Allison Kilkenny | The Nation

Video and photos from US Uncut’s forty nationwide protests are beginning to come in. Perhaps the liveliest chapter is US Uncut DC, whose 100+ members shut down a Bank of America branch on Saturday. Reportedly, the bank managers pulled a fire alarm as action began at the protest. This is not the first time the franchise has successfully shut down BoA’s operations.

Other states decided to target different corporate tax dodgers. In 2009 and 2010, Verizon reported $24.2 billion in pretax income, but the company hasn’t paid a penny in taxes on that revenue, so in Ohio members of the “Citizens’ Revenue Service” went to a local Verizon store in order to collect the taxes on behalf of the American people.

The US Uncut community is buzzing in anticipation of Saturday’s big national day of action. Around forty cities are signed up at the official website, and several of the organizers contacted me to offer a preview for what they’re planning this weekend.

For Justin Wedes, a representative from the New York chapter, the overall message of the day will be about reframing the debate about the recession. “Don't cut federal and state budgets that pay for firefighters, cops, teachers and other important services when large corporations are evading their taxes. In other words, we don't have a budget problem. We have a revenue problem,” he says.

Part of the revenue problem stems from America's growing class divide. For example, just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined. As Michael Moore pointed out in a recent speech, many of these lavishly rich individuals benefited directly from the bailout, and many also exploit America's current two-tier economic system in which average citizens are asked to pay taxes while corporations abscond with billions of dollars that could save public jobs and repair infrastructure. The entire crooked system is economic treason. 

On March 26, US Uncut has protests planned across the country in almost forty different cities, including cosmopolitan hotspots like New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco, and also smaller rural areas in Ohio, Pennsylvania and upstate New York.

Though many Uncut chapters still appear to remain focused on Bank of America, some franchises have set their sights on other banks, such as Uncut Wisconsin, which has made M&I Bank its local target.

Many Wisconsin citizens are pulling their money out of M&I following the revelation that the bank has been helping Governor Scott Walker in his crusade against public employees. In fact, the bundled contributions from M&I executives were Walker’s second-largest source of campaign funds.

Chris Priest, one of ten people on the board of US Uncut’s national planning committee, tells me that Verizon and FedEx have recently been added to US Uncut’s target list. He also added that there is a larger list of corporate tax dodgers the group plans to release later in the month. Both Verizon and FedEx are multibillion-dollar corporations that pay lower tax rates than you do, and the reason Verizon is able to do this is by creatively redirecting profits to their foreign wireless partner, Vodafone.  

Vodafone has been the longtime target of UK Uncut due to its equally unscrupulous tax dodging practices. The company claims a large portion of its revenue should not be subject to British taxation because they reroute the cash through Luxembourg, which has a tax rate of under 10 percent. Vodafone has managed to double its profit during the recession by using this funneling scheme that ultimately robbed British taxpayers of billions of pounds that could have gone toward funding communities.  

So here we have an exploitative company, Verizon, channeling its income to another corrupt partner in Britain, all in the name of avoiding taxation. These massive evaders do this during a time when public services in both Britain and America are being slashed in the name of “fiscal responsibility,” but the really responsible thing would be to make corporations pay their fair share in taxes.