Some international tax resistance notes
- An article on modern-day Christian martyrs in Crux includes this passage:
In Honduras, Maria Francisca Sevilla, 39, was a mother of three who co-pastored the “Church of God for Life Ministry” in the city of Choloma alongside her husband. In , she was stabbed to death by two young gang members, reportedly after she had refused to pay what the gangs call a “war tax” to ensure her church’s safety.
, Sevilla and her husband claimed they had been abducted and beaten by gang members in an effort to extort “war tax” payments, a practice observers describe as increasingly common.
“This dedicated couple, who ministered in their church for 10 years, could have moved away for safety, but they felt called to the city and remained even though they were in danger,” said Tim Hill, director of Church of God World Missions, after Sevilla’s murder.
- Business owners in Eastleigh, Kenya have decided to stop paying taxes to Nairobi County in protest against the government’s failure to provide basic services. Eastleigh North Ward representative Osman Adow Ibrahim, a member of the County Assembly, wrote: “As your representative, I fully support the decision you have made and have engaged a lawyer to get an injunction through the courts. The law and Constitution of Kenya allows for peaceful protest to get one’s rights. I hope we all stand together on this, so that we get the service we need.”
- Greek tax resisters have discovered that they can keep the tax collector at bay, at least for a while, by paying only a single euro of their taxes.
- A curious looking Indiegogo crowdfunding project called world citizen solutions has raised (last I checked) about half of its $79,000 goal towards developing a vaguely-described war tax resistance strategy.
It is so vaguely described that it’s surprising to me that people are willing to chip in to support it, so maybe I’m missing some context.
It has the odor of a sovereign-citizen or maybe a seasteading/micronation plan of some sort.
Some excerpts:
[T]he world citizen solution [is] a no compromise yet peaceful and lawful way to extract ourselves from tax obligations that literally make us accomplices to perpetual war. Or in other words, financiers of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
That all sounds pretty woo-woo to me, but it seems to have lit a fire under some folks anyway.[We] are currently developing a legal and social strategic initiative that will have profound effects on releasing humanity from its current paradigm.
