The Picket Line — 13 April 2007

13 April 2007

Ed Hedemann discussed war tax resistance on Robert Lorel’s Radioactivity show on WMNF of Tampa Bay, Florida yesterday and invited listeners to call in with their questions. If you’re listening to the audio download, the Hedemann segment starts about 17 minutes in.

The Tax Foundation surveyed 2,012 U.S. adults to ask their opinion of the tax system. Among the findings:

“What is the maximum percentage of a person’s income that should go to taxes — that is, all taxes, state, federal and local?”

Drumroll please… Any zeroes in the audience?

2% (40 out of 2,012) of those who responded said that the maximum percentage of a person’s income that should go to taxes is 0%. Well… keep the faith and spread the word.

Thanks to Mark Laythorpe at Strike the Root for plugging The Picket Line today.

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For more information on the topic or topics below (organized as “topic → subtopic → sub-subtopic”), click on any of the ♦ symbols to see other pages on this site that cover the topic. Or browse the site’s topic index at the “Outline” page.

Miscellanous tax resisters → individual war tax resisters → Ed Hedemann: ▶; ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦; Happy tax day! Here’s an audio interview with Ed Hedemann, and info on tax resisters Karl Meyer, Timothy Godshall, Carol Rose, Joanna Karl, and Jeff Knaebel.; The first war tax resistance article of the 2007 tax season hits the wires. Also: why can the dwindling pro-war base motivate their representatives to take stands, and the growing anti-war base cannot? And: a letter to the “Won’t Somebody Else Please Stop Funding The War in Iraq” coalition.; War tax resisters John & Pat Schwiebert, Rod Nippert, Ed Hedemann, and Marjoire Nelson are in the papers. Also: today was my last day as a volunteer income tax preparer (how much did I cost the government this year?). And: Jim Bouman discusses war tax resistance with his skeptical son. Also: download a Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings concert video of “What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes.”; War tax resisters Janine & Ben Martin Horst, Bryan Nelson and Ed Hedemann in the news. Also: a report on Dan Jenkins’s attempt to get the courts to recognize conscientious objection to military taxation. And: more than half of Americans receive significant income from government programs, and one-in-five work at a government job. Also: the People’s Life Fund of Northern California redirects thousands of federal tax dollars to community and activist organizations.; War tax resisters Ed Hedemann, Robin Harper, and Karl Meyer profiled in the Brooklyn Eagle. Also: reports on Tax Day actions from South Bend, Portland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Chicago.; Ed Hedemann of NWTRCC is grilled by Fox News business anchor Neil Cavuto. Also: J.D. Tuccille pokes a hole in the “tax resisters are taking money from the rest of us” rhetoric balloon.; The Nation publishes some letters it received in response to Chris Hedges’s war tax resistance article (including a letter from me). Also: more people pledge to begin resisting taxes, and tell us why.; Is advocating war tax resistance the same as “promoting tax evasion schemes” and if so, could the government shut down organizations that promote war tax resistance and seize their membership rolls? What about tax resisters’ “alternative funds”? Are they a variety of “warehouse bank” vulnerable to wholesale seizure by the government?; Ruth Benn reports back from the 12th International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns in Manchester, England.; An American libertarian-oriented tax resistance campaign that calls itself the “Slave Uprising” gets ready to launch. Also: more impressions of the recent international conference on war tax resistance and peace tax campaigns, highlighting the differences between the United States and European countries. And: the Wall Street Journal profiles Gene Sharp, wrist-slaps for murderous soldiers, and the release of the Peace Tax Seven movie.; Tax resisters Karl Hess and Ed Hedemann are interviewed in the documentary “Anarchism in America” which you can view on-line.; NWTRCC’s December newsletter is out, with notes about frivolous filing penalties, the Eugene meeting, the Peace Tax Seven cases, and the experiences of long-time resister Becky Pierce, among other things. Also: what happened when Karl Meyer put the I.R.S. to the test by filing a tax return every day in 1984.; NWTRCC’s Ed Hedemann talks about war tax resistance and redirection on GRITtv with Laura Flanders. Also: the joy of teabagging your Congressional representatives. And: tax preparation tips from The Onion.; Karl Hess on libertarian tax resistance, Ed Hedemann on war tax resistance, and “Bob” on pro-life tax resistance. Also: Aristotle looks at the most noble (and yet least useful) of the capacities for discerning truth: Philosophy.; In 1983, the New York Times covered the war tax resistance of Carl Lundborg, and printed some statistics the I.R.S. had been collecting about war tax resisters.; Ed Hedemann of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee has put together some interesting charts and tables showing all known prosecutions and property seizures against U.S. war tax resisters since the 1940s.; A new issue of “More Than a Paycheck,” NWTRCC’s newsletter, is on-line, including news about penny polls, “settle with the IRS for pennies on the dollar” companies, “frivolous filing” overreach from the IRS, Karl Meyer on what makes war tax resisters more vulnerable to criminal prosecution, Ed Hedemann on the history of the U.S. government’s use of property seizures and criminal cases as tools against war tax resisters in the post-World War II era, and more.; How to use the Freedom of Information Act to see what the I.R.S. has on you, the experience of war tax resisters in federal prison camps, more on Evan Reeves’s protest, NWTRCC business here and there, war tax resister Patricia Tompkins, an update on Jorge Güemes, the government seems unable to stop rampant tax fraud conducted by people already behind bars, and more on the work of WikiLeaks and its allies.; The Peacemakers open their first annual conference on this date in 1949. Also: Josef Brinckmann and Ed Hedemann defend war tax resistance in the newspapers.; The number and percentage of “lucky duckies” who file tax returns showing that they owed no federal income tax all year jumped to nearly 42% in 2009, according to statistics released recently by the I.R.S. Also: “tax day” newspaper articles from years past cover the war tax resistance of Ed Hedemann, Jack O’Malley, Ralph Dull, Rita Snyder, Kathy Levine, Donald Ealy, Bill Ramsey, Jenny Truax, Rebekah Hassler, Tom & Suzanne Makarewicz, and Mary Loehr.; An overview and update on the Greek tax resistance movement from the New York Times. Also: Ed Hedemann and Ruth Benn talk war tax resistance on Cindy Sheehan’s radio show.; A new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter with news from the war tax resistance movement. Also, a call to war tax resistance from an anti-imperialist book from Britain a century ago wouldn’t sound out of place in the American empire today.; Tax evasion could get you deported… or confined within the borders. Also: updating the war tax resistance bible. And: the rise of popular sociopathic protagonists. Also: Ed Agro on war tax resistance. And: updates on the Irish and Greek anti-austerity tax resistance movemements.; The new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter is out, full of news about the Chicago conference, tax day actions, legal updates, international tax resistance news, and more.; Whenever the authorities arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned, or seized property from Quaker war tax resisters, whatever Meeting that Quaker belonged to was sure to make note of it in their book of “Sufferings.” Commemorating resisters who have “taken one for the team” can be a good way of encouraging resisters to persist.; When people are arrested, tried, or imprisoned for tax resistance, their comrades have sometimes used this as an occasion to hold rallies or other demonstrations. This shows support for the people being persecuted, demonstrates determination in the face of government reprisals, and can be a good opportunity for propaganda. Here are some examples.; Tax agencies live by bureaucracy and paperwork. Many of the earliest examples of writing in the worlds’ museums are tax records. But some mischevious tax resisters have discovered that this is a vulnerability that can be targeted.; Ruth Benn, Ed Hedemann, and Cindy Sheehan talk war tax resistance this evening. Also: income tax resistance in the campaign for expanded citizenship rights in the Northern Territory of Australia in 1919.; Tomorrow I leave for the 14th International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns in Bogotá, Colombia. Expect things to be a little quieter around here for the next month. Also: tax resistance in Catalonia, more on the War Resisters International war tax capitulation, and an update on prisoner tax fraud.; Cindy Sheehan forces the I.R.S. to blink. A look inside NWTRCC’s latest newsletter. Yesterday’s “Pull the Pork (from the Pentagon)” protests. War tax resisters Francesc García Barberà and Amy Wachspress. And the I.R.S. use of civilian informers.; Ed Hedemann is interviewed on Democracy Now today about war tax resistance as a form of protest. Also: examples of Tax Day coverage of war tax resisters in 1966 and 1968, including Irving Hogan, who redirected his taxes one dollar at a time to passers-by: “Here, go buy yourself a beer.”

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