Some bits and pieces from here and there:
- Tax Day action reports are starting to trickle in. This year, the TEA Party presence seemed way down, or at least the news media has gotten tired of covering it. There were many reports of liberals engaged in various creative protests designed to shine some light on profitable corporations who somehow manage to rake in government subsidies and get away without paying taxes, and a couple of reports of anti-war activists trying to inform the public about the bloated military budget.
- War tax resisters are writing letters:
- Shane Claiborne to the IRS
- Lou Waronker and Daniel Sicken to the Brattleboro Reformer
- Former District of Columbia council member and capital gadfly Carol Schwartz, upset at the lack of Congressional representation for people in the district, threatened to start resisting her federal income taxes over the issue. She went on the local TV news to call for other D.C. residents to join her. A local columnist put her act in the context of other tax resistance campaigns.
- Some folks have taken to submitting an affidavit along with their tax returns declaring that they are only filing “under threat, duress and coercion… because I fear retaliation by the IRS… to avoid going to jail, not because I believe there’s a legitimate obligation; I am terrified of the IRS… and being attacked by them if I don’t comply with them.” They hope to make explicit the threat of government violence that is largely implicit at tax time and to preempt silly people like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who insist we have a “voluntary” tax system.
- Keep an eye on this one: The federal government is considering making tax compliance a requirement for getting or renewing a passport. This would effectively imprison many American tax resisters within the borders.
- Among the compromises in the recent federal budget negotiation was one that not only cut out the Obama administration’s requested big boost to the IRS budget but actually lowers its budget slightly below levels. Congress has been saddling the IRS with more responsibilities without giving it more personnel or funding, and the agency is showing the strain of having to do more with less — as shown, for instance, in its growing backlog of delinquent accounts.
- The Albuquerque Journal profiles tax resister Don Schrader.
- Bloomberg Businessweek looks at eleven tactics the rich use to avoid paying taxes.
