Fed Up With War, Some Won’t Pay Taxes
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - When the United States invaded Iraq more than four years ago, war opponent David Gross asked his bosses for a radical pay cut, enough so he wouldn’t have to pay taxes to support the war.
“I was having a hard time looking at myself in the mirror,” Gross said. “I knew the bombs falling were in part paid with my tax dollars. I had to actually do something concrete to remove my complicity.” 
The San Francisco technical writer was making close to $100,000 a year. He didn’t know exactly how big of a pay cut he would need to fall below the federal tax threshold, but later figured out he would have to make less than minimum wage.
In any event, his employer turned him down and he quit. Gross, 38, now works on a contract basis, and last year he refused to pay self-employment taxes.
War tax resistance, popularized by Henry David Thoreau in the 19th century and by singer Joan Baez and others during the Vietnam War, is gaining renewed interest among peace activists upset over the Iraq war.
“Clearly this year we definitely had more people calling, sending e-mails about how they decided to start resisting,” said Ruth Benn, coordinator of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee in New York.
Based on the committee’s mailing list and reports from numerous groups it works with around the country, Benn estimates 8,000 to 10,000 Americans refuse to pay some or all of their federal taxes over war objections. Internal Revenue Service officials say they don’t have figures for that specific category, but earlier this year reported an overall noncompliance rate of 16.3 percent and estimated the annual tax gap at about $345 billion.
Peace activists are considering a mass tax resistance campaign next April to step up pressure to end the war in Iraq, Benn said.
Many tax protesters say they redirect the money they withhold to charities. Some, like Joanne Sheehan of Norwich, keep their income below taxable levels.
“I don’t see the point of working for peace and paying for war,” Sheehan said.
Gross said he now manages to live on about $15,000 per year by carefully tracking his spending.
He acknowledged the tax resistance movement is too small to stop the war.
“But I think what we’re doing is showing the way for people in the anti-war movement,” Gross said. “I can look myself in the mirror and say at least I’m not supporting it, at least I’m not part of the machine.”
The IRS said that while taxpayers have a right to express their opinions, they still have an obligation to pay their taxes. Tax resisters place an undue burden on taxpayers who pay their fair share of taxes, IRS spokeswoman Dianne Besunder said.
John Ubaldi, spokesman for Move America Forward, which supports the military and the war on terror, said the government would not be able to function if everyone opposed to a program stopped paying taxes.
“They’re showing the terrorists that America is not committed,” Ubaldi said.
The IRS considers it a frivolous argument when a taxpayer cites disagreement with the government’s use of tax money as the reason for not paying taxes.
A new federal law increases the penalty for frivolous tax returns from $500 to $5,000. The IRS says it investigates promoters of frivolous arguments and refers cases to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.
Unlike the days when Thoreau was sent to prison in a tax protest against the Mexican-American War, modern war tax protesters rarely go to prison, according to tax resisters. The IRS may take their money from wages and bank accounts - with penalties and interest - after sending a series of letters.
“They’re very polite, which makes it a little boring,” said Rosa Packard of Greenwich, a longtime anti-war tax protester.
But Randy Kehler, who has refused to pay federal income taxes since 1976 to protest U.S. military policy, was evicted with his wife from their home in Colrain, Mass., in 1989 for nonpayment of more than $45,000 in taxes, interest and penalties. Kehler was also jailed for nearly three months for contempt of court.
Their tax fight was the subject of a 1997 documentary called “An Act of Conscience,” narrated by actor Martin Sheen.
War protesters have been pushing for a law called the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund that would allow designated conscientious objectors to have their income, estate, or gift taxes used for nonmilitary purposes. After years of efforts, they hope a Congressional hearing will be held on the proposal next year.
“People fear the IRS more than they fear God,” said Alan Gamble, executive director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund. “They’re paying under a tremendous burden.”
© 2007 The Associated Press.
the IRS tax system depends upon voluntary compliance.
the American taxpayer is being duped into believing that he has no choice but to pay.
The word “voluntary,” after all, implies “choice.”
and the supreme court has already ruled in favor of citizens to make that choice…
know your rights, silly americans.
Morally, not supplying monies to the federal government is the correct thing to do; unfortunately, it’s been the correct thing to do for decades now. I applaud the steadfastness of the Kehler’s.
Fear is the sole modus operandi of the US government. What do the people receive from the government for the taxes they pay? There is enough wealth in the US to do just about everything the common good requires. The US could have bicycle roads as the Netherlands does, health care for everyone, efficient public transport, and a fine educational system, and on and on. And tax money spent in that way rather than for an ominous and threatening worldwide military presence would make the nation far safer than it is now.
Why should the most ostensibly powerful nation cling to fear?
Lack of knowledge, lack of wisdom, and, thence, lazy, obsolete modes of thinking.
www.uspeacegovernment.org
Yeah, well, all bound up in the tax package is funding for education, healthcare and public programs. It would be great if you could pick your ‘package’ like you pick Dish Network channels, but then again Americans’ increasing focus on their own lives and privileges would demonstrate itself resoundingly in the crash of social services and public ed. So much for voluntary compliance…
People need to realize who they’re hurting when they don’t want to pay taxes. When you start to raise a nation of kids without proper nutrition, education or the like, they’ll come knocking soon enough, even on gated communities. I’m all for people not paying for war, but unfortunately they’re also not paying for more.
I would be more convinced by the arguments of the IRS and those who want all to pay their “share” of taxes if Corporations were required to pay their’s from their Billions in taxable profit.
The taxation system with regards to Corporations is totally unfair as it now stands. Many of the biggest pay less than an individual in the middle class if indeed they pay any at all. (though they are certainly first to get in line for the grants and subsidies!)
I’ve never understood how Corporations can write off so much profit when “profit” doesn’t even start being figured until all employee wages and materials/costs have been deducted!
If Corporations could only market their goods in America by paying a flat percentage of every sale/trade as tax, regardless of their “headquarters” address or offshore status, we would see a surplus of available funding.
Sadly those of us who pay attention know that this is how they can lobby and manipulate legislation that steals from the public account… and we know the majority of Public servants are merely Corporate servants (paid for by We the People) We must begin to insist that our taxes represent our views even more than our legislators. Infact if we could vote on budgets on the federal level rather than elect others to do so for us… We might put our nation back on course.
I disagree with norwegianwood - many communities, many states have voluntarily adopted programs to care/fund our schools, healthcare, and social programs without being forced to do so. Only in the apathy of anonymous living among strangers does the average American ever justify letting another be without - THAT would be even more rare if people actually directed how federal common funds were utilized!
And prove to me America, that you care
http://www.protestmusic.org/thomsen/
This won’t work- plus, the IRS will hound him, even “visit” his home, even over a hundred bucks owed (happened to us- and we didn’t even owe it)), while the rich find their loopholes, and never get bothered.
BETTER IDEA:
Have you seen the google video, “Money as Debt”?
Seems our entire money system exists based upon the debt people owe.
What would happen, if people got together and said, “Hey, we are sick of this war- let’s all agree to NOT PAY OUR DEBTS, so no credit card pmnt… no house pmnt… UNTIL THE WAR ENDS”.
The war would end immediately.
People DO have the power.
David Gross you ROCK! Thank you for being a good example. Beyond not paying for bombs, you are showing Americans how to live off $15,000 a year! THAT is a feat!
I can tell people how. Dumpster dive, grow your own veggies, stop shopping at Walmart and buying STUFF. Drive a used car, better yet, walk or bicycle. Wear used clothing. Live in community or co-housing-4 or more people to a house. SHARE what you have! LOVE.
That’s right, “Sunshine-1111″. Live life simply, enjoy what’s “real”.
I concur with collidingrivers, and agree that the Money as Debt video is well worth watching. Tax resistance and even public opinion are having no impact on the course of this war because Americans (at least current ones) aren’t paying for it. All the money has been coming from Japan, China and other economies that hold our debt. For a good overview of this, check out Taggart Murphy’s essay in the New Left Review. http://newleftreview.org/?view=2625
There are some surprisingly effective ways to protest the war by reducing the taxes that you pay. They are completely legal.
* Tax Deferred Saving
* Donations to Nonprofit Organizations that have tax exempt status
Both of these approaches are perfectly legal, good for you, and very effective. This is what Bill Gates and Warren Buffet are doing with the Bill and Melinda Gates charitable foundation.
Max out your IRA, 401K or other tax deferred saving. Tax deferred saving for most of us is much easier than setting up a foundation and you do not have to give any of it away. Every dollar that you save is $0.35 in taxes that you do not pay.
Donate 10% of your income to tax exempt organizations. You will do a lot of good. Plus none of it goes toward funding BushCo.
Not allowing taxes to fund war crimes and terrorism by the Government is an absolutely patriotic thing to do. It would be a simple matter to let taxpayers designate general areas where their taxes may and may not be used. It was just done regarding an old war tax imposed on phone bills. I would like a qualified legal mind to answer this: if it is a crime to give money to groups committing terrorist acts or supporting others who do (Patriot Act, HR 3162, Exec. Order 13224, UNSC Res. 1373), and our government commits terrorist acts (i.e. destruction of civilian infrastructure) and supports others who do (i.e Israel), then is it a crime to give money to our government? Also, under international law, do citizens have any right to not support the commission of war crimes by their government? From a purely moral viewpoint, how can we allow the fruits of God’s gifts to us to be used to drop cluster bombs on children?
Revolution is nigh!
There is NO LAW anywhere requiring the payment of federal income taxes.
Is it necessary to not pay to make an impact? What if enough of those who don’t pay estimated taxes, who are against the war, would just change their withholdings so that no taxes are withheld for a month or two, might that have an impact?
For tax non-payment as a form of protest to work, it must be done en masse. I would commit to such action if it could be organized and thousands or millions of us rose up in protest together.
This is a monstrous fact of American life: the Government, with the tacit approval of most taxpayers, creates a horrible dilemma for those of us whose conscience feels that killing and war are morally wrong. The Peace Tax Fund effort would at least allow us to direct our funds away from war and the military and toward education, health, transportation, and other legitimate functions which we certainly do not oppose paying for. But our fearful, aggressive culture and our Congress have little sympathy for our morality.
“They’re showing the terrorists that America is not committed,” Ubaldi said.
Boy, Rupert Murdock is showing all the terrorists that have ever existed that America is not committed. The taxes he and his corporations didn’t pay last year is more than all the tax protesters.
He is using the money to buy more politicians and the wall street journal. Can’t wait till all those ‘improvements’ take place like the brilliant work he has done at Fox and the New York Post.
Tax protesters are a tempest in a teapot, but I wish them luck.
Cut the Pentagon budget and taxes everywhere can be LOWERED!!!!
http://www.sensiblepriorities.org/budget_analysis.php
Check out Bens Oreo Cookie Budget
http://www.truemajority.org/oreos/
This was back when the yearly Defense budgets was $400 billion or 40 $10 billion dollar Oreos. The Defense budgets is over 65 $10 billion dollar Oreos now.
“not paying our fair share”, as soon as Halliburton moved from the red ink into the black (thanks for the war GWB)the company moves offshore to to avoid taxes. Now I live “offshore”, have no income other than Social Security and I still have to pay taxes. Medicare will not pick-up the tab for my medical expenses in a foreign country (I think they may pay for an emergency but I may be wrong).
There have been those in Congress that have made noises about a special tax for Companies that have moved from the U.S. but make most of their money from sales in the U.S. or U.S. Government contracts but there is never any traction for this sort of legislation.
Way to go David!
Busb’s Lie’s, Lie’s and more Lie,s…..
——————————————————————————–
Dick Cheney
Speech to VFW National Convention
August 26, 2002
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
George W. Bush
Speech to UN General Assembly
September 12, 2002
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
December 2, 2002
If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.
Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
January 9, 2003
We know for a fact that there are weapons there.
George W. Bush
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003
Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.
Colin Powell
Remarks to UN Security Council
February 5, 2003
We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.
George W. Bush
Radio Address
February 8, 2003
We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons — the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.
Colin Powell
Interview with Radio France International
February 28, 2003
If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us . . . But the suggestion that we are doing this because we want to go to every country in the Middle East and rearrange all of its pieces is not correct.
Colin Powell
Remarks to UN Security Council
March 7, 2003
So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? . . . I think our judgment has to be clearly not.
George W. Bush
Address to the Nation
March 17, 2003
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
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Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war
WAR, WHATEVER
GEORGE Bush’s top security adviser … admitted the US would attack Iraq even if UN inspectors fail to find weapons.
Dr Richard Perle stunned MPs by insisting a “clean bill of health” from UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix would not halt America’s war machine. [Mirror]
British officers knew on eve of war that Iraq had no WMDs
——————————————————————————–
Bush on the Start of the Iraq War: “I feel good!”
——————————————————————————–
Ari Fleisher
Press Briefing
March 21, 2003
Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes.
Gen. Tommy Franks
Press Conference
March 22, 2003
There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.
Defense Policy Board member Kenneth Adelman
Washington Post, p. A27
March 23, 2003
I have no doubt we’re going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction.
Pentagon Spokeswoman Victoria Clark
Press Briefing
March 22, 2003
One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites.
Donald Rumsfeld
ABC Interview
March 30, 2003
We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
Neocon scholar Robert Kagan
Washington Post op-ed
April 9, 2003
Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find — and there will be plenty.
Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
April 10, 2003
But make no mistake — as I said earlier — we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found.
——————————————————————————–
George W. Bush
NBC Interview
April 24, 2003
We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them.
Donald Rumsfeld
Press Briefing
April 25, 2003
There are people who in large measure have information that we need . . . so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country.
George W. Bush
Remarks to Reporters
May 3, 2003
We’ll find them. It’ll be a matter of time to do so.
Colin Powell
Remarks to Reporters
May 4, 2003
I’m absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We’re just getting it just now.
Donald Rumsfeld
Fox News Interview
May 4, 2003
We never believed that we’d just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country.
George W. Bush
Remarks to Reporters
May 6, 2003
I’m not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein — because he had a weapons program.
Condoleeza Rice
Reuters Interview
May 12, 2003
U.S. officials never expected that “we were going to open garages and find” weapons of mass destruction.
Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, Commander 101st Airborne
Press Briefing
May 13, 2003
I just don’t know whether it was all destroyed years ago — I mean, there’s no question that there were chemical weapons years ago — whether they were destroyed right before the war, (or) whether they’re still hidden.
Gen. Michael Hagee, Commandant of the Marine Corps
Interview with Reporters
May 21, 2003
Before the war, there’s no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found.
Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
NBC Today Show interview
May 26, 2003
Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we’re interrogating, I’m confident that we’re going to find weapons of mass destruction.
Donald Rumsfeld
Remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations
May 27, 2003
They may have had time to destroy them, and I don’t know the answer.
Paul Wolfowitz
Vanity Fair interview
May 28, 2003
For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.
Lt. Gen. James Conway, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force
Press Interview
May 30, 2003
It was a surprise to me then it remains a surprise to me now that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it’s not for lack of trying. We’ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they’re simply not there.
Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, Defense Intelligence Agency
Press Conference
May 30, 2003
Do I think we’re going to find something? Yeah, I kind of do, because I think there’s a lot of information out there.”
working under the table is the way to go. None of my cash has ever paid for cluster bombs. HOW MANY HAVE YOU BOUGHT?
Actually, perhaps Gross and the other war protestors taking this path could quote the Bush regime’s rabbitting on “tax cuts” to the IRS.
Just imagine that! People making up their own minds about applying tax cuts! Instead of relying on Big Government to do it for them!
Have as much fun with the IRS as you feel like. After all, they ask for it!
“Tax resisters place an undue burden on taxpayers who pay their fair share of taxes,” IRS spokeswoman Dianne Besunder said. Read: taxpayers = ordinary folks.
When an earlier constriction in U.S. business deepened, the movers and shakers squeezed tax concessions from desperately compeeting states and municipalities, then from their employees (by shifting burden to workers/government,) and when that bonanza ended decided to say adios, we know places with no regulations or responsibilities - so long suckers.
We worry that a biological infection can travel so rapidly now with international air travel, but a socialogical virus has already displayed a portability no epidemiologist anticipated. “Business” can now set up shop at the drop of a hat almost anywhere they like and masses of desperate drones can be made to work for nothing in whatever misery goes unchallenged.
And here’s a tax liability that hasn’t been discussed much yet: We WILL (our government -us) pay many years for the rebuiding of Iraq, through our tax dollars. Since the corporate political class has trivialized the tax obligation of the wealthy, those that have gained the most from this war will pay the least, and those that favored it the least will pay the most.
Tax resistance could work if enough people were committed to it. But too many fear the IRS and are too spoiled to live life simply. Because the majority are a bunch of spoiled wimps with a list of excuses for not doing it, this form of protest has become a minority issue, and it hasn’t made the front pages since Korea.
Too bad too many Americans have turned into talk-big do-nothing brats, otherwise this kind of protest could make a huge difference. You can’t tell me that it wouldn’t make a difference if the 60 percent of Americans presently opposed to the war decided to stop paying federal taxes.
As for the programs that benefit health and education, health can be saved by enough antiwar doctors and nurses, and public education is BS anyhow, we don’t really need that, not with people who actually care enough to spend time with kids.