Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → Samoa → 1887, 1928

Well, thank goodness for the League of Nations. They had a nice committee to help New Zealand run Western Samoa (which the Germans wrested away from the Samoans and then the New Zealanders wrested from the Germans), and when it complained that it was having a hard time forcing the Samoans to pay tribute to their occupiers, the chairman of the committee essentially said: “you pussies need to take some lessons from Mussolini.”

From the 31 October 1928 Argus:

Samoa Mandate.

New Zealand’s Task.

Examination at Geneva.

Geneva, Oct. 29. — The Permanent Mandates Commission began an examination to-day of the New Zealand Government’s annual report of its administration of Samoa as mandatory on behalf of the League of Nations, to March 1928, in the presence of New Zealand’s representatives, Sir James Parr (High Commissioner), and Sir G. Richardson (Administrator).

The period, covered by the report saw the events traversed by the New Zealand Royal commission which inquired into the native agitation. Particulars were sought as to the present situation, and explanations asked for regarding certain information according to which portion of the population is still discontended.

Sir George Richardson explained that the so-called “Citizens’ Committee” still existed, and secretly kept in touch with the agitator O. Nelson, who is now in banishment. It also continued to contribute to the disaffection of the native population by spreading false news. The natives had been informed of the Mandates Commission’s work, but they had been influenced again by the intrigues of the agitators.

Sir James Parr said that the New Zealand Government reported that the situation had improved during the last six months, but immediate results could not be expected. Order was being maintained, and the Courts were now obeyed. Account must be taken of the fact that the Administration was compelled to deal with passive resistance in the shape of refusal to pay taxes.

The chairman (the Marquis Theodoli) remarked that they knew in Italy how to deal with those who refused to pay taxes.

Sir James Parr replied that they did not have a Fascist army in Samoa. The mandatory power was going to the limit of its patience before resorting to stronger measures.

The commission will further examine the report to-morrow.

Western Samoa finally gained its independence in 1962, after a campaign of nonviolent resistance in which tax resistance played a role.

Is there an “Eastern” Samoa? Yep. It’s called “American Samoa” and it’s not independent — it’s a “possession” of the United States and its residents are not represented in the government of the country that claims control over the islands.

From the 28 November 1887 Brisbane Courier:

The Germans in Samoa.

The Apia correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald, writing on 14^th instant, says that the withdrawal of Tamasese’s adherents left him but a mere handful of supporters in his camp at Mulinuu. Tamasese himself was ignored by his party, and the chiefs began to discuss among themselves what they should do about the payment of the tax, and to consider the situation generally. It was already understood that the money would be paid only under pressure, and the question was whether it should be paid in full compliance with the dictated law, or lodged with the governors, to be retained by them until a proper method of government be adopted. These discussions took place in several parts of the islands. Along at Atua, the eastern end of this island, there is a feeling towards paying the tax, but exempting old men and women and boys and girls, instead of levying in the wholesale fashion ordered by Tamasese. At one of the strongest districts, a village on Savaii, the people are reluctant to pay at all. They want to see Malietoa again before they pay, and are willing to join in fighting against the enforcement of the tax, even if the Germans should go and burn their village. Like other villages. they ask where their money is going; they do not want to pay anything to Tamasese or Germany. If Tamasese owes money to the Germans, let him pay it himself. At Aana, Tamasese’s own district, there is an important discussion now in progress. There are engaged in it the leading chiefs of the party whose decision carries the day. This fono began last week. Tamasese heard of it, and sent a notification prohibiting it. The chiefs went on unheeding, and sent back a reply warning Tamasese against talking to them again in the same manner, reminding him that he had never been king before, and that as he had now been made king only by the force of Germany, it would be better for him to keep quiet and leave them alone to hold their fono. This debate will probably decide the whole situation, for the people will be guided for the most part by the decision of Aana and Atua. The crisis is close at hand, for after the 15^th instant (to-morrow) the Tamasese “Government” will have to begin imprisoning all who have not paid their taxes, or else face the consequences of failing to act upon its threat. At this moment it is impossible to gather whether, and how many of, the Samoans will pay the tax.

From the 20 December 1887 Brisbane Courier:

The Germans in Samoa

The special correspondent of the Sidney Morning Herald, writing from Apia on 29^th November, says:— We have just passed through a very critical period, covering the time allowed for the payment of the taxes, and it has closed without the expected outbreak of hostilities. About the time that the tax fell due, and the wholesale imprisonment of defaulters was anticipated, there were meetings of influential chiefs in various parts of the islands to consider whether they should pay or not. The most significant of these meetings was held by Tamasese’s own party, at Leulumoenga. Tamasese sent a peremptory message to the chiefs prohibiting the fono, and they returned a defiant answer, and held their fono all the same. As far as can be learned, they decided to pay the tax — as it was not a large amount — into the hands of the officers, but that these officers shall not deliver it over to the Germans until a satisfactory settlement has been arrived at. Reports now came in from both Savaii and Tutuila that some of the chiefs were standing out against the payment of the tax. At Savaii, one of Tamasese’s policemen, sent to remind one of the chiefs to pay the tax at once, received a very significant answer. The chief told him that he had his repeating rifle, that his wife had hers, and all his family relations, some twenty altogether, had their repeating rifles, and that was all the money they had to pay taxes with. On Tutuila, it was said, Maunga Manuma and about 800 followers refused to pay unless they were absolutely compelled to do so. It is understood that the Government have now given the natives until the 10^th December to pay in the tax-money still unpaid, and after that date payment will be enforced. As for Tamasese himself, he is in very bad odour, and his position is weaker than ever. On the 24^th instant the German man-of-war Adler returned to Apia. Three of the German men-of-war left on Sunday, the 27^th — the Bismarck, the Carola, and the Sophie. They are understood to be bound for Hongkong. Two men-of-war have been left, and it is reported that a third vessel is on the way to join them, but this is not confirmed. From what I have stated, it will be seen that the prospect in Somoa is far from peaceful and satisfactory.

From the 29 December 1928 Argus:

Samoan Trouble.

Arrest of High Chief.

Interest in Mau Waning.

Apia (Samoa), December 11. — Following on the arrest on November 27 of Tamasese, the Samoan high chief and spokesman of the native organisation known as the Mau, the Administrator (Colonel Allen) is doing everything possible to create a spirit of reconciliation. The Mau committee, however, refuses to meet him and discuss the situation. Tamasese, who is aged 20 years, is the grandson of King Tamasese. Before the arrival in Samoa of the New Zealand cruisers in February he took no active or public part in the Mau movement. He was more or less forced into prominence by his native name and title. It must now be clear to Samoans that real force, with arms if necessary, can and will be used to enforce arrests. Previously they had the idea that armed forces would not be used against them.

The arrest of Tamasese took place at the village of Vaimoso, on a warrant for contempt of court in relation to non-payment of taxes. An armed party of 35 military police arrived at the village at daybreak. Vaimoso is about a mile from Apia, and for the last year has been recognised as the headquarters of the Mau. Two motor-lorries and a motor-van were used to carry the police to the village. When Tamasese saw the police he rushed to a plantation near by. The police gave chase and over-hauled Tamasese, who showed fight, but was overcome, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed. When taken back to his house a few stones were thrown and two of the military police were struck. Generally, however, no resistance was made by the villagers. It had been persistently rumoured that resistance would be made if the police attempted to arrest anyone in the village, and in view of what happened at the previous attempts to arrest Tamasese the police were justified in taking precautions.

Next day Tamasese appeared before Chief Judge Woodward to answer a charge of contempt of court. He was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for six weeks. At the High Court, Apia, Tamasese appeared before the Chief Judge on a charge of having resisted the police. He was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for six months, and is now at Vaimea prison. It was stated in the evidence that two Lewis machine guns were in a position for immediate action. One of the guns was pointed towards Tamasese’s house. The military party had fixed bayonets, but the officer in charge did not know who gave the order to fix bayonets. The Samoans, it was further stated, obeyed the order of their chief to keep the peace.

It will be remembered that on March 9, while the New Zealand cruisers were at Apia, a party of civil police attempted to arrest Tamasese at Apia, but were prevented by crowds of Mau supporters, who obstructed the police and managed to get him away in a car. On the same day, at Vaimoso village, another attempt was made by a party of civil police at his home. On that occasion the police were covered by a party of 30 men from the cruisers. Resistance was again made, and the police and the naval party, to avoid bloodshed, retired. further attempt to make an arrest was made at the home of Tamasese at Vaimoso on November 13. The party of six military police was stoned by women and others, and it retired.

The committee of the Mau continues to make its headquarters at Apia, and weekly meetings are held. Delegates are sent throughout the territory to keep interest alive, and, incidentally, collect what they term the Mau tax. Members of the Mau are encouraged to travel to Apia. They appear to be certain that Mr. O. F. Nelson, who has been deported for five years, will return. In the meantime normal affairs of the country and courts function, with the exception of the payment of taxes by members of the Mau. The courts deal with them in the usual way, and warrants of arrest are issued for default. Local interest in the Mau is waning. It is beginning to be realised that no good can come of such a hopeless situation. Two of the Samoan chiefs of the original committee, Amasaga and Ainuu, have publicly withdrawn from the Mau.

A news dispatch from this date in 1928:

Banished from Samoa.

Mr. Nelson in Sydney.

Sydney Tuesday.

Mr. Olaf Frederick Nelson, who has been banished from Western Samoa for a period of five years, arrived in Sydney to-day by the Waunganui from New Zealand. He is travelling to Geneva to be present when the League of Nations meets in June.

Petitions had been prepared by the Samoans, he said on arrival, and he was proceeding to Geneva in anticipation of his presence being required when they were presented. “I have no doubt,” he continued, “That the action of the New Zealand Government in sending warships to Samoa was to bring about a state of chaos in order to interfere with the signing, of the petitions. The Samoans saw that the Administrator (Sir George Richardson) wanted war, but they anticipated him, and cheated him out of it. The Administrator was disappointed because he could not get them to resort to violence, but the Samoans detected that, and before I left it was a case of passive resistance. Taxes, amounting to £25,000 have not been paid, including the poll tax due on September 30 last.”

Mr. Nelson complained about the partiality of the New Zealand press, and said that it the press had given a true picture of Samoan affairs, the people would have risen up against the policy of the Government.

Tax resisters and tax resistance campaigns have at times made use of barricades, blockades, and occupations to keep tax collectors at bay. Here are some examples:

• There were a number of prominent “sieges” in the tax resistance campaign that accompanied the British women’s suffrage movement. Dora Montefiore barred the arched doorway to her home against the bailiffs in 1906 and held out for six weeks before the bailiffs broke through,

  …addressing the frequent crowds through the upper windows of the house.

  WSPU meetings were held in front of the house daily, and resolutions were taken “that taxation without representation is tyranny.” After six weeks, the Crown was legally authorized to break down the door in order to seize property in lieu of taxes, a process to which Montefiore submitted, saying, “It was useless to resist force majeure when it came to technical violence on the part of the authorities.”

  The “Siege of Montefiore” was a publicity coup for the movement, and served as a useful rallying point for activists.

  On the little terrace of the front garden hung during the whole time of the siege a red banner with the letters painted in white: “Women should vote for the laws they obey and the taxes they pay.”

  Kate Harvey barricaded her home in 1912 and it took seven months for the authorities to crowbar their way in and seize her dining room furniture to auction for back taxes. The following year they needed battering rams to break her barricade. The Women’s Freedom League reported, of her first barricade:

  Passers-by read the bold declaration that she refuses to be taxed by a Government that refuses her representation because she is a woman. Her continued resistance has aroused keen interest in the London and Provincial Press, and afforded excellent “copy” for numerous illustrated papers.

  and of the second:

  An ingenious plan of protection had been devised and carried out, and the King’s officers wrestled with the fortifications for two hours before an entry was effected by means of a battering-ram!

  A newspaper article gives more details:

  Finally, after a heavy beam was used as a battering ram, the door went in with a crash. The door, however, led only to a narrow passage, where a still more obstinate door barred the way. A crowbar, battering ram, and a small jemmy were here brought into use, but even with those it was nearly half an hour before the door, almost splintered, gave way. Later, the hall was entered, where the tax collector was met by Mrs. Harvey and Mrs. [Charlotte] Despard. Here was little furniture visible, and it was not until a locksmith had forced the door of the dining room that the bailiff was able to place his levy upon goods. The amount of the tax, it is understood, is about £15.

  When the tax collector and bailiff came to seize goods from Isabella Harrison,

  Mrs. Harrison then gave instructions for the tradesmen’s entrance and windows to be locked and bolted, and herself opened the inner front door, closing it behind her and keeping her hand on the handle. The Tax Collector, who was standing with the bailiff inside the outer front door, asked if he was addressing Mrs. Darent Harrison, and hoped she would allow him to execute his trying task and produced his paper. Mrs. Harrison asked and was told the names of the local magistrates who had signed the warrant, and explained that her house could only be entered by force. … The Tax Collector protested that he could not employ force against a woman — that was quite out of the question. Mrs. Harrison then suggested that if he did not intend to stand there till he or she collapsed he must either employ force or call in the police to do so. He scoffed at the idea of sending for the police, but finally sent the bailiff to see if he could find any. But no police were to be found. The bailiff was next sent to get his dinner, and when he returned he reported “still no police anywhere to be found.” It was a complete impasse. They had been facing one another for three hours, and the Tax Collector seemed equally determined to “do his duty” and not to be guilty of even a technical assault on an elderly woman. It was only after being taunted with cowardice — with fear of the consequences of meeting moral with physical force — that he finally made an effort to get control of the handle of the door, and so with the assistance of the bailiff to force his way in.

  On an earlier occasion, Harrison had barricaded herself inside her home. Supporters brought her food and supplies by means of a basket she lowered from a window by a rope.
• There is at least one report of similar barricades in the American women’s suffrage movement. Lillie Devereaux Blake addressed a New York Women’s Suffrage Society meeting in 1873, and

  …narrated several anecdotes of vigorous ladies, who, in the security of their own castles, had defied all the approaches of the tax collector. One lady, she said, was in the habit of barricading herself in her house whenever the tax collector made his appearance, getting into a top room of the house, and from that coign of vantage, delaying the minion of the Government with potations from her parlors. [Laughter.] In this case, Mrs. Blake said it was suspected that the collector had paid the taxes himself, rather than submit to the convincing streams of the lady’s eloquence. [Laughter.]



• War tax resisters Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner refused to leave their home when it was seized by the U.S. government in 1989, defying a federal court order. When Kehler is arrested and imprisoned for contempt of court, a dozen affinity groups maintained a round-the-clock occupation of the home through 1992.
• During the Dublin water charge strike:

  People were told how to block up their stopcocks to make it difficult for their water to be cut off. Empty bean tins and a little bit of cement were the necessary ingredients.

• In 1922 a group of French syndicalists and unemployed workers rallied at the home of “two of their comrades who refused to pay the income tax” and successfully deterred the police and bailiffs from appearing.
• During the Fries Rebellion, officials tried to arrest Henry Shankwyler, but were foiled by a crowd of fifty supporters, who “went in advance of the officers, and, reaching the house before them,” intimidated the marshal into withdrawing without his prey. “Some said if he were taken out of his house they would fight as long as they had a drop of blood in their bodies. … Seeing that nothing further could be accomplished there, the officers took their leave. As they left the house the people set up a shout and hurrahed for ‘Liberty.’ ”
• Irish “Blue Shirts” held a rally in County Cork to protest government property seizures against tax resisters, and “[w]hile the conference was sitting, County Cork farmers felled trees in the roads, cut telephone wires and made other efforts to prevent further seizure of cattle for unpaid annuities.” At one point “police fired upon a crowd attempting to prevent the forced sale of cattle seized for non-payment of taxes,” killing one.
• Una Ridley, an English council tax resister, told a reporter in 2005:

  …how the couple had managed to foil efforts by bailiffs to remove property. “So long as you make yourself secure, close all the downstairs windows and all the upstairs ones too, the bailiffs cannot make an entry,” she said.

• In Samoa in 1928, officials tried to arrest Tamasese, the head of the Mau movement, for tax refusal:

  …a party of civil police attempted to arrest Tamasese at Apia, but were prevented by crowds of Mau supporters, who obstructed the police and managed to get him away in a car. On the same day, at Vaimoso village, another attempt was made by a party of civil police at his home. On that occasion the police were covered by a party of 30 men from the cruisers. Resistance was again made, and the police and the naval party, to avoid bloodshed, retired. further attempt to make an arrest was made at the home of Tamasese at Vaimoso on November 13. The party of six military police was stoned by women and others, and it retired.

• Barricades were used successfully in the battle against Thatcher’s Poll Tax. In one early case:

  Over 300 people turned up outside [Jeannette McGuin’s] house. Banners were hung out of the window saying “God Help the Sheriffs.” The sheriffs didn’t show up and Jeannette McGuin never heard another word from them.

  In some others:

  [I]n Edinburgh over 300 people filled a central high street to prevent a poinding… 200 activists guarded flats in the Grass Market area… and 150 people guarded 11 flats in Stockbridge and Comely Bank.

  In another:

  Demonstrators threatened to form a human blockade outside the home at Irvine of Mr Alex Smith, MEP for Scotland South, who has refused to pay a £50 penalty imposed for not registering for the community charge. However, before the protesters arrived, two sheriff’s officers, who called at Mr Smith’s home, left without trying to force entry after he refused to let them in.

  Jackie Moyers of the Mayfield/Newtongrange Anti-Poll Tax Union reported:

  The very first poinding which was supposed to have been taking place was in a small village called Pathead…

  The back of eight o’clock everybody started coming up, they actually started running a relay service, a shuttle service with cars going to collect people, and I’d say by about half-past nine to ten o’clock we had 110 people standing in the garden. It was a beautiful day, it was like everybody was sunbathing, having a day out; we stood about there, everybody singing songs, we had the records on, a couple of them had a wee drink, things like that, waiting on the sheriff officers coming…

  The sheriff officers turned up, got on the phone and, lo and behold, a police car turned up… So the police came up and asked us if the sheriff officers could get in and I said, “Well, I’m telling you, under no circumstances whatsoever are we allowing any sheriff officers into anybody’s house to carry out a poinding.”

  …So the sheriff officers turned around to the police, and says “I want him arrested, because he’s organising this,” and the police says, “well, we can’t do a thing.” And everyone in the garden, I says to them, well, “They want me arrested.” They says, “Well, if you’re getting arrested then all of us are getting arrested.” And by this time, the local coalman had come up the road in his lorry, stopped his lorry and blocked the street. The two guys at the back jumped off, and the coalman who was driving the lorry, they jumped over the fence and joined us. The local council workers, who were doing the windows at the time, downed their tools and got in the garden and supported us. It’s worse than jungle drums, because the local baker heard it, he came around with his baker’s van and started dishing out cakes to us. The sheriff officers were getting quite panicky by this time. The police got in their car and left the sheriff officers. I told them again. I said, “You’d better get going. It’s a waste of your time. We know you’re not going to get in, so there’s nothing else you can do.” … They tried to get in for five or ten minutes and by this time the crowd were getting quite hostile, and I says, “I think you’d better go to your car while you’ve still got four wheels and you’re still able to walk.”

  At Bishops Lydeard, people “divided up into small groups, and blockaded every road into the village.”

  Barricades were constructed and every vehicle which tried to enter was stopped and asked its business. … In the end, the bailiffs didn’t come near the place.

  Poll tax resisters also sometimes occupied or blockaded the offices of sheriffs and bailiffs.
• During the Edinburgh Annuity Tax resistance, blockades were used to obstruct the movement of constables when they were seeking to arrest resisters, and barricades were used to prevent property seizure. Here are excerpts from one government investigation of the Annuity Tax disturbances:

  …I saw sledge hammers and other instruments there to open the premises and get at the goods, but after labouring for half an hour or more they could not effect an entrance.

  Q: Was that because Mr. Dun used some of the metal in which he was a dealer to barricade his premises?

  A: Yes; tons of metal were put up against the back door, and it was impossible for them to get in.

  Mr. Dunn had barricaded the door of the room where the poinded effects were, so that an entrance could not be had… I found that the room where the poinded goods were was filled up to above the centre of the room with boxes filled with plates of iron of immense weight. We were told that the poinded goods were lying beneath those, and that we might get at them as we could. I sent for labourers, and had the whole of those boxes removed into the front shop until I got access, after great trouble, to the sheets of brass, which were the poinded articles. These were then declared by the sheriff officers to be of a different description, and inferior to what they had previously poinded; they refused to take them; and the only articles they recognised were some coils of copper wire; those they took to the police office, and those were all that were obtained on that occasion.

• During the Bardoli satyagraha, farmers famously barricaded their homes with their cattle inside to protect them from seizure.

  When the attachment operations began, minute instructions were issued to meet every situation. In the beginning only those who had received notices were to greet the attachment parties with closed doors. Then whole villages were turned into blackholes, and people who could not put up with the terrible strain involved were humourously asked to undertake a pilgrimage. When it was found that in spite of the greatest precautions, the Pathans managed to carry away carts, break into enclosures and unhinge closed doors, the Sardar [resistance commander] said: “Pull your carts to pieces. Keep the body in one place, wheels in another, and shafts in a third place; make your hedges extra strong with thorns and bushes; and fortify the doors in such a way that they might not be able to open them except by breaking them open with axes. Exhaust them thoroughly.”

  In order to save their beloved cattle 80,000 men, women, children with these cattle have locked themselves up in small and insanitary houses for over three months. As I passed through villages, silent, empty and deserted with sentinels posted at different ends, I saw women peeping through the barred windows to see whether it was the arrival of the japti [attachment] officer and on being reassured the doors being opened I was taken inside and I saw the darkness, the stench, the filth; and the men, women and children who had herded for months in the same room with their beloved cattle — miserable, lacerated, grown whitish by disease — and as I heard their determination to remain in that condition for months rather than abandon their cattle to the tender mercies of the japti officer I could not help thinking that the imagination which conceived the dire japti methods, the severity which had enforced them and the policy which had sanctioned them were difficult to be found outside the pages of a history of medieval times.

• In Alwar, India, in 1932, blockades were used against tax collectors:

  Thousands of armed Hindu Moslem [sic] peasants of splendid physique with fighting spirit are concentrating in an area of 22 square miles to repel the State tax gatherers.

  The roads by which the lorries have been bringing troops have been made impassable. The paths are blocked by huge boulders…

• “Early one morning in 1968 Karl North (Rochester, N.Y.) was alerted by neighbors that the IRS had seized his car and was about to have it towed for $11.29 in unpaid telephone tax. Without time to grab his car key, Karl rushed out of the house and lay down under the car. This disconcerted the IRS enough that when they stopped everything to call the police, he ran back into the house, got the key, rushed back out, and drove the car off.”
• Landholders in Tasmania launched a tax strike in 1874, and when the police came with distress warrants, “Householders padlocked their gateways, and mastiffs were chained at the approaches.”
• The tax resisters at the “New Rush” in South Africa in 1874 assembled a force to prevent the jailing of one of their comrades who had refused to pay a fine.
• The Hut Tax War in Sierra Leone began when a king named Bai Bureh assembled an armed group which successfully defended him against an expected attempt to arrest him for refusing to pay the Hut Tax — an attempt that a later government investigator labeled “aggression pure and simple on the part of the authorities.” Other angry kings and people, inspired by Bai Bureh’s successful action, rallied to his side.
• In 1934, drivers parked their cars in the middle of the streets in downtown Paris, blocking all traffic for 45 minutes at mid-day to protest a fuel tax.

Property seizures were also used by the British women’s suffrage movement as opportunities to hold protest rallies or for propaganda. Here are some examples from the news of the time:

• “Miss Muller, far from relenting to save her property, publicly advertised the date of the seizure, and invited the women of England to come and witness the disgraceful spectacle of a woman being robbed by the minions of the law because she dared to ask for a voice in the disposition of her taxation. The invitation was accepted by hundreds of well-dressed but excited and indignant women, who crowded into Cadogan Square and nearly mobbed the bailiffs while they were removing the lares and penates from the Muller residence. An indignation meeting was afterward held in Miss Muller’s drawing-rooms and many bitter and vehement denunciations of the tyranny and injustice of the law were indulged in.”
• “Miss Raleigh naturally made use of the occasion for propaganda purposes, conversing with the tax collector for some time on the subject of Woman Suffrage, and presenting him with Suffrage literature, which he accepted.”
• “A very successful protest was made at Finchley on May 29 in connection with the seizure of property belonging to Miss [Sarah] Benett, late hon. treasurer of the W.F.L. By courtesy of the auctioneer, Miss Bennet, was allowed to explain her reason for resisting payment of taxes. A very successful open-air meeting was held afterwards.”

Governments spend a lot of time and energy, and hire a host of political scientists and other such clergy, to try to convince their subjects that paying taxes is not only mandatory, but that it’s honorable, dignified, and charitable, and that conversely, failure to pay taxes is underhanded, shady, and selfish.

So governments and other critics of tax resisters and tax resistance campaigns are quick to deploy this available propaganda lexicon in their counterattacks. This can have the effect of putting the resisters on the defensive, message-wise. One way some resisters and resistance campaigns have tried to defuse this is through the use of escrow accounts.

The idea here is that instead of paying taxes to the government, the resister or resisters will pay their taxes into a special account that they will relinquish to the government at a future date if the government meets their demands. The message conveyed by this is that “we are willing to pay our share of money for the government’s upkeep — we’re not just keeping the money for ourselves — but we’re not going to do so until the government shapes up.”

Here are some examples of tax resisters and tax resistance campaigns that have used this technique:

• In 1887, Samoan chiefs met and decided to pay their taxes not to the German imperialist government, but to officers who were authorized to hand the money over to the Germans only if “a satisfactory settlement has been arrived at.”
• In 1938, a group of Catholic war veterans in Queens, New York began paying their property taxes into an escrow fund that they said they would refuse to turn over to the local government until it fired a Communist Party member from his post as a government advisor.
• In New Guinea, in 1969, natives in the Mataungan Association, upset at their political control being diluted in a local government that included immigrant representatives, set up its own tax agency and collected $29,000 “which, it says, it is holding in trust until the council reverts to its old native-only status.”
• In 1977 the Friends Meeting at Cambridge established a “Peace Tax Fund” that worked partially as a redirection fund, but which also anticipated that some contributors would want to release the funds to the government if the government provided a way to do so that would not make them complicit in military spending.
• Ed Guinan resisted his small business’s taxes by sending the checks to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. “They return it with a polite note saying that they cannot accept it, and we put it into a tax escrow account which cannot be used for normal business expenses.”
• In 1981, the Nashua Area War-Tax Resistance Support Group decided to keep the withheld taxes of its members in escrow “to be given to the government when policies change and when the money will be used for purposes other than war.” Resisters could reclaim their money from the fund if the IRS seized money from them individually, and meanwhile the interest earned in the account would be given to charitable causes.
• New England War Tax Resistance set up three funds — a mutual insurance “penalty fund,” a “Direct Giving Fund” for resisters who wanted to immediately redirect their taxes, and an escrow fund which would hold on to resisters’ money in case they at some future point decided they wanted to settle with the IRS.
• The Purchase Quarterly Meeting of Quakers set up something called the “Peace Tax Escrow Account” to which resisters could deposit their refused taxes and which the Meeting said it would turn over to the government if the government gave taxpayers a mechanism to pay such taxes without paying for the military functions of government.
• In 1990, District of Columbia politician Walter Fauntroy, upset at the District’s lack of political representation at the federal level, “asked city residents to file federal tax returns but withhold payment of federal taxes and place the money in an escrow account to be established by a group called ‘Taxation Without Representation Committee.’ ”
• The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Quakers lost a court battle in which the IRS hoped to force them to withhold taxes from a war tax resisting employee. They began withholding the taxes as ordered, but rather than submitting them to the IRS, they put the withheld money into an escrow account and told the agency they’d have to seize it themselves.
• In 2006, the Chamber of Commerce in Tijuana, Mexico decided to withhold taxes in protest against inadequate security during a crime wave there. The group brought in accounting consultants to help them establish an escrow account, in the hopes that the gesture would discourage the government from classifying the member businesses as tax delinquents.
• In 2010, New York state assemblyman Greg Ball encouraged his constituents not to pay their Metropolitan Commuter Transportation Mobility Tax but to instead deposit the amount due into an escrow account which would not be relinquished until the Metropolitan Transit Authority were audited and reformed.
• In 2010, shopkeepers in San Juan, Argentina, protesting against competition from untaxed and unregulated street vendors, began paying their taxes into a fund that they say they will only relinquish to the government when it begins to crack down on the street vendors.
• In 2011, Markus Zwicklbauer, a 58-year-old tax consultant from Fürstenzell, Germany, began paying his taxes instead into an escrow account which he says he will release to the government if the government can show him to his satisfaction that it will be spent for the benefit of German citizens and not wasted on bailouts of other Eurozone nations.
• A bar owner in Michigan in 2011, struggling in the wake of an indoor smoking ban that discouraged her customers, organized a tax protest of similarly-situated businesses that involved paying taxes into escrow.