Some bits and pieces from here and there:
- When people in Scotland registered in huge numbers to vote on the independence question, they may not have realized that Scottish council governments were licking their chops, hoping they could use all the new voter registrations to track down people who had refused to pay Thatcher’s poll tax way back in and wring the money out of them at last. But the head of state (First Minister) put the kibosh on that plan: “After 25 years, it’s about time the poll tax was finally dead and buried in Scotland,” he said. About £425 million in resisted poll taxes remains uncollected. The Scottish Conservatives pounced on the news, saying “It sets a terrible example on responsibility, and effectively says if you don’t want to pay your council tax — or any other levy you think might be unfair — don’t bother, we might have a government that writes it off 20 years down the line.”
- According to Économie Matin, four French tax offices have been put to the torch . “Hardly a week goes by without farmers dumping manure in front of some public building… or locks are vandalized. Every day, tax officials are attacked by outraged taxpayers who are tired of getting stonewalled when they ask why their taxes have increased so much.” Le Figaro also reports that French tax officials are getting nervous. “Now our agents, who are only the executors of a policy implemented by the government, have become indirect victims of the wrath of taxpayers,” said a tax employee union representative. “Our colleagues are all the more concerned in that they feel the attacks against the tax centers remain unpunished.” One tax official whose job puts him in direct contact with angry taxpayers said, “I never leave a stapler lying on my desk, or any other object that might serve as a projectile when I meet with a taxpayer. My colleagues do the same.”
- 45 groups met at the Athens Labor Center last month and pledged their support for a tax resistance campaign targeting the “ΕΝΦΙΑ” tax. The groups have enlisted the Athens Bar Association to counsel people on how to use legal appeals to delay or rescind the tax.
- There was another “suspicious powder causes evacuation of IRS office” incident the other day.
