I am thinking of not paying my federal income tax.
There are so many things the Donald Trump administration is doing that I oppose. Putting my federal income tax money in a trust account is a form of protest I can undertake.
The Trump administration has withheld funding from states – mainly blue – for Medicare administration, for fighting terrorism and for education. The ostensible reason is that these programs and voter administration are riddled with fraud, but no evidence has been forthcoming.
In reality, Trump is trying to punish states and communities for not buying into his obsession with immigration and for resistance to the unconstitutional attempt by the federal government to control federal elections. In addition, Trump is destroying basic research in America, the seed corn of science that has kept America great over the past two centuries. He has cut or tried to cut research funding to our universities and threatens that decisions about which projects are pursued be made by political commissars, like the Soviet Union’s Lysenko. Yet he rails against Communism!
We must fight back.
Individuals can withhold their tax contributions, but think what we could accomplish if we did this statewide. For each resident, Massachusetts sends about $10,000 in federal income taxes to the government. With 7.2 million of us, that comes to an enormous $70 billion. About a quarter of that is the state’s contribution to federalism, meaning Massachusetts pays more to the federal government than it gets to the tune of $17.5 billion.
I call on the state to sequester the $70 billion, send the quarter needed by other states and keep the rest to pay for all the federally funded activity within the state.
Of course, what is easy to say is much harder to implement. Each entity – large firm, small firm, mom-and-pop store, state agency, local government office and nongovernmental organization – that employs people, withholds taxes and transmits them to the federal government would have to hold back and send it to a new account maintained by the commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Not transmitting income tax monies to the federal government is a federal offense, which would put all those entities at risk of prosecution.
I would support taking that risk by standing up to the feds in this way. Would you?
Martin G. Evans is a freelance writer. He writes about managerial and political issues, with contributions to The Boston Globe, Boston Business Journal and elsewhere, and was previously a professor at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, and has taught at the London Business School, Harvard School of Public Health and elsewhere.
