Miscellaneous tax resisters → individual war tax resisters → Redmoonsong

The latest news from the U.S. war tax resistance movement:

• Erica Weiland reviews American war tax resister Frances Crowe’s memoir, Finding My Radical Soul. “Now 96 years old, she is still an activist and still getting arrested for civil disobedience.”
• Ruth Benn reflects on “The Mysterious Ways of the IRS” — the agency seems arbitrary and unpredictable at times in the ways it responds to war tax resisters.
• The three activists who boldly broke through security at the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant in 2012 have had their sabotage convictions reversed on appeal and are no longer being imprisoned. One article about their successful appeal concluded: “They are still obligated to pay the government a fine of $52,953 for the break-in at Y-12. But they took vows of poverty decades ago, don’t have bank accounts, and have neither the means nor the intention of paying it.”
• The War Tax Talk blog has reprinted an op-ed debate that was published in the Sunday Republican of Springfield, Massachusetts back in 1993. It features Juanita Nelson dueling with a U.S. Air Force Reserve Lieutenant-Colonel over the question: “Is it ever right to refuse, on principle, to pay taxes?”

• There’s a new edition of NWTRCC’s newsletter out, with content including:
  • reports from this year’s Tax Day actions
  • concerns bubbling up in the war tax resistance community, like:
    • what to do about sudden, unexpected financial gains
    • how resisters might get hit with an Estimated Tax Penalty
    • how to avoid the now-epidemic tax debt telephone scams
  • book reviews:
    • American Gandhi: A.J. Muste and the History of Radicalism in the Twentieth Century
    • Waging Peace: The Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist (David Hartsough)
    • Peace Activist: The Autobiography of Bradford Lyttle
  • a report on NWTRCC’s recent national gathering in Milwaukee
  • Redmoonsong reflects on how tactics of dealing with tax resistance and government benefits may change as one ages

Today is the deadline for filing U.S. federal income tax returns — “Tax Day” — which is also a traditional day of action and publicity for American war tax resisters. Here is an overview of some from this year:

• LancasterOnline covered local war tax resisters Barbara & Harold Penner, Linda & Titus Peachey, Berry & Sharon Friesen, and Janet & John Stoner.
• NWTRCC’s Erica Weiland was interviewed on Peace Buzz (audio).
• teleSUR reported on American war tax resisters: “No More Money for War: US Peace Activists Refuse to Pay Taxes”
• The War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund sent out its Spring Report. The fund distributed $9,988 to war tax resisters last year to reimburse them for any penalties and interest the IRS had managed to seize from them.
• Paul Buckley spoke about the history of Quaker war tax resistance for QuakerSpeak:
• Vice reports “This Is What Happens if You Don’t Pay Your Taxes,” using the experience of war tax resister Ruth Benn as an example.
• War tax resister redmoonsong spoke on the Simple Living Works! podcast.
• David Zarembka wrote for the American Friends Service Committee’s Acting in Faith blog on the theme “God and Caesar: On war tax resistance.”
• NWTRCC’s Ed Hedemann spoke on the radio dispatch show.
• Sue Barnhart explained her war tax resistance in the Eugene Register-Guard.

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

• NWTRCC co­ordin­ator Lin­coln Rice gives a run-down of some of the “Tax Day” actions taking place this year.
• Anne Barron relates war tax re­sist­ance to Cop­Watch activism.
• Some notes about the new Qual­i­fied Busi­ness In­come de­duc­tion, the IRS budget request, tax evasion of “gig economy” workers, the ongoing fake-IRS phone scam, and the difficulty of resisting tariffs.
• Some ideas and resources to help you with your outreach.
• Announcements on the death of Joffre Stewart, a memorial service for Tom Wilson, the upcoming NWTRCC national gathering in D.C., and stats about NWTRCC’s social media presence.
• A profile of war tax resister redmoonsong.

In other news…

• A new initiative launched with a splash in Catalonia under the name Ni 1 euro x a la repressió (“Not one euro for repression”). Modeled on the Spanish war tax resistance movement, it is urging people to redirect the taxes that would otherwise go to pay for the Spanish monarchy, the judiciary and state prosecutor, and the internal security services. The aim is to stop financial support for the Spanish suppression of Catalan independence. The website is splashy, and its interactive how-to-resist page in particular seems worth emulating by other similar resistance campaigns.
• Ashley Powers of the New York Times took a long look at the still-thriving “sovereign citizen” movement, and how sovereign citizens leverage their strange mythology to siphon hundreds of millions of dollars from the IRS by filing “frivolous” returns faster than the agency can keep up with them.
• The epidemic of destruction of automated traffic ticket machines along the roadways of France continues. According to the latest figures, government revenue from these cameras has dropped dramatically. The government believes it has lost €660 million in expected ticket revenue so far, and that’s in addition to the costs to repair or replace the damaged machines.