Some recent links of interest:
- For Independence Day, Popular Resistance reminds us that the American Revolution was won before the Revolutionary War began thanks to nonviolent resistance tactics, tax resistance in particular.
- The government of India is trying to create a nationwide goods-and-services tax that would replace the patchwork of regional tax systems that cause so much inefficiency in the Indian economy. Any effort like this is going to have winners and losers.
Some of the losers are fighting back:
- Wholesale and retail textile workers in Chandigarh shut their shops and took to the streets to protest the new tax structure.
- A thousand movie theaters in Tamil Nadu shut to protest that state’s imposition of a 30% entertainment tax on top of the 18–28% goods-and-services tax that applies to that industry (other Indian states have abolished their own taxes as the goods-and-services tax took effect). They’ve so far been frustrated in their attempts to get film superstars to support their strike.
- Conscience and Peace Tax International is trying to rise from the ashes. After their acrimonious conference in , the dissolution and reformation of the organization, and the deaths of officers Roy Prockter and Dirk Panhuis, the group was on-the-ropes. They recently held a new conference in North London. The group is almost entirely focused on “peace tax” schemes, wherewith particularly conscientious citizens would be able to segregate their own tax payments into non-military parts of their nations’ budgets.
- Someone’s started a tax strike petition at change.org (“Defer payment of federal income tax until Trump leaves”). Doesn’t seem to have much momentum behind it so far…
