D_Raay
02-08-2005, 12:51 PM
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/index.php?p=40
As U.S. forces aggressively seek to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan, a growing number of Americans are quietly defying income taxes in protest, RAW STORY has learned.
Leading the charge is the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, which seeks to raise awareness about the process of resisting taxes to protest U.S. military expenditure.
Members defying income taxes can face stiff penalties. While some are as small as the cancellation of cell phone service, the Internal Revenue Service has sometimes resorted to harsher sanctions, including seizing cars and auctioning homes.
As many as eight thousand Americans resist some form of income taxes, organizers say.
“They’ve garnished my salary a few times,” says Robert Randall, a Christian pacifist and social worker in Georgia who refuses to pay any income taxes. “One time they seized money out of our bank accounts; one time they did a seizure and sale of our house.”
On Sunday, the group unveiled a “Peace Tax Return,” which allows individuals to signal their protest of American war expenditures to the IRS. The return is modeled on one produced in Britain by groups who are lobbying to allow conscientious objectors to pay their taxes into a special fund not accessible by the military.
Randall, who has been a registered conscientious objector since he turned 18, objects to contributing to military spending as a matter of faith.
“I’m a Christian pacifist,” he says. “My inability to participate in warfare came along as part of my growing understanding in what it means to be a Christian.”
“One of form of participating in war would be paying for it,” he tells RAW STORY, “so it’s simply part and parcel of not being able to kill people [which] includes not paying for people to be killed.”
Others, like Susan Van Haitsma, a housecleaner from Austin, cite specific events as their rationale for refusing to pay taxes. Van Haitsma began withholding taxes in 1985 in response to the nuclear arms race and U.S. incursions in Central America.
“I knew part of my tax money was going to fund the weapons that were hurting them,” Van Haitsma says. “And I didn’t want any part of my earnings going to funding nuclear weapons.”
Van Haitsma has a unique strategy for avoiding taxes – she deliberately reduced her income below the minimum tax threshold by trading some of her labor for housing. Unlike many in her Austin branch of the group who are facing collections, this has allowed her to elude penalties.
Ruth Benn, a coordinator for the national group, says members protest in a variety of ways. She says there’s definitely been an upswing in interest since the run-up to war in Iraq.
“You see more people resisting war taxes,” she asserts, “where people really have something on their TV at night that they just can’t stomach any more.”
About five to eight thousand define themselves as “war tax resisters,” she states.
Some also defy the federal excise tax on telephone usage, a levy which was created as a luxury tax to fund the Spanish-American war. The tax was increased in Vietnam. Today, it is also applied to cell phones.
Randall says he recently had his cell phone service terminated for refusing to pay the tax. By law, phone companies are ultimately supposed to leave collection to the IRS.
“I’m telling everybody don’t use Cingular,” Randall says. “Find a telephone company that understands the proper process.”
With the explosion of cell phone providers and new voice-over Internet telephone providers, many of the companies are new to tax resisting.
“Now that there’s thousands of phone companies it means that we have to educate all of them,” he remarks. “The upside of that is that, is if there’s thousands of phone companies, there’s thousands of people to share witness with and educate about what’s really happening with our money.”
Benn says she’s heard criticism of her movement. Some have asked why she doesn’t use the traditional channels of lobbying Congress.
“As someone active in the peace movement, I say change will happen from a variety of different methods and this is just one of them,” she maintains.
Benn also refuses to pay any of her income taxes. She says she’s had money seized from her bank account over the years. Her decision, she says, centered on the realization that nearly half her taxes were going to the military.
As U.S. forces aggressively seek to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan, a growing number of Americans are quietly defying income taxes in protest, RAW STORY has learned.
Leading the charge is the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, which seeks to raise awareness about the process of resisting taxes to protest U.S. military expenditure.
Members defying income taxes can face stiff penalties. While some are as small as the cancellation of cell phone service, the Internal Revenue Service has sometimes resorted to harsher sanctions, including seizing cars and auctioning homes.
As many as eight thousand Americans resist some form of income taxes, organizers say.
“They’ve garnished my salary a few times,” says Robert Randall, a Christian pacifist and social worker in Georgia who refuses to pay any income taxes. “One time they seized money out of our bank accounts; one time they did a seizure and sale of our house.”
On Sunday, the group unveiled a “Peace Tax Return,” which allows individuals to signal their protest of American war expenditures to the IRS. The return is modeled on one produced in Britain by groups who are lobbying to allow conscientious objectors to pay their taxes into a special fund not accessible by the military.
Randall, who has been a registered conscientious objector since he turned 18, objects to contributing to military spending as a matter of faith.
“I’m a Christian pacifist,” he says. “My inability to participate in warfare came along as part of my growing understanding in what it means to be a Christian.”
“One of form of participating in war would be paying for it,” he tells RAW STORY, “so it’s simply part and parcel of not being able to kill people [which] includes not paying for people to be killed.”
Others, like Susan Van Haitsma, a housecleaner from Austin, cite specific events as their rationale for refusing to pay taxes. Van Haitsma began withholding taxes in 1985 in response to the nuclear arms race and U.S. incursions in Central America.
“I knew part of my tax money was going to fund the weapons that were hurting them,” Van Haitsma says. “And I didn’t want any part of my earnings going to funding nuclear weapons.”
Van Haitsma has a unique strategy for avoiding taxes – she deliberately reduced her income below the minimum tax threshold by trading some of her labor for housing. Unlike many in her Austin branch of the group who are facing collections, this has allowed her to elude penalties.
Ruth Benn, a coordinator for the national group, says members protest in a variety of ways. She says there’s definitely been an upswing in interest since the run-up to war in Iraq.
“You see more people resisting war taxes,” she asserts, “where people really have something on their TV at night that they just can’t stomach any more.”
About five to eight thousand define themselves as “war tax resisters,” she states.
Some also defy the federal excise tax on telephone usage, a levy which was created as a luxury tax to fund the Spanish-American war. The tax was increased in Vietnam. Today, it is also applied to cell phones.
Randall says he recently had his cell phone service terminated for refusing to pay the tax. By law, phone companies are ultimately supposed to leave collection to the IRS.
“I’m telling everybody don’t use Cingular,” Randall says. “Find a telephone company that understands the proper process.”
With the explosion of cell phone providers and new voice-over Internet telephone providers, many of the companies are new to tax resisting.
“Now that there’s thousands of phone companies it means that we have to educate all of them,” he remarks. “The upside of that is that, is if there’s thousands of phone companies, there’s thousands of people to share witness with and educate about what’s really happening with our money.”
Benn says she’s heard criticism of her movement. Some have asked why she doesn’t use the traditional channels of lobbying Congress.
“As someone active in the peace movement, I say change will happen from a variety of different methods and this is just one of them,” she maintains.
Benn also refuses to pay any of her income taxes. She says she’s had money seized from her bank account over the years. Her decision, she says, centered on the realization that nearly half her taxes were going to the military.