Mass boycott of registration for the Household Tax is on course, based on the government’s own figures of around 4% after the first month. 96% of householders have not signed up, with an actual slow-down in the rate since early January. If this rate was to continue, only 12% would have registered by March 31st. Even if the rate doubled, 76% would be boycotting the tax. Registration also includes people not liable for the charge at all, masking the real level of non-payment.
The figures bear out the overwhelming opposition to the Household Tax shown in attendances at CAHWT meetings. Thousands have attended public meetings in cities and towns, such as 500 Cork, 350 Limerick, 300 west Donegal, 400 Enniscorthy, 350 Clonmel, 250 Kilkenny and thousands at localised meetings in Dublin.
The message is that ordinary people are angry but determined to resist government attempts to force them once again to pay the gambling debts of bankers and developers. People are not fooled by government claims that this tax is to fund local services – meetings in Dublin expressed their anger at the sell-off of waste collection, a key local public service, to private operators.
The Campaign steps up a gear this week with meetings in Leitrim, Kildare, Mayo, Monaghan and Roscommon and more rolled out for next week. 250,000 newsletters are being distributed door-to-door and a protest is planned to coincide with a motion on Dublin City Council next Monday evening. CAHWT will respond to any escalation in government threats or propaganda in February.
We are confident that this tax can and will be beaten. People see this as their one real chance to send a message about the onging austerity. Non-payment and non-registration are the only effective means to beat the tax and we encourage people to hold firm, ignore the government propaganda that will come and see that, by St. Patrick’s Day, we can have hundreds of thousands refusing to register and make the tax unworkable.
http://www.nohouseholdtax.org/
http://www.facebook.com/NoHouseholdTax