How you can resist funding the government →
a survey of tactics of historical tax resistance campaigns →
conduct surveys to gauge support →
NWTRCC surveys
The official minutes/report will come out later, but I’m sure those of you who could not be there are wanting to hear something about it went, so here’s my take on it:
It was great!
Although we did not obtain the broader participation from all segments of the peace movement for which we had hoped, there were a lot of us there (over 70 throughout ), about ½ “old hats” and about ½ “new folk”, by my guestimate.
It was great seeing so many old friends and getting to know new ones.…
We strategized!
Several plans came out of that.
Here are some, with ways you can connect:
A new Working Group was established to develop a WTR Intro DVD, parts of which will also be put on our website for download/streaming.…
Another working group was set up to work on the survey/boycott proposal from the St. Louis Covenant Community of WTRs. The original proposal is at www.nwtrcc.org/oct05conf.htm (Proposal #2).
While the exact form of stages 2 & 3 will be developed later, we decided to go ahead with the development and pilot testing of a survey between now and the NWTRCC meeting in Seattle.…
Both of the above working groups are to include young people.
In addition, we decided to establish a Young Adult Review Panel to look at all of NWTRCC’s literature and work and make recommendations for improving our outreach to young people.…
Some of the specific [proposals] in which folk expressed interest, but for which I do not have anyone designated as convener, are:
new youth-oriented W-4 piece
a cellphone wtr campaign
making wtr links with counter-recruitment movement
redirection of war taxes to youth/student groups/projects
wtr outreach to young people involved in intentional community and nonviolent lifestyles
Karl Meyer at the NWTRCC press conference
Photos by Steev Hise
NWTRCC is surveying tax resisters, former tax resisters, and prospective tax resisters to try to get a better idea of who they’re trying to reach.
Alas, taking the survey means downloading a PDF, printing it out, filling it out longhand, and sending it back through the mail, which will probably cut down on participation in this point-and-click age.
If you want to participate, you can download the survey from NWTRCC’s website.
I wrote up some of my impressions of of ’s NWTRCC meeting in Las Vegas.
I took notes on-and-off through and I’ll write up those things I remember that might be of interest.
The New Pamphlet I’ve Been Working On
I was at the meeting in part to present a first draft of a new edition of NWTRCC’s “Practical War Tax Resistance” pamphlet #5 on low-income / simple-living as a war tax resistance technique.
On night we distributed a few copies of this draft and over the course of I had a chance to sit down with a number of people and listen to their suggestions for improvement.
(If you would like to review the document, send me email and I’ll send you a copy of the draft.)
I’m aiming to have a final draft ready in , and with any luck we’ll have our new edition back from the press .
Not Much Evidence of a Tax Resistance Groundswell
Despite the growing anti-war sentiment in the country, there has been no evidence of a corresponding groundswell of interest in war tax resistance.
For the most part, people reported that their local groups were treading water in terms of membership and outreach.
There was more resignation than frustration expressed on this point, as most of us have become used to being, as we’d characterize it anyway, well ahead of the curve on this.
Many people also expressed that they often hear about lone-wolf tax resisters who for whatever reason never feel the need to align themselves with tax resistance organizations, so that the actual number of tax resisters is hard to gauge.
Survey in Progress
, NWTRCC started conducting a survey, informally, often at rallies, protests, and other activist events, to get a feel for what makes people choose or avoid tax resistance, and to do some concept testing of a possible large-scale one-year tax resistance campaign.
Of the few hundred people who have responded to the survey thus far, 47% are not doing any tax resistance now, and of that group, 61% would “consider participating in a one-year commitment to refuse a portion of your federal income taxes and redirect your taxes to a humanitarian cause if thousands joined you publicly” on a particular date.
All this sounds pretty good, and we plan to continue the survey , but even if we find a potential for this sort of tax resistance avalanche, NWTRCC alone doesn’t really have the resources to organize and launch it.
My hope is that we can package these persuasive survey results along with offers of our own specialized expertise and sell the idea of such a campaign to one of the larger national anti-war groups who could launch a campaign like this in a heartbeat if they cared to.
My own feeling is that this sort of thing is exactly the sort of sustained nationwide civil disobedience campaign the peace movement has been looking for; they just don’t know it yet.
Phone Tax Resistance Going Out of Style
Phone tax resistance has been a useful way of getting potential resisters to take the first step.
It’s pretty easy to do, and the risks are very low, and so many tax resisters have gotten their feet wet in this way.
However the proliferation of phone companies and phone plans, and the recent abolition of the phone tax on long-distance, have muddied the waters a bit.
There’s a pretty good chance that the excise tax on local service is on the way to the trash heap as well, so NWTRCC has begun to deemphasize phone tax resistance and the Hang Up On War campaign.
We’re still looking for the next “gateway” resistance tactic — any ideas?
Dan Jenkins Tries to Get the Courts to Recognize COMT
Some folks are trying to improve NWTRCC’s multimedia educational and persuasive offerings.
This is a good thing (our local tax resistance group still uses a slide show made during the Reagan administration, complete with a tape recording that goes “beep” when you’re supposed to flip to the next slide).
Alas, I was in a different workshop when this was being discussed, so I didn’t learn as much about this as I could have, but the project also includes a video contest — anyone can enter by producing a short video on the topic of war tax resistance — with cash prizes for the winning entries.
I’ll post more details on The Picket Line when the contest officially launches .
A New Flyer on W-4 Resistance
NWTRCC’s produced a new flyer on W-4 resistance (adjusting the withholding allowances on your W-4 form so that your employer sends less of your paycheck to the IRS) that may be helpful to folks who would like to resist their income tax but who find themselves with nothing but a refund to resist when April 15th comes around.
Tax Resisters and Student Financial Aid
A preliminary fact sheet was distributed that covers the implications for war tax resisters who are participating in student financial aid programs, or whose children are.
It’s not ready for publication just yet, but looks like it will be a useful resource when the time comes.
A Report from the International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns
We also got to read Larry Rosenwald’s report back from the International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns which was held in Woltersdorf, Germany .
He was struck by the differences between the tax resistance movement in the United States and its counterparts in the rest of the world (Europe in particular).
In Europe, the movement is focused more on using the law and the courts (national and international) to legalize some form of conscientious objection to military taxation, and less focused on civil disobedience and forms of extralegal conscientious objection.
They find it confusing that in the United States there’s both a Peace Tax Fund campaignand an organized war tax resistance movement.
Before “Abu Ghraib” and “Guantánamo” and “extraordinary rendition” became the shorthand ways of referring to America’s torture policy, those in the know used the phrase “School of the Americas” to mean much the same thing.
The School of the Americas (now officially renamed “WHINSEC” in the same tried-and-true bad-publicity-fleeing method that saw Philip Morris transform into “Altria”) helped to train “our sons-of-bitches” during the cold war — the various military juntas and contras and such that helped keep Latin America from falling victim to Communism, organized labor, or democracy.
The annual vigil by thousands of School opponents has become, in addition to a statement of protest against such U.S. policies and an opportunity to do some crossing-the-line style civil disobedience, a networking opportunity for the anti-imperialist set.
A group from NWTRCC was at the event.
Robert Randall reports that there was a lot of interest in war tax resistance, with over a thousand people filling out NWTRCC’s survey:
I think it was one of the most exciting presences we’ve had at SOAW.
Asking people to fill out the survey gave us much more interaction with folk than the leafleting which we’ve done in past years.
(Our message did get out to everyone even more than if we had leafleted, though, as Ruth [Benn] put an ad in the SOAW printed program, which was handed out to all of the 20,000 people who came; we even found it available in the lobbies of the motels in town.)
People asked questions, got a little on-the-spot mini-counseling, were given the materials they needed (most often the new flyer on W-4 resistance, which we used up and had to re-copy), and sometimes went away with local folk to contact from our network list.
About 50 people signed up for introductory packets, and we got 16 names on the “Don’t Pay for War in Iraq!” call to tax resistance.
Our lit sales matched the best we’ve done in the past.
About , NWTRCC started conducting a survey to learn more about war tax resisters, former war tax resisters, and people who are part of the anti-war movement but who have never before resisted taxes.
In part, this was designed to gauge how much support there might be for an organized, large-scale, one-year tax strike in the anti-war movement.
A proposal for such a tax strike is pending at ’s United for Peace and Justice National Assembly in Chicago.
Bill Ramsey, of the St. Louis Covenant of War Tax Resisters, took the lead on developing and deploying the survey, and has recently also tabulated the results.
Three varieties of survey were distributed — one for current war tax resisters, one for former war tax resisters, and one for those who had never done any war tax resistance.
People were surveyed at tax-resistance conferences, and at such anti-war events as the United for Peace and Justice march in Washington, D.C. and ’s School of the Americas vigil.
This was not a random sample of tax resisters or of anti-war activists, so read the results with that in mind.
How many were surveyed?
1,486 surveys were collected, which included:
286 present war tax resisters
94 former war tax resisters
1,106 activists who had never done war tax resistance
I’ll summarize some of the results from the third set, of those who have never before done any war tax resistance:
Why have they never resisted taxes?
Those people surveyed who had never done any war tax resistance were asked to select “Which reasons best explain why you have not done WTR” (they could choose as many from the list as they felt applied).
Then they were asked which one of the reasons they cited “is the most important reason you have not done WTR”.
These were the results:
Reasons
Most important
Fear legal consequences
42.9%
23.1%
Need more information
38.8%
18.5%
Fear personal financial consequences
27.6%
9.1%
Never heard of it
24.1%
16.4%
Never understood it
19.6%
5.9%
Want to pay taxes for services
17.1%
3.9%
Want to obey the law
10.8%
2.0%
Fear employment consequences
10.6%
2.8%
Don’t think it’s effective
7.0%
2.8%
Too complicated
6.7%
2.2%
This strikes me as very good news.
People who don’t know much about war tax resistance tend to exaggerate the potential legal consequences, so this is a fear that can be easily assuaged.
And “Need more information” is a concern that the war tax resistance movement is well-equipped to address, if people know whom to ask.
The fact that nearly a quarter of the non-tax-resisting anti-war activists who were surveyed had “never heard of” war tax resistance is surprising.
About one-in-six claimed this was the primary reason why they had never before resisted!
If this is true, it seems like a little outreach could go a long way.
What consequences do they imagine?
The non-resisting respondents were asked “What are the two most likely consequences of WTR”.
This is how those who had never done war tax resistance imagined the likely (legal) ramifications:
Collection of taxes
52.1%
Seizure of property
43.2%
Jail
31.6%
Loss of credit
28.2%
Loss of job
10.0%
Although about a third of those who responded assumed that war tax resisters are likely to be imprisoned, in reality, you can almost count on your fingers the number of people who have done any time behind bars for war tax resistance in the United States in .
Former war tax resisters, who might be expected to have more understanding of the consequences, listed jail as a likely consequence on only 6.4% of their surveys.
Would they consider a one-year tax strike?
This set of activists was asked:
“Would you consider participating in a one-year commitment to refuse a portion of your federal income taxes and redirect your taxes to a humanitarian cause if thousands joined you publicly?”
Almost two-thirds (66.2%) said “Yes.”
They were also asked “Which resources would help you decide to participate?” (they could choose more than one).
These were the results:
Clear idea of likely consequences
54.6%
Written guides to WTR
40.5%
Knowing the action will be publicized
38.5%
Knowing others are also doing it
36.2%
Group discussions options & methods
27.7%
Participation in collective alternative fund
25.2%
One on one counseling
20.1%
Participation in the planning
10.9%
In I’ll review the other two sets of survey responses.
I started summarizing the results of surveys that NWTRCC conducted over .
Three varieties of survey were distributed — one for current war tax resisters, one for former war tax resisters, and one for those who had never done any war tax resistance.
, I summarized the survey of those who had never done tax resistance; I’ll summarize the responses of the 94 former resisters.
What sort of tax resistance did they engage in, and for how long?
Of the former resisters, 81.9% had resisted the federal excise tax on telephone service and 68.1% had resisted the federal income tax.
They were also asked how many years they had participated in each variety of resistance:
phone tax
income tax
None
18.1%
31.9%
1 year
4.3%
10.6%
2 years
8.5%
10.6%
3 years
10.6%
17.0%
4 years
9.6%
3.2%
5 years
11.7%
7.4%
6 years
4.3%
3.2%
7 years
0.0%
0.0%
8 years
1.1%
2.1%
9 years
1.1%
1.1%
10 years
6.4%
4.3%
10+ years
20.2%
10.6%
Why did they resist taxes?
They were asked “What reasons best describe the motives for your previous WTR?” (they could choose more than one):
Wanted the military budget reduced
70.2%
Religious or ethical conscience
69.1%
Wanted to make a stronger statement
52.1%
Wanted to end a specific war or military action or type of weaponry
42.6%
Wanted to redirect taxes
42.6%
Effective opposition strategy
29.8%
Wanted to encourage more social services
29.8%
Why did they stop resisting taxes?
They were asked “Why don’t you do WTR any longer?” (they could choose more than one):
IRS collected taxes
40.4%
Family commitments
38.3%
Felt ineffective
23.4%
Too much trouble
23.4%
Wanted to maintain job
22.3%
Effect on credit
7.4%
Felt like my statement was made
6.4%
No longer opposed war
0.0%
What consequences do they imagine?
They were asked “What are the two most likely consequences of WTR”:
Collection of taxes
87.2%
Seizure of property
54.3%
Loss of credit
23.4%
Jail
6.4%
Loss of job
6.4%
Notable here is how much less people who have done tax resistance associate jail with tax resistance than did those who have never done it and know less about it (almost a third of them thought jail was a likely consequence of war tax resistance).
Would they consider a one-year tax strike?
More than three-quarters of the former tax resisters who were surveyed (77.7%) would “consider participating in a one-year commitment to refuse to pay a portion of your federal income taxes redirecting them to a humanitarian cause if thousands joined you publicly?”
They were also asked “Which resources would help you decide to participate?” (they could choose more than one).
These were the results:
Knowing others are also doing it
53.2%
Clear idea of likely consequences
52.1%
Knowing the action will be publicized
52.1%
Participation in collective alternative fund
39.4%
Written guides to WTR
28.7%
Group discussions options & methods
20.2%
One on one counseling
11.7%
Participation in the planning
10.6%
, I’ll summarize the survey responses from people who are currently resisting taxes, which gives a demographic snapshot of some American war tax resisters.
I summarized the results of a survey that NWTRCC conducted of former war tax resisters.
I summarized their survey of activists who had never done war tax resistance.
I summarize the survey of 286 current war tax resisters.
What sort of tax resistance do we engage in, and how long have we been resisting?
Of the current resisters, 50.3% resist the federal excise tax on telephone service and 87.1% resist the federal income tax.
If you compare this to the former resisters, you’ll see that these percentages are pretty much swapped (81.9% & 68.1%).
This, I guess, reflects that people with less commitment to tax resistance (indicated by their having quit) also tended to choose the less-risky and less-ambitious form of resistance.
Those of us who indicated that we did participate in each variety were also asked how many years we have resisted:
phone tax
income tax
1 year
6.9%
5.2%
2 years
7.6%
9.2%
3 years
13.2%
12.0%
4 years
8.3%
7.2%
5 years
2.8%
4.8%
6 years
7.6%
4.0%
7 years
2.8%
2.8%
8 years
1.4%
1.2%
9 years
2.1%
0.4%
10 years
2.1%
2.8%
10+ years
71.5%
53.8%
Those of us who resist the federal income tax were asked how much we resist.
60.2% say they resist all of it; the rest say they resist a portion and pay the remainder of what is due.
How much do we resist each year?
The tax resisters were asked “On average, how much do you think you resist per year?”
$1–$49
9.0%
$50–$99
7.8%
$100–$999
24.1%
$1,000–$3,000
13.1%
$3,000–$5,000
6.9%
$5,000–$9,999
3.3%
$10,000–$49,999
2.0%
$50,000+
0.4%
Hard to quantify because I intentionally live below taxable income
32.7%
I was surprised to see that a third of war tax resisters report that they are resisting income tax by deliberately living below the tax line.
I didn’t realize that this method was as popular as that.
Resisters were also asked “Approximately how much do you think you’ve resisted in all your WTR years?”
Responses ranged from $11 to $120,000, and averaged $15,904.
Do we redirect?
73.3% of those who responded say that they redirect the money that they refuse to pay in taxes to a humanitarian cause.
Are we part of a war tax resistance group?
Only 34.7% of those who responded reported that they were a member of a local war tax resistance group.
62% said that they (or their local group) were affiliated with NWTRCC.
(Since the surveys were distributed in NWTRCC mailings and at NWTRCC events, this probably biases these results somewhat.)
Would an organized tax strike strengthen their commitment to tax resistance?
Asked, “Would it strengthen your commitment to continue WTR if thousands joined in a one-year commitment to refuse to pay a portion of federal income taxes?”, 65.9% said that it would.
Who are these tax resisters?
Finally, demographic information was collected.
The war tax resisters who responded to the survey are by-and-large, older than the population as a whole:
Age
WTRs
U.S. population
Under 18
0.4%
25.7%
18–24
3.9%
9.6%
25–45
24.9%
30.2%
45–65
47.7%
22.0%
Over 65
22.8%
12.4%
We are divided almost equally male and female (48.8% / 50.9%).
By race, we overwhelmingly skew “Caucasian”:
Race
WTRs
U.S. population
African-American
0.7%
12.3%
Asian
1.1%
3.6%
Caucasian
87.2%
75.1%
Latino
0.4%
12.5%
Native American
2.8%
0.9%
Other
7.1%
5.5%
(The two sets of percentages may not refer to exactly-equivalent concepts; I took the “U.S. population” numbers from a census table.)
Asked about their marital status and number of children (“at home or in college”), those surveyed responded as follows:
Marital status
WTRs
U.S. population
Single
34.9%
27.1%
Married
35.2%
54.4%
Civil union or common law
9.6%
Divorced or separated
14.6%
11.9%
Widowed
3.6%
6.6%
# of Children
WTRs
0
73.0%
1
12.5%
2
7.1%
3
2.5%
4
0.4%
5
0.7%
5+
0.7%
(I haven’t found any equivalent figures for how many children adults have in the U.S. as a whole.)
Asked their “religion or persuasion,” those surveyed tended more toward the eclectic and skeptical than the population as a whole:
Religion
WTRs
U.S. population
Catholic
17.1%
24%
Protestant
10.0%
32.1%
54%
Peace Church (Quaker, Brethren, Mennonite)
22.1%
Jewish
6.8%
1%
Muslim
0.4%
1%
Atheist
8.9%
29.9%
10%
Secular
6.4%
Humanist
7.8%
Agnostic
6.8%
Hindu
3.9%
32.7%
10%
Buddhist
7.1%
Native
1.4%
Pagan
6.4%
Other
13.9%
Asked “What is the highest grade or year you finished in school?”, resisters skewed overwhelmingly to higher-education, with a majority claiming a post-graduate degree (compared to 8% of the U.S. population as a whole):
Completed Education
WTRs
U.S. population
8th grade or less
0.4%
6.4%
Some high school
0.4%
13.7%
High school diploma
3.9%
29.8%
Post high school, not college
0.7%
—%
Some college
14.6%
26.0%
College degree
27.8%
16.0%
Post-graduate
52.3%
8.0%
Asked our “total household income,” those surveyed tended toward the lower end of the income scale (which is to be expected if a third of us have lowered our incomes deliberately in order to stay under the tax line):
Household Income
WTRs
U.S. population
Less than $15,000
27.0%
14.6%
$15–25,000
25.3%
12.3%
$25–40,000
19.2%
16.6%
$40–55,000
7.8%
14.1%
$55–70,000
8.5%
10.8%
$70–85,000
3.9%
8.4%
$85–100,000
1.1%
5.8%
Over $100,000
2.8%
17.2%
At the last NWTRCC national meeting, a questionnaire was given out to the attendees asking them about their resistance.
Twenty of those surveys were completed and handed back in. Here are some of the results:
The average person who responded had been resisting taxes for 22.7 years (median: 19 years). The range was 2–66 years.
The twenty responders had resisted an estimated total of about $450,000 in taxes.
The IRS had managed to seize $25,000 of this, about 5½%.
Of the 20 responders:
10 filed taxes but refused to pay
9 lived on an income that put them below the income tax line
9 used deductions to get below the income tax line
5 don’t file tax returns
3 (also?) don’t pay their FICA or self-employment tax
(Some of the twenty placed themselves in more than one category)
Of the 20 responders:
15 have received letters from the IRS
9 have had contact with an IRS agent
5 have had wages or salary garnished
4 have suffered bank account levies
1 has gone to jail because of tax resistance
Several had state tax refunds or social security benefits seized
5 have had their tax returns audited
3 have been assessed a “frivolous filing” penalty
4 have quit their jobs as part of their resistance
6 have closed a bank account to evade seizure
4 have gone cash-only rather than have seizable assets
6 have transferred property to someone else’s name to evade seizure
These results were reported by Erica Weiland in the latest issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter, More Than a Paycheck, which should soon be on-line at its website.
If you can’t stand the wait, you could always join up and subscribe.
The issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter, More Than a Paycheck, is now available on-line.
Among the features in this issue:
Tax resistance groups have used surveys to gauge public support for a possible campaign and to reassure potential resisters that they will not be alone.
Some have also tried the gambit of asking people to commit to resist if and only if a certain critical mass of people also makes such a commitment.
Today I’ll give some examples.
Surveys to gauge support or to “push poll”
The Secretary of the Federation of Dublin Anti Water Charge Campaigns remembers that the government initially challenged anti-tax activists by saying that they were an unrepresentative, radical fringe, and that most people supported the tax:
Our immediate response was to challenge his contention and to propose a survey of the area to find out what people really thought, and a further public meeting to report the findings.
Within 15 minutes we had a dozen volunteers to carry out the survey and these went on to form the nucleus of what became one of the most active campaign groups in the federation.
The follow-up meeting 3 weeks later heard that something like 85% of the local residents opposed the tax.
The fact of carrying out this survey gave everybody the confidence that the silent majority were with us, and for those who carried out the survey, they realised that it wasn’t such a difficult thing to knock on their neighbours’ doors and talk to them and it gave them the confidence to go on to become key campaign activists.
It’s something I would recommend that campaigners try — doing a survey such as this or even collecting a petition in an area, knocking on doors and talking to people about the issue gives those people who we are hoping will become campaign activists a sense of ownership of the local campaign as well as demonstrating quite clearly the strength of feeling on the issue.
People need to feel that it’s their campaign — not one either owned by or controlled by any political organisation or party.
In the anti-Poll Tax movement in Thatcher’s Britain, a Bristol organizer, remembers that in his neighborhood group:
[Our] network was strengthened by a door-to-door survey of over 500 households.
The survey was not intended to be scientifically accurate.
Its purpose was to give the APTU a fairly accurate picture of what was happening on the ground, and, perhaps more significantly, it was a pretext for engaging people in conversation about the Poll Tax, informing them of the non-payment campaign and encouraging them to join their local APTU.
The results were interesting.
Only 20% said that they would definitely pay.
The same number said that they would definitely not, but more significantly, 55% said that they wouldn’t pay if a lot of other people in the area weren’t paying either.
So even at this early stage we knew that non-payment was going to be massive.
Over a third of the people canvassed became paid up members of the union.
By the end of the exercise Easton had over 300 members and street reps for almost every street.
The canvass was not left there.
The key to its success was the second visit.
The group compiled all the statistics on a street by street basis and many of the reps then went back, door-to-door, and told people the results of the survey in their street and the neighbouring streets.
A newsletter was delivered to everyone telling them what the overall results were for Easton.
This meant that people knew how few of their neighbours were going to pay and it gave them confidence not to pay themselves.
They had spoken to the canvassers personally, so they knew that the survey was genuine.
In the American war tax resistance group NWTRCC surveyed resisters, former resisters, and anti-war activists who had never resisted taxes, to find out about their attitudes toward war tax resistance.
They used some of the information, for instance a question for the never-resisted group about their reasons for not resisting, to help them refine their outreach message.
Almost two-thirds of those never-resisters answered “yes” to the question:
Would you consider participating in a one-year commitment to refuse a portion of your federal income taxes and redirect your taxes to a humanitarian cause if thousands joined you publicly?
This encouraging response led the group to launch what it called the “ War Tax Boycott.”
Although the Boycott itself did not generate the hoped-for “thousands,” the group found it to be a useful outreach platform, and has continued to use it in subsequent years.
Women’s suffrage activists in Wisconsin in said they “will take a census of the women taxpayers, [and] the list of names will be published and used as a basis of a ‘protest to the Legislature against taxation without representation.’ ”
Ask people to vow to resist once a critical mass of people take the vow
The women’s suffrage activists from Wisconsin I mention above also said that “when 10,000 names have been secured to a pledge, the women will refuse to pay taxes, and the questions involved will be taken to the courts.”
Another version of the pledge put the number at 5,000:
We, the tax paying women of Wisconsin, hereby agree to do what we can by protest and argument to emphasize the fact that taxation without representation is tyranny as much for American women today as it was for American colonists in .
And we also pledge ourselves that when 5,000 or more women in Wisconsin shall have similarly enrolled we will simultaneously take action by whatever method may seem best in accordance with official advice from the Wisconsin Suffrage Association to the end that public attention may be thoroughly and effectively called to the injustice and injury done to women by taxing them without giving them any voice as to how their money should be employed.
The American anti-war activist group Code Pink launched a campaign called “Don’t Buy Bush’s War” in , saying:
When there are 100,000 of us who have the courage to pledge no more money for war, we will join in an act of mass civil disobedience and refuse to pay the portion of our taxes that represents the % we spend on the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nina Utne explained:
There is safety in numbers.
The idea is to get people to sign a pledge that they will engage in civil disobedience by withholding a percentage of their taxes, but only if a critical mass of 100,000 signers is reached by .
The campaign’s ambitions were a little too high, as it turns out, but they did get over 2,000 pledges, and started many conversations about war tax resistance.
Miners at the “New Rush” in Kimberly, South Africa in signed a pledge of tax resistance, mutual protection, and boycott of non-resisters that included a minimum-signers trigger:
This pledge is to become operative, and shall be enforced, when signed by 400 men.
… This pledge is a serious matter.
If it is passed to-night it will only be a Resolution; but as soon as it is signed by 400 men, which will most likely be on Monday next, it will be the law of the people which must be abided by and ruthlessly enforced.
When you’re trying to expand the ranks of tax resisters in your campaign, you need good educational tools.
People are often reluctant to resist either because they aren’t sure how to go about it, or because they only have a vague idea of the likely consequences (and so are likely to exaggerate their frightfulness).
When NWTRCC conducted a survey of non-resisting anti-war activists , the most popular answer to the question “Which resources would help you decide to participate [in a tax resistance campaign]?” was: “clear idea of likely consequences” and the two top responses to the question about “the most important reason you have not done war tax resistance” were “fear legal consequences” and “need more information.”
People like to stick with the familiar, and if you ask them to take a jump into the unknown, they will imagine the worst as a way to justify their reticence.
If you can be clear, thorough, and credible in demonstrating how to resist and what the consequences are likely to be, you can eliminate the biggest obstacle to the growth of your campaign.
This is easier said than done, however.
It can be difficult to be clear and thorough if you are going up against a tax agency that is arbitrary or that changes its rules suddenly, and it can take time to establish credibility.
Today I’ll give a few examples of how tax resistance campaigns have dispelled ignorance about tax resistance.
Ethel Ayers Purdie ran what she called the “Women Taxpayer’s Agency” and counseled British women’s suffrage activists both on how to best resist their taxes on no-taxation-without-representation grounds, and on how they could exploit legal quirks to avoid taxes (for instance, archaic laws that made husbands wholly legally liable for their wives’ taxes).
She also published a pamphlet about that particular legal quirk, which concluded:
Many married women, including leading actresses, doctors, titled women, business women, and various others having property, businesses, investments, &c., or being in receipt of salaries, have succeeded in demonstrating their non-taxability, and thereby involved the Revenue in a total loss of the tax illegally charged on them.
Members of the Women’s Tax Resistance League regularly gave lectures on their tactic of choice at suffragist meetings, and thereby recruited new resisters.
The American war tax resistance group NWTRCC publishes a number of specialized how-to pamphlets that cover various techniques of tax resistance (such as refusing to file, filing and refusing to pay, living on a non-taxable income) and strategies for coping with possible consequences (such as government collection efforts).
They also have a nationwide network of people who offer one-on-one counseling sessions for potential resisters or for current resisters who are running into snags.
Local groups in the network periodically run workshops at which people can come to learn about the variety of war tax resistance methods and ask questions of people who have experience with them.
The current tax resistance movement in Spain, which has its roots in the war tax resistance movement there but which has expanded to a broader anti-government pro-autonomy critique, recently published half a million copies of a tabloid that included its call to resist alongside some practical instruction on how to go about resisting both the pay-as-you-earn income tax and the value-added tax.
American constitutionalist, “show-me-the-law”-style tax protest often spreads by means of workshops run by self-styled experts who have discovered or invented new (and increasingly baroque) legal arguments that prove that most people are not legally liable to pay the federal income tax.
Although these arguments don’t typically stand up in court, they are sufficiently credible to the lay audience that they can convince many people to begin resisting.
For example, in , an epidemic of tax protest swept General Motors plants in Flint, Michigan, as thousands of employees there told GM to stop withholding income tax from their salaries after they attended seminars or listened to lectures on tape from the tax protester group “We The People ACT.”
a flier used to educate people about their rights concerning property seizures by bailiffs
Resisters to Thatcher’s Poll Tax gained confidence thanks to the efforts of the Poll Tax Legal Group which, among other things, “produced over 30 accessible legal bulletins on the Poll Tax and a book called To Pay or Not To Pay.”
To combat the threat of property seizure — often the threat itself was enough to intimidate people into stopping their resistance — the movement made efforts to educate the public about the seizure process and about ways to frustrate it:
[T]he first task of Anti-Poll Tax Unions was to inform people about what the bailiffs could and couldn’t do.
In Scotland, people were advised not to tell the sheriffs where they worked, not to tell them which banks they used, and not, under any circumstances, to let them into their houses.
They were also told to inform the local group as soon as the sheriffs threatened anything.
The Anti-Poll Tax Unions advised people to move possessions to local friends’ houses before the date of the poinding and offered to help with the moving.
People were told to leave their cars well away from their homes.
They were informed that a wrongful poinding could be appealed against and, in many cases, this was done successfully.
People were also told how to avoid bailiff action by signing away their possessions to people who lived outside of the area or, preferably, to their children.
There are now young children who technically own all of their parents’ possessions.
Some local law centres went onto the offensive against the bailiffs, providing information to the public, which totally undermined their actions.
One morning in , the bailiffs delivered over 4,000 intimidation notices to people throughout Bristol.
By 7:30 a.m. the law centre had heard about this and contacted all local radio stations.
By 8:00 p.m. the news bulletins which went out every fifteen minutes, reported:
Today bailiffs have delivered notices for payment to over 4,000 people in Bristol.
A spokesperson from the law centre said that they were illegal and should be ignored.
So most people ignored them.
The Bardoli satyagraha depended on regular distribution of news bulletins from campaign headquarters to the scattered villages of the province, to make sure everyone was on the same page about strategy, and to counteract government propaganda and rumor.
These also came to be powerful propaganda tools to affect Indian opinion outside of the resisting region:
A campaign like this could not be carried on without a publicity department.
The peasants could not be asked to subscribe to daily papers or even to the weekly Navajivan, and outside papers could at best give an outside view of the campaign.
A publicity office was therefore opened with Sjt. Jugatram Dave at its head.
With an artist’s pen and with a knowledge of the whole taluka [district] at his fingertips, he took to this work like a duck to water.
The arrangement was to issue a daily news bulletin and publish Sjt. Vallabhbhai’s speeches in pamphlet form and to distribute them free to the agriculturists all over the taluka: For four or five days cyclostyled [mimeograph-like] copies were issued, but arrangement was soon made to get them printed daily at Surat, and a start was made with 5,000 copies.
The arrangement answered most admirably, the villagers waiting anxiously for the patrikas every morning and devouring the contents with avidity.
All the Gujarati and almost all the English dailies of Bombay reproduced them verbatim, and as the movement gathered force, every important town and village in Gujarat began to get copies of the bulletin with the result that over and above ten thousand copies distributed in Bardoli, four thousand copies were subscribed to by places outside.
Before “Abu Ghraib” and “Guantánamo” and “extraordinary rendition” became the shorthand ways of referring to America’s torture policy, those in the know used the phrase “School of the Americas” to mean much the same thing.
