Italy’s Northern League Urged to Adopt Tax Resistance
Mario Unnia of the Italian Business Ethics Network had an op-ed in
il legno storto last week in which he recommended
tax resistance to the Northern League. From Google’s machine translation, which, though
clumsy, gets the point across:
…In the Northern League who pays taxes is an irreducible conflict between him
and those who do not pay, especially if they live under in Florence, because
the money collected through taxes the state delivers services in the
beneficiary is also the evader.…
Yet, one wonders, there is some other solution that would alleviate this
suffering?
Maybe. The League could be considered a form of protest called “mutiny tax.”
The dictionary defines the mutiny “an offense under the military penal code
which consists of a qualified and collective disobedience,” and then the
mutiny tax may qualify as a crime.
But there is another way of understanding the mutiny tax, a milder form of
protest, yet very significant, is the tradition and Anglo American. If the
League of paying taxes, skeptical on the outcome of the fight against tax
evasion, asked as compensation cutting wasteful spending, but the government,
while being able to do, it does not, they might decide to pay due to an
account bound to a bank run by men of the League, and to transfer the money
to tax only in respect of the future reduction of costs in proportion to the
actual cutting. Thus both the
VAT, and employees,
but would honor the obligation to require the Government. There are thousands
of legal and political objections to this proposal, in relation to revenue
from taxes on income, but there would be less if, for example, the tax
protest concern special taxes, as the arena and had the local communities.
Of course the mutiny is the last fiscal response to an untenable situation,
but desperate times desperate measures. This form of mutiny would certainly
created a strong legal controversy, but has a high political significance.
For the League would be a factor in renewed confidence with his people, and
contains a warning to the government: tax have the knife in his hand
citizens. But there is a question: since the mutiny tax those who do usually
pay taxes, the League is confident that his people fall into this category
worthy? If so, can seize the initiative.
From the
Eugene Register-Guard:
Nay Saying Taxpayers Reject Arms Expenditures
By John Pierson Of United Press International
Washington — Folk singer Joan Baez, who usually
raises her crystal-clear voice only in song, has raised it in protest against
the federal income tax.
“I do not believe in war. I do not believe in the weapons of war. I am not
going to volunteer the 60 per cent of my year’s income tax that goes to
armaments,” Miss Baez recently wrote the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS).
The 22-year-old singer thus joined a little band of “tax refusers” who
believe that by “personal disarmament” they are “showing the way to world
disarmament.”
Though small in numbers, these conscientious objectors to defense spending
are costing an irritated
IRS
much time an effort. The agency’s job is to collect taxes, and it is not
easily discouraged from doing so.
“Conscientious objector” is a description that would probably appeal to the
tax refusers. A group known as the Peacemakers, with headquarters in
Cincinnati, claims to stand not only for non-payment of federal income taxes
but also for non-registration for the military draft, “economic sharing,
personal revolution (inner transformation) and non-violence as a principle
of life.”
In , prior to the
deadline for filing federal tax
returns, the Peacemakers distributed several thousand copies of a pamphlet,
“watch your dollars or they will vote for war.” According to this
publication, out of every dollar the federal government spends, 79 cents goes
for wars “past, present and future.” This reckoning includes the national
debt and interest on the debt from World War Ⅱ, as well as veterans’
pensions.
“There is no good reason to cooperate with evil,” the pamphlet said.
The government takes a dim view of this sort of activity. One Treasury
official, deploring tax refusal as “inconsistent with the democratic
process,” told
UPI
that people who object to defense spending should “bring pressure to bear on
Congress,” if they can, in order to get disarmament.
The IRS
doesn’t stop with pious utterance. “We have no authority to excuse anyone
from complying with the internal revenue laws, no matter what beliefs or
reasons he may have for not wishing to do so,” said one tax official.
IRS
begins by writing the tax refuser a letter. The agency points out the
futility of paying only 40 per cent or 21 per cent or whatever on the grounds
that the rest would “go for war.” It says that federal income tax revenues
are not earmarked for specific purposes. They all go into the general fund of
the Treasury.
Thus, whatever amount of money a taxpayer sends in, some of it will be used
to buy missiles, helmet liners,
etc.
After lecturing the tax refuser on the democratic principle “that the
majority opinion shall prevail,” the
IRS
warns him that unless the tax refuser coughs up, the
IRS
will take the money out of his bank account or will seize some other asset.
Under the law, the tax agency has authority to do this.
Joan Baez was aware of the law when she announced she was going to pay only
40 per cent. While unwilling to “volunteer” the rest, she planned to put it
“aside” and pay it only “when they come for it.”
“I’m not ready yet to go to jail,” Miss Baez told a reporter.
Neither is San Francisco bookstore owner Roy C. Kepler. Ever since
, Kepler, too, has been sending the
government only 40 per cent. “Why should I pay more?” he asked. “That extra
60 per cent is budgeted for genocide.”
And every year, a couple of months after the April 15 deadline, a revenue
agent visits Kepler’s bank, shows a tax lien, and quietly withdraws the
unpaid balance, plus 6 per cent interest for late payment.
Last year writer Edmund Wilson, published a book, “The Cold War and the
Income Tax.” Wilson was not a refuser to begin with. He simply neglected to
file any returns for the years , thinking “that this obligation could always be attended to
later.”
But when
IRS
came after the money, Wilson began to look into what the taxes go for. Like
the Peacemakers, he came to the conclusion that “the bulk of the nation’s
funds is being spent … on the exploration of space, the arrears from past
wars and the preparation, in prospect of future wars, of the instruments of
wholesale destruction and deliberate contamination.”
Since Wilson was unable to pay all the money the government said he owed, he
signed a “collateral agreement” whereby he paid some money down and agreed to
give the
IRS
everything he earned over a certain amount for the next three years.
But disenchanted with what the money would go for, Wilson said he would
“out-maneuver” both the collateral agreement and the basic taxes themselves
“by making as little money as possible and so keeping below taxable levels.”
Whatever
IRS
thought, this philosophy and strategy didn’t stop President Johnson
from giving Wilson one of 31
presidential merits of freedom. The medal is described as “the highest
civilian honor conferred by the President for service in peacetime.”
The Wilson citation read:
“Critic and historian, he has converted criticism into a creative act, while
setting for the nation a stern and uncompromising standard of independent
judgment.”
Miss Sharp again appeared at the Bankruptcy Court
morning to complete her
examination. She had no opportunity of explaining why she had previously
refused to pay her Income-tax — all this was done by the prosecution. She was
asked if she was a writer; if she had refused to pay her tax because she was
an unenfranchised woman, not because she wished to evade payment; and now
that the political status of woman was assured her objection to the payment
of this tax was removed? To all of these question Miss Sharp smilingly said
“Yes.” The Registrar concluded the proceedings by hastily informing her that
her examination was completed, and at once asked for the next case. He seemed
to be quite relieved that it was all over.
