Colorado Springs war tax resisters are in the news again, this time in The Gazette. Excerpts:
For , retired social worker and lifelong peace activist Esther Kisamore has received threatening phone calls and letters from the Internal Revenue Service because she refuses to pay federal income taxes and federal excise taxes on her telephone bills.
Lawyer Bill Durland and his wife, Genie, have appeared in tax court numerous times since and had their Social Security checks garnished by the IRS.
Psychologist Donna Johnson had two houses seized and eventually returned.
The Colorado Springs residents were aware of such possible consequences when they deliberately snubbed tax time — not to have extra money in their pockets and not because they don’t believe the government should tax citizens.
They don’t want their taxes used to fund military spending and war efforts.
“It is an individual act of moral conscience,” [Peter] Haney said. “In Colorado Springs close to 50 percent of our primary employment comes from military bases and defense contractors, so we’re so reliant on the federal dole, yet many of us have a frontier mentality to be independent and self-reliant.”
Before Johnson reduced her income to below the taxable rate, she paid half of what she owed in federal income taxes. Her first house was seized by the IRS for nonpayment of the phone excise tax, about $7. She eventually got the house and another one back, and the $200,000 she owed in taxes and liens on her property were released after a statute of limitations ran out.
“You just stand up and say ‘I’m not willing to pay even though you threaten me,’ ” Johnson said.
