How you can resist funding the government →
a survey of tactics of historical tax resistance campaigns →
encourage defection in the tax bureaucracy →
see also
Russell Kanning, editor of the Keene Free Press, and a war tax resister well-known in “Free State Project” circles (a project that is encouraging libertarian-minded people to move to New Hampshire in the hopes of forming a political critical mass), was arrested — twice — for visiting the IRS office in Keene, New Hampshire with the intent of handing leaflets to its employees.
The leaflets quote the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal:
“Anyone with knowledge of illegal activity and an opportunity to do something about it is a potential criminal under international law unless the person takes affirmative measures to prevent the commission of the Crimes.”
The reverse side is a sample letter that IRS employees could send President Bush to announce that they are resigning their jobs.
“The U.S. government is killing people around the world to expand its power base,” Kanning said.
“It is using our neighbors as cannon fodder and your money to accomplish the evil deed.
They are building an empire on our backs and in our names.
They are imprisoning or killing those that oppose them.
Enough is enough.
“Gandhi called his non-cooperation with evil a campaign of civil disobedience.
I am calling it ‘Tilting at Windmills’.
An individual seems powerless against the lone global superpower, but it is the individual consent of everyone that empowers them.
So the power is in our hands to bring down this rotten government.”
He was arrested by agents from the Department of Homeland Security and charged with distributing materials in a federal building and failure to obey a lawful order.
After he was booked and released, he immediately returned to the IRS office to try again (without the leaflets, which had been confiscated).
He was arrested again, this time charged with disorderly conduct.
“I never got to talk with the IRS workers,” he says, “but I did get to ask some Homeland Security guys to quit.”
Russell Kanning was arrested twice for attempting to hand out leaflets to employees of the IRS office in Keene, New Hampshire — leaflets urging them to quit their jobs to avoid complicity in the conspiracy of war crimes that is the federal government.
He’s going to try again this week:
Tilting at Windmills is my term for daring to attack the US government … the most powerful empire known to mankind.
They are evil and need to be stopped, but violent warfare is not moral or effective.
We also do not have any violent weapons that can beat the feds, so we must embrace nonviolence.
The first step, here in Keene, was to kick the federal officials out of our town.
We have 3 offices that I know of here.
The IRS office on main street is above the post office.
The SSAdmin is near the central square.
The military recruiters are on Winchester St. across from Walmart.
The IRS office is the biggest and most resembles a “fed building”, so that was our first target.
This time I will try to take 1 flyer to 1 IRS employee and have a conversation about the evils of the federal government and the need for them to quit.
I will also most likely talk to the security guys.
If anyone wants to join us we will be in front of the IRS/post office building at with anti-tax and war signs.…
I’ll keep you posted as to how the windmills and the tilter fare.
While Russell Kanning never said so explicitly, and I didn’t catch it myself until , the form of his protest — to try to convince IRS employees to reduce their complicity in government wickedness by quitting their jobs — comes straight from Thoreau’s manual of civil disobedience:
The agents of the Federal Protection Service who arrested Kanning, going right along with Thoreau’s script, charged him with disorderly conduct (see The Picket Line ) — and in Concord District Court, for crying out loud (okay, Concord, New Hampshire, not Concord, Massachusetts, but still).
Kanning was going to try again this week (see The Picket Line ), but his plans were interrupted when he was arrested at his home on morning for failure to appear in court to face the earlier charges.
In court, the government dropped the charge of distributing materials in a federal building (because he had been prevented from doing so), but convicted him on the other charges — two charges of failure to obey lawful orders, one charge of failure to obey posted regulations, and one charge of disorderly conduct.
Kanning declined a lawyer, and for the most part refused to cooperate in the trial — at one point a bailiff seized a paper airplane Kanning was constructing as the trial proceeded.
Kanning also said he would refuse to voluntarily return for sentencing, so he is being held without bail .
You can send him mail at the following address:
Russell Kanning c/o Strafford County House of Corrections 266 COUNTY FARM ROAD DOVER, NEW HAMPSHIRE 03820
Looks like Dave Ridley has signed on to Russell Kanning’s crusade to get IRS employees to reconsider the ethics of their line of work.
Ridley went to the Nashua, New Hampshire IRS offices and stood there, quietly, holding a sign that read “Is it right to work for the IRS?”
The IRS employees summoned the police, who ordered Ridley out of the building after he’d been there for about half-an-hour.
Dave Ridley has signed on to Russell Kanning’s campaign to drive the IRS from New Hampshire.
While Kanning got arrested trying to hand out leaflets to IRS employees in Keene, New Hampshire that implored them to renounce their jobs, Ridley tried a different tactic in Nashua.
He walked into the office holding a handwritten sign that asked “Is it right to work 4 IRS?” and just stood there, silently facing the office staff.
I have the right to remain silent.
IRS agents have the right to quit their jobs.
If that is not possible, they have a responsibility to work as inefficiently as possible when taking our money, and as quickly as possible when returning it.
I’m here to respectfully ensure they know that I do not appreciate what they are doing and to make them feel uncomfortable… morally, not physically.
Jerusalem Jewish Council says Jews will not Pay Taxes Unless Money will
be Used For Jewish Projects
Jerusalem, (JTA). —
The Jewish community council here declared this week that Jews would not pay
taxes to the municipal government until they were satisfied that the money
would be used for Jewish projects while Daniel Auster, former Jewish mayor of
the city, said that the Jews would take care of their section of separate
municipal councils were formed and each body was permitted to spend its funds
on improvements for its own people.…
That was shortly before Israeli independence, but tax resistance in
British-occupied Palestine went on for decades before then. Here’s an example
from the Montreal Gazette:
Jerusalem, .—
Lieut.
Gen. Robert H. Haining,
commander of the British forces in Palestine, invited the heads of the Jewish
Agency for Palestine, the National Council of Palestine Jewry and the Jewish
Communal Council to his headquarters here this morning and warned them that
he intended to enforce order and would make no exceptions. General Haining
added that, while he appreciated the three years of restraint on the part of
Jews, he would suppress violence unflinchingly.
The first move in the Jewish non-co-operation movement against the Government
in protest at the new British policy was a decision of the Landlords
Association, composed of rural and urban property owners, to refuse to pay
taxes, beginning , until the White
Paper had been repealed.
Despite all stringent measures taken to prevent illegal immigration into
Palestine, 300 Jews succeeded in landing clandestinely near Ashkalon, Southern
Palestine, but were apprehended by British troops and taken to Tel Aviv for
detention.
In contrast with ’s turbulence in
this Holy City, there was quiet ,
although considerable tension still exists. As a result of the violence
, when a mob of Jews attempted to
raid the district commissioner’s office, smashed windows of an English shop
and a German restaurant and engaged in fighting in which a British constable
was killed and more than 100 Jews were wounded, the military
took far greater precautions to
prevent further bloodshed.
All Government offices were heavily guarded, various parts of the city were
barricaded, and soldiers manned machine guns for action. Only incident
was when several Jewish youths
penetrated a branch post office in the Jewish quarter of Mahne Yehuda here
and broke window panes and furniture.
Three British police sergeants and two constables, who
annoyed the Tel Aviv public, it
is charged, by wearing helmets marked with swastikas and by shouting “Heil
Hitler,” were relieved of duty today pending disciplinary proceedings.
The “White Paper” policy, which, among other things, prevented Jewish
evacuation into Palestine during the Holocaust, was not repealed until Israel
won its independence in .
Tax resistance was practiced both by Jews and by others in Palestine against
the British occupation. In at least one case, in
, there was a sympathy tax strike in England
itself:
In the all-Jewish coastal city of Tel Aviv a high Jewish source who declined
to be quoted by name said meetings were called throughout Palestine Sunday
to consider a “passive resistance movement” similar to those undertaken by
nationalists in India.
A decision would be taken “as to the best method by which Palestine’s Jewish
community can demonstrate to the British they will have to arrest tens of
thousands of us if the government thinks we are accepting quietly everything
it wants to put on us,” he said.
Passive resistance would include nonpayment of taxes, a strike by Jews in
government service and “in all ways complete non-cooperation with the
British,” this source said.
From the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Holy Land Bomb Damage — A patrol moves around ruins of the
income tax office, Jerusalem, Palestine, after a bomb detonated by police
wrecked the building.
Palestine Tax Office Bombed
Building Leveled By Terrific Blast
Jerusalem, — (AP) —
The Palestine Income Tax Building was leveled this afternoon by a terrific
explosion from a bomb-laden cart which Palestine police said was placed by
Jews.
One person, a Jewish constable, was killed. Five persons — a British Army
captain and lance corporal, a British police sergeant and an Arab policeman — were injured. Windows were shattered within a radius of three blocks.
All employes had been evacuated from the building following a telephone
warning 10 minutes before the blast.
Police said three Jews, one dressed as an Arab, pushed a bomb-laden,
Arab-type delivery cart into the building and fled, after clubbing a Jewish
policeman and snatching a rifle from an Arab guard.
Police tried to drag the cart from the building, but the rope parted. They
said they then detonated the bomb with rifle fire, but “miscalculated the
charge.”
Tel Aviv police reported… that a young Jew and Jewish girl claiming to
represent the Stern Gang, a small Jewish underground unit, had delivered an
ultimatum personally to 18 Jewish officials of the Palestine Income Tax
Department to resign within 96 hours or face drastic consequences. Special
guards were assigned immediately to the 18 officials.
The attempt to bring about the large-scale resignations was viewed by
authorities as another step in the Stern Gang’s announced policy of
sponsoring non-payment of taxes by Palestine’s Jews.
Another report on the same incident
clarifies that the two Jews, “described as Yemenites, visited the homes of the
tax officials Thursday night to deliver the warnings.”
Jerusalem, — (AP) —
Irgun Zvai Leumi, militant Jewish underground group, exhorted Jews throughout
the world today to “hit Britain economically without mercy” in protest
against the trans-shipment of 4,400 Jewish refugees to Germany.
In a broadcast denouncing British treatment of the refugees, who were
intercepted in mid-July while trying to enter Palestine illegally aboard the
Exodus of , a former Chesapeake Bay steamer,
Irgun declared:
“You can stop the cruel British machine forever. Do not pay your tax money,
do not obey their orders. Do not obey their laws. Boycott, boycott, boycott
until the end.
“Jews of the whole world can bring great harm to our enemy. Britain is in
economic trouble. They can be hit economically without mercy.”
The Irgun broadcaster also urged Jews to ignore appeals for a hunger strike
today to protest treatment accorded the refugees.
“This is no time for fasting,” the broadcast said. “It is now time for war.”
When I attend the Anarchist Bookfairs in San Francisco, one of my favorite things to do is to leaf through the collections of old, yellowing, radical pamphlets and booklets.
It’s fun in its own right, if you’re a weirdo like me, but occasionally I’ll also find something worth sharing here, like a Catholic Worker booklet with an essay on tax resistance by Ammon Hennacy for instance.
Last time, I picked up a collection of writings by American revolutionary Samuel Adams that was published in by the American communist publisher International Publishers (remarkably still in business!)
Sam Adams was at the center of the radical wing of American revolutionists who were pushing tax resistance, boycotts, shunning and intimidation of tax collectors and tax compliers, and actions like the Boston Tea Party, in order to forcefully assert American independence from the taxing power of a British parliament in which Americans were not represented.
Though it is fashionable these days to assert that the Boston Tea Party wasn’t about taxes (because the tea that went overboard had actually been at least partially subsidized and exempted from levies as a way of foisting it off on the colonies), Adams astutely saw that such policies were part and parcel of the unjust taxation of America:
[B]y acts of Parliament, the colonies are prohibited from importing commodities of the growth or manufacture of Europe, except from Great Britain, saving a few articles.
This gives the advantage to Great Britain of raising the price of her commodities, and is equal to a tax.
Here is Adams speaking out against the tax on tea:
We cannot surely have forgot the accursed designs of a most detestable set of men, to destroy the Liberties of America as with one blow, by the Stamp-Act; nor the noble and successful efforts we then made to divert the impending stroke of ruin aimed at ourselves and our posterity.
The Sons of Liberty on the , a Day which ought to be for ever remembered in America, animated with a zeal for their country then upon the brink of destruction, and resolved, at once to save her, or like Samson, to perish in the ruins, exerted themselves with such distinguished vigor, as made the house of Dogon to shake from its very foundation; and the hopes of the lords of the Philistines even while their hearts were merry, and when they were anticipating the joy of plundering this continent, were at that very time buried in the pit they had digged.
The People shouted; and their shout was heard to the distant end of this Continent.
In each Colony they deliberated and resolved, and every Stampman trembled; and swore by his Maker, that he would never execute a commission which he had so infamously received
We cannot have forgot, that at the very Time when the stamp-act was repealed, another was made in which the Parliament of Great-Britain declared, that they had right and authority to make any laws whatever binding on his Majesty’s subjects in America — How far this declaration can be consistent with the freedom of his Majesty’s subjects in America, let any one judge who pleases — In consequence of such right and authority claim’d, the commons of Great Britain very soon fram’d a bill and sent it up to the Lords, wherein they pray’d his Majesty to accept of their grant of such a part as they were then pleas’d, by virtue of the right and authority inherent in them to make, of the property of his Majesty’s subjects in America by a duty upon paper, glass, painter’s colours and tea.
And altho’ these duties are in part repeal’d, there remains enough to answer the purpose of administration, which was to fix the precedent.
We remember the policy of Mr. Grenville, who would have been content for the present with a pepper corn establish’d as a revenue in America: If therefore we are voluntarily silent while the single duty on tea is continued, or do any act, however innocent, simply considered, which may be construed by the tools of administration, (some of whom appear to be fruitful in invention) as an acquiescence in the measure, we are in extreme hazard; if ever we are so distracted as to consent to it, we are undone.
Nor can we ever forget the indignity and abuse with which America in general, and this province and town in particular, have been treated, by the servants & officers of the crown, for making a manly resistance to the arbitrary measures of administration, in the representations that have been made to the men in power at home, who have always been dispos’d to believe every word as infallible truth.
For opposing a threatned Tyranny, we have been not only called, but in effect adjudged Rebels & Traitors to the best of Kings, who has sworn to maintain and defend the Rights and Liberties of his Subjects — We have been represented as inimical to our fellow subjects in Britain, because we have boldly asserted those Rights and Liberties, wherewith they, as Subjects, are made free.
— When we complain’d of this injurious treatment; when we petition’d, and remonstrated our grievances: What was the Consequence?
Still further indignity; and finally a formal invasion of this town by a fleet and army in the memorable year .
Our masters, military and civil, have since that period been frequently chang’d; and possibly some of them, from principles merely political, may of late have look’d down upon us with less sternness in their countenances than a Bernard or a …: But while there has been no essential alteration of measures, no real redress of grievances, we have no reason to think, nay we deceive ourselves if we indulge a thought that their hearts are changed.
We cannot entertain such an imagination, while the revenue, or as it is more justly stiled, the tribute is extorted from us: while our principal fortress, within the environs of the town, remains garrison’d by regular troops, and the harbour is invested by ships of war.
The most zealous advocates for the measures of administration, will not pretend to say, that these troops and these ships are sent here to protect America, or to carry into execution any one plan, form’d for the honor or advantage of Great-Britain.
It would be some alleviation, if we could be convinced that they were sent here with any other design than to insult us.
How absurd then must the addresses which have been presented to some particular gentlemen, who have made us such friendly visits, appear in the eyes of men of sense abroad!
Or, if any of them have been so far impos’d upon, as to be induc’d to believe that such addresses speak the language of the generality of the people, how ridiculous must the generality of the people appear!
On the last supposition, would not a sensible reader of those addresses, upon comparing them with the noble resolutions which this town, this province and this continent have made against slavery, and the just and warm resentment they have constantly shown against every man whatever, who had a mind sordid and base enough, for the sake of lucre, or the preservation of a commission, or from any other consideration, to submit to be made even a remote instrument in bringing and entailing it upon a free and a brave people; upon such a comparison, would he not be ready to conclude, “that we had forgot the reasons which urged us, with unexampled unanimity a few years ago — that our zeal for the public good had worn out, before the homespun cloaths which it had caused us to have made — and, that by our present conduct we condemned our own late successful example!
— Although this is altogether supposition, without any foundation in truth, yet, so our enemies wish it may be in reality, and so they intend it shall be — To prevent it, let us adhere to first principles.
Adams led those opposed to the tax on tea to declare “That whoever shall directly or indirectly countenance this attempt [to send and collect duties on East India Company tea to America], or in any wise aid or abet in unloading, receiving, or vending the tea sent or to be sent out by the East India Company while it remains subject to the payment of a duty here is an enemy to America.” and to decide “that a committee be immediately chosen to wait on those gentlemen, who it is reported are appointed by the East India Company to receive and sell said tea, and to request them from a regard to their own characters and the peace and good order of this town and province immediately to resign their appointment.”
Here’s his description of the Boston Tea Party:
Boston, .
My Dear Sir, I am now to inform you of as remarkable an event as has yet happened since the commencement of our struggle for American liberty.
The meeting of the town of Boston, an account of which I enclosed in my last, was succeeded by the arrival of the ship Falmouth, Captain Hall, with 114 chests of the East India Company’s tea, on the last.
the people met in Faneuil hall, without observing the rules prescribed by law for calling them together; and although that hall is capable of holding 1200 or 1300 men, they were soon obliged for the want of room to adjourn to the Old South meeting-house; where were assembled upon this important occasion 5000, some say 6000 men, consisting of the respectable inhabitants of this and the adjacent towns.
The business of the meeting was conducted with decency, unanimity, and spirit.
Their resolutions you will observe in an enclosed printed paper.
It naturally fell upon the correspondence for the town of Boston to see that these resolutions were carried into effect.
This committee, finding that the owner of the ship after she was unloaded of all her cargo except the tea, was by no means disposed to take the necessary steps for her sailing back to London, thought it best to call in the committees of Charlestown, Cambridge, Brookline, Roxbury, and Dorchester, all of which towns are in the neighbourhood of this, for their advice and assistance.
After a free conference and due consideration, they dispersed.
The next day, being the people met again at the Old South church, and having ascertained the owner, they compelled him to apply at the custom house for a clearance for his ship to London with the tea on board, and appointed ten gentlemen to see it performed; after which they adjourned till .
The people then met, and Mr. Rotch informed them that he had according to their injunction applied to the collector of the customs for a clearance, and received in answer from the collector that he could not consistently with his duty grant him a clearance, until the ship should be discharged of the dutiable article on board.
It must be here observed that Mr. Rotch had before made a tender of the tea to the consignees, being told by them that it was not practicable for them at that time to receive the tea, by reason of a constant guard kept upon it by armed men; but that when it might be practicable, they would receive it.
He demanded the captain’s bill of lading and the freight, both which they refused him, against which he entered a regular protest.
The people then required Mr. Rotch to protest the refusal of the collector to grant him a clearance under these circumstances, and thereupon to wait upon the governor for a permit to pass the castle in her voyage to London, and then adjourned till the afternoon.
They then met, and after waiting till sun-setting, Mr. Rotch returned, and acquainted them that the governor had refused to grant him a passport, thinking it inconsistent with the laws and his duty to the king, to do it until the ship should be qualified, notwithstanding Mr. Rotch had acquainted him with the circumstances above mentioned.
You will observe by the printed proceedings, that the people were resolved that the tea should not be landed, but sent back to London in the same bottom; and the property should be safeguarded while in port, which they punctually performed.
It cannot therefore be fairly said that the destruction of the property was in their contemplation.
It is proved that the consignees, together with the collector of the customs, and the governor of the province, prevented the safe return of the East India Company’s property (the danger of the sea only excepted) to London.
The people finding all their endeavours for this purpose thus totally frustrated, dissolved the meeting, which had consisted by common estimation of at least seven thousand men, many of whom had come from towns at the distance of twenty miles.
In less than four hours every chest of tea on board three ships which had by this time arrived, three hundred and forty-two chests, or rather the contents of them, was thrown into the sea, without the least injury to the vessels or any other property.
The people of nearly all the States are now oppressed with direct taxation, for State and local purposes, to the utmost limit of their endurance.
Indeed, in some of them they have resisted the collection of taxes and defeated, at least temporarily, the operations of the law; in some cases, by the resignation of officers whose duty it was to collect the taxes and in others by the refusal of the people to elect the proper officers for that purpose.
In a portion of the State of Maryland, resistance to the tax laws has assumed a revolutionary character, and a meeting of “Democratic citizens of Carroll county,” adopted, among others, the following resolution, which was advocated by two of the Locofoco Senators of that State.
Resolved, That several of the counties have neglected or refused to pay any direct tax, and that all the counties ought to oppose, in a constitutional and legal manner, the payment of the same.
These are modern instances of the tone of American feeling on this subject, but those who are familiar with the condition of things during the late war with Great Britain, know that when contributions were levied upon the people for the purpose of defending their firesides, and sustaining their rights, and the national independence, they were collected with the greatest difficulty, and were the occasion of most exasperated and bitter feeling towards the Government.
Direct taxation could not be resorted to, on the part of the General Government, with any prospect of realising an amount sufficient for its wants, nor without destroying the attachment of the people to their Government and creating a feeling which would, in its result, be destructive to our institutions.
There is no state in this union where a more sovereign aversion to repudiation is entertained by the great body of the people, than in Maryland, and yet there is perhaps no state in which there is a more distinctly organized and active party operating to effect repudiation if they can.
“Repudiation” here means individual states defaulting on their debts.
The United States in were something like the European Union in — overextended, out of money, with failing institutions, a public unwilling to tighten the belts and pay off their creditors, and a central government reluctant to be the financial backstop.
Some states ended up flatly repudiating their debts, and a number of others (including Maryland) partially defaulted.
In Maryland’s case, the debts had largely been racked up by government investments in canals, which were the bullet train boondoggles of their day — launched with promise of great benefit to the taxpayer (“they’ll pay for themselves!”) but mostly benefiting government contractors and kickback artists.
This party embraces men high in authority, wielding no small share of party influence as well as official power.
Their measures heretofore have been covert and insidious — such as throwing every possible obstacle in the way of enacting salutary laws, in the first instance — then by obstructing the enforcement of such laws as are enacted to sustain the credit of the government, by sowing discontent amongst the people, and finally by intimidating men from accepting or attempting to execute the laws of the land.
The progress of these efforts we have watched with deep anxiety.
The effect of it has been to paralyze in a great measure the otherwise wholesome demonstrations of those who are zealous in maintaining the integrity and character of the state.
At length however some of the leaders of this movement have distinctly exhibited their designs and hoisted their colors.
This party, composed to some extent of members from each of the great political parties which divide community, has nevertheless such a preponderating proportion of one party only in their ranks, that the other party (though whigs) may be said to be prepared to act in body and unbroken phalanx upon the question; their opponents, calling themselves “democrats” are seriously embarrassed by the defection of so considerable and influential a section from their unity.
Yet as a party, the great majority are sound in principle, upon this question.
These preliminary remarks are made in order to enable distant readers to understand the true posture of affairs, of which the following proceedings are the exponents.
We are mortified at the necessity for recording such documents — and nothing but fidelity to the duty of being faithful chroniclers of passing events, would induce us to insert them.
The fact that the authorities of some three of the counties of the state neglected to take efficient measures to have the state tax collected from their people, last year, was one of the greatest difficulties which surrounded the legislature of the state at its last session in relation to ways and means to sustain public credit.
Most of the counties had paid either the whole or a considerable portion of that tax — and they demurred at paying more unless all were compelled to bear their proportion.
The measure of coercion which the occasion required, was the difficulty.
Some were for a decisive course — others for temporizing, under an idea that a better temper and better times would insure the payment in future.
— A medium course was adopted.
To insure the collection of the state tax, it was conceived that to compel the county collectors to bond for the payment of that as well as of the tax required for county purposes, and to forbid by law the collection of the one unless the other was collected, would be conclusive.
This therefore was the course adopted.
It was a plausible expedient, — but has failed.
Those counties that so easily enjoyed immunity from the state tax last year, by neglecting to obtain collectors, were in no humor to pay double tax this year, and accordingly they endeavor to find new expedients to avert the imposition.
Other counties seem determined not to have all the tax to pay, whilst these are allowed to go free — and so we go.
Worcester, Somerset, and Calvert, were the defaulting counties last year.
All of which — or the two first at all events, had real excuse in the successive of failures in their crops, — the last year’s especially.
Calvert, we regret to learn, has again failed to obtain the services of a collector.
A meeting was called upon the subject by the leaders of the party who call themselves “democrats” in Harford county on the at which Alexander Norris, esq. presided, Henry Macatee and William L. Forwood vice presidents, John R. Nelson, secretary.
The meeting was addressed by Otho Scott a Van Buren state senator from Harford county, and William P. Maulsby, a Van Buren state senator from Carroll county, two of the leading men of that party in the legislature of Maryland.
Amongst the proceedings of the meeting, were the following preamble and resolutions, which were adopted, signed and published.
Whereas, The past injudicious legislation of this state has involved us in a debt far beyond the ability of the people to pay, and any attempt to coerce its payment by direct taxation, would oppress the people beyond their power of endurance.
Therefore, it is resolved, That the people are unable to pay the present direct tax, as a permanent exaction.
Resolved, That if the present direct tax was punctually paid through all future time, it would not save the credit and honor of the state, because the yearly interest on the public debt is twice as much as the direct tax.
Resolved, That we now owe for interest which is in arrear and unpaid about one million and a half of dollars, and that the interest which annually accrues, is about six hundred thousand dollars.
Resolved, That the proceeds of the direct tax, if this oppressive system is continued, will not, in less than five years, pay the interest now due, so that by the time the interest now due is paid by the present direct tax, we shall owe three millions for interest, which will accrue while we are paying what we now owe.
Resolved, That it is manifest, that as the present direct tax only pays half the interest, the longer the system is continued, the more we shall be in debt.
Resolved, That the people are unable to pay, even for a single year, a direct tax equal to the interest on the debt — that there is not as much money in circulation as would pay such a tax.
Resolved, That although every one is in favor of such a sale of the public works as would relieve the people from their burdens; still the law passed by the whigs at the last session, deserves the severest reprobation from every friend of the people or its public creditors.
That law furnishes no ground to hope, that any sale can be made whereby our taxes can be lessened; on the contrary, its only effect, if not arrested in its execution, will be to strip the people of every portion of the works, which is valuable, for the benefit of wealthy associations of speculators, without diminishing in the slightest degree that portion of the public debt which is now oppressing the people.
Resolved, That several of the counties have neglected or refused to pay any direct tax, and that all the counties ought to oppose in a constitutional and legal manner, the payment of the same.
Resolved, That the people of this county at their next election, ought to express their disapprobation of this oppressive system of exaction, and come out openly for repeal.
The Cecil Democrat of contains a formal account of what it represents as a “large and respectable” meeting of the “democrats” of that county, called with the design of sustaining the position assumed by the meeting in Harford.
According to statements given in the Baltimore papers however, and respectably vouched for, it appears that efforts were made during court week in Cecil, to get up a repudiation meeting — but in vain.
Mr. Forwood who distinguished himself during the session before the last of the legislature, in repudiating speeches and propositions, was indefatigable in his endeavors to get a meeting.
He had been defeated at the election on the ground of having maintained such doctrines.
As a meeting could not be mustered, a committee, it would appear — though it is difficult to tell how, got into existence some way or other from which the proceedings, resolutions, &c. that are published in the Democrat, were the produce.
A meeting was attempted to be convened to countenance said resolutions.
Two persons besides the committee attended, but one of them having come there under the impression that it was to be an anti-repudiation meeting, retired as soon as he was undeceived.
Such is said to be the progress of this attempt at manufacturing “public opinion.”
On a meeting of the opponents of the tax was held in pursuance of public notice in Talbot County, at which Foster Maynard, esq. presided, John Talbot secretary, and the following was unanimously adopted:
Resolved, That the system of direct taxation, as at present enforced or attempted to be enforced, in this stale, is oppressive and unequal in its operation.
Resolved, That the people of Talbot county are unable to pay the said tax.
Resolved, That the law of the last session of the legislature, blending the collection of state and county taxes, and making the payment of the direct tax a condition precedent to the payment of the county charges, is arbitrary, vexations and oppressive, and ought to be repealed.
Resolved, That believing no collector of the ordinary county taxes will serve under the present objectionable laws, and being extremely solicitous that the poor in the alms house, and the county pensioners, and others having claims against the county, shall be amply provided for, the chairman of this meeting is hereby authorised to appoint a committee of four persons (one from each election district) who are hereby authorised and requested to confer with the commissioners of the county and to make with them such arrangements as may be deemed expedient and appropriate for the of the purpose contemplated and intended by this solution.
Resolved, That this meeting most anxiously and earnestly desire the sale of public works for the benefit of the holders of state bonds.
Resolved, On motion, that the proceedings of this meeting be published in the newspapers of this town.
The committee appointed in pursuance of the fourth resolution is composed of the following individuals: Edward Lloyd, Nicholas Martin, Thorn Pierson, and Dr. James Dawson.
The resolution itself is in direct opposition to the act of the legislature relating to the collection of state and county taxes.
These meetings, and especially the one in Harford county, being called under the appellation of, and with a view of identifying as far as was in their power those movements as being the movements of the “democratic party,” were objectionable to the great body of that party in the city of Baltimore.
A meeting of the party was called at Monument Square the , the following proceedings of which; we extract from the Baltimore Republican of the .
I can’t figure out how that timing is supposed to work so that a paper published on the 10th covers the proceedings of a meeting held on the 11th.
I suspect they just got it backwards.
I’m pretty sure, also, that Niles’ is sometimes confused as to its “instant” — sometimes this means June, but sometimes this means May.
But anyway, this is what the Baltimore Republican reported, according to Niles’:
TOWN MEETING.
In consequence of a call for a town meeting having been published by order of the Baltimore democratic convention, a numerous assemblage of persons convened at Monument Square last evening to take into consideration the subject for which they were called together.
The meeting was organized, on motion of col. Wm. Fell Giles, by calling JOHN NELSON, esq. to preside, and appointing the following named gentlemen as officers for the occasion:
Vice presidents. Wm.
Geo. Read, Robert Howard, Joseph White, B.I. Sanders, H’y. R. Loudenrman, Daniel Bender, John King, Mark Grafton Ant’y Millenberger, John I. Donaldson, Wm. J. Wight, William Krebs, Richard Marley, Elijah Slansbury, Jr.
Secretaries. Frederick I. Dugan, Wm. D. Roberts, Philip Muth, Jr., Benj. C. Presstman.
The organization being complete, Wm. Fell Giles, esq. addressed the meeting with much eloquence and feeling, and submitted the following preamble and resolutions, which were unanimously adopted:
Whereas, at a public meeting held in Bel-Air, Harford county, on , a series of resolutions were passed in reference to the public debt of this state, and of the ability of her citizens to pay, by taxation, the annual interest thereof; and also expressing an opinion that the counties ought to oppose the payment of the present tax; which resolution if permitted to pass unnoticed, may lead the citizens of other states to believe that the same sentiments and opinions pervade the democracy of the state at large, and may thereby injure the great cause which we have so often been triumphant — a cause which recognizes, among its leading principles, prompt and faithful redemption of all promises, whether made by states or corporations; therefore,
Resolved, by the democratic party of the city of Baltimore in town meeting assembled:
1st. That, although we believe the creation of a large part of the debt of Maryland to have been unwise and against her true interests, yet we recognise as obligatory upon the state her public debt, contracted by various acts of her legislature through a period of twenty years, and sanctioned by all forms of law; and that the state and her citizens are bound, by every consideration of justice and honor, to provide for the payment of the interest and the ultimate redemption of the principal thereof.
2nd. That our state abounds with all the elements of wealth, that her resources are daily developing; that her lands are daily becoming more fertile; that this meeting believe that her citizens are fully able to pay, by taxation, the amount necessary to enable her to meet the annual interest on her public debt,
3rd. That the city of Baltimore, having carried into execution the tax laws of the state, and her citizens being willing to pay the state tax of 25 cents, while they are paying at the same time a tax of about 77 cents on the $100 to provide for the payment of the interest on their corporation debt and for other municipal purposes, has a right to call upon every other part of the state to bear their portion of the public burden and to pay their amount of the public taxation.
4th. That the idea cannot for a moment entertained, that this free commonwealth shall repudiate her public debt, — a debt solemnly contracted in the face of all nations, — and refuse to provide for the payment of the principal or interest of the same.
5th. That we cordially and affectionately invite the citizens of every part of our state to a prompt and faithful compliance with the laws passed for the purposes above mentioned.
6th. That whatever individuals may do, we believe the democratic party of Maryland will ever be willing to join their fellow citizens in bearing whatever burden may be necessary to redeem the plighted faith of the state.
These resolutions having been read and adopted, Benjamin C. Presstman, esq., made an address of considerable length to the meeting, appealing to their love of principle, patriotism, honor, and justice; and called upon them to stand by their time-honored state in her hour of difficulty.
The following resolutions were submitted to the meeting by Mr. P:
Resolved, That while we thus recognise the doctrine that the public creditor has the right to demand the full and faithful discharge of the annual interest of the state debt, yet we have equal confidence that if a temporary failure should sometimes happen to meet the entire amount, owing to causes not under our control, nor within the reach of honorable means to void, that in such case, in that spirit of justice which could regulate all private dealings between man and man, no imputations of dishonesty could or would be cast, if we discharged our liabilities at all times in good faith to the full extent of our ability.
And that the want of power to meet the whole demand is not a valid defence for a refusal to pay what we can.
Resolved. That this meeting entertains the belief, that a sale of the public works upon such terms and conditions could be made as to cause a large diminution of the principal debt of the state, and that time alone is required to develope the practicability of such plan, consistent with the interest and honor of the state, and that when such deduction shall have been made, the interest which would have to be paid upon the remainder would in view of the advantages derivable from the completion of the public works alone, if from no higher consideration, be cheerfully met, and that in estimating what might be effected by such a sale, we believe that the citizens of Maryland might be relieved from the burthen of taxation to an extent when it might be easily borne, to a point indeed less than what prevails in many other stales of the Union.
And that whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the proper mode and manner of disposing of the state’s interest, it is now manifest that these works are esteemed valuable, and that they may be used so as to concel [“conceal”?
“cancel”?] a large portion of the public debt, at any time the people may desire and the legislature carry out the wish by proper legislative enactments.
Resolved, That this meeting in thus setting forth its opinions in a manner and language too plain to be misunderstood, upon a subject of such vital importance to the public welfare, so intimately blended with the fair fame of our beloved state, so inseparably connected with the commercial credit of Baltimore, in short so paramount in all respects to every other political consideration, being a question of public morals, upon the settlement of which may depend whatever confidence is justly due to republican institutions, make no attempt at dictation as to the course others may see proper to pursue, and yet we desire to mark emphatically our own determination in the premises, from which there will be no shadow of turning, which is to express at all times as we do now, in the name of more than 7,000 voters of the democratic party of this city, their deep abhorrence of the odious doctrine of repudiation; their indignant and unequivocal denial that it is sanctioned by any principle of the democratic faith, but on the contrary that it is at war with its cardinal principle of equal and exact justice to all; and that we will use every effort in opposition to this novel heresy, looking at last to the ballot box as the faithful defender of the virtue, intelligence, and patriotism of the people.
Resolved, That the thanks of this meeting are due and are hereby offered to the able editor of the Balmore Republican & Argus, who well knowing the sentiments of our people upon this subject, did as a faithful sentinel on the watch tower, and in the spirit of a true democrat, rebuke the “first dawning of an attempt” to enlist the democratic party in hostility to the maintenance of the public credit.
These resolutions having been unanimously adopted, and the remarks of the speaker received with great unanimity and decided approbation, the meeting adjourned.
So how did that work out for the Democratic Party machine that, with Whig assistance, got Maryland into its debt mess, and for the Locofoco Democrat insurgents who were trying to lead the party on a path of debt repudiation and free trade?
Well, Maryland had already partially defaulted on its debts by halting payment in .
It tried to make up some of the difference by selling off its interest in the canals, but nobody wanted to buy them.
Eventually the state managed to push new taxes through, but it wasn’t until that it formally resumed paying interest on the debts.
But the repudiation party never won their case.
As for the Locofocos more generally, I don’t hear much about them after , and I’m not sure to what extent this means they were absorbed into another party, or their concerns went mainstream, or they evaporated, or what.
Histories of the Democratic Party of Maryland are not easy to find, and I’m not sure I’d really want to thumb through one if I did find it.
Danny Burns’s book Poll Tax Rebellion (AK Press, 1992) tells the story of the grassroots tax resistance campaign that sank the poll tax in Britain and dragged Margaret Thatcher’s decade-long reign as British prime minister down with it.
Background
Margaret Thatcher’s span as British prime minister included a paring down of the welfare state, aggressive attempts to reduce the power of organized labor, privatization and deregulation, and a flattening of the tax rate.
You may recognize this deck of cards as being similar to what Ronald Reagan played with in this same time period (), and indeed the two were influenced by a similar set of economists and ideologues.
The poll tax was meant to replace local property taxes, which had been set on a local, council-by-council basis.
Thatcher-aligned Conservatives disliked these property taxes, which were often raised by left-leaning local councils, and which applied only to property owners (or, indirectly, to renters).
Using an argument familiar to those following current debates about the personal income tax in the United States, these critics said that because many voters did not pay these taxes, but received the benefit of the government services the taxes paid for, they were biased toward ratcheting up the tax rate to effectively confiscate and redistribute wealth from property owners, which was unfair to those taxpayers and had negative consequences in general.
To fix this problem, they believed the tax should instead be applied to everybody alike.
And in case the resulting voter pressure wasn’t enough to keep the rates down, the central government should have the ability to cap the poll tax and prevent spendthrift councils from raising it too far.
And so the poll tax was born.
It faced immediate opposition, but at first it was unclear how this opposition would take form.
The Labour party wanted people to petition and protest against the tax, but they mostly wanted people to resent it and to identify it with the Conservatives because Labour saw it as a winning issue — the party had no interest in trying to actually defeat the tax as they felt it worked to their advantage.
In addition, Labour worried that if people tried to avoid the tax, for instance by not registering as residents of a tax district, they might also try to stay off the voter rolls and thus reduce Labour’s pool of potential voters.
To those targeted by the tax, though, resentment and protest were not going to be enough.
For people at the bottom of the income and wealth scale, the poll tax was a considerable hit, and resistance wasn’t just an option, but a necessity.
Mass-resistance to the tax was organized in a strikingly grassroots fashion, often confronting antagonism not only from the government but also from establishment opposition parties and organized labor.
The resistance to the poll tax was widespread, varied, and ultimately successful.
In 1990, Thatcher resigned as prime minister and a new team took over the Conservative party and immediately flung the albatross of the poll tax from its neck, replacing it with a tiered-rate property tax.
Today I’m going to review some of the tactics that made this campaign successful.
Propaganda and spin
The very name “poll tax” was a propaganda coup for the opposition.
The government had rolled out the program with the benign-sounding name “community charge,” but the “poll tax” name stuck.
Poll taxes are never popular, and resistance to poll taxes has a resonance in British history with previous popular struggles.
The victims of the poll tax were a sympathetic lot, including pensioners, the disabled, poor families, student nurses, and people with elderly live-in family members, and the resistance movement was not shy about using this to its advantage.
Public burning of tax bills, and frequent leafletting and postering kept the resistance in the public eye and made sure people knew there was an ongoing resistance campaign.
A community arts group created a travelling performance about the poll tax and how to resist it, and enacted it in various communities.
Take pride in resistance
Some councils tried the old trick of publishing a list of people who were behind on their taxes as a way of “shaming” them before their neighbors.
Instead, when this happened, people who were resisting their taxes but who were not on the list wrote letters-to-the-editor of the periodicals where the lists appeared to ask why their names had not been included on the roster.
Myth and legend
The resistance movement summoned up images from respected tax resistance campaigns of Britain’s past as a way to make its movement seem more respectable and part of a patriotic lineage.
There were references to the women’s suffrage movement and the American revolution, but even more often to Wat Tyler’s poll tax rebellion of .
The phrase “No Poll Tax Here,” seen on many of the signs and posters used by the resistance movement, also hearkened back to the Reform Act-related tax resistance of , in which people placed “No Taxes Paid Here” signs in their windows.
(The anti-poll tax resistance was so popular and successful that nowadays it is the model hearkened back to by movements like the current resistance to the Household Tax in Ireland.)
Surveys
On at least one occasion, the resistance movement took a door-to-door survey of households both to gauge their interest in resisting, and as a pretense to spread the resistance idea.
One result of the surveys was that between the people who planned to pay, and the people who couldn’t or wouldn’t pay was a large (55%) middle-ground of people who were sympathetic with resistance and would be willing to resist if they knew enough people were with them.
On seeing this result, Burns says, “we knew that non-payment was going to be massive.”
Another clever variety of survey was this:
[One] group then mass-produced a window poster which said “No Poll Tax Here.”
The poster was dropped through the letter-boxes of 2000 households and the group waited to see who put them up.
Posters appeared in about 100 windows.
Activists the went round and spoke to these people individually, inviting them to attend the next organising meeting…
Drown them with paperwork
Implementing the poll tax required registering everyone in the United Kingdom, and keeping track of them as they moved from one council district to another.
The people who designed the poll tax program underestimated how difficult it would be to do this adequately, even if there hadn’t been a lack of enthusiasm for the project by the individual councils or outright opposition from those being taxed.
Some of the earliest resistance tactics aimed at exacerbating this problem, and the only tactic promoted by the Labour party that could be described as an actual resistance tactic falls in this category:
[The “Stop It” campaign’s] one serious initiative was the “send it back” campaign, which told activists to return the registration forms and ask awkward questions of the council officers.
Its aim was to delay the system and to make “a legitimate protest.”
Burns notes that this was of questionable effectiveness, in part because it was not pursued very vigorously, and in part because by encouraging people to register in any form — even in a temporarily obstructionist way — this provided registration information to the poll tax collecting authorities that could later be used against resisters.
Clogging the bureaucracy with paperwork was nonetheless an effective tactic, particularly later in the resistance struggle as the councils had to go through the process of pursuing those who did not pay:
…councils were inundated with correspondence.
Many people genuinely didn’t understand what the Poll Tax was about.
Others mounted campaigns to delay registration by endlessly asking questions about the form.
All of these had to be answered.
Councils sat under a mountain of paper.
Everything they did seemed to create more work.
The paper-work involved with administering the charge is enormous — and likely to get worse.
Backlogs switch from one area of activity to another.
Indeed, local authorities cannot really do anything without generating more paper-work.
If they attempt to canvas more people for registration they will also produce more people who will refuse to register.
―Poll Tax Legal Group
Make enforcement expensive
Whereas in the past, summonses issued by councils against people in arrears on their taxes had been pro forma things, rubber-stamped by judges without the summoned defendant even being expected to turn up — when people were given summonses for their poll taxes, the resistance movement encouraged them to go to court and to use whatever means they could to stretch out the time of their court appearance.
Mathematically, if even a fraction of the people summonsed actually turned up in court and were given even a few minutes of time to explain themselves, the courts would be unable to handle the load.
Local Anti-Poll Tax unions trained members in the law so they could help individual resisters stand up for their rights in court.
There were frequent examples in which thousands of summons were dismissed for technical errors or just because the courts were overwhelmed.
Warn people enforcers are coming
In a strategy modeled on one used in South Africa’s apartheid-era townships, neighborhoods declared themselves “no-go” areas for sheriffs, and posted watchouts to warn people if bailiffs or other enforcers were on the way.
Activists in Edinburgh formed a group called “Scum-busters” which was equipped with CB radios and squadrons of cars.
Telephone trees were organised; bailiff companies were monitored; their car registration numbers were taken and distributed to activists in all the local areas.
The Camden group recruited taxi firms to keep an eye out for bailiff vehicles while they did their rounds and to call in their spottings.
Try to win over tax collectors and collaborators
The movement tried, without success, to convince local councils — many of which were left-leaning and not sympathetic to Conservative policies — to resign their offices, or to illegally refuse to enact their budgets according to the poll tax law.
They also failed to convince the labor union representing the workers who worked in the bureau enacting the poll tax to refuse to implement the tax.
The movement had unexpected allies, of a sort, in the bailiffs who were assigned to distrain goods from tax defaulters.
Being used to unorganized, ashamed, impoverished pushovers, these collection agencies were overwhelmed by organized resistance and found themselves unable to recoup the expenses of collection.
For this reason some went bankrupt, while others were reluctant for merely financial reasons to handle cases of distraint for failure to pay poll tax.
Social boycott of tax collectors and collaborators
The movement also used the threat of shunning or boycott to discourage people from cooperating with the poll tax.
The government tried to recruit newsstands to be deposit points for poll tax payments, as convenient supplements for government-run depots like post offices.
But when the resistance movement got wind of this, “communities made it plain that they would no longer use the shops” of those who collaborated in this way.
Intimidate tax collectors and collaborators
In some cases, the intimidation went beyond threats of boycotts and shunning to vandalism and violence:
Windows have been smashed and graffiti daubed over businesses which have become agents… to collect the community charge… one agent in Patchway has now declined taking an agency after a brick was thrown through his window… [another] had the words “Poll Tax scab” and “you’re the first” scrawled in white paint across his window.
A Circle K store in Cardiff… had its door locks jammed with superglue.
Posters implicitly or explicitly threatening bailiffs and judges with lynch mob justice were not uncommon:
One showing a vicious dog, read “Bailiffs? Make my day!”
Another showing a picture of Malcolm X holding a machine gun [sic] looking out from behind the curtains, read: “Bailiffs we’re ready.”
A third showed a picture of a bailiff swinging in a noose.
It read “Dead bailiffs don’t knock on doors.”
In some areas bailiffs and registration officers were photographed and their portraits were reproduced on posters which read “wanted” and listed their “crimes.”
Some canvassers quit their jobs under the pressure of such violent threats, and one committed suicide with his family blaming it on being “sworn at and threatened” by those he encountered.
On one occasion, molotov cocktails were thrown at an (unoccupied) poll tax office.
A large group of protesters converged on and surrounded the home of the head of a bailiff company.
Finding him not at home, but his garage door open, they held a mock auction of his property.
Destroy or disable collection apparatus
There is one plausible story in the book of a poll tax office’s database being compromised and a large percentage of registered people being deleted from the system.
On one occasion, a bailiff’s vehicle had its tires slashed.
On another, resisters occupied the poll tax office, took up stations at the payment windows, and told people who had come by to pay their taxes to go home instead as the tax had been rescinded.
Blockades, occupations, and barricades
Several attempts by bailiffs to seize property from resisters were foiled by blockades of hundreds of protesters, several deep, surrounding the resister’s home and preventing access.
Sometimes this would extend to barricading the streets of a neighborhood, and in at least one case, of an entire town.
There were also several examples of groups of protesters occupying government and law-enforcement offices, courtrooms, and council chambers in such a way as to make business there come to a halt.
Publish and distribute how-to guides
A group of legal advisors assembled a series of bulletins and a how-to guide to help people become familiar with their legal rights and with the process the law was likely to take in their cases.
This gave them the confidence to pursue their resistance up to the limits of their comfort level, and also the techniques to make their resistance most effective.
Census resistance
Non-registration was as important as non-payment, and had to be pushed early in the campaign, while the Labour and other mainstream liberal opposition was still advising people to register but be angry about it.
When resisters were served with a liability order, it would be accompanied by a questionnaire that included questions about the resister’s employment (which could be used to help the government seize the resister’s paycheck).
Although it was legally mandatory to fill out these questionnaires, and penalties were threatened against those who refused, only about 15% of the people who received such questionnaires returned them.
Engender and maintain activism and solidarity
Everybody potentially had a role to play in the resistance.
People who did not owe tax could be legal advisors or join phone banks.
Even children served as lookouts to watch for bailiffs.
The most successful groups used a bottom-up organizing model, where most decisions were made independently in small, locally-convened groups of resisters.
This served to empower individuals and to encourage them to rely on their own initiative rather than on the decisions of a far-off activist elite.
Here’s an interesting technique for bringing people together:
An independent television company approached the Easton group in order to work with us on a film about the Poll Tax.
The film was never shown, but the way the community was engaged in the process of making it is instructive.
The film producers wanted a shot of all the doors in the street, opening one by one as the occupants came out of their houses with banners and signs.
Charles, the local street rep, went round to people’s houses every evening for a week and explained to them what was wanted.
Out of 30 houses in the street (a cul-de-sac) 28 agreed to participate.
The street is multi-racial with a fairly wide class mix.
It was inspiring to see white working class men standing shoulder to shoulder with Asian women and their kids, holding the same banners and engrossed in conversation.
Some of them had never spoken to each other before.
…[V]irtually every one of those households joined the Union, and most still had posters in their windows a year later.
People were brought into the campaign, not through a leaflet or a canvasser, but through an interesting activity.
They didn’t have to go to the campaign, it came to them.
Support and assist arrested & imprisoned resisters
When people received summonses, they could call a hotline number to get an information package in the mail.
These numbers were posted on walls and utility poles all over.
Volunteers were given legal training so that they could help summonsed people as informal legal advisors, and a more formal and credentialed legal advisory group in turn advised them.
Brian Wright, the first resister imprisoned for failure to pay, got 800 cards and letters from well-wishers while in jail, and hundreds demonstrated outside his cell.
The police cracked down on anti-poll tax demonstrations, in what seemed to the demonstrators like a deliberate attempt to turn them into bloodbaths, intimidate people from participating, and divide the movement into “lawless” and “respectable” factions.
This seemed to work to some extent, at first, as some prominent spokespeople for the anti-poll tax movement distanced themselves from those arrested for “rioting.”
But an independent group formed and dedicated itself to defending anyone arrested at these demonstrations, and organized itself in such a way as to be solely representative of the defendants (not of any other organization).
Volunteers were sent to every police station to welcome demonstrators as they were bailed out, and the organization was able to share resources (like videotape disproving police testimony) and tactics among legal teams representing different defendants.
…a prisoners support group was set up… supporting 27 long-term prisoners. …
The TSDC made sure each prisoner was written to at least once a week by members of the campaign and visits to prisoners were coordinated through the campaign.
Those who had been inside offered support and advice to those who were about to be convicted, and a newsletter was produced which published the letters of prisoners.
The campaign… paid for newspapers and books; a Walkman cassette player for every prisoner; £10 a month income (the maximum they are allowed).
In addition to this some of the families were offered limited financial support for visits…
Conclusion
The resistance campaign that defeated the poll tax was diverse and creative in its tactics, and its success makes it a model worth learning from.
Danny Burns’s book about the campaign is a helpful overview of these tactics and of the dynamics of how they were applied.
One way a tax resistance campaign can get a leg up is through the acts of
sympathizers within the tax collection bureaucracy itself. After all, they’re
taxpayers too, and may feel more loyalty to their fellow-subjects than to the
government they’re subjected to.
To this end, some tax resistance campaigns have made strides by encouraging
resignations, defections, and goldbricking among those responsible for
carrying out the tax laws.
In this, they’re following the lead of Thoreau, who wrote:
Today I’ll give some examples of tax resistance campaigns that tried to
persuade the tax collector to switch teams.
Free Keene
A group of activists in Keene, New Hampshire, ranging from Christian
anarchists to “Free State Project” ballot-box libertarians, has been
experimenting with a number of creative civil disobedience projects.
In , Russell Kanning went to the Keene
branch of the Internal Revenue Service and tried to hand out leaflets to the
employees there. The leaflets quoted from the tribunal that presided over
war crimes trials in Japan after World War Ⅱ to the effect that people are
obligated personally to disengage from the crimes of their governments, and
then provided a sample letter these employees could send to resign from their
jobs.
Kanning was arrested by agents from the Department of Homeland Security and
charged with distributing materials in a federal building and failure to obey
a lawful order. After he was booked and released, he immediately returned to
the IRS
office to try again (without the leaflets, which had been confiscated). He was
arrested again and charged with disorderly conduct.
A few months later, Dave Ridley followed-up on Kanning’s action, at the
Nashua
IRS
office. He silently held up a sign that read “Is it right to work for the
IRS?”
and passed a leaflet through the window that read in part:
I have the right to remain silent.
IRS
agents have the right to quit their jobs. If that is not possible, they have
a responsibility to work as inefficiently as possible when taking our money,
and as quickly as possible when returning it.
The police were summoned and hustled him out of the building. They later cited
him for “distribution of handbills.”
Kat Kanning and Lauren Canario were the next activists in line, going to the
Keene IRS
office with a “Taxes pay for torture” sign and a stack of leaflets. They were
charged with “disorderly conduct and loitering, failure to obey a lawful
order.”
At every stage in the process, they tried to directly but non-aggressively
confront not only the
IRS
employees, but also the Homeland Security officers, court bailiffs, judges,
and other government collaborators: asking them why they were interfering
with American citizens “petitioning their government for redress of
grievances,” and asking them to consider taking up a more honorable line of
work.
The first intifada
At the launching of the first “intifada” resisting Israeli rule over
Palestinians, Palestinians who worked for the tax department under the Israeli
occupation resigned their posts. As a result of this and of organized tax
resistance, only about 20% of Palestinians subject to Israeli taxes in the West
Bank paid their taxes in 1993, the last year before Israel relinquished taxing
authority there to the Palestinian Authority.
Greek tax and customs officials
Complicating the Greek government’s campaign to bring in more tax revenue
during the recent Euro-region financial brouhaha, bureaucrats in the Greek tax
and customs office periodically went on strike
to protest the
accompanying austerity measures that cut funding for state employees.
British nonconformists
British members of nonconforming Christian sects who did not want to see their
tax money going towards schools that taught children the official, government
supported faith, resisted their taxes. The newspapers reported:
In Lincolnshire, the sitting magistrate recently refused to try cases of
resistance, and left the bench. Difficulty is experienced everywhere in
getting auctioneers to sell the property confiscated.
Whiskey Rebellion
As I mentioned earlier this month,
part of the problem the fledgeling United States government had when trying to
enforce its excise tax against the Whiskey Rebels was that it had a devil of a
time convincing anyone to serve as a prosecutor or exciseman.
From the beginning, the Whiskey Rebels counted on being able to convince their
neighbors not to help the federal government enforce the tax. George
Washington’s Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton complained to him:
The opposition first manifested itself in the milder shape of the circulation
of opinions unfavorable to the law, and calculated by the influence of public
disesteem to discourage the accepting or holding of offices under it…
Annuity Tax resisters
During the resistance against the Annuity Tax in Edinburgh, Scotland, a number
of members of the town council who were members of churches other than the
tax-supported establishment church resigned rather than be party to
administering the act that enacted the tax.
Auctioneers whom the government usually could call upon to preside at tax
auctions refused to take the contracts, and carters whom ordinarily could be
contracted to cart the goods refused, and so the town had to hire someone new
at a higher rate, and purchase new vehicles to haul seized property about.
Last I checked in with the creative tax resisters of Keene, New Hampshire, they’d taken to following around parking enforcers and quickly filling expired meters in front of them so as to reduce the number of tickets they could write.
They’d leave cards under the windshield wipers of the cars they’d rescued signed “Robin Hood and his Merry Men.”
They also encouraged the parking enforcers to resign.
The city filed for a restraining order against the activists, saying that they were harassing the parking enforcers.
The Merry Men countered that this had nothing to do with harassment — the city was just angry at the interruption of its revenue stream.
A judge has now taken the side of Robin Hood.
Judge John C. Kissinger, Jr., dismissed the two cases filed by the city: one for a restraining order and another for monetary damages:
Over the course of the trial, one of the parking enforcers said he had resigned to avoid the harassment, and the city director of finance testified that because of this resignation there had been a loss of ticket revenue and additional costs to the city.
In addition, the city had spent money to hire a private investigator to shadow the Merry Men as they shadowed the parking enforcers.
Today I’m going to start reproducing some excerpts from this material that concern specific tactical and strategic activity and decision-making by the people involved in this successful tax resistance struggle.
3D was the newsletter of the “3rd September Steering Committee” which was one of the coalitions of groups organizing the poll tax resistance.
Its first issue (undated, but probably published around ) included an update from Danny Burns about the progress of the resistance movement in Bristol and Avon.
Some excerpts:
In , campaigns started to get off the ground in Bristol.
By there were around 12 local groups and a federation was formed to coordinate them.
In we have over 50 affiliated groups.
We have had a heartening response from local trade union branches and are starting to involve a whole range of Bristol-wide voluntary organisations.…
In the community charge registration officer for Bristol informed us that they normally take 10,000 people to court each year for non payment of the rates.
Their own estimates based on ability to pay suggest that even without a non payment campaign they will have to take 60,000 people to court.
With such a campaign it is likely to be over 100,000. Our interpretation of the English law shows that every one of these cases will have to go to a civil court for a liability order, and every one can be challenged in court.
This will not be remotely possible for them to implement.
But are we going to achieve these levels of non payment?
We are convinced because the initial returns of our canvass (which we hope by will have gone door to door in every household in Bristol) show that 95% of the population are opposed to the tax.
The vast majority have indicated that they will either be unable to pay the tax or it will cause them severe financial difficulty and in some areas up to 70% have said they will refuse to pay as long as they are part of a mass non payment campaign.
These results have been reflected in the level of activity on the ground.
In Easton (my local anti poll tax union) in a single ward over 300 households have actively joined the union (50p per household); when we have finished the canvass we expect the figure to be nearer five hundred.
This is over 25% of the local population and is nearly ten times the membership of the local ward Labour Party.
How has this been achieved at a local level?
A small core initially called a public meeting, leafletting all 2,000 households.
This meeting formed the embryo of an anti poll tax union.
Following this a “no poll tax here” poster was produced, which was distributed to all households.
The anti poll tax union then identified all the houses who had put the posters up in their windows and talked to them directly (about 100).
The vast majority joined the anti poll tax union, and by this stage we felt strong enough to break down into 12 neighbourhoods.
Leafletting for further local and regional meetings and rallies was organised from this base until with the onset of the Avon-wide canvass.
At this stage we identified street representatives for the whole area.
Ultimately these will be the key to creating the local support and communication which is necessary to keep people from feeling isolated in their struggle.
Back to the Avon Federation!
How are we organised?
All anti poll tax unions and affiliated organisations have a right to two voting delegates at the federation.
We hold federation meetings on a three weekly basis.
We usually get between 50 and 60 people to each of these delegate meetings.
We have recently set up an action group which is working on setting up new groups in every area where there are no groups.
There is a regular petition in the Centre of Bristol which collects names and addresses from the whole of the city.
These are later divided into areas and form the basis of the new groups.
These areas are then leafletted; a public meeting is advertised and then local people are left to get on with it (obviously with the support of the federation).
These approaches have proved very effective and it is likely that by we will have around 80 affiliated groups.…
The lead editorials in issue #2 and #3 urged people to spur their trade union branches to organize workplace anti-poll tax groups.
This was in part because local government workers would be called on to enforce the poll tax, and also to bear the brunt of budget cutting if the tax could not be collected.
But also, this was because councils would probably try to seize unpaid poll tax from the paychecks of workers, and unions could act to try to prevent or ameliorate this.
The editorial noted:
In London a trade union dayschool has been organised to raise the issue of Poll Tax in workplaces and union branches.
The Greater London Association of Trades Councils and the All London Federation support this initiative.
Such dayschools should be called in other areas as a step in building the campaign in workplaces.
Another article in issue #2 noted one way government workers were refusing to cooperate with tax enforcement.
Several clerical workers in inner London social security offices were refusing orders to register recipients on the poll tax rolls.
In doing so, they were defying their union leadership, which was sticking to a compliant line.
Union workers in other parts of the Kingdom “have now been threatened with suspension from the union for debating and overwhelmingly carrying a motion calling for DSS workers to refuse to make ‘poll tax deductions’ from claimants.”
Another article in the same issue mentioned actions to disrupt local council meetings at which the councils were setting poll tax rates.
These included mass protests, resignations of councillors, blockades, and burning an effigy of Margaret Thatcher.
The article also mentions “ ‘harassing’ sheriff officers to stop poindings” in Scotland.
A theme developing in these reports is the challenge of partisanship.
On the one hand, Labour, the ostensible opposition party, was only willing to offer rhetorical resistance to the poll tax, while its elected officials on the local councils were busy implementing it.
On the other hand, the Socialist Workers Party was trying to hijack the anti-poll tax resistance movement to try to bolster its standing — attempting to turn all of the anti-poll tax actions into SWP rallies, and to wrest control of the movement leadership.
(This reminds me a lot of the American Scylla and Charybdis for left-leaning activists of the feckless Democrats/MoveOn liberals on one side and the noxious ANSWER tinpots on the other.)
At one point, a number of officers of the All Britain Federation of Anti-Poll Tax Unions resigned their posts, complaining in an open letter that they had been marginalized by SWP leadership.
Issue #3 noted that “housing staff all over Sheffield walked out following the threat of disciplinary action against area managers who refused to tell staff to attend Poll Tax training events.”
It also reported that the annual delegate meeting of the National Union of Journalists had signed on to a campaign of “Mass non-payment of the Poll Tax”
Another article in that issue noted some of the actions resisters were taking to defend against government reprisals:
The… Campaign has co-ordinated the closing of their bank accounts — no handbag snatchers here, thanks Maggie!
The campaign is threatening to mount a picket and refuse to let anyone in to the home who tries to sell off their possessions to recover the £398 Lothian Council is demanding from them!
In the wake of the poll tax riots, some of the poll tax resistance opposition leaders were embarrassed, and tried to distance themselves from association with the violence by throwing those arrested under the bus.
The “Trafalgar Square Defendants’ Campaign” took a different tack: coordinating the legal defense of those on trial.
On the Trafalgar Square Defendants’ Campaign was launched at a meeting at Conway Hall in London, attended by defendants, solicitors, and anti-Poll tax activists.
It was agreed that the campaign would:
unconditionally support all those arrested
be run by and accountable to those arrested
be independent of all other organisations
demand the support of the whole anti-Poll Tax movement and other sympathetic organisations.
The meeting also agreed to seek out and contact all defendants, co-ordinate legal defence, publicise what happened at the demonstration from the point of view of those arrested, and call for donations and fund-raising for a bust fund for legal and welfare costs.
Issue #4 began by reporting on some encouraging non-compliance statistics, and on the difficulties councils were having in their pursuit of defaulters:
Medina council, on the Isle of Wight, was the first to make themselves look immensely foolish for not investing in a decent stock of first class stamps.
So the magistrate ruled that insufficient notice of the summons had been given — the cases collapsed amid street parties.
South Tyneside and Wandsworth took fright and shelved their plans to issue summonses immediately.
All this gives us more time to organise against court cases.
If we get only 1 in 37 people down to the courts the system will become inoperable.
Tactics mentioned in a sidebar included marches, leaflet distribution, “hundreds of people stop[ping] the bailiffs,” a 28-hour occupation of a sherriff’s office, and labor strikes.
Meanwhile, the Trafalgar Square Defendants’ Campaign “now has the support of the whole anti-poll tax movement” in its campaign “to force the prosecution, police, and media onto the defensive” which included, in addition to its legal work, pickets of right-wing media outlets and demonstrations at jails where defendants were being held.
Issue #5 led off with an article on resisting the bailiffs (collection agents).
Excerpts:
It quickly became clear that a large number of South West councils were going to use the same bailiffs — a company called Roach and Co. based in Bristol.
The Avon Federation moved into action.
We watched their movements for a week and identified all their cars (they had a series of Nissan vans).
We looked them up in the Companies Register.
We examined their premises and discovered that their compound was at the end of a cul de sac (ideal for pickets…).
We put this information out to local groups who in themselves turned up a load of information about the bailiffs — some knew them personally, others had useful “dirt” for the press campaign.
The action began on .
In the previous week Roaches had been both to Bishops Lydeard (a small village near Taunton) and Barri (in South Wales) to deliver a “walking possession” notice.
This meant (in two cases where they had been able to gain access to the houses) that they were in a position to take people’s possessions.
We called a blockade for .
People turned up from APTUs across Bristol.
No vehicles were able to leave the compound, and we got massive press coverage.
In fact a number of vehicles left from the bailiffs’ private homes.
They were spotted by our people crossing the Severn Bridge at .
They never arrived, but the van was discovered sometime later with its tyres let down.
Meanwhile in Barri and Bishops Lydeard, the whole community was mobilised.
In Barri over fifty people were outside the houses of the threatened families; telephones on the window sill; another two hundred people ready to respond to a phone call; vehicles roaming the area watching for bailiffs; kids, prams, icecream vans creating a carnival atmosphere.
In Bishop Lydeard half the village decided to take the day off.
All the roads in were sealed off by the community.
All cars going through were required to identify themselves.
The bailiffs never got near the village.
These scenes prove that the non payment figures are not just empty statistics which will crumble as the threats get stronger.
The community is proving its strength — this has inspired people throughout the South West.
It has sent shockwaves through council and government.
Another article gave some advice about how to do outreach to defendants as councils began to take non-payers to court:
At the court we must do our best to make sure that people know what is going on at all times, through leaflets and personal contact.
A team of activists should take on the job of approaching defendants on arrival, explaining the situation to them and directing them to our solicitors and “McKenzie friends”.
Council officials will be doing the same, attempting to “help” make arrangements for people to pay out of court.
We should organise creches for kids and refreshments for hungry bellies.
This level of organisation will be difficult to maintain over several weeks.
In Leeds we are planning for individual anti-Poll Tax groups to run things on separate days — organised well in advance so activists can take time off work.
Normally the courts will deal with the cases of all those who attend before proceeding against non-attenders.
Sometimes as at South Tyneside they have attempted to adjourn the cases of all those present till a later date, enabling them to proceed with the absentees very quickly.
We will argue against this, explaining that people have arranged time off work or organised childcare to enable them to be present and have a right to have their cases heard.
People can be represented by either solicitors or McKenzie friends.
McKenzie friends are lay representatives who can take notes and give advice to the defendant.
They do not have an automatic right to address the court but may be allowed to do so in the interest of time.
Liability orders may be sought from several people at once.
Since each person still has the right to question council officials and give their own defence this does not necessarily save the courts time.
It goes without saying that people should always ask for their cases to be heard separately.
Usually the local authority is asked to make its case and then those summoned can offer their defence.
The local authority has to prove to the court that the sum claimed is due and that it has not been paid.
Therefore the magistrate shouldn’t grant a liability order unless they are satisfied that:
The Council has passed a resolution fixing the Poll Tax.
Your name is entered in the “Community Charge Register” showing what type of Poll Tax you are liable to pay (the local authority can prove this either by producing a copy of the register certified by the registration officer; or by evidence given by a local authority officer who has inspected the register).
The Poll Tax has been demanded in accordance with the law i.e you have been served with a “demand notice” (a Poll Tax bill) and a further notice.
Service of the demand and reminder must be proved either by sworn oral evidence by a council official with personal knowledge of the relevant postings or who can actually produce a record of the posting or by a “certificate” signed by a duly authorised officer.
Each of the above presents us with the opportunity to give the council officials and their witnesses a rigorous cross-examination.
When all this has been accepted as proven the opportunity falls to the defendant to offer a defence.
Political arguments won’t wash, but they can still take up time.
There is a good chance of getting an adjournment if you have a rebate application pending or if you have applied for a review of the rebate decision.
Both cases are looked on with more sympathy if they were made before the summons was received.
More than half of those attending court have managed to get adjournments or withdrawals of liability orders because of outstanding rebates and reviews.
There were also brief mentions of pickets, the occupation of a bailiff’s office, a courtroom occupation, labor strikes, and marches.
