Is It Time To Stop Paying Taxes?

Written By Leeja Miller

Sources:

Transcript:

Welcome to Why, America? I’m Leeja Miller. In the 11 months since Trump took office, there’s been a growing push for states and individuals to fight back against a federal government that has gone completely off the rails–dominated by a dictator in the white house while Congress and the Supreme Court roll over and play dead. And, increasingly, we are arriving at similar conclusions: even though we’re screaming in the streets and no one in Washington seems to hear us, the one thing they can’t ignore is the money. They’ve of course ensured that none of us have very much of it but collectively we keep the economy and the federal government afloat through how we spend our money and through our tax dollars. In a time when it seems we need to grab ahold of any power we can get, this is an attractive area for organizing and collective direct action. Specifically, there are calls for a general strike wherein everyone forces the economy to grind to a halt by refusing to work and refusing to spend until our demands are met, something that has proven effective in other countries and at other times in history, I’m happy to make a separate episode on that if it would be helpful, but today I want to talk about taxes. Avoiding them. Refusing to pay them. Withholding them. The people are talking about tax resistance–if we don’t believe in what the government is doing, if our tax dollars are funding genocide and mass disappearances of immigrants, would it not make sense then to stop funding the things I do not believe in? Today we’re going to discuss tax resistance, HOW to do it, and whether it might be an effective strategy for standing up against an increasingly powerful and hostile Trump regime.

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Okay before I get into any details please pay attention to this very important disclaimer: this is not legal advice. This is not financial advice. I am not a financial advisor, and I am not your lawyer. I am not advocating that you break the law, I would never do that!! I am simply stating facts for informational and entertainment purposes. Proceed at your own risk.

Some quick definitions: tax resistance is the act of refusing to pay or reducing taxes either legally or illegally as a form of protest to indicate you do not approve of the activities of the government and do not wish your dollars to fund those activities. Tax resisters are NOT to be confused with tax PROTESTERS. Which is confusing. But a tax RESISTER refuses to pay on moral grounds to show disapproval of the WAY the taxes are being used, though they usually believe in taxes generally as a concept when used for the good of the people. A tax PROTESTER is someone who believes taxes themselves are illegal, against the law, or against their rights. Think sovereign citizens, think the Tea Party movement. That is a very important distinction because it can at first blush be a bit confusing. The right and far right have long co-opted the anti-tax movement because they simply want to keep more of their money and think the government should stay out of their business and mainly be there to protect property rights and otherwise leave them alone. And tax RESISTERS are often people on the left who believe in the idea of taxes–-that money should be collected to provide for the common good of the people living in the society–I WANT to pay taxes if they’re going towards feeding the hungry and providing everyone healthcare, etc., the types of things that lift EVERYONE up because the whole of society is better off when everyone’s basic needs are provided for. But tax resisters recognize that most of the taxes they pay are NOT going to those services and are instead largely being used to fund wars or other heinous activities that only hurt people. And they are deciding to opt out of the taxation system partially or entirely in protest.

There are many different methods to practice tax resistance, and tax resistance has been a form of protest since the dawn of society, since taxes first became a thing. And tax resistance has played a role in toppling world orders and pushing for major structural change throughout history. From the Egyptians to the Roman, Spanish, and Aztec empires, tax resistance has helped create revolution. The United States was founded upon resistance to taxation without representation. The Boston Tea Party was a resistance against the tax on tea that symbolized the oppressive taxation from the crown that colonists abhorred. The taxation of salt has led to more than one revolution. It was the salt tax that disproportionately burdened French peasants, causing revolts that ultimately led to the French Revolution. One of Gandhi’s most famous direct actions involved marching 240 miles to the sea in order to illegally harvest sea salt, which broke British laws against production of salt outside of the British monopoly system. Gandhi also advocated for home-spun clothing that circumvented the British textile taxes. Similarly, revolution-era women in the United States made untaxed domestic cloth to avoid paying taxes on British-made cloth. One could argue, frankly, that tax resistance is a long-held American tradition.

In 1846, Henry David Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest against the Fugitive Slave Act and the Mexican-American War. He was jailed for one night and then wrote On The Duty of Civil Disobedience, an essay about resistance in the face of unjust laws, which has inspired generations of resisters and revolutionaries since, so that whole arresting him thing kinda backfired. In it, he writes “If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.”

During World War II, the relatively new income taxes were increased via defense tax stamps and other measures meant to help fund the war. In 1942, a man named Ernest Bromley refused to pay for a defense tax stamp for his car. He was arrested and held in jail for 60 days. During the Vietnam War, conscientious objectors to paying taxes that funded the war efforts grew to its largest peak in US history as the draft and increased war taxes angered many who saw the war as a pointless act of aggression that was killing innocent people and using their tax dollars to fund it all. By the early 1970s, an estimated 20,000 people were affiliated with income tax resistance groups across the country, and hundreds of thousands of people were estimated to resist paying what was called the “telephone tax” which was an additional tax levied to fund the war efforts. War tax resistance subsided after the Vietnam war, but became prevalent again in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan as nuclear rearmament and the Cold War meant more and more tax dollars went towards the US nuclear program that many people opposed. The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee or NWTRCC formed in 1982 and continues working to this day, providing truly a wealth of resources to tax resisters at NWTRCC dot org.

War Tax Resistance once again gained traction in 2001 as US tax dollars were used to fund deadly wars and crimes against humanity in the middle east and more and more people were appalled at the use of their dollars to fund wars, abuse, surveillance, and more on a perpetual “war against terror.” And during Trump’s first term, calls for tax resistance once again resurfaced as people tried to figure out how to fight back against their tax dollars funding a government they didn’t believe in. And even more so during this second Trump term, more and more people are latching on to the idea of tax resistance as a legitimate form of action to take against Trump policies that are truly driving this country straight into the ground. And there are many reasons why someone might protest how our government is using the tax money it collects from us. The US spends more on its defense than the next 10 countries combined. The Pentagon, which is the recipient of that defense spending, has never passed an audit. Our tax dollars go unaccounted for and there is criminally little transparency around where our money goes. And now they don’t even let reporters into the building. Of the taxes you pay in any given year, about 45% of them go towards the military to fund current expenses or pay off debts and other expenses from past military expenditures. An estimated 75% of the bombs dropped by Israel on Gaza were funded by our tax dollars and supplied by the US government. And now that militarization is being used on our streets against US citizens and immigrants alike and is being pumped into ICE and local police forces to be used against all of us.

Okay so that’s WHY people are interested in tax resistance, but HOW do you do it? Well there are many different ways to practice tax resistance that are adaptable to your individual risk tolerance. They can be generally divided into two groups: legal resistance and illegal resistance.

Starting with the legal options: when you file your taxes at the end of the year, you ensure that you have exploited every legal loophole available to you, the same way billionaires do. When you do pay your taxes, you enclose along with your 1040 tax form, but not stapled to it, a letter of protest. So you’re still paying your taxes, but you are making it known that you do not approve. You can also send that letter to your elected representatives and as a letter to the editor of your local newspapers. You can leaflet and attend protests usually staged by NWTRCC on tax day to voice your opposition to the way your taxes are being spent. You can call your representatives and lobby for the Peace Tax Fund legislation that has been introduced in Congress every year since 1972 that would introduce a new conscientious objector status for taxpayers.

You can also abstain from buying things that have taxes placed on them. This can be made easier if a single symbolic tax is chosen to protest, like the telephone tax, or the tax on tea. Trump’s trade tariffs are an interesting way around this one. In the past, raising taxes to pay for foreign wars has created an easy target for protesters and angered many. By branding these tariffs as simply America taking back its power, even though that’s not how tariffs work, it means the government can cut taxes for the rich through the Big Beautiful Bill and increase taxes on the poor, because those tariffs get passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices, and the federal government pockets billions while everyday Americans have more and more of their paychecks eaten up by higher costs of goods. But it’s not TECHNICALLY a tax, so it’s easier to deny. So a form of economic protest that is a less obvious form of tax resistance, is opting out of the system as much as possible. This is highly customizable for your needs. It could mean boycotting all major retailers and only shopping local. It can mean creating a pod with your friends or neighbors and engaging in a bartering system. A hair stylist can trade with a potter–a few haircuts in exchange for some new pottery. Becoming active on your local buy nothing group on Facebook, of which there are thousands across the country, is another way to do this. It’s hyper local and it takes advantage of the overconsumption in this country by allowing for the free exchange of goods that we’re trying to get rid of anyway all while completely disengaging with the larger economy–so long as you're not just replacing stuff by buying new stuff, etc. Some people take it a step further and decide to downsize and simplify their lives by living on less so they are paying in less to the system. If you itemize your tax deductions–meaning you don’t just take the standard deduction but instead go through and itemize everything, you can give away upwards of 60% of your annual gross income to an eligible nonprofit and avoid paying any taxes on it. Meaning you control where that money goes–towards housing, food resilience, whatever you believe in–instead of giving it to the government to spend it on bombs to kill babies. This is of course easier said than done when most of us are one or two paychecks away from bankruptcy or homelessness, but I know some of you are pretty comfortable–there are leftist millionaires, believe it or not. Not me, but they exist. All of this is legal and depends entirely on each individual’s circumstances and willingness to experience maybe some slight discomfort but also the sense of freedom that comes from at least partially disengaging from a system that is so incredibly fucked and that they do not believe in. A short documentary called Death and Taxes by NWTRCC includes interviews with individuals who have been tax resisters, some of them for decades, many of whom feel a sense of freedom and accomplishment from living a life that avoids buying into the system they don’t believe in. [insert clip]

Um another legal method that is slightly less attainable for most people but is an option nonetheless is leaving. Moving to a different country. As a US citizen you’re still required to file a tax return every year with the US, but the foreign earned income exclusion or foreign tax credit effectively lowers your tax rate in the US to zero if you earn all your money and pay taxes on it in a different country. One where, perhaps, the taxes they collect actually go towards programs you believe in.

Okay so those are the legal methods, but many of the people portrayed in that documentary I mentioned engage in varying levels of illegal tax resistance. Again, I’m not your lawyer, this isn’t legal advice, proceed at your own risk, I’m not advocating for anyone to specifically break any specific laws that would be so crazy. Here are just some facts.

One popular way to engage in this type of tax resistance is by engaging in “W4 Resistance." If you are an employee, your employer has you fill out a W4 at the beginning of your employment. They don’t file that, they just use that to determine your federal tax withholdings from each paycheck. Often what will happen is you fill out your W4 and the feds actually withhold MORE tax than you owe and at the end of the year when you file your taxes you get a sweet little tax return. Which is fun but it also means that you just gave the federal government a year-long 0% interest loan on money that was yours. So to avoid overpaying those taxes, or paying any taxes at all, some people will ask to update their W4 with their employers, which you can do at any time, and will go to Step 4(b) on their form and add deductions in order to zero out what they owe. So, for example, if you are a single person making 40,000 dollars per year, you would take your yearly income minus the standard deduction, which in 2025 is $15,000 for a single person or $30,000 for a married couple filing jointly. So 40,000 minus 15,000, equals 25,000 and that is the number you put in line 4(b) of your W4 as a deduction. That would essentially zero out your tax withholding from your paycheck. This is technically illegal assuming you don’t actually plan to make those deductions on your taxes because it means you’re lying to the IRS. You would still owe those taxes at the end of the year, but that gives you time to think about whether you want to pay them, you can take the money you WOULD be paying and hold it in a high interest savings account so you actually make money off it, OR some people put the money in an escrow account, often a pooled escrow account through a local organization like the ones affiliated with NWTRCC, again NWTRCC dot org, with the explicit purpose of holding the money until the federal government offers people an option to pay without their money going towards defense, and meanwhile that collective escrow account can be used to support local organizations, to support resisters who get audited or fined by the IRS, and as a means of showing that the tax resister is not simply trying to keep all the money for themselves but instead take what they WOULD be paying in taxes and use it for causes they actually believe in.

If you are self employed, you would do this by simply not paying your quarterly taxes. Some people will do this with all of the tax money they owe, some will resist by refusing to pay a small symbolic amount–ten dollars and 40 cents withheld on your 1040 tax return accompanied by a letter stating why you are underpaying, for example. Some people simply file no tax return at all. Others resist by working jobs for which they get paid in cash, and then not claiming that cash on their return, effectively showing less official income and thereby paying less to the government.

Okay but of course there are negative consequences for people who break the law while resisting taxes. And though they are serious I think they are generally overblown AGAIN THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK. While the consequences can be steep, even for slight underpayment, and can include fines of up to $500 for “frivolous” filings, or interest charges and other fees and fines, up to and including garnishing wages, putting liens on property, attempting to seize property, and even jail time, which is all very scary, the frequency with which much of anything drastic happens is pretty low. The IRS has truly been painted as this scary menacing threat, the tax man, etc. But the reality is, according to NWTRCC, over the past 85 years, of the literal hundreds of thousands of war tax resisters, only 2 have ever gone to jail simply for not paying taxes. Others have gone to jail for contempt of court or lying on their tax forms. One guy was arrested in 1942 for refusing to buy a war tax stamp on his car, which I mentioned, and another guy, Tony Serra, was imprisoned in 2005 for “willful failure to pay federal income tax.” He is a lawyer, and so the general wisdom is that accountants and lawyers and other tax professionals are more at risk of getting imprisoned or heavily punished for tax resistance because it’s thought that they should “know better” and therefore their failure to pay is more willful than the average person. So your likelihood of being imprisoned is not zero but it’s also not very high.

Similarly, the frequency with which the IRS seizes property is also incredibly low. They tend to reserve property seizures as a way to make an example of exceedingly rich tax evaders, your 2013 Honda is probably pretty low on their list. According to NWTRCC, the last attempt by the IRS to seize property from a war tax resister was in 1999. Additionally, there is a HUGE portion of unpaid taxes that the IRS simply never recovers. Of the 458 billion dollars per year that are unpaid taxes, taxes that are OWED that someone is refusing to pay, the IRS only recovers about 52 billion of that chunk, or about 11% of the unpaid federal taxes. If you don’t pay a symbolic $10.40 of your tax bill, or even your entire $1500 tax bill or whatever, the cost of enforcement will most likely outweigh the money you owe them, making it far from worth their time, especially now that the IRS funding has been further gutted by DOGE. But if one million people refuse to pay that symbolic $10.40, and instead send it to an escrow account or a cause they care about, that’s $10 million dollars rerouted from killing babies back into our communities. Which is a drop in the bucket, but add onto that the feeling of satisfaction that tax resisters report feeling when they are able to take back that little bit of control makes it worth the risk for some people. So the likelihood of getting arrested or getting your property repossessed is pretty low. Wage garnishments are a real threat, though again the IRS recovers 11% of the unpaid funds, and there is a 10 year statute of limitations for them to collect, so if it’s passed that 10 years they cannot collect those unpaid funds. What will happen with probably 100% certainty is you would receive a series of increasingly threatening automated letters from the IRS, which is scary but also is just a piece of paper. And then the taxes you owe would have fees and penalties put on top of them. NWTRCC estimates that the amount you owe could as much as triple with all the fees and interest added up. So if you owe $100, that could go up to $300. That’s, again, if they get around to trying to collect to begin with, which is often far more trouble than it’s worth.

Which is why groups like NWTRCC exist, which is made up of a coalition of local partners. Over the course of the last 50 years, NWTRCC has created an intricate web of support, including accountants, lawyers, and war tax resistance counselors across the country that have experience and can help guide anyone who might be interested in exploring ways to resist the regime through legal or illegal methods of tax resistance. I’ve linked to their various resources in the description and in my list of sources, also linked in the description.

Blue states are also investigating ways to engage in their own form of tax resistance. California, for example, pays BILLIONS into federal taxes while receiving less than what they pay back in the form of federal grants and services. But California itself isn’t the one paying those taxes. It is the people of California, through the income taxes withheld from their paychecks, and corporate taxes, etc. that pay into the system. And the state itself never touches that money. So states like California, as well as Connecticut, Maryland, New York, and Wisconsin, are looking to creative ways to try to claw back some power from the federal government. This includes withholding federal taxes from state employee paychecks and then not sending that to the federal government, which would amount to a few billion dollars. They are also considering the option of withholding repayment of grants and other payments owed by the states to the federal government. These laws have been introduced by various legislatures but as of yet have not been passed. They are also in a legal gray area. This has never been done before, and they would likely be challenged and potentially overthrown in court. But, of course, that’s exactly how the Trump regime also operates–do it first, then argue about it in court later–so many blue states are pushing to move forward with some kind of method of statewide tax resistance. If and until any of those bills move forward, it is really only us as individuals that can do anything in the form of tax resistance.

But then the central question becomes: is this enough? Is it worth the potential pain? To which I answer: no and maybe, respectively. Whether or not it’s worth the pain is entirely up to you. Like I said, many tax resisters have reported feelings of freedom and agency from taking back whatever control they can and not supporting wars they don’t believe in. Is it enough? No, of course not. The $10 dollars you don’t send to the federal government or the 40 cents in indirect tariff taxes that don’t end up in federal coffers when you refuse to spend money at Starbucks isn’t, by itself, going to topple a wanna be dictator or deconstruct the military industrial complex. The unfortunate reality that I think we’re all realizing is that there isn’t one singular act we can do to make this all stop, rebuild the integrity of our systems, and stop fascism from spreading here again in the future. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try everything we can. The reality is that this type of society-shattering regime, the kind willing to break laws, undermine centuries of norms, and do whatever it wants with impunity, at the expense of literal human life, people are DYING in ICE custody, our bombs are being used in a genocide, fighting something like this takes decades of work and small, incremental changes built up over time. It takes work from all members of society interested in engaging in resistance in different and interconnected ways. And yes it even involves breaking the law, if it’s done in the name of fighting for what’s right. And it involves doing so very publicly, so if you do plan to engage in tax resistance you need to make your stance known. Which is scary. And breaking the law and facing consequences is scary. And it’s not for everyone. Most people aren’t willing to do that. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place in the resistance for people who don’t want to break the law. For some people the risk is far too great–they have small children, they’re barely getting by, whatever your reason I think it’s important not to close people out or undercut their contribution because they aren’t willing or able to do big symbolic illegal acts. There is a place for everyone and there HAS to be a place for everyone in order for a resistance to be successful, especially in a country this big and this spread out.

Some people also argue that by refusing to pay taxes, people would be playing right into the regime’s hands–they WANT to defund the government, they WANT there to be no resources so they can say ah well people aren’t paying taxes so we don’t have any money for SNAP, sorry! And it’ll just reinforce the right wing wet dream of a completely deflated government. But, like, that’s happening anyway. Whether or not someone pays their taxes, the right is going to say there’s no money for SNAP while sending billions to an Argentinian despot. They don’t need an excuse to completely dismantle the government, they’re already doing it with or without our tax dollars. One facet of building a successful resistance is building alternative institutions or shadow institutions to take the place of a crumbling regime intent on starving the people out. This includes communication networks outside of the mainstream, news and information gathering, community support systems, community safety systems, and more. Imagine the potential for building those shadow networks with the tax money being withheld from the federal government. These are the kinds of networks that could then provide support, resources, shelter, and more to the very people being targeted by the government for withholding their taxes to begin with. And beyond tax resistance, building community networks is a necessary element to building a successful resistance as well. The Death and Taxes documentary I mentioned earlier made it very clear that the people who successfully resisted paying taxes and were happier for it were also surrounded by a strong community of support. And I think this is the central message I continue to drive home–there are many methods to resist a dictator, but all of them, ALL OF THEM, revolve around you building a community with your neighbors and your loved ones–a community that you can rely on for HELP, that you are not afraid of asking for help, that gives you the peace of mind that you are not alone and that you will have people to fall back on no matter what happens. That is key to surviving this.

And if you’d like to support my work, consider joining here on YouTube by clicking the big join button below, or supporting me over on Patreon, patreon dot com slash Leeja miller, where you get access to all these episodes completely ad free. Thank you to my multi-platinum patrons Marc, Sarah Shelby, Art, David, L’etranger (Lukus), Thomas Johnson, and Tay. Your generosity makes this channel what it is, so thank you!

And if you liked this episode, you’ll like the one from last week about how this shutdown is about to get so much worse.

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