Tax resistance in the United States

Tax resistance in the United States has been practiced at least since colonial times, and has played important parts in American history.

Tax resistance is the refusal to pay a tax, usually by means that bypass established legal norms, as a means of protest, nonviolent resistance, or conscientious objection. It was a core tactic of the American Revolution and has played a role in many struggles in America from colonial times to the present day.

In addition, the philosophy of tax resistance, from the "no taxation without representation" axiom that served as a foundation of the Revolution to the assertion of individual conscience in Henry David Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, has been an important plank of American political philosophy.

Theory The theory that there should be "no taxation without representation", while it did not originate in America, is often associated with the American Revolution, in which that slogan did strong duty. It continues to be a rallying cry for tax rebellions today. American Henry David Thoreau's theory of civil disobedience has proven to be extremely influential, and its influence today is not limited to tax resistance stands and campaigns but to all manner of refusal to obey unjust laws. These are among the theories of tax resistance that have taken on a particularly American flavor and have animated and inspired American tax resisters and tax resistance campaigns.

No taxation without representation

In English political philosophy of the late 18th century, the theory was prominent that in order for the sovereign to exact a tax on a population, that population must be represented in a legislature that had the sole power to levy the tax. That theory was made axiomatic in the form of the slogan "no taxation without representation" (and similar expressions).

As the American colonies did not have representation in the British parliament, this axiom became a useful platform for colonial rebels to justify their rebellion against direct taxes imposed by the Crown.

The "no taxation without representation" slogan was later brought to bear in the arguments for tax resistance by African-Americans and women, as they did not have the right to vote or serve in the legislature. It is used today by the District of Columbia as part of a complaint that residents of the district have no (voting) Congressional representatives.

The phrase has such potent currency in American thought that it is frequently used today in the context of tax debates that have little to do with legislative representation, at least in the way that the original coiners of the phrase would have understood: For example, complaints that Congressional representatives only represent certain special interests, or that the complainer does not feel that his or her point of view is represented in legislative debates or actions.e.g.

Civil disobedience

Henry David Thoreau's 1849 essay On Resistance to Civil Government—now usually referred to as Civil Disobedience—is part of the canon of American political philosophy. It was prompted by Thoreau's refusal to pay a poll tax because of unwillingness to support a government that was enforcing the slavery of Americans and what he felt was an unjust war against Mexico.

Thoreau argued that obedience to government is often misplaced, and that people should develop and trust their own consciences rather than use the law as a crutch.

Thoreau's philosophy has inspired many tax resisters since, especially those who have acted individually (not as part of a tax strike or other large-scale movement) and from motives of conscientious objection.

Conscientious objection to military taxation

The theory that taxpayers become complicit in the actions of their government when they pay for the government's functioning and requisitions through their taxes, and that therefore one must scrutinize the actions of the government and refuse to pay for them if they become grossly immoral, is key to the war tax resistance practiced by American Quakers since colonial times. It also forms an important philosophical basis for other religious and secular American war tax resisters down to the present day.

War tax resisters in the United States pioneered the idea that conscientious objection to military taxation ought to be a legally protected right: that is, taxpayers who are morally opposed to taking part in war should not be forced to fund war, just as governments often permit such people to avoid military conscription.

This theory has been extended by people who oppose other aspects of government funding. A few have refused to pay taxes on the grounds that some government health spending goes to institutions that provide abortions. A number of Amish people refused to pay taxes for government social insurance programs on conscientious grounds (see below).

Taxation as theft

The theory that taxation is ethically indistinguishable from robbery is a staple of American anarchist and (often) libertarian thought. American anarchist philosopher Lysander Spooner put it this way:

The original U.S. Libertarian Party platform (1972) agreed that taxation was always a violation of the rights of the individual:

Since we believe that every man is entitled to keep the fruits of his labor, we are opposed to all government activity which consists of the forcible collection of money or goods from citizens in violation of their individual rights. Specifically, we support the eventual repeal of all taxation. We support a system of voluntary fees for services rendered as a method for financing government in a free society. Adopted unanimously by the delegates to the first national convention of the Libertarian Party

Tax protester theories

An enduring mythology of tax protester arguments asserts that the tax system operating in the United States is unconstitutional, illegal, or does not actually apply to most of the people currently being subjected to it.

These arguments, though they often take the form of "totally discredited legal positions and/or meritless factual positions", are often persuasive to people who have an unsophisticated understanding of the legal system and who are susceptible to look uncritically on arguments that appeal to their financial self-interest. For example, in the early 1980s, an epidemic of tax protest swept General Motors plants in Flint, Michigan, as thousands of employees there told to stop withholding income tax from their salaries after they attended seminars or listened to lectures on tape from the tax protester group "We The People ACT". Alt URL

Practice

The following sections briefly describe some of the more prominent examples of tax resistance in colonial America and the United States:

Quaker conscientious objection to military taxation The Society of Friends (Quakers) had a tradition of refusing to pay tithes to the establishment church, and of refusing to pay explicit war taxes, from the early years of the establishment of the sect.

When Quakers were permitted to establish an American colony, Pennsylvania, that they could run to some extent according to their religious principles, the Pennsylvania Assembly often offered some resistance to attempts by the crown to exact money from the colony for the purposes of military defense.

During the French and Indian War, the Pennsylvania colonial assembly conceded, and began raising a tax from Pennsylvania residents for military fortifications. This led to some—including influential Quakers John Woolman and Anthony Benezet—refusing to pay such taxes for reasons of conscientious objection.

This stand, and the eloquence the resisters employed to explain it, proved influential, and a Quaker tradition of war tax resistance has waxed and waned through American history to the present day.

Colonial resistance A typical American colonial government was headed by a governor, who was appointed by the Crown and meant to represent the interests of the home country, and a colonial assembly, elected by the colonists themselves. The two not infrequently came into conflict over issues of taxation, and when the governor assumed the right to tax colonists without the consent of their legislature, this conflict might result in tax resistance.

This happened for example in 1687 when New England governor Edmund Andros attempted to assess a new tax. Led by the reverend John Wise, colonists declared their unwillingness to pay such a tax and were imprisoned on orders of the governor. This ultimately led to the 1689 Boston revolt in which Andros was overthrown. This muscle-flexing by American colonists was an important precursor of the American Revolution, such that Ipswich, where a declaration defying the tax was signed, bills itself as "The Birthplace of American Independence 1687".

The War of the Regulation in colonial North Carolina was another important precursor of the American Revolution. Colonists, fed up with what they viewed as a corrupt and unrepresentative colonial government, stopped paying taxes and ultimately rose in an armed revolt. In this case it was the entire government—the governor, the assembly, and the corrupt bureaucracy—that was the target of the rebellion.Virginia Gazette (various issues starting 4 August 1768)

Independence-minded colonists used a variety of tactics to increase the economic independence and self-reliance of the colonies while denying economic resources to the Crown. This included rampant smuggling and attacks on British customs ships (as in the Gaspee Affair), the refusal to allow British monopoly products to be brought to market (as in the Boston Tea Party and Philadelphia Tea Party), boycotts of British-manufactured goods and the encouragement of local production of replacement goods, and sanctions ranging from social boycott to violent attacks aimed at tax collectors and collaborators. The success of measures like these led John Adams to assert that the American Revolution had already been accomplished before the Revolutionary War began—that the war was less a revolution than a failed counterrevolution.

Resistance in the post-revolutionary period After the success of the American Revolution, the independent United States government of the former colonies was confronted by its own tax resistance campaigns. Three were suppressed militarily by the fledgling United States government:

Shays' Rebellion

Massachusetts farmers were motivated in part by increased taxes and heavy-handed tax enforcement when they rose up in Shays' Rebellion. They took action against government agencies that were enforcing tax seizures, preventing their operation, until the suppression of the rebellion.

The Whiskey Rebellion

Farmers far from coastal ports and population centers would often ferment and distill their grain into whiskey locally because it was more economic to bring whiskey to market than grain, from the point of view of transportation costs. Thus, when United States government put an excise tax on whiskey, this was seen as an imposition by coastal elites at the expense of rural farmers and was widely resented and resisted.

While resistance in the form of refusal to pay the excise tax or to cooperate in the enforcement of excise laws persisted and largely succeeded in some areas, in Western Pennsylvania this resistance erupted into attacks on tax collectors and eventual armed revolt—the Whiskey Rebellion—which was violently suppressed by federal government troops under the command of former revolutionary war commander in chief George Washington.

Fries's Rebellion

Fries's Rebellion began in opposition to a federal window-tax instituted by the Adams administration, with resisters impeding the tax assessors and refusing to pay the assessed taxes. This resistance movement, too, was successfully suppressed by the federal government when it rose to the level of armed rebellion.

Native / immigrant conflicts