War Tax Resistance as Self-Care
Last week on Twitter, I saw that David Gross retweeted a message from author Sofia Samatar in which she described war tax resistance as self-care. I was immediately taken with this concept, and while Sofia’s plate was too full to write about it, she gave her blessing for me to run with it! So thanks… Continue reading
David and Jan Hartsough (2014)
Dear Friends, Following is our letter to the IRS refusing to pay for killing other people, for wars and preparation for wars. Instead, we have made a check to the Department of Health and Human Services for 53% of our taxes owed and have contributed the remaining 47% to programs meeting human and environmental needs.. We hope… Continue reading
7 Weeks Until #TaxDay !
Tax Day, April 15, is in just seven short weeks. Every year, NWTRCC network affiliates take action to bring attention to the United States’ military budget and to the tactic of war tax resistance (here’s last year’s Tax Day report). Common actions include distributing the War Resisters League’s federal budget pie chart, conducting penny polls,… Continue reading
Redirecting Our Money, Time, and Focus from War
Last week in NWTRCC’s Strategy Committee, we discussed war tax redirection, which is a tactic employed by many war tax resisters. The money such resisters refuse to pay to the IRS, they instead “redirect” it to organizations they feel will make better use of the money. (Read more about redirection on our website.) One of… Continue reading
Weathering a WTR Workshop
On February 7, Ed Hedemann and I headed up to Rochester, New York, from Brooklyn, on the bus to facilitate a Friday night/Saturday war tax resistance workshop. We’ve had quite a winter, so heading 300 miles north, where the cold and snow was bound to be worse, left us wondering if the workshop would be… Continue reading
Zero Interest in Paying the Killing Machine’s Bills
I learned everything I need to know about the United States when I saw that picture of the young Vietnamese girl Kim Phuc running down the road with napalm burning through her skin to her bones. I finally in 1980 began questioning whether I wanted to spend my life paying for the death of other… Continue reading
War Tax Resistance Trailblazer
Today, January 26, in Philadelphia the Quaker Action Team honors five elders, including our friend and associate Robin Harper. NWTRCC sent this tribute in his honor: Speaking truth to power has been the undercurrent of Robin Harper’s years as a war tax resister. Since Robin began his resistance in 1958, he has had many opportunities… Continue reading
Martin Luther King, Jr. on War and Civil Disobedience
Today we honor Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy as a passionate orator and organizer in the civil rights movement. He was also outspoken about the connections between racial, social, and economic justice and the United States government’s militarism. MLK was inspired by the war tax resistance of Henry David Thoreau and stated that, “As a… Continue reading
Raising Taxes to Pay for War?
Over at liberal blogging haven Daily Kos, Jon Parr has suggested the old chestnut that if all those Congresspeople want war (this time, with Iran), maybe they should propose a tax increase to pay for it. Maybe then, the argument goes, both Congresspeople and Americans can see the great cost of war. As we saw… Continue reading
Ways to Deal with the IRS
While it would be great if we could have conversations with the DoD or Pentagon directly, for many war tax resisters our primary government contact is with the IRS. Beginning with the choice of whether or not to file an income tax return for Tax Day, our choice of resistance tactics can affect the type… Continue reading
99 Tactics of Successful Tax Resistance Campaigns
“The heart of any tax resistance campaign is the resisters themselves. A successful campaign does what it can to encourage, support, and sustain these resisters and to facilitate their resistance.” -David Gross, 99 Tactics of Successful Tax Resistance Campaigns NWTRCC network member David Gross has been working for several months on a book about tactics… Continue reading
Conscientious objectors needed now more than ever
by Ken Butigan originally published December 19, 2013 in Waging Nonviolence republished under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license In our present age of permanent war, it is almost impossible to recall a time when armed conflicts clearly began and ended. In that ancient, bygone era — say, before 2003 — one could judiciously ruminate… Continue reading
