Martha Baskin has written a piece on tax resisters for The NewStandard — Anti-War Activists Promote “Tax Resistance” As Direct Protest. Some excerpts:
Glen Milner, an electrician and father of three in Seattle, Washington, files his taxes every year. His approach, however, is unusual. On the top of his 1040 form he writes in large print: “Some taxes withheld in protest of funds appropriated for illegal military purposes.”
“What I’m doing,” says Milner, “is telling the IRS right up front that somewhere in the form I’m withholding funds.” He doesn’t tell the agency where the missing funds are, but Milner has filed his taxes in this manner . A conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and an active proponent of US nuclear disarmament, Milner says he is putting his money “where his mouth is.” He cannot resist militarization and war and pay for it at the same time, he says.…
In , [Eddie] Tews… began practicing war tax resistance by refusing to pay the IRS hundreds of dollars annually. Every year, he says, the IRS demands payment by sending him a couple of letters, which he discards. In subsequent years Tews has avoided paying federal taxes altogether by practicing what he calls “W-4 resistance” or adding more exemptions than he’s legally entitled to.
Nevertheless, Tews says the IRS has never audited him. “If I consent to pay more taxes, then more bombs are dropped, more pollution is made and more lives are destroyed; and if I have to suffer some infinitesimal level of consequences as a result of my actions compared to the consequences suffered by other people as a result of [me] consenting to pay my taxes, well to me that’s — it’s not even worth talking about,” he said.…
“The one thing that the US government wants from most average, ordinary people in regards to this war is our money,” says Kathy Kelley, one of the founders of Voices in the Wilderness. “From most of us, they don’t want our lives — we certainly think of those who are being enlisted — but the reality of what the government wants is people to pay for this war and not to ask a lot of questions about it.”
Kelley has been a war tax resister for most of her working life. She says she began by lowering her salary below the taxable income when she taught religion at a Jesuit school in Chicago. When she moved to one of Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods on the north side at the height of the arms race between the former Soviet Union and the US, Kelley says she could not talk religion and then turn around and pay for a weapons build-up that could destroy the planet.
“The contradiction was just too much,” she recalled. “I certainly couldn’t take money that my neighbors desperately needed for food, for housing, for a drop-in center, for an alternative school — for so many needs in this impoverished area. I couldn’t say well I don’t have funds because I’m going to put it into buying more weapons.”
She added, “I’m through with buying materials to kill people. Once you make that decision — if you really believe it — you can make it for a lifetime and then it’s possible to withhold all federal income tax.”
