Antonio stacks fake sales slips from popular eateries on an October afternoon.

“We’ve got them for McDonald’s, Burger King, all the restaurants anyone wants,” says Antonio, who declines to give his last name as he shows off the phony papers that smell of fresh ink.

Like many shops that line Santo Domingo Square, the store sells the slips, bogus receipts from hotels and retailers and phony invoices for 20 pesos, or about $1.50, apiece. Customers use them to reduce their tax bills by writing off business expenses they never incurred. Or they file false invoices that show they paid tax when they didn’t.

The Tax Administration Service, Mexico’s equivalent of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, says such maneuvers cost the country 13 billion pesos ($1 billion) in tax revenue in 2009

Mexico’s cash-based and unregistered businesses further plague tax collectors. The so-called informal economy was about 28 percent of the legitimate economy in 2003, according to a 2008 International Monetary Fund study. Instead of going after scofflaws, the government has chosen to tax 58 percent of Pemex’s total revenue.

Benjamin Gonzalez, who teaches English in a small office in Monterrey, pays taxes. He’s angry that Congress is increasing his income tax and the value-added tax on his service as he struggles to keep his startup going. He says he may look for customers who don’t require a receipt and underreport his income, which would add him to the pool of tax evaders.

“I’m worried as a taxpayer,” Gonzalez, 30, says, pulling out one of the official documents he has to file. “It’s going to force me to look for activities that aren’t regulated by the tax authority.”