The latest news on the tax resistance front:
- Calls for people to refuse to pay taxes in resistance to Trumpism are coming fast. For example:
- Death of Taxes: An Old Protest Tactic Revived for a New President, Allee Manning, Vocativ
- Refusing to Pay Income Taxes for the Trump Agenda — a new NWTRCC press release
- Americans Should Refuse to Pay Federal Income Tax if Trump Does Not Release Tax Returns, Ben Cohen, The Daily Banter
- Divest from War, Invest in People, Kathy Kelly, LA Progressive
- A story is buzzing around in red and blue circles that California is threatening to stop paying federal taxes in response to the Trump administration’s threats to withhold funding from “sanctuary cities.” The only substance to the story, as far as I have been able to determine, is an off-the-cuff remark by Willie Brown, formerly mayor of San Francisco and formerly speaker of the California state Assembly, to this effect: “California could very well become an organized non-payer. They could recommend non-compliance with the federal tax code.” But nonetheless, this quasi-story has been generating a lot of buzz, along with the predictable ignorant outrage in the dittosphere.
- NWTRCC is urging war tax resisters to go public and sign their names to a pledge that will be used for publicity and advertising for the cause.
- Here’s some follow-up on German war tax resister Gertrud Nehls:
- Historian Vincent Geloso notes that refusal to participate in a census for tax resistance reasons has to be taken into account by historians when they evaluate the evidence in census returns.
- War tax resister Jason Rawn offers some Musings on Obstructing a Public Way, War Tax Resistance, War Profiteering, Divestment, Livelihood, and Destroying Hundreds of Targets at a Rate of Up to Ten Per Minute.
- Between Trump’s federal hiring freeze and his new executive order that any new federal regulation be accompanied by the removal of two others, the IRS’s already hobbled processes have gotten further bogged down. However, Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin is swimming against the Republican tide (or signaling that it’s time for the tide to shift) by advocating for higher funding and more hiring at the agency.