The GOS wishes to congratulate Richard Fitzmaurice on receiving a 32-day prison sentence because he refuses to pay his Council Tax.
The 74-year-old Heacham ex-serviceman has not paid his council tax to West Norfolk Council since April on principle after accusing the authority of a total misuse of public money and "blatant abuse" of pensioners.
In particular he objects to the Council paying £23,000 legal expenses to defend the Council leader against a charge of misconduct. He says "I ask people to cancel their council tax direct debits and delay payments. If just 20 people did something, the council would have a real problem."
He also highlights the problems faced by pensioners in general, such as soaring energy and petrol prices. "Our OAPs are being forced into poverty," he said. "We are the fourth richest nation in the world, but we have the lowest state pension in the European Union." His daughter Sarah added "I want people to understand that he's not doing this because he's some grumpy or greedy old man, but that he is putting his freedom on the line for a cause which affects us all. He represents a generation of people who have worked hard all their lives and are often too proud to ask for help - and why should they? At their time of life, they should be reaping the benefits of their work and not being penalised due to the unfair system of council tax."
Richard accepts that he will have to pay the tax eventually, if only because bailiffs are likely to seize his property to make sure he does. But he's absolutely right about one thing: if enough people make difficulties about paying this iniquitous tax, the system - the Councils that collect it and spend it, and the courts that they use to enforce it - will quickly fall into turmoil. And it's not necessary to go as far a prison, either. Refusing to pay by direct debit annoys them, and delaying payment until they've begun to take steps against you will overload officials brilliantly.
The GOS found the Council's statement last July rather illuminating:
"The Council is sorry that Mr Fitzmaurice is choosing not to pay any of his council tax. It understands that he has made this decision as a matter of principle, however, as a collecting authority, the Council has a responsibility to every other taxpayer in the Borough to ensure that all council tax due is collected.
Cllr John Dobson, Leader of the Council and Portfolio Holder for Resources, said: 'We have every sympathy with Council taxpayers and have made every effort to improve our efficiency in order to keep our element of the council tax down. The savings we have made enabled us to be the only council in England to reduce its council tax last year and in fact reduced it by 3% on the previous year.
'However, council tax funds a broad range of services, including the police, fire service, county and parish council services - not just those services provided by the Borough Council. If we fail to collect council tax from an individual then every other Council taxpayer in the Borough bears the cost of that failure. We owe it to them to ensure that all council tax is collected,' Cllr Dobson continued.
If full payment of the sum due is not paid, the liability order that has been granted today by the Magistrates will be passed to our bailiffs to enforce.
Cllr Dobson concluded: 'Welfare advice is offered to those people on low incomes who genuinely cannot afford to pay, and we will always seek to work with any Council taxpayer in financial difficulty. For those taxpayers who can afford to pay, but choose not to, we have a duty to pursue payment using the methods available to us."
You notice the words "responsibility", "we have a duty", and "we owe it to them"? These are the weasel words used by every petty official to justify unpalatable actions - "it's not us, we're just doing our job". Now where have we heard that before?
Oh yes, it came just after "Arbeit macht frei".
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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