Refuse to Elect Tax Assessors or Collectors
One way governments try to make taxes more palatable is by allowing their subjects to elect their own local tax assessors and collectors. And one way people respond to this gambit is by refusing to elect anyone at all.
Example Fries Rebellion
During the Fries Rebellion, Commissioner Eyerley addressed a crowd of tax resisters:
Mr. Eyerley proposed that inasmuch as they were opposed to the present assessor, he would give them the privilege of electing one of their own number, to whom he would give the appointment. This they declined, saying: “We will do no such thing; if we do, we at once acknowledge that we submit to the law, and that is what we will not do.”
Example Andros Tyranny
When Governor Andros tried to impose taxes on colonial New England without the consent of the colonial Assembly, he called a town meeting in Ipswich at which the town was to choose its Assessor. The town refused, saying “that they are not willing to choose a commissioner for such an end.”
Example Panic of 1837
In the wake of the Panic of 1837, in some parts of the United States people resorted to tax resistance in fury at having to pay off foreign speculators—and in the hopes that under the pressure of a tax resistance campaign, the government would repudiate its debts rather than forcing the taxpayers to honor them. One newspaper noted:
[T]hey have resisted the collection of taxes and defeated, at least temporarily, the operations of the law; in some cases, by the resignation of officers whose duty it was to collect the taxes and in others by the refusal of the people to elect the proper officers for that purpose.
Example Kastamonu
In Kastamonu, Turkey in 1906, the citizenry boycotted the elections for city councillors on the grounds that it did not matter whom they elected, since they had no control over taxation or spending.