Tax resistance can be a form of conscientious objection (for example, some pacifists refuse to pay taxes that pay for war). Tax resistance can also be a variety of protest, or a technique of nonviolent resistance (for example, in India’s campaign for independence led by Mahatma Gandhi).

Tax resisters are distinct from tax protesters who deny that the legal obligation to pay taxes exists or applies. Tax resisters may accept that some law commands them to pay taxes but they still choose to resist taxation.

Tax resisters typically have one or more of the following motives:

For example, pacifist war tax resisters are typically motivated by an unwillingness to be complicit in government spending on war and preparations for war (#1). Tax resisters for women’s suffrage were unwilling to pay a tax to a government that did not allow them the rights of representation (#2). When American Amish refused to pay the social security tax, they were protesting against the imposition on them of that particular tax (#3). When the first Russian duma issued the Vyborg Manifesto, they hoped to use tax resistance to wrest concessions from the Czar (#4). Voluntaryists seek to delegitimize the State through education, and advocate withdrawal of the cooperation and tacit consent on which taxation and State power ultimately depend (#5).

These motives are not mutually exclusive; a resister or a resistance movement may have motives that fit in more than one of the above categories.

There are many methods of tax resistance. In the anti-war tax resistance movement in the United States it is sometimes remarked that there are as many ways to practice tax resistance as there are resisters.

Some tax resisters refuse to pay all or a portion of the taxes due, but then make an equivalent donation to charity. In this way, they demonstrate that the intent of their resistance is not selfish and that they want to use a portion of their earnings to contribute to the common good.

For instance, Julia Butterfly Hill resisted about $150,000 in federal taxes, and donated that money to after school programs, arts and cultural programs, community gardens, programs for Native Americans, alternatives to incarceration, and environmental protection programs. She said:

I actually take the money that the IRS says goes to them and I give it to the places where our taxes should be going. And in my letter to the IRS I said: “I’m not refusing to pay my taxes. I’m actually paying them but I’m paying them where they belong because you refuse to do so.”

Groups like the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund (United States), Peace Tax Seven (United Kingdom), Netzwerk-Friedenssteuer (Germany), and Conscience and Peace Tax International are working to legalize a form of conscientious objection to military taxation which would enable conscientious objectors to designate their taxes to be spent only on non-military budget items. They see this as a legalized form of war tax redirection.