Migrate or “Taxpatriate” ahead of the Tax Collector

Tax resisters can also pack up and leave when the tax collector comes calling.

Example The Indian Independence Movement

Around the same time as the more photogenic Dharasana Salt Raid in India, tax resisters there were also using this quieter and more passive tactic. News accounts of the period include notes like these:

“Government agents began at once to attempt tax collecting, but in most cases found the natives had departed from their lands.”

“The evaders lock their doors and flee when tax collectors appear, or hide in the fields…”

“…officials are arriving to post signs warning the peasants that their lands will be forfeit if they refuse to pay the dues. Thus far they have found the villages deserted.”

In tax resistance hotbed Bardoli, some 55,000 peasants from the region (which had a total population of about 88,000 people) packed up and left, “taking everything movable, including the newly harvested rice crop, household goods, and cattle.” Reports indicated “that the villagers had been secretly removing goods and crops by night across the border… where the Baroda villagers harboured and helped them.”

Example The Monteverde Community

In 1950, seven American Quaker families left the United States and founded the community of Monteverde, Costa Rica. Wrote one:

The reason [Quakers have come here] is not the climate, nor the possibility of finding work here, but rather an idealistic reason, typical of Quakers. They were convinced that it was against their conscience to continue living in a country where, indirectly, they had to collaborate in arming the nation for war by means of taxation…

Before helping to found the community, Marvin Rockwell had been in prison for refusing to register for the military draft. “When the judge sentenced us, he said, ‘If you’re not willing to defend your country, you should get out.’ So we began to think seriously of that possibility,” he recalled. “We wanted to be free of paying taxes in a war economy.”

Example Poujade’s Rebellion

When the tax inspector came to town during the Poujadist tax rebellion in France in 1955, he might find nothing to inspect—the business district having been abandoned in anticipation of the inspector’s arrival. One account put it this way:

The tax inspector rapped on steel curtain after steel curtain, demanding to be let in to see the books. Nowhere did he get an answer. When they found that even the bistros were locked, the hapless inspector and his guards gave up their mission and beat a humble retreat…

Example Individual Taxpatriates

Individual resisters may “taxpatriate” in order to avoid the taxes of their home country or region.

For example, Terry Gilliam, Monty Python’s Yankee animator and the director of such films as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Brazil, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, told an interviewer why he renounced his American citizenship to become a taxpatriate:

I got tired of my taxes paying for exciting little wars around the world. Then I discovered that when I died, my wife would probably have to sell our house to pay for the taxes in America.

In order to stop paying for American military adventures, Jeff Knaebel left his life as an American entrepreneur to become a stateless mendicant in India. Here’s how he described his decision:

Having made the decision to cease filing and paying income tax, I undertook a radical reorganization of my life. I would have to emigrate, to become a “tax exile.” It would not be right to benefit from the facilities and protection of my country while not paying my share…

I made the decision to leave my own, my native land forever. . I would become a man without a country, separated by a vast ocean from friends, family and my young adult children.…

I would owe allegiance to all of humanity and to no State. I would be the indentured servant of no gang of murderers sitting in any legislative body. By paying no tax to any State would I finally make a farewell to arms. I would seek peace and brotherhood.

Example Halifax “Vicars’ Rate” Resistance

In Halifax, England, during the “vicars’ rate” resistance of 1875–76, the church tried to outfox the resistance campaign by appointing one of the resisters—a nonconformist named William Henry Clay—as the official rate collector. The way the rate was collected, this made Clay financially responsible for the total amount of tax, and meant that resisters would be taking money out of his pockets, not the church’s. But Clay was forewarned about the attempt. “Of course I did not regret that they had taken such a step,” he said, “because I thought it would be a good thing for our cause. There is another clause in the Act that notice is to be served within 14 days, so I quietly took a trip to Ireland and other places till the 14 days expired.”

Notes and Citations

“Salt Raiding in India to be Ended” Pittsburgh Sentinel 3 June 1930
“Tax Resisters Cause Trouble” The Montreal Gazette 19 June 1930, p. 13
“Evasion of Taxes Great Problem of India Government” The St. Joseph News-Press 2 June 1930, p. 7
“Villages Evacuated” The Argus 22 October 1930, p. 7
“Friends and Their Friends” Friends Journal 11 April 1959, pp. 235–36
Bernarde, Scott “Living On the Mountain: Friends Community In Costa Rica” Friends Journal 15 January 1978, pp. 6–9
Clausen, Oliver “The Revolt of Monsieur Poujade” The Montreal Gazette 27 June 1955, p. 8
Mechanic, Michael “Terry Gilliam’s Three-Reel Circus” Mother Jones 15 December 2009
Knaebel, Jeff “Some Thoughts on Civil Disobedience: My Duties and Responsibilities” We Won’t Pay: A Tax Resistance Reader (2008) pp. 475–501
“Halifax (Vicars’ Rate)” House of Commons Papers: Reports from Committees, Vol. X (8 Feb.–15 Aug. 1876) p. 39