The most unpopular subject on the DU? War tax resistance

[DerekG]

"Let them march all they want, as long as they continue to pay their taxes." --Alexander Haig

I've seen the subject header, "war tax resistance," splayed across the GD forum at least several dozen times in the last four years, and very few managed to accrue more than five responses.

It seems apparent that while most of us are opposed to our government's war against the world's children, precious few are actually willing to stop funding it. The war tax is the one thing that binds us with the conservative populace we have such disdain for--we are all complicit on some level, regardless of any ethos we may harbor. In retrospect, it is understandable why threads such as this sink like a stone.

My intention is not to be confrontational (I myself have ***only recently*** considered this path of defiance), but there should be no shame in pointing out that those mortars, bombs and shells have our names written on them.

[TwilightZone]

1. "we are all complicit on some level"

That statement is ridiculous.

That is similar to claiming that one of Eric Rudolph's former employers is responsible for his killings because he paid him a salary at one time, so he could have then used part of that salary to buy guns, explosives, etc.

Sorry, not buying.

[Richard D]

6. Respectfully . . .

. . . I disagree.

Rudolph's former employers didn't know what he was doing with the salary. If they did, the would be at least semi-responsible.

We do know what the government is doing with the money we give it.

[MattBaggins]

8. Jinks...NT

[MattBaggins]

7. I have to disagree

If Eric Rudolph's former employer had known what he was doing or chose to continue to pay him after conviction, then your analogy would hold weight.

[DerekG]

10. A flawed analogy

Most of us are painfully aware that our government's upper echelon is comprised of criminals (possibly fascistic) who would use our money to foster barbarity and injustice; Eric Rudolph's employers would have had to have been endowed with psychic powers.

[TwilightZone]

23. "We" have no more control over how the government spends our taxes

than Rudolph's employers had over his spending habits.

Ok, so you quit paying taxes. How do you intend to tell the government which budget to cut thanks to your withheld funds?

Do you really believe that they'll cut the defense budget first?

Fat chance.

The defense budget is going nowhere. Any shortfall will come straight out of social programs.

[htuttle]

2. It's one thing to avoid feeding The Beast in various ways...

...And another thing entirely to talk about it on a public forum.

If there's any agency that strikes an Orwellian level of fear into people it's the IRS, even moreso than the FBI, NSA, CIA, etc.

Just saying...

[Merlot]

3. No, I told the IRS they may only use my tax money for schools and

highway repairs.

Wouldn't it be cool if on our tax form, right after the box to check for $2 to the presidential campaign (does anyoone ever do that???) there were check boxes for where you wanted your taxes to go?

[PaganPreacher]

5. You're speaking my mind!

Talked about this recently:

Percentage allocation on the Federal return- a column of Federal departments (Justice, Defense, Transportation, etc.), and the taxpayer indicates the percentage of taxes that go to each department. Certain departments would have a mandatory minimum percentage, based on constitutional requirements. The total must add up to 100%.

The collected tax for each department would be the maximum amount allocated in the next year's budget. If war in Iraq is truly unpopular, then DOD would have less money to pay for the war. If federal highway construction is popular, DOT would have more money.

The form would have a checkbox for those taxpayers who choose to have the government allocate their taxes for them.

Econonic democracy, and a built-in balanced budget! Past federal debt would be paid by interest on T-bills and federal bonds.

Never happen, as long as people are getting rich (or richer) from the current system. It will never be more than a sweet dream of mine.

The Pagan Preacher
I don't turn the other cheek.

[BillZBubb]

4. At best it's a weak, symbolic protest.

A waste of time really, since it would have no impact.

As far a collective guilt, that's baloney. If you voted for anyone who supported the war, then yes you share some of the blame. Most here at DU have not voted for anyone who supported Bush's aggression. I have not and am not complicit in any way. The law requires I pay taxes and I have no legal method of determining where those dollars go except through the ballot box.

[PaganPreacher]

9. Lots of Bill and Hillary supporters here, and Kerry folks, too.

I agree that we do not have collective guilt (sounds too much like "original sin" to this Pagan).

However, responsibility for the war lies with every Dem who voted in favor of IWR, or who made statements supporting military action in Iraq.

That includes Bill, Hillary, and John Kerry.

The Pagan Preacher
I don't turn the other cheek.

[G_j]

11. it could be very effective if a million people were involved

but of course that could never happen when people constantly say "it will never work". It is sort of conventional wisdom that cutting purse strings is an effective way of dealing with some things.
Does anyone think Bush, Congress, the Pentagon etc. will be cutting Halliburton's purse strings?

Frankly, I think most of us are cowards unwilling to take any steps that we feel may involve personal risk.

[anarchy1999]

17. BS and what do you really know about the "LAW"? THE IRS is not

constitutional, nor are any of the "laws" surrounding it. Be ignorant at your own risk.

[BillZBubb]

24. Geez, get a friggin constitution and read it.

I know enough about the law to know that people who refuse to pay their taxes based on ignorant comments like "the IRS is not constitutional" usually end up in jail.

Go ahead, don't pay your taxes. Claim it's in protest to the military budget or the "unconstitutionality" of the IRS.

[anarchy1999]

33. Okay, have your fun.

Good luck. It is for real. Read up on it all.

I also have a tax advisor that is working for me and fighting, do you have any idea of what you speak of?

[BillZBubb]

35. Yes, I know all about the IRS code.

I also know that a moron tax protester (not because of war, just in general) just got sentenced to 6 years in prison. He defense was the same bullshit you are spewing about the tax system being unconstitutional.

Maybe when the two of you are sharing a cell you can have a great discussion on that (non) issue.

Or, better yet, get a decent tax advisor instead of an incompetent hack. He won't do the time, you will.

[anarchy1999]

12. They only get what they take. Nothing more, nothing less.

n/t

[kalibex]

13. My take on it...

...admittedly pretty cynical...is that so few have the guts to do it - to truly 'starve the beast'. At least, during this war that so many disagree with. To, for example, shift their tax payments from federal to state.

As usual...unless many do it simultaneously, no, it won't have much impact. (Because, of course...enough individuals never band together and do it.... Duh!)

If enough did, (arguably a statistical impossibility), I imagine the Feds would sh*t bricks. Oh yes indeed. :evilgrin:

That said...I myself don't currently have the guts either, to go ahead and take that step out of the ordinary, safe life mode...

-B

[LdyGuique]

14. Since there are rather few American taxpayers who don't

oppose at least something in any of the various tax budgets that they pay into from local up through county to state to federal levels, it's an idea to toy with and then discard. War is not the only issue that is passionately rejected by at least a portion of the population.

Many who homeschool have rejected the school systems in their area and yet continue to pay school taxes. Many people are childless and yet continue to pay school taxes. Even homeschooled children may one day attend state-supported colleges and universities. There are multiple levels of taxes that go to schools from primary up through colleges. Should dropouts have to pay school taxes? Yet, the entire world infrastructure that supports most of our lifestyles has people who were government-taxed schooling in their backgrounds, which allows them to hold jobs within the system.

One of the more focused taxes would apply to roads, either through taxes paid in gasoline purchases or tolls paid. Yet, some might argue that if one doesn't drive, why should they have to pay for roads? Of course, no roads tends to keep the goods of commerce from reaching most. And, most do take advantage of city streets to move around and deal with the things of living.

Many of us are affronted by the notion that pharmacists and medical care can be denied to us due to "moral" reasons. We argue that these people have signed on to provide a service to the general public.

I'm quite sure that many blacks would like to reconsider whether or not taxes should be paid into the entire police and judiciary structure that has targetted them or failed them in some manner.

For those of us who are wageslaves, taxes are automatically taken out of our paychecks and there is no way to circumvent the process. Only those who are self-employed can contemplate such a gesture -- until a few years rolls by and the IRS seizes bank accounts and padlocks our businesses for unpaid taxes and then starts levying fines and prison sentences as all of our assets are seized.

Those who oppose the war aren't the only ones who might feel justified in denying where taxes go.

[anarchy1999]

18. Fear, Fear, Fear and more Fear! They'll seize my bank account,

they'll take my business.....

GET A GRIP! Do you work for "them" or do they work for you?

I fired "them" years ago!~!!!!!!!!!

[Meeker Morgan]

15. If you make a living at anything other than a cash business ...

... the taxes are taken before you see the money.

Got a bank account? They can take it.

You have to commit to a life of working off the books and not owning anything valuable (like a house), before such a thing can have any effect at all.

Even if you're willing to risk prison, there's a lot more to this than just not paying taxes.

[kalibex]

20. Erm, can't people alter how much is withheld from their paycheck?

Switch to having little to nothing withheld?

IIRC, starting at a job isn't the only time you can have an effect on how much is withheld...

-B

[Meeker Morgan]

34. Even if you "contribute" nothing ...

... the employer reports the income. Got a bank account?

It has to be off the books to get away with it at all.

In effect, become an "illegal alien".

[kalibex]

37. Oh, I know that...

...that the Feds know you have an income... My point was that the argument someone mentioned, that 'They take the $ out from your paycheck automatically' doesn't wash. One can change one's paycheck withholding via a new W4 anytime.

Point is, when taxpayer $ both pays politician's paychecks and is (at least partly) used in ways we disapprove of....to withhold it would be the most efficient way to have an effect on politicians' behavior.

Shift from the 'I'd be a naughty child, frowned upon by big daddy Fed!' POV.

Try this one instead: 'You work for us. Misbehave? We're cutting you off.'

In the meantime, monies involved with infrastructure and the welfare of the public could theoretically be shifted to the states.

-B

[anarchy1999]

16. Has any one here just ever tried not filing? Let the employer's take your

money, just not file? Any experience with it? Hmmmmm........

on edit, I've had huge success. IRS come and get me.

[G_j]

19. History of war tax resistance

http://www.peacetaxseven.com/history.html

History of war tax resistance
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"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 be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood".
{Henry David Thoreau, "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience", 1849}

-War tax resistance and the birth of democracy

War tax resistance has a long and noble tradition. In 1202 King John of England raised taxes to pay for a new war against France. As King, John was entitled to raise money from his feudal subjects; but, he stretched these rights to the limit and offended many barons who disagreed with the war. The barons were furious at the waste of money especially when John was defeated by the French. They complained about the way the king was running the country. Fearing trouble the Archbishop of Canterbury suggested they send a list of demands to the King. John had no intention of obeying others’ rules and was furious. The Army of God and the Church under the Barons marched on London whose supporters opened the gates. The King fled to Windsor Castle. King John did not want war with the barons and so finally, by the Thames at Runnymede, met them and agreed a list of promises and on 15th June 1215 the Magna Carta was born – one of the most important documents in world history. Democracy was born in England.


-Income Tax

The relationship between income tax and war is a close one. Income tax was first introduced in Britain in 1798 to pay for the purchase of fighting men and weapons for the Napoleonic wars. Introduced by William Pitt the tax was temporary and technically has to be renewed every year. It was applied as 10% of income and remained right up to the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. A year after Waterloo, Income Tax was repealed but the Conservative Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel reintroduced Income tax in the 1842 Budget speech and it's been with us ever since.

One of the earliest known instances of war tax refusal in America took place in 1637 when the relatively peaceable Algonquin Indians opposed taxation by the Dutch to help improve a local Dutch fort.


-The Quakers

QUAKERS have been and still are at the forefront of war tax resistance. In 1709 the Quakers Assembly refused a request of £4000 for an expedition into Canada, replying "it was contrary to their religious principles to hire men to kill one another" and during the American Revolution most Quakers were opposed to taxes designated specifically for military purposes. Property was seized and auctioned, and many Quakers were jailed for their war tax resistance. During the Mexican war of 1846 many Quakers again, refused to pay war taxes.


-Henry David Thoreau
..more..

[Zorra]

21. I left the US after Buh was selected in 2000 because I refuse to

support a dictatorship. I knew damn well that Buh was going to unjustifiably go to war back then.

If this PNAC dictatorship wants to make bombs and bullets to kill innocent people for oil and empire while driving my country to the brink of economic destruction, they will have to do it without any of my support.

[Wind Dancer]

22. Amy Goodman recently addressed this topic on DN.

snip


AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the history of war tax resistance? How did it start, and then the differences when you're paying or not paying the I.R.S., or paying or not paying a portion of your phone bill?

RUTH BENN: Well, I'm sure that as with people who refuse to fight in war and conscientious objection to military service, it's been around as long as there's been any tax somewhere in the world, that there's somebody who said, you know, I'm not going to do that and I'm not going to pay for it either. In the U.S. the first instance was, I think, in the 1600s, Algonquin Indians who refused to pay for a fort that the Dutch were building to be used against the Indians, the Native Americans. But the current War Tax Resistance Movement started in World War II, in particular, the Modern War Tax Resistance Movement, we call it, during World War II when the income tax was instituted and withholding, taking money from people's paychecks, up front, I suppose you could say. So, ever since -- since World War II, it's been a fairly consistent and active movement. A lot of connection with the Quakers and the peace churches, the Brethren and the Mennonite. But as with refusal to fight in wars, it crosses boundaries. People who conscientiously refuse for other reasons. So, your question about income tax?

AMY GOODMAN: The different forms of the resistance. Income tax and then this whole issue of the phone bill, what portion of it?

RUTH BENN: Let's start with the telephone tax, which actually was first instituted in the late 1800s. The Spanish-American war, and telephones at that time were a luxury, so, it was a luxury tax on the phones, specifically to pay for that war. And then the government took it off. World War II, they needed money again, so they put the tax on again -- or World War I, sorry. Took it off after World War I. World War II, they put it on again, and it's pretty much been steady since then. During the Vietnam War, the telephone tax was as high as 10%, and I think it was Wilbur Mills who said that the tax is going to this level specifically to pay for the Vietnam War. It's only the Vietnam War that we're raising it to 10%. And after that, after Vietnam War, it was supposed to be removed, but instead, the government -- it's a tax that people don't notice, so it's an easy one for them to keep on. And currently it's at 3%. And it's a permanent tax now. They had to renew it for a number of years, and then about ten years ago, they made it permanent. So that 3% on all phone bills, cell phone, everything except internet phone service, that 3% tax goes into the general fund, parceled out the same way that income taxes are.

And in income tax resistance, people might choose to pay a symbolic amount, $1, which is certainly in the current situation, and considering what our tax dollars are doing and the consequences of paying taxes these days and seeing what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, around the world, refusing to pay $1, if you owe something, and sending a letter and saying this is why I'm making this protest, is an important statement. There are other people who refuse to pay about 30%, which is the current, about the current military spending. Other people who choose to refuse everything, and so it's really variable. It's a creative form of resistance.

more

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/15/1337232

[TwilightZone]

25. Well, if you want the gov't to cut funding for social programs,

pursue this fully.

The shortfall certainly isn't going to come out of the defense budget.

[ComerPerro]

29. Exactly

They have already proven that they will send us as deeply into debt as necessary to fund their wars.

[UdoKier]

26. First of all, I'm too poor to pay income tax...

... second of all, if I did have to pay taxes, I wouldn't want to be carted off to jail for tax evasion, and I would also be depriving good programs of funds.

I agree that it's good to remind people that we are paying for the slaughter, but most of us have other ways of protesting the war.

[G_j]

28. how are those other ways working btw?

just sayin'....

anyway I didn't make any money this year, so I can't say too much.
But I suggest everyone read the couple of posts here that talk about the history of war tax resistance.

[ComerPerro]

27. They don't have my name written on them

I didn't vote for that douchebag. I didn't vote for the war. Hell, I volunteered for local campaigns.

But I have to pay taxes. Refusing to pay taxes brings about several problems:

ONE: good luck explaining to the IRS that you didn't pay your taxes because you oppose the war, and you therefore shouldn't go to jail.

TWO: Lets say that all Kerry voters just stop paying taxes. What happens then? Well, this killing isn't going to stop. The administration has already proven that they will send American into debt for years and years just to pay for this needless bullshit. They will do whatever it takes to make themselves richer and stay in power. Decreasing revenue will only ensure that any and all social programs will be cut, from medicaid to public education grants to environmental programs. Those will be the first to go. Don't give the neocons an excuse to gut essential programs.

THREE: This only legitimizes FReepers who say "I'm sick of all my hard earned money going to illegals and lazy welfare queens. I'm gonna stop paying taxes until changes are made."

[jpak]

30. I disagree: we should TAX the war...

and make it a flat tax - a sinfully regressive tax scheme.

When the Morans see their paychecks and suddenly realize that "supporting the troops" is going to cost them a helluva lot more than the cost of a yeller ribbon magnet (and that Donald Trump is paying the same amount of tax as Joe 6-Pack), US troops would be out of I-raq fast then you could say "no bid contract".

[G_j]

31. see specifically where YOUR tax dollars are going

Check out this tax calculator
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/taxes/IncomeTaxChart05.html

to find out how the government is spending your tax money, and see the state-by-state
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/warstatecost

and city-by-city breakdowns of what the Iraq war is costing you.
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/warcitycost
--------------

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/follow_your_taxes.php?dateid=20050415

Follow Your Taxes

Even if you don't support the war, your tax dollars certainly do.

So now that your taxes are signed, stamped, mailed or e-filed, (and they are, right?) let's consider, for a moment, what happens to that money. While I don't like seeing the tax taken from my paychecks any more than the next person, it helps if I tell myself that a portion of my hard-earned funds is being used for the general good of the nation-things like education, housing for people who need it, and support for veterans.

Well, some of my tax money-and yours-is going to those things. But a whole lot more of it is going to defense and interest on the national debt, according to research from the National Priorities Project . For the average family, one-third of tax money goes to defense spending, and 90 percent of that total goes directly to the military (while only 3 percent is used for preventative measures.) Another 18 percent of your taxes go to pay interest on the ever-increasing national debt. The money going toward education? Less than 4 percent. And only 2 percent goes toward housing.

It's not really surprising: The military budget is squeezing out the things that can help our communities and families. "As the expanding military budget strips communities of vital support and the cost of war in Iraq continues to spiral upward, people deserve to ask whether this is how they want their tax dollars spent," says Greg Speeter, executive director of the National Priorities Project.
-------------------------

[G_j]

32. if the defense dept. was called the rape, slaughter and pillage dept

and the gov told us up front that they would use our tax dollars to bring malnutrition and death to children, torture women... you get the picture.. would we still just sit back and pay?

just a thought, I don't have the answer..

[sweetheart]

36. I left the country and don't support the GOP nazi war machine

I did not file my taxes this year. I protest the fiscal incompetence,
and will not participate. No wars, no imperial adventures on the
back of the citizen and no dictatorships. My payroll taxes are paid
to the UK treasury where, sadly some war has happened, but as well,
citizens have medical treatment, heavily subsidized education and
decent public services.

The tax money is just symbolic of the lecherous relationship between
the decent folk and theze nazis. I do not support war criminals. no.