Letters

To Whom It May Concern: Enclosed please find my federal tax return for the year 2018, which I have filled out honestly and accurately to the best of my knowledge. However, I have not enclosed payment for the amount indicated on line 22. I have redirected this amount to organizations that promote peace, justice, reconciliation, and healing. Allow me to tell you why. The Trump Administration has undeniably made the world a more dangerous place. Not only does the Administration plan to increase our already-bloated military budget to an astonishing $750 billion, but they propose to add $7.87 billion to “replace and modernize” America’s nuclear arsenal. This, plus the planned withdrawal from the INF Treaty, can only rekindle a new […]

To the Internal Revenue Service Copies to : Rep. Dwight Evans, Senator Bob Casey, Senator Patrick J. Toomey, President Donald Trump To my government representatives, My 2018 tax return says that I owe $215 in taxes. I am once again writing to explain why I will not pay the amount I owe to the federal government. Currently the majority of every tax dollar goes to pay for past, present, and future wars. I can not pay for war. As much as I value our country’s laws, I believe that God’s laws must come first, and God tells us, “Thou shalt not kill.” In addition to paying for foreign wars, the 1033 Program transfers excess military equipment to civilian law enforcement […]

Dear Congressman Himes, Senators Murphy and Blumenthal and Mr. President, I am going act in accordance with the Article 1 in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, join the movement of conscientious objectors and refuse to pay 24% of my federal taxes this year. Instead, I will redirect that money to supporting human rights because the federal government is lacking significantly in doing so. Article one states that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” yet the United States budget and resulting actions of the military do not align with this article. It is well documented that millions of civilians get killed by US Troops every year. We spend significantly more on private contractors and […]

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 would be a huge uproar. Yet our military kills civilians with impunity, listing them as “collateral damage.” Besides being immoral, this is clearly turning family and friends of those killed against the United States and creating even more terrorists. The US military additionally repeatedly commits illegal acts by carrying out wars that have never been declared by Congress, violating Article I Section 8 Clause 11 […]

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. Some of that denigration carries forward even today. My annual letter generally focuses on the massive military spending of the US. I am a part of a very small group of people who as conscientious objectors to out of control military spending and war making openly refuse to pay some or all of our federal income taxes because such a large percentage of those taxes […]

IRS, I’m writing this from a prison bus on my way to arraignment for demonstrating against the launching of the first Trident Nuclear Submarine, the world’s most powerful killing machine. Since I was prepared to refuse my body as cannon fodder for the Vietnam War (my lottery number was not called for the last year of the draft), I can no longer pay for others to do what my own conscience will not allow. So, from now on, I will refuse to pay federal income taxes, since more than 50% of the revenue goes toward funding past, present and future wars, none of which are waged to protect our own national territory. – Robert Riversong, 1979

Dear IRS Friends, I have refused to pay for war for thirty five years, and I am not stopping now.  I am a Christian. My belief tells me that to follow Christ, I must refuse to cooperate with a government that believes it is alright to spend 50% of money received on war and weapons of war, as well as training our young to kill and maim the enemy of the state.   I think of how many people in the world could be helped so much with the trillions of dollars that cannot be accounted for by the U.S. military.  I believe that Fiscal Times wrote that as much as $21 trillion cannot be accounted for by the military.  Yet […]

16 April 2018  Dear good people at the IRS,  Enclosed is my 1040-V Payment Voucher for my 2017 taxes.  You will find a check in the amount of $1,268 due for self-employment tax (social security tax).  You will note that I have NOT paid my income tax due ($261). I would like to explain why.  I feel compelled to join the ranks of those who cannot, in good conscience, support our government’s preparation for violence and war as a means to peace and cooperation in our global community.  As Martin Luther King said so many years ago:  “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual […]

Dear Friends at the IRS, We are Quakers and cannot in conscience pay for the killing of other human beings or pay for war and preparations for war. Human life is too precious to drop bombs on people because we do not like their governments. Developing a new generation of nuclear weapons which could put an end to life on our beautiful planet is insane. Giving the Pentagon hundreds of billions of dollars does not increase the security of our people when we are cutting funds for schools, libraries, job training, and now even the EPA and diplomacy work at the State Dept. The “war on terror” being fought  in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere, and increased  use of […]