Some historical and global examples of tax resistance →
Nicaragua →
in 2018–19 →
Irlanda Jerez
Some tax resistance news of note:
I’m seeing some signs of organized tax resistance as part of the ongoing protests in Nicaragua, which are aimed at the unpopular policies and the general repressiveness of the Sandinista government:
Attorney Julio Francisco Báez has produced a video for Nicaraguans who want to participate in tax resistance.
When we talk about civil disobedience in the Mercado Oriental, we are talking about not paying city taxes, not paying Conmema [vendor fees], not paying trash, not paying any tax that has anything to do with government entities.
First, as disobedience, and second, because it is prioritizing the salaries of the workers.
Of course [we fear reprisals].
We know that this dictatorial government always takes reprisals against anyone who rises up.
The merchants are afraid.
I am afraid.
It’s normal, but in this moment we have to put aside any fear of economic loss.
Student protest leaders called for tax resistance and boycotts of businesses owned by the ruling family as part of a nonviolent resistance campaign.
Alex Tabarrok has an amusing post demonstrating the sort of magical thinking that progressives sometimes have about taxes and government spending.
Some people every year get it into their heads that it would be a good idea to donate money to the U.S. government to help it pay down the national debt.
That debt stands at something like $21,000,000,000,000, so those donations, though they amount to millions of dollars a year (go figure), only pay down something like 0.00001% of this amount.
People may be wising up, though.
These voluntary contributions seem to be sharply down this year.
Irlanda Jerez, merchant from the Mercado Oriental in Managua, Nicaragua, and leader of the tax resistance movement there (see ♇ ), was arrested by masked police .
She had just spoken at a press conference to announce a protest march in the Nicaraguan capital.
Her current whereabouts are unknown.
The Nicaraguan government has been under increasing pressure both from grassroots civil disobedience and from international condemnation of its killings of demonstrators and its use of pro-government paramilitary groups to attack the opposition.
This is the fifteenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we
continue our trek through the 1960s.
Over the past several years, war tax resistance in The
Mennonite has gone from “of course not — render unto Caesar after all”
to “maybe we should look into this” to “hey everybody, let’s start resisting!”
A backlash was inevitable. Here’s an example
from the edition. It
complained both that war tax resistance is foolish because the American
military and its “defense of the free world” is necessary, and that promoters
of war tax resistance were becoming too pushy. Excerpt:
I refer to the letter in the
issue
[see ’s post]
suggesting that Mennonites and others should refuse to pay income taxes used
for military purposes.… I am afraid that this program amounts to an attempt to
force certain Mennonite beliefs on other people whether they wish to accept
them or not… I am afraid that, having the right to practice our beliefs as we
see fit, we are showing a growing tendency to be pretty insistent that others
be made to do as we see fit also.
Another letter,
in the edition, criticized
tax resistance for providing an illusion of aloofness. Excerpt:
Paying taxes is one vital link the individual has with society and I question
whether we as individuals and Mennonites can afford to sever this link. To do
so I fear would be a giant step backwards toward isolationism and the delusion
inherent in such a philosophy that we are thereby free from responsibility for
what our nation does… If one would refuse to pay taxes as a form of protest
(symbolic) without deluding himself about his guilt and involvement (thus a
protest even against himself) I could see a case for it.
Another letter in the
edition was skeptical about the plans for a peace tax fund law. Excerpt:
It is good to hear an effort is being made to allow us to pay an alternate
tax, but won’t this remove the potency of a resounding “No” just as the law
permitting alternative service did? This points out the necessity of opposing
the evil as a whole, not just opposing a contributing factor. If my taxes are
used 100 percent for peace, my neighbors’ will go 100 percent for war or
defense. The government will get defense funds one way or another. Therefore
we should start at the top, to change the policy of the leaders — we can never
stop this mad arms race by cutting off our little contribution. Of course, if
refusing to pay taxes for defense spending will spotlight the issue enough to
change the policy, we should use it, but only after we have used all legal
methods and resources, such as writing to our congressman and lobbying.
The edition brought this news:
Brewster B. Kneen is apparently an American citizen living in London at 114
Ferme Park Road. In a letter published to the Internal Revenue Service he
indicates that he is withholding the $72.22 balance on his
income tax in protest against the United
States involvement in Vietnam. He also says, “I am sending a check for the
amount of the tax due, $72.22, to the Catholic
Worker [which published the letter], to be used either in its own work
against the war in Vietnam or for the relief of human suffering, or to be sent
by the Catholic Worker to a Catholic relief agency
working in Vietnam. (I am a Protestant, but know of no Protestant church body
calling for an end to the war.)”
This is the earliest mention of the Vietnam War in particular that I found in
discussions of war tax resistance in The Mennonite.
Kneen’s action was also mentioned
in the edition:
Brewster Kneen, a Christian pacifist, used another means of witness. He
refused to pay $72.22 in taxes he owed .
Instead he sent a letter to the Director of Internal Revenue in Brooklyn.
“The war in Vietnam,” he wrote, “is a blatant contradiction of the ideals of
freedom… our country was founded upon… As a Christian and an American, I must
dissociate myself from this criminal behavior… I see no alternative to
withholding my tax due as a form of resistance and protest.” He sent his
$72.22 to a relief group instead.
The issue included an
article by Vincent Harding titled
“Vietnam: What Shall We Do?”
Harding gave a list of eleven suggestions, one of which concerned taxes:
7. Should we not consider refusing to pay income taxes on the grounds of our
Christian convictions concerning war, and our specific concerns about this
war? This money could be sent to relief and peace-making organizations also. I
think the time has come for serious discussion and action on this.
Since modern armies require vast funds to operate, nonpayment of income tax is
a particularly apt form of peace witness in the present situation. I, for one,
would be willing to be imprisoned for nonpayment of taxes (tribute), as were
the early Christians. The Friends, in England and in America, about the time
of the Revolution, refused to pay war taxes, and that is what the income tax
is, in essence, at present. Eighty percent of it goes for war. This we must
protest! Let us instead send at least as much as we “owe” the government to be
used in the work of peace and reconciliation.
“The peace and social concerns committee in consultation with the executive
committee of the General Conference Mennonite Church” prepared
a
“statement for its congregations” which was presented at the Mennonite
World Congress in . It was also
“adopted by the Council of Boards”.
The statement called for a variety of actions aimed at the Vietnam War in
particular, one of which was war tax resistance:
We urge congregations to counsel together about the proposed surcharge of 6
percent on income tax and the already imposed 70 percent of the 10 percent
federal excise tax on telephone use. Since these are clearly levied to support
the war in Vietnam, should not the Christian object to payment of these taxes
on the same grounds as he conscientiously objects to military service?
In view of the gravity of the
U.S. actions in
Vietnam and the kind of witness called for at this time, we urge congregations
and groups within congregations to retest the validity of a law requiring
conscientious objectors to pay a war tax. We urge that this form of witness be
made to communicate as clearly as possible, and that those refusing to pay a
war tax contribute an equivalent amount to peacemaking agencies such as
MCC
and in this way communicate that they seek no personal gain by their
objection.
We also ask congregations to adopt a resolution of willingness to support,
emotionally and financially if jobs and funds are threatened, those whose
conscience leads them to refuse to pay the tax increases for war purposes
because of obedience to Christ.
James Juhnke returned (see
♇ for his earlier piece) in the
issue to discuss
“Our almost unused political power.”
He asked why Mennonites had been successful in their political battles to
obtain and maintain exemptions or civilian-run alternative service for
conscientious objectors in the military draft. He concluded: “the core of
Mennonite power… lay in their threat of civil disobedience. The Mennonites
promised that ‘thousands of conscientious objectors’ would violate the law and
accept imprisonment rather than… induction into the armed services. This threat
was credible.… Mennonites in were reaping
political rewards from the sacrifices of their fathers and grandfathers in
. Because Mennonites in the First World War
had been willing to take the awful step of civil disobedience, their
descendants during the Vietnam war were spared the necessity of proving all
over again to the government their sincerity of conviction.”
Juhnke suggested that Mennonites apply the same sort of pressure to change the
government’s war policy in Vietnam. Excerpt:
If the Mennonite witness in Washington regarding the Vietnam war is to achieve
the same intensity and urgency as the Mennonite witness regarding the draft,
we will need both qualified men and effective instruments of power. A
Washington-based staff of politically-experienced Mennonite leaders should be
charged specifically with the duty of using Mennonite influence for a decision
to deescalate the Vietnam war. And this lobby should be equipped with the kind
of political leverage which our threat of civil disobedience gives us on the
draft issue.
A parallel act would be the declaration by hundreds of Mennonites that they
would refuse to pay the proposed 10 percent surcharge on the income tax, a
measure resulting directly from the war. Armed with such a threat, the
Mennonite lobbyist would have political power far out of proportion to his
small constituency.
“Protest at the offices of COSEP. We call on the business sector to join efforts to organize a tax strike and indefinite general strike. We are not afraid… the struggle is just beginning!”
Irlanda Jerez, leader of the tax strike among merchants in
Nicaragua’s Mercado Oriental, was
seized by masked police officers , held incommunicado, and swiftly given a
three-year sentence on what strike me as trumped-up charges
unrelated to the protests.
Calls for more widespread tax refusal and for a general strike are
growing louder. there
was a protest at the offices of
COSEP
[Supreme Private Business Council], a sort of private sector business union
that represents various industry and chamber of
commerce groups. The group, while nominally opposing
the Ortega/Murillo crackdowns and promoting protests, has been
dragging its heels when it comes to challenging the regime with
stronger action. It is under pressure from citizens who want it to be
bolder.
This is the seventeenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we
enter the 1970s.
The edition noted:
“Tentative plans are being made for a professor from Bethel College… to work
with a seminar group for six to ten weeks in a study program for six hours of
college credit. The topic for study is ‘The Draft, Income Tax, and Defense
Spending.’ ” More details
could be found in the edition.
“The seminar will emphasize a total learning experience through study, action,
and group living.” Tax refusal was one of the topics on the agenda.
A
meandering letter from Theodore Janzen dated and published in the edition complained of dancing in public schools, trashy sex talk
in The Mennonite, and “the Mennonite hippie problem”
on the way to having this to say about war tax resistance:
Sure, I am against war and at the same time I pay my taxes. Contradictions!
You bet! I’m not going to fight the great white father in Washington. If I did
nobody would help, and everybody would laugh and tell me, “You never had it so
good!” That’s what happens when I have a crop failure; nobody helps.
But then read the Bible. Give unto Caesar which is Caesar’s, unto God which is
God’s.
Right now, I am more concerned about the dancing than the war…
The edition included a brief
item about the American Friends Service Committee’s lawsuit asking “for the
return of funds which were paid to the government in lieu of federal income
taxes collected from employees conscientiously opposed to war.” (See
♇ 15 July 2013 for more about this
case.)
The purpose of the
MENNO fund
is to help with the following:
Legal costs because of conscientious civil disobedience (tax refusal,
noncooperation with draft, refusal of induction) related to militarism, civil
rights, and religious freedom.
Aid to dependents and families of persons engaging in conscientious civil
disobedience.
Fines and bail for persons engaging in acts of conscientious civil
disobedience.
Grants or loans for personal items (college debts) to persons engaged in
conscientious civil disobedience.
The edition included a long
essay by Phil Kliewer entitled “Did the cat get Menno’s dove?”
that took Mennonites to task for becoming too blasé in their opposition to
violence and war. Some excerpts:
People tell me that the government recognized us by legislating the
alternative service program and respected us for our good use of it.
That is all very fine, except that the recognition and respect has not gone
much further than this. Were we only looking for recognition and respect?
A few of our people are saying no to violence, and sacrificing family
life, wealth, social relations, or personal freedoms. They have refused to
render unto Caesar what belongs to God, in the form of war tax resistance and
draft resistance.
Just a few of these Mennonites are: Dan Clark, who has just recently turned in
his draft card, and is awaiting court procedures; Dennis Koehn, who is
awaiting jail sentence; John Howard Yoder, whose bank account has been frozen
for tax resistance…
What is creative, radical, nonviolent commitment? Can it work? To answer these
two questions, perhaps we can take a look at recent history.
During Franz Josef
of Austria tried to subordinate Hungary. The people of Hungary refused to
recognize Austria, and boycotted Austrian goods. When the Austrian tax
collectors came around, they were treated very kindly, but given no tax money.
Austrian police confiscated property, but could not persuade the Hungarian
auctioneers to sell it. When they brought in their own auctioneers, no one
would bid, and to bring in bidders was not worth the trouble. The Austrian
government then declared boycotting illegal, but the persistent Hungarians
refused to recognize this and soon the jails were overflowing.
Austria then offered partial government, but the Hungarians insisted on full
claims. After trying a compulsory military service, which was destined to fall
flat, Austria gave up. Throughout, the Hungarians remained nonviolent but
unswayed. Their creative, radical, nonviolent commitment was effective.
In , the Bombay provincial government raised
the tax rate to 60 percent, for the people of Bardoli. Vallabhai Patel led a
tax-resistance movement to nonviolently prevent this economic injustice from
actually taking place. This took a lot of planning. Sixteen camps were put up
in the district, where 250 volunteer leaders printed daily bulletins and
trained the eighty-eight thousand peasants to withstand the punishment they
received. The government tried flattery, bribes, fines, flogging,
imprisonment, confiscation, and other means to persuade the peasants to
comply, but the peasants, with their nonviolent methods, eventually persuaded
the government to comply to their wishes. Again, creative, radical, nonviolent
commitment won out.
Government should be God’s servant for man’s good. Its role is to maintain
order and to preserve life. Christians should appreciate and support the
worthy functions which government performs. They should willingly pay generous
proportions of their incomes for taxes which finance education and other
functions which are for man’s good.
But when government is not God’s servant for man’s good, Christians should
seek to be a correcting force. Christians are not called to submit to every
demand of every state. When Paul instructs the Roman Christians
(Rom. 13:7)
to give “tax to whom tax is due, toll to whom toll, respect to whom respect,
and honor to whom honor,” he is saying that we are to discriminate and give to
each only his due, refusing to give to Caesar what belongs to God.
Mennonites throughout history have refused when a government demanded that
they go to war. Our conscientious objectors today carry on this vital
tradition. But how can we, in clear conscience, pay someone else to do for us
that evil which we refuse to do ourselves?
In earlier days men were the primary tools of war. But now the primary tool of
war is money. Military technology needs only a few men. This is making
conscientious objection to military service less and less meaningful.
Conscientious objection to killing will have to take new and different forms
if it is to retain its vital significance.
James Stauffer, missionary to Vietnam under the Eastern Mennonite Board, wrote
recently in the Mennonite Weekly Review: “The time
has come for the peace churches to request a plan whereby our tax dollars
could be channeled directly to some constructive cause. Campus protests,
street demonstrations, draft card burnings have not been effective in stopping
the war. But choking off the funds that feed the military-industrial complex
could bring results.”
Sixty to 70 percent of our income tax dollar is spent in payment for past and
present wars, or in preparation for future wars. The average Western District
congregation of two hundred persons, in ,
paid $65,000 in war taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. Western District
members paid $4,250,000 to buy guns, napalm, and hand grenades. We pay two and
one-half times more in war taxes than we give to our church and its outreach.
What is the meaning of Christmas bundles given to refugees when we bought the
bombs that destroyed their homes?
Let us ponder the words of our late President Eisenhower, who was not a
pacifist: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,
those who are cold and not clothed.”
Is paying war taxes responsible Christian stewardship? Ought we not as
brothers of those who are hungry and cold, refuse to give up our resources for
destruction, and give our war tax money to authorities who will use it as
God’s servant for man’s good?
We move that the Western District Conference ask the Peace and Social
Concerns Committee to:
Provide information to local congregations and individuals on the
following ways in which Christians have through word and deed sought to
witness against the destructive functions of government made possible by
war taxes:
Pay the income tax, but include a letter of protest to the Internal
Revenue Service explaining why payment of these taxes makes us violate
the law of love that Christ gave us to follow. The letter can urge the
government to use tax money only for peaceful and constructive purposes
either through the United Sates Government or through the United Nations.
We can send copies of this letter to our Congressmen and our President,
among others.
Refuse to pay that portion of our income tax which goes for war and
contribute the same amount to some constructive service agency, such as
Church World Service or UNICEF
of the United Nations. We will not make obstacle nor withhold any
information which
IRS
might need to collect these taxes.
Refuse to pay the federal telephone tax which was instituted in
to pay for an escalated war in Vietnam.
A brochure is available and titled, “Hang Up On War.”
Reduce or share our incomes so that they will be below the income-tax
level, and, thereby, we will avoid payment of war taxes by legal and
sacrificial means. This method also diminishes the amount of indirect
taxes we pay by a higher level of consumption, and puts us nearer to the
world average standard of living.
Petition appropriate legislatures or in some way seek to create an
alternative peace tax to which conscientious objectors to war (of any age)
could pay the military portion of their income tax. This alternative fund
would be comparable to alternative service and would be used for such
projects as promote world peace by nonmilitary means.
Help Mennonite agencies and employers to investigate alternative
structures of operation so that they will not be required to withhold
income tax from their employees’ pay. John Howard Yoder, president of the
Goshen Biblical Seminary has said: “There is something very questionable
about the willingness with which Mennonite church agencies, by withholding
their employees’ income, serve as arms of the federal government for tax
collection which thereby relieves the individual of any conscious choice
concerning the bulk of his tax money… We would object to the states
collecting taxes to support the church, yet without compunction we let
church agencies collect to support the state (and the military).”
We also ask the Peace and Social Concerns Committee to help employees
whose income tax is already withheld to find appropriate ways of making a
witness against the payment of war taxes.
The above statement was prepared by Ardean L. Goertzen Max Ediger, Howard
Snider, David H. Janzen, Dennis Koehn, Stan Senner; and recommended for
adoption by the Peace and Social Concerns Committee to the Western District
Conference of the General Conference Mennonite Church which adopted it at its
annual meeting at Hillsboro, Kansas, .
Western District takes stand on war taxes
Should Christians pay war taxes?
That’s a hard question. One Mennonite body studied a soft answer to this
question, and made it softer after forty-five minutes of cautious debate.
The Western District Conference meeting in Hillsboro, Kansas, in
, was told that its members “pay two
and one-half times more in war taxes than we give to our church and its
outreach.”
Another question: “What is the meaning of Christmas bundles to refugees when
we bought the bombs that destroyed their homes?”
And Western District members through their war taxes have bought quite a few
bombs, guns, napalm, and grenades. One estimate set the figure at $4,250,000
per year.
“I heartily endorse the idea of protesting taxes,” said Curt Siemens, Buhler,
Kansas, as the topic of nonpayment of war taxes was introduced.
But along with other delegates, he was concerned about the practical
consequences of nonpayment of war taxes since the government could deprive a
family of its livelihood as a penalty. Then, how would the church and the
conference raise the funds to support its missions and schools?
Others saw the demands of Christian obedience as prior to the practical
questions.
“What is the meaning of asking these kinds of practical questions about
raising our budgets and educating our children, yet we make pious speeches
about wanting to be biblical and obedient?” asked Peter Ediger, Arvada,
Colorado. “What is the meaning of seeking first the kingdom of God and all
these things will be added unto you?”
Several persons testified that they had withheld a portion of their taxes as a
protest to war or would do so if given encouragement.
“I can’t see eye to eye with those who don’t want to pay taxes,” said one
delegate. “All I say is, ‘Go ahead. Why don’t you do it?’ ”
“That’s just the point,” replied Wendell Rempel, Newton, Kansas. “What is
going to be our relationship to those who take that step?”
At this point, the Western District Conference waffled.
The resolution presented for adoption said, “We move that the Western District
Conference recognize nonpayment of war taxes as a valid Christian witness” and
thus asked for a program of education and actions based on the assumption that
tax refusal was a “valid Christian witness.”
This was seen by some delegates that “everyone ought to [withhold his war
taxes] as a Christian.”
Said Marvin Zehr, Moundridge, Kansas, “It may give encouragement, but it will
also cast judgment. Even if I do it, I don’t know if I want to cast judgment
on someone else,”
So the conference considered a motion that struck the words “valid Christian
witness” from the resolution’s enabling clause. Delegates voted 93 to 63 to
drop these words. The resolution thus weakened was then quickly passed by a
voice vote.
The resolution thus adopted still calls for a broad program of education and
action. It asks the Western District’s Peace and Social Concerns Committee to
provide information on the ways of tax refusal which have been used by various
individuals. Such methods include the filing of a letter of protest with full
payment of income tax or withholding a portion of income tax and contributing
it to a service agency. Withholding the telephone tax or reducing one’s income
below the taxable level were also methods in which more information was
requested.
The Peace and Social Concerns Committee was further requested to petition
government agencies for an alternative peace tax for conscientious objectors.
And Mennonite agencies and employers may expect to receive counsel about their
role in collecting income taxes.
The resolution quoted John Howard Yoder as saying, “There is something very
questionable about the willingness with which Mennonite church agencies, by
withholding their employees’ income, serve as arms of the federal government
for tax collection which thereby relieves the individual of any conscious
choice concerning the bulk of his tax money.”
The statement saw the tax refusal as a natural extension of the traditional
position of conscientious objection to war.
“Mennonites throughout history have refused when a government demanded that
they go to war,” it said. “Our conscientious objectors today carry on this
vital tradition. But how can we, in clear conscience, pay someone else to do
for us that evil which we refuse to do ourselves?”
James Stauffer, missionary to Vietnam under the Eastern Mennonite Board, was
quoted as saying, “The time has come for peace churches to request a plan
whereby our tax dollars could be channeled directly to some constructive
cause. Campus protests, street demonstrators, draft card burnings have not
been effective in stopping the war. But choking off the funds that feed the
military-industrial complex could bring results.”
The resolution as presented to the Western District Conference was prepared by
six interested individuals: Ardean L. Goertzen, Max Ediger, Howard Snider,
David H. Janzen, Dennis Koehn, and Stan Senner.
The Western District statement adopted on represents the first time that any Mennonite body has taken a public
position on war taxes.
At the annual assembly of the Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section in
another such resolution was tabled,
asking the assembly “to make a declaration to be taken to Vietnam pledging
Mennonite support to end the war through tax refusal, draft resistance, and
other forms of civil disobedience.”
An article
about the assembly framed the debate in a generation-gap way, with younger,
more radical students pushing, and older delegates reluctant to go along. In
any case, “[a]fter the statement was debated with considerable emotion, the
activists changed the document from one representing the Mennonite church as a
group to a statement to be signed by individuals.”
A letter from Wanda (Steven) Schmidt to President Nixon lambasting the Vietnam
War appeared in the edition.
It included these thoughts:
I am against war and will not give you my children. Nor will I pay my federal
income tax as sixty-five cents out of every dollar goes for defense. Nor will
I pay the U.S. tax
on my telephone as it goes entirely for Vietnamese War expenditures.
Links have been piling up in my bookmarks as I spent
poring through
back issues of The Mennonite.
International Tax Resistance News
A new law in Samoa requires previously untaxed church
ministers to pay income tax. Many, including those from the country’s
largest church,
are refusing to pay.
The United States government has begun
denying passports to people with large tax debts.
If you’re one of the 362,000 or so Americans who owe more than $51,000 and
you haven’t entered into an installment payment plan (I’m one of those),
you will likely soon find that you cannot successfully apply for or renew
your passport. While the government also has the legal authority to revoke
existing passports from such people, it is not yet exercising that
power.
Guerrilla electricians in Greece continue to
reestablish electric power
to households who have had their power cut off for inability or
unwillingness to pay the state utility monopoly’s bills which have been
inflated to support the state’s austerity budget policies.
Veterans of the successful campaign to abolish the
“écotaxe” in Brittany held
a celebratory picnic
on the anniversary of the destruction of one of the highway portals that
would have enforced the hated tax. In part the picnic was meant to show
solidarity with those who had been convicted of criminal charges for the
parts they played in destroying such portals, and in part it was meant as a
show of strength to let the government know they would not tolerate any
attempts to reestablish the tax.
The increasing use of traffic-ticket-issuing cameras worldwide as a
government revenue booster has led to a rash of direct action by the victim
population. This usually takes the form of destroying, disabling, or
blocking the cameras. Here are several recent examples:
Launched on as another variety of civic struggle against the dictatorship, the proposal to carry the thesis of civil disobedience to the extreme of applying a “tax strike” is still in force, but has not yet switched on, except in the Mercado Oriental.
On that date, the Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Legal and Political Sciences, called for “civil disobedience as a national imperative to be put into operation immediately,” inviting employers, workers, students, and taxpayers to immediately suspend the payment of taxes to DGI, DGA, and city hall, in particular “withholding of Income Tax from salaries.”
Although the call for tax resistance enters the popular imagination as a civil form — and for that reason a legitimate one — of resisting the regime of Daniel Ortega, neither businesses nor individuals have responded with determination to the proposal, from fear or from caution.
Caution as demonstrated by the sources consulted for this article, who requested anonymity as they explained that people, business-owners and managers in particular, are afraid that the tax administration will fine them or, worse yet, temporarily take over operation of their companies or shutter their business.
Not all of the sanctions are catastrophic.
There are cases in which the fine applied is equivalent to 2.5% of the amount not paid in the case of the monthly advance payment of the business income tax, or 5% in the case of the value-added tax or of income tax withheld from the salaries of employees.
“Technically, it’s an invalid appropriation of withholdings, and can be criminally sanctioned,” in addition to being shut down, fined, or temporarily put under government management, explained a source with extensive experience in tax matters.
That said, this source sees a variety of reasons to doubt that they would decide to take such extreme measures, beginning with “as far as I know, they have never applied them to anyone.”
Another is that to close a business means sending its workers into unemployment, which implies that they will not receive taxes from the business or from those consumers.
But beyond believing in the mercy that any of these reasons implicitly assumes, the source points out fact that is easier to accept:
“If the resolution is massive, the tax administration simply does not have the capacity to audit and penalize everyone at once.”
Larger Companies Have More Fear
If it is decided to penalize only some in order to set a precedent that strikes fear into the others, surely one of the larger ones will be chosen, which not only has more ability to defend itself in the courts, but also to negotiate, precisely because of its size.
Another source asserts that “although it may seem obvious, the businesses that take the least risk are the most powerful ones, for the simple reason that they are not big taxpayers but big tax collectors.
“The DGI, does not want to be bothered with them, because if they weaken them, this affects tax revenues, principally value-added tax withholding.”
When the big companies that could take such measures don’t apply them, despite their intrinsic power, they are demonstrating “the cowardly face of big capital.
If they would decide, the blow to DGI would be immense,” s/he says.
Róger Arteaga, former director general of Revenue, agrees, saying that “big capital has not wanted to go all-in.
It is true that it gave its approval to the strike, but did so with fear and only temporarily.”
There is at least one group that risks more in a tax strike: import and export companies, which require clearances that can only be obtained once they have paid the corresponding taxes.
“If one of these business doesn’t make its monthly statement, or makes it but doesn’t pay, it falls into insolvency, and can neither import nor export.
The only importers who could afford that ‘luxury’ would be those that have sufficient product already on hand, especially at times like these, when there is little movement of inventory,” explained one of our sources.
Small- and medium-sized businesses — both fixed-quota and general regime — can stop paying taxes as long as the situation does not normalize, and while this makes them vulnerable to penalties, it is not likely that this will occur, especially, again, if a critical mass applies this measure of fiscal chastisement.
How long can the government last without taxes?
Our sources note that before making tax payments, the employer must guarantee the salary of its employees, and that the decision not to pay taxes is “protected by the higher legal concept, legally enshrined in the national legislation, as the Act of God and the Force Majeure.
Nobody is obligated to do the impossible, and the reason for this impossibility lies outside the control of the employer or employee.”
Citizens, on their part, could put pressure on big and medium-sized business, offering to act together if the Treasury moves against them.
“In this context, big capital must play a consistent role, acting firmly in the face of a Treasury that has granted them such special privileges.
It would be their most authentic repentance for the eleven years of tax advantages they have taken in the shadow of power.
That stain should be washed out right away,” they say.
As an expert, Arteaga proposes “that the businesses do not charge value-added tax, and the citizens not pay it.
Income tax also.
There are penalties, but the penalties and decisions of this government must be ignored, as they have no legitimacy.
How long can the government last without taxes?” he asked.
“Tax resistance aims to respond to Ortega’s claim that he will stay on through : we must find a solution, and one of these is for the private sector finally to decide on civil disobedience of a monetary and tax nature,” he explained.
Pedro Muñoz Fonseca, president of the executive committee of Costa Rica’s Social Christian Unity Party, urged Nicaraguans to use tax resistance against their government:
Social Media Tax Protest in Uganda
The government of Uganda has imposed a 5¢-per-day tax on using social media and
other services. This was designed as both a revenue measure and a way of
reducing what Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni calls lugambo
(“fake news”). Amnesty International has been among those to see through the
government’s rhetoric and cast the tax as
“a
clear attempt to undermine the right to freedom of expression.”
Robert Kyagulanyi, a Member of Parliament better known by his musician
stage name Bobi Wine, whose election is in part credited to his success on
social media, has been at the forefront of protests against the tax.
He was arrested, along with
three reporters when a march protesting the tax was attacked by police
with tear gas and rubber projectiles, but they managed to escape.
Ugandan protest marchers wearing shirts featuring a smart phone screen that
reads “This Tax Must Go”
War Tax Resistance Around the World
ABC reports on war tax resisters in Valencia — “the new refuseniks”.
War tax resisters there typically refuse to pay some percentage of their taxes, often basing this on the percentage of the federal budget that is spent on the military and similar items, and redirect this money to more worthy charities.
They declare this deduction on their tax forms in such a way that the tax agency typically does not treat it as illegal tax evasion but as an error or mistake.
The Global Day of Action on Military Spending Final Report has been released.
It gives a summary of the various events that took place around the world, including several by war tax resisters and groups promoting war tax resistance.
There’s a new NWTRCC newsletter out, with content including:
Ideas & Actions concerning weapons-free investing, responding to arguments against war tax resistance, a fast for nuclear disarmament, and more
You can now listen to audio excerpts from the upcoming documentary The Pacifist, about war tax resister Larry Bassett, on Spotify.
Erica Leigh pores through back issues of Conscience, the newsletter of the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign, an American war tax redirection group that slightly predates the founding of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.
Raymond Hunthausen has died.
As Catholic archbishop of Seattle, he took a remarkably strong stand on nuclear weapons — famously calling the Trident nuclear submarine program being developed nearby “the Auschwitz of Puget Sound” — and began practicing war tax resistance in response.
This earned him enemies in Washington and in the Catholic hierarchy. Here are some of the obits and remembrances:
A biography of Hunthausen, A Disarming Spirit, will be released soon.
David McReynolds has died.
He was a long-time War Resisters League and Socialist Party activist and was also on the staff of the Committee for Nonviolent Action which helped to spearhead war tax resistance as a tactic during the campaigns opposing the American war in Vietnam.
He was among the signers of the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” in and of a similar public pledge .
David Paul Irish has died.
He was active with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Peace Brigades International, and Witness for Peace.
He was an advocate for war tax resistance in the Society of Friends, drafting a minute in favor of of war tax resistance that the Twin Cities and Minneapolis Meetings approved in .
Some tabs that have slid through my browser in recent days:
Irlanda Jerez
Irlanda Jerez, a leader of the tax resistance movement in Nicaragua against the Ortega/Murillo tyranny, was arrested by masked police last July and has been held prisoner since then.
She has said she has been drugged while in captivity, and the latest reports from her family say that she has been beaten so badly by her captors that she is currently bedridden.
Torture, arbitrary arrests, and repressive brutality are frequently relied upon by the regime, amounting to “crimes against humanity,” according to Amnesty International.
The pace of destruction of automated traffic ticket radars in France has slowed, perhaps just indicating that the low-hanging fruit have already been taken (as the government had stopped repairing frequently-targeted radars).
Still:
12 of the 42 radars in Indre-et-Loire are completely out of service.
Eight of those were set aflame.
Of the remaining thirty, these are regularly covered with bags or otherwise masked so that they don’t work.
At any time, more than half are not operating.
The radars issued less than half as many tickets last year than they had the year before.
You are a war-tax resister.
How did you come to that decision, and what have its consequences been?
Julia Butterfly Hill:
About 10 years ago I sued three corporations for creating an ad using my image without my permission to sell a hand-held wireless device.
I wasn’t looking for personal gain — I was planning to give all the money away — but I felt that their using my life and my work to promote consumption was against everything I stood for.
We settled out of court, and I found out that I would have a federal tax liability of about $175,000 on the settlement.
Everyone told me just to pay it, but I couldn’t stomach it.
This was right as the Bush administration was beating the war drums after September 11. I marched in the streets in San Francisco with hundreds of thousands of other people, and we shut down the Federal Building and the financial district.
We caused creative mayhem all day.
In the back of my mind the whole time was the thought that all these hundreds of thousands of protestors were eventually going to go home and feed with their tax dollars the very same machine they were protesting.
I made the decision that day that I was not going to give that $175,000 to the IRS.
It turned out to be the largest single instance of war-tax resistance in history.
There’s never been a larger single nonpayment of taxes in protest of a war.
Defying the IRS
is a scary prospect, so I took my time.
I did my research.
I went to the national War Resisters League, and I talked to people who had done war-tax resistance.
I did everything I could to educate myself and keep the people I work with safe, because they were not signing up for the same choice.
I took myself off all the governing boards I was on, including the one for my own organization, because my presence on the board could hurt it.
I took myself off salary at my own organization.
I did whatever I could to protect the people I work with.
And then I filed my taxes.
Along with my nonpayment I wrote a letter that said I was not
refusing to pay my taxes — I was redirecting them.
I’m not against paying taxes.
I believe in what we can do when we pool our money together for the collective good.
But the same is true for the collective bad, because our taxes were being spent not only toward war in Iraq but toward war on this planet.
With penalties, interest, and fees, I now owe more than four
hundred thousand dollars.
I cannot own anything, or the IRS will take it.
I face jail every single day.
Although they’re not technically allowed to throw people in prison for not paying their taxes, because we don’t have debtors’ prisons anymore, they could take me to court and claim I’m evading my taxes, which I’m not.
I’m consciously redirecting my money to causes I believe in.
The IRS
hasn’t gone so far as to file formal charges, but they have taken me to tax court twice now to try to scare me into submission.
They don’t seem to realize that trying to scare me into submission doesn’t work.
The MOON:
How come? It works on just about everyone else.
Hill:
[Laughs.]
You know, my father came out to California while I was
doing my tree-sit and gave a press conference.
He said, “If Maxxam Corporation thinks they can outwait my daughter, they don’t know my daughter very well.”
If you try to threaten or scare me, it only makes me more
determined.
If Maxxam Corporation had left me alone, it’s quite possible I might have given up before they did.
I’d like to think I wouldn’t have, but I do know that their harassing me and degrading me in the press — all the things they did to try to make me come down — only deepened my commitment.
The same is true with the IRS.
I didn’t decide to become a tax resister lightly.
I knew going into this that it would alter the rest of my life; that I would have to be creative in providing for my own needs.
I knew that I was risking prison.
So the threats from the IRS didn’t take me by surprise.
They only strengthened my resolve.
The MOON:
Do you have attorneys who represent you when you have to go to tax
court?
Hill:
I did at the beginning.
I wanted to make sure I’d done everything
correctly, so that it was clear that I am not evading my taxes but redirecting them.
I wanted to demonstrate that I was making this choice with the utmost integrity.
But I don’t have the money to keep paying for lawyers.
If they were to drag me back into court now, I’d probably go without one, because I understand my legal rights as well as the risks of representing myself.
Trump’s tariffs, in addition to being economically foolhardy and otherwise ridiculous, are also something of a conundrum for war tax resisters.
It is difficult to discover how much of one’s purchases are going towards these taxes that are largely hidden from the end-consumer.
At NWTRCC’s blog, Lincoln Rice begins an investigation into the current state of tariffs.
Some links from here and there…
An editorial cartoon shows Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega trying to take down tax resistance leader Irlanda Jerez, while his wife, vice president Rosario Murillo yells “Bite her, pinch her, pound her, but do something!”
Nicaraguan tax resistance leader Irlanda Jerez was released from prison as part of a government amnesty of political prisoners in the run up to negotiations with the opposition.
Jerez says she was drugged, tortured, and sexually assaulted while in prison, and that her home was sacked and her family attacked by government-aligned paramilitary forces soon after her release.
Her children are now refugees.
Torture, arbitrary arrests, and repressive brutality are frequently relied upon by the Ortega regime, amounting to “crimes against humanity,” according to Amnesty International.
She has renewed her call for mass civil disobedience. “We’re ready to pay any price necessary to free Nicaragua.”
Residents of Faradje, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, are threatening a tax strike to pressure the government to take action against the incursions of Wodaabe nomadic cattle-herders from neighboring South Sudan into the land they use for agriculture.
