Seven Days is carrying a good article about war tax resisters in Vermont. Some excerpts:
One summer day , Janet Hicks was putting up tomato sauce in her kitchen when she heard a knock at the door. Outside stood a man wearing black shoes and an ID badge.
“He said, ‘Are you Janet Hicks?’ ” she recalls. “I said, ‘Yes.’ He said he was from the IRS.
“And I said, ‘Oh, I’ve been expecting you for a few years. Come on in.’ ”
The agent had come to collect the taxes that Hicks, in an act of civil disobedience, had decided she would no longer pay. Since the visit from the IRS, Hicks has taken care of some of her state and local fiscal obligations. But as of last week, the Burlington cook still hadn’t paid a cent of the federal income tax she owes.
However they practice it, tax resisters tend to operate outside of the traditional economic system. Hicks’ frugal lifestyle enables her to avoid paying income tax. Robert Riversong, of Warren, used to transfer his savings to a girlfriend’s account and buy money orders from a gas station whenever he needed to pay bills. And Bob Bady, who lives in Brattleboro, stopped practicing as a registered nurse in after the IRS threatened to seize his wages.
Still, the IRS had its way with Bady. In , 19 years after he stopped filing tax returns, agents seized his Massachusetts home. “There have been consequences to being a war-tax resister,” Bady admits. “But then, supporting America’s military policy of exploitation also has consequences. I feel better for having decided to choose consequences that were in line with my belief.”
