I hadn’t heard much about tax resistance from Cindy Sheehan since she first announced that she’d stopped paying her federal income taxes as a protest against government policy (and the Iraq War in particular). Since then, she’s gotten on the ballot in my Congressional district, and is running as an independent candidate against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. I was a little worried that Sheehan had decided to downplay or even abandon her tax resistance in part of a campaign-related effort to seem more mainstream.
I shouldn’t have worried. She’s released a new call for others to join her in her tax revolt. Excerpts:
Before my son, Casey, was killed in Iraq, I… dutifully obeyed stupid laws and paid my taxes like a good, properly propagandized American.
As I wrote the checks, I never considered what my money was financing. After Casey was killed, I became deeply ashamed that I had in some small part funded the very thing that killed him: greedy and rampant U.S. imperialism. I have not paid my taxes since. I won’t pay my taxes until our money is used for positive projects: health insurance, affordable housing, credits for green development, jobs programs to rebuild our compromised infrastructure, education, etc. I can hold my head up and say that I feel that I have taken a principled stand against this U.S. Corporate Empire.
This out of control system needs to be overthrown and even though we still retain a modicum of the 2nd Amendment, we do not have the firepower it would take to militarily overthrow our Mad King George and his Jesters. More importantly, I fear armed revolutions for the very reason that they always install violent regimes, so I am proposing another solution: a tax revolt.
Over the past 7+ years, our taxes have gone to pay for: killing innocent people, torturing and detaining without due process other people (innocent or guilty is no matter), increasing Police State America, bailing out other finance companies, paying for private mercenary soldiers in New Orleans, Iraq and Afghanistan and the very ephemeral notion of a “War on Terror.” Most of us have continued to pay for these crimes against humanity. Some haven’t and some have done so with a nagging feeling in the back of the place that is called a “conscience.”
It is time to with hold your support from this criminally insane institution of Government/Wall Street. Do not allow your money to be used to bail out the fat cats. I propose:
- If employed, change your withholding to M-9, (married with 9 dependents) so no taxes are withheld from your paycheck, and do not file .
- If possible, limit your income to so you do not have to file.
- Or this is the best scenario: file your taxes and deduct $2300.00 for each member of your family and request a refund from Uncle Sam (and still change your withholding).
- Withhold a partial amount of your taxes to make a statement.
There are many ways that this government finances its schemes, but a massive tax revolt will send reverberations throughout the rotten system.
Before Congress approves this Crime of the Century bail out, call your House Representative and Senators (toll free: 1-877-851-6437) and tell them that if they collude with the Bush Regime to do this, you won’t be paying your income taxes.
Tax protest is a time honored and very courageous form of protest (i.e.: Boston Tea Party, Henry David Thoreau, Gandhi). I am not calling for a “protest” though… we have had many of those. I am calling for you to have the courage and integrity to join me in nothing less than a Revolution. It won’t be easy, but neither will the resultant collapse of our economic system if this “trickle down” plan goes through. I am tired of being trickled on… it is time for action, not complaints or whining.
This is the only way we can stand up to power in this country and if we stand together, they cannot divide and conquer us. Let’s reverse the trend and have thousands “striking at the root.”
