Hints on How to Increase the Psychic Cost of Tax Compliance

Some tax resistance news from here and there:

  • Kathleen DeLaney Thomas thinks the key to the government collecting more tax money is to devise new ways to make people feel guilty about evading their taxes. She calls this technique raising “The Psychic Cost of Tax Evasion” in order to reduce the expected gains of evasion. Papers like these can sometimes be read between-the-lines or at a bit of an angle to hint at techniques that dissidents can use to encourage tax resistance, either by reducing the psychic cost of tax evasion, or by increasing the psychic cost of tax compliance.
  • The president of Veneto, Luca Zaia, and Roberto Maroni, president of Lombardy, both prominent Italian Northern League politicians, have continued that party’s tradition of big talk about tax resistance with a vow to resist taxes if the national government cuts health-care spending in the regions. The presidents claim that their regions have slimmer, more efficient governments and have reined in health-care costs more than those in the south of Italy, and that they shouldn’t be punished for this by having their health care subsidies reduced.
  • Patrick Howley, a “political reporter” with a conservative bent, has reacted to the “IRS Scandal” that the American right-wing is all excited about by going on a one-man tax strike. “I did not pay my taxes this year. I just didn’t have the money,” he wrote. “Now I will not pay my taxes until every single Lois Lerner email is released and the people who planned and carried out this governmental travesty are held accountable.”
  • Ruth Benn of NWTRCC writes about the war tax resister presence at the recent climate change march in New York City.