“So, we’re not paying taxes this year, right?” one poster on Instagram asked. “Tax protest 2026. But there are real-world consequences to not paying taxes that one Connecticut tax preparer said makes such a protest inadvisable. “That kind of tax protest has been around a very long time,” said Scott McLean, professor of political science at Quinnipiac University. More recently, McLean noted the Peacemakers tax protest in the late 1940s, which also encouraged withholding taxes as a protest against war.