TAX SEASON in the U.S. comes and goes virtually unnoticed.A little math here. A little grumbling there. A ritual letting of blood, and it’s all over.But there was a time (I’m thinking Boston Tea Party here) when paying taxes — or, rather, not paying them — in the U.S. was a pointedly political act, a demand that a government provide society with the actual services that taxpayers paid for.Since then, taxpayer resistance in the U.S. has been strategically and effectively
marginalized with inane and dishonest mass-media imagery of mouth-frothing, armed white supremacists holed up in shacks in the woods of Wisconsin, surrounded by tinned peas and yelling butchered Common Law and obscenities at bemused federal agents.But not every nation treats its tax resisters in the abysmal way the U.S. treats them. In some nations, the umbilical cord that connects paying taxes with the funding of essential public services has not been so cynically severed.* * *ONE SUCH NATION is Ireland.This case is evident following a 5,000-strong protest in Ireland’s capital city, Dublin, against the $130 property tax, an amount it is estimated will be 10 times higher next year.The protesters in Dublin represented about a million Irish citizens nationwide who have refused to pay the $130 property tax, which, their government has assured them, is vital to keep ordinary public services going.The Irish government is controlled by the Troika, the European Union’s creator of, and collection agency for, coerced defaulted sovereign debt. It is comprised of the unelected International Monetary Fund, the unelected European Central Bank, and the unelected EU Commission.The Troika has threatened the Irish people with a Greece-style stripping of sovereignty in the event of failure to pay the tax.Until recently, this threat has worked wonders on getting the Irish to be compliant.However, with the deadline to pay the so-called “household tax” now passed, fully half of Ireland’s taxpayers — more than 1 million people — have flatly refused to pay.This leaves Ireland about $100 million short of the necessary $200 million intended collection amount.Some say Ireland’s tax resistance is a response to the call of a Group of Nine opposition politicians, who called for exactly the type of non-payment and protest that was engaged in by 5,000 people in Dublin and thousands more nationwide.The Troika-controlled Irish government doesn’t buy that explanation, and is planning to levy fines and sue non-payers.
TAX SEASON in the U.S. comes and goes virtually unnoticed.
A little math here. A little grumbling there. A ritual letting of blood, and it’s all over.
But there was a time (I’m thinking Boston Tea Party here) when paying taxes — or, rather, not paying them — in the U.S. was a pointedly political act, a demand that a government provide society with the actual services that taxpayers paid for.
Since then, taxpayer resistance in the U.S. has been strategically and effectively
marginalized with inane and dishonest mass-media imagery of mouth-frothing, armed white supremacists holed up in shacks in the woods of Wisconsin, surrounded by tinned peas and yelling butchered Common Law and obscenities at bemused federal agents.
Half the taxpayers in Ireland refused to pay a tax imposed by the ‘banksters.’ What will we do when they come to our shores?
LES KOZACZEK teaches at Franklin PierceUniversity in Rindge, N.H.
Originally published in The Commons issue #148 (Wednesday, April 18, 2012).
Brattleboro
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