Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → Britain / U.K. (see also: Ireland, Scotland, Wales) → English peasant revolt (14th Century)

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

• Tax Justice Network posts a summary of the 14^th century peasant’s revolt in England, showing the tax-revolt at the base of the insurrection.
• A number of reports have said that the IRS is due to get a bigger than usual boost to its budget this time around. Much of this increase is said to be aimed to boost the agency’s enforcement activities. The agency is having a hard time keeping up with collections, even failing to pursue people who owe millions in back taxes.
• Forbes reports that the IRS is paying closer attention to “hobby losses” — that is, business losses that tax filers claim on their tax returns for activities that the agency believes are not related to a legitimate business pursued for profit, but a hobby pursued for amusement. The agency has released a new manual for use by its agents to help them determine when a business is really a hobby or vice-versa. If your business is a borderline case, you can use this manual to help you in making business decisions (and in deciding what sorts of documentation you need to maintain) that will help you substantiate its business-status in the event that you are audited.
• The federal government is also toying with the idea of trying to require states to deny business licenses to people who are behind on paying their federal taxes.
• This graph of world military expenditures, broken out per country, is eye-opening and deserves wider circulation.
• If you enjoyed the story of John Patric, you may also enjoy reading about his later incarnation as Hugo N. Frye.

BBC Radio 4 did a show on tax avoiders of various sorts: Can Pay, Won’t Pay (the show starts at about 2:38 in the on-line segment).

The show starts by looking at modern wealthy tax avoiders who try to reduce their taxes through legal or borderline-legal tax strategies. But then the show moves on to talking about the poll tax rebellion of 1381 (which they characterize as a middle-class revolt and not a peasants’ revolt at all) — though without touching on the Wat Tyler-led armed part of the revolt.

From here, they move on to Thatcher’s poll tax, with a quick interview with a politician from the time insisting that he knew all along it was going to go wrong.

Then to a discussion of the “window tax” that started in the late 17^th Century. The count of windows in a building was used as a proxy for its value for tax purposes. People avoided that tax by the brute-force method of bricking up their windows.

And then the notorious tax on tea, which, according to the expert being interviewed, began as a sort of baptists-and-bootleggers collusion to protect the domestic beer industry from competition.

Then a brief overview of the modern back-and-forth between taxers and tax evaders. Conscientious tax resisters don’t get any attention.