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Tax Day actions →
2011
The War Resisters League has revised their popular “pie chart” graph that purports to show the destiny of the federal discretionary budget and thereby the destiny of your federal income tax dollar. This year, because Obama’s budget called for a reduction in the payroll tax rate with the missing money to come explicitly out of that raised by the income tax in the general fund, the chart’s conceit of keeping trust funds and the taxes ostensibly destined for them separate from the rest of the accounts is even more awkward than usual. Still, the fliers make for good conversation-starters.
The number of people who expatriated from the United States and renounced their U.S. citizenship jumped , more than doubling the number in .
Tax Day — Antiwar Protests, Public Demonstrations, and Individual Refusal to Pay for War
On thousands of people across the
United States will be refusing to pay some or all of their federal income tax
to protest U.S.
wars and escalating military spending. These tax refusers, who see themselves
as responsible citizens, want their money used for peaceful purposes and
often give taxes to social programs instead.
, is the final day to file
tax returns, and “war tax resisters” will be among those participating in
events around the country to protest what they see as the skewed priorities
of the U.S.
government.
Many hand out the pie chart produced by the War Resisters League, which calculates nearly 50% of federal income taxes pay for current or past wars.
Erica Weiland in Seattle, Washington, decided to refuse to pay for war in
response to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “Our money and time are much
better spent addressing the issues in the
U.S. and around
the world that cause wars in the first place,” she says. Groups in Seattle
are organizing leafleting with federal budget information at area post
offices.
John K. Stoner, a retired Mennonite minister in Akron, Pennsylvania, says, “I keep wondering why people who say they oppose war continue to pay for it without a whimper of protest.”
He and others in his community have launched a campaign of symbolic protest called 1040 for Peace, to encourage U.S. taxpayers to express their opposition to U.S. military spending by refusing $10.40 of any taxes due, telling the government why, and giving that money to projects that promote peace or fund human needs.
War tax resistance has a long history in the
U.S. and
worldwide. The most famous case was Henry David Thoreau’s refusal of $1 for
the Mexican-American War. He spent a night in jail for this act of
resistance. Today’s resisters refuse to pay anything from $1 to thousands of
dollars of federal income taxes, while risking collection from the Internal
Revenue Service for their stand.
Patricia Tompkins, a farmer in Bakersville, North Carolina, speaks for many
as she accepts the risks of confronting the
IRS to
stand up for her beliefs. “I made the decision to become a war tax resister
in protest to our government’s policies in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
For me, the essence of life is connection to the land and to each other,
because without the first we cannot live and without the second we cannot be
fully human.”
In St. Louis activists are
taking their message to cut the military budget and fund human needs to
Senator Roy Blunt’s office and announcing grants to humanitarian groups. In
Milwaukee, the protest will be in front of the Federal Courthouse. Lincoln
Rice, a Milwaukee organizer, says, “My war tax resistance is grounded in my
Catholic Christian spirituality. I cannot in good conscience pay my federal
income taxes and contribute to the harming my Muslim brothers and sisters in
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and elsewhere.”
Individual resisters are available for interviews. Please contact
NWTRCC
if you need contacts in your area.
Tax Day action reports are starting to trickle in.
This year, the TEA Party presence seemed way down, or at least the news media has gotten tired of covering it.
There were many reports of liberals engaged in various creative protests designed to shine some light on profitable corporations who somehow manage to rake in government subsidies and get away without paying taxes, and a couple of reports of anti-war activists trying to inform the public about the bloated military budget.
Some folks have taken to submitting an affidavit along with their tax returns declaring that they are only filing “under threat, duress and coercion… because I fear retaliation by the IRS… to avoid going to jail, not because I believe there’s a legitimate obligation; I am terrified of the IRS… and being attacked by them if I don’t comply with them.”
They hope to make explicit the threat of government violence that is largely implicit at tax time and to preempt silly people like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who insist we have a “voluntary” tax system.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration reports that the number of tax returns the IRS believes to be claiming fraudulent refunds has skyrocketed this year.
It’s a little unclear to me from the report how much of this is a real trend in taxpayer behavior and how much is an artifact of new IRS procedures or the fact that more people are e-filing, thus making their returns available for automated analysis quicker.
“Bushel Bob” has a website where he explains why he shut down his produce market so as to avoid earning money on which he’d have to pay war taxes.
Now he donates his produce to charity and thereby avoids the tax.
Radley Balko, in Reason magazine, has an interesting interview with Stewart Rhodes about the “Oath Keepers,” a group of American military and police personnel who have taken a vow not to carry out unconstitutional orders.
In revolutions worldwide and throughout history, the turning point has often been when the folks in uniform have started questioning their orders and refusing to attack the citizenry on behalf of the politicians.
