Over the past several months I’ve been compiling lists of examples of a variety of tactics that have been used by tax resisters and tax resistance campaigns — tactics in addition to tax resistance itself. Today I’ll give an overview of the whole series:
Methods of Supporting Tax Resisters
- accompany resisters to/from prison, correspond with/visit them inside
- assist resisters whose property is seized
- assist the families of imprisoned resisters
- attend the trials of those prosecuted
- demonstrate support for individual resisters
- develop and use legal expertise
- engage in mass action in response to arrests
- form groups for mutual support and coordinated decision-making
- form mutual insurance pacts
- hold resisters’ property in others’ names
- honor resisters who have been imprisoned
- issue formal shows of support for imprisoned resisters
- join cooperative housing and business arrangements
- keep a record of “sufferings”
- pay the fines or legal fees of prosecuted resisters
- petition for leniency towards resisters
- rally on the occasion of arrests, trials, or imprisonments
- refuse to indict or convict as a jury
- resist levies on employees’ salaries
- resist withholding on employees’ salaries
Methods of Recruiting Tax Resisters
- ask people to vow to resist when a critical mass of people take a similar vow
- choose a small, easy, high-participation tax to resist
- convince existing organizations to adopt or endorse tax resistance
- educate potential resisters about techniques and consequences
- engage in social boycott of non-resisters
- maintain solidarity in the face of divisive pressure
- reach out to potential resisters at the time and place of payment
- recruit new resisters through letters or face-to-face outreach
- threaten taxpayers to try to coerce them into resisting
Methods of Expanding Resistance Tactics
- boycott government monopoly goods or particularly taxed goods
- conduct consumer strikes
- conduct labor strikes
- conduct hartals and business strikes
- counsel people in legal tax avoidance techniques
- defy conditions of tax-exemption, deliberately incur then resist a tax
- encourage tax evasion, erode general taxpayer compliance
- engage in pickets, protests, and other public demonstrations
- foment acts of solidarity from non-resisters
- foment bank runs
- manufacture & sell alternatives to taxed goods
- miscellaneous corporation/employer resistance
- participate in barter and other off-the-books transactions
- participate in buycotts and boycotts
- pay taxes in an inconvenient or symbolic way
- pay taxes with degraded currency
- petition for redress of grievances
- refuse to fund certain voluntary, non-governmental activities as well
- refuse to support the government in certain other ways
- refuse to use government currency
- renounce government privileges and titles
- resist the census
- secede / set up a parallel government
- smuggle goods to evade taxes
- switch to alternative currencies
- switch to cash
- threaten to repudiate the government debt
Methods of Frustrating Government Enforcement
- assault tax collectors
- attack police or military personnel engaged in tax enforcement
- attack tax offices
- attack the homes and property of tax collectors
- block tax collectors with barricades, blockades, or occupations
- blockade tax offices
- clog up the courts and/or the jails
- destroy the apparatus of taxation
- develop positive relationships with tax officials
- disrupt government auctions
- disrupt trials, break resisters out of prison
- encourage defection in the tax bureaucracy
- engage in social boycott of tax collectors and collaborators
- hide or flee to resist arrest
- hide taxable or seizable assets
- intimidate or assault tax collaborators
- intimidate tax collectors with humiliation attacks
- issue bomb threats, send disturbing packages
- migrate or taxpatriate ahead of the tax collector
- miscellaneous uses of violence
- refuse to elect tax assessors or collectors
- short-circuit the bureaucracy with paperwork
- warn people when tax collectors are on the way
Methods of Publicity and Propaganda
- avoid falsehood, engage in radical honesty
- conduct surveys to gauge support
- contrast your tax resistance campaign with more fearsome or objectionable opposition movements
- get a good spin out in the media
- put your taxes in an escrow fund in lieu of payment
- redirect resisted taxes to charity
- resonate with myths, legends, folklore, or historical examples
- sing tax resistance songs
- surrender yourself as a criminal for having paid taxes
- take public oaths or pass resolutions of tax resistance
- use property seizures as rally or protest opportunities
- wear badges, emblems, or uniforms
