National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee

NWTRCC News

Attention Teachers!

If you teach Thoreau or want to in­spire class­room dis­cus­sions about the change pos­sible through non­violent ac­tion and civil dis­obe­di­ence, con­sider using NWTRCC’s new teach­ing packet. Click here for more in­for­ma­tion about NWTRCC’s new study guide and kit, “Thoreau and His Heirs.”

Fall Events

Join war tax re­sist­ers in DC, Boston, Ten­nes­see, Georgia — and at local actions. More info…

WTRs Report to Prison

Read about the case of Car­los Stew­ard, who headed to Fed­eral Prison Camp on Au­gust 6, 2010. His ad­dress is at the end of the ar­ti­cle.

On July 26, Frank Don­nel­ly re­ported to fed­eral prison to begin serv­ing a year sen­tence for char­ges re­lated to his re­fusal to pay for war.… Read more …

 

Students/Young Adult Flyer

This flyer connects military recruiting and tax paying for war.
Download a PDF by clicking on the image, or read the text below.

WAR — Your Money? Your Life?
Or Neither?

“We all take part in it — if you pay your taxes, you’re taking part in this war. We all have a responsibility, as they determined after Nuremberg, whether you’re the lowest soldier or the highest ranking general, or just a regular civilian, we all have responsibility … to resist and refuse enabling and condoning this criminal behavior.”

— Lt. Ehren Watada, speech at Veterans for Peace 2006 National Convention

Your Life

The government tries hard to entice young people into the military. Recruiters roam high schools, colleges, and malls and make endless phone calls to students at home. They don’t talk about war or ask you to think about what it would be like to kill. Recruiters talk about college money and job training, but not…

…that only half of GI Bill participants ever receive college funding;
…that the unemployment rate for young veterans is twice as high as their peers who did not enlist;
…that on any given night 200,000 veterans are homeless;
…that returning to civilian life can be another kind of battle after war experiences;
…that thousands of active-duty military people have risked dishonorable discharge or jail by speaking out, going AWOL, refusing to fight, asking about conscientious objector status, etc. as the reality of war conflicts with their beliefs.

Sources and more information: “Before You Enlist” on YouTube or projectyano.org; couragetoresist.org; National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth, nnomy.org.

Your Money

The government may not get your body, but what about the money? With the high tech weapons and gear used today, the military needs money even more than it needs recruits.

$17,500
gear for one U.S. soldier
$140,000
video game for Army training
$11,700,000
one Reaper drone (2010)
$7,700,000,000
military recruiting budget (2008)
$12,000,000,000
one mo. war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan

Half of each federal tax dollar is used for the military: paying for past wars (veterans and debt), today’s wars, and future wars (see the War Resisters League budget pie chart). The monetary, human, and environmental costs of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan will not be fully known for years.

Your Choice

If you don’t believe in it, will you pay for it? Each dollar sent to the Pentagon is money that can’t be used for schools, job training, health care, aid to impoverished nations, infrastructure, mass transit, cleaning up the environment, and all kinds of other human service programs.

Each year thousands of people in the U.S. choose to keep their money away from the government. Like being conscientious objectors to military service, war tax resisters object to their tax dollars going to war and refuse to voluntarily pay for it. They often give the money to groups who take care of people instead. There are many ways to resist war taxes, and some methods includes risks such as collection efforts by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

If you have a job, chances are the federal government is taking some income taxes out of your paycheck. If you pay local telephone bills or buy alcohol, you’re paying federal excise taxes that help pay for war too.