Some links from here and there:
- The new U.S. government policy of denying passports to people with large federal tax debts is beginning to get more fundamental criticisms.
Here’s Kevin D. Williamson at National Review:
The U.S. government is building the world’s largest debtors’ prison: the United States.
The right to travel is — like the right to free speech, the right to be free from unlawful search and seizure, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievance — a basic civil right. Americans as free people have a God-given right to come and go as they please, irrespective of the preferences of any pissant bureaucrat in Washington. Yes, we curtail people’s rights in certain circumstances — when they have been charged with a crime and convicted after due process. Tax fraud is a crime; having unpaid taxes is not.
- “What is War Tax Resistance? Inspiration, Calculation, and the Face of Evil.” Graham Smith introduces war tax resistance to the anarchist / voluntaryist community, and gets some enthusiastic responses in the comments.
- Those businesses in Connecticut that rely on road transport plan to protest new tolls and gas & tire taxes by surrounding the state Government Center with their vehicles.
- According to a new study, the “tax gap” — the difference between what the law says people owe and what they actually cough up — has probably been vastly underestimated. This is because the very wealthy evade taxes at a higher rate, and have more access to more sophisticated tax evasion strategies, than the rest of us, and the tax gap estimating methodologies don’t sufficiently take this into account. This is more ammo for the “rich people don’t pay their fair share” argument. The researchers concentrated on Scandinavia, and took advantage of data revealed in the Panama Papers and related leaks. They found that while on average 3% of personal taxes are evaded in Scandinavia, households in the top 0.01% of net wealth evade taxes on about 25% of their income via the use of offshore accounts.
- Traders in the Bakaara Market in Mogadishu closed their doors in a hartal to protest tax hikes.
