Some links from here and there
- Talking Radical Radio has published a podcast about conscientious objection to military taxation in Canada, featuring Doug Hewitt-White, Murray Lumley, and Scott Albrecht of Conscience Canada.
- James Maule loves a story about a disgruntled taxpayer paying in a wagonload of small change. The latest story comes with a couple of twists: first, the county anticipated such protests and has an official policy of refusing to accept large payments in coins; second, over the course of the protest it was discovered that the tax assessor was sitting on 8,600 unread emails, which may explain why less-theatrical avenues of protest failed to work.
- Speed camera vandals continue their bold assaults on traffic-ticket robots in Europe. The latest reports are of several attacks in France and Italy, and several more in France. Fire seems to have become a more popular weapon as winter has come on.
- A retrospective of the history of the Project Learn School notes that the school, an independent cooperative, got a $5,000 loan from a war tax resistance redirection fund at a critical moment at its founding, and has been in operation for fifty years now.
Lebanon
I’m working off of Google Translate, and not an actual knowledge of Lebanese Arabic, but I think this says something like “No taxes for the power authority. Gather in front of the TVA building to press the authority and confirm our demands, starting at six in the morning. #مش_دافعين” The TVA building is home to the Finance Ministry.
I’ve been frustrated at the lack of detail in the English-language reporting out of Lebanon about the tax strike there. It’s difficult to know how widespread it is, how central it is to the larger protest movement, or which tax resistance tactics are most prominent. But here is some reporting:
- “Protesters Are Wielding the Ultimate Weapon” (Haaretz) — “[T]he people behind the tax protest aren’t prepared to sit tight and wait patiently. They are calling on the Lebanese to stop paying their electricity and water bills, municipal taxes, fines and even their bank loans payments.” But who these people are goes unsaid. The reporter just quotes from a recently-created anonymous Twitter account. The article does have a good analysis of why the government power monopoly and its utility bills are a major focus of the protests.
- “We’re Not Paying: Lebanese People Protest Banks Shutdown as Economic Situation Worsens” (albawaba) — explains that restrictions on bank withdrawals and delayed payment of salaries to government employees are among the grievances.
- “Appels à la désobéissance fiscale: sit-in devant le siège de l’ABL à Beyrouth” (L’Orient-Le Jour) — a brief report on a protest at the Association of Lebanese Banks headquarters.
