Consumer Action Group Strategy

[clumch]

The strategy is to increase citizens rights by direct action without anybody getting hurt - by hitting the government in the one place it cares about - its wallet. PAYE may be a convenience for citizens but it exists to remove our our only real power.
HMRC took over £515,000,000,000 last year - about 75% directly from citizens. The government will do anything to keep that revenue stream.
Currently they use the threat of violence from the police to get the money.
My point is - the civil and criminal justice system has a *very* small capacity - almost any organised non-payment will break the system.
The question is: which tax can the majority of the population choose not to pay? Council Tax
We use non-payment of Council Tax to force the government to make PAYE optional.
Then we use (the threat) of mass non-payment of Income Tax to force improvements in citizens rights.
We have the power to effect change by using online banking and clicking "Cancel Direct Debit" When it history has it ever been so easy and painless? Am I making sense?

[HSBCrusher]

Am I making sense?

no.

[JOSH_IOU]

Originally Posted by Bookworm

Oh yeah, cos the Tories who introduced it the first place would surely get rid of it?

They would actually.

They recycle people as well as ideas you know.

[Conniff]

Originally Posted by clumch

My point is - the civil and criminal justice system has a *very* small capacity - almost any organised non-payment will break the system.
The question is: which tax can the majority of the population choose not to pay? Council Tax
We use non-payment of Council Tax to force the government to make PAYE optional.
Then we use (the threat) of mass non-payment of Income Tax to force improvements in citizens rights.
We have the power to effect change by using online banking and clicking "Cancel Direct Debit" When it history has it ever been so easy and painless? Am I making sense?

It don't work like that, and if every citizen in the country stopped paying their ct, it would have no effect at all on the justice system.

The CT system is administered by a computer printout of all ct payers who are in arrears, the operator just presses a button to say print out all those in arrears, this produces a spreadsheet with them all named. That very long sheet is then submitted to the court as is and the judge stamps the bottom, he doesn't even look at the names on the list.

Each person is not individually taken to court, so if that spreadsheet has one name on or 50 million names on, it makes no difference, it takes the same amount of effort and time.

The only one who would benefit from this would be Royal Mail with all those extra letters to deliver.

[clumch]

Originally Posted by Conniff

Each person is not individually taken to court, so if that spreadsheet has one name on or 50 million names on, it makes no difference, it takes the same amount of effort and time.

That is an interesting point - but sending 50 million letters does not get the money paid - everybody ignores the letters.

Then what do they do?

You can not send bailiffs to every house - that is tantamount to civil war.

Plus somebody still has to pay cash up front for 50 million court dates - which they can not afford!

If more than a small % of the population have CCJs the credit history system collapses.

[clumch]

Anyway the UK population are too docile, petty minded and lazy to actually stand up for their rights - so this thread is a waste of time.

We are just fodder to be ripped off and deceived by government and corporation.


CAG is all very well but the banks will just rewrite their terms and conditions and adapt.

[Conniff]

Originally Posted by clumch

- so this thread is a waste of time.

We are just fodder to be ripped off and deceived by government and corporation.

CAG is all very well but the banks will just rewrite their terms and conditions and adapt.

Well I would certainly agree with the first statement, you could not even make an hypothetical case out of this.

I also agree with the second statement, the fuel protests are a good example of this when compared with the action take by some other countries. But have those other countries population actually had the result they wanted from their protests.

There is nothing wrong with coming up with an idea for a campaign, but you will need to do some research beforehand to see if it is feasable.

P.S.
Yes you could send in bailiffs to all the addresses, they would love that, would certainly find the staff to do it, and would think that Christmas had come early.

[Weird Al Yankovic]

I think the OP has thought this out quite well and, in theory, it would appear to work.

However, we are not French and protests such as this in the UK are unlikely to prevail.

Anything like this has to begin, or initially involve London, and they couldn't care for each other let alone the whole country.

9/10 for effort & thought, 1/10 for it to happen.

[indebtstudent]

"it would be incredibly foolish not to pay council tax as a political statement, unless you are willing to go to jail."

The prisons are full, yet incredibly ever now and then you see a pensioner get locked up for non payment of council tax.

I sympathise with the OP, council tax is shockingly bad. Every year the bill goes up by 5% or so but my council remains fantastically inept at even very simple tasks.

For the moment I can afford to pay it, but I would suggest more people will feel the kind of frustration I feel if the bill continues to rise.

There must be a level at which it causes real hardship, and if enough people refused to pay I believe it could bring about change.

It is impossible to lock everybody up, the problem lies in getting people to do anything.

If we made a pack to all not pay it and suffer the consequences the system would be paralysed. Trouble is anyone who works in a bank, for the police, as a barrister, and loads of other jobs aren't allowed to have a criminal record so they are out.

Very few people would actually engage on such a risky course unless they felt they had no alternative. If things carry on as they are this is a real possibility.