How you can resist funding the government →
a survey of tactics of historical tax resistance campaigns →
pay taxes in an inconvenient or symbolic way →
paying under protest, or in a protesting fashion
They gathered with a band of supporters at the Victoria monument in Derby Square, Liverpool, to hand out leaflets before taking their oversized blood-stained cheques to the Inland Revenue office on James Street.
As they have now been threatened with the courts, both doctors finally decided to pay the outstanding amount, but not without their protest.…
Dr. Davidson added:
“We intend to do exactly the same if the Government is still spending the same amount on military action.
We will take it as far as being threatened with legal action.…”
And this is why I prefer not to do either the martyrdom-via-illegal-tax-evasion method of tax resistance or the symbolic-pay-under-protest method.
They’re too muddled.
Here you have two people who have taken a stand to start paying less for what they oppose, until the government tells them to stop, in which case they’ll be petulant about it and cover their checks with blood while they cover their arses and cover the remainder of the bill.
And they’ll do it again next year if they have to, dammit!
Meanwhile, the government double-checks the numbers on the oversized blood-stained checks, shrugs its leviathan shoulders, and gets on with its business.
To be less of a bastard about it, I should admit that it may not be as easy to get out of taxes in the mother country as it is in the US, so symbolic protest may be the best some folks can do.
But I post this as a warning to my fellow Americans: Don’t try this at home, kids.
Or if you do, only do so after thinking over questions like “what will I do if the IRS comes after me?” and “what am I really trying to accomplish?”
Robin Brookes came up with a clever way to pay his tax and protest it too:
Last year he was visited by bailiffs demanding payment for the earlier tax year who found themselves facing a wall of £10 notes under a sign reading:
“Every 10 seconds Britain spends this much occupying Iraq.”
The bailiffs unpinned the £10 notes and left.
I reprinted Benjamin Ricketson Tucker’s defense of his brief experience with poll tax resistance.
Tucker said in that defense that he thought of such tax resistance as being solely for the purpose of “propagandism” — at least until such time as “a determined body of men and women” could “effectively, though passively, resist taxation, not simply for propagandism, but to directly cripple their oppressors.”
After this, Tucker soured on using tax resistance if it would invite retaliation from the State and he restricted himself to forms of symbolic tax resistance that he felt would be more-or-less equally effective propaganda.
In the following series of excerpts from Liberty ( and ), Tucker describes one such episode, and then defends it from a critic who attacks it for being too passive.
Time: , 7:30 P.M.
Place: Residence of the editor of Liberty, 10 Garfield Ave., Crescent Beach, Revere (a town in the suburbs of Boston).
Dramatis Personæ: Charles F. Fenno, so-called tax-collector of Revere, and the editor of Liberty.
In answer to a knock the editor of Liberty opens his front door, and is accosted by a man whom he never met before, but who proves to be Fenno.
Fenno. — “Does Mr. Tucker live here?”
Editor of Liberty — “That’s my name, sir.”
F. — “I came about a poll-tax.”
E. of L. — “Well?”
F. — “Well, I came to collect it.”
E. of L. — “Do I owe you anything?”
F. — “Why, yes.”
E. of L. — “Did I ever agree to pay you anything?”
F. — “Well, no; but you were living here on , and the town taxed you one dollar.”
E. of L. — “Oh!
it isn’t a matter of agreement, then?”
F. — “No, it’s a matter of compulsion.”
E. of L. — “But isn’t that rather a mild word for it?
I call it robbery.”
F. — “Oh, well, you know the law; it says that all persons twenty years of age and upwards who are living in a town on the first day of May—”
E. of L. — “Yes, I know what the law says, but the law is the greatest of all robbers.”
F. — “That may be.
Anyhow, I want the money.”
E. of L. (taking a dollar from his pocket and handing it to Fenno) — “Very well.
I know you are stronger than I am, because you have a lot of other robbers at your back, and that you will be able to take this dollar from me if I refuse to hand it to you.
If I did not know that you are stronger than I am, I should throw you down the steps.
But because I know that you are stronger, I hand you the dollar just as I would hand it to any other highwayman.
You have no more right to take it, however, than to enter the house and take everything else you can lay your hands on, and I don’t see why you don’t do so.”
F. — “Have you your tax-bill with you?”
E. of L. — “I never take a receipt for money that is stolen from me.”
F. — “Oh, that’s it?”
E. of L. — “Yes, that’s it.”
And the door closed in Fenno’s face.
He seemed a harmless and inoffensive individual, entirely ignorant of the outrageous nature of his conduct, and he is wondering yet, I presume, if not consulting with his fellow-citizens, upon what manner of crank it is that lives at No. 10 Garfield Ave., and whether it would not be the part of wisdom to lodge him straightway in a lunatic asylum.
This was followed by:
The last issue of the Workmen’s Advocate contains the following communication:
To the Workmen’s Advocate:
Oh! what a feeling of rapture came over me as I began reading the dialogue between Tucker and Fenno in the last number of Liberty.
(Ego Tucker needs no introduction; Fenno is the fiend who came to collect the poll-tax.)
My thoughts went back to another age and to distant clime.
I thought of John Hampden refusing to pay the ship-tax.
I had often asked myself, who will be the leader in this, the struggle of the fourth estate?
Where is the man who will dare resist oppression?
I thought and I was answered.
Here! here was the man who would risk all for Liberty! And although she slew him, still would he trust in her!
But softly; as I read further, he takes the big iron dollar from his pocket and gives it to the minion.
Oh, ignominy!
Instead of refusing to pay, he indulges in a little billingsgate — a favorite pastime with him.
He pays, and all is over.
Our idol is but clay, and we must seek another leader.
Is this what Ego Anarchists call “passive resistance”?
If it is, it is certainly passive.
―H.J. French
When I published the poll-tax interview, I foresaw that it would call out some such rubbish as the above from my Socialistic critics.
The fact that timely retreat often saves from defeat seldom saves the retreating soldier from the abuse of the “home guard.”
The “stay-at-homes” are great worshipers of glory, but are always willing to let others win it.
To the man of peace the man who runs is never a hero, although the true soldier may know him for the bravest of the brave.
After reading such a criticism as Mr. French’s, well may one exclaim with Wilfrid Scawen Blunt: “What men call courage is the least noble thing of which they boast.”
To my mind there is no such depth of poltroonery as that of the man who does not dare to run.
For he has not the real courage to obey his own judgment against that “spook,” public opinion, above which his mind is not sufficiently emancipated to rise in scorn.
Placed in a situation where, from the choice of one or the other horn of a dilemma, it must follow either that fools will think a man a coward or that wise men will think him a fool, I can conceive of no possible ground for hesitancy in the selection.
I know my circumstances better than Mr. French can know them, and I do not permit him to be my judge.
When I want glory, I know how to get it.
But I am not working for glory.
Like the base-ball player who sacrifices his individual record to the success of his club, I am “playing for my team” — that is, I am working for my cause.
And I know that, on the whole, it was better for my cause that I should pay my tax than that I should refuse to pay it.
Is this passive resistance? asks Mr. French.
No; it is simply a protest for the purpose of propagandism.
Passive resistants, no less than active resistants, have the right to choose when to resist.
Far be it from me to depreciate the services of the Hampdens and the martyrs reverenced by mankind.
There are times when the course that such men follow is the best policy, and then their conduct is of the noblest.
But there are times also when it is sheer lunacy, and then their conduct is not for sane men to admire.
Did Mr. French ever hear of the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava?
And does he remember the comment of a military man who witnessed that memorable, that splendid, that insane exploit, fruitful in nothing save the slaughter of half a thousand men; “It is magnificent, but it is not war.”
The editor of Liberty is engaged in war.
My first thought on reading this is that of course Tucker is right.
All of us have to pick our battles, and if we didn’t sometimes have to retreat in the face of the State’s power, we’d have already won.
On further reflection, though, it seems to me that Tucker does a lot more than just to state this bit of wisdom.
He seems to betray some defensiveness in just how bitterly he denounces his critic.
I don’t mean to read too much into this.
Tucker is probably somewhat disappointed at himself for not having a better, more valiant option that fits with his game plan, or at not having a “determined body of men and women” backing him up who would make a show of rebellion on his part more than just a quixotic gesture.
In part, he seems to be writing to himself: “Remember, don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”
Some bits and pieces from here and there:
Some states, whose governments are suffering from bloated budgets and recession-spawned drops in tax revenue, have decided to issue IOUs instead of tax refunds .
This is causing some taxpayers, many of which are having financial problems of their own this year, to see things a little more clearly than usual.
Like this fellow, who says: “Now let’s be absolutely crystalline clear on this issue: A tax refund is not some kind of bonus.
It’s not a stimulus check.
Not welfare!
It belongs to the taxpayer.
In fact, it’s not much more than a loan that the unwitting taxpayer has made to their state, and as such the government has no god-damned right to the money!” Well, that’s all well-and-good, and I’ve heard such sentiments before, but what’s different and encouraging is that this fellow wants to take the next step and encourage taxpayers to end their tax withholding so that in the future, the government is coming to them, hat-in-hand, rather than the other way around.
Maybe it’ll catch on.
Timothy Coughlin, while serving a life sentence, successfully filed for millions of dollars in fraudulent tax refunds from the IRS.
Or so says this news report. What interested me about the news article was that the conspirators were being prosecuted by a State prosecutor, who expressed frustration that he couldn’t get the feds to take any interest in the case.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, among others, is promoting a non-payment campaign against the government water monopoly.
I honestly don’t know much about the issues behind this campaign, and most of the web sites seem to assume that visitors are already up-to-speed.
But this campaign’s bold picket signs helped me find a graphic and a title for my book We Won’t Pay! so I’ll give ’em props for that.
Here are some more details about the 17th Century tax resistance by Scottish presbyterians against taxes that supported the then-establishment episcopal church and persecution of grassroots presbyterian assemblies.
This was alluded to by John Brown, who wrote a hundred and fifty years or so later, to defend his own 19th tax resistance against the now-establishment presbyterian church on similar grounds.
This account comes from Robert Wodrow’s The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland.
I can’t help but spoil the ending: “John Arrol who commanded the party, was killed next year at Drumclog, and had his bowels tread out by a horse.”
A new regiment of foot, three troops of horse, and some dragoons were proposed to be raised [by the government, to put down the presbyterian movement], and a cess of eighteen hundred thousand pounds to maintain them.
The elections went all well on as the court could wish, and the convention [of estates, which the crown summoned in lieu of parliament] sat down upon the day appointed, , and upon they come to pass their act and offer of eighteen hundred thousand pounds to the king.
This is so express in its terms, so plain in its design against presbyterians, and became so heavy in its execution, that I cannot but insert it as a note.
[Here he includes the text of the Act as a footnote.]
Reflections upon it are needless, the reader will easily see, that they narrate the disorders of the country, which they lodge upon [the illegal presbyterian] field conventicles, for remedy of which they agree to the raising and paying of an army, for subsisting of which they lay their assessment upon the country, and conclude all with a very rigorous method of uplifting the money.
By this the bishops have at length their wishes.
Their friends are provided for in the army, presbyterians are first divided, and then borne down by the soldiers, and by the severities of this new army they are forced to a rising next year.
This act divided those who were already disjointed, and the debates upon the lawfulness or unlawfulness of paying the cess here imposed, were not few.
Upon the one hand it was strongly urged, that the payment of this cess was an active concurring with the persecutors in their bearing down of the Lord’s work in the land; and it was said, it was much the same whether this was done by the sword or the purse.
Upon the other side it was reasoned, that since violence was both expected and used, it appeared more advisable by a piece of money to preserve themselves and their families alive, and their substance in their hands, for better uses, than by an absolute refusal to give an occasion, and afford a legal pretext to the collectors’ cruelty, to destroy all, and take as much as would raise and maintain two armies.
It was added, that paying cess in this case was not spontaneous, but involuntary and forced, and therefore to be excused, a person in such circumstances being rather a sufferer than an actor; and though it would be certainly sinful in a merchant, to throw his goods into the sea in fair weather, yet it becomes his duty to lighten the ship, that he may save his life in a storm.
Some of very good parts and great piety were upon both sides of this debate, and the heats and heights among ministers, preachers, and people, were not small.
The banished ministers in Holland were warmly against paying this assessment; and such ministers here who were of the same sentiments preached against the paying of it, and some of the hearers violently pressed ministers to preach against it, while those of the other side asked, how they would keep it and much more out of the soldiers’ hands?
Against paying it the example of one of the primitive Christians was much urged, who having rashly demolished an idol temple, choosed to suffer martyrdom before he would rebuild it.
These who were for paying it, as the lesser evil of suffering, were silent till the clamour and heat was a little over, and used to declare, that if in their judgment they had been against paying it, they would have advised people to retire and leave the country.
Some few did pay it with a declaration, and chose the middle way betwixt paying it without any testimony against what was evil in it, and refusing to pay at all.
Among these the forementioned Quintin Dick in Dalmellington was one.
And it will not be unacceptable to some of my readers to set down from his own papers his exercise and practice in this matter in his own words.
In the year , the king, by an act of the convention of estates, did impose upon the subjects, a cess to be paid, and by the act did signify the reasons for which he imposed it; and among others this is one, for levying and keeping up of forces to suppress these meetings, called conventicles.
The act with this qualification did beget in many a reluctance to give obedience; and amongst others, having made it my work in my place and station (as a witness to the interest of my Lord and Master Jesus Christ) to keep at distance from all manner of sinful compliance or accession to the overthrow of his work and worship in Scotland, I judged myself deeply concerned how to carry in this case: especially, when by the holy and sovereign dispensation of God, for his own holy and wise ends, he hath made it the sad lot of the honest ministers and professors in Scotland at this time, to be under a spirit of division and rent, to that measure, that though all were for bearing witness to one and the same cause and interest, yet they could not agree in one and the same method and way of entering their testimony.
In this hour of darkness, being much perplexed how to carry without scandal and offense, I betook myself to God for protection and direction: for protection, that I might be kept from any measure of denying Christ, or giving ground to persecutors to think or say, that I had contributed any thing for the overthrow of Christ’s work: and for direction, that I should not be found to stave off my trouble upon any grounds, but such as might be clearly warranted from the word of God.
And after much liberty in pouring out my heart to God, I was brought to weigh, that as my paying of it might be by some interpret a scandal, and a sinful acquiescence in the magistrate’s sinful command; so upon the other hand, my refusing to pay it would be the greater scandal, being found to clash against a known command of God, of giving to all their due, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom; and knowing that Christ Jesus, for that same very end, to evite offence, did both pay tribute himself, and commanded his followers to do it, I could see no way to refuse payment of that cess, unless I had clashed with that command of paying tribute to Cesar.
So to evite the scandal of compliance on the one hand, and disobedience to the magistrate in matter of custom on the other, I came to a determination to give in my cess to the collector of the shire of Ayr where I lived, with a protestation against the magistrate’s sinful qualification of his commands, and a full adherence unto these meetings of God’s people, called conventicles, which in the act he declared his design to bear down, as the protestation itself, signed by my hand more fully bears in a paper by itself.
I had no sooner done this, but I was trysted with many sharp censures from many hands, among which this was one, that my protestation was only to evite sufferings, and could be of no weight, being protestatio contraria facto.
But being truly persuaded, that it is the magistrate’s right to impose and exact cess and custom, I could have no clearness to state my sufferings in opposition unto so express a command of God.
And as to the magistrate’s sinful qualification, having so openly declared and protested against it, I conceive the censure of this to evite suffering, is altogether groundless; seeing the enemy has subscribed with my hand before witnesses, a resolute adherence to that which they say this tends to overthrow; and if he mind to persecute upon the ground of owning conventicles, he has a fair and full occasion against me, under my hand: but if he intend to state my suffering upon refusing to pay cess to the magistrate, I have no clearness to expose myself, or give him ground to found my sufferings upon such a refusal.
And when my subtile adversary seeks grounds to state my trouble upon my opposition to any of the commands of God, I absolutely hold it for duty to own these commands, by paying of Cesar’s due, and to obviate his subtilties by a clear protestation against sinful qualifications.
So whatever has, or shall be the censure of friend or foe, this I say to the praise and glory of my God and my guide, I have met with from him much comfort, peace of mind, and rest in my conscience: “Thou hast holden me by my right hand, thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory.”
A few months ended this debate practically, and all were forced to pay this imposition one way or other.
We shall, in the progress of this history, meet with many instances of the severities of the soldiers in exacting cess from good people who scrupled to pay it.
I shall only give one instance this year out of many.
James Graham of Claverhouse, with a numerous party of soldiers, came and quartered upon Gilbert M‘Meiken in new Glenluce parish, for a good many days, without paying any thing; and when they went off, though they had consumed ten times the value of the cess, they carried with them three horses worth ten pounds sterling.
John Arrol who commanded the party, was killed next year at Drumclog, and had his bowels tread out by a horse.
The government then tried a divide-and-conquer strategy.
It enacted a compromise measure that allowed nonconformist ministers to resume their preaching under certain conditions.
This divided the presbyterian movement between those who thought this was a good deal and those who felt that the compromise gave away too much.
The movement split into accommodationist and radical wings, typically splitting along the same lines about whether or not to pay the cess.
Thanks to this dissent and infighting, the government was able to crush a presbyterian uprising in the Battle of Bothwell Brig in , which was followed by a period of brutal repression that Wodrow called The Killing Time.
In another volume, he includes this episode from around :
The quartering of soldiers for nonpayment of the cess, was another thing at this time most vexatious to the country.
That tax was imposed, and the method of gathering it so ordered, as, one would think, an occasion was sought to stumble the poor country, and to give room for the soldiers to spoil and ravage.
The narrative of the act imposing it hath been already noticed, and many honest people did think, that in paying it, they consented to all the black and foul things committed by the soldiers; and their refusal became new matter of sore persecution.
A party of soldiers was brought upon the refusers by the uplifter of it, and they quartered till ten times the value of the cess was taken; and, after all, ofttimes the poor man’s friends behoved to compound with the publican, for a sum a great deal more than the cess came to, besides the loss by quartering.
Thus in the parish of Carsphairn, seven cows were taken away from Gavin Maclymont upon his refusal, after quartering, to pay the cess, and all the sum owing was not five pounds Scots.
Vast depredations were made in most parishes this way.
He also discusses the interrogation of James Renwick, who was captured and executed by the government in toward the end of the presbyterian agitation:
The next question propounded to him was, “If he owned or had taught it to be unlawful to pay taxes or cess to his majesty.”
He answered, “As to the present cess, exacted to the present usurper, I hold it unlawful to pay it, both in regard it is oppressive to the subjects for the maintenance of tyranny, and because it is imposed for the suppression of the gospel.
Would it have been thought lawful for the Jews in the days of Nebuchadnezzar to have brought every one a coal to augment the flame of the furnace, to devour the three children, if so they had been required of the tyrant? and how can it be lawful, either to oppress people for not bowing to the idols the king sets up, or for their brethren to contribute what may help forward their oppression on that account?”
At his execution, Renwick said, “I am this day to lay down my life for these three things.
1st, For disowning the usurpation and tyranny of James duke of York.
2dly, For preaching that it was unlawful to pay cess.
3dly, For teaching that it was lawful for people to carry arms, for defending themselves in their meetings for receiving persecuted gospel ordinances.
I think a testimony for these is worth many lives; and if I had ten thousand, I think all little enough to lay down for the same.”
A few more things that I found in the inbox when I got back to my desk:
Revenue to the U.S. government from excise taxes on alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and ammunition is sharply up.
This is largely from higher tax rates on tobacco, firearms, and ammunition, but also possibly from a surge in firearms & ammunition purchases in the wake of national Democratic election victories which caused some people to anticipate stricter gun control would be on the way.
I haven’t had time to go over this in detail, but a new paper from professor Nancy Staudt looks at how the U.S. judiciary uses its power to raise funds for the military during wartime — a responsibility nominally reserved for the legislative branch.
The following account of a pacifist crisis of conscience over military commutation fines during the American Civil War comes from the Autobiography of Adin Ballou.
A Case of Conscription
At this point I must put on record one special exploit of the high-pretending warpower of the United States government which we were counseled to summon to our aid in seeking the overthrow of slavery.
In , under a law authorizing the conscription of soldiers for replenishing the depleted ranks of the army, one of the loyal members of our Community, John Lowell Heywood, was drawn for the required service.
As he could not conscientiously respond in person to the demand made upon him nor employ a substitute to fill his place, it was deemed advisable, after considerable hesitancy and discussion, that the prescribed commutation equivalent of three hundred dollars should be paid by him and such of his friends as might be moved to assist him in the crisis, rather than that he should be made to suffer the penal infliction provided for those who, under such circumstances, refused to join the forces then in the field.
This was accordingly done.
I have since feared that we acted wrongfully in the matter, feeling that it would have been more consistent with our principles and a more effective testimony against the wicked exactions of the government to have allowed the law to have taken its proper course and dealt with our unresisting brother to the full extent of its despotic and inexorable requirements.
I do not recommend a repetition of our course in future cases of a similar sort, although in the unprecedented pressure of events I advised the payment of the money.
It was done, however, under public protest formally presented to the military authorities at the time, a copy of which, prepared by myself and approved by the Community, I take the liberty to submit to my readers and to coming generations as follows:
To the governmental authorities of the United States and their constituents, the undersigned, John Lowell Heywood of Hopedale, in the town of Milford, in the eighth congressional district of Massachusetts, respectfully maketh solemn declaration, remonstrance, and protest, to wit:
That he has been enrolled, drafted, and notified to appear as a soldier of the United States, pursuant to an Act of Congress approved March 3, 1863, commonly called the Conscription Law.
That he holds in utter abhorrence the rebellion which the said law was designed to aid in suppressing and would devotedly fight unto death against it if he could conscientiously resort to deadly weapons in any case whatsoever.
But that he has been for nearly nine years a member in good and regular standing of a Christian Community whose religious confession of faith and practice pledges its members “never to kill, injure, or harm any human being, even their worst enemy.”
That in accordance with his highest convictions of duty and his sacred pledge as a member of said Community, he has scrupulously and uniformly abstained from participating in the state and national governments under which he has lived — not only foregoing the franchises, preferments, emoluments, and advantages of a constituent co-governing citizen, but also the privilege of righting his wrongs by commencing suits at law, and of calling on government for protection against threatened violence — in order thereby to avoid making himself morally responsible for their constitutional dernier resorts to war, capital punishment, and other kindred acts, and also to commend to mankind by a consistent example those divine principles which prepare the way for a higher order of society and government on earth.
That, nevertheless, it is one of the cardinal Christian principles to respect existing human government, however imperfect, as a natural outgrowth and necessity of society for the time being, subordinate to the providential overrulings of the supreme divine government, and therefore to be an orderly, submissive, peaceable, tribute-paying subject thereof; to be no detriment or hindrance to any good thereby subserved; to countenance no rebellion, sedition, riot, or other disorderly demonstration against its authorities; to oppose its greatest abuses and wrongs only by truthful testimony and firm, moral remonstrance; and in the last resort, when obliged for conscience’ sake to non-comply with its requirements, to submit meekly to whatever penalties it may impose.
That with such principles, scruples, and views of duty, he can not conscientiously comply with the demands of this Conscription Law, either by serving as a soldier or by procuring a substitute.
Nor can he pay the three hundred dollars of commutation money which the law declaratively appropriates to the hiring of a substitute, except under explicit remonstrance and protest that the same is virtually taken from him by compulsion lor a purpose and use to which he could never voluntarily contribute it, and for which he holds himself in no wise morally responsible.
And he hereby earnestly protests, not only for himself but also in behalf of his Christian associates and all other orderly, peaceable, tax-paying, non-juring subjects of the government of whatever denomination or class, that their conscientious scruples against war and human life-taking, ought, in justice and honor, to be respected by the legislators and administrators of a professedly republican government; and that, aside from general taxation for the support thereof, no person of harmless and exemplary life who is conscientiously opposed to war and deadly force between human beings, and especially no person who for conscience sake foregoes the franchises, preferments, privileges, and advantages of a constituent citizen, ought ever to be conscripted as a soldier, either in person or property.
Now, therefore, I, the said John Lowell Heywood, do pay the three hundred dollars commutation money to the government of the United States, under military constraint in respectful submission to the powers that be, but solemnly protesting against the exaction as an infraction of my natural and indefeasible rights as a conscientious, peaceable subject.
And for the final vindication of my canse, motives, and intentions, I appeal to the moral sense of all just men, and above all to the inerrable judgment of the Supreme Father and Ruler of the universe.
Subscribed with my hand at Hopedale, Milford, Mass., this .
In the summer of one of our faithful and worthy members, J. Lowell Heywood, was drafted into the military service of the United (?)
States under the Conscription Act of in the same year.
This was a sore trial and a cause of much anxiety to himself and family, and scarcely less so to all the rest of us.
That he could not enter the army and serve as a soldier there, was a foregone conclusion.
The only question was whether he should pay the prescribed $300.00 commutation money, as the law allowed him to do, or submit to such military penalties as might be pronounced against him, however severe they might be.
Public opinion among us was divided upon that question.
A strong feeling prevailed that absolute consistency required that he should suffer a heroic personal martyrdom, and thus bear the most effective testimony to his religious principles; but it was also thought that the commutation money might be paid by himself and friends in good conscience and without blame, if it were done under protest, thus saving him from indefinite incarceration in fortress or prison, or from possible death, should military infatuation or madness, as might be the case, carry the matter to such an extreme.
My personal sympathies for his family in their distress overruled my sterner convictions, and I gave my adhesion to the latter view, drawing up a paper in remonstrance for presentation at martial headquarters, which, at the time, I persuaded myself met the moral demands of the case.
This course was finally approved by a majority of our members and carried into effect.
As a further token of our position at that great crisis of our national history, and of our adherence to our standard of faith under perplexing circumstances, the document is herewith submitted:
…and suffixing it with the following (pages 320–1):
Upon more deliberate and dispassionate examination of this whole matter, I had serious misgivings as to the rightfulness of the course that was pursued.
The Protest, though inherently just and good, was too weak to meet the moral exigency of the case and produce salutary results.
The spirit of conscienceless domination which tramples on such sacred scruples and rights as the document enumerates, seems to require a more stringent moral resistance in order to be made to feel its culpability and be brought to repentance — in order to be regenerated.
It is sheer extortion and persecution; an outrage unwarranted, save in the ethics of brutal despotism, to conscript a man of such principles, character, and life as our victimized associate.
And when committed, it should be met with unflinching moral heroism and personal martyrdom, even unto death, if need be, in order to arouse public attention to the enormity of the offence and induce a radical and most necessary reform in the practical administration, not alone of military affairs but of the concerns of states and nations.
At least this is my present persuasion.
Freelancers in Bucharest have organized a tax strike in protest against a new law that makes self-employed people liable for social insurance taxes.
Romania’s government-run insurance and pension plan is bankrupt, of shoddy quality, and is overpriced, so freelancers — who up to now have been exempt from mandatory contributions and have not been covered by its benefits — have gotten used to finding better deals in the private sector.
Official, licensed public transit drivers in Barinas, Venezuela are getting undercut by unlicensed, unofficial ones.
Reasoning that if they can’t have a government-enforced monopoly they shouldn’t have to pay for one, they’ve launched a tax strike.
As I alluded to , a group of Quakers from the Pacific Yearly Meeting is trying to reinvigorate the tradition of Quaker war tax resistance.
Some of them are resisting their taxes in some way, and a couple of them are trying to get the government to recognize their conscientious objection to military taxation by means of legal challenges.
But most of what they seem to be asking their fellow Quakers to do in this campaign is to “Pay Under Protest” — in which they would pay their taxes just as usual, but would then write their Congressional representatives to complain about the injustice of it all.
Their literature plays up this “Pay Under Protest” campaign as being “a campaign for war tax resisters” and a way to “take a stand against war taxes” as though writing a letter to your congressperson were actually a form of tax resistance.
I think the organizers see this as a way for potential resisters to dip their toes in the war tax resistance pool, and at least to get thinking about how they might confront their taxpayer complicity.
By enabling people safely and easily to get just a little forward momentum in this area, perhaps the campaign will cause them eventually to adopt some genuine war tax resistance tactics.
I’m worried that such an approach might backfire, and make it seem as though since the organizers are demanding only a small, insignificant, useless gesture, they must not be motivated by a very urgent concern.
Telling a Quaker that when she pays her taxes she’s buying war and that she should therefore start paying under protest is like telling a smoker that you’re concerned that he is in danger of cancer, heart disease, and emphysema and so you think he should start smoking under protest.
(How concerned are you really?)
The campaigners have convinced the Palo Alto Meeting to approve the following minute on war taxes:
As a faith community, we believe that war violates our shared religious conviction that we should love our enemies and acknowledge and nourish that of God in every life.
We declare as a corporate body our objection to paying war waxes.
We express our conviction in acts of individual witness ranging from letters of protest to government officials to acts of civil disobedience.
Nice that it merits mention, but pretty weak sauce.
Compare that vague expression of disapproval with the unambiguous declaration of conduct that the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting put out back in the day (this version comes from the Rules of Discipline of ; I’m not sure when it was originally adopted):
It is the judgment of this meeting that a tax levied for the purchasing of drums, colors, or for other warlike uses, cannot be paid consistently with our Christian testimony.
If you would like to assist in the effort to reinvigorate war tax resistance in the Pacific Yearly Meeting, or if you are a Pacific Yearly Meeting Quaker who practices some form of war tax resistance or protest and you would like to add your name to their list, contact Elizabeth Boardman, one of the campaign organizers.
A Portlander protests America’s wars one small IRS check at a time.
Evan Reeves says people don’t know how to protest anymore, and that the city
he loves disappoints him in particular.
“There is such a large group of young, creative people here,” says the
27-year-old Southwest Portlander. “And I think we can exploit that and take
advantage of it and really put Portland on the radar.”
Reeves — whose left arm features a tattoo of a distorted, industrialized
U.S. flag that he
describes as “almost anti-American” — is fed up with the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. That’s why he didn’t pay his 2009 federal income taxes.
But when Reeves began racking up massive fees that now total more than
$5,500, he decided it would only be a matter of time before the Internal
Revenue Service seized his bank accounts or garnished his paychecks.
So in , he decided to repay the money
in what he calls “the most difficult way possible.” Earlier
, he sent the
IRS
5,574 checks, one for each
U.S. service
member who had died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to that point. It
proved more difficult than he had imagined. “Probably more so for myself than
the
IRS,”
says Reeves.
The Facebook application designer and amateur photographer says he wrote each
check for 96 cents.
The checks and mailing process cost him between $400 and $500. He threw a
“check-signing party” with some friends to enlist their help in filling in
each memo box with the name of a soldier who had died.
“It felt really fun, and really awful at the same time,” says Pam Allee, a
67-year-old longtime tax protester living in North Portland who attended the
party. “We understood that these were people and not just letters on a page.”
Allee got to know Reeves through their involvement in anti-war websites. She
laments that tax protesters often back down under pressure from the
IRS and
never try again. She fears that without support, Reeves might do the same.
Richard Panick, the
IRS’s
spokesman, couldn’t comment whether the
IRS
will accept an individual’s payment. But he was surprised by Reeves’ method.
“This is something I have not experienced,” Panick says.
Reeves says he plans to take more stands against the
IRS. He
just doesn’t know how. He would like to find a way to raise more public
awareness next time for his defiance, maybe with a Last Thursday event.
Ellie Brown, a friend who graduated with Reeves from the University of
Michigan and moved west with him in , says
Reeves’ unique, passionate protest comes from the same place as his
photography.
Reeves, who moved to Portland to lead a car-free, bike-happy lifestyle, has
always been creative, the type of person who can always find something fun to
do on a Saturday night. Once, he and Brown drove around pilfering plastic
boxes and twist ties from a Kroger grocery store to build a robot on their
front lawn that towered above their roof.
“The neighbors already hated us because we didn’t mow our lawn,” says Brown.
“He had a name, but I can’t remember it.”
“Styrone,” Reeves says with a smile. “They [the boxes] are made out of some
chemical compound, polystyrene…. We wanted to give him a human quality.”
Reeves is not the first creative tax protester. Allee knows of people who
have paid their bills to the
IRS
in quarters.
On , Reeves
left on a three-month trip to Thailand with his partner, Katie Langdon. He
insists he isn’t hiding from the
IRS,
which should know how to find him by the time he returns.
“I think he’s being pretty brave. He’s putting a lot on the line,” says
Brown. “Not many people talk [back to] the
IRS.”
Reeves also tells the story on his blog, along with a photo of the thousands of checks, and a scan of the letter he sent along with them.
The Friends’ Intelligencer for summarized some news from the Woman’s Journal as follows:
Mary Anthony’s Protest
Miss Mary S. Anthony, of Rochester, N.Y., who not long ago subscribed the last $2,000 needed to secure the admission of girls to the University of Rochester, has notified the county treasurer that she will refuse to pay her taxes, on the ground that she is not permitted to vote, and that there should be no taxation without representation.
Miss Anthony is that sister of Susan B. Anthony of whom a relative once said, “Susan could always preach, but Mary practices.”
In Rochester alone 9,991 women pay taxes on $28,672,974 worth of property.
In answer, it is pointed out that minors, aliens, idiots, and insane persons are taxed, yet not allowed to vote.
Apparently, Anthony later dropped her refusal and decided to pay under protest instead — enclosing letters of protest to the City and County Treasurers’ offices with her checks.
In Palmer Park, Maryland, locals have been vandalizing and destroying the speed and red-light cameras that the government has set up to extract money from drivers by means of automatically-generated traffic tickets.
This has led to the amusing spectacle of the police there setting up surveillance cameras to keep an eye on their cameras.
One man literally pulled out a pistol and used the camera for target practice.
Police found another speed camera flipped over—leading police to believe a gang of people committed the crime, considering the weight of the camera.
Then there was the camera set up on a stand, near FedEx Field.
A man walked up to it, cut off one of the legs, and walked away.
… [O]ne of the cameras incinerated.
In another case, a man recently paid his $137 traffic ticket by folding 137 dollar bills into origami pigs, carefully arranging them in Dunkin’ Donuts boxes, and taking them to the police cashier.
The Greek “won’t pay” movement has launched a new phase of its constructive program — reacting to the closure of hospitals and other austerity-prompted decay of the public health system by creating its own
“Social Solidarity Clinic.” The clinic launched with a blood drive.
Not only does the United States itself possess the world’s most threatening and fearful arsenal of weapons by a significant margin, but it also is by far the largest dealer of weapons worldwide.
[T]he U.S.
[sold] $66.3 billion in weapons abroad [in
], a record itself, but also by far the
largest single year increase ever, over the $21.4 billion in 2010.
The sales amounted to about 78 percent of all foreign arms sales on the
entire planet. The second place arms dealer nation is Russia, which sold
less than $5 billion themselves.
One occasional tactic of tax resistance campaigns involves choosing a particular tax or portion of a tax to resist, not because that tax or that portion is particularly offensive, but because it is easier to resist or the ramifications of resistance are less frightening.
This, in theory anyway, will encourage more people to begin resisting.
Today I’ll give some examples.
The American war tax resistance movement for a long time targeted the excise tax on telephone service — both because it was a tax that had historically been instituted and raised to help fund war spending, and because it was a small and easily-resisted tax, so that people could start resisting quickly and without having to fear terrible government reprisals.
The small amounts resisted also meant that government action against any particular resister would be unlikely to be cost-effective.
War tax resisters in Denmark have a similar campaign of refusal to pay a small portion of their radio and TV tax (equivalent to the military spending percentage of the Danish budget).
Individuals pay this tax, while income taxes are withheld automatically under a pay-as-you-earn scheme, so this is a concrete way war tax resisters can resist.
Gandhi’s salt march and the salt-tax resistance campaign is now recognized as momentous, but at the time, many commentators ridiculed all of the fuss being made over a piddling little tax.
War tax resister Joanne Sheenan notes:
Gandhi’s Salt March initially involved only 80 people, but the act of picking up the salt from the sea and making their own salt in defiance of British taxed salt was revolutionary.
The power of the Salt March was that it became a massive campaign — there was something everyone could do.
Some packaged the salt, some sold it, all could refuse to buy the taxed salt and buy the alternative.
The British occupation government knew that this piddling little tax had big symbolic value.
At one point they hired hundreds of people to destroy natural salt deposits on a beach near Damni where Gandhi planned to try to harvest salt in violation of the ban.
There are periodic attempts in the American war tax resistance movement to try to get people to resist at least some tiny, symbolic part of their income taxes.
For instance:
In , the group War Tax Resistance encouraged people to withhold and redirect $10–$50 from their income taxes — a small amount because “the expense to collect the tax that is not being paid is far greater than the additional penalty imposed for the delinquent action.”
In , a set of anti-war groups tried to get people to withhold and redirect at least a single dollar from their taxes.
More recently, a “$10.40 for Peace” campaign asked people to withhold $10.40 (a sort of tribute to the IRS 1040 form used by people to file their income taxes) as “a small act of witness against war and for the rights of conscience.”
Most pathetically, a group of Quakers is now begging people to, if they are going to pay their taxes, at the very least “Pay Under Protest.”
Robert Fernandes of Forks Township, Pennsylvania, paid his $7,143 in property taxes with 7,143 dollar bills, as a way of making a protest against paying for public schools that his children don’t attend. “We don’t even use the public system, yet I am being forced to pay all this money into a public scool system. I don’t think that’s really either fair or just or even ethical. It would be the equivalent if McDonald’s were to force vegetarians to pay for their cheeseburgers.” Friends of Fernandes videotaped the action and put it on-line. “I wanted to create a visual,” said Fernandez, as a way to help taxpayers “see exactly how much taxes is being stolen from them.”
The percentage of households in the U.S. who are among the “lucky duckies” who pay no federal income tax is beginning to recede slightly.
But Howard Gleckman, at the Forbes blog, wonders if we’ve been overcounting ducks this whole time.
There are a surprising number (millions) of people in the U.S. who fail to file income tax returns even though they have had taxes deducted from their meager wages all year and are probably due refunds.
Because they don’t file returns, they are usually categorized as non-paying “lucky duckies” — but because they have had taxes withheld from their paychecks, they really don’t belong in that category.
Voters in Colorado decided to finally legalize recreational marijuana use.
But the prohibitionists are fighting back by trying to enact a prohibitive tax on marijuana that would effectively recriminalize it — forcing it back into the black market and erasing many of the benefits of legalization.
Legalization promoters there responded with a free marijuana give-away program in Denver (some coverage here, here, here, and here).
Residents of Hong Kong, worried by China’s recent moves to stamp out the remnants of democratic political power there, have for been engaging in large-scale “Occupy”-style protests.
You may have heard this in the news under the names “Occupy Central” or the “umbrella movement.”
multiple HK$68.90 tax payment checks being sent as a protest by an “umbrella movement” activist
The occupy-style street protest phase of this movement is coming to a close, or at least a pause, whether from dwindling momentum, diminishing returns, or a ramping up of authoritarian repression. So now the movement is switching tactics.
On , a coalition of groups launched a “non-cooperation movement” featuring forms of tax resistance.
The two tax resistance tactics being proposed are modest and largely symbolic in nature.
Residents of government-run housing are being asked to delay their rent payments as long as possible (公屋延遲交租 — Gung Uk Yinchi Jou), without actually risking eviction.
Taxpayers are being asked to pay in a way that causes inconvenience for the state — by dividing up their tax payments into a number of individually-submitted, small amounts (分拆支票交稅 — Faanchaak Jipiu Gaau Seui) of HK$6.89, $68.90, or $689.
These amounts are meant to be symbolic of the 689 members of the 1,200-member election committee who elected anti-democratic, Beijing-leaning Leung Chun-ying as Hong Kong’s chief executive.
the non-cooperation movement has designed a set of rubber stamps to help people fill out multiple, small, symbolic tax payment checks and to decorate them with protest messages
Franklen K.S. Choi says the coalition behind the new movement is still developing its tactics. Choi promoted the idea of tax resistance this way:
“Taxpayers’ money should not be used to feed a violent government.”
They hope the tactics they have adopted thus far, which are not illegal, will encourage people to join the campaign who might otherwise be too timid to challenge the government.
They also hope to put pressure on the government both by delaying payment and by increasing the administrative costs of tax and rent processing.
There have also been hopes expressed that this protest might become something like a popular referendum on the Leung administration.
If you read Chinese or are patient with the current state of automated translation, you can follow some of the deliberations and pronouncements of the movement at their Facebook page or at inmediahk.net, or you can search for “良心抗稅運動” or “Leungsam Kongseui Wandung” (Conscientious Tax Resistance Movement).
Evan Reeves with his 5,574 checks
This is the first time someone from a foreign tax resistance movement has
reached out to me for advice, so I’m finding this to be particularly exciting.
They definitely seem to have a hunger for historical precedents (e.g. the tax
resistance examples of
Thoreau, the
anti-Poll Tax movement in the
U.K., and the
women’s suffrage movement).
If limiting government power by constitutional restraints doesn’t work, and if trying to influence elections to keep evil people out of office doesn’t work, what is left?
Some would argue nothing.
But, in reality the people can go on strike and refuse to finance or to fight in wars that have no legitimacy.
If the authoritarians continue to abuse power in spite of constitutional and moral limits, the only recourse left is for the people to go on strike and refuse to sanction the wars and thefts.
Deny the dictators your money and your bodies.
If enough people do this, the time will come when the dictators’ power will dissipate.
This month marks the 250th anniversary of the Stamp Act Riots that crushed Britain’s attempt to subject American colonists to a variety of taxes, that demonstrated the power of mass noncompliance, and that led the way to the American Revolution.
Jennifer Carr has penned a paper on how to improve the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act for the University of St. Thomas Law Journal.
It is… strange.
It puts some effort into tracing the history of conscientious objection to military taxation and the various legal arguments that have been put forward in its support.
And then it makes some suggestions for how to make “Peace Tax Fund” legislation more effective, suggesting that this moment of history is especially ripe for such a bill since politicians are sensitive to issues of conscience that showed themselves during and after the drafting of Obamacare.
But the paper doesn’t address the most glaring flaws of the current Peace Tax Fund legislation, and its proposals don’t really make the bill any better.
Still, there’s some satisfaction in seeing someone try to take all of this seriously and as worthy of some scholarship.
The New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters is going to be held in Hardwick, Massachusetts.
Details will be posted to the NWTRCC website eventually.
From a tax-evasion point of view, they are particularly attractive.
Cryptocurrencies possess the two most important characteristics of a traditional tax haven.
First, because there is no jurisdiction in which they operate (they are “held” in cyberspace accounts known as online “wallets”), they are not subject to taxation at source.
Second, cryptocurrency accounts are anonymous.
Users can start as many online “wallets” as they want to buy or mine Bitcoins and trade them without ever providing any identifying information.
Significantly, Bitcoin (and other cryptocurrencies) offer one additional major advantage to tax-evaders that traditional tax havens do not: the operation of Bitcoin is not dependent on the existence of financial intermediaries such as banks.
Bitcoin is exchangeable peer-to-peer by definition.
Bitcoin thus seems immune to the developing international anti-evasion regime [in which] financial institutions [are] the emerging agents of tax collection…
Thus, cryptocurrencies have the potential to become super tax havens.
Bitcoin transactions are not anonymous by default.
Indeed, there is a permanent record of every bitcoin transaction that is fully available to law enforcement.
If you want to use bitcoin anonymously you have to take careful steps to do so.
There’s a bit of interesting background in this IRS research paper about the process the agency goes through when it detects that someone has failed to file a tax return.
While movement folks talk about the intersectionality of racism, sexism,
classism, homophobia, war, climate change, and economic exploitation, too
often we do not go beyond the rhetoric. We are inviting people involved in
resisting these serious problems to make time to engage in dialog with
those involved in other issues and movements. We need to explore how we can
work together.
There have been some interesting posts on the NWTRCC blog in recent weeks:
Tax Collection Phone Call Cons — international grifter call centers are siphoning money from gullible Americans by impersonating the IRS. War tax resisters may be particularly vulnerable as an angry call from the IRS is almost expected. Here’s what you need to know to keep from getting scammed.
Understanding common IRS collection letters — the IRS doesn’t tend to call you. They prefer to send you letters. Here’s a field guide to some of the variety of letters war tax resisters tend to see.
Join NWTRCC at the SOAW border convergence! — NWTRCC will be among the groups represented at a protest of U.S. border militarization and its treatment of new immigrants, migrant workers, and refugees .
Reasons to Celebrate — NWTRCC coordinator Ruth Benn celebrates another year of refused taxes sliding off of the statute-of-limitations 10-year limit and forever out of the IRS’s reach.
Ammon Hennacy and other early modern war tax resisters — Erica Weiland discusses some of the personalities and actions of the war tax resistance movement that began to coalesce in the United States around the end of World War Ⅱ, as found in Ammon Hennacy’s writings.
The Wealthy Accountant lists 10 ways to legally stop paying taxes — basically a list of varieties of income that are not taxed. You may find this useful food for thought.
The Keene, New Hampshire government has thrown all sorts of resources into trying to get a restraining order against the “Robin Hoods” who follow their parking enforcement officers around time, feeding the meters ahead of them and preventing them from writing lucrative tickets. So far, no luck, but they’re making one more desperate appeal to the state supreme court.
The tactic of paying your taxes in wagonloads of pennies or other small-denomination money, as a way of protesting and of obstructing the tax bureaucracy, is usually the one-off protest of a single fed-up person. But lately in Illinois, it’s become an organized and ongoing tactic:
Residents have to stick around if they pay property taxes in dollar bills — “Treasurer Glenda Miller announced a policy requiring people who pay their tax installments in large sums of cash to be physically present while the money is being counted. Miller said in a news release that the policy is for the protection of both the taxpayer and her staff.… ‘The five hours that it took for my staff to count the cash prevented her from continuing her regular office duties,’ Miller said.”
Tax protest group rallies, pays McHenry County property taxes in $1 bills — “Because Illinois has more units of government than any other state — property tax bills easily can have 10 or more bodies on them — attending all or most of their meetings to ask for tax relief is a huge undertaking for a taxpayer.”
Google Translate is only giving me a hint of what’s going on here but it included what sounds like an hours-long sit-in to block a tollgate, followed by arrests, in India.
Some links of interest from here and there:
I’m sure seeing a lot of Americans expressing their desire to stop paying taxes, now that Trump is going to be the one to spend them.
Most of this is just blowing-off-steam, I expect, but some is in earnest. One example is this post from Rachel Murphy Azzara: Tax Resistance Is Our Last Recourse.
The (U.S.) National Taxpayer Advocate issued its annual report recently.
The report includes a useful appendix summarizing the literature on Behavioral Science Lessons for Taxpayer Compliance.
Most of this literature is written from the point of view of learning how to make subjects into more compliant taxpayers, but there are usually good lessons for those of us who are trying to do the opposite.
Beware though of the social science replication crisis which may make many of these findings worthless.
Mexico is also aflame with tax resistance sentiment, following the gasolinazo in which the process of somewhat privatizing the state-run gasoline monopoly led to a recent hike in gas prices.
Here’s an example of coverage from Uruapan.
Some links of interest:
Frida Berrigan writes: Why tax resistance under Trump needs its antiwar edge. A nice article that’s not all that well-described by its headline, describing current American anti-Trump tax resistance and how it fits in to the long-standing war tax resistance tradition.
Manoj Viswanathan Presents Tax Compliance In A Decentralizing Economy — Viswanathan says the current tax authorities depend on centralized intermediaries (banks, employers, brokers) to report financial transactions to the government. But blockchain-related technologies like Bitcoin may displace banks and brokers, and gig-economy innovations may reduce the use of employers.
A coalition of grassroots anarchist / anti-authoritarian groups in Greece sabotaged more than 200 public transit fare-enforcement machines. The Greek government has been frustrated in its attempts to raise money through straightforward taxation, and has increasingly been relying on increases in fares, highway tolls, and utility bills. 40% of Greeks are unable (or unwilling) to pay their utility bills. Some have taken to using devices that interfere with the electricity meters; others have been assisted by Den Plirono activists who reconnect the power to residences that have been cut off for failure to pay the electric bill.
My local newsweekly, the New Times, covered my
tax resistance today: Snubbing Uncle Sam: Local resident touts tax resistance as protest.
They also did one of those we-ask-a-man-on-the-street sidebars where they
asked four people: “What
is your opinion on people who don’t pay taxes as a form of protest?”
and got surprisingly positive answers. I expect the typical
man-on-the-street to reach for the old familiar clichés about “who will fix
the roads if we don’t pay our taxes” and so forth, but three out of four
people who were asked supported tax resistance.
Steve Ballmer, ex-Microsoft CEO, has launched a new project — USA Facts — that is meant to be a thorough, non-partisan, unbiased source of information about government spending.
By non-partisan they mean “credulous and non-judgmental” and by unbiased they mean “exclusively relying on government sources,” so keep that in mind.
It’s naively cheery about the federal government, by design:
We soon discovered that dealing with something as big and complex as
government — with its more than 90,000 jurisdictions and 23 million
employees — required an organizing framework. What better place to
look than the Constitution, and, more specifically, the preamble to the
Constitution? It lays out four missions: “Establish justice, ensure domestic
tranquility; provide for the common defense; promote the general welfare;
and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” While
we don’t make judgments about policy, we all agree on the broad purposes of
government as laid out in the preamble to the Constitution.
That said, it may end up being a useful source for some information about taxes and spending.
NWTRCC has some follow-up on this year’s tax season:
Here’s a new item in the pay-under-protest file: Scott Dion paid his property taxes with a check that said “sexual favors” in the “Memo” field. The government has been refusing to cash it.
James Maule loves a story about a disgruntled taxpayer paying in a wagonload of small change. The latest story comes with a couple of twists: first, the county anticipated such protests and has an official policy of refusing to accept large payments in coins; second, over the course of the protest it was discovered that the tax assessor was sitting on 8,600 unread emails, which may explain why less-theatrical avenues of protest failed to work.
Speed camera vandals continue their bold assaults on traffic-ticket robots in Europe. The latest reports are of several attacks in France and Italy, and several more in France. Fire seems to have become a more popular weapon as winter has come on.
A retrospective of the history of the Project Learn School notes that the school, an independent cooperative, got a $5,000 loan from a war tax resistance redirection fund at a critical moment at its founding, and has been in operation for fifty years now.
Lebanon
I’m working off of Google Translate, and not an actual knowledge of Lebanese Arabic, but I think this says something like “No taxes for the power authority.
Gather in front of the TVA building to press the authority and confirm our demands, starting at six in the morning.
#مش_دافعين” The TVA building is home to the Finance Ministry.
I’ve been frustrated at the lack of detail in the English-language reporting out of Lebanon about the tax strike there.
It’s difficult to know how widespread it is, how central it is to the larger protest movement, or which tax resistance tactics are most prominent.
But here is some reporting:
“Protesters Are Wielding the Ultimate Weapon” (Haaretz) — “[T]he people behind the tax protest aren’t prepared to sit tight and wait patiently. They are calling on the Lebanese to stop paying their electricity and water bills, municipal taxes, fines and even their bank loans payments.” But who these people are goes unsaid. The reporter just quotes from a recently-created anonymous Twitter account. The article does have a good analysis of why the government power monopoly and its utility bills are a major focus of the protests.
another case, a man recently paid his $137 traffic ticket by folding 
Greek “won’t pay” movement has launched a new phase of its constructive program — reacting to the closure of hospitals and other austerity-prompted decay of the public health system by creating its own
