Miscellaneous tax resisters → individual war tax resisters → Ed Agro

Ed Agro sent an email to the wtr-s list a couple of days back about how to revitalize the war tax resistance movement and expand its influence in American activism in these days of the obamastupification of anti-war liberals.

It seems to me that our trouble is largely the same two problems the anti-war movement has had all along:

there aren’t enough people who understand that the government’s aggressive militarism is a problem, and
the people who do understand this typically don’t see it as something urgent that they personally ought to do something about — they’re content to have the correct opinion on the matter, and express that opinion at greater or lesser volume, and hope that posterity records their righteousness

The anti-war movement, such as it is, has helped to perpetuate U.S. militarism by largely restricting its activities to encouraging problem #2 people to complain and protest and propagandize and raise a fuss in the hopes of getting more problem #1 people to become problem #2 people.

Thing is, a lot of potentially sympathetic problem #1 people look at the problem #2 people and think: if these folks really believed their own propaganda, they wouldn’t just be holding parades and putting bumper stickers on their cars. Looks to me like they’re just opinionated self-righteous loudmouths trying to recruit people into their no-fun club.

The problem #2 folks ought to address problem #2 head on, as each one of them is immediately empowered to do. Problem #1 will solve itself as people notice anti-militarists starting to take themselves seriously.

The war tax resistance movement offers one way for problem #2 folks to do this — to “put their money where their mouths are” and to treat their own concerns with the urgent seriousness they deserve.

Agro makes a second point, which I’ve alluded to here in the past as well:

A problem: The way things are going, many of the target audiences, which would otherwise be sympathetic to WTR, will probably have little or no tax liability. In fact people will be relying on the government to help them through tough times. Will someone soon have to write a how-to article on “WTR in a time of no taxes”?

The last several years have seen large percentages of the U.S. population made essentially immune from the personal federal income tax. Last I checked, only about three in five Americans paid any personal federal income tax, and nothing about the Obama administration’s current tax plans gives any indication of reversing this trend.

Most of the focus of the American war tax resistance movement has been on the personal federal income tax and on the telephone excise tax. The phone tax is also hitting fewer people now, as now it only applies to local service on land-lines.

It’s something we’re going to have to give some thought to: how we can retool our movement for today’s tax environment.

Do you have Verizon as your telephone service provider? Do you want to resist the federal excise tax on phone service? Then you’ll probably be interested in Ed Agro’s write-up of how to navigate the Verizon bureaucracy so that they’ll credit your bill for the resisted tax.

Ed also turned me on to a series of articles on the Engaging Peace blog concerning moral engagement and moral disengagement:

There have been some interesting and thoughtful threads on the wtr-s email list recently. Is it really war tax resistance if you’re pretty sure the IRS is just going to lift the money (with penalties & interest) from your bank account anyway? Is the point of our resistance to register our disapproval strongly with the government, or to actually withhold funds from the war machine?

Re: IRS contact: Carol Moore reacts to news of a recent IRS seizure of a resister’s bank account: “The problem with doing [war tax resistance] when you make a lot of money is they get so much interest and fines, which almost defeats the purpose. Better to do ‘token’ resistance of whatever feels right — be it for you $500 or $2000, or whatever — and make them go through the effort of collecting.”
Banks: Randy Belmont says: “I am very puzzled why WTRs use banks. Most banks are members of the Federal Reserve Banking System and if they are not members they are tributaries, in that they must follow all regulations and are beholding to the Fed. Why would anyone who refuses to voluntarily fund war do business with these people? The funding of America’s empirical wars is brought about through the fiat money creation machine known as the Federal Reserve.

“Stealing ones money from a bank account is the simplest and easiest strategy for the IRS. I read over and over the same scenario of funds being stolen from bank accounts. Yet, people continue to patronize these institutions. There is no law requiring one to use banks or keep money deposited in the bank. Please stop using banks!”
Re: Banks: Christopher Toussaint responds: “To use a war analogy, in this case for nonviolent resistance, one must sometimes go behind enemy lines, use their infrastructure to infect transformational memes into the dominant society, get a hold of their ‘ammunition’ and use it against them. We are a minority, guerrillas who must be grounded in integrity and street smarts. After all, if we are forced to live in poverty and/or keep our cash in our mattresses, haven’t we compromised ourselves beyond the point of sacrifice, where we become ineffective in changing the greater community toward peace?

“In my case, using the banks to keep small amounts of money to pay by check and debit card, makes my life easier and I am more productive in the work I do on behalf of creating a more just and sustainable society. Its not hard to change banks periodically if you want to do that to keep the IRS from pilfering your accounts since they are often months and even years behind in their collection process. Just make sure you have a good reason to change banks, other than evasion of IRS collections, like the bank service fees are too high or their percentages of interest are no longer high enough or you have moved, etc.

“I am aware of the Federal Reserve fiat money situation and yes, in an ideal world, ‘Stop Using Banks’ and trading in silver and gold coins might be preferred. But this discussion needs to focus more on strategies for keeping our money out of the reaches of the IRS and not on just blanket statements that are not always practical to most WTRs.”
Re: Banks: Heather Snow agrees: “Keeping small amounts in the bank is so much easier to pay bills… all the bills are connected to banks. I mean, living without a bank, is like living without a car. Almost impossible. That’s how the feds want it. I don’t keep all my money in the bank, and enjoy having cash on hand.”
Re: Banks: Dana Visalli adds: “[I]t is possible with small banks that have no branches to have an account in somebody else’s name, or more meaningfully, someone else’s SS#. There can be two signers on the account but they only take the SS# of the first person. Apparently this option does not exist with banks with branches; only dog knows why this is the case.

“When the IRS seized my account some years ago, the bank president came up to the teller window and explained this technique to me!”
Re: Banks: Randy Belmont responds: “Actually, not using banks is really not that hard. Cash checks at the local corner store or bar. You can pay many utility bills directly at local drug stores and purchase money orders for other bills. You can also recycle checks because all checks are drafts for money. Example: You have a bill for $100.00 owed to ABC Co. and a check made out to you for $75.00. Sign and write pay to the order of ABC Co. on the back of the check and purchase a money order for $25.00. Send both of these to ABC Co. and your bill is paid. Additionally, if the check is bad the issuer of the check and not yourself is liable. You can also purchase a pre-loaded debit card for internet purchases etc. at 100s of stores. I understand that we all must use Federal Reserve Notes to survive, but it is not hard to ween yourself from the constant use of banks. If you must keep an account keep very little in it and cash your checks for cash and use the methods I described above. Additionally, you will never have an overdraft or bounced check fee again.”
Re: Banks: Larry Rosenwald: “We keep our money in a local bank (two branches). I love Dana’s story about the bank president! But here’s a question. As noted in an earlier exchange with Carol Moore, I think of war tax resistance as an act of civil disobedience, and in that context — and for other reasons — I am not trying not to be penalized; rather the being penalized is for me part of the civil disobedience. I hate being levied, I should make clear! But I understand being penalized as part of the process, and when I’m penalized, when we’re levied, I take that occasion to publicize what we’re doing. I’m guessing from the responses to this thread, and from other threads, that other readers of this list don’t think of wtr as civil disobedience, or think of civil disobedience in a different way, and I’d be interested in understanding these other conceptual frameworks better, if readers would be willing to comment on them.”
Re: Banks: Dana Visalli again: “Interesting note Larry, thanks. I’m sure it is the case that everyone interprets their ‘resistance’ (I like to think of it as ‘complete refusal’) to pay for the insanity of war.

“For one think it is quite important for me to keep my financial resources away from the IRS because they will use that money to kill people. So, when they did seize my account and get $4000 some years ago, that was a sizable amount that went to war (I know we generally calculate about half goes in that direction). It is a real, literal, tangible issue to me; I don’t want any of my resources to go to war (not to be too pure here, I do drive my car quite a bit… petroleum is quite a war-related problem…).

“It’s certainly an issue that if the IRS does seize a large sum then the mechanics of living become problematic. I’m sure that’s what Diogenes was getting at when he said ‘People don’t own possessions, possessions own people.’ He apparently lived in a barrel in the town square for quite a while. I’m passionate… but not that passionate.

“Also, if one can retain one’s resources, one can redistribute them. Some years ago I gave $1000 to the town community center for their new roof; when I handed the cash to the manager I stipulated that I was going to point out in a letter to the editor why I could afford to give away a thousand dollars when I don’t have a lot of money. I would like to get up to giving away ¼ of what I make (total taxes are about ¼ of income), but I’m not there. It is however a real pleasure to give $100 here and $100 there; if the IRS got at my funds that would be impossible

“I’m 61 and I think I can get social security next year. Surprisingly, they are offering me something like $600 a month (I’ve paid very little into the system in my life). My favorite idea is to take the money and then donate it to groups working on the aftermath of American war-making, or the many exemplary groups I met in Afghanistan when there in March, trying to educate street children or take care of old people with almost zero resources (speaking of this there are two good essays at CommonDreams right now by Kathy Kelly and her co-workers, who are in Afghanistan as we speak). I know not everyone could afford to do this, but in my case I think I can make some money until I’m at least 70 selling at farmer’s market and doing other work.

“So… I had no intention of ending up an anarchist, but the Politics of Obedience are too much for me.”
Re: Banks: Ginny Sсhnеider adds: “Aside from the Federal Reserve tie, imagine how the banks are investing your money! Likely these investments uphold the military-industrial complex — just what you are working to overcome. Credit Unions and newer, socially-responsible bank like institutions might be better alternatives even while you wait for the IRS to seize your money from an account.”
Re: Banks: Ed Agro says: “I think I’m somewhere else entirely. This isn’t surprising; I think if 100 resisters-refusers-redirectors got together & beyond our standard slogans, there’d be 100 different reasons.

“I do know I’m not as attached to independence as Dana; but on the other hand I can’t quite see Larry’s putting up with seizure as civil disobedience.

“If we cannot point out a palpable relationship between making the collection of taxes difficult and a turn away from war, where is the salience of the disobedience? Is it even civil if it’s an individual or a small-group action with no hope of provoking change? We cannot show the salience theoretically, and worse, our experience over our years of refusal don’t show it empirically. It’s not at all obvious that even were there a mass refusal of ‘war taxes’ (which would mean at the very most half of the population, as it has been shown over & over that at least half of our fellow citizens love the government’s wars) that the government would be less inclined or less able to wage war. The draft resistance movement in the 1960s and ’80s were successful enough to worry the military-industrial complex; so now they buy their soldiers, and as we see there are plenty who will take them up on it. This is just to say that consumer capitalism’s genius is its ability to absorb and commodify almost any dissent, particularly when that dissent expresses itself as dissatisfaction.

“I’m not saying that either Dana’s or Larry’s different conceptualizations of citizens and subjects are not worth following to their deedful conclusions, but only that perhaps neither of these are resistance. It’s been interesting and very useful for me to note and remember that their different actions both result in a very good thing: conversation with neighbors, co-workers, officials… There, perhaps is the nub of what we’re doing. It’s the most we can expect out of WTR, and it’s not a small thing in these timid times.

“Long ago I took a job precisely so that my WTR could be as ‘effective’ as possible in that the substantial risk of seizure at least would give the resistance a voice, and for years I enjoyed sticking it to the IRS with many an antic scheme. (I particularly enjoyed taking as business losses the time I spent in antiwar work.) In the end, though, the thing that I cam away with wasn’t the accounting of who was ahead, or the best way to protect my money. (Though I have to agree with Dana: without a very good reason to let the IRS get much more than I refused, I could get really bummed out.) Rather I finally came to see that this was indeed a species of tilting at windmills since except insofar as I wrote to various presidents & secretaries of state — and even then with no apparent effect — the IRS was if not a windmill, at least a coffee mill into which my resistance was soon ground up. The occasional agent who looked with sympathy on my stance — really, I could’ve gotten more mileage for my ideas with less work by way of a letter to the editor.

“I don’t know how I’d feel about all this were I still in the labor market, though I like to believe I’d still be happily reckless. But this feeling that WTR is less than cogent has had one good effect. It’s led me to thinking over the years about why, exactly, civilization is so screwed up. This in turn (and I have to admit, helped along by a good social-security situation) has led me to a preference for a frugal life.

“Yet… Maybe a disadvantage of a frugal life is that it turns not to include tax liability. Though the relationship isn’t as ‘functional’ as we like to believe, ‘war’ taxes are associated with state violence; so I do miss (or think I miss) the occasion to refuse them. For that reason I find myself inordinately attached to refusing the phone tax, the only one to which I’m liable and to which with a certain amount of mental gymnastics I can associate with war. Why do I bother, after these long-winded arguments for ineffectiveness? The only reason that makes sense to me is that I enjoy the ritual. Like voting, which ritual I also enjoy even though in the large it apparently doesn’t accomplish anything meaningful either.”

Batting around ideas like this is even more fun in person, so if you have a chance, you should swing by the 25^th Annual New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters and National War Tax Resistance Gathering and Coordinating Committee Meeting in Boston this weekend.

Lots of interesting discussion on the wtr-s email list this week:

re-building a movement?: Ed Agro started things off by bemoaning the current lack of “political salience” of war tax resistance, and wondering “what it might take to turn (or re-turn?) wtr into something resembling a social movement… What do we mean by a ‘movement’ and how does it differ from the wtr community that now exists?”
Re: re-building a movement?: Larry Rosenwald suggests that in order to become a real movement, we need to reach agreement on a set of principles and guidelines, to resolve “the relation between wtr as civil disobedience, committed publicly, and wtr as a mode of life in which one simply doesn’t owe the government any money,” to “seek to exert influence, even power… to win, that is,” and to give a collective answer to the question: “What changes in governmental behavior would it take [for] us to stop doing war tax resistance?”
Re: re-building a movement?: Dana Visalli is skeptical of the value of “movements,” saying that “we are confronting an issue of consciousness… it seems to me to be an issue of waking up, and only individuals can do that.”
Re: re-building a movement?: I suggest a couple of possible paths to movementhood: 1) a “revival” of enthusiasm in the anti-war movement like the “come-outer” abolitionist movement in American protestantism, 2) a populist tax resistance campaign from outside the anti-war movement that leads to a sympathetic reaction by anti-war activists. I suggest we more aggressively confront “complacency and feel-goodism in the peace movement.” I also am skeptical of Larry’s call for us to come to agreement on the details of our methods and goals: “I doubt we could come up with a fixed answer… even in the small circle of a NWTRCC gathering that would satisfy everyone, and an attempt to do so might divide us rather than strengthen us.”
Re: re-building a movement?: Larry responds, seconding my call for confronting a complacent peace movement, suggesting that the emergence of a populist, TEA-party-like tax-resistance movement is unlikely, and addressing my skepticism about his call for tighter definition of the tactics and goals of war tax resistance. He identifies three tendencies among resisters: 1) people who have embraced radical simplicity to avoid paying taxes but without engaging in confrontational civil disobedience (“it’s not, in Thoreau’s sense of the word, ‘friction’”), 2) people who refuse to pay taxes due and then do whatever they can to prevent the government from seizing the money (“For them, holding on [to] the money is a victory, being found and levied is a defeat”), and 3) people who refuse to pay taxes due and who see being found and levied as “like being arrested for civil disobedience” and a vital part of the action (“when the penalty is exacted, we can throw a party, tell our friends, write our bank administrators or our employers or colleagues, make it even more public than it was before”). He also says that having explicit goals or demands is perhaps crucial for war tax resistance to become a movement: “When the Montgomery bus boycott began, among the first thing the organizers did was to stipulate what changes would cause them to stop boycotting.”
re-building a movement - constituencies1 - contra Visalli: Ed Agro writes about doing outreach to encourage war tax resistance from a non-pacifist perspective — “an audience for WTR that’s been given short shrift, perhaps unconsciously, by activists moved by personal conviction so strong that it leads to a too-quick devaluing of other, different convictions” — and says that the experience of his local WTR group shows the strength of ideological diversity.
Re: re-building a movement - constituencies1 - contra Visalli: Larry Rosenwald then asks: “if one isn’t what Ed calls ‘a radical pacifist’ (I myself am), what justifies doing war tax resistance? And if one is of two minds, supports some military actions, opposes others, what results does that have in how one practices wtr?”
Pacifism, non-pacifism, and taxes (was "Re: re-building a movement…"): I try to answer Larry’s question: “[I believe] that whether or not a person should use violence in some situation is something that that person needs to carefully decide on a case-by-case basis and not by applying a pre-made doctrine. Paying taxes, though, means that you’re not making considered decisions about your participation in war and peace, violence and nonviolence, and so forth — instead, you’re leaving those decisions up to politicians. These politicians are, almost by definition, morally repulsive creatures. They cannot be trusted with such decisions, and to allow them to make these decisions for you is morally reckless.” Then I add this challenge: “I’d turn the question around and ask the ‘radical pacifists’ how they can justify taxation of any sort (many do, to my surprise). If you wouldn’t support violence even to stop a Hitler, how can you justify using violence to collect money for any of the far less crucial things government does?”

Peter J. Reilly has posted a follow-up in his series on war tax resistance (see 9 August) at his Forbes blog on taxes. This time he turned the column over to Ed Agro, and allowed this war tax resister to explain himself.

It’s an interesting article. Agro doesn’t shy away from the grey areas, and confesses to a lot of uncertainty, ambiguity, and faltering in trying to find his way to a position on war taxes that works for him.

War tax resister Ed Agro recounts his years of resistance to the federal telephone excise tax at Boston Indymedia.

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

The decay of the federal government’s tax enforcement arm continues. I recently noted the IRS offering early retirement to 5,000 employees, mostly from the tax enforcement division. Now, the Department of Justice has lost 30% of its tax prosecutors.
How big is the federal government? It would be a mistake to use the size of the budget as a proxy. Much of what the federal government does comes from manipulating the tax code through targeted tax preferences, rather than through outright taxing and spending. But the effect of these manipulations amounts to much the same thing. If you use the size of the budget, or the amount of taxes coming in as a proxy for government size, you may be fooled into opposing the elimination of targeted tax breaks under the mistaken impression that such a move would increase, rather than decrease, the size of government.
Ed Agro begins a series on war tax resistance at Engaging Peace.

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

In February, in a little-noticed case, Kawashima v. Holder, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled (6–3) that tax evasion — at least when it involves “fraudulent or deceitful conduct” and results in a loss of $10,000 or more to the government — is a crime that justifies the government deporting you even if you are an otherwise legal resident alien.
Fox Business looks at a bill passed by the U.S. Senate that would deny or revoke passports from Americans who have tax debts in excess of $50,000.
Ruth Benn and Ed Hedemann have released a free 2012 supplement that brings the information in their 2003 guidebook War Tax Resistance up-to-date.
There’s a fascinating excerpt from Adam Kotsko’s new book Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television up at The New Inquiry. He looks at the rise of popular sociopathic protagonists in drama, popular literature, reality television, politics, and so forth, and speculates as to why people are fantasizing about powerful, uncaring people.
Ed Agro continues his series on war tax resistance at Engaging Peace.

We’re not buying it. Fair taxes for all, war taxes from none. — graphic from a handbill that people from New England War Tax Resistance are handing out at a tax day event organized with Occupy Boston

War tax resisters are finding that it is no less of a delicate balancing act trying to merge their message with the left-wing Occupy movement than it was with the right-wing TEA Party.

Ed Agro reports (excerpts):

…I took part part in meetings for tax day with the Boston groups that have taken the lead in planning.

Reconciling the WTR message and those that OB & the unions & NV trainers want to get out has been challenging. It hasn’t been that the coalition is averse to WTR (though folks have the usual questions), but that the mandate to the working group was to find a consistent bottom-line demand that would get the most assent from the public while at the same time giving all factions space to present their part of the story. From my call that went out to the E. MA resisters:
The coalition that planned the tax day events is made up of Occupy Boston, peace, and social-justice groups. After much discussion it was agreed that the message should be kept simple and the slogan “Corporations and the 1%: pay your taxes!” would be the best way to focus the public’s attention during this one-day event; I agreed with the strategy. While it could be argued that WTR, war, and militarism rather than greed and corruption might be a better focus, the WTR community in the Boston area just doesn’t have the resources to pull off that sort of demonstration, let alone lead a coalition. On the other hand those fighting corporatism, greed, and the abuse of the tax system are beginning to understand the connection of these ills to the militarization of America, and have welcomed our collaboration.
I know it’s at first blush difficult to reconcile the call that corporations should pay their fair share of taxes at the same time that we’re asking citizens to refuse taxes that go for warmaking. But it’s not impossible, we just have to be patient and continue to show the connections.…

I don’t see myself marching under a “pay your taxes” banner any time soon, but some folks apparently see the ideological inconsistency as being a price worth paying for possible coalition-building.

Our own local tax resistance group is holding a demonstration on tax day along with CodePINK, Global Day of Action on Military Spending, BAY-Peace, and others. Some of these groups also have a pro-tax message, though not one necessarily out of line with mainstream war tax resistance (“Taxes for education not militarization”), and not one that forms a banner covering the demonstration as a whole.

The “tax the rich” message is very popular in Occupy circles, and war tax resisters who know that a rich person’s taxes are as badly misused as a poor person’s taxes have their work cut out for them when trying to put their own message forward.

But speaking of tax day actions, NWTRCC has a list of ’em going on nationwide on and around April 17 this year.

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

Three Plowshares activists, including an 82-year-old nun, breached security at the Oak Ridge “Y-12” nuclear weapons facility, cutting through a series of fences in order to vandalize one of the buildings with anti-nuclear-weapons messages. This caused the authorities to shut down the facility for several days in order to reassess its security.
The Pacific Yearly Meeting has pledged $100 per resister per year in matching funds for any Monthly Meeting in its jurisdiction that supports member Quakers who are war tax resisters by reimbursing them for penalties and interest seized by the IRS.
Ed Agro gives us his two-cents about the “one-man revolution” in response to my post on the subject back in June.
Vickie Aldrich gives us an update on her battle with the IRS over frivolous filing penalties and such.
“While the IRS says it detected 938,664 bogus tax returns [for tax year 2010], the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) reports finding approximately 1.5 million additional undetected tax returns with potentially fraudulent tax refunds totaling in excess of $5.2 billion. TIGTA estimates the IRS could issue $21 billion in fraudulent tax refunds over the next five years.” “The scam is so rampant that thieves are apparently sending in false returns in bulk without even bothering to change the mailing address on the returns. The inspector general said it found one residential address in Lansing, Michigan that was the source of an astonishing 2,137 tax returns, and to which the IRS directed more than $3.3 million in potentially fraudulent refunds.”

NWTRCC has posted some documents from October’s New England war tax resistance regional gathering, including:

Larry Rosenwald’s position paper on the potential political effect of war tax resistance
a transcript of a conversation on the subject: “does war tax resistance have a political future?” featuring Ed Agro, Ruth Benn, Daniel Sicken, and Bob Irwin

And here’s some evidence of war tax resistance several years later, from the 5 April 1988 Harvard Crimson:

Group Provides Protest Advice

Tax Resisters Oppose Federal Military Funding

By Kelly D. Eckel

A tax resistance clinic sponsored by the New England War Tax Resistance (NEWTR) last night attracted a group of approximately 15 people who shared anger and frustration that their federal tax dollars support the nation’s military policy.
Tax resisters in the presentation compared the nation’s military policy in Central America to Hitlerism in Germany and said that their tax resistance was “a direct reaction to the government’s extension of the military — an establishment which is inefficient.”
“I won’t pay for war, death, or nuclear annihilation. I might die that way, but it won’t be by my own hand,” a spokesman for the group said.
All those who attended the clinic at the Community Church on Boylston St. in Boston voiced anti-militaristic sentiments, and several had previously been involved in other movements such as draft resistance, phone tax resistance and “Food Not Bombs” groups.
The message of the NEWTR was presented in a 30-minute slide presentation entitled “More Than A Paycheck.”
According to spokesmen, tax resistance in the United States has its roots in the Revolutionary War. During the Vietnam War as well tax resistance was popular. Prominent tax resisters in the 1960s included Joan Baez, Alan Ginsberg, Gloria Steinem, and Pete Seeger, the presentation said.
Ed Agro, one of two part-time staff people at NEWTR, said that the IRS estimated approximately 20,000 income tax resisters in the country at the end of the Vietnam War.
“Since then, the numbers have grown. There are now approximately 30 or 40 thousand declared tax resisters and many more undeclared,” Agro said.
Court Defense
Tax resistance is illegal, but it has been defended in court, said Becky Pierce, coordinator of the monthly NEWTR tax resistance clinic series.
According to NEWTR representatives, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will first try to access tax resisters’ liquid sources such as paychecks and accounts, then cars and real estate.
“But cars and real estate are lengthy affairs, so they don’t like to do that,” Pierce said.
“You can’t go to jail for tax resistance. You can only go to jail if you are guilty of contempt of court by refusing to show financial records if summoned,” Pierce said. “If you don’t file, it makes it much harder for the IRS to get your money. It means more work for the IRS since they must file your return with approximated figures and assess your tax for you.”
NEWTR provides several alternatives for tax resisters. It maintains an escrow fund into which tax resisters can deposit their tax money for an indefinite amount of time. This fund is a security for tax resisters who later decide to pay their debt to the IRS, organizers said.
“The IRS can’t seize this money since it is deposited in NEWTR funds anonymously,” Pierce said. “At present, the fund is safe,” she added.
Another program, a Tax Resistance Penalty Fund, reimburses people if they are charged or penalized by the IRS, a spokesman for the group said.
The Direct Giving Fund is another alternative for tax resisters.
“This fund is for people who feel secure about resisting. They give directly to an organization. Their money is never returnable as in the escrow fund,” Pierce said.
Pierce announced that there will be a Tax Day Demonstration at the John F. Kennedy Building in Boston on April 15.

There’s a new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter out, with content including:

a look back at the life and work of Juanita Nelson with contributions from Bob Bady, Karl Meyer, Ginny Sсhnеider, Ed Hedemann, Lori Barg, and Ed Agro
some notes about trends in tax enforcement including IRS levies on royalty income, the sudden decline in property seizures for the past 15 years, phone tax resistance, and Elizabeth Boardman’s attempt to get some respect for war tax resistance in the courts
a note about the passing of Dirk Panhuis, who had been active with Conscience and Peace Tax International
some updates about war tax resisters Julia Butterfly Hill and Joseph Olejak, the Spring Rising anti-war action, Greg Wise’s mouthing off about tax refusal, and the Mennonite Central Committee’s war tax redirection program
news about tax day outreach on social media, at the U.S. Social Forum, at the Jewish Voice for Peace conference, and the Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship
and a profile of Peter and Mary Sprunger-Froese of the Bijou Community — excerpt:

Members of the Bijou Community were already involved in war tax resistance when Peter and Mary arrived. Early on, money was held in common, but that evolved over the years to each doing their own thing. One year the community did a tax protest and filed a 1040 saying they didn’t want to pay anything “because we don’t want to support the war.” That seemed to trigger an audit, which took an exhausting six months of collecting receipts to convince the IRS that members were not living off donations that came in for the soup kitchen and houses of hospitality. “The IRS said don’t file like that anymore because it messes up our system, and we said don’t audit us anymore because it messes up ours!”

Also, on the War Tax Talk blog, Jason Rawn reviews David Hartsough’s book Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist. Excerpt:

David Hartsough is a Quaker and a War Tax Resister who has for decades been redirecting a large portion of his “tax obligations,” believing that if war is abolished, “humanity can not only survive and better address the climate crisis and other dangers, but will be able to create a better life for everyone. The reallocation of resources away from war promises a world whose advantages are beyond easy imagination.” (Editor’s note: The 2016 U.S. budget for past, present, and future wars is $1,300 billion.) He cofounded the Nonviolent Peaceforce, inspired in part by Gandhi’s idea of a shanti sena, a peace army, and this organization is now active in 40 countries, stationing trained professional peaceworkers in conflict areas around the globe and is sustained by an $8 million budget. He works with World Beyond War and is currently executive director of Peaceworkers in San Francisco. Waging Peace has been in the works for 27 years.

And Ruth Benn of NWTRCC was a guest on Law and Disorder radio recently.

Some links that have bubbled up in my browser over the past few weeks as I’ve been on my Brethren binge:

Businesses in Chattanooga, Tennesseee held a one-day strike in support of #BlackLivesMatter, as a way to withhold sales tax dollars in order to pressure the city government to redirect funding from the police department to less-nefarious uses.
American war tax resister Ed Agro has died. Agro was one of the founders of the New England War Tax Resistance regional group, and was also the admin behind the wtr-s war tax resistance email list.
The Mennonite Church USA is promoting its reinvigorated “War Tax Alternative Fund” through which Mennonites can redirect their taxes from the U.S. government to more worthy causes.

Richard Yoder responds in a letter: “I am grateful that there seems to be a renewed emphasis on the historic peace witness of the Mennonite tradition, including war-tax resistance and redirecting of our tax dollars to life-giving activities. The nature of warfare has changed from the past when the military needed our bodies to now needing our dollars to pay for high-tech warfare. So in the same way Mennonites in the past found a way to say no to participating in war through conscientious objection, we now need to do the same with our tax dollars.”
NWTRCC coordinator Lincoln Rice explores the connections between war tax resistance and resistance to militarized and militant domestic police forces, and Chrissy Kirchhoefer notes that while some of the troops have come home, that doesn’t mean they’ve stopped trooping.
There’s a new NWTRCC newsletter out.
Jim Loewen reflects on his token tax resistance efforts during the Vietnam War — and how he got an in-person visit from an IRS agent over a $6 tax bill.
The human rebellion against traffic ticket radar robots continues, with robot hordes falling to the rebels in France, England, and Germany; France a few more times; Belgium and France; France again; Mexico, Spain, and France; and France and Germany in recent weeks.
Paolo Bozzi shares some notes from a recent workshop on “Not Paying Taxes: Tax Evasion, Tax Avoidance, and Tax Resistance in Historical Perspective.”
An Italian “orange vest” nationalist movement is calling for a tax strike to pressure the government to call new elections and withdraw from the Euro.
Aidan Collymore gives a whirlwind tour of existing studies in “The Ethics of Tax Evasion: Literature Review.”
Karen Robinson looks back at the history of the campaign for a “peace tax” in the U.K. parliament.
A Glasgow man whose apartment keeps getting flooded has accused the city of negligence for signing off on the building’s construction, and is refusing to pay his council tax as a pressure tactic.