There’s been a lot of talk about this on social media - where you can legally withhold the payment of taxes if you believe the govt is committing or funding war crimes or a genocide. Anyone ever done it?
Found this site about it:
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You still have to create a trust with the government as the beneficiary and place your taxes in it, according to the article. You would also have to communicate that to the government. Sounds like a lot more work with significant risk.
I would say no.
Until the Government has been proven to be funding or committing war crimes or genocide then the law of the land will always take precedence.
I’ve never heard of such a legal right, but presumably you would in the first instance have to legally prove that the government is guilty
Not sure how an employee could refuse to pay income tax - mine has always been deducted under the Pay As You Earn Scheme.
A consumer couldn’t refuse to pay VAT because it’s part of the purchase price of whatever you’re buying.
As for Vehicle Excise Duty - if I refuse to pay, I’m more likely to be prosecuted for the crime of not paying it than for the crime of paying it!
I think the author of that article may be mistaken about local taxes being paid initially to the central Government Consolidated Fund.
He wrote:
“ The truth is that all the money that council collects in council tax, business rates, rents, charges, fees, fines etc is paid initially into Parliament’s Consolidated Fund. All our taxes go into one pot. The important facts that every taxpayer needs to know is what happens to the money next? How do the government and Parliament spend our money?”
I don’t think it works that way.
Each Council keeps the Council Tax they collect and it is further topped up by grants from the Government.
I used to work in the Bank where my County Council held their bank accounts. I know for a fact that all the council tax receipts were paid directly into the County Council’s bank accounts and the funds were retained by the Council until they were spent . They would put any surplus funds into safe investments at the best rate they could get until they needed to spend it.
One of my daily tasks was to liaise with the County Council Finance Dept to find out how much surplus funds they wanted to invest on the money markets.
Councils may still be sending 50% of the Business Rates Funds they collect to the central Govt - that used to be redistributed by the Govt as grants to all local Councils, so that it was more evenly spread out.
. I guess the Govt may have taken a cut of it first.
I don’t know if that system has changed - they were talking of changing the system by 2020, to allow councils to keep all the rates they collected but I don’t know if they have.
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I’m not in UK but I done see how you legally could, otherwise anyone who disagrees with anything the govt is doing could use that as a reason to not pay taxes.