“Relationships: When One is a WTR” — about “mixed marriages” in which one partner is a resister and the other one isn’t, and the challenges this can present.
There’s a short bit from me in this article, and a photo of me and my sweetie on the cover.
News about war tax resistance actions like the South-East gathering coming up in Georgia; outreach at the Gandhi-King Conference on Peacemaking, the anarchist bookfares in Tacoma and Seattle, and the School of the Americas mobilization last month; and two upcoming nuclear weapons abolition events.
Notes about a new war tax resistance counselors’ packet, the case of long-time Maine resister Frank Donnelly (who may be facing jail time for his resistance), the possibility that health savings accounts may be levied for back taxes, and some notes about how tax liens affect your credit rating.
Erica Weiland protesting at the new National Nuclear Security Administration plant in Kansas City (photo by Robyn Haas).
The first new nuclear weapons manufacturing facility in the United States in decades is under construction in Kansas City in .
So, when NWTRCC held its Fall, 2011 national gathering in Kansas City , they also took a little time out to protest.
Some — Erica Weiland, Jim Hannah, Jason Rawn, Kima Garrison, and Charles Carney — were arrested in a symbolic civil disobedience action.
Some news from the the war tax resistance movement in the
U.S.:
War tax resister Jason Rawn is interviewed by Bruce Gagnon on the This Issue show about tax resistance and related topics.
Peter J. Reilly, at his Forbes blog, covers the case of war tax resister Elizabeth Boardman, who has been trying to get the courts to force the IRS to stop treating conscientious objection to military taxation as a legally “frivolous” argument.
A federal appeals court shot down her latest set of arguments.
There’s a new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter out, with content including:
a look back at the life and work of Juanita Nelson with contributions from Bob Bady, Karl Meyer, Ginny Sсhnеider, Ed Hedemann, Lori Barg, and Ed Agro
some notes about trends in tax enforcement including IRS levies on royalty income, the sudden decline in property seizures for the past 15 years, phone tax resistance, and Elizabeth Boardman’s attempt to get some respect for war tax resistance in the courts
a note about the passing of Dirk Panhuis, who had been active with Conscience and Peace Tax International
some updates about war tax resisters Julia Butterfly Hill and Joseph Olejak, the Spring Rising anti-war action, Greg Wise’s mouthing off about tax refusal, and the Mennonite Central Committee’s war tax redirection program
news about tax day outreach on social media, at the U.S. Social Forum, at the Jewish Voice for Peace conference, and the Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship
Members of the Bijou Community were already involved in war tax resistance when Peter and Mary arrived.
Early on, money was held in common, but that evolved over the years to each doing their own thing.
One year the community did a tax protest and filed a 1040 saying they didn’t want to pay anything “because we don’t want to support the war.”
That seemed to trigger an audit, which took an exhausting six months of collecting receipts to convince the IRS that members were not living off donations that came in for the soup kitchen and houses of hospitality.
“The IRS said don’t file like that anymore because it messes up our system, and we said don’t audit us anymore because it messes up ours!”
David Hartsough is a Quaker and a War Tax Resister who has for decades been redirecting a large portion of his “tax obligations,” believing that if war is abolished, “humanity can not only survive and better address the climate crisis and other dangers, but will be able to create a better life for everyone.
The reallocation of resources away from war promises a world whose advantages are beyond easy imagination.”
(Editor’s note: The 2016 U.S. budget for past, present, and future wars is $1,300 billion.)
He cofounded the Nonviolent Peaceforce, inspired in part by Gandhi’s idea of a shanti sena, a peace army, and this organization is now active in 40 countries, stationing trained professional peaceworkers in conflict areas around the globe and is sustained by an $8 million budget.
He works with World Beyond War and is currently executive director of Peaceworkers in San Francisco.
Waging Peace has been in the works for 27 years.
Not long ago the news was full of interest about Facebook gazillionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to launch a new enterprise dedicated to making the world a better place, and his decision to fund it with 99% of the Facebook shares he owns: about $45 billion worth. Cynics were quick to see this as a tax dodge.
It’s not obvious to me that the tax advantages are quite as enormous as some are making them out to be, but even so, as Simon Black points out, if Zuckerberg managed to avoid taxes on any of that $45 billion, that alone would contribute to making the world a better place!
Jason Rawn, at NWTRCC’s blog, urges climate change activists to divest from the Pentagon to fight the single biggest contributor to fossil fuel consumption.
NWTRCC is again collecting names for its War Tax Boycott.
If you’ve signed on in the past and you’d still like to be considered part of the boycott, sign on again as they’ve started with a clean slate.
A new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter is out, with content including:
Jason Rawn shows how war tax resistance can fit into a campaign of climate-oriented divestment.
Sue Barnhart memorializes the recently passed war tax resister Peg Morton.
International news concerning peace tax fund promoters in London, a global campaign on military spending congress in Berlin, and war tax resisters doing direct action at a barracks in Bilbao.
The Peace Pledge Union’s “learn peace” site includes a section on poetry and war, including “The Responsibility” by Peter Appleton which touches on taxpayer responsibility for what takes place in war.
As a Christian, I cannot in good conscience look the other way and
blindly pay for the death and destruction that military spending buys,
especially not when it is so out of proportion to life-giving spending.
The US armed forces can get along with even fewer soldiers but not
without the people’s money, so it is my tax dollars that actually mean
something. Given the options, I feel compelled to do my utmost to avoid
paying federal income tax. The simplest legal way to do that is to keep
our income below the taxable level, which so far, as a small-scale
farmer, has not been very hard to do. Unfortunately, this means that we
cannot help pay for the many laudable federal programs we would support.
In other news: activists who were arrested for blockading the Defence & Security Equipment International trade fair in London were acquitted by a judge who ruled that the prosecutor had not successfully rebutted the defendants’ assertion that they were justified in acting to stop illegal arms sales.
A new issue of
NWTRCC’s
newsletter is out, with content including:
Announcements about the upcoming New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters and of Campaign Nonviolence’s Action Week, along with commentary on tax day actions and the recent Shut Down Creech camp.
A story is buzzing around in red and blue circles that California is threatening to stop paying federal taxes in response to the Trump administration’s threats to withhold funding from “sanctuary cities.”
The only substance to the story, as far as I have been able to determine, is an off-the-cuff remark by Willie Brown, formerly mayor of San Francisco and formerly speaker of the California state Assembly, to this effect: “California could very well become an organized non-payer.
They could recommend non-compliance with the federal tax code.”
But nonetheless, this quasi-story has been generating a lot of buzz, along with the predictable ignorant outrage in the dittosphere.
NWTRCC is urging war tax resisters to go public and sign their names to a pledge that will be used for publicity and advertising for the cause.
Here’s some follow-up on German war tax resister Gertrud Nehls:
