New Numbers on I.R.S. Liens, Levies, and Seizures

This video is at least a year and a half old, but I only just now stumbled on it:

Transcript:

Withhold Your Tax

You may agree with the legal position that by paying taxes to a government which is engaged in serious criminal offences, you are assisting the crimes by providing the financial means which affords the government the ability to go to war. If you agree with this position and feel motivated to act on it, there are steps that you can take to suspend your financial support to the government.

Interviewer: So, Margaret, you worked for William Hill… what did you do, what do you do?

Margaret: Well, I work in a betting shop basically. As I am concerned about the legality of the invasion of Iraq, and I have been informed that to pay tax to a regime indulging in illegal warfare is in itself a crime — conduct ancillary to genocide — I thought: I’ve got an idea to write to my boss and ask him to withhold tax, income tax, which I did — fully expecting not to get any kind of response at all (they might kick it into the long grass and deny all knowledge because it was too much of a hot potato). But to my amazement, I got a response inviting me to a meeting with the area manager and a chap from Personnel, and we sat down and we discussed the legal implications of paying tax to the U.K. government. And of course they raised all the normal concerns about the legality of not paying tax, and they showed us a copy of a letter that they had received from the Inland Revenue, so William Hill actually wrote to the Inland Revenue, bringing this matter up, and got a response! It was the usual whitewash, along the lines of “we are not aware of any law, blah blah,” — however, they also included in that letter that they’d had a series of other inquiries from other people (they didn’t say whether it was just individuals or whether they were other companies). So the Inland Revenue had already been contacted by other people, already. So, by the end of the meeting, the area manager of our shops and a chap from Personnel, they both seemed pretty-well convinced of the legality of withholding taxes — of course he had to go to the board of directors: if they’re going to withhold my tax, they’ve got to do it for the whole company, haven’t they, or not at all? So we’ll see what happens.

Interviewer: Have you got any advice for other people who might be watching you, thinking about how… if they might take the same steps?

Margaret: Go with the courage of your convictions. Without fear, you know? We have to change it. This is a democracy — [laughs] or it was — we are living in a country that’s supposed to protect the freedom of speech. We have to do it, just ordinary people. It’s not “oh, why are they doing it?” We’re all just as powerful, even though you may not be in positions of power. It is our duty, I suppose, to acquaint ourselves with the law, because ignorance of the law is no excuse in law, and that’s an important principle.

Interviewer: You mentioned some employment law in there. What is that about?

Margaret: You have certain rights under employment protection law, and if you make this sort of inquiry they cannot sack you.

Margaret’s action (of which I have not been able to find any more information on-line, including her last name) was promoted by the Make Wars History “civil obedience campaign,” the conceit of which is that the campaigners are taking seriously international laws against aggressive war, war crimes, and the like, and they hope to use a grassroots political movement to enforce these laws when the government breaks them:

We will stop governments from waging war by ensuring that police arrest leaders who start wars, courts try politicians for complicity in war, taxpayers withhold taxes that pay for war, armed forces refuse to fight illegal war, businesses refuse to supply weapons of war, journalists tell the truth about war, the public learns the laws of war and Parliaments legislate to prohibit all war.