Why it is your duty to stop supporting the government →
the danger of “feel-good” protests →
“symbolic” tax protests? →
the “Peace Tax Fund,” legal conscientious objection to military taxation →
Peace Tax Seven
The Peace Tax Seven are a group of people who are making a legal challenge to the tax system in the UK — saying that it “makes all taxpayers complicit in mass killing if they do their civic duty and pay their taxes; or it makes criminals of them if they follow their conscience, and refuse to fund war.”
The compromise they propose, and the one that seems most likely to be granted in the unlikely event that their government decides that their claims have any legal merit, is something like a Peace Tax Fund.
Conscientious objectors to war would be able to check off a box on their tax forms or something like that and then all of their tax payments would be designated for non-war purposes.
This is of course just an accounting trick and it would not make any actual difference in terms of what money went where or how much was spent on the military.
But apparently some people who have moral qualms about paying taxes today would not have such qualms if there were only such a checkbox.
It is hard for me to understand why anyone would devote their time to convincing the government to make such a meaningless symbolic concession, particularly people who seem to understand the arguments for refusing to pay war taxes and who practice what they preach, as many of the Seven do.
But what seems obvious to me apparently doesn’t seem very obvious to the many war tax resisters and war tax resistance organizations who endorse and encourage these sorts of movements.
This is a good criticism which we should not dismiss out of hand.
Peace tax reform is a limited goal with, at most, a highly focused practical impact.
Indeed, from one viewpoint, this is a good reason to adopt it — as we explain to the highly conservative judges, politicians and Treasury officials with whom we deal.
Our view is that the effort is worth it.
This is partly because peace tax is an intrinsic, though a limited, good, and as Burke says (more or less) it is a mistake to do nothing because you can’t do everything.
But it is also worth it because, although it won’t open the floodgates to across-the-board legal recognition of any conceivable point of conscience, it will extend the legal recognition due to the absolute value of human life, and the freedom of the individual conscience to acknowledge it.
Most importantly, it will help to create broad a culture of peace.
If taxpayers know they can object in conscience to military expenditure, and that the UK government will respect this, and put the money instead towards nonviolent programmes which it (the government) regards as worth spending money on, this will add to a cumulative psychological shift, which is hard to measure precisely, but which is the only really decisive force, away from the current consensus, focused on a “common sense of war,” and towards a new consensus focused on a “common sense of peace.”
Or in other words: it will demonstrate to people that mass destruction, applied too late after avoidable crises, is not the best or only means of national and international security: that in any crisis or conflict situation, if you really want to, you can set up a pre-emptive monitoring to spot conflicts and transform them quickly and creatively before they collapse into violence, negotiate, send in third-party mediators and/or peacekeepers, redress economic or political grievances, abandon IMF structural adjustment programmes, regulate corporations, reform and enforce international law, isolate paramilitaries in military terms while including them in political processes, prosecute perpetrators of atrocities, adjust inappropriately-drawn state borders and/or state constitutions, work with and empower peace-tendencies and peace-interest groups in ways which are sensitive to local cultures, recognise, encourage and make international heroes of local nonviolent resistance networks and NGOs undermining tyrants and dictators, isolate and embarrass recalcitrant governments, create incentivised disarmament programmes for all belligerents (including, usually, western backers fomenting proxy wars), name, blame and delegimitise neocolonial empire-building, explore alternative energy sources to replace oil and gas, create symbols in the cultural, artistic, and sporting fields, send in expert community peace workers…
…and all for a fraction of the cost of an aircraft carrier.
For me the “real” point of peace tax law and campaigning is to spread this message.
If it works, it will create interest and feed it into more widespread and wholesale campaigning and activism of the kind you describe.
I’ve picked up some flotsam and jetsam that have come bobbing by my raft as I veer off course whilst surfing this Internet.
An interesting article from author Thomas E. Woods, Jr. on What the Warfare State Really Costs.
Not just the tax dollars that are vacuumed out of our pockets and shot into Iraqis — but “opportunity costs” like the diversion of talent toward destructive aims and the resources tied up in maintaining a warfare state that otherwise could be used for useful purposes.
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, during it used (in dollars) $7.62 trillion in capital resources.
In , the Department of Commerce estimated the value of the nation’s plant and equipment, and infrastructure, at just over $7.29 trillion.
In other words, the amount spent over that period could have doubled the American capital stock or modernized and replaced its existing stock.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration takes a look at taxpayers who have sideline businesses that always seem to lose money and speculates that many of these are essentially hobbies that are being reported as businesses for tax reasons.
Well, of course, but the report also has some numbers, if you’re curious.
The Keene Free Press has published part three of Dave Ridley’s jail memoirs from his brief imprisonment after trying to petition some IRS employees for redress of grievances.
(See and for parts one and two.)
There were about 60 people from 14 countries — about standard for these
conferences. Sadly I have to report that our efforts to get George Rishmawi
from Palestine to the conference ended in a refused visa, so that he could
not travel to the conference. The British organizers tried really hard to get
thru the red tape but to no avail. Two people from Ghana were refused visas
also.…
…As with most conferences (at least in my humble opinion) the time spent
talking with folks at meals and between the organized sessions is at least as
important as anything that comes up in the sessions. Quite a few of my
conversations were with individuals from other countries who are war tax
resisters, who refuse to pay at least some of taxes due to their respective
governments. Many combine their refusal with redirecting the money to some
kind of fund for nonviolent defense or peace-building funds.
As we have found in the past, it is more difficult to resist in most
countries because of the way taxes are pulled from paychecks. Those who
resist tend to be self-employed. In general, collection is much faster in
other countries than has been our experience in the
U.S. (at least up
to now), and many organizers at this conference make no effort to build
WTR, seeing
it as futile. The majority of people at the conference are working on
peace tax fund
campaigns or looking for ways to take their complaint of being forced to pay
for war through some court system or
U.N. body. I
think 5 of the Peace Tax Seven
were in attendance, and they are slowly making their way into the European
Court of Human Rights. Daniel Jenkins from the
U.S. reported on
the effort to bring a formal complaint to a
U.N. body. The
Germans have a resister or two in their circles, but are focusing on a new
effort of 10 people to take a complaint to a German high court based on the
budget being a violation of fundamental
rights because of the military spending. The Germans are trying to get away
from appealing through the tax system and instead trying this more direct
route to the government officials who create the budget. In Norway peace tax
fund campaigners are appealing to their local councils; if the council
accepts their complaint as an “initiative of national interest” then the
council can send a complaint up to the next level of the government system.
I attended two workshops that related more generally to organizing, with both
having some focus on how to widen our efforts. Groups and campaigns in every
country seem to face issues similar to our own. “How to bring in more young
people” was the topic of one workshop. While no group seemed to be doing any
better than many of us here in the
U.S., many are
looking for answers in the internet, such as getting into Facebook and other
networking sites, and upgrading our websites. The Danish peace tax fund
campaign has been working with the model
U.N. program in
high schools with some success at making “the right not to pay for war” a
topic in those discussions. One person noted that the activists groups that
seem to be most successful at drawing in young people are the ones that give
new members something to do immediately and regularly. There was also a good
deal of discussion of language, in particular the use of the word
“conscience,” and whether that is a word that resonates with young folks
today. Because the hosting group was Britain’s “Conscience: the peace tax
campaign,” it was the local folks who were having this discussion among
themselves and also bringing it to the conference. “Taxes for Peace Not War”
was a slogan that many people appreciated due to the positive spin.…
…There were small group sessions to talk about the common ground between war tax resisters and peace tax campaigns and develop ideas about how we can all work together more across international boundaries.
I don’t know if any of the groups came up with any brilliant insights on this.
My group did spend quite a bit of time comparing our tax systems and learning more precisely what each of our organizations do.
It’s hard to figure out how to work together without understanding more about each situation; there’s a lot of confusion about why there is such a “strong” war tax resistance movement in the U.S. as compared to other countries.
One person said rather emphatically — “I just don’t understand why anyone would be a war tax resister without also working for a peace tax fund.”
Others perceived that peace tax fund campaigns and WTR need each other, that you can’t have one without the other; I said that I could certainly resist without any connection to a peace tax fund campaign, but I began to see that many Europeans see the effort to actually redirect military taxes to a fund that is only for peace-building efforts or alternative defense is primary to their peace tax fund campaigns.
I think the U.S. efforts have never had this peace-building fund as an emphasis; the peace tax fund bill as it has been written in the U.S. redirects the taxes of conscientious objectors to the non-military spending in the U.S. budget, not to a specific peace-building effort.
I found that insight rather interesting as I never understood so clearly how many of the campaigns are writing their bills for this specific purpose.
In my small group and in general there was clearly interest in making Conscience and Peace Tax International more of an umbrella group for all of our work.
Due to technicalities of nonprofit status, NWTRCC has not been an official member of CPTI but has been a supporter.
CPTI was founded as more of a link for the peace tax fund campaigns than for WTRs, but we’ll see how things develop.
Many wanted to see more organizing successes and ideas posted on the CPTI website.
Right now it has links to the groups in each country and information on WTR court cases and conscientious objection rulings within the U.N.…
Ann Wright, at truthout, notes that U.S. soldiers who have refused to serve in Iraq have received more severe punishment than those who participated in the murder of Iraqis (in those few cases when such killings result in punishment of any kind).
Siân Cwper, a member of the Peace Tax Seven group that is trying to get conscientious objection to military taxation legalized in some pan-European legal forum, ran into some strangely passive-aggressive government opposition to her tax resistance:
They told her that she actually overpaid her taxes by mistake and is due a refund.
William Perez gives us the low-down on tax provisions in the recent bailout legislation.
None of this much mattered to me, but if you think you’ll have mortgage debt canceled, or install energy efficient or alternative energy related equipment or an electric car, or if you commute to your employer by bike, or paid tuition, or spent money on classroom supplies as a teacher, or paid property tax, or live in a disaster zone, there may be something of use to you there.
And you’ll need all the help you can get, once you see the bill.
I’ve admired the anti-war protesters in Olympia who periodically try to blockade the port there in an attempt to interfere with shipments of war materiel.
So far none of the people who have participated in these blockades have been successfully prosecuted.
But the port commission has decided to take the law into their own hands — they’re filing civil lawsuits against the blockaders.
I can’t imagine they see this as a cost-effective way of recovering the expenses the blockades have cost, but they may see it as a useful discouragement along the lines of a SLAPP suit.
I suppose we should expect more of this sort of thing — as more of the more execrable parts of government become quasi-privatized and generate profit for somebody, nonviolent resistance against these will cut into the profits of folks who can respond by filing suits to recover damages.
I’m keeping one eye on a tax protest going on in Iran.
For a week, a strike spread amongst the vendors in Tehran’s bazaar until hardly any were open for business.
They were protesting a new VAT that would have applied to them.
Apparently this was a nonviolent resistance tactic that bazaar merchants used successfully before the revolution, but this is the first time they’ve done it since.
The government has tried persuasion and token concessions with only some success, and analysts see the protest as part of more widespread anger about the government’s handling of economic issues, and an attempt to flex the muscles of the merchants’ union.
As it is right now, it’s mostly just a protest against a tax rather than conscientious objection or tactical nonviolent resistance.
But it could be the seed that grows into something bigger.
Counseling notes including news about the new policy of allowing employers to give their employees tax-free bicycle commuting reimbursements, a reminder that if you’re given a summons to appear before the IRS you should ask for reimbursement of expenses, and a note about the “socially responsible” investment business Pax World Fund getting caught investing irresponsibly.
International News — an update on the case of Siân Cwper that I mentioned .
Apparently the British revenue department is playing some strange games with the members of the Peace Tax Seven.
(For more on the Peace Tax Seven, see this report on The Shrieking Violet.)
Ideas and Actions — including a report on tax resistance for same-sex marriage rights, a report from Ed Hedemann who spoke about war tax resistance with a class of seventh-graders, and a new NWTRCC-themed scarf (perfect for fundraising at winter demonstrations).
Notes about updated literature — including the booklet War Tax Resisters and the IRS which “gives a flow-chart style version of the risks of refusing to pay for war if the IRS notices.”
A call for fundraising help particularly to help promote Steev Hise’s upcoming war tax resistance documentary
Reflections and lessons learned by Becky Pierce — “I have been a war tax resister for the past 43 years, all of my adult working life…” This includes some useful information on IRS collection tactics, for instance how they go about hunting for assets to seize as the statute of limitations closes in and they start to get desperate.
Someone else has sent an envelope containing suspicious powder to the IRS, shutting down their mail room for a time.
The “Peace Tax Seven” are a group of tax resisters who are trying to win their legal cases as a way of forcing some European jurisdiction to recognize a legal right of conscientious objection to military taxation.
In the latest case, group member Robin Brookes took his case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Alas, the court refused to hear the case.
The good news is that I’ve got a paying gig that’s keeping me very busy.
The bad news is that I’ve been very busy, and haven’t been able to update The Picket Line as much as I’d like.
: a bunch of links I thought were interesting enough to share but that I’ve given up hope about being able to weave in with some original commentary.
The European Court of Human Rights has denied an attempt by The Peace Tax Seven to establish that a country’s unwillingness to allow people to legally refuse to pay for military spending is a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the European Convention.
The number and percentage of Earned Income Tax Credit claims that are fraudulent — those in which the person claiming the credit doesn’t qualify for it — has increased exponentially in recent years, and the IRS hasn’t been able to keep up.
Vargarquista at anarkismo.net writes about Smuggling as a strategy of tax resistance (Spanish).
This is a particularly urgent subject in countries that rely more on sales and value-added taxes than on taxes like poll taxes and income taxes that individuals can more directly resist.
If the “FairTax” scheme that some are pushing in the United States ever came to pass, this would become more of an issue in the U.S. as well.
(“Smuggling” is my best translation of “el contrabando,” but the author seems to include a lot of different sorts of underground-economy activity under that term.)
David John Marotta has an intriguing idea about manipulating the timing of traditional-to-Roth IRA transfers and recharacterizations so as to maximize your tax-free capital gains. It’s somewhat complex but very clever. Basically, you do a traditional-to-Roth conversion into several different Roth accounts using as many different investment strategies. Then file tax extensions so that you extend the amount of time in which you can recharacterize those conversions. Wait and see which of your new Roth accounts appreciate the most; keep those (if any) as Roth accounts in which the appreciation will remain tax free and pay the taxes on the principle now. For the rest, recharacterize them as traditional IRAs again, and avoid paying taxes on them now. Follow the link for details and a more leisurely and clearer explanation.
Radley Balko at The Agitator reminds us of this section from Dubya’s address to the nation on when he was launching the Iraq War:
And all Iraqi military and civilian personnel should listen carefully to this warning:
In any conflict, your fate will depend on your actions.
Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people.
Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people.
War crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished and it will be no defense to say, “I was just following orders.”
I love the smell of moral clarity in the morning.
The issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter, More Than a Paycheck, is now available on-line.
Among the features in this issue:
If you haven’t seen it yet, treat yourself to this video of U.C. Davis chancellor Linda Katehi walking to her car down a path lined by silent sitting students, in the wake of yet another act of standard-procedure police brutality against protesting students on that campus.
Roy Prockter has taken his legal battle for conscientious objection to military taxation as far as it will go in the English court system, without success, and is now appealing to the European Court of Human Rights.
A group of residents of Andino, Argentina met and decided to suspend their payment of property taxes after rate increases they felt to be unreasonable.
The government of Argentina has been taking drastic steps — including prosecuting economists who have the nerve to contradict optimistic government figures, and sharply restricting the legality of people and companies to hedge by keeping their assets in foreign currency — to wish away inflation and prop up the peso, while introducing its own version of an austerity plan.
The resistance movement targeting the new tax on electric bills in Greece continues. Some recent actions have included sit-down blockades of the utility company offices and YouTube videos showing how resisters can reconnect their own power if the utility shuts them off for non-payment.
The documentary film Contempt of Conscience is now on-line.
This movie focuses on the war tax resisters in Britain known as the “Peace Tax Seven,” putting their protest in the historical context of the fight for conscientious objection to military service, the growth of mechanized warfare, and the history of conscientious war tax resistance.
The seven resisters featured in this film are Joe Jenkins, Robin Brookes, Brenda Boughton, Birgit Völlm, Simon Heywood, Siân Cwper, and Roy Prockter, and there are shout-outs as well to some other resisters, like Henry David Thoreau and Arthur Windsor.
The tax resistance movement featured in this film is largely focused on winning a legal right to conscientious objection to military taxation — largely by judicial appeal based on human rights standards in Britain and Europe — that is, on gaining a legal mechanism that would allow conscientious objectors to pay their taxes to some sort of government account that is firewalled from military expenditures.
