The Austin Chronicle has a write-up today on the Austin Conscientious Objectors to Military Taxation:
“We’re all war-tax resisters. We do it in different ways,” said ACOMT member Susan Van Haitsma. Resisting taxation , she intentionally lives below the taxable income level. “Others in the group are self-employed. There are people who file, people who don’t.” The small organization, counting teachers, doctors, and veterans amongst its ranks, was successful in organizing the Austin Taxpayers for Peace action, where protesters withheld $10.40 from their 1040 tax payments. On , the resulting $2,600 was split between Nonmilitary Options for Youth and the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker-affiliated group assisting civilians in Iraq.
While withholding only $10.40 is described as “low risk” by the ACOMT, some members have been punished. In the Statesman’s op-ed pages, ACOMT volunteer Andy McKenna reveals that “after 11 years of inaction,” the IRS began garnishing his wages of all but the federal monthly poverty level. Still, Austin tax resisters soldier on undeterred. “The war takes money, and it takes bodies. And they have to come from somewhere,” says Van Haitsma. “And that’s what I’m opposed to.”
