Threaten Taxpayers to Coerce Them into Resisting

Governments are not shy about using threats, up to and including violence, to encourage people to be tax compliant. Some tax resistance campaigns have tried to combat this by offering worse, more certain, or more credible threats of their own.

Example Whiskey Rebellion

During the Whiskey Rebellion in the early United States, rebels sometimes destroyed the stills (or other property) of distillers who paid excise tax, or of people who cooperated with tax collectors (for example, by renting them office space). They also occasionally tarred-and-feathered people who were notorious for paying or for approving of the tax. Using the collective alias “Tom the Tinker” they would write threatening letters to uncooperative distillers. Here is one example:

In taking a survey of the troops under my direction in the late expedition against that insolent exciseman, John Neville, I find there were a great many delinquents, even among those who carry on distilling. It will, therefore, be observed that I, Tom the Tinker, will not suffer any certain class or set of men to be excluded the service of this my district, when notified to attend on any expedition carried on in order to obstruct the execution of the excise law, and obtain a repeal thereof.

And I do declare on my solemn word, that if such delinquents do not come forth on the next alarm, with equipments, and give their assistance as much as in them lies, in opposing the execution and obtaining a repeal of the excise law, he or they will be deemed as enemies and stand opposed to virtuous principles of republican liberty, and shall receive punishment according to the nature of the offense.

And whereas a certain John Reed… entered on the excise docket, contrary to the will and good pleasure of his fellow citizens, and came not forth to assist in the suppression of the execution of said law, by aiding and assisting in the late expedition, have, by delinquency, manifested his approbation to the execution of the aforesaid law, is hereby charged forthwith to cause the contents of this paper, without adding or diminishing, to be published in the Pittsburgh Gazette, the ensuing week, under the no less penalty than the consumption of his distillery.

John Reed wrote that he found this notice pasted to a tree near his distillery, and he duly published its contents in the Gazette, which recorded it for history.

Example Rebecca Riots

The Rebeccaites, too, would sometimes bring down fire on the property of people who cooperated with the toll gates or who refused to participate in Rebecca’s late-night raids. One warning, issued in the name of their collective alias, read:

This is to give notice, that the goods of all persons who will henceforth pay at Water Street Gate will be burned and their lives will be taken from them at a time they will not think—’Becca.

Example Ghana Poll Tax Resistance

In Ghana in early 1854 a number of local groups united to resist a poll tax instituted by the British imperial government. When they took a pledge of unity, they also swore “to make war with any party breaking the agreement.” At one point, “[a] stir was made by some ruffians when they perceived the chiefs of Christiansborg were on the point of giving in, upon which the whole assembly, amounting to over 4,000 men, at once took up arms to [threaten to] attack the merchants.”

Notes and Citations

Hamilton, Alexander “Excerpts from a Report to President Washington” We Won’t Pay: A Tax Resistance Reader (2008) pp. 120–34
Creigh, Alfred History of Washington County (2nd. ed, 1871) Appendix, p. 65
Evans, Henry Tobit Rebecca Riots! (2010 ed.) p. 44 (translated from Welsh)
Reindorf, Carl Christian History of the Gold Coast and Asante (1895), pp. 332–33