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Tax Strike Tactics

Warn People When Tax Collectors Are on the Way

These days, taxes and tax assessments are usually administered in an impersonal way. Faraway bureaucrats shuffle numbers in spreadsheets. Computers send letters. But tax collectors and assessors have sometimes had to scrape some shoe leather to get the job done, and this has been another opportunity for the resisters. One way tax resisters can foil the plans of the tax collectors is to send up the alarm when they’re on the way.

Example Annuity Tax Resistance

“Horning” was a legal term describing the process by which tax debtors could be imprisoned for defying the King (it was normally prohibited at the time to imprison someone merely for being a debtor in default). During the Edinburgh Annuity Tax resistance, one victim of this process declared “Horning! horning!—by the powers! if they bring a horning against me, I’ll bring a horning against them”:

When the King’s messenger-at-arms, as tipstaves are called in Scotland, brought his horning to the Cowgate, the Irishman, previously provided with a tremendous bullock’s horn, blew a blast “so loud and dread,” that it might have brought down the Castle wall; and a faction mustered as quickly as if it had sounded in the suburbs of Kilkenny. The messenger-at-arms took leave as rapidly as possible, and without making the charge of horning at this time.

Example Poujadism

Poujadist tax rebels in France in the mid-1950s used this tactic. The Montreal Gazette reported of Poujade’s “Union for the Defence of Shopkeepers and Craftsmen”:

The loudspeaker is its symbol and it all started in earnest one bright morning 18 months ago when a loudspeaker mounted on a truck brought awful tidings to the pleasant little town of St. Cere near Toulouse in south-west France.

“Attention,” it blared. “Attention. The tax inspector is in town.”

There was a rumbling sound as the steel curtains with which French shops are shuttered at night were rolled down all over St. Cere.…

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 from St. Cere.

The triumph of St. Cere lit the fires of rebellion in the hearts of tax-ridden shopkeepers all over France. Poujade was suddenly a national figure and he lost no time in organizing his Union to spread the message of the loudspeakers and the steel curtains.

In addition, according to another article on the movement, “some priests ring church bells to warn of the arrival of the revenuers.”

Example Greek “Won’t Pay” Movement

When tax official Nikos Maitos took a team of inspectors to the island of Naxos to hunt for tax evaders, “a local radio station broadcast his license plate number to warn residents.”

Example Beidenfleth Resistance

A tax strike broke out in rural Germany between the world wars. When tax collectors were spotted coming to distrain cattle from the resisters, resisters “blew the fire horn, and on the road they lit a fire of straw, the age-old sign that help is needed. Peasants ran from all sides towards the smoke.”

Example Bardoli Tax Strike

During the Bardoli satyagraha, tax collectors and other government enforcers were shadowed by resisters, who warned villagers they were coming. Resister Govardhandas Chokhavala said, “We have provided our volunteers with drums and conches, and the moment they sight a Government servant, the drum or the conch gives the alarm. That is work which is after the heart of these youngsters.” Some other notes from The Story of Bardoli read:

[E]very village had its volunteers ready with their bugles or drums which were pressed into aid as soon as they caught sight of the Talati and Patel out on their japti [attachment] depredations.

The youngsters on duty announced [the Collector’s] arrival by a hearty beating of their drums, and all the doors were closed.

Some [resisters] had to post themselves at and keep a strict watch over the various approaches to the village, and no sooner was a japti party sighted or the whank of a car heard, than they were to be on their alert, and the warning of the fact to be given to the village people. Some of them had always like sleuth hounds to be on the trail of the Government officials. Their business was to scent their plans and warn the village people against their machinations.

The government found this tactic so frustrating that at one point it “prohibited the beating of drums, playing music, or blowing conches or horns on or near public roads or public places or Government buildings.” Some boys were arrested, tried, and imprisoned for nothing more than keeping a watchful eye on a government building from across the street.

Example Meo Rebellion

Tax resisters in Alwar, India in 1932 used this system: “The paths are blocked by huge boulders and at intervals along the hills remote from the towns are watchers with giant tom-toms which are heard for five miles, giving warning of the approach of troops or the revenue collectors.”

Example Rebecca Riots

The horn became a symbol of the Rebeccaite uprising in Wales because of incidents like this one:

The constables then went towards Talog; but when on their way there they heard the sound of a horn, and immediately between two and three hundred persons assembled together, with their faces blackened, some dressed in women’s caps, and others with their coats turned so as to be completely disguised—armed with scythes, crowbars and all manner of destructive weapons which they could lay their hands on. After cheering the constables, they defied them to do their duty. The latter had no alternative but to return to town without executing their warrants.

The women were seen running in all directions to alarm their neighbours; and some hundreds were concealed behind the hedges, intending to appear if their services were required. The entire district seemed to be aroused, and awaiting the arrival of the constables, who were going to levy on the goods of John Harris of Talog Mill for the amount of the fine and costs imposed upon him by the magistrates. There could not have been less than two hundred persons assembled to resist the execution of process, and vast numbers were flocking from all quarters, in response to the blowing of a horn, the signal of the Rebeccaites to repair thither. Various mounted messengers were scouring the country and sounding the trumpet of alarm.

Example Poll Tax Rebellion

During the poll tax rebellion in Thatcher’s Britain, resisters tracked and shadowed bailiffs, and declared certain areas to be bailiff “no-go” zones, establishing look-outs to raise the alarm if any bailiffs dared to approach. The campaign modeled this approach on tactics used in South African townships during the anti-apartheid resistance there, and then customized the tactic for their local conditions:

Throughout Britain, city-wide bailiff busting groups were formed. Activists in Edinburgh formed a group called “Scum-busters” which was equipped with CB radios and squadrons of cars. Telephone trees were organised; bailiff companies were monitored; their car registration numbers were taken and distributed to activists in all the local areas. Camden, in London, followed their example in 1991:

We have organised a rota so that we know who and when people are available to do whatever shift. We have organised a “knock up system” giving people different responsibilities for knocking up each part of the estate when the bailiffs are spotted. Telephone trees have also been established. We have approached a couple of mini-cab firms who have agreed to be bailiff spotters.…

When the government tried to seize money directly from resisters’ bank accounts, sometimes the banks would give the resisters advance notice:

Officially, bank staff have to co-operate with this system—it’s the law. Unofficially, they’re helping people to avoid payment by letting them run their accounts on a permanent overdraft, without making any charges. Non-payers are being given help by their banks to juggle money from one account to another. If the council applies to freeze the account of someone who hasn’t plaid their poll tax, then on any one day it will only have a few pounds in it at most—and that’s all they can take. And in many cases, people have had phone calls from their bank managers, telling them that an arrestment order has arrived and suggesting that they come in for a chat to sort something out!

Example Dublin Water Charge Strike

An activist in the Dublin water charge strike remembered what happened when the government threatened to cut off water services to resisters in December, 1994:

All the activists raced into action. There were stake-outs at the water inspectors’ houses. We would follow them around to ensure that they didn’t attempt any cut off under the cover of the night. Clondalkin people organised their own cars to patrol around that area. CB radios were installed in the cars so that we were in constant communication with each other as we monitored the movements of the men who would try to cut people’s water off. One house in Tallaght was turned into a virtual Head Quarters for the campaign. The phone calls kept flooding in. Communities learned to be vigilant of the blue Dublin Water Works vans and were very wary when they came into the estates. Children playing football on the park were told to knock on the doors when they saw such vans in the area. Indeed one van ventured into an estate in Clondalkin village and when the kids alerted everyone to their presence they hopped back into their van and drove away rapidly!

Notes and Citations