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Spring 2011 NWTRCC national in Oakland, California
was the business meeting of the NWTRCC national gathering.
The way NWTRCC is organized, most of the group decisions are made using a version of the consensus model of decision-making, in which everyone present is part of the “coordinating committee” which advises and consents on the various agenda items.
The business meeting usually has a tight agenda, and this one was no exception, but we have a good track record at setting and keeping to a good schedule.
Erica Weiland facilitates part of the business meeting
Most of the meeting was uneventful: adjustments to and ratifications of our budget, objectives for the year, and so forth.
The big news for me, and for other folks in my area, is that the San Francisco bay area has “been volunteered” to host the next national gathering in .
After the business meeting, we had an informative counselors’ training session, featuring Peter Goldberger, a legal advisor for conscientious objectors and war tax resisters, who shared his insights into the legal ins-and-outs of war tax resistance counseling.
The coordinating committee of NWTRCC poses for a group photo
, Margaret Thatcher’s government instituted the dreaded “poll tax” in England.
It was widely-loathed and widely-resisted, in a campaign that not only ended the tax but probably Thatcher’s government as well.
The folks at kindandgenerous productions bring us a poem by Adrian Johnson (billed as the poet laureate of Birmingham) composed to commemorate the tax resistance struggle:
Still, no poll tax, eh?
Wat Tyler lost his head for it
a prime minister lost her job for it
thousands went to court against it
Trafalgar Square heaved with life and love and protest to stop it
civil courts got right shirty, filled with anger, ideas and spirit
for what’s right and fair and will power — to just not pay it
bailiff’s got over time, short shrift and rarely could collect it
MP’s sniffed the air and mumbled — far too late — ‘Now we’ve done it.”
Leaflets, banners and street protest said what they could do with it
friendships made and courage raised, together we could fix it,
stuff it, beat it, sod it
that flagship idea that spawned a mutinous flotilla
got scuttled by anger and laughter — stood together
mother, son and daughter
they knew what was right, wanted something better
Twenty years later, you’d hardly believe it
those passionate millions that stood against it
wouldn’t, couldn’t, shouldn’t’ave’ad paid it
the tax that came in just one size for the duke in his mansion
and dustman in his terrace
that shook us into action and life — and though overlooked by history
we can remember…
now and then, our story
remember, the laughter, friendship and life
standing up for something better
and still, no poll tax, here.
The new issue of More Than a Paycheck, NWTRCC’s newsletter, is now on-line, featuring the following stories:
No to War Again — a lead-off editorial about the evergreen resistance tactic of war tax resistance now that we’re confronting yet another war, this time in Libya
The crew from Northern California War Tax Resistance has been hard at work planning for the upcoming national gathering of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, which will be held from in Berkeley and Oakland. (You can find detailed information and a registration form at the NWTRCC website.)
’s program at the Berkeley Friends Church starts in the evening, with the registration table open at , dinner at , and introductions and orientation starting at .
At there will be a panel on innovations in social justice networking featuring Maritza Schäfer (who specializes in helping activist groups form their outreach strategies, and whom I know from her work with the Abundance League) and Mira Luna, an innovator of alternative local economic models such as the Bay Area Community Exchange.
On we move to the United Methodist Church on the shore of Lake Merritt in Oakland.
Breakfast starts at , and the program at .
At you’ll have a choice of workshops:
Outreach strategies and social justice networking
Techniques of simple living/low-income tax resistance
Confrontational war tax resistance
In the early afternoon we’ll have informal small-group discussions as we take sack lunches outside for a walk around the lake or a picnic in the park.
Then, from we’ll hold our War Tax Resistance 101 and 202 classes.
The 101 is intended for newbies and people curious about war tax resistance, and attendees will get an overview of the various methods of tax resistance and how to choose a method that fits your goals and your lifestyle.
There will be two 202 sessions for experienced resisters to talk shop about the latest developments, current challenges, and emerging techniques in resistance — one for the low-income/simple-living set, and another for the refuse-to-pay or refuse-to-file set.
After this will be a set of afternoon seminars.
You have the choice of attending a presentation by Michael Eisenscher on the New Priorities Network or attending two of the following shorter seminars (which will be repeating back-to-back):
After Dinner our evening program begins, featuring a granting ceremony in which our local alternative fund — The People’s Life Fund — gives grants of redirected tax dollars to deserving local groups, entertainment by musician Francisco Herrera and YouthSpeaks, and a talk from radical lawyer and two-time prisoner of war tax resistance J. Tony Serra.
we move back to Berkeley and have the business meeting of the coordinating committee of NWTRCC (that means anyone who considers themselves part of the group and cares to show up) at Berkeley CoHousing.
If you can make it out to this, it’s worth it.
You’ll meet people who have been resisting for decades and who use a variety of methods.
It’s a great way to learn more about resisting taxes and about the variety of approaches to conscientious activism.
I was so busy this time around putting on seminars and facilitating workshops and such that I didn’t take very good notes, but here is some of what I remember.
we were treated to a panel
featuring Mira Luna, who is active in local alternative economic projects like
the Really Really Free Market and a Time-Bank alternative hours-based currency,
and Kwan Booth, who is at the forefront of the movement to build a grassroots
hyperlocal journalism out of the ashes of the collapsing news media empires and
who covers much of the up-and-coming innovations in community organizing.
we had panels and presentations on
outreach strategies, in-your-face confrontational war tax resistance, working
with Thoreau in the classroom, home-brewing beer as a tax resistance strategy,
an introduction to the low-income simple-living tax resistance method, a look
at the New Priorities Project… and I’m probably forgetting some others. We also
split into a couple of “War Tax Resistance 202” sessions at which people who
practice the low-income method or the refuse-to-pay method could get together
and talk over the nuts and bolts.
In one of two break-out groups on , experienced resisters talk about their strategies for dealing with the IRS
, our local war tax
redirection fund held its redirection ceremony at which it awarded
$1,000–$1,500 grants of redirected war taxes to a number of local groups who
would spend the money more wisely than the government would. Interspersed with
the grant awards were performances by musician Francisco Herrera and a talk
from the irascible, inspirational, uncompromising radical lawyer Tony Serra,
who has been twice honored by the legal system for his tax resistance by being
awarded with prison time — which he compared to “throwing a doctor in a
hospital.”
J. Tony Serra addresses the gathering
, the coordinating committee of
NWTRCC
met to go over business — finances & fundraising, objectives, proposals,
changes of committee membership, that sort of thing. This was my last meeting
as a member of the Administrative Committee, as two of us rotated off and were
replaced by a couple of others.
I signed up for a new working group — the “rapid outreach working group” — which is tasked with identifying emerging groups, actions, and movements that
have a message that is harmonious with war tax resistance and reaching out to
them to show them how
NWTRCC can help them make war tax resistance a useful part of
their actions.
Members of the coordinating committee stuck around on to work out the nitty-gritty business of NWTRCC
Coincidentally while the meeting was going on I got two letters from the
IRS.
One was a copy of a “Notice of Levy” they sent to Fidelity, which
holds my retirement accounts, in an attempt to seize money to pay the taxes I
refused to pay for the tax year. But the
levy explicitly does not apply to
“IRAs,
self-employed individual retirement plans, or any other retirement plans in
your possession or control” so I don’t think the
IRS will
get anything out of it.
The other letter was a “Final Notice of Intent to Levy” based on what I
refused to pay for the tax year. For some
reason they sent me two copies of the same notice in the envelope. This notice
was packaged with a Form 12153 (“Request for a Collection Due Process or
Equivalent Hearing”) in case I wanted to bother with that, a copy of
Publication 594 (“The
IRS
Collection Process”), and a copy of Publication 1660 (“Collection Appeal
Rights”).
Each letter had a table on the back showing the amount they were after me for,
including “Statutory Additions” (interest and penalties).
