Americans Are Stiffing The IRS To Protest Trump [View all]

[TexasTowelie]

The week after Donald Trump's inauguration, Abby, a 37-year-old filmmaker, was sitting at home with her young son in Portland, Oregon, growing increasingly frustrated watching the news. As executive orders started flying out of the White House, Abby felt something more drastic was called for than her family's regular donations to Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. She pulled out her phone and fired off a text message to her tax preparer in Brooklyn: "Hey, what if we don't pay our federal taxes? Are other people considering this?"

Tax resistance as a form of protest has been around as long as taxes themselves, gaining particular notoriety during the 1960s, when hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have refused to pay at least some taxes in protest of the Vietnam War. Trump himself seemed to endorse the tactic during the first presidential debate, when he parried a charge from Hillary Clinton that he hadn't paid federal income taxes for years with, "It would be squandered, too, believe me."

With that proud tax-dodger now in office, more Americans like Abby (who asked that her name be changed for fear of legal consequences) are considering not paying their taxes, either. These protestors are split in their goals: Some say they hope to vote with their dollars to remove support from the Trump administration, the federal government version of the #DeleteUber campaign. Others say they don't expect it to have a tangible effect — the government can always print more money (something Trump has already mentioned doing, however flippantly) or borrow from foreign lenders — and instead see their refusal as a form of nonviolent resistance.

For Abby, she thinks withholding cold, hard cash may be the only thing Trump responds to at this point. "Donald Trump is a businessman, right?" she pointed out. "If we start getting incredibly intentional with every nickel and dime, that is more effective than anything else we can do."

Read more: http://www.villagevoice.com/news/americans-are-stiffing-the-irs-to-protest-trump-9766905