Tax Resistance Against the Monarchy in Nepal

On , Reuters carried this report from Nepal:

Parties urge people not to pay taxes

Waging a war on country’s finances, political parties in Nepal on urged people to stop paying utility bills and taxes as a part of their ongoing protest against the monarchy.

Fuel and food were becoming scarce as the city underwent the 12th day of a general strike called by the opposition against King Gyanendra’s rule in the world’s only Hindu kingdom.

Maoists and a seven-party alliance called the strike to force the king to return to democracy after the king sacked the government in for failing to crush a Maoist insurgency in the Himalayan state.

Protesters marched through the streets in Rupendehi, a town bordering India, chanting anti-monarchy slogans.

Political parties began a campaign against the King by calling upon a kind of economic blockade by urging people to not to pay any tax to the regime.

“We will continue the protest till the democracy is restored in the country. Until then the public will not pay any tax to the government,” said Secretary of Nepali Congress (Rupandehi Unit) Vijay Kumar.

The monarch held talks on the political situation with one former prime minister and was scheduled to meet two other ex-premiers later on Monday, local officials said.

But none of them is currently in the seven-party alliance that opposes him.

Gyanendra sacked the government and assumed full power in , vowing to crush a decade-old Maoist revolt in which more than 13,000 people have died.

He has offered to hold elections by , but activists say he is not to be trusted and should immediately hand over power to an all-party government.

Soon after, the King reinstated the legislature, which promptly began whittling away at the power of the monarchy. Today Nepal is a republic.

The Vote

From the issue of The Vote:

The Federated Council Urges Tax Resistance.

At the statutory meeting of the Federated Council of Suffrage Societies on , presided over by Miss M[ary].A[delaide]. Broadhurst, tax resistance was adopted unanimously and enthusiastically. The Rev. Fleming Williams proposed and Dr. Hochman seconded the resolution:—

That the Federated Council of Suffrage Societies, recognising tax resistance as a constitutional principle, recommended its adoption as a means of supporting their demands for a Government measure of Woman Suffrage.

Another article in the same issue briefly notes that the Women’s Tax Resistance League will be meeting, with Earl Russel and Israel Zangwill speaking on the subject of “The Attitude Taken Up in Regard to the Taxation of Married Women in the forthcoming Finance Bill.”