How you can resist funding the government → about the IRS and U.S. tax law/policy → IRS incompetence → enforcement effort/results → impersonation of IRS enforcers

Networks of enterprising people around the world have discovered that they can siphon off some of the IRS’s ill-gotten goods by impersonating U.S. taxpayers and applying for refunds. This has become an enormous enterprise, with practitioners both foreign and domestic (including some who have managed to rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars this way from behind bars), and the IRS has only managed to slow the bleeding.

And now these criminal entrepreneurs have struck on the idea of working the game from the other side — they’re impersonating the IRS itself, calling up American citizens, and threatening them with government retribution — such as imminent arrest, deportation, license revocations, or property seizure — if they don’t pay some invented tax liability immediately (but, pay to the scammers, not to the real IRS).

The government calls it the “largest ever” scam of this sort — involving tens of thousands of victims, and millions of dollars in extorted payments. Hilariously, in warning people about the scam, the Treasury Inspector General for Taxpayer Administration claims:

“If someone unexpectedly calls claiming to be from the IRS and uses threatening language if you don’t pay immediately, that is a sign that it really isn’t the IRS calling,” he [Inspector General J. Russell George] said.

Sounds like Mr. George has never gotten a call from the IRS before!

The upshot of this is that the real IRS is going to have a harder time than usual distinguishing itself from smaller-scale thieves, and is going to have to devote even more energy into trying to assert its legitimacy.

And that’s energy the agency doesn’t have to spare — it has fewer employees now than at any time in the last decade, and much more to do: including implementing much of Obamacare, chasing down the rampant identity thieves, and responding to sweeping Congressional subpoenas regarding the TEA Party-targeting kerfluffle.

And morale at the agency has taken a dive for a number of reasons, exacerbating office conflicts, as a whistleblowing letter from IRS attorney Jane J. Kim reveals.

Your tax resistance news round-up

  • The third war tax resistance podcast, sponsored by the War Tax Talk blog, features war tax resisters Shirley Whiteside, Juanita Nelson, Randy Kehler, Betty Winkler, and Beth Seberger sharing the fruits of their experience.
  • “Tax evasion” has a bad reputation because governments have successfully convinced people that paying taxes is of public benefit, and that those who dodge their share reap these benefits while pushing the burden off on others. But there are a lot of assumptions packaged in with that story that don’t hold up under scrutiny. Under a more realistic set of assumptions about the nature of public spending and taxation, tax dodging is an important public service that benefits all of us by limiting the invasiveness of government.
  • The scam in which callers impersonating IRS agents trick people into sending them money to settle spurious tax debts continues to grow. According to the latest news:

    When the law enforcement agency that oversees the Internal Revenue Service warned in of the “largest-ever phone fraud scam targeting taxpayers,” it did not realize the 20,000 victims would be just the tip of a growing iceberg.

    As of , close to 300,000 consumers have reported to the Treasury Inspector General for Taxpayer Administration, or TIGTA for short, that they’ve been contacted by callers claiming to be from the IRS. As we head into tax season in 2015, 12,000 people are complaining to TIGTA about the IRS impersonation scam every single week. At least $14 million have been reported to be extorted by criminals, and the actual number may be twice that high.

  • The tax resistance movement that’s sprouting from the Occupy Central / Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong continues to seek guidance from tax resistance campaigns around the world. In the latest example, they look to Julia “Butterfly” Hill’s enormous war tax redirection action for inspiration.
  • In Greece, a left-wing coalition loosely aligned with the “won’t pay” movement, and pledging to abolish the hated “ENFIA” tax, is leading in the polls. In response, many Greek taxpayers are keeping their money in their pockets, refusing to pay taxes until they see how the election turns out.
  • The Italian tax resistance movement growing under the hashtag “#IoNonMiAmmazzo” now has a rap video to dramatize its campaign:

And now, a bit of domestic tax resistance news:

There’s a new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter out, with content that includes:

Refusing to Pay for War: NWTRCC newsletter

Some news of interest to tax resisters in the U.S.:

  • The on-again/off-again boondoggle of the federal government contracting out to private debt collection agencies to pursue people behind on their taxes is apparently back on again. By including the program in a new transportation bill, its proponents could use the income they hope to see from the program to offset other spending. It would probably be more efficient for the government just to hire more IRS agents to go after the money, but there are few things a Republican Congress would be less likely to do than give the IRS more money to increase the ranks of the National Treasury Employees Union.
    • My guess is that these private debt collectors are going to have a hell of a time. Since the last time this sort of plan was floated, a massive, years-long, ongoing, coast-to-coast scam has been in progress in which callers impersonating tax collectors have been getting victims to pony up money. News reports follow in the wake of the heists, all saying that if someone calls you up about a supposed tax debt, it’s a scam. The private agencies are gonna have a hell of a time distinguishing themselves from the scammers.
    • If the program is like the last one (and I haven’t seen the details yet, so I’m not sure), the agencies will be able to keep 25% of what they collect for themselves. It’s small consolation, but some consolation, to know that at least some of the money won’t be going directly to the government.
    • Also, if it’s anything like last time, “Private collection agencies cannot take any type of enforcement action against you to collect this debt (such as filing a Federal Tax Lien or issuing a levy).” In other words, they’re less powerful than the IRS itself, so if you’re determined not to pay anyway, you should probably be glad if your case gets assigned to a private agency and it may be worth your while to drag things out with them rather than having the case reassigned back to the IRS.
  • In more troubling news, another part of the same Transportation bill would revoke passports from people who are behind on their taxes by more than $50,000. I’ll probably hit the $50k mark in a couple of years, so I take this very personally.
    • The bill hasn’t become law just yet. They’re still ironing out the differences between the House and Senate versions. But both houses’ versions had both of these proposals, so they seem likely to survive (though it’s not unheard of for parts of legislation that are passed by each house to wind up on the cutting room floor regardless, whatever you may have heard on Schoolhouse Rock). Obama is expected to sign the bill into law either way.
    • One twist on this is that, for some Americans, you need a passport even to fly domestic. Yes, in the land of liberty.
    • When the final bill is passed and signed I’ll take another look and investigate what the process of passport denial/revocation might actually look like in practice. And I’ll of course post something here if my own passport gets yanked. I may even accept that as a challenge and see if I can row a boat to Cuba or wade across the Rio Grande.
  • Erica Weiland reports back from the NWTRCC national gathering in Las Vegas.
  • Vice profiles war tax resisting superlawyer J. Tony Serra.
  • Virtually Yours, at disinformation considers the ramifications of the Hobby Lobby Supreme Court ruling on conscientious objectors to military taxation.
  • BloombergBusiness notes that the IRS is shedding criminal investigation agents in heaps, and suggests this is a great time to be a tax cheat.

Some notes from here and there:

  • The 31st annual New England Regional Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Their Supporters will be held in Ware, Massachusetts. A focus this year will be how to better coordinate with other activist groups and concerns:

    While movement folks talk about the intersectionality of racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, war, climate change, and economic exploitation, too often we do not go beyond the rhetoric. We are inviting people involved in resisting these serious problems to make time to engage in dialog with those involved in other issues and movements. We need to explore how we can work together.

  • There have been some interesting posts on the NWTRCC blog in recent weeks:
    • Tax Collection Phone Call Cons — international grifter call centers are siphoning money from gullible Americans by impersonating the IRS. War tax resisters may be particularly vulnerable as an angry call from the IRS is almost expected. Here’s what you need to know to keep from getting scammed.
    • Understanding common IRS collection letters — the IRS doesn’t tend to call you. They prefer to send you letters. Here’s a field guide to some of the variety of letters war tax resisters tend to see.
    • Join NWTRCC at the SOAW border convergence! — NWTRCC will be among the groups represented at a protest of U.S. border militarization and its treatment of new immigrants, migrant workers, and refugees .
    • Reasons to Celebrate — NWTRCC coordinator Ruth Benn celebrates another year of refused taxes sliding off of the statute-of-limitations 10-year limit and forever out of the IRS’s reach.
    • Ammon Hennacy and other early modern war tax resisters — Erica Weiland discusses some of the personalities and actions of the war tax resistance movement that began to coalesce in the United States around the end of World War Ⅱ, as found in Ammon Hennacy’s writings.
  • The Wealthy Accountant lists 10 ways to legally stop paying taxes — basically a list of varieties of income that are not taxed. You may find this useful food for thought.
  • The Keene, New Hampshire government has thrown all sorts of resources into trying to get a restraining order against the “Robin Hoods” who follow their parking enforcement officers around time, feeding the meters ahead of them and preventing them from writing lucrative tickets. So far, no luck, but they’re making one more desperate appeal to the state supreme court.
  • “A tenant said he was refusing to pay rent arrears or council tax until Cornwall Housing repairs his home. Ryan Shilson said there were cracks in the walls, the windows leaked and that on one occasion wood worm caused so much damage to roof joists that he fell through the ceiling.”
  • The tactic of paying your taxes in wagonloads of pennies or other small-denomination money, as a way of protesting and of obstructing the tax bureaucracy, is usually the one-off protest of a single fed-up person. But lately in Illinois, it’s become an organized and ongoing tactic:
  • Google Translate is only giving me a hint of what’s going on here but it included what sounds like an hours-long sit-in to block a tollgate, followed by arrests, in India.

There’s a new National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee newsletter out, with content including:

In other news: