Tactics that Lay the Groundwork for Victory

What does victory look like? In some tax resistance campaigns, it seems obvious: perhaps it is the abolition of an odious tax, or the overthrow of the government, or the recognition of the rights of the disenfranchised, or a particular change in state policy. But in some cases it is not so obvious, and in other cases the obvious answer isn’t necessarily the best one. There are even campaigns in which the resisters don’t seem to have given much thought to victory at all—as though they were resigned to being a perpetual opposition movement.

For some campaigns, there is a precise change of government policy that is the goal of the movement (such as passage of the Reform Act or granting votes to women). But if your campaign is trying to defeat the tax itself, you may want to consider a variety of possible paths to that goal, each of which will require a somewhat different strategy. It can be helpful to imagine a variety of scenarios of victory in your campaign. By keeping your eyes on your destination, you can be more confident that you’re travelling in the right direction.

In this chapter I discuss three common varieties of victorious end-game scenarios for such tax resistance campaigns:

Convince the government to rescind the tax or to legalize resistance.

In this scenario, the government either formally repeals the tax you are resisting (or formally allows that you are exempt from it), or it more informally stops enforcing the tax or taking action against resisters.

Appeal to a more powerful government to take your side.

Some tax resistance campaigns succeed by appealing to another, more powerful or overarching government to side with them and against the inferior government that enforces the tax.

Help perpetuate an unorganized, leaderless, tax strike.

Finally, in some cases, people realize that they can refuse a tax—or set their own terms for how and how much of it will be collected—without any need for a change in the laws. Sometimes tax resistance becomes so ubiquitous and ordinary that the government is helpless, even if it never formally surrenders.

The remaining sections of this chapter discuss these scenarios in more detail, and give examples of how they have played out in a variety of campaigns.

In the following chapter, “The Revolution Is Within You,” I consider a different sort of victory scenario entirely—one in which individual tax resisters fight and win their own solitary revolutions. Sometimes tax resistance isn’t a fight for some other cause, but a victory itself.