Tax Resisters Susan Quinlan, Marilyn Langlois, and David Gross

The San Francisco Weekly has an article this week profiling local tax resisters Susan Quinlan, Marilyn Langlois, and David Gross (hey, I think I know that guy):

For David Gross, was the year outrage turned into action — which in his case meant filling out a lot of forms. Gross quit his job to reduce his income, put his money into things like tuition and retirement savings, and filled out reams of paperwork for the associated tax credits. All this keeps his adjusted income below the taxable level. “Before I started I was making a pretty good amount of money at a software company over in the East Bay, living pretty fat, and enjoying all that San Francisco has to offer,” he says. Now, he does just enough contract work to fulfill his needs, and home-brews his beer. But it’s worth it, he says, for the satisfaction of not owing the feds a single red cent.

Upside: Totally legal. “They could audit me and look at all my paperwork, and I’d come out smelling like a rose,” says Gross.

Downside: Besides the paperwork, no more Anchor Steam on tap.

If you’re paying the federal excise tax on long-distance or cellular telephone service, it’s way past time to stop. For one thing, it’s an easy tax to resist and I’m sure you don’t want me to start in on my rant about why you should resist paying something.

But for another thing, a number of circuit courts have ruled that the IRS has been collecting this tax erroneously all along! A while back, the Secretary of the Treasury said if they lost in court again they’d give up. They lost again.

And the Wall Street Journal reports that sure enough, they’re giving up. They’re even considering handing out refunds — but what are the odds those refunds will ever end up back in your pocket? They’ll probably just go back to the phone companies. You’re better off just cutting ’em off now.

Update: I was too cynical. The IRS did come up with a plan to give some of this miscollected tax back to us as income tax refunds. See The Picket Line for .