How you can resist funding the government →
a survey of tactics of historical tax resistance campaigns →
reach out to potential resisters at the time and place of payment →
Tax Day actions →
2018
A new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter is out, with content including:
Here’s an aspect of the recently-passed federal tax reform legislation that had previously escaped my notice:
People who became disabled early in life, and their families, have for a few years been able to establish something called an ABLE Account.
These are a bit like Roth retirement accounts — the money you put into the accounts is taxed just like the rest of your income, but any returns on that money are not — but you can spend the money in the account on a variety of expenses connected with coping with the disability.
Anyway, these accounts aren’t entirely new, but what is new is that people who contribute to these accounts now qualify for the Retirement Savings Tax Credit, which can be really valuable for low-income tax resisters.
Notes on issues for war tax resisters crossing the border, glitches with the latest tax bill, the difficulty in understanding IRS interest rates, new estate tax exemption limits.
Advice on starting a local war tax resistance support group, writing letters of protest to the IRS, and a review of “Walden: The Video Game.”
Michael McCarthy reflects on the collective war tax redirection practiced by a group he is part of in Michigan.
(the day when income tax returns are due in the United States) is coming up, and war tax resisters around the country are planning their outreach and protest activities.
Check NWTRCC’s list of Tax Day actions to find one in your area.
Also: the next biannual NWTRCC National Gathering will be held in Los Angeles.
It’s a great opportunity for new resisters or people curious about resistance to hear from the experiences of people who have been resisting for decades.
I’ll be there and will introduce a workshop on Quaker war tax resistance by giving an overview of the history of war tax resistance in the Society of Friends, before turning things over to the Christians to discuss among themselves how war tax resistance fits into modern Christian practice.
Some links from here and there:
Anti-tax demonstrators in Ikeja, Lagos
defied a government ban, and a police raid on the local Nigerian Bar Association offices, to hold a march.
Adeshina Ogunlana, chairman of that Association, told marchers: “Lagosians, don’t be deceived, shine your eyes.
Land Use Charge would lead to inflation, increase in rent, increase in cost of transportation, and increase in cost of food.
This is why we are encouraging people not to pay Land Use Charge.
It must not be allowed to stay.”
You may have heard some buzz about a bipartisan IRS overhaul bill oozing through Congress.
The highlights I’ve heard so far don’t seem amount to much, substance-wise.
I suspect it’s really meant as cover for an IRS budget increase.
Both parties know that it’s in their interest to boost agency funding so as to keep the gravy train operating, but boosting the IRS budget is poison to Republicans because of how riled up their base got about the Tea Party targeting scandal.
Combine a budget boost with “strong reform” to “protect taxpayer rights” though, and they might slip it past the rubes.
Tax Day has come and gone… twice! — since the
IRS had
to extend it by a day at the last minute when their on-line payment system
went down.
War tax resisters around the country
dusted off their penny poll
jars and protest signs and did what they could to remind people of the
cruelty and destruction that results from their tax compliance.
Author Alice Walker (The Color Purple) wrote a poem for an anti-war march in Oakland, California, which reads in part:
How do grownups
Truly say No
To War?
By not paying for it.
Some so-called grownups will harass you when
You attempt to do this: Not Pay For War. But do not be discouraged.
As your elder, it is my job to help you think
Your way around this obstacle of taxes
That have the blood of the children
Of the world on them.
The poem goes on to encourage an “I Don’t Need It” movement in which concerned people withdraw from the consumer economy.
“We can stop war by not shopping our way through the bad news of it; as it creeps ever closer to our door.
We can stop war by not funding it.”
The Freedom Highway show on Radio Kingston interviewed Gabe Roth from Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings about the song he wrote for the group:
“What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes?” and also interviewed war tax resister Daniel Woodham.
Reason’s Brian Doherty gives a rundown of some of the more pettily infuriating uses of our taxes, and experiments with describing them in terms of how many American taxpayers had to pay taxes all year so that, for example, EPA head Scott Pruitt could install a soundproof booth in his office to take his phone calls in, or so that the New England Foundation for the Arts could put on a version of Hamlet performed by dogs.
Sarah Vowell managed to put a meandering and mostly-pointless op-ed in the New York Times encouraging people to read their Thoreau on tax day, or something.
In other news…
The Italian group Addiopizzo organizes and promotes businesses that refuse to pay the pizzo protection money to the mafia.
They’ve now extended this from brick-and-mortar businesses and recently announced an on-line Addiopizzo store.
(Alas, when I tried to use it they didn’t have shipping options to the United States, but you might be luckier if you live somewhere in the European Union.)
They encourage people to buy from non-mafia-tainted businesses as an action they call consumo critico (critical consumption) in order to make sure the profits from resistance exceed the risks.
Spanish war tax resisters created a video to showcase the little school (esquelita) they funded with redirected taxes.
The school helps children in a neglected school district, has a food pantry, and also offers Spanish language instruction for immigrants.
Another tax day has come and gone, and Ruth Benn of
NWTRCC
reflects on what motivates her to get up and out on the streets to protest
year after year: Why
Bother?
“Civil society organizations” in Beni, North Kivu, in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, have responded to the government’s unwillingness or
inability to provide security in the area by calling on people to refuse to pay their taxes.
