War Tax and Vortex: It’s a Matter of Priorities
While I have been involved in War Tax Resistance(WTR) for the past 20 years, I have paid property taxes to the City of St. Louis. Five years ago I bought a house at one of the many tax sales where the city sells houses for the back taxes owed after not being paid for 5… Continue reading
Fred Burks 2019
Dear friends in the IRS and others concerned about integrity in government, I am withholding 12% of my taxes again this year as I cannot morally or spiritually support the indiscriminate killing of many thousands of innocent civilians by the US military in recent years. If another country’s military were to kill US civilians, there… Continue reading
Larry Bassett 2019
Dear Sirs: I am sending this annual letter to Mr. Trump and Mr. Warner and Mr. Kaine and Mr. Cline. You bring to mind the founding fathers – white men. And also the often quoted phrase about how all MEN are created equal. We conveniently ignore the historic denigration of women, blacks and Native Americans…. Continue reading
To Owe or Not to Owe: Tax Time 2019
For the first time in decades I find myself in danger of not owing federal income tax. As a resister/protester, this is unacceptable! I am self-employed, so I usually do a rough run-through on my taxes before the January 15 deadline for sending in last quarter estimated taxes. As a war tax resister I have… Continue reading
It’s Definitely More Than a Paycheck
I am incredibly excited to have this opportunity to work with NWTRCC in the role of Outreach Consultant. The position involves strengthening and publicizing War Tax Resistance through social media and field organizing. War Tax Resistance has been more of a focal point since joining the Administrative Committee in 2016 and hosting the May gathering… Continue reading
U.S. Troop Withdrawal from the Middle East
In the latter half of December, President Trump announced the withdrawal of all 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria along with an additional withdrawal of 7,000 troops (a 50% reduction) from Afghanistan. Originally, Trump gave the military thirty days to remove troops from Syria, but now has extended the deadline to four months. One would think… Continue reading
Military Operations on the U.S./Mexico Border
I never had enough time in 2018 to write the post I wanted to write about escalating militarism on the U.S./Mexico border. Now I’m shifting out of my role as NWTRCC blog curator. While I don’t have much time to cover the issue, I want to at least bring it up again to our WTR… Continue reading
Resistance and Witness at the Cleveland National Air Show
At long last, here’s the video from our Friday night event in Cleveland. Maria Smith hosted the evening with Mike Fiala from Cleveland Catholic Worker and other speakers! Unfortunately there’s no closed captioning or transcript at this time – if someone is available to take that task on, please let us know!
How Much Do You Make?
A story from Finland jumped out of the paper at me recently: “In Finland, Every Citizen’s Taxable Income Is Revealed” (NY Times, 11/2/2018). The article describes a surprising tradition in that country. Many in Finland feel that this transparency helps to control the gap between high and low incomes and to control disparities in… Continue reading
No to NATO 2019
At our November 2018 meeting in Cleveland, NWTRCC endorsed the No to NATO, No to Racism call from the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), including a major mobilization to protest NATO’s meeting in Washington, D.C. on March 30, 2019, and other actions on April 4. NWTRCC chose to meet in Chicago during the weekend of… Continue reading
Conscience and History: Frivolous Filing
At my very first NWTRCC meeting in 2008 in Eugene, we met a local couple who had resisted $50 of their taxes as their first foray into war tax resistance. Along with their return, and a check for the total tax amount minus $50, they enclosed a letter explaining their reasons for resisting. Unfortunately, the… Continue reading
Old Propaganda War Tax Films
One of the highlights of the November 2018 NWTRCC conference in Cleveland was the preview showing of The Pacifist. As mentioned by Erica in a previous post, the film follows Larry Bassett’s refusal to pay over $100,000 in taxes. The film is still making the rounds of the film festival circuit, so is not yet… Continue reading
