April 15, 2004
Dear IRS:
Another year has passed, and I notice that your work is still primarily to collect money to buy weapons to conduct wars and brutalize people all over the world. Even the money you collect that is not directly earmarked for war is most often used for nefarious activities, including for the surveillance of the populace here in the United States.
Though your power as an institution is immense, there are many amongst us who see through your bureaucratic guise to the ugly face underneath, and refuse to submit to, take part in, or fund an inherently unjust, brutal regime that has plundered for far too long.
My conscience is leading me to resist supporting the U.S. government’s criminal policies and actions with my taxes. I am redirecting the money to groups that are struggling to create a better world for all people.
I have no delusions that my act of resistance will do much to halt the tide of imperial aggression that the U.S. government is visiting upon the people of Iraq, nor stem the flow of military aid to its equally brutal outpost in Israel.
I do have the belief, shared by many, that as people in this country wake up from Operation Nightmare Amerikkka, our collective resistance is slowly but surely creating a tide strong enough to topple even the most entrenched power in this ridiculous land.
Until then, I bid you adieu.
Today may be yours; tomorrow is ours.
David Meyers
Ex-Taxpayer
For the year 2003, the IRS would claim that I owed $2,339 in taxes. Instead of paying those taxes, I redistributed that money as follows:
| Total: | $2,339 |
|---|---|
| Free Trade of the Americas Protesters’ Legal Fund: | $240 |
| Radios Populares: | $100 |
| Tompkins County Living Wage Coalition: | $120 |
| Voices in the Wilderness: | $250 |
| Brian Avery Medical Fund: | $110 |
| Puerto Rican Political Prisoners’ Commissary Fund: | $200 |
| Puerto Rican Cultural Center Childcare and Literacy Projects: | $340 |
| Democracy Now: | $100 |
| National War Tax Resistance Coord. Comm. | $118 |
| Hothouse’s Resistance to City Attack: | $100 |
| Autistic Spectrum Disorder Survivor’s Fund: | $100 |
| Autonomous Zone: | $80 |
| Michigan Peacemaker Team: | $240 |
| Seeds for Tierra y Libertad Little Village Garden: | $50 |
| Latino Union: | $46 |
| Dump Bush Campaign: | $50 |
| Oba Maja’s Medical Needs: | $10 |
| War Tax Resisters’ Penalty Fund: | $18 |
| Sierra Club: | $15 |
| Nature Conservancy: | $10 |
| American Friends Service Committee: | $10 |
| Ithaca Hours Book for DSBDA: | $25 |
| Wobblies: | $7 |
If you would like more information on war / anarchist tax resistance, please feel free to email me, or visit www.nwtrcc.org.
In solid,
David
