Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → South Korea → Jeju Naval Base activists, 2016–

Some international tax resistance news:

• Princess “Infanta” Cristina of Spain has been indicted on charges of large-scale tax evasion. The charges were filed by a private anti-corruption group, as the government was unenthusiastic about prosecuting someone from the royal family. Indeed, the state prosecutor told the court that the tax agency motto “Hacienda Somos Todos” (“The Treasury is Everyone”) was “only an advertising slogan” and shouldn’t be applied to her highness. So now, a group of retired taxpayers from Mallorca is saying “if la Infanta won’t pay, neither will we.”
• In Greece, the «Λαϊκής Στάσης Πληρωμών» (“People Stop Payment”) movement continues to disrupt auctions of homes and businesses seized “by state banks and bandits” from people with tax or other austerity-induced debts.
• Meanwhile, guerrilla electricians from the «Δεν Πληρώνω» (“Won’t Pay”) movement continue their noble work of reconnecting the power to families who have been cut off for inability (or unwillingness) to pay the new taxes added to electricity bills.
• In Russia, truckers have gone on strike to protest a new road tax and the corruption behind it — one of a number of protests that are worrying the Putin regime.
• An activist who was arrested protesting against the Jeju Naval Base in South Korea has elected not to pay his fines but to serve prison time instead.
• Justices of the Bombay High Court, exasperated by corruption in the government of India, nigh endorsed mass tax resistance as a response:

  “If the same loot continues, taxpayers may resort to a ‘non-cooperation movement’ and refuse to pay taxes,” observed Justice Chaudhari of Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court.

  “Do taxpayers pay the money to the government for such kind of acrobatics? To eradicate the cancer of corruption, the ‘hydra-headed monster,’ it’s now high time for citizens to come together to tell their governments that they have had enough of this miasma of corruption,” the High Court observed.

Some links of interest from here and there:

• Last month I noted that Google was getting push-back from some of its employees for its efforts to help boost the artificial intelligence of the U.S. military’s death drones. The company has since decided not to renew the project and has further vowed not to participate in the weaponizing of its artificial intelligence technology in a set of published principles on Artificial Intelligence at Google. Bending over backwards not to spin this as some sort of peacenik, anti-military decision, the company said “we will continue our work with governments and the military in many other areas. These include cybersecurity, training, military recruitment, veterans’ healthcare, and search and rescue. These collaborations are important and we’ll actively look for more ways to augment the critical work of these organizations and keep service members and civilians safe.”
• There’s an interesting trend suddenly emerging in which consumer brands are trying to get a public relations boost by taking action against the government or stepping in to replace it. In these cases: Country Time Lemonade offering to provide free legal assistance to children who are fined or otherwise harassed by The Man for setting up lemonade stands, and Domino’s Pizza filling potholes that have gone unfilled by the ostensibly responsible governments.
• Here’s a second tax resistance how-to video from Nicaragua’s Theo Báez (in Spanish).
• Under the Jacob Zuma regime in South Africa, the tax agency became so corrupt and unwilling to confront tax evasion by political elites, that a country with high “tax morale” (relative willingness by citizens to pay taxes voluntarily) has now become one in which “more and more South Africans have simply stopped paying their taxes… In the eyes of many experts, the government’s — and the country’s — ability to right itself is at stake.”
• Breizh-Info reports on the craze of destroying traffic ticket issuing bots in France. While the Bonnets Rouges of Brittany probably deserve some credit for getting the ball rolling on this, the acts have spread to other regions of France. And “with rare exceptions,” says the reporter, “the culprits are never found or denounced.”
• A peace activist convicted for his role in a demonstration against the Navy base being constructed on Jeju Island has refused to pay his fine, opting to serve 46 days in prison instead.
• Waging Nonviolence reports that tax resistance has been one of the tactics of Ambazonian separatists in Cameroon.