Some links from here and there:
- There’s a new National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee newsletter
out, with content that includes:
- Joining an “Extinction Rebellion” protest — Ruth Benn says that while XR is “a little too focused on its own brand” there may be some common ground to be found with the climate emergency protesters and the war tax resistance movement.
- Mennonite Church creates a “Peace Tax Fund” — a report back from the Mennonite Church USA national gathering, where a war tax redirection fund was relaunched.
- Joseph Olejak reflects on what he did when his war tax resistance led the government to revoke his professional license.
- Suzanne Belote Shanley and Brayton Shanley of the Agape Community interviewed.
- American anti-abortion tax resister Michael E. Bowman is back in the news. Among the latest details are that Bowman was first targeted by the IRS because of his involvement in a tax protest scheme cooked up by Joseph Saladino. He is trying a Religious Freedom Restoration Act defense (which is also a long-shot contemplated by some U.S. war tax resisters), and is also putting forward the theory that because he got away with not filing returns for eighteen years, he therefore had a reasonable belief that what he was doing was lawful. Bowman has had some success in court in the past, with a judge ruling that his actions of cashing his paychecks rather than depositing them (so as to avoid IRS levies) did not constitute criminal evasion.
- The IRS seems to be getting more aggressive about trying to get passports revoked from people who have large tax debts. Under the law, if a taxpayer owes more than $52,000 and isn’t doing anything about it, the agency is supposed to inform the State Department. The State Department is then required to not issue or renew a passport to the scofflaw, and may also revoke their existing passport. The IRS is trying to convince State to put that “may” to use. The agency says it plans to send out Letter 6152 (“Notice of Intent to Request U.S. Department of State Revoke Your Passport”) to some tax delinquents, after which it will lobby the State Department to take stronger action (of this advice State can still, as far as I can tell, take it or leave it).
- Attacks on traffic ticket radar robots continue, with French resisters disabling them as quickly as the government can prop them back up. Attacks have also taken place in recent weeks in Germany, England, and Spain.
