Tax resisters, as well as people just disgruntled or disgusted with their
taxes, will frequently stumble on the passive-aggressive tactic of paying
their taxes, but in a way that is particularly inconvenient for the tax
collector. Some times also, they will choose a mode of payment that is both
unusual and that has some symbolic or propaganda value. Today I’ll mention
some examples of these techniques.
Evan Reeves wrote out 5,574 separate checks for $0.96 each to pay his
federal income taxes. On each check, in
the “memo” field, he wrote the name of a
U.S. soldier
who died in the Afghanistan or Iraq wars. He enlisted like-minded friends
to help him fill in the checks.
Homeless artist John Ed Croft tried to use aluminum cans, “the currency of the homeless,” to pay his income tax in .
A fellow who thought he did not deserve his $137 traffic fine paid it by
folding 137 dollar bills into origami pigs and arranging them in a pair of
Dunkin’ Donut boxes to turn them in at the police department.
One of 137 dollar bills folded into origami pigs that a man used to pay his traffic fine.
Many people have hit on the idea of paying their taxes using the lowest
denomination legal currency available. Here are some examples from recent
years:
Richard Ross paid his $4,079 property tax bill by lugging eleven sacks
of loose change to the county treasurer.
Normand Czepial paid his Quebec property taxes with 213,625 pennies
submitted in an inflatable childrens’ swimming pool (alas, Canadian
law allows anyone to refuse to accept more than twenty-five pennies in a
single transaction).
Tax resisters in Bilbao paid part of their fine with 20,000 pennies.
Ron Spears paid a past-due property tax bill with 33,000 pennies, carried
into the county treasurer’s office “in buckets on a hand truck.”
War tax resister Cynthia Sharpe prepares to pay her taxes with a check written on a giant mock-up of a coffin lid.
Australian war tax resister Robert Burrowes has tried to pay his taxes in
a number of odd ways:
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