Association of Real Estate Taxpayers

Part of the Taxation series

Tax resistance

Core topics

History of tax resistance Conscientious objection to military taxation Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act Tax resisters

Media

An Act of Conscience Thoreau's Civil Disobedience The Cold War and the Income Tax

Organizations

Association of Real Estate Taxpayers National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee Northern California War Tax Resistance Pagal Panthis Peacemakers Women's Tax Resistance League

Campaigns

War of the Regulation Gaspée Affair Whiskey Rebellion Hut Tax War of 1898 Vyborg Manifesto Champaran and Kheda Satyagraha Salt Satyagraha Beit Sahour

Related topics

Civil disobedience Conscientious objection Divestment Economic secession Nonviolent resistance “Render unto Caesar...” Tax avoidance and tax evasion Tax protesters Taxation as slavery Taxation as theft

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The Association of Real Estate Taxpayers (ARET) was an organization of real-estate taxpayers in Chicago and Cook County, Illinois. Between 1931 and 1933, it organized one of the largest tax strikes in American history. The group had been founded in 1930 by several several wealthy real-estate owners.

The chief demand of ARET was that local and state governments obey a long-ignored provision of the Illinois Constitution of 1870 requiring uniform taxation for all forms of property. John M. Pratt and James E. Bistor charged that the failure to assess such personal property as furniture, cars, and stocks and bonds was not only illegal but left owners of real estate with excessive burdens. ARET's program also included support for sweeping rate reductions in the general property tax and retrenchment in local governmental spending.

ARET functioned primarily as a cooperative legal service. Each member paid annual dues of $15 to fund lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of real-estate assessments. The radical side of the movement became apparent by early 1931 when ARET called for taxpayers to withhold real-estate taxes (or “strike”) pending a final ruling by the Illinois Supreme Court, and later the U.S. Supreme Court. Mayor Anton Cermak and other politicians desperately tried to break the strike by threatening criminal prosecution and revocation of city services.

ARET's influence peaked in late 1932, with a membership approaching 30,000 (largely skilled workers and small-business owners.) By this time, it had a budget of over $600,000 and a radio show in Chicago. But it suffered a demoralizing blow in October 1932 when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a case it had brought. Buffeted by political coercion and legal defeats, and torn by internal factionalism, the strike collapsed in early 1933.

References

• David T. Beito, Taxpayers in Revolt: Tax Resistance during the Great Depression (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1989).

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