War Tax Resister Russell Kanning Jailed for I.R.S. Office Leafletting

Russell Kanning is in jail, awaiting sentencing after being convicted of refusing to obey officials who were preventing him from leafletting at the IRS office in Keene, New Hampshire. (See The Picket Line , , and for background.)

The latest news is that he has been moved to a maximum security section of the jail after refusing to cooperate with his imprisonment (he refused some requests for information, and, initially, would go limp and force prison guards to move him rather than moving voluntarily).

Supporters have since rallied both at the IRS office where Kanning was arrested, and at the Strafford County House of Corrections where he is being held.

Supporters of jailed war tax resister Russell Kanning protest near the IRS office in Keene, New Hampshire.

When the IRS announced that it was finally giving up on trying to illegally collect an excise tax on flat-rate long distance telephone service, it said that it would be refunding several years’ worth of improperly-collected taxes, with interest, and that individual taxpayers could apply for these refunds using their 1040 forms in .

What about people who don’t file a yearly tax form (millions of poor and retired people do not need to file) — how do they get their refunds?

The IRS said it is developing a “very simple, straightforward form” for low-income people to file next year to get a refund.

“We recognize there are many people who have no filing requirements and we want to make sure that these people get the refund they deserve,” the IRS said in a statement.

There’s a new issue of NWTRCC’s More Than a Paycheck out. Included in this issue are addresses where you can write letters of support to imprisoned war tax resisters Joseph Donato and Kevin McKee, and a profile of war tax resister Stanley Bohn.

Also out now is the War Resisters League’s new newsletter — WIN, which replaces the Nonviolent Activist. Of special interest to the NWTRCC crew will be its lead article this issue on “Building an Intergenerational Movement” — something that’s also been at the front of the NWTRCC agenda lately.

There’s a new section on the Mennonite Central Committee web site devoted to war tax resistance.