How you can resist funding the government →
a survey of tactics of historical tax resistance campaigns →
refuse to indict or convict as a jury →
see also
David Cay Johnston notes that this is just the continuation of a long trend of reduced IRS budgets:
“, the IRS will spend 20 percent less per capita in real terms than it did in ,” he says.
“That means a lot of tax money is being left on the table because the IRS lacks the resources to identify cheats, to pursue those who owe taxes, and to make cases the Department of Justice can prosecute.”
La Arena has a brief article about “a violent act and its cover-up.” The violent act in question came when someone fired 23 shots into a vehicle carrying tax inspectors in the Entre Ríos province of Argentina (the inspectors were saved by their paperwork-filled briefcases). The cover-up went something like this:
The violent attack happened, the police quickly identified the aggressor
and raided his home, where they found a small arsenal of weapons of
war — it is not clear if they were registered. They also found proof in
his truck of recently-fired gunpowder residue. With these (and other)
details the case merited at least preventative detention, but the
prosecutor [Juan Sebastián Blanc] intervened in spite of the overwhelming
evidence from the attack, putting the attacker at liberty, judging that
there was not sufficient evidence for such a determination.
How are you going to take him on? It’s not only Donald Trump. There is a
majority-Republican House and Senate. They’re vowing to take down Planned
Parenthood, to defund it, to repeal the Affordable Care Act. How are you
going to do this?
Gloria Steinem
Well, one day at a time. For instance, if they defund Planned Parenthood
and defund NPR, we can take that money out of our income tax, put a note
with our return saying, “Sorry, I’ve sent it where it should go. Come and
get me.” If enough people do that, it’s very difficult to do anything
about it. We did it in the Vietnam era. And then, we just — it was more
difficult, in a way, because we were just keeping the money. This is more
positive, because we’re actually giving the money where it should go.
Gloria Steinem
You know, Planned Parenthood is, of course, necessary to women’s health in
this country. A very—what? One percent of it goes toward abortion. It does
everything, we know—breast exams and everything else. So it would be
incredibly expensive to every emergency room in the nation, if they were
not able to serve women and men in the way that they do. Therefore, if
they defund it, we’ll take money out of our income tax and send it
direct.
It’s rare in the United States for people who engage in civil disobedience
for reasons of moral necessity to be able to make such an argument in court,
and it’s even rarer for such an argument to succeed. But
four anti-drone protesters were found innocent by a jury
of charges of obstruction of government administration, disorderly conduct,
and trespass earlier this month.
Sam Walton and Daniel Woodhouse broke into a BAE Systems factory, intending to damage and thereby disable Typhoon fighter jets which were destined to be delivered to Saudi Arabia to assist in its brutal war in Yemen.
The two were unfortunately detained by security before they could reach the aircraft, and then arrested and put on trial for “criminal damage.”
It has proven much harder to present a necessity defense in American courts, and so you rarely hear stories like this in the U.S.
However, there are some signs that juries are becoming willing to push back against the American legal system’s persistent attempts to turn them into a panel of twelve rubber stamps.
The federal government struck out again trying to convict participants in the Bundy standoffs.
Last year, Ryan and Ammon Bundy were acquitted by a federal jury for their actions during a public land occupation in Oregon.
And then , a judge declared a mistrial in the case against them, their father Cliven Bundy, and another man, for their actions during a standoff over government attempts to seize the Bundys’ cattle in — saying that the prosecution had unethically and illegally withheld evidence from the defense.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., a jury acquitted six defendants of charges of rioting, conspiracy to riot, and destruction of property.
They had been charged after their participation in Inauguration Day protests .
The defendants were not charged with having done any specific acts of rioting or property destruction, but were prosecuted under the theory that by participating in the protest, they became co-conspirators with any other protesters who did riot or destroy property.
Such a theory, if validated by the courts, would make it that much easier for the government to criminalize manifestations of dissent.
A jury decided not to stand for it.
This was the first of several cases, involving hundreds of defendants, in the pipeline, and it remains to be seen whether the prosecution will change its theory or merely refine its technique going forward.
But it’s surprising and heartening to see this sort of push-back against prosecutors, in a country that usually gives them free rein.
