One way of spreading the tax resistance message and of targeting potential tax resisters when they may be most receptive to that message is to propagandize them at the time and place when they make their tax payments.
This tactic is prominent in the modern war tax resistance movement, which often conducts demonstrations and other outreach activities on the day when income tax forms are due (for instance, around April 15th in the U.S. nowadays).
Here are some examples from the modern U.S. war tax resistance movement:
- “pickets paraded before the internal revenue offices during the lunch hour today, carrying signs which read ‘Don’t pay your income tax. Refuse to finance World War Ⅲ.’ and ‘Your taxes pay for the H-bomb.’ ” ()
- “demonstrators picketed the office of the Third Internal Revenue District… [and] distributed leaflets saying that the ‘real crime in connection with the Bureau of Internal Revenue’ is not corruption but collection of money for ‘preparations for mass murder — for a third world war.’ ” ()
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- “vigiling with banners and leafletting will take place in addition to an alternative peace tax counseling table being set up on the fifth floor office of the IRS. …the protesters will be vigilling and distributing war tax resistance literature at the mobile IRS tax unit… They will be accompanied by ‘Little Boy,’ a replica of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The presence… will conclude with a short religious service inside the office.” ()
- “Farmer [Ralph] Dull drove a truck filled with 325 bushels of corn to the IRS office in Dayton, trying to pay his taxes with this harvest. ‘I didn’t think they would take it and they didn’t,’ said Dull, who was protesting the large percentage of tax dollars that is used for the U.S. military buildup.” ()
- “volunteers of the Centre County Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Freeze distributed leaflets against military spending in front of the U.S. Post Office” ()
- “The Makarewiczs, along with about two dozen other people, protested outside a federal building in downtown St. Louis during Tax Day. They superimposed the photo of an Iraqi child they said was wounded by an American bomb over 1040 tax forms, which they placed in area libraries near the official tax forms and handed out on the street with literature explaining war tax resistance. ¶ They also attempted to deliver medical supplies for wounded Iraqi people in lieu of taxes, which they said the IRS politely refused. The group sang a song about Tax Day, with lyrics including, ‘For the cost of cluster bombs that maim and leave to bleed, our kids could have more teachers helping them to read.’ ” ()
- “I got to play the part of a suit-and-tied IRS agent, coming to the lectern to bring balance to the otherwise anti-government proceedings. I told the crowd: ‘You seem like politically-savvy people. But do you realize that you wouldn’t have anything to protest here today if it weren’t for the things the government funds with your money. Your taxes make protests like this possible! You should thank us! …cluster bombs don’t grow on trees, barbed wire doesn’t grow on trees! It takes your money to make all this possible. We can’t do it without you! We can’t do it without you! We can’t do it without you!’ ()
- “demonstrators will be hanging signs demanding No Money for War from the Burnside Bridge during the morning rush in Portland, OR; while others will be out in the evening until the midnight sharing coffee with last-minute filers at post offices in White Plains, NY, and Manchester, NH, and handing out flyers showing where income tax money goes.” ()
- “taxpayers at the main Baltimore City post office will find mailboxes labeled Halliburton, Bechtel, and Lockheed Martin to mail their checks straight to the [military contracting] corporations.” ()
- “In Portland, Oregon, war tax resisters braved the morning chill to hold up ‘Burma Shave’ style signs along the roadside for people to read as they passed by on tax day:
“$ SIX BILLION A MONTH
AND DEATH EVERY DAY
DON’T LIKE THE WAR?
THEN REFUSE TO PAY
()“INSTEAD OF BOMBS
LET’S USE THE TAX
TO FEED MORE KIDS
OURS & IRAQ’S.” - “Thirty activists from Eugene-Springfield forcefully protested the war in front of the main mail drop-off point for last minute Lane County tax filers. About five thousand cars with eight thousand people passed by our group at an average of 5 mph as we stood lined up for nearly six hours along their path, holding graphic images of the injured casualties of the war: children, men, women, and soldiers, bearing messages like, ‘Your tax dollars paid for this,’ or ‘It’s our money, stop the war.’ ” ()
- “from Chico, California, to Fort Collins, Colorado, and Louisville, Kentucky, to Cambridge Massachusetts, members of the public will be asked to take a ‘penny poll,’ by dropping coins into jars representing budget categories to show how they would like their tax money disbursed.” ()
- “Northern California War Tax Resistance went to the nearby post office to hold up banners, hand out flyers, and project a slide show of war tax resistance info for the traffic jam of last-minute tax filers. We were joined by… members of the National Treasury Employees Union who came to the post office fresh from a union meeting to protest the IRS’s plans to use private debt collection agencies to pursue delinquent taxes. ¶ At first it seemed a little awkward to be protesting alongside IRS agents who today were fighting to keep their jobs from being outsourced but tomorrow might be trying to seize our assets. But the ones who had no signs of their own to wave took extra ones from us and, to our delight, we had employees of the U.S. Treasury and their families protesting war taxes right along with us! ()
- “We really mis-calculated on the number of pie chart flyers we could have given out today. We had ordered 500 from the War Resisters League… They were all gone at both P.O.’s by 11 AM!” ()
- The Occupation Project in St. Louis, Missouri held up large orange “Caution Signs” at the post office on Tax Day: “The first sign will say: ‘Caution, War Tax Payment Zone’ The next will read ‘Pause before you Pay for’ And the then the following signs will read, ‘House to House Searches’ ‘Torture’ ‘Hundreds of Thousand of Refugees’ ‘Over 3200 U.S. Military Dead’ ‘Over 600,000 Iraqi Dead’ ” ()
- “Donning sackcloth and ashes, they entered the federal building shortly after it opened for the day. All acted in remembrance of the death and destruction wrought upon Iraq by the United States. They sang the names of Iraqi citizens and U.S. soldiers who’ve been killed during the war in and occupation of Iraq.” ()
- “About a half-dozen war tax protesters handed out $3,400 to community groups Saturday: It was their way of observing the federal tax day. … The noontime protest, in front of the U.S. Courthouse on Main Street, which also houses the post office, drew onlookers as well as representatives from the groups that received the money.” ()
- “Kevin Flaherty, a postal employee who ducked out in the afternoon for a smoke break, said it was encouraging to see the war tax resisters give away their money. ‘It’s great,’ he said, pointing out that it was Kevin Flaherty the citizen — not Kevin Flaherty the postal worker — who was supporting the group. ‘Sometimes when people are paying their taxes, I joke that somebody has to pay for the Iraq War. Maybe this will make them pay attention.’ ” ()
- “A large display board with options for people to place pennies in the categories they think tax money should be spent was available, and information on how the government actually spends it accompanied the poll. Amy Antonucci, member of SPR, helped provide the pennies to those wishing to weigh in, and said the goal of the event was to educate people on how their taxes are being spent. ‘It’s always interesting to find out what’s important to people,’ said Antonucci. Antonucci said it’s amazing how different the perspective is from residents as opposed to where the money is actually going.” ()
- “Protesters gathered at the IRS office… Banners, pie charts graphically depicting how tax monies are spent and hand painted ‘bibs’ that read ‘1 day of the Iraq War = 1 Yr Salaries For 12,478 teachers’ delivered the demonstrators’ message as they leafleted outside at the IRS. Overhead an electronic sign gave the current figures for the national debt — some 9 trillion dollars — and each family’s share, over $78,000.” ()
- “All I kept thinking about was just how many people oppose the war, wish the war wasn’t happening and don’t really see a clear way of doing anything about it. On tax day, everybody’s scrambling to pay the government and feeling like their hard earned dollars are being sopped up and wishing that that money went to roads and to schools and to healthcare. We were able to interject some information about where that money really goes — and to offer some alternatives… about how people can withdraw their own complicity.” ()
- “Eye-catching banners from Bread and Puppet Theater declared ‘Whose $,’ ‘In Whose Name?’ War tax resisters carried an oversize ‘check’ for $29,886, representing money they were refusing to pay to the IRS but giving to soup kitchens, youth programs, and to help Iraq war refugees and victims of [Hurricane] Katrina.” ()
- A group grabbed hundreds of 1040 forms from public places where such things are found (libraries, post offices, and the like), then printed ghostly images of coffins and of children wounded in war over the forms, and then replaced them where they had originally found them. ()
- “We pitched canopies, set up our casket replete with name of corporations that profit from arms production, and, undeterred by the pouring rain, bravely paraded through Saturday and Farmers Markets. We were led by mourners for the wars and war expenses that continue, followed by some in Fashion Resistance to Militarism costumes, signs and flags. We chanted, ‘We’d rather pay for schools!’ ‘We’d rather pay for farmers!’ and were cheered by bystanders.” ()
- “It was blessedly sunny on Tax Day. We set up in front of our downtown post office, where we think there have been tax day actions since . … We had our traditional penny poll and WRL flyers. Several local nonprofit groups sent representatives to accept some of our tax redirected money and promote their groups. … Labor singer Mark Ross regaled us with some great songs, we had an effective pitch for labor, and an open mike to an attentive if modest audience. At least four TV, radio stations, and newspapers interviewed us, so we were well-covered that evening and the next day.” ()
And here are a couple of additional examples:
- “Instances have been brought to the attention of officials,” said a New York Times article about “pro-German agents in the United States” in , “where buyers [of World War Ⅰ ‘Liberty Bonds’] have been approached, apparently in a spirit of great friendship, and advised not to buy the bonds.”
- War tax resisters in Spain held a “chorizada,” or barbecue, in front of the Palacio Foral in Biscay, to protest the “chorizada,” or swindle, of military spending, passing out pieces of “chorizo” (sausage) to passers by while promoting war tax resistance and redirection.
