Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → Ireland → bin tax protests (~2001–05) → Joe Higgins

Some brief notes from here and there:

  • The Treasury Department’s Inspector General found that the IRS doesn’t always follow the rules when it seizes property. In fact, in almost half of the seizures in the random sample they studied, the IRS had screwed up at least once. Errors included not applying the proceeds of the seizure to the correct account, and not providing a correct accounting to the taxpayer of what was seized and what liability it was being applied to.
  • Among the winners in the recent European elections was Joe Higgins, who won Ireland’s Dublin-based seat. Higgins “once spent a month in prison for offences related to a bin tax protest.” The bin tax revolt is one I haven’t much looked into.
  • Finally… Craig T. Nelson and Fox News are still trying to hint at a conservative tax resistance campaign without being willing to actually commit to it themselves. The interview as a whole is nearly incoherent, and I don’t think you can blame it on the rushed transcript. But here’s the meat on the tax resistance part:
    HANNITY:
    …You’re thinking, is it true about not paying income taxes?
    NELSON:
    Well, what I’m thinking is that, if I’m a fiscally-responsible person and investor, I’m going to invest my money in a company that’s bankrupt? I’m going to go to a bank that is not — doesn’t have any fiscal acuity? And that’s our government.
    HANNITY:
    That is — it’s worse than that.
    NELSON:
    And I’m saying to myself, “Wait a minute. What if each of us withheld as much as Timothy Geithner withheld?” As Americans, and said, “You know what? We’re not going to pay that.”
    HANNITY:
    You do that, I do that, we’re going to be arrested. Listen, I mean it sincerely, Timothy Geithner…
    NELSON:
    Do you think that a lot of us, en masse, doing the same thing, standing up — we’re not a representative form of government any more. We’re not being represented. We have lobbyists who are petitioning for certain favors, certain grants. And here we are…
    HANNITY:
    So you’re saying we hold back what tax cheat Geithner didn’t pay? Hold back that amount of money?
    NELSON:
    Just that amount, would change a lot of things.
    HANNITY:
    I like that.
    NELSON:
    At least would, would say…
    HANNITY:
    I like that idea. Now the IRS is going to arrest me with you. Great.
    NELSON:
    It would say to the government, you know, we’re protesting the way you’re doing things. I didn’t know I was responsible for this bailout. I really didn’t know. I wasn’t asked about it. There were companies that went under. Aren’t we a capitalistic system? Aren’t we free to do that?

Here are a few things of interest to flash by my screen in recent days:

  • Here’s a short film on the Dublin anti-water charge movement of , being used to inspire the household tax resisters today (and, it appears, to boost the public image of Joe Higgins, a Dublin politician who has hitched his wagon to the tax resistance star):
  • NWTRCC held its earlier this month in New York City. Word about what took place at the gathering is still trickling out, but meanwhile here are some photos.
  • A new project — Your Faith, Your Finance — has been launched as a joint project of the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility and Quaker Peace & Social Witness. It aims to help Christians in the United Kingdom “explore ethical and spiritual issues around the use of money.” Their website has a section on taxes that gives a half-hearted nod in the direction of conscientious tax resistance:

    A small number of self-employed people have chosen to withhold part of their tax in protest over how it is spent. This is usually based on an objection to expenditure on war and preparations for war. Some of these individuals have had their goods seized or been imprisoned, although others have paid up after withholding payment for a while to make a point. This action is not of course open to people whose income tax is taken directly from their wages.

    and quotes English Quaker war tax resister Simon Heywood:

    “I withheld the military proportion of my income tax for two years during the Iraq War. I felt I had no choice: if others were going to risk their lives on my behalf, for this nonsense, I had to risk some of my own personal convenience to protest against the waste and folly. I was summonsed before the magistrate and told I had thirty days to pay. I paid up on day twenty-nine, having discovered some foe making arrangements to pay up behind my back. It was all spectacularly unheroic. I’m glad I did it though. It was very slightly less unheroic than paying up on time.”