April 15th, Tax Day, a day when millions of Americans scramble to file their income taxes on time. Its also a day when people across the country are planning to protest the use of tax dollars to fund war. In dozens of communities across the country, demonstrations are planned at IRS offices, federal buildings, post offices, weapons factories, to protest ongoing massive U.S. government expenditures on drones, on missiles, on bombs.
According to a new pie chart released by the War Resisters League, 47 percent of federal taxes go toward war in some form or other. To protest this, some Americans are taking a stand today by personally refusing to pay their federal taxes. These tax resisters are risking jail time by withholding all or a portion of their federal income taxes, and instead redirecting the money to humanitarian efforts. One tax resister, Juanita Nelson of Massachusetts, has not paid federal income taxes since 1948.
Juanita Nelson: “I felt it wasfrom the beginning, it was part of a whole nexus of ideas, not just the tax refusal. Just I decided that I was a pacifist. And, for me, nonviolence, I would say, more thanwhat do you call itpacifism, is a way of life. And Imy wholesince I was in my twenties, in particular, early twenties, it has always been my idea to try to go further and further to try to live what I believe. And that was certainly a very direct thing. You dont like war? Dont pay for it. Why should I pay for it?”
Tax resistance has been a regular form of civil disobedience throughout American history. Most famously, the writer Henry David Thoreau refused to finance slavery and the Mexican-American War in 1847 by withholding his poll tax.
Well, for more, were joined by Ed Hedemann, a conscientious war tax resister who has redirected the federal portion of his tax bill to nonprofits and humanitarian efforts for 40 years. Hes a member of the War Resisters League, the U.S.s oldest secular pacifist organization. In 1982, he helped found the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee to provide information and support to people considering war tax resistance. He is also author of War Tax Resistance: A Guide to Withholding Your Support From the Military.
Ed Hedemann talking:
I stopped after I refused induction in the military. This is in 1969. The government tried to draft me to go to war in Vietnam; I refused to go. A year later, I thought, well, its not good enough for me not to go and yet pay for others to go into the military, so I stopped paying the following year taxes to the IRS that eventually would help the governments war in Vietnam and subsequent wars.
I refuse to pay 100 percent of my federal taxes, my federal income taxes. I pay Social Security, Medicare, state and local taxes, but none of the federal income taxes. But actually, in fact, I do pay them, just not to the IRS. I take the entire amount of money and reroute it to other organizations helping to build a better world rather than helping to kill people.
Routinely I get letters, threatening letters from the IRS. They look for bank accounts. They look for property that I might own to seize. They look for salaries that I might have. I go out of my way to be uncollectible. I dont have readily accessible bank accounts. I dont have a salary. Im self-employed. I have had salaries in the past. And I really dont own any significant property. Now, the IRS has gone as far as to take me into federal district court. They did that in 1999 to get me to reveal sources of my assets, because the IRS has been unable to find anything significant to collect. I refused to give this information, and that was the end of it.
the judgeI said that, “Well, Ive already paid my taxes to other organizations, not to the IRS. I cannot pay money to help kill people.” And I didnt want to incriminate myself by giving this information to the IRS, a potential criminal investigation. The judge ignored everything except for the latter part and said that I didnt have to give the information to the IRS because I might incriminate myself.
http://www.warresisters.org/federalpiechart
I refuse to pay is I want to be an irritant to the government. I want to make a protest that cant be ignored. And I think that the government would use such a fund, if it were to be formed, to shuttle away people who are noisy and people who are protesters and people who agitate. And I refuse to do that. I want to do a protest that the government has to pay attention to.
I think that people have a right in a democracy to choose what theyre going to support and not support. If these people in the tea party and others refuse to pay for these programs and are willing to take the risk, like I am, in their refusal, well, then thats up to them. I think thats part of whats a democracy. But what I do on top of that is I dont keep the money for myself. I reroute it. I wonder if these tea party people do the same with their money? I doubt it.
People like Randy Kehler, a peace activist in western Mass, had his house taken from him. he continues to refuse today, despite his house being taken. I think thats the risk you take. But, to me, part of the issue is that the protest is as important as how much money is resisted. And I think that there are people who are war tax resisters that do have their salaries seized, but they continue to protest despite that, because the point of theof refusing to pay, from my point of view, is protesting.
Henry David Thoreau, 1847. The writer famously protested paying for slavery and the Mexican-American War by withholding his poll tax. He was sent to jail for a night, but when he was released the next morning, he refused to budge. He argued he had the right to remain in jail and register his repulsion of slavery. Thoreau was eventually thrown out of jail and went on to publish his influential essay called “Civil Disobedience.” In it, he wrote, “If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.”
I would say several thousand people in this country. A lot of people do it quietly, and they dont tell, well, me or National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee or the IRS. They just do it. And its hard to say.
the phone tax is a 3 percent federal excise tax on local telephone service. It used be also on long distance. And so, if you have a land line, then there is going to be a 3 percent charge on telephone service.
That goes into the general federal budget pot, just like the income tax, and it began, however, being put on telephone service during the Spanish-American War over 100 years ago. it keeps goingcoming and going. After the Spanish-American War, it went off. and then after World War I, it went on, came off. But it is on there now.
– source democracynow.org
Ed Hedemann, a conscientious war tax resister who has redirected the federal portion of his tax bill to nonprofits and humanitarian efforts since the 1970s. He is a member of the War Resisters League, the United States oldest secular pacifist organization. In 1982, he helped found the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee to provide information and support to people considering war tax resistance. Hedemann is the author of War Tax Resistance: A Guide to Withholding Your Support From the Military.