Is it Time for a Tax Strike?
Or: If billionaires can do it, so can we.
Remember that time your boss gave himself a million-dollar bonus while telling you there just wasn’t enough in the budget for raises? Or when the government found trillions for corporate bailouts but suddenly got stingy about funding schools and hospitals? Yeah, same story. That’s exactly what’s happening with the federal budget right now.
The Problem We Have
Congress is gearing up to slash social programs—things like Medicaid, food assistance, and Social Security—while extending the Trump tax cuts for corporations and the ultra-wealthy. These cuts disproportionately benefit the top 1%, specifically the billionaires and centi-millionaires who already pay little to no income tax thanks to a rigged system that lets them “borrow against assets” (a fancy way of saying they get richer without selling anything taxable).
Now, here’s the kicker: the very workers who keep those billionaires’ businesses running are the ones who rely on the programs being cut. Walmart and Amazon employees need food stamps because their wages are too low. Factory workers and retail clerks need Medicaid because their jobs don’t offer affordable healthcare. Home ownership is declining and rents are rising because Wall Street funds are driving up home prices. Instead of asking why a full-time job doesn’t pay enough to live on, Congress has decided the real problem is that working people have it too good.
Of course, that’s not true. The reason the working class needs a social safety net is because of fifty years of policy changes that shifted economic gains to the top. Back when productivity and wages rose together, the middle class was strong. But today, the benefits of economic growth—profits, stock buybacks, CEO salaries—go almost exclusively to shareholders and executives, while wages have stagnated and the cost of living has skyrocketed. This isn’t an accident. Tax policy, deregulation, and corporate behavior have conspired to ensure that the wealth created by working people is captured by the people at the top.
If lawmakers truly believed in budget responsibility, they’d start by incentivizing the 1% to reinvest in workers instead of funneling every extra dollar into CEO pay and stock buybacks. That’s what actually balanced the economy between 1945 and 1980: corporate profits were taxed fairly, and businesses paid workers enough to live comfortably without needing government assistance. But instead of restoring that balance, Congress wants to cut spending on the working class while keeping tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy and subsidies for the corporations they run.
We are solving the wrong budget problem. Instead of fighting over which of our hard-won social programs to sacrifice to reduce expenses, we should be looking at ways to increase revenue. Our economy generates more than enough wealth to both fund effective social safety nets and reduce the working class economic fragility that drives ever increasing dependence on social programs.
Trickle-down economics is a sham. Corporations and the elite aren’t going to do the right thing out of the goodness of their greedy little hearts. So, how are We the People going to make things right?
The Method We Use
Elite domination is the societal equivalent of Herpes Simplex Virus 2. It keeps coming back, no matter how hard people try to cure it. When it does, treatment is a must. Options run the gamut from government regulation to pitchforks and torches. Extremist militia members aside, most people would rather not resort to the guillotine—at least not without exhausting other options. Overthrowing a government is a messy business, where even the winners pay a high price.
On the other hand, the US is in the throes of full-on government capture by elite and corporate interests. This isn’t just a theory. The data backs it up. This analysis of over 1,700 U.S. policy decisions found that “individual economic elites and organized interest groups (including corporations, largely owned and controlled by wealthy elites) play a substantial part in affecting public policy, but the general public has little or no independent influence.” In other words, if you’re not rich, your vote barely matters when it comes to shaping government decisions.
We want change, and we can’t vote it into office because most of the candidates on offer by the two major parties are in the pocket of lobbyists, PACs, and private donors. (Thanks, Citizens United!) This is where civil disobedience comes into play. We the People have a long history of using this tool to good effect.
In fact, we’re so quick to take it to the streets that we spread ourselves too thin by taking on too many issues at once. What we need now is mass action for a common cause. I humbly suggest that, regardless of our other differences, we can all agree that being treated like extras on the set of our own democracy is bullshit.
Participation in mass action is hard, especially when we’re all working at least 40 hours a week just to tread water. Who’s got enough vacation time to spare for a week-long sit-in at the Capitol? We need a form of civil disobedience that’s sustained enough to make an impact but minimally disruptive to day-to-day living.
I wouldn’t have written this if I didn’t have an idea.
I’m a fan of poetic justice: if the government insists on defunding the working class, then maybe the working class should return the favor. If billionaires get to dodge taxes, why shouldn’t we? That’s where a tax strike comes in.
A tax strike isn’t about refusing to fund public services forever—it’s about withholding payment as leverage to demand fair taxation. The 1% use loopholes, offshore accounts, and creative accounting to avoid taxes indefinitely. A tax strike simply applies that same energy to the working class. If they’re going to take away our social programs—most of which are classified as mandatory spending—then we can strike back by defunding lucrative government contracts and subsidies, most of which are discretionary spending that benefits the wealthy.
Some might say civil disobedience over taxes isn’t justified—but they’d be wrong. Philosopher John Rawls, in A Theory of Justice, argues that civil disobedience is justified when laws are used to deny people their basic liberties rather than simply being unfair. On its own, tax policy isn’t necessarily a violation of rights—but when it’s designed to entrench the power of the wealthy at the direct expense of democratic participation, it becomes something more.
Billionaires don’t just avoid taxes. They use their untaxed wealth to fund politicians, shape laws, and suppress wages. That isn’t just economic inequality—it’s political inequality. The tax system isn’t just redistributing wealth upward; it’s redistributing power upward. And that violates the principle of equal liberty that Rawls believed was the foundation of a just society.
If we want to take back power, we have to hit them where it hurts—by doing what they do best: playing the system.
The Solution We Demand
We don’t have a spending problem—we have a fairness problem. The economy keeps growing, but the wealth created by working people is being siphoned upward while wages stagnate and social programs get slashed. If the government is serious about reducing dependence on safety nets, the answer isn’t to pull the rug out from under struggling families—it’s to fix the policies that made those safety nets essential in the first place. The tax strike isn’t just about withholding—it’s about demanding a system that funds essential services and restores economic dignity to the working class. That starts with five clear steps:
Restore Progressive Taxation on the Ultra-Wealthy – Bring back fair tax rates on billionaires and centi-millionaires, making them pay their share like they did when the middle class was strongest.
Eliminate the Social Security Payroll Tax Cap – Remove the earnings ceiling so the wealthiest Americans contribute fully to Social Security, securing it for generations.
End Corporate Stock Buyback Loopholes – Stop tax-advantaged stock buybacks and force companies to reinvest in wages, job creation, and actual productivity instead of shareholder payouts.
Implement a Federal Public Investment Fund – Shift government subsidies away from corporate welfare and into worker-owned businesses, community investment, and affordable housing.
Pass a Constitutional Amendment Protecting Equal Economic and Political Rights – Guarantee that wealth can’t be used to buy power, ensuring every American has equal access to voting, education, and economic opportunity.
These aren’t radical ideas. They’re common sense corrections to a system that’s been rigged for the ultra-wealthy at the expense of everyone else. If Congress won’t act, we will. That’s where the tax strike comes in. We withhold our taxes until they meet these demands. The billionaires already play this game—now it’s our turn.
The Actions We Take
The key difference between our tax strike and the billionaire tax dodge is intent. They do it in secret, for personal gain, and with no consequences. We have to do it transparently, as an act of civil disobedience, knowing the risks, to force the system to change. That’s what separates this from tax evasion—civil disobedience is about making injustice visible, and that requires being willing to take the hit.
First and foremost, file your 2024 tax return ASAP. Get your money if you’re owed money. Pay what you owe if you owe.
Stop paying your taxes. Don’t spend the money. Do what the rich do: put your money to work. You’ll need it later, after we set things right. How you do this depends on your worker classification—i.e., how you get paid.
If you’re a 1099 worker (self-employed, freelancer, contractor), you need only stop making quarterly tax payments.
If you’re a W-2 worker, you adjust your W-4 withholding to claim “Exempt” and keep more of your paycheck.
Be open about your involvement. Talk about this with your friends. Post about it on social media. Ask strangers if they’re part of the working class tax strike. Go viral. Let the elite-owned media do our organizing for us.
File your 2025 tax return on time next year. You will, of course, owe money. Delay payment as long as legally possible, just like corporations do. Plan on going longer if necessary.
Of course, this will trigger penalties and interest—the IRS won’t just let you keep that money without consequence. That’s why we invest the withheld taxes, turning it into seed money for higher returns, just like billionaires do.
There are two investment options that fit the strategy:
Crypto speculation & staking – The billionaire-style method. Risky, volatile, but historically capable of 30-35% annual returns, which is enough to outpace IRS penalties and interest.
Community investment funds & worker co-ops – The working-class wealth-building method. Investments that benefit workers directly, keeping money out of corporate hands and circulating in the real economy.
This isn’t radical. It’s history. When America last faced extreme inequality 100 years ago, it took public pressure—including organized strikes, protests, and civil disobedience—to break the hold robber barons had on the economy. And it worked. It led to the progressive taxation, worker protections, and corporate accountability that built the mid-century middle class. That balance was deliberately dismantled, and now we’re right back where we started.
Billionaires own Congress. They own the media. They own the narrative, which is why working-class Americans are too often divided over who to blame instead of focusing on who actually broke the system.
But that script can be flipped. We don’t need to wait for politicians to fix this. The billionaires know their power. It’s time we remember ours.