How you can resist funding the government → a survey of tactics of historical tax resistance campaigns → reach out to potential resisters at the time and place of payment → Tax Day actions → 2008

It’s in the United States — the deadline for filing our personal federal income tax returns. In a few minutes, I’m going to head across the bay to meet up with Berkeley’s notorious squadron of Code Pink protesters at the Marine Corps recruiting center. From there, the crew will march to the main Oakland post office to remind the last-minute filers what they’re paying for.

War tax resisters nationwide are having deductions taken from their fifteen minutes of fame , as the news media take advantage of the Tax Day angle to swing the lens their way.

Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now show is broadcasting from Portland, Oregon , and it features war tax resisters Pat & John Schwiebert, Portland locals who have been resisting taxes for . (You can hear the show on-line — the Schwiebert segment starts at about 12:49.)

U.C. Berkeley’s Daily California covers ’s People’s Life Fund granting ceremony (that I attended and mentioned in ’s Picket Line).

LoHud.com out of New York takes a look at war tax resisters there, including Ethan & Rima Vesely-Flad, Chad Murdock, Frederick Dettmer, Rosa Packard, Daniel Taylor Jenkins, and Hugh & Sirkka Barbour.

STLtoday.com from St. Louis covers the post office protest of tax resisters there.

Mike Ives, who wrote a story about Vermont war tax resisters a couple of weeks back, shares with his readers some additional tidbits that he wasn’t able to fit in that story.

At Mark Of The Beast, an author shares with us the letter s/he sent to the IRS explaining why 58% of the tax bill was going unpaid . Excerpt:

Tax resistance is the most direct way U.S. citizens can avoid being complicit in this war and other illegal activities and actions by government employees and agencies. If all of us who have written our Congresspersons or taken to the streets also refuse to financially back the war and other illegal activities and actions of the government, the decision-makers in Washington have a much harder time ignoring our resistance.

in the United States, and all across the country people were scrambling to get to the post office in time to have their tax returns postmarked by the deadline. There to meet them were tax resisters:

  • The Ryder Report has video of the protest in Keene, New Hampshire, including feedback from passers-by.
  • In Brattleboro, Vermont, war tax resisters including Bob Bady and Daniel Sicken redirected their taxes to local charities:

    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.”

  • Tax resisters in New York City handed out War Resisters League budget pie charts at the midtown post office.
  • Joshua Klein of Nashua, New Hampshire filed his tax returns , but decided to include a protest letter instead of a check. “Klein would not reveal how much he owed but said he’s donating the money to America’s Second Harvest, the largest domestic hunger-relief organization in the country, and the American Civil Liberties Union, although he’s not affiliated with either group.”
  • In Los Alamos, New Mexico, two protesters were arrested for trespassing during a vigil at the Los Alamos National Laboratories. The protesters said they were there “to prayerfully encourage the nonviolent, safe, clean disarmament of weapons of mass destruction, along with the clean-up of LANL… [and] to visibly celebrate the war-tax boycott organized by the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.”
  • War tax resisters in Bangor, Maine, including Larry Dansinger, protested at the post office and gave away redirected taxes. One of the grants was a scholarship to a student who, because he has refused to register with the selective service system (for the military draft), will be ineligible to apply for college financial aid.
  • The Home News Tribune of New Jersey has a video report of the war tax protest at the post office there.
  • In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, peace activists held a “penny poll” in which they asked passers-by how they would prioritize the nation’s budget. Meanwhile, constitutionalist tax protesters handed out documentaries and documentation about their theories.
  • In Berkeley, California, Code Pink was out with their “Don’t Buy Bush’s War” banner.
  • U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky and a handful of other House Democrats held a press conference highlighting how much the Iraq War was costing individual taxpayers. Amy Goodman of Democracy Now interviewed Schakowsky before the press conference, along with tax resisters John & Pat Schwiebert.
  • Free Speech Radio News covered national protests over war taxes, government spending priorities, and the Capitol Hill press conference.

Along with the news coverage, bloggers commemorated with more personal commentary:

  • At The Begging Bowl, Jake writes about his tax resistance: “The money I would have paid the government has gone to the Chicago Anti-Hunger Foundation. When votes no longer matter we vote with our dollars. I vote for the works of mercy and feeding the hungry. And if it means the IRS is gonna come knocking on my door for $119, I will offer them some food too. And if they ask for a check, I’ll go with them to jail. That’s another work of mercy, visit the imprisoned. If we took the works of mercy as seriously as we took our 1040s and economic stimulus package, the Kingdom of God would be at hand.”
  • J.D. Tuccille, at Disloyal Opposition, gives a thumbs up for tax resisters — “whatever their reasons, I think it’s worth saluting folks who go out of the way to avoiding feeding the beast.”
  • Rusty Pipes, at Street Prophets, does some background research on the Schwieberts’ tax resistance and their campaign to get their church to come on board. And he shares some notes on the debate on war tax resistance in his own denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
  • Kerrie, at State & Local Politics, reacts to news coverage of the Schwieberts: “It takes a whole lot of nerve to do what his couple is doing. But I wonder if Bush would take notice and stop the war if more people took this route to protest the war? I know that we have to do something because things are getting worse not better.”
  • Will Shetterly, at It’s All One Thing, discusses tax resistance, and includes some inspirational quotes from tax resisters.
  • Doug & Maureen Mackenzie and Nicholas Collins shared the letters they sent to the IRS to explain their resistance.

More from the swarm of tax resisters who came out to play on :

  • Dave Ridley video blogged his protest at the Manchester, New Hampshire post office.
  • Next Left Notes has photos, video, and reporting from the protests in New York City. Frida Berrigan said:

    “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.”

  • The Makingpeace blog has been covering war tax resistance actions in Austin, Texas and elsewhere.
  • Robert Randall tells how things went in Glynn County, Georgia

    As best we can figure, we gave out about 2200 flyers on at the Brunswick and St. Simons Island P.O.s. Amazing!

    We started at with 500 War Resisters League pie chart flyers at each P.O. We ran out of those at in Brunswick and on St. Simons at , just as I arrived to give Bill Jerome a stack of about 400 “Economic Costs of the War” flyers with info from the American Friends Service Committee. Milly Hastings reported later that when she & Steve Stevens finished their leafletting at , they had only 16 flyers left! Although our youth were ready to provide someone to take over on St. Simons, there weren’t flyers for them!

    On the Brunswick side, Cathy Browning brought us a couple of hundred of the flyers addressed to Georgia taxpayers, giving figures from the National Priorities Project on how much the war is costing us locally and what else the money could have purchased in services and meeting community needs. Those weren’t going to be enough, so she went back and printed 600 more. These were all gone by , a half-hour before the P.O. closed.

  • Paul Sheldon reports on his many tax day (more like tax week) actions at Paul’s Perambulations.
  • Ethan Vesely-Flad tells us how things went at the Rockland Coalition for Peace & Justice protest in New York, and notes:

    It will be difficult to keep up this witness — my wages at the Fellowship of Reconciliation, as of yesterday, are now being levied by the IRS — but we are going to try. The most encouraging thing is the powerfully supportive response that we have received from so many people. Clearly, our small action has struck a chord with others who similarly oppose this war, and are unsure about what they can do to help stop it.

  • Daily Californian reporter Jacqueline Johnston shares her reflections on going to cover the Berkeley, California “People’s Life Fund” granting ceremony.
  • KLCC in Eugene, Oregon reported on the post office demonstration there:

    Eric Muller: “The paper tiger casts a shadow, but it’s a shadow of paper and of enforcement. What can they take from us? They can take our money. And that’s a very small damage compared to the damage we’re creating throughout the world and particularly in Iraq right now, as we speak, you know much more damage is being inflicted than will be on the tax resisters who are working here today.”

    Muller and others in the community have donated six thousand dollars to local charities instead of paying their full taxes to the federal government. The money will go to Food for Lane County, Shelter-care, [and] peace groups, among others.

More Tax Day Action reports:

  • NWTRCC has a good run-down of actions nationwide, including lots of photos.
  • A video of John and Pat Schwiebert’s appearance on Democracy Now is now up on YouTube.
  • Rev. Ellen W. Lankhorst of Milton, New Hampshire, announced her decision to resist taxes in the local paper. “In fear and trembling I have decided to make this illegal gesture in the hope that many more people will do likewise. When a lot of people dare to resist the use of their tax dollars, things will change.”