Miscellaneous tax resisters → individual war tax resisters → Tana Hastings

It’s mid-April, coming up on Tax Day, and so it’s time for the annual fifteen-minutes-of-fame for the tax resistance set.

The Portland State University Vanguard today had an article that surpassed in accuracy and thoroughness most of its counterparts in the off-campus press. It is an especially good source of information on tax resistance for college students, particularly those wondering if a tax resister risks losing financial aid.

You may know that I frequently grumble about how the press overstates the difficulty of living below the tax line. Usually the reporter just adds the standard deduction and personal exemption and then declares authoritatively that this is the sub-poverty limit that impoverished tax resisters must live below in order to practice their crazy beliefs.

So I nearly groaned out loud at this passage in the Vanguard:

One of the most common ways that war tax resisters avoid filing taxes is by keep[ing] their income below the taxable level. For an individual, the cutoff is $7,300 per year, and the amount increases with each dependent claimed.

But the reporter decided to dig deeper:

“Legal deductions can bring higher incomes down to below the taxable level, but you have to plan ahead and work at it,” [Tana] Hastings said. “There are legal ways not to live in poverty, and still not pay any taxes.”

Bless you, Tana Hastings! And you, ace reporter Christie Toth!

There has been some discussion of my series on the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act going on at the wtr-s email discussion list:

“It has always seemed to me that the good thing about this is that it may allow some WTRs to stop their resistance, however, I suspect that many will continue.” — Martin Bates

Which just goes to show that what to me seems like a bug, to some people seems like a feature.

“It has bothered me that this really doesn’t have any affect on the military budget, and I rejoice that people could then finally vote with their tax dollars. I suspect that a better move would be for the Department of Peace, and the study and practice of nonviolence so eventually the weapons would be obsolete. I suspect we wouldn’t mind paying if we knew there was a department of the army that looked like CPT and there were several layers of nonviolent response to conflict before a weapon were ever considered.” — Martin Bates

“The Peace Tax Fund can be looked at as simply a tool — one that I hope very much that we bring into reality. The Dept. of Peace is another tool. The choice is not an either/or; in my opinion, both of these tools compliment each other. Neither is perfect, both will require vigilance on our part to ensure that they do what we want them to, and as well as we want. I have no doubt that there are other equally important tools ‘out there’ that we need to bring into being.” — Pam Allee

It’s a tool, but it’s important to ask: is it the right tool for the job? Will it even do the job? What else will it do?

“Our group gives workshops every month (except December) and speaks on different occasions about wtr. What we hear the most often from people is fear. The Peace Tax Fund would remove that fear. Many (if not most) current wtr’s would [not] switch to the PTF — but, if we did our job, we would relatively quickly have a real number to use as a lever against our representatives in Congress — something we do not have now.” — Pam Allee

If the price for making conscientious objection to military taxation feel “safe” is to make it counterproductive, is that price worth paying?

“The argument that I’ve heard that most sways me toward supporting PTF legislation is that it would basically establish CO status for taxpayers. This would be such an important precedent to be set, that conscientious objection to paying for war be acknowledged and accommodated by law. Even if the mechanism isn’t to everyone’s satisfaction, getting that toe-hold is an important, vital step toward what we want — it helps move us in that direction.” — Tana Hastings

This seems very speculative to me. I’m reluctant to ask Congress to let us take one step backwards in the hopes that this will encourage them to let us take two steps forwards some time in the future. What do you base this confidence on? How do you distinguish it from mere wishful thinking?

“Even if all wtrs didn’t avail themselves of the fund, wouldn’t/shouldn’t that precedent give greater legal defense/grounds for refusing to pay?” — Tana Hastings

I worry that just the opposite would happen. Rather than being a precedent that war tax resisters could use to their advantage, it would be a cudgel the government could use against war tax resisters: “We gave you the ‘Peace Tax Fund’ you wanted — now you’ve got no more excuses not to pay up.”

“I don’t resist federal tax collection for religious reasons. I agree with Marx and Joe Hill that religions are opiates that keep us down and inactive.” — Doug Mackenzie

There is something a little grating about calling the proposed legislation the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act, at least to those of us whose conscientious objection isn’t religiously-motivated. But this is just marketing, for the most part, hoping to capitalize on Congress’s occasional whim to stand up for religious-based conscientious objection (for instance in 1993’s “Religious Freedom Restoration Act”). The actual legislation applies to religious and non-religious objectors equally.