Christopher Coverdale Refuses to Pay Tax for Terror

Some international tax resistance news that has flashed across my browser in recent days:

• Christopher Coverdale, a retired man living in Rye, England, has stopped paying his council tax on the grounds that to pay it would be to illegally support terrorist activity. He has refused to pay more than £1,800 so far, and was recently given a 42-day jail term for his refusal. “My case is that I refuse to break the law,” he said. “I have never refused to pay tax but I am refusing to commit an illegal act: to hand over money for the purpose of terrorist actions.” Last year, he sent a letter to his council asking them to verify that none of his tax money was supporting terrorist acts and war crimes, and added:

  We have been advised that the safest thing to do in this situation is to suspend further tax payments until we know for certain that it is not a crime. I’m loathe to stop paying tax as I don’t want to affect the essential services provided by the council, but if it’s true that paying tax renders us criminally liable as accessories to genocide I must withhold all payments until the Supreme Court confirms that the crimes have ended and we won’t be prosecuted.

• Millions of transport trucks across India stood idle in a strike designed to abolish a toll.

Found in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph of 9 October 1901:

New Tax Resisted.

Hong Kong, Tuesday. According to reports from Canton, the resignation of the Viceroy T’Ao Mu has not been accepted, but a month’s sick leave has been granted to him. The inhabitants of Canton are pleased at the non-acceptance of his resignation, T’Ao Mu being popular, and regarded as progressive and just. The ten days’ grace granted to people for payment of house tax has expired, and nothing whatever been received by the officials, who evidently fear to enforce payment. It is now announced that the tax is to be paid quarterly, thus postponing collection until November. — Press Association Foreign Special.