Operation Mosquito: I Won't Pay A Lot For This Muffler

My very first 198 Sundays post was about Method 90 (Revenue Refusal) and I spoke a bit about war tax resistance in my last Paxcast.  As it so happens, today is the 218th anniversary of the creation of the US Treasury by act of Congress and I thought it appropriate to revisit the subject for Operation Mosquito.

First off, I found a Counterpunch article via the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee that really emphasizes my major point regarding all resistance:

Texas school teacher Shirley Smith made the connection between her tax dollars and the war in Iraq during the first week of the invasion. It was March 27, 2003, and she was listening to Bitta Mostofi speak at the University of Texas campus at Austin. Mostofi had been to Iraq with Voices in the Wilderness, serving witness to sufferings caused by USA-supported sanctions.

It was right after the invasion and only a few weeks before the tax deadline, recalls Smith. Mostofi said it would be an effective protest against the war if everyone refused to pay taxes. And that's when the light went on. Right away, Smith submitted a new W-4 form, so that no taxes would be withheld. No more money would go from her to the war. On April 15, 2003, Smith joined an annual protest at the downtown Austin post office. Camera crews captured her image as she helped to pass out leaflets. The next day a couple of colleagues spoke to her about seeing pictures on the local news. One colleague got excited.

"She told me she would like to stop paying her taxes, too," recalls Smith. "So I explained to her that we re-direct our tax money into groups that work for peace. And then she wasn't quite as interested. I think it's important to stress that we're not in this for personal gain." Like many war tax resisters, Smith sends her tax money to an escrow fund, where interest gets applied to peace work.

When tax day rolled around this year, Smith enclosed a letter with her tax form, explaining why she would not send money. In August she received her first reply from the Internal Revenue Service. On November 16, she received her third. It arrived by certified mail, warning Smith that the IRS would begin looking for property or other assets to attach.

IRS Public Affairs officer Ken Vargas of the Austin office explains that the collections office sends out "soft notices" first, followed by "harder notices" later. Vargas says the IRS doesn't keep a handy record of war tax resisters, and he insists that "normal collection procedures" apply to all subjects, regardless of whether they write letters stating their war tax resistance.

What's my point?  That school teachers and other Ordinary People can resist the regime and its war.  We're all moral actors and can carry out acts of conscience small and large if we realize what power we all possess.

So in today's missive I informed Nancy and Harry that I am engaged in war tax resistance--I refused to pay my 2006 taxes, quit my job and now choose to live under the poverty line--and sent them an Appeal to Conscience.  Since Congress has to this point refused to defund the war, it's really up to us.  Anybody else ready to join me and thousands of others by taking that step?

ntodd

Comments

[polishifter]

I think one solution could be to make it so no tax dollars are used for military action.

Instead, when President and the Congress want military action, they need to raise money for that action by bonds.

If people want military action, they can show their monetary support for it, especially the behemoth corporations that profit off blood.

[David Gross]

Good timing! The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee is days away from launching a large-scale national war tax resistance campaign. We’re hoping to get thousands of first-timers to resist all or part of their federal income tax in April 2008. Keep an eye on http://nwtrcc.org/ over the next few days.

[Logan]

I don't have a job ... and can't seem to get one ... so I'm with you all the way. Heh, legal remedy. But eventually I'll have to get myself imprisoned in order not to starve ...

[David Gross]

Here's the URL of that 2008 War Tax Boycott campaign: http://wartaxboycott.org/

[NTodd]

Thanks, David!