Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → Ghana → in 1854

Wo̱apoma apre̱m antum’ antow,
Wo̱apoma apre̱m antum’ antow.
Abro̱fofo akotw̌a ṅkontompo mā Abibifo yi tow.
E̱tow no, ye̱mmā ō; mpanyimfo, ye̱mmā ō,
Wóṅkose Obroni mmā o̱mmera!

(Cannon they have loaded, but couldn’t fire,
Cannon they have loaded, but couldn’t fire.
Whitemen dishonestly imposed poll-tax on the blacks.
The poll-tax we will never pay, the grandees never deliver up,
Go tell the white man to come out!)

This song comes from 19^th century Ghana which was partially under British colonial control at the time (they were in the process of taking over from the Dutch), and is taken from Carl Christian Reindorf’s History of the Gold Coast and Asante (1895).

The book gives some further context:

It was thought, when the English became possessed of the Danish settlements, that it would facilitate the introduction of custom duties, which would more than defray the expenses of government; but the Dutch government, whose settlements were dovetailed between the different English stations, having declined to impose similar duties, it was found necessary to abandon the project. Governor Winniett died on 4^th December 1850, without seeing the completion of this his favourite scheme. The company of 1^st West India regiment was sent back to Sierra-Leone, Governor Major Hill assumed the administration and the Gold Coast corps was instituted. His excellency, acting upon the recommendation of Lord Grey, who took a most warm interest in the advancement of the natives and made himself thoroughly acquainted with our condition, thought he could raise a revenue in the country, capable of defraying the expenses of the administration. The Fantes, the old allies of the English, may have then become alive to the necessity of contributing to the support of the government (it was even said afterwards that a single lady in Cape Coast alone suggested the idea), but our people here at Akra had not the remotest idea of supporting yet.

King Kodsho Ababio of James Town, king No̱te̱i Ababio of Christiansborg, king Kwadade of Akuapem, king Ata Panyin of Akem Abuakwa, king Agyemang of Akem Kotoku, king Kwadsho De̱i of Krepe, and the chiefs from Labade to Adà and Krōbō were all summoned to Christiansborg and had a grand meeting with governor Hill and commandant Bannerman. The necessity of contributing towards the administration of the government was suggested to them. They begged leave to retire for a few minutes to deliberate, which his excellency might have allowed; but captain Ade, an influential relative of Mr. Bannerman, stood and said, "I agree to contribute to the support of the English administration." The kings and chiefs then were forced to second the captain and the poll-tax of 15 strings of cowries, now three pence, but then six pence per head, was fixed. The customary presents of rum etc. were given, and the meeting adjourned; the kings and chiefs returned to their respective countries.

The government might in this case have taken a census of the whole population, and then fixed the yearly sum to be paid on the king or chief of a district or town respectively, holding him responsible, and appointing agents to receive the tax collected by the chief for the government. That would have certainly saved the trouble and all inconveniences connected with the business. Not doing so, the government simply constituted the following districts, without knowing the exact number of the people: the Akra district, Adangme district, Akuapem and Akem districts, and employed respectful native agents to collect the poll-tax. The first collection in 1851 was quietly and cheerfully given, yet some complained they had pawned their sons and daughters in paying it.

On the arrival of Major Hill in October 1851, Mr. Bannerman returned to Christiansborg as commandant, at which time the second collection of the poll-tax was to take place.

In the first week of January 1854, the acting governor Cruickshank arrived from Cape Coast, and after the customary salute had been fired by the young men of the different bands of Christiansborg, the grandees of the town paid their respects to his excellency on the next day. They were told by the governor that it was time to begin with the poll-tax again. They asked for a few days to consult about it and his excellency repaired to Cape Coast to be informed by Mr. Bannerman when the raising of the tax was to begin.

As the grandees had promised the governor, Mr. Bannerman, after a few days, sent for them to come to the castle to know what reply they had to give. They, knowing what they were about, hesitated in going to the castle, but assembled outside, requesting Mr. Bannerman rather to come to them. They were told at once to appear personally before Mr. Bannerman and to show cause why they should not come inside. They left the summons on the spot and retired to town. It was impossible for the commandant to overlook such an insult. He went out with the few soldiers to arrest the grandees, but none was found, save one, who even upon being arrested was rescued by his people. Mr. Bannerman therefore called the Akuashong and the native merchants to the castle and told them to advise the grandees to obey the summons on Saturday next.

But the grandees left the town and resided at Labade. Neither the Akuashong nor the native merchants could induce them to return. Hence this misconduct of the grandees towards the government was reported by Mr. Bannerman to the acting governor Cruickshank at Cape Coast. He therefore returned to Christiansborg in February. Meanwhile a night meeting of all the Akuashongs of Christiansborg, Labade and Teshi etc. had been convened at Kpeshinaī i.e. at the mouth of the lagoon Kpeshi, between Labade and Teshi on the 12^th January, and there they swore, not to let the grandees go to the fort nor pay any tax, even if the government should fight with them, and to make war with any party breaking the agreement. Previous to the taking of this oath chief Owu of Christiansborg, then employed in the capacity of the government interpreter, did not take part in this meeting; his brother Anang was required to take the first oath in the name of Owu. To this he objected, saying, he had not consulted his brother, and would therefore not do it. One Saki of Christiansborg then took the oath, the other headmen of the Akuashongs seconded him, and the meeting broke up. However, the headmen of Christiansborg were told by those of the other towns, that if they listened to tales of their coloured masters and mistresses to infringe the agreement, they would be made pads by which the castle of Christiansborg would be carried into the sea.

On Saturday the 14^th January over 3000 armed men of Christiansborg, Labade, Teshi, Ningowa etc. assembled at Klōtemushi, immediately under the loaded cannons and rockets of the castle. The educated native community, some Basel missionaries of Christiansborg, viz. Revs. John Stanger, C.W. Locher, John Zimmermann and August Steinhauser, a deputation from king Taki of Akra and Kwāme Mienya, an influential man of Cape Coast, assembled in a group of their own to try whether they could make peace. Mr. Julius Briandt of Christiansborg was the interpreter for the educated community. Badu Asōnkō, the powerful linguist of the infuriated people, addressed the assembly to the effect, that they would not serve the English government any longer, nor pay the poll-tax. Alimo, another powerful linguist of king Taki, replied that they might refuse paying the tax, but not throw off their allegiance to the British government. Badu Asōnkō was obliged to retract that part of his speech as to their throwing off allegiance to the English government.

A second grand meeting of the armed men was held a few days after this at Teiashi in the valley between Christiansborg and Labade — where they would be safer from the actions of the cannons, than in the site selected the previous day.

Here Messrs. J. Richter and H. Svanikier most vividly pointed out to the chiefs of Christiansborg the danger of fighting the government, advising them never to mind what the other townspeople said, that Christiansborg might not be destroyed. A stir was made by some ruffians when they perceived the chiefs of Christiansborg were on the point of giving in, upon which the whole assembly, amounting to over 4000 men, at once took up arms to attack the merchants. Failing a second time with their negotiation for peace, the educated community of Christiansborg reported the state of things to King Taki. He summoned the armed men to meet him at Okaishi near Dutch Town. Over 4000 armed men assembled there, but with no good result; so they all marched back through Christiansborg to Labade. Fires from the loaded cannons and rockets could have been easily opened upon them when passing by the fort; yet the government exercised patience with their folly. They were, however, warned never to come again to Christiansborg so armed.

After such an insult to the British flag the garrison was strengthened with munition, provision and soldiers, and Mr. Cruickshank, witnessing all these, deliberating as to march out against the rebels. Another rush into Christiansborg was made to capture chief Owu; but he had escaped to Akra. Like mere boys, they first sang to welcome the British government, and now composed [the song whose lyrics are reproduced above] against them.

The British eventually did fire their guns, scattered the forces arrayed against their garrison, looted the evacuated local towns, and then enforced a truce by taking hostages.

Some excerpts from the debates about the tax resistance campaign are preserved in Johann Zimmermann’s A grammatical sketch of the Akra- or Gā-Language and a Vocabulary of the same, Volume 2 (1858), pages 187–193. Here’s an excerpt from Badu Asōnkō’s speech on 14 January 1854:

[Lists some grievances.] And now it is also said: Above this there shall polltax be raised! — And some have sold their children and things because of this polltax (the first time); and to day — after a long time — it is said, it shall be raised again! … But the tax they do not pay, heh! they do not pay! … Fathers! Is this not what you said? (Answer of all): “Ā! we give not one penny!”

A couple of days ago I gave some examples of social boycotts and shunning being used as a way of discouraging non-participation in a tax resistance campaign.

Campaigns have also used threats of violence and other, more ambiguous threats as a way of trying to coerce reluctant people into resisting their taxes. Here are some examples:

• During the Whiskey Rebellion, rebels threatened to destroy the stills of distillers who complied in paying the excise tax. Here are some other examples:
  • A letter from “Tom the Tinker” (a collective alias used by the rebels) to one distiller told him that he must stop paying the tax, must join them in their paramilitary activities, and must publish the letter containing these threats in the newspaper at his own expense.
  • Alexander Hamilton complained that “nor were the outrages perpetrated confined to the officers; they extended to private citizens who only dared to show their respect for the laws of their country.” Also: “a person of the name of Roseberry underwent the humiliating punishment of tarring and feathering, with some aggravations, for having in conversation hazarded the very natural and just but unpalatable remark, that the inhabitants of that county could not reasonably expect protection from a government whose laws they so strenuously opposed.”
  • “Robert Shawhan, a distiller, who had been among the first to comply with the law, and who had always spoken favorably of it… had his barn burnt, with all the grain and hay which it contained.”
  • There were “threats of tarring and feathering one William Cochran, a complying distiller, and of burning his distillery; and that it had also been given out that, in three weeks, there would not be a house standing in Alleghany County, of any person who had complied with the laws.”
  • “[M]en called at the house of James Kiddoe, who had recently complied with the laws, broke into his still-house, fired several balls under his still, and scattered fire over and about the house.”
  • “James Kiddoe, the person above mentioned, and William Cochran, another complying distiller, met with repeated injury to their property. Kiddoe had parts of his grist-mill at different times carried away, and Cochran suffered more material injuries; his still was destroyed, his saw-mill was rendered useless by the taking away of the saw, and his grist-mill so injured as to require to be repaired at considerable expense.”
• During the Fries Rebellion, also, one family “said there were some bad people living in the neighborhood who would do them injury if they submitted to the rates.”
• The Rebecca Rioters sometimes took or threatened reprisals against those who willingly paid tolls or who refused to join their tollbooth destruction gallivants:
  • One notice from the rioters read: “This is to give notice, that the goods of all persons who will henceforth pay at Water Street Gate will be burned and their lives will be taken from them at a time they will not think — ’Becca.”
  • “Mr. Thomas of Clynarthen, having refused to join them, had his wheat-field entirely destroyed before morning, by their turning cattle from the mountain into it that night.”
  • “[T]he farmyard of Mr. Howell Davies, a respectable farmer living in the village of Conwil, and an Anti-Rebeccaite, was set on fire. With the assistance of the neighbours the fire was ultimately got under, but not until two ricks of hay and three stacks of corn or straw had become a prey to the devouring element.”
• During the 1907 tax strike in a French wine region, “there have been threats to burn the property of those mayors failing to resign and of those taxpayers who satisfy the taxgatherers’ demand.” And “committees have been nominated to see individuals who have not undertaken not to pay taxes.”
• In Ghana in the mid-19^th century, a meeting of rebellious groups “swore not to let the grandees go to the fort nor pay any tax, even if the government should fight with them, and to make war with any party breaking the agreement.” At one point, making good on this threat, “[a] stir was made by some ruffians when they perceived the chiefs of Christiansborg were on the point of giving in, upon which the whole assembly, amounting to over 4000 men, at once took up arms to [threaten to] attack the merchants.”
• A report on the Beit Sahour tax resistance movement said of businesses in the town that “if they paid, they undermined the resistance movement, [and] were harassed and threatened by intifada leaders.”

Other descriptions are more vague, and may or may not imply violent threats:

• In the French revolution, “[i]f a docile taxpayer happens to be found, he is not allowed to pay the dues; this seems a defection and almost treachery.”
• During the Irish Tithe War, “the public opinion of Ireland was dead against the payment of tithes. That public opinion hinted pretty plainly to those who were willing, for peace and quietness, to pay tithes to their Protestant masters, that such payment would not necessarily secure to them peace and quietness.” A meeting of Kilkenny farmers passed a resolution saying that, “we consider the man that pays tithes (unless he be a Protestant) an enemy to his neighbour, an enemy to his country, an enemy to his religion, and an enemy to his God.”

A very frequently-used tactic of tax resistance campaigns is to take public oaths or sign public pledges of resistance. This signals to potential resisters that they will not be alone, and is a show of defiance to the authorities. I’ve collected dozens of examples, which I’ll summarize here:

• When Gandhi launched his first satyagraha-based campaign in South Africa in 1906, a member of the meeting asked everyone present to take a solemn oath of opposition. Gandhi remarked:

  There is no one in this meeting who can be classed as an infant or as wanting in understanding. You are all well advanced in age and have seen the world; many of you are delegates and have discharged responsibilities in a greater or lesser measure. No one present, therefore, can ever hope to excuse himself by saying that he did not know what he was about when he took the oath.

  I know that pledges and vows are, and should be, taken on rare occasions. A man who takes a vow every now and then is sure to stumble. But if I can imagine a crisis in the history of the Indian community of South Africa when it would be in the fitness of things to take pledges, that crisis is surely now. … Resolutions of this nature cannot be passed by a majority vote. Only those who take a pledge can be bound by it. This pledge must not be taken with a view to produce an effect on outsiders. No one should trouble to consider what impression it might have upon the local Government, the Imperial Government, or the Government of India. Every one must only search his own heart, and if the inner voice assures him that he has the requisite strength to carry him through, then only should he pledge himself and then only would his pledge bear fruit.

  His entire speech, which reflects on vows and the responsibility of vow makers, is worth reading in this context.
• In 1935, “98 per cent of the merchants at Stuttgart and… 60 out of 60 merchants at DeWitt,” Arkansas, signed pledges to refuse to collect a new sales tax from their customers or to pay it to the government.
• Also in 1935, in Verdun (then a suburb of Montreal), 164 shopkeepers, including the mayor, signed a pledge to refuse to collect or pay a Montreal city sales tax.
• The following year, merchants in Gadsen, Alabama followed suit: gathering and voting unanimously to refuse to collect or pay a sales tax.
• In Ghana, in 1854, the Akuashongs met and “swore not to… pay any tax, even if the government should fight with them, and to make war with any party breaking the agreement.”
• In 1829 several French newspapers printed the text of a pledge in which French liberals vowed to resist any taxes that the monarchy instituted without going through constitutional channels. The newspapers were themselves prosecuted for this. However, in court, they pointed out that the King himself, before he took the throne, had signed a tax resistance pledge of his own, along with three other members of the nobility, as a protest against republican infringements on their privileges.
• In Castine, Maine, in 1975, the pledge took the form of a vote: the town voted 125 to 65 at a specially-convened town meeting, to refuse to collect a school funding tax in defiance of a superior court order to do so.
• In 1913, some 5,000 businessmen in Belfast vowed to “keep back payment of all taxes which they can control, so long as any attempt to put into operation the provisions of the Home Rule Bill is persevered in.”
• In the Women’s Tax Resistance League, members signed “pledge cards” that indicated which taxes they would be resisting if the government persisted in denying women the vote.
• The Reform Act agitation really hit its stride in 1831 when a huge rally, 150,000 people strong, vowed as a group to stop paying taxes until the Act’s passage. One account of the meeting read:

  He declared before God, that, if all constitutional modes of obtaining the success of the reform measure failed, he should and would, be the first man to refuse the payment of taxes, except by a levy upon his goods [tremendous cheering, which lasted some minutes]. I now call upon all who hear me, and who are prepared to join me in this step, to hold up your hands [an immense forest of hands was immediately elevated, accompanied by vehement cheering]. I now call upon you who are not prepared to adopt this course, to hold up your hands and signify your dissent [not a single hand appearing, loud shouts and cheers were repeated].

• In South Africa’s “New Rush” in 1874, a number of miners signed a pledge reading, in part, “I promise on my honour and in presence of the people that I shall not from this day forward — until released from this obligation by the officers of the League — pay any taxes or impositions whatsoever to the Government, id est, for the support and maintenance of the Government of this territory; and that I shall buy from, sell to, or deal with only such men as have also taken this pledge or obligation; and that I shall to the utmost of my power, with purse and person, protect any and every officer and member of the League against coercion or consequences of what nature soever arising out of the action necessitated by this pledge.
• At least 1,000 taxpayers in Elmira, New York, signed a declaration in 1933 saying that “The undersigned taxpayers… believing the county, city, and school tax rates as levied are too high, hereby refuse to pay until the budget has been thoroughly examined by the committee of the Taxpayers’ league. We also refuse to pay penalties until such revision has been made and a lower tax adopted.”
• 500 taxpayers in Cadillac, Michigan, signed a petition in 1961 in which they vowed to refuse to pay taxes for two years unless the local government cut its budget by 20%.
• In 1715, 36 New Jersey residents signed their name to a petition to the home country in which they declared that they would refuse to pay any further taxes so long as a Roman Catholic was in charge of tax assessment.
• At a “monster meeting” at Castlemaine in Australia in 1854, a group of miners unanimously adopted a resolution to refuse to take out licenses.
• Taxpayers in Zeehan, Tasmania, met in an open-air meeting in 1904 and passed a resolution stating that they “hereby express our solemn determination to passively resist the payment of the unjust income tax imposed by the late Government.”
• A Queensland, Australia stealth tax on rural irrigation improvements, was resisted by the farmers there in 1927, who, organized in groups called “Local Producers’ Associations,” passed motions vowing to resist. For example, the Association in Rockhampton “unanimously decided that all members pledge themselves to offer passive resistance to the operation of the Act by refusing to make the required applications or to furnish any returns, or to make any payments as demanded by the Act. Further, it was decided to invite all other LPAs and kindred bodies to adopt a similar attitude.”
• Earlier this year, about twenty households near Paddock Wood, England, “signed a declaration to withhold [tax] payments” to protest the lack of government action against vagabonds camping in their neighborhood.
• When the Russian Duma-in-exile issued the Vyborg manifesto in 1906, calling on Russians to refuse to pay taxes to the Czarist autocracy, a number of villages responded by voting whether or not to heed the call and then taking the results of the vote as a pledge they were bound to abide by.
• In 1938, 149 members of a Catholic War Veterans post vowed to refuse to pay their real estate taxes unless the government dismissed a Communist Party member from his post as an advisor to the Borough President of Manhattan.
• At a meeting of the Charleston Board of Trade in South Carolina in 1871, the white supremacist group unanimously passed a series of resolutions declaring that they considered debts incurred by the reconstruction government to be illegitimate and that they would resist the payment of taxes meant to pay them off.
• At a mass meeting of white supremacists in Louisiana in 1872, they passed a resolution vowing that “we will pay no more taxes to State or city.”
• Some resisters of Thatcher’s poll tax made their resistance dramatically public by burning their “final reminder notices” at demonstrations.
• This tactic has been prominent in the American war tax resistance movement. For example:
  • In 1951 the American pacifist group Peacemakers released a statement, signed by 59 members, in which “the undersigned state hereby that we are not going to pay our federal taxes.”
  • In 1966, some 370 people signed a public oath saying “We will refuse to pay our federal income taxes voluntarily.”
  • In 1967, more than five hundred writers and editors added their names to a war tax resistance pledge that appeared as a newspaper advertisement. The names included James Baldwin, Noam Chomsky, Philip K. Dick, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Grace Paley, Susan Sontag, Benjamin Spock, Gloria Steinem, William Styron, Hunter S. Thompson, Thomas Pynchon, Betty Friedan, and Kurt Vonnegut.
  • Also in 1967, a letter was circulated largely among academics, and signed by more than a dozen professors, among others, organized as the “No Tax for War Committee” in which the signatories pledged to “withhold all or part of the taxes due” and urged the recipients to join their public pledge.
  • The ongoing War Tax Boycott has a public sign-on component.

Some tax resistance campaigns have had their own anthems or fight songs.

• Mahadev Desai, in The Story of Bardoli, mentions such songs on a few occasions:

  I paid a visit along with Sjt. Vallabhbhai to one of these [Raniparaj] villages. … The young women, who had taken the Khadi pledge three years ago in the presence of Gandhiji and shed their trinkets and heavy brass ornaments, were all there in spotlessly white Khadi, brimming over with joy and lustily singing Satyagraha songs.

  The mention of the Satyagraha songs reminds me of one or two things that happened during the month. … Phulchandbhai had already some songs ready, and the atmosphere in the taluka gave him the inspiration for many more. These friends were posted at Valod, and thanks to their bhajans they were in great demand everywhere. The plain and homely songs spread the message of Satyagraha in a most effective manner, and men, women, and children had them on their lips. One cannot speak too highly of the part played in the movement by Phulchandbhai and his songs.

  I shall describe one of the scenes. We visited Nani Phalod, a small village, at about 9 p.m. There was a huge procession of men and women, the former singing Satyagraha songs, and the latter singing a song from an old saint of which the refrain was: “All our sorrows have ended, now that the Master has come.”

  There were huge meetings everywhere, attended by hundreds of women, laying heaps of [homespun] yarn before Sjt. Vallabhbhai, as in 1921, and lustily singing bhajans. The invincible spirit of the people evidenced everywhere was bound to exasperate the officials even more.

  The women of Varad… had their own songs, some of them being old songs of the saints and some composed by themselves to suit the fight in which they were engaged, and tacked on to the originals. One of these songs sung soulfully by them ran:

  With full knowledge take up your arms even like a Gnani (seer). Let Purity and Contentment be your armour and Courage your shield. The valiant shall rush to the forefront, the laggards will be beaten and will take to their heels. With full knowledge, therefore, take up the fight like the Gnani.

  The path of fight is not strewn with roses. It is sharp as the edge of the sword, for it is the fight for Truth. Let us therefore be wide awake like the Gnani. With full knowledge etc.

  The tyrant has run amok and crushed the ryot under his heels. We slumbered so long, we have now found our Guru and are blessed with knowledge. With full knowledge etc.

  He has taught us to pit righteousness and truth against oppression and injustice. God is sure to run to the rescue of right and vanquish the wrong. With full knowledge etc.

  Vallabhbhai our leader assures us that ultimately victory is ours. Let us therefore keep our pledge. With full knowledge etc.

• The boycotts and tax strikes of the American Revolution also had their songs. When patriots gathered to spin home-spun yarn, the work would be accompanied by “many stirring tunes, anthems, and liberty songs,” such as the following:

  Young ladies in town, and those that live round,
    Let a friend at this season advise you;
  Since money’s so scarce, and times growing worse,
    Strange things may soon hap and surprise you.

  First, then, throw aside your topknots of pride;
    Wear none but your own country linen;
  Of economy boast, let your pride be the most
    To show clothes of your own make and spinning.

  What if homespun they say is not quite so gay
    As brocades, yet be not in a passion,
  For when once it is known this is much worn in town,
    One and all will cry out— ’Tis the fashion!

  And, as one, all agree, that you’ll not married be
    To such as will wear London factory,
  But at first sight refuse, tell ’em such you will choose
    As encourage our own manufactory.

  No more ribbons wear, nor in rich silks appear;
    Love your country much better than fine things;
  Begin without passion, ’twill soon be the fashion
    To grace your smooth locks with a twine string.

  Throw aside your Bohea, and your Green Hyson tea,
    And all things with a new-fashion duty;
  Procure a good store of the choice Labrador,
    For there’ll soon be enough here to suit you.

  These do without fear, and to all you’ll appear,
    Fair, charming, true, lovely and clever;
  Though the times remain darkish, young men may be sparkish,
    And love you much stronger than ever.

  Then make yourselves easy, for no one will teaze ye,
    Nor tax you, if chancing to sneer
  At the sense-ridden tools, who think us all fools;
    But they’ll find the reverse far and near.

• The modern American war tax resistance movement has in recent years managed to collect its own funk anthem (“What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes?” by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings):

  I was talking to a friend of mine
  Said he don’t want no wars no more
  They’re building bombs while our schools are falling
  Tell me what in the hell we’re paying taxes for

  What if we all stopped paying taxes?
  Now, what if we all stopped paying taxes?
  Stop paying taxes y’all

  Now tell me who’s gonna buy their bombs
  Their tanks, their planes and all their guns
  Well, tell me who’s gonna pay for their wars
  If we all get together and cut their funds

  Hey, listen people, listen to what I’ve got to say
  What if we all stopped paying taxes?

  folk song (“Don’t Be Afraid of the Neo-Cons” by Norman Blake):

  Don’t send your money to Washington
  To fight a war that’s never done
  Don’t play their games don’t be their pawns
  And don’t be afraid of the neo-cons

  and rap (“Uncle Sam Goddamn” by Brother Ali):

  You don’t give money to the bums
  On the corner with a sign, bleeding from their gums.
  Talking about you don’t support a crackhead —
  What you think happens to the money from yo taxes?

  Shit, the government’s an addict
  With a billion dollar a week kill-brown-people habit
  And even if you ain’t on the front line
  When the master yell crunch time you right back at it

  You ain’t look at how you hustling backwards
  And the end of the year add up what they subtracted:
  3 outta twelve months your salary
  Paid for that madness… man that’s sadness

• War tax resister Joan Baez was fond of including the Whiskey Rebellion celebration tune “Copper Kettle” in her concerts.

  Get you a copper kettle
  Get you a copper coil
  Cover with new made corn mash
  And never more you’ll toil

  You just lay there by the juniper
  While the moon is bright
  Watch them jugs a-fillin’
  In the pale moonlight

  Build your fires of hickory
  Hickory or ash or oak
  Don’t use no green or rotten wood
  They’ll catch you by the smoke

  My daddy he made whiskey
  My granddaddy did to
  We ain’t paid no whiskey tax
  Since seventeen ninety-two!

• When a youth activist group joined war tax resisters at a recent Tax Day demonstration at the Oakland federal building, they brought their lyrical skills along:

  People, People, People, can’t you see?
  They kill around the world with tax money.
  Stealing from workers how there money’s made,
  I guess that’s why we’re broke and they’re so paid!

  People, People, People, can’t you see?
  They tax the poor more, the rich stay greedy.
  No money for health or to educate,
  I guess that’s why we’re broke and they’re so paid!

  On-line, you can see some of the rehearsal video showing how they combined the lyrics with pantomime to drive the point home.
• At another American “Tax Day” protest, this one in St. Louis in 2003, war tax resisters at the federal building sang a protest song with lyrics like these:

  For the cost of cluster bombs
  that maim and leave to bleed
  our kids could have more teachers
  helping them to read

• Tax resisters against the British colonial government in Ghana had a fight song for the occasion:

  Cannon they have loaded, but couldn’t fire,
  Cannon they have loaded, but couldn’t fire.
  Whitemen dishonestly imposed poll-tax on the blacks.
  The poll-tax we will never pay, the grandees never deliver up,
  Go tell the white man to come out!

• Luzerne County, Pennsylvania is home to an unusually corrupt government culture (or maybe it’s just that they got caught). Federal authorities charged 23 county residents with various corruption charges, including three judges and a county commissioner. But then the county government decided to hike taxes by 10%. Fred Heller said no. Why fund a nest of crooks? He recorded a protest song titled “Take This Tax and Shove It” and started a campaign to get county residents to refuse to pay their taxes, at least until the government stables have had all their manure shoveled out. Excerpts:

  Take this tax and shove it
  We ain’t paying you crooks no more
  The good ol’ boys stole all our cash
  And ran out the courthouse door

• Residents in Castine, Maine, upset at their local taxes being siphoned off by state politicians, started a tax resistance campaign and accompanied it by protest songs:

  Write me a song of the Revolution,
  ’cause that’s what it’s gonna be.
  Write me a song of the Revolution,
  ’cause that’s what’s in store for me!
  I can’t sit by and watch this country
  go right down the drain.
  I gotta stand firm on the Constitution
  and stay aboard the freedom train.

  “In I Just Found Out (Who the ‘They’ Is), [songwriter] Linscott derides the notion of some anonymous outside government force, commonly called ‘They.’ ‘I’ve heard so many people talk about what “they” are doing. This is my attempt to show that the “they” are those who let government operate by default.’ ”
• When Meo farmers killed a tax collector during a tax strike aimed at the British-backed Maharaja in the 1930s, they commemorated the occasion with a song:

  Rebels in the open the Meos did then rejoice
  They conferred among themselves and spoke in a single voice
  Your názim’s dead and ever since
    we aren’t ruled by any prince
  To London by now you should’ve fled,
    and do take along your dead.