I’ve spent most of the month vacationing with my brother in South America. I had been a little concerned, but apparently the IRS hasn’t gotten around to having my passport revoked for non-payment of taxes yet.
I hope to have some big news to share with you soon, but until then here are some links of interest to tax resisters that have accumulated during my absence:
- Claire Wolfe, on the downhill slope of her recent book project Basics of Resistance, gives me a shout-out over at her Practical Freedomista blog:
He has written a book on tax-resistance techniques.
In addition to being a personal inspiration, he’s written about other tax resisters like Ammon Hennacy, who conducted a One-Man Revolution and Henry David Thoreau, who wasn’t the pacifist some imagine.
Some of his writing is political and philosophical, like “The Roots of Political Authority.” Other entries on his blog are highly practical, like “A Post-Game Analysis of a Civil Disobedience Action.”
If you’re looking for helpful information from a man who has walked the walk, David’s blog is a good place to start.
- Barakaldo Digital reports on the outreach actions of war tax resisters from Barakaldo, Biscay. “They have protested that the ‘diversion of public resources’ to military expenses or bank bailouts ‘translates into a town like Barakaldo, with high rates of unemployment, poverty, and precariousness, with many deficits in social services.’ ” The Spanish government, under pressure from the U.S., says it plans to double its defense spending so as to take on a higher percentage of the total NATO budget. Concerned Basque taxpayers are encouraged to contact their Office of Tax Resistance in Bilbao.
- Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is a technique for applying economic pressure to states, usually from without, by trying through multiple avenues to deny them economic resources. The tactic was famously applied to apartheid South Africa, and is now enjoying a resurgence in the attempt to curb Israel’s oppressive policies towards Palestianians. But isn’t it overdue to BDS the U.S.?
- I speculated last month that Congress was passing a set of window-dressing IRS “reform” bills as a way to cover for a boost to the agency’s budget. Looks like I hit that nail on the head: “Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee released a spending bill on that would increase the IRS budget, including new funds to help implement the GOP tax law.”
- Remember Google’s famous “Don’t Be Evil” corporate code of conduct? A dozen Google employees took it seriously, and resigned from the company when Google refused to stop working on a Pentagon program to use machine learning to better identify targets for military drones. Thousands of Google employees signed a letter begging the company to “commit to not weaponizing its technology” and to express this commitment by ending its Pentagon contract, to no avail.
- Attacks on tollgates and traffic ticket cameras continue worldwide:
- French and Italian cameras disabled with paint, a German speed camera was swiped from under the nose of its operator and smashed on the pavement, and a Scottish camera was torched.
- Swiss camera swiped, Welsh camera blockaded, English camera sabotaged, French cameras spray-painted or burned, Italian and Polish cameras ripped apart or twisted.
- Tollgates forcibly opened to drivers on the Biju Expressway in India by members of the local bar association.
