Tax Resistance News from France, Italy, and Greece

Some international tax resistance news:

France

  • There was an amusing scene last week when a hundred employees of Ecomouv, the quasi-private company responsible for collecting a new road tax in France, held a holiday party in Metz. Posing for a group photo in front of the company offices in their santa hats, they were mistaken for a demonstration of the anti-tax bonnets rouges (red caps) by local police, who quickly intervened.
  • A bonnets rouges subgroup calling itself the “cash cows” showed up at the intermunicipal council of Saint-Brieuc to try to get some answers about their property taxes. Not getting the answers they were looking for, they shut down the council meeting.
  • Another group of bonnets rouges blockaded a Swiss-French border crossing to protest a new obligation on those who live in France but work in Switzerland to contribute to the French public health system (before, such workers could choose to join either the French or Swiss programs).
  • The destruction of traffic-ticket radar machines by the bonnets rouges seems to have had an effect. For the first year since these machines were installed, the machines issued fewer tickets than the year before. A hundred such machines were vandalized last month, including about half of those in Brittany.

Italy

Greece