Tax Day in 2015 and in 1971


From The Xenia [Ohio] Daily Gazette on :

Y. Springs man refuses to pay tax

 — Horace Champney of this village again is refusing to make out a federal income tax return to protest this country’s involvement in Vietnam.

“As a patriotic American, I feel that I must do my best to turn my country away from militarism and its crimes against the human race,” Champney said in a letter to the Cincinnati office of the Internal Revenue Service.

Calling the Vietnamese war “illegal, immoral, and potentially suicidal,” Champney notes that the major part of the federal income tax is used to support American military operations.

His letter to IRS said, in part:

“We call our War Department ‘Defense’ and its collection agency ‘Service.’ This is a grim deception.”

Champney also noted “I would rather go to prison or be shot than to grant my support to the military establishment of any country.”

His letter continued:

“Therefore, I must tell you that I shall not be making any federal income tax return this year. Nor shall I assist in any way any efforts to collect such tax as it may be considered that I owe.

“Further, I urge all conscientious Americans to consider similar resistance to this evil thing. And I urge all officials of the IRS to resign and seek moral and legal employment rather than continue to participate in a great crime against humanity.”