Tax Evasion Can Get You Deported

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

• In February, in a little-noticed case, Kawashima v. Holder, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (6–3) that tax evasion — at least when it involves “fraudulent or deceitful conduct” and results in a loss of $10,000 or more to the government — is a crime that justifies the government deporting you even if you are an otherwise legal resident alien.
• Fox Business looks at a bill passed by the U.S. Senate that would deny or revoke passports from Americans who have tax debts in excess of $50,000.
• Ruth Benn and Ed Hedemann have released a free 2012 supplement that brings the information in their 2003 guidebook War Tax Resistance up-to-date.
• There’s a fascinating excerpt from Adam Kotsko’s new book Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television up at The New Inquiry. He looks at the rise of popular sociopathic protagonists in drama, popular literature, reality television, politics, and so forth, and speculates as to why people are fantasizing about powerful, uncaring people.
• Ed Agro continues his series on war tax resistance at Engaging Peace.

And some notes from tax resistance campaigns overseas:

• The end of last month was the deadline for Irish households to register and pay the new household tax. Only about half of them did, and the tax resistance movement there is declaring a victory.
• critical media review notes that the news media are framing the Household Tax failure as a clumsy government fiasco rather than as a successful grassroots rebellion, and compares this to the Hollywood version of the Vietnam War, which is always lost by the Americans rather than won by the Vietnamese.
• A retired pharmacist and “won’t pay” movement sympathizer — named Dimitris Christoulas, but referred to in the Greek press, for reasons I don’t understand, as “77chronos” (“77yearold”) — killed himself in Syntagma Square, the location of many of the recent protests of the “indignants.” He left a note decrying the devaluation of his pension, saying “I find no solution but a dignified end, before I have to start looking through the garbage for my food.” Greek protesters are comparing this to the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, which is credited for triggering the Arab Spring.