Tax Resistance News from Hither and Yon

Some tax resistance news from hither and yon:

  • A group of people in the Netherlands called “Belastingstaking voor Klimaat” (“Tax Strike for Climate”) have decided to no longer “silently pay for global warming” via government subsidies of fossil fuels. They are refusing to pay 5% of their income tax, as that is their rough estimate of how much of central government spending (and tax breaks) subsidizes CO2-generating companies: about €17.5 billion per year. They are also using the official tax adjustment and appeals process to press their claims
    “Belastingstaking voor Klimaat” banner and signs held at the Climate March in Rotterdam, 2022
  • The “Don’t Pay U.K.” has been ramping up its public protests. One of their tactics is to stage protests in warmed public buildings (to highlight how prohibitively expensive it is to heat their own homes). In one action, the protesters sang a song to the tune of Your Cheatin’ Heart including the lyrics “your heating chart will tell on you”.
  • American war tax resisters Robert Randall and Marjorie Nelson have died. Randall was a regular participant at NWTRCC events like their periodic national meetings and the School of the Americas protests, and is one of a small, select group of war tax resisters who have had their homes seized by the IRS for their refusal. Marjorie Nelson worked as a physician with a Quaker war relief program in Vietnam during the American war there, and survived 50 days as a prisoner of war after she was captured during the Tet Offensive. In she tangled with the IRS in court after the agency hit her with a “frivolous filing” penalty for taking a “war tax deduction” on her tax return.
  • In response to a surge in Americans renouncing their U.S. citizenship, the U.S. Department of State abruptly raised its fees for processing such renunciations from $450 up to $2,350 some years back. Now, in response to a lawsuit by some expats who claim this amounts to unjust coercion and a violation of their 5th and 8th Amendment rights, Rina Bitter, the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs, told the court “the Department intends to pursue rule-making to reduce the fee for processing CLN requests from the current amount of $2,350 to the previous fee of $450.”
  • More attacks on automated traffic ticket-generating speed cameras in Germany and France.