Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → Spain → war tax resistance movement → Jorge Güemes

Military Spending: Not With My Money

The issue of Rojo y Negro, a Spanish anarcho-syndicalist monthly, has a couple of articles about war tax resistance. (Translations mine, and I’m not very good at it.)

We Continue Our Disobedience to Military Spending

At least 875 people have resisted taxes in , redirecting up to €80,600, which has been allocated to alternative projects

One year more we publicly present the data that we have compiled on objectors to military spending in different regions of the Spanish state in the tax season. Although we are aware that there are several more, there are 875 people who have reported their objection in this campaign by directly informing Antimilitarist Alternative/Conscientious Objectors Movement or other groups that promote war tax resistance and are responsible for collecting these data. In particular we are aware that at least €80,600 has been deducted from Spanish military spending and has been redirected to other citizens’ organizations that certainly will apply it to a superior end.

We Are at War

We are at war. Although the bombs do not drop on our territory, or spray us with shrapnel, the Spanish state participates in military conflicts all over the world (Afghanistan, Lebanon, Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, the Congo…), subsidizes the war industry with sweet public contracts and does business in the arms trade. Armies in the world are sustained by three fundamental pillars: human resources (reserve and active military, professional or conscript), ideological justification (these days they legitimize their existence with the excuse of global security; rich countries, that is), and, of course, the important economic pillar. All three are necessary for the functioning of the military machinery of modern armies, with their hypocritical humanitarian façade that has the function of defending the interests of the most rich and powerful to sustain a situation of injustice that condemns three-quarters of the world population to poverty.

Military Spending: Data That Is Obscured

All of this is done, whether we like it or not, with our money. The Spanish army is a real consumer of economic resources. The state has budgeted for military spending that amounts to a whopping €18,161 million. Rather than covering the real social necessities (sustenance, shelter, education, health…), an average of €394 per person will be spent every day in preparation for war.

It is not an accident that the money budgeted for the Defense Ministry will not be more than 42% of actual military spending. In order to get the complete figure, one must add the money corresponding to military R&D (nice self-contradiction!) since most of the military industry is financed with this money, those parts of the Foreign Affairs Ministry budget destined for spending on NATO and the EU, military pensions, and more spending besides, with which they hide the final scandalous figure. The fact that the state will not be transparent in its public accounting is an indication that they have something harmful to hide. And our objective is to undo this harm.

War Tax Resistance

War Tax Resistance, as we know, is a a form of civil disobedience that consists of refusing to pay the taxes for military spending, and aims to stop it. Anyone can be a tax resister by nothing more than deducting, on one’s tax return, a quantity of money for military spending (a symbolic amount, or a percentage that corresponds), which is then destined to some project of solidarity that actually contributes to constructing a more just world. In this way we demonstrate that the redirection of money to non-military purposes can be effective. Together with the tax return, is included a declaration of the redirected money and a letter explaining to the Treasury the reasons for our disobedience: we commit tax resistance because we refuse to collaborate in the sustaining of the military machine and because we want to make a public denunciation of this injustice.

War Tax Resistance is now in its third decade in the Spanish state. It has involved many thousands of people over the years and has also managed to redirect substantial amounts of military spending that have enabled the realization of numerous social projects of solidarity both in the Spanish state and in various countries. In recent years it has supported antimilitarism, nonviolence, feminism, and different struggles and basic skills in places like Colombia, Zimbabwe, Chile, Russia/Chechnia, Palestine/Israel, Iraq… or the Spanish state itself.

Appeal to Common Sense: Invitation to Disobedience

Antimilitarist Alternative/Conscientious Objectors Movement wants to make an appeal for sanity and common sense in order to fight against the army and military insanity. In a world where capitalist imperalism has gone so far that the destruction of the planet is, in this day, a work in progress, and where the domination of the powerful over the impoverished majority forms part of the “inevitable” scenario, disobedience is necessary. It is necessary that we say no, it is necessary that, like years ago in the disobedience campaign, we set forth and refuse to collaborate with the army. Not a single woman, not a single man, not a single euro for war!

Hugo Alcalde and Jorge Güemes

Two tax resisters stand up to the Treasury

Valencians Hugo Alcalde and Jorge Güemes have been practicing war tax resistance for several years. For example, Hugo deducted from his tax returns about €1,500 which he donated to various pacifist, nonviolent resistance, and social media organizations in protest against war and militarism, as he stated in an explanatory letter along with his returns which included an accounting. In each of these tax returns he deducted a percentage equal to that which in the Federal General Budget represents spending on military and armaments, and he recorded this on the form itself, creating his own handwritten line-item deduction “For War Tax Resistance.”

A few months ago the Treasury demanded the amounts deducted along with penalties and interest. Both Hugo and Jorge maintain the legitimacy of their action, and each one, on his own, decided to resist the administrative decision, appealing it. With this they are not seeking for preferential tax treatment for themselves, of course, nor the recognition of an individual right not to pay the part of the taxes related to the military establishment, but rather the active demand of a collective right to live in a world at peace, which involves the progressive dismantling of the machinery of war. So far, with the support and advice of Antimilitarist Alternative/Conscientious Objectors Movement, Hugo Alcalde and Jorge Güemes have appealed their tax claims before the Regional Administrative Economic Court and plan to gather public support and to appeal to the Superior Court of Justice in Valencia, Hugo in the coming months, and Jorge in the coming weeks. Hugo and Jorge are only two of nearly a thousand people each year who redirect a percentage of their income taxes as an active, conscientious, open, and committed signal for demanding the progressive elimination of the military budget and the abolition of the military.

All this forms an even more outrageous picture today, seeing all the generous aid to banks, carmakers, and the housing industry, and in the midst of significant cuts in social rights in connection with a crisis of capitalism that fiercely struck the most vulnerable sectors. In view of this, it appears necessary to update the classic antimilitarist pacifist proposal: We end war (and the economic crisis) by dismantling the army. Let the army pay for the crisis.

El País covered the Spanish war tax resistance movement . Translation mine (and I’m very much an amateur):

Protest against the Army, but pay your taxes

The Treasury seizes the accounts of tax resisters who withheld from their tax returns the percentage of defense spending — The government does not recognize ideological objections as justifying a waiver

Jaime Prats,

Under the rallying cry of “No more VAT,” on began the “rebellion” that was launched by [Madrid President] Esperanza Aguirre against the tax increase agreed on by the government. So far, the campaign has kept to the distribution of leaflets, the collection of signatures, and the holding of rallies. “It’s a rebellion in the sense of putting up resistance, not in a military sense,” explained Aguirre. And much less is it supposed to be an invitation to insubordination, as leaders rushed to announce when Aguirre called for rebellion.

  • “It’s a way to remove the shame in the system,” declared a resister.
  • They have seized 276 euros from Hugo, and they claim another 1,713.
  • Part of the protest consists in redirecting the funds to humanitarian NGOs.
  • “Taxes are a whole and cannot be cut up in pieces,” says one professor.
  • Resisters broadcast their acts; evaders hide them.
  • Anti-abortion movements have taken note of the tax rebellion.

Tax resistance is another thing, as Hugo Alcade and Jorge Güemes know, two Valencian antimilitarists whom the Treasury has prosecuted for having withheld from their tax returns a percentage equivalent to the defense budget, which is approximately 12%. In Spain, sources from the Conscientious Objection Movement (MOC) calculate that there are some thousand people each year who protest against military spending in this way and who redirect to humanitarian organizations the money deducted from the tax agency. “It’s a tool of civil disobedience, as was insubordination in the military in its time,” said Carlos Pérez, former resister and spokesperson for MOC from Valencia.

Beyond the moral arguments that may be behind this form of protest, it is a difficult matter to defend legally, for to the Treasury it is a fraud like any other. Also, it raises other problems when justifying this practice. What is the difference between this action and resisting taxes for health spending if you pay for your own health insurance? Or for education if you enroll your children in private schools? Where is the limit of this practice? Some professors of the philosophy of law believe that the answer is in the difference in defending something related to the common good from protecting an individual interest. The first approach, they argue, would have a moral justification. The second would not.

“Tax resistance is a nonviolent way to remove the shame in the system,” said Jorge Güemes, 32. The surveyor got in contact with the antimilitarist campaign during conflict resolution workshops he attended as a member of the Boy Scouts of Valencia. “They seemed to me to be just and easy claims to make.”

He started during the tax season. “In the tax return, I crossed out one of them and scribbled in ‘for objection to military spending’ ” he says. And the resulting share from the self-made deduction subtracted 12%, equivalent to the military spending in the Budget, which in this case showed a result of 210.43 euros that he redirected to Per L’Horta, an organization that defends the traditional rural landscape in the outskirts of Valencia.

A key part of the campaign consists in making the protest totally open. So the motive for this particular deduction is not only reflected in the way the tax return is formulated. In the documents sent to the tax agency, he also sent a letter in which he explained his reasons for objecting, and even sent a receipt for his payment to the NGOs to which the money was sent, “to make it clear that I don’t want to defraud.”

The probability that the Treasury notices the objection is very low. There are those who have spent years practicing tax resistance and have never met with the government. However, Jorge was caught immediately. “They sent me a letter saying that I was wrong, and I replied to them that there was no error, that I had done exactly as I intended.” There are some who receive notices from the Treasury refunding money. Jorge who currently works with youth, began a long bureaucratic battle that is still on-going. First in the arena of the tax administration, which ended with a defeat in the Regional Administrative Economic Tribunal of the Valencian Ministry of Economy and Finance, which dismissed his claims. After this defeat, the taxes, claims and judgments against, a seizure for 263 euros (the 210 original plus a fine of 53 euros), Jorge has not given up the fight. Now, he is finalizing an appeal to the High Court of Justice of Valencia. “I have been able to speak out,” he said. “I continue to object.”

Hugo Alcalde, 38, joined active antimilitarism after the war in Iraq. “I felt incredibly powerless to see how aggression was carried out so clearly in opposition to civil society,” and therefore came to the conclusion that, “it is more effective to fight against militarization than to stop an ongoing war.”

Hugo began to resist in his tax return, but got no notices from the tax agency until . Then he received a notice that demanded 450.98 euros from his return. As with Jorge, he decided to appeal and filed a claim. The response that the Treasury had was to demand the outstanding amounts corresponding to the taxes for . “It appears that with my claim they revisited all of my records and my returns that had not yet been audited.” But the problems don’t end there. Recently he received notice for the taxes from , “and I suppose that those from will not be far behind.”

From a professor from the institute of Valencia they have seized 276.73 euros by now, and between seizure orders and payments due, interest, and penalties, the Treasury has asks for another 1,713.99 euros. In total, the debt reaches 1,990.72 euros. And despite this, he has decided to stand firm until the end.

He has drawn on the five counter-arguments that he has sent to the Treasury: “More than anything I do it for the symbolic character of the protest,” he said. “Yet I hope to unify all of the processes into one, because otherwise it will be a mess.” “In the worst case, there will be no choice but to pay the money and charges. But, despite the fines or the inconvenience of the taxes it is much more comfortable than to spend two years, four months, and a day in jail, as did those condemned for insubordination who abandoned the barracks,” he explained.

Among the arguments put forward to reject the devices of the tax resisters, the Treasury refers to the military and tax obligations of the Spanish. Alongside conscientious objection, “is also a fundamental right to the defense of the state, which is not only a right but also a duty.” On the other hand, it points out that the tax obligations are drawn up by “principles of equality and progressivity, according to the economic capacity” of citizens, “not the state of the social conscience of an individual at some particular moment.”

For this reason, to the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the attitude of Jorge, Hugo, and the rest of the war tax resisters is the same as that of any other person who engages in tax fraud. “There do not exist any mitigating factors in the law to argue for ideological or conscientious reasons that justify a waiver from the tax agency,” the department pointed out. In any case, it is not considered tax fraud. For this, it would be necessary that the money not declared would be more than 120,000 euros. Additionally, there must be bad intent, “for example, to create a structure designed to hide assets,” the same sources said.

Javier de Lucas, professor of the philosophy of law at the University of Valencia, warned a few years ago of the difficulty of justifying this behavior before the Treasury. De Lucas, who collaborated with the Conscientious Objection Movement, analyzed together with tax experts the possible mechanisms that could be used to support this form of defense, and did not find any. “Taxes are considered as a whole, and cannot be separated by personal criteria,” he insists. “It is not clear that a person has the power to decide in what way to make an exception and up to what point one can take this behavior, for example, to health or education.” Because of all of this, he came to the conclusion that the approach was “technically indefensible.”

The arguments of the Treasury

  • Defense of the State: In a filing against the resisters, the Ministry of Finance argued that conscientious objection “appears as a fundamental individual right alongside the defense of the State, which is not only a right but also a duty of Spaniards, in Article 30 of the Constitution.” It also argues that [legal] objection “relates only to the personal obligation of rendering military service (given the extraordinary nature of the armed forces).
  • Tax Reasons: “Like the obligations of the Spanish in relation to Defense established in Article 30 of the Constitution, taxes are according to the principles of equality and progressivity and according to one’s economic capacity, and not according to the state of the social conscience of the individual at any particular moment, in Article 31.” In the written report of the General Secretary of the Treasury, was added that this Article “in no way authorized deduction, with a claim of a supposed personal conviction, however respectable, a particular quantity of Personal Income Tax or any other tax.”

“I think that the difference is the moral attitude,” suggested Francisco Fernández Buey, professor of ethics and political philosophy at the Pompeu Fabra University. Fernández Buey was one of the first tax resisters in Spain, back in the 1980s, and also then suffered persecution on the part of the Treasury. “I came to empty the account before they seized it. I kept the money at home, among the pages of the first volume of Karl Marx’s Kapital,” he recalled gleefully. The distinguishing feature, according to Fernández Buey, is that it is not comparable to defend approaches “considered acceptable for achieving a more just and beneficial society for the collective good, that would have a moral justification,” with others that only seek “personal interest.” For example, to stop paying for a public service with the excuse that one has no use for it.

Aside from this problem, Javier de Lucas does consider that there exists a safeguard that serves to differentiate the practice of the resisters from the tax evaders. “To demonstrate that the money is not withheld from the public interest, it was redirected to other general purposes. Therefore it is important to account for the percentage of income that is redirected to NGOs.” There is another, more fundamental question that consists of presenting an idea of defense that is separate from the military. It is that which Hugo Alcade defines as “human security,” one of the ideas promotes the UN focus on protection and the basic necessities of human beings, contrasted with the conventional meaning of military security. In the face of this, the Treasury refers to the basic concept of the “military obligations of the Spanish.”

For José Antonio Estévez Araujo, also a professor of the philosophy of law, the legal case against the Treasury is not a significant part of the conduct that is situated centrally in the context of civil disobedience and that, essentially, involves breaking the law. This type of “symbolic” protest is that which fundamentally intends to “generate controversy.” And here is, according to this professor at the University of Barcelona, the characteristic that distinguishes tax resistance from acts of crime or of mere convenience. In contrast with tax evasion, for example, in which the objective is to hide the fraud, tax resisters above all want to publicize their acts: “They seek publicity, controversy, and to open a public debate.”

Therefore, to Estévez Araújo, the behavior of these young antimilitarists is not a case of conscientious objection but of civil disobedience. “It is not intended to have the right not to comply with an obligation [in this case to entirely pay the taxes], but to debate the issues they raise.”

This professor of philosophy emphasizes the importance of civil disobedience as a means of vindication. “In Spain we would have the example of the squatters, who are considered civil disobedients, or the more recent Palestinian activist Aminetu Haidar, in the protest campaign she carried out in Lanzarote.” This formula, which has actively supported the World Social Forum, perhaps has its greatest exponent in the movement of landless workers in Brazil. “The Constitution of provides that for a land reform that has not been carried out,” he says. “There are groups of peasants who occupy land, which is an illegal activity,” although fundamentally they count on the approval of the constitutional spirit. “For this reason, there are even judges who have ruled in their favor.”

Tax resistance is not a method exploited only by left-leaning groups. The professor Francisco Fernández Buey notes the campaign that was carried out for decades in Sweeden as a form of protest against the country’s high tax burden. Or more recently, in Venezuela, by the opposition to Hugo Chávez. In Spain, the most clear example is the campaign that anti-abortion movements encourage. The proposal consists in withholding taxes equivalent to the percentage of public spending destined to the practice of abortion and to redirect this money to organizations that call themselves pro-life.

“This would have been very striking at other times,” reflected Fernández Buey. This professor of ethics and political philosophy stresses the paradox that supposes that these right wing positions have migrated from “defending law and order, to advocating behavior of this sort,” with, for example, the anti-abortion campaign. Some attitudes that could be defined, this time certainly, as a clear invitation to rebellion, in this case tax rebellion.

I get bent when I see the attitude of “tax resistance is conscientious and good when I do it, but when those uncouth people over there do it, there’s something wrong with it.” That said, it’s an interesting article, and shows that there are strong similarities between the war tax resistance movement (and its critics) in the United States and in Spain.

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

  • Kathy Kelly looks into the cowardly drone strikes that are a rising feature of U.S. foreign policy.

    Reliance on robotic warfare has escalated from the Bush to the Obama administrations, with very little significant public debate. More than ever before, it is true that the U.S. doesn’t want our bodies to be part of warfare; there’s also not much interest in our consent. All that is required is our money.

  • War Resisters’ International covers the case of Hugo Alcade and Jorge Güemes, two Spanish war tax resisters.
  • As I may have mentioned, a provision of the recently-enacted health care industry legislation — one that was little-noticed at the time but that has attracted some commentary since — requires businesses to file 1099s with the government for every other business from whom they purchase goods or services totalling at least $600. Some commentators have focused on the paperwork headache this involves, others on whether it is intending to lay the groundwork for a new value-added tax, but Gary North thinks it may be an opportunity for resistance-via-over-compliance:

    The IRS will be buried in billions of new forms. I’m an older guy. I think back to Carl Sagan’s memorable words in the PBS series, Cosmos: “billions and billions.” These forms will have to be scanned into the system. If businessmen want to protest this law in a legal but effective way, they will have their tax preparers write in the numbers by hand. Then IRS will have to type in the data on each form by hand. Billions and billions!

    Business owners and managers will be outraged. But what if word spreads? “No electronic filing!” What if the tax preparers fill in all the forms by hand. It is legal. It is not efficient, but it’s not all that much extra work. Pay a few dollars more per filing. At the other end, the IRS will get to process these forms by hand. Think of what happens if businesses were to challenge every challenge by the IRS? The business’s CPA simply asks in writing — I do mean writing (hand-written) — for the IRS to review the case. Point out one mistake made by the IRS. Automatically, every business should challenge every request for more tax money. No exceptions. Be polite. Just ask the IRS to review its case in terms of this new information. There are always gray areas. Put them to use. Pay a few bucks to your tax preparer. Paperwork is the essence of every bureaucracy. Let’s do it by the book: with paper.

From ’s papers in Spain (translation mine, so the usual caveats apply):

Appeal before the Superior Court ruling to redirect some income tax to non-military social ends

Valencia, (EFE). — A man has brought an appeal in the Superior Court of Justice of the Valencian Community against the conviction that sentenced him to pay 219 euros to the Treasury that he withheld from his income tax return for and redirected to social ends in protest against military spending.

As he explained to EFE, Jorge Güemes, who declares himself a “war tax resister,” in withheld “some” of the money that he had to pay to the tax agency and redirected it to “more just ends” than military ones.

“I took out the percentage destined for military spending in the Ministry of Defence, dedicated, among other things, to research and development of weapons, and this money of my taxes will go to the group Per L’Horta,” he said, and added that he sent to the Treasury a receipt of his payment to the group.

For Güemes, organizations such as the beneficiary of his gesture can “work better” with that money than, in his opinion, can the Spanish Army.

“The Treasury demanded the money from me and then began a legal back-and-forth of claims and administrative counter-claims up to the present day,” he said, and indicated that this — before the Superior Court of Justice — is the last administrative recourse.

“It seems to me fair and useful what I did. I saw the injustice that my money was destined to prepare for war and to buy armaments. I think that one must spend on other things,” he said, and stressed that he means to assert with this attitude a fundamental right.

“I’m not looking for people to be able to pay their taxes a la carte because some taxes seem just to me. But I plead because the big money is not spent that is tied up in military spending,” he affirmed.

The action is branded in the campaign called “war tax resistance” that for thirty years has led Spanish pacifist and antimilitarist groups such as the Antimilitarist Alternative / Movement of Conscientious Objection (MOC), which pertains to the youth.

The appeal presented today against the last decision of the Regional Administrative Economic Tribunal (TEAR), which confirmed the ruling of the Treasury, maintains that the action of Güemes is an expression of fundamental rights such as the freedom of belief, “that — as defined — covers not only any manner of belief but also the action consistent with it.”

And so, he argues that conscientious objection to the maintenance of armies is an expression of freedom of belief and, therefore, its exercise “would not merely be limited to the now-defunct field of obligatory military service,” and the Constitution and international law consecrate this right.

Civil disobedience that supposes pacifist tax resistance is defended in this appeal as that which “would guarantee the collective political right to live in a peaceful world, against which the support of armies, military spending, and the policies of preparation for war would be an obstacle.”

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

  • You can read more (en español) about Spanish war tax resister Jorge Güemes (see ♇ ) at Utopia Contagiosa and Insumissia.
  • You’d think there would be nothing easier for the government than preventing people they’ve already put behind bars from taking money from the government by filing fraudulent tax returns. Apparently not. Despite this being a problem that has attracted news stories and congressional hearings and such for as long as I remember, the amount of money the IRS gives to prisoners for lying on their tax returns continues to rise.
  • It has been illuminating and disturbing how the world’s governments and large corporations have obsequiously bowed to the bleatings of the American hatriarchy and joined in the attack on WikiLeaks. But WikiLeaks has already won this round, and Clinton’s state department are just punch-drunkedly swinging their gloves in the air after the bell.

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

  • The Daily Hampshire Gazette has published a nice retrospective of the life and work of Juanita Nelson up to now, which includes the good news that Nelson is working on a memoir.
  • If the IRS levies your salary for back taxes, they are supposed to leave you enough to live on and not just take the whole paycheck. They’ve recently published the table they use to calculate how much to take, which is based on how frequently you get paid, your filing status, and the number of exemptions claimed on your W-4.
  • Here’s an update on the cases of Spanish war tax resisters Jorge Güemes and Hugo Alcalde, who are pursuing court actions in support of their stand:

    [Güemes’s] appeal argues that the resister’s action is the expression of fundamental rights such as the freedom of belief, which doesn’t only cover forms of thinking based on deep convictions, but also the acts consistent with them, and sets limits on the power of the State.

    Conscientious objection to the maintaining of armies by means of direct taxes would therefore be an expression of this freedom of belief. The Constitution and international laws protect this right, whether or not there is legislation that covers it. Furthermore, and more importantly, asserts the appeal, civil disobedience such as pacifist tax resistance, is also a guarantor of the collective political right to a just international order and peaceful international relations.

    The same appeal makes explicit also that the resister is not merely seeking relief against an unjust administrative decision, but rather to follow an ethical imperative to help spread tax resistance, using his case as an amplifier for these ideas.

  • British war tax resister Roy Prockter tells how the tax collector confronted him:

    [H]e asked me my reasons for refusing, when I said conscientious objection to military taxation he started getting agitated, asking if I objected to paying for schools and hospitals as well — I said that I’d be pleased to pay for schools and hospitals if I could do so without paying for the military to kill people.

    He then said that he’d met some nutters in his line of work, but I took the biscuit!