Some bits and pieces from here and there:
- Kathy Kelly looks into the cowardly drone strikes that are a rising feature of U.S. foreign policy.
Reliance on robotic warfare has escalated from the Bush to the Obama administrations, with very little significant public debate. More than ever before, it is true that the U.S. doesn’t want our bodies to be part of warfare; there’s also not much interest in our consent. All that is required is our money.
- War Resisters’ International covers the case of Hugo Alcade and Jorge Güemes, two Spanish war tax resisters.
- As I may have mentioned, a provision of the recently-enacted health care
industry legislation — one that was little-noticed at the time but that has
attracted some commentary since — requires businesses to file 1099s with
the government for every other business from whom they purchase goods or
services totalling at least $600. Some commentators have focused on the
paperwork headache this involves, others on whether it is intending to lay
the groundwork for a new value-added tax, but
Gary North thinks it may be an opportunity for resistance-via-overcompliance:
The IRS will be buried in billions of new forms. I’m an older guy. I think back to Carl Sagan’s memorable words in the PBS series, Cosmos: “billions and billions.” These forms will have to be scanned into the system. If businessmen want to protest this law in a legal but effective way, they will have their tax preparers write in the numbers by hand. Then IRS will have to type in the data on each form by hand. Billions and billions!
Business owners and managers will be outraged. But what if word spreads? “No electronic filing!” What if the tax preparers fill in all the forms by hand. It is legal. It is not efficient, but it’s not all that much extra work. Pay a few dollars more per filing. At the other end, the IRS will get to process these forms by hand. Think of what happens if businesses were to challenge every challenge by the IRS? The business’s CPA simply asks in writing — I do mean writing (hand-written) — for the IRS to review the case. Point out one mistake made by the IRS. Automatically, every business should challenge every request for more tax money. No exceptions. Be polite. Just ask the IRS to review its case in terms of this new information. There are always gray areas. Put them to use. Pay a few bucks to your tax preparer. Paperwork is the essence of every bureaucracy. Let’s do it by the book: with paper.