Originally published on Forbes.com.
The word is out from the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee on its plans for Tax Day. There will be actions in dozens of cities and towns with events scheduled on April 17 and the days running up to it.
For Example
You can get the flavor of the events from the one scheduled in Boston on the 14th:
Sponsored by Massachusetts People’s Budget Campaign, Veterans For Peace — Boston, Smedley D. Butler Brigade, Massachusetts Peace Action, American Friends Service Committee
Cambridge Common, Garden St. and Massachusetts Ave. President Trump’s tax bill is ensuring billions of dollars in profits to large corporations and peanuts to working people. His Pentagon spending will lead to more wars, kill a lot of people, and make us less safe. Cuts in essential programs from Climate protection to Medicaid, Housing, Social Security and Medicare are in the offing. We must turn around Washington’s budget insanity. Join us on Tax Day to call attention to these dangers while promoting our budget priorities to fund the programs we all need.
NWTRCC will have a table at that one.
I love the Smedley D. Butler reference. Smedley Butler was a major general in the USMC and at the time of his death in 1940 the most decorated marine up to that point in time, including two Medals of Honor. Butler testified before Congress on a plot by a group of wealthy industrialists to overthrow FDR. More to the point here, he is the author of War Is A Racket. He had some interesting suggestions like this one – in the event of war:
all the workers, all presidents, all executives, all directors, all managers, all bankers — yes, and all generals and all admirals and all officers and all politicians and all government office holders — everyone in the nation be restricted to a total monthly income not to exceed that paid to the soldier in the trenches!
Nowadays that would be in the vicinity of $30,000 per year, if we go with what an Army Specialist earns.
Is This A Bad Thing?
I believe in being reasonably tax compliant, not just out of prudence but also out of patriotism and the belief that the world would probably be more dangerous without American military power. Still, with the example of old Henry David Thoreau, I have a certain admiration for war-tax resisters, who go about refusing to pay taxes in about as benign and socially responsible a manner as is possible.
People refuse to pay taxes for a variety of reasons. The most common one is that they would rather keep the money for themselves and think they can get away with it. Then there are the people often inspired directly or indirectly, whether they know it or not, by the late Irwin Schiff. Careful study or extreme gullibility has had them form the conclusion that the income tax is extremely limited in its applicability, unconstitutional or not applicable to them because of how they are special or have made themselves special through magical filings. I have written a bit about those folks – for example here. Dan Evans has done an almost encyclopedic listing of tax protester arguments. Although there are people dear to my heart, but thankfully not in my client base, in both those categories, I strongly disapprove of both of those positions.
The war tax-resisters are another matter. I find them admirable and intellectually coherent, although in my view misguided. Practice varies among them, but one technique that expresses the spirit of the movement is to send in an accurate return without payment. The amount that would have been paid is donated to a charity of one sort or another. If the IRS has its act together it will ultimately levy the resister’s bank account. I suspect that of all the various forms of tax resistance the IRS has to deal with, this may be the least aggravating. Given the sad state of the IRS, probably some resisters will end up waiting out the ten-year statute without ever being levied.
I have been following war tax resistance for a while. Here is a guest post by activist Ed Agro, which can give you a sense of the movement from a practitioner. Here is the story of Elizabeth Boardman, who fought in the Ninth Circuit to prevent the IRS from classifying war tax resistance as frivolous. The IRS has, however, come around a bit and may no longer consider a war tax resister return a frivolous submission subject to a $5,000 penalty. They are still subject to interest and other penalties.
Give Peace A Chance
John Lewis has argued for a Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund:
To affirm the religious freedom of taxpayers who are conscientiously opposed to participation in war, to provide that the income, estate, or gift tax payments of such taxpayers be used for nonmilitary purposes
Congressman Lewis can also stand as an example of how change can be effected through nonviolent means through his experience in the civil rights movement in the Sixties.
I think the Peace Tax Fund is probably a good idea, equivalent in a way to the option provided, when people were being drafted, to conscientious objectors to provide alternative service that didn’t involve, you know, shooting people. There were some extraordinary people among them, including three Medal of Honor recipients – Thomas Bennett, Desmond Doss and Joseph LaPointe. Doss’ story is portrayed in the 2016 film Hacksaw Ridge.
For whatever it is worth, the Joint Committee scores the Peace Tax Fund as a revenue gainer.
Other Coverage
Lauren von Bernuth in On Being Brave And War Tax Resistance gives an account of her experience as a war tax resister
The IRS is a joke – it represents a fundamentally unjust and ineffective system that I don’t want to cooperate with. I’ve been both privileged and lucky to be able to make resistance work for me, as someone who doesn’t make much money but still owes some taxes.
An article in Infoshop – The Vietnam Legacy of War Tax Resistance – traces the movement back to the Vietnam Era.
The organization National War Tax Resistance was formed in 1969 as a response to the surge in interest in income and telephone tax resistance, and at its peak had 192 chapters. War tax resisters also sought support from organizations like Peacemakers and War Resisters League. Many resisters gave their taxes to alternative funds that redirected the money to community organizations more deserving of financial support.
During the length of the war, many prominent individuals took up resistance. For example, in 1968, the Writers and Editors War Tax Protest took out ads in three publications, listing writers and editors who pledged to refuse to pay the income tax and/or telephone tax. Signers included Howard Zinn, Allen Ginsberg, Grace Paley, Frances Fox Piven, Adrienne Rich, Helen and Scott Nearing, Kurt Vonnegut, and Philip and Daniel Berrigan.