Forum Post: It's Time to Start a Tax Revolt
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 9, 2012, 9:53 p.m. EST by taxrevolt
(16)
from Alameda, CA
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Why isn't anybody call for a federal tax revolt? Stop paying for war, bailouts, corporate welfare.
start a nationwide movement among the occupiers to not pay federal taxes.
They take our money and subsidize corporations, give it to special interests, ship it overseas to bribe warlords and pay for mercenaries.
It is long past time to defund this practice. Want to stop the wars? Stop paying for them! Want to stop corporate subsidies? Stop paying for them.
The problem here is simple: people are afraid of the government. It should be the other way around.
In France, citizens routinely shut down the entire country when the government gets stupid.
From a legal perspective, it would seem that paying money (taxes) that is used for criminal acts (war, corruption, etc.) would make one complicit in the crimes committed.
When illegal actions have been codified, the law ceases to have any meaning.
that would get many of you another trip to jail....I support that.....it'll keep the streets and public commons much more hospitable to contributing members of society....I say go for it!
how do you contribute? do tell.
i don't think that the majority of OWS is "non-contributing"
Why are you calling for a revolt?
Are you another FAUX commie that wants to bring America down?
http://occupywallst.org/forum/faux-news-are-commies-down-to-their-pink-underwear/
keep your communist revolutions to yourself jackass, we at OWS
want to rebuild america not weaken it
We love america and freedom and democracy
Great idea!!! Everyone who pays quartely est taxes should not pay the first quarter. They will not send you to jail and the penelty is minimum. Lets get organized.
I think thats a great idea! in the London occupy their talking about witholding taxes until demands for reform are met! We could do something like that here but it would require corporations and unions to withold federal taxes into a trust fund. It would be like forcing the government to play by the rules or they don't get paid!
Problem is it's gonna be tough to find enough people willing to ruin their credit to put something like this into effect. The people that don't pay taxes already have bad credit, so it's a losing proposition, though it sounds nice.
JOIN THE TAX RESISTOR'S PLEDGE: STOP THE U.S. WAR MACHINE
For those of you who believe that our tax dollars are being misspent, that the US military aggression is immoral and illegal, that the money would be better spent on constructive pursuits (education, health care, housing, etc.) we present a simple solution; refuse to pay your federal taxes.
How many times have you swore that you won’t pay taxes if enough people didn’t. Here is your chance. All of the signers of this pledge, as a group, will engage in collective tax resistance.
They will refuse to pay all federal income taxes owed by filing a federal income tax return form, and a note of explanation of why a check has not been included, or not filing at all.
Signers will also refuse to pay federal excise taxes on their phone bills, and include a note of explanation with their phone bills. ( phone service cannot be cut off because of this). This tax also goes to the military.
Note: Due to late date, it is unlikely we will get 200,000 pledges for this year before April 15. We suggest everyone considering pledging this year to file late. This usually only results in a small fine, if anything at all.
Already, the actual risk involved in being a tax resistor is very low. However, in order to insure that there is still further diminished risk, and in order to get the greatest possible number of signers, a strategy of
strength and safety in numbers has been adopted. The more numerous are those who pledge, the less the risk in having any one individual be targeted, and the more the government will listen to the demands of its citizens. The more hollow will be the threats of the IRS. It is possible to jail a handful of tax resistors, as a method of deterrence through fear. However, this tactic, beyond a certain point, becomes economically infeasible, because of the combined loss of revenues through the tax resistor’s withholding of funds and the costs of jailing that citizen (~$22,000 per year of incarceration). Add to this the cost involved in pursuing and bringing that person to court. Add to this the political mileage the tax resistor movement will receive if thousands are put on trial.
All those willing to make the commitment are being asked to join a Yahoo egroup called: TAXFORPEACE.
ALL THOSE WHO JOIN THE GROUP WILL BE CONSIDERED TO HAVE COMMITTED TO TAX RESISTANCE ONCE THE NUMBER OF COMMITTED RESISTORS HAS REACHED THE CRITICAL MASS NUMBER OF 200,000. Members of the egroup "taxforpeace" will receive regular updates on the number of committed tax resistors, and other information related to tax resistance. Members need not give their real names, nor their addresses, or any other identifying information beyond their email addresses. To make the commitment and become a member of the group, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/taxforpeace/ For more information on tax resistance, go to the War Resister’s League’s website:
http://www.warresisters.org/wtr_menu.htm
and the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee:
http://www.nwtrcc.org
Note that the preparers of this pledge and the moderators of the egroup taxforpeace are independent of the above tax resistance organizations.
This movement is based on the honor system, which is about all we have left, and we will loose that too if we don’t act.
IMPORTANT: Please distribute this pledge to as many U.S. taxpayers as you possibly can!
"Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their
taxes." Gen. Alexander Haig, U.S. Secretary of State, June 12, 1982
200,000 STANDING TOGETHER 200,000 MINIMUM TO PLEDGE TAX RESISTANCE 200,000 TO SAY NO USING THE INTERNET TO BRING US TOGETHER, A MASS MOVEMENT TO END FUNDING OF KILLING
Say hi to Wesley Snipes for me.
It usually takes a few years for the IRS to call you in for not filing or filing and not paying the right amount (I would suggest the latter strategy. It's not illegal.) And if enough people do this, the IRS will be overwhelmed in will take longer. In the meantime, the government will have less money to give to Wall Street. General Haig, who became Secretary of State under Reagan, once said, “Let them march all they want, so long as the pay their taxes.” Tax resistance is the root of many revolutions, including the American Revolution, Thoreau's rebelliion against the Mexican American War, and the Jewish revolt against the Romans in 6 CE....
I wouldn't suppose you've ever heard of the IRS?
It's often prefixed with the phrase. "don't mess with the".
The phrase has meaning.
It's even more often suffixed with "eats dog poop".
That works too.
If your bank account is dog poop.
dog poop is more tangible than a bank account and it also has less bacteria than cash. true story jabronie.
Yea..and stop paying for food stamps, welfare, free medical care and housing subsidies.
While we are working on improving the Constitution, why not repeal the 16th Amendment, which gives Congress the power to tax individual incomes. There is a much better way to collect the necessary Federal revenue.
Great......... then what happens to the seniors who won't get their SS checks? Or the wounded military men and women who rely on federal funds for their care? Or the unemployed who depend on the federal unemployment extensions to feed their family? The disabled that rely on federal disability payments to live? etc.....
It isn't just war, bailouts and corporate welfare that you will stop.... but guess you didn't think about that.
YES... Finally, a revolt I can get behind. NO TAXES!!!!!! I love the idea. Where can we get signs?
[Removed]
How come people who say things like "Taxes are too high" and "Government is too large and and needs to be reduced," NEVER seem to have any questions, critique or even notion of The Massive US Military Empire and its Gargantuan Expenditures ?!
Do such expenses have an impact on domestic taxation do we think ?!!
If the government of The U$A was truly 'democratic', then its size wouldn't be the problem but as it is a pissant apology of a demoCRAZY deMOCKERYcy that is prevalent, whereby there exists merely a "Government OF The 99% ; BY a 1% ; FOR a 0.01%", then in the very least, complaining if not actually demonstrating, protesting and 'Occupying', becomes a moral imperative for all people of conscience.
A very real and fundamental point to bear in mind is that taxes on individual entrepreneurs, small businesses and just about everyone else in society (The 99%), would be lower if Imperial Wars could be ended AND IF the 1% and all the Corporations (legally individual persons!) paid their Proper and Fair Share of the Taxes (see : http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/CorporateTaxDodgersReport.pdf and http://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-30-american-companies-that-paid-less-than-zero-income-tax-from-2008-2010-2011-11?op=1#ixzz1ejBOPiGq ) !
The Banking Corporations in particular, with their already corrupt business model and practices, are also the primary culprits of the 'cult of tax avoidance and evasion' and their opposition to The 'Tobin' / Financial Transaction Tax, is utterly unconscionable given the long term existence of highly regressive 'Sales Taxes' and 'Value Added Tax' (currently 20% in The UK !), which everyone else has to pay !!
I'm not a violent person other than in self-defence but I'm beginning to have dreams about cutting out a senior banker's cold, dead heart with a rusty spoon ... and claiming it AS self-defence !!!
fiat justitia ruat caelum ...
You are the most eloquent misguided Limey on this Forum.
Suppose we just get rid of the DOD and dissolve our Military completely,sell off all the hardware,get rid of the Nukes,give everybody free health care-homes-cars-high paying Govt jobs,really take care of the population (illegals included). Do away with citizen gun rights/ownership. Go GREEN big time and basically follow the Progressive wet dream to the hilt?
What do you suppose would happen should the USA come under Homeland attack?
are you saying we can't cut the DOD budget by 50%--particularly in this time of peace?? i do not buy the lies that we're under seige, danger abounds and the military must get bigger. i don't live in fear. let them bring it. many of our citizens are mean and armed and ready to rough up anyone who attacks.
Why the hell would we do what you're describing to the military? I'm pretty sure that if we put a comprehensive floor under everyone's standard of living, brought jobs back here via tariffs or other means, moved ourselves as far away from fossil fuels as possible, and slimmed down the DoD and the military somewhat then things would be fine. As far as homeland security is concerned, I think we'd actually be better off that way because our lack of dependence on foreign oil and international commerce would make it a lot harder to hit our population. Right now, if you wanted to score a quick victory, all you'd have to do is torpedo everything headed from China or the Middle East into our ports, and the people would be pleading with us to surrender.
You'll notice that I never said anything in defense of eliminating the DoD, dissolving the military, unilateral disarmament, or keeping firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens. That was quite deliberate, because in the long run I think that doing any of those things would be serious bad news for this country, and I think that people who push for those things are naive at best. We need a strong, functioning military, and the fact that we have enough nukes to turn the entire planet into a giant lump of ash and radioactive slop is quite a strong deterrent; I wouldn't want to interfere with either of those things.
That said, if we start taking a look at our defense budget for real we'll probably find all sorts of contracts that are late and over budget, or simply more expensive than training and maintaining your own people. If you look at the Lockheed Martin fighter jet flap it probably would have been cheaper to train a team of engineers and build the prototyping equipment they'd need than to contract it out and deal with the mysterious latenesses and budget overruns. If we take government-subsidized private firms and start consolidating those operations in-house, we have a start right there; if we stop giving crazy tax breaks for companies doing R&D and moved those operations back in-house the cost of funding the labs and paying the people would probably be less than the lost revenue. The same goes for mercenary firms like Blackwater; we already have trained, disciplined soldiers capable of providing security; why should we pay a private firm to provide less qualified people at a net loss to the taxpayer?
i know people at blackwater making 250k+. for each such person, there's significant margin on top. it's ludicrous. the DOD has so much waste, that cutting it out could slash the budget by 30% instantly. i have a friend in JAG who's apartment in qatar (with many other officers in the same bldg.) costs 18k per month--does someone even negotiate these leases? he's appalled by the waste... and he details it to me.
That would hardly surprise me; we've gotten into the habit of letting the military and DoD operate with little or no budget oversight thanks in large part to the Cold War arms race. Nothing was too cumbersome or expensive for us if we thought it would give us an edge over the Soviets, and in an environment like that there are guaranteed to be abuses. Throw in the inherent inefficiency you get every time you have to get a subcontractor and I could easily see taking 5-10% out of our military budget without it costing us one iota of combat readiness.
true. the gov't, like wall street, is clearly in the business of selling the emotions of greed (expanded benefits, medicare, SS etc...) and fear (bulk up defense or you're gonna die). my friend's details, as he's a high ranking officer, would astound you--it's a total ripoff, and i am sick of them stealing from my/your pockets under the guise of protecting us.
Here's the thing; our government does have a duty to care for those of its citizens who are unable to support themselves and to protect the nation as a whole from serious threats to our sovereignty and/or security. I just really want to see them learn to stretch a dollar and do what must be done efficiently and creatively rather than wasting money and letting others skim off the top across the board.
i agree on efficiency, but when our military budget is more than the whole world's budget combined, and 9 times that of the largest population on earth (china), i'd say we could draw that down to 4 times china, and still be very well protected. i saw a general on t.v. say that we are 20 years ahead of everyone else in military technology--that's great, but can we afford it? when "deficits don't matter, debt doesn't matter" (ala bush), you get the very clear message that this question has not come up. d.c. is full of lunatics. should we pay for their lunacy? the war lobby is constantly war mongering at our expense, and they don't give a crap about the country--otherwise they'd emphasize prudence. i can name many examples, as you too probably can.
"A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members." ~ Mahatma Ghandi
Not to say there's not government waste, but unfair corporate tax loopholes are a cause of huge revenue loss to the government. Estimated to be $100 billion/year. I think it's more realistic to go after the corporate tax loopholes. That, by and large, serve mainly to increase the wealth of corporate executives.
http://levin.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/summary-of-the-stop-tax-haven-abuse-act-of-2011/?section=alltypes
That pretty much goes without saying. If you want to actively fight poverty, grow our industry, transition us off of fossil fuels in the forseeable future, repair our infrastructure, and still maintain a strong, functioning military, that's going to be fairly expensive even if you're running the operation at 90-95% efficiency. It's definitely possible to do, but unless large corporations pull their weight it's going to be incredibly difficult (especially if you're uncomfortable with debt).
The reason I bring up inefficiencies and waste in government is that there are a great deal of people who truly believe that the government is intrinsically wasteful and useless and thus will fight to slash or outright eliminate corporate taxes even as those policies slowly screw them into the poorhouse. The only way to convince these people that the government should be allowed to tax anyone is if the inefficiencies that are there are promptly acknowledged and addressed as best as possible.
I see your point. I guess what bothers me is that tax loopholes are so obvious. And yet, the Republicans and the Tea Party viciously attack government spending, some of which is at the expense of the less fortunate, rather than waste. It makes no sense. And its sad.
Not to mention - I do not understand how the Republican Party can continue to operate on a platform of deregulation and harmful tax policies that favor the wealthy, has eroded the middle class and in large part caused the financial crises. I suspect it is based on two things, money and religion (well for some, money is a religion, but in this case, I also mean Christianity).
It makes sense to me, not because it leads to positive policy but because most of the people involved in that group have either been peddling or buying a number of vicious stereotypes about anyone who receives support from the government (namely that such people are stupid, lazy, slovenly, and overall an embarrassment to the country) that arose out of a mix of lack of understanding and "welfare queen" propaganda that first came out in the 1980s. I don't get how anyone can back this either unless they're either already rich or very good at lying to themselves, but at this point I don't care what sent them there unless that information helps me win them back.
How can anyone back this? The stereotypes of the less fortunate. That's easy. They believe the lies of the Repelican Party. My theory is that it is the Christian Evangelicals are the easiest to feed. They eat whatever lies the Repelicans feel like feeding them. They aren't so much backing this, as they are voting based on their dogmatic religious beliefs in hopes of overturning Roe.
If there was a true separation of Church and state, if religion was kept out of politics, I think the Repelican Party would be in alot of trouble, or at least look much different. And election results would be quite different. To win those people back, religion should be kept out of politics.
This is also why Mitt Romney is having such a difficult time in the primaries. He's like the poster child of Repelican destruction. The fact that he is not the clear and unmistakable frontrunner, even had to endure that moron Herman Cain, let alone Rick Perry. My God! It's a complete circus. It's all about religion for those people. They are uncomfortable with him not being a Christian. The Evangelicals hate that.
Thanx "hdlscrs", I'm taking your first line as a compliment and here's two further links in return : http://costofwar.com/en/ & "The Billionaires' Tea Party (Proof Tea Party Is Nothing But Astro Turf)" ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO_WC0FINmA !
IF 'Fear' is to be the primary guiding personal and societal animus then that is a 'Choice' that you, The People and The Govt. of the U$A have to make but by implying that re. Imperial Military Spending, "Less or Much Less" somehow equates to "Zero & None at all", you caricature your argument to the point of "Straw Man" Absurdity !!
Consider that when 'LOVE' is the guiding animus, all sorts of "different kinds of wonderful" become possible ... and thus, with a touch of artistic license, please reflect on "The Greatest Speech Ever Made" : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK2WJd5bXFg&feature=related by one Charlie Chaplain !!!
Amor Vincit Omnia ..
pax et lux .
You didn't answer my question. I assumed you wouldn't.
OMG,saw the Leftist wanker Chaplame speech before. There was something really wrong in that boys head. It's really too bad the US couldn't just keep exiling Libs/Progs and Leftists to England. Between Leftist Socialism going belly up and your invasion/assimilation by Muslim Sharia Theocracy you've got yourself's a real mess over there,oh and I forgot to mention the austerity riots also. You know this all won't end well for the UK,or the EU. But I'm sorry the EU is not too big too fail.
It NEVER fails to amaze me just how much a Nation Born In Revolution has become sooo full of Rancid, Reactionary, Retards ... apparently NOT so different from you !
<Slaps Palm To Own Forehead> !!
Oy Vey !!!
he@dlessX : ps ; Your question "What do you suppose would happen should the USA come under Homeland attack?" and its preceding suppositions are faux, fallacious & 'fear' based and IF you read slowly, you'll find that I've addressed myself to it in my post which followed it.
pax et lux ...
I don't want to hear it. Roll the taxes back to PreReagan.