Profiles

Breaking from Compliance By Ilene Roizman A year ago, committing to tax resistance felt like jumping off a cliff. There had been a three-year period a few years prior when circumstances allowed me to work so little I wasn’t required to file, and I didn’t, without any hesitation. So when it came time to make not filing a deliberate act of civil disobedience, I had already gotten over the hurdle of breaking from decades of compliance. Still, it wasn’t an easy decision to make. Working as a freelancer means no tax withholding. I’m supposed to put the money aside and actually write a check to the IRS every year. Two years ago, coming off the no-work period, there wasn’t much […]

By Michael McCarthy In May 2007, I wrote an article (pictured below) for the Port Huron, Michigan Times Herald called “Protesters want to pay taxes, but don’t want immoral war” about our project, “Iraq Peace Bonds.” We’d formed a local community to openly redirect some of the federal income tax money going to the Iraq war, in doable amounts — increments of $100 to meet human needs. Easier said than done, but worth the effort. The check we presented to our local library in 2007 was from 10 of us: seven paying forward what they planned to resist, and three of us already owing and therefore actually refusing payment to the IRS. We were a loose group of friends who’d […]

By Karl Meyer July 12, 2017 marked my anniversary for 60 years of active engagement with Catholic Worker communities. On that day in 1957, at lunch hour, I hurried out from my job as a stock clerk at Barnes and Noble in New York City, raced to the Catholic Worker House on Chrystie Street, and, for the first time met Dorothy Day, Ammon Hennacy, and a handful of others gathered there. We went out and sat on benches in the park across the street, in open non-cooperation with a State law requiring everybody to take shelter in buildings when air raid sirens sounded, supposedly training to protect ourselves in case of a massive attack by Soviet nuclear weapons. To us […]

By Ruth Benn Change is coming for NWTRCC and for me. After nearly 15 years as NWTRCC Coordinator, I am planning to end my tenure at the May 2018 gathering in Los Angeles. Our November meeting in Massachusetts established a hiring committee. They are laying out a timeline for advertising (see the insert in this issue!) and the process of seeking a new Coordinator. I took over from Mary Loehr at the wonderful conference in Santa Rosa, California, in May 2003. When I came to NWTRCC I had already been involved in war tax resistance for a couple decades, after learning about it as an intern with the American Friends Service Committee in Western Massachusetts. Pioneer Valley War Tax Resistance […]

By Charlie Toledo, Napa County, California Charlie Toledo I am an “assimilated” Indian supporting Northern California Native issues in Napa County, about 50 miles north of San Francisco, where I have lived since 1972. It’s a lovely place to have my home and family! I am a masseuse and hypnotherapist (since 1986) with a background in home births and organic gardening. In 1992 I was asked to reorganize Suscol Intertribal Council a community based organization focused on protecting Human Rights for Indigenous peoples of North America and preserving indigenous culture. Since 1995, I’ve been involved in international human rights and water and land issues locally and globally. My life vision was never to feed into the military-industrial complex.As a young […]

Sam Koplinka-Loehr interviews Sarah Mueller Courtesy of Sarah Mueller Sarah Mueller is a first year war tax resister. She lives in Philadelphia and is actively involved in justice-centric community film programming, neighborhood gardening initiatives, as well as, organizing for racial justice. Sam: As someone who is new to war tax resistance, what is exciting to you about this form of resistance? Sarah: I first learned of war tax resistance many years ago through my church, Circle of Hope, a Brethren in Christ Church of the Mennonite/Quaker world. I was very intrigued because of the practical nature of its resistance: “We are opposed to war and militarization, therefore we will not pay for it!” That planted the seed years ago. In […]

I have happily just passed the ten-month mark of my first year of massive resistance. I mark this new beginning of my life on June 11, 2016, with the death of my father and with my commitment to redirect much of my inheritance to make a better world. Dad left me $1 million with instructions to distribute about half of it to grandchildren and great-grandchildren and special others. I did that and set to work on my half. My commitment to civil disobedience in honor of my mother, who became a criminal for peace in her later years, is acted out in my case with war tax resistance. I am resisting the $128,005 I owe in federal income tax for […]

By Kayla Starr Courtesy of Kayla Starr, starrbotanicals.com In my 75 years, 30 of which as a war tax resister, I have known of no other time when an economic boycott of the federal government was more crucial. Now more than ever, as a grandmother of three beautiful grandchildren, I fear for the futures of the next generation if our country continues on the destructive path it has been following. I firmly believe that we cannot change our deeply corrupt government by voting alone. I have supported progressive candidates, voted in each election, but over the decades it became crystal clear to me that our national elections are carefully rigged to allow only candidates who support the status quo to […]

By Nathan Beall. My desire to live in community and to resist war began while I was in college, studying religion and working on the campus community garden. The spiritual and intellectual seeds planted there grew during my time in seminary, after which I returned to the college and parish that I attended as an undergraduate to live and work on that same community farm in Maryland. My community and I pray together and grow food for ourselves and for the poor. After a year, I was ordained as a priest and found my way into three employment opportunities: campus minister at the college, assistant at the parish, and professor of Religious Studies. All of these represented not only promising […]

By Margaret Weitzmann Courtesy of Margaret Weitzmann A bit of history: On November 4, 1977, Islamic revolutionaries in Iran stormed theU.S. Embassy, launching the hostage crisis. On February 1, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini became Iran’s premier. The deposed Shah bargained for asylum around Europe, the Mideast and Africa into the summer, when President Carter admitted him to the U.S. In April 1979, two things happened: The U.S. broke off diplomatic relations with Iran. And, friends who just happened to be visiting a Navy Fleet massed in Miami witnessed what looked to be a decontamination drill on board one of the vessels. I jumped to the conclusion that Carter was about to solve the hostage crisis by attacking Iran. Tax Day 1979 […]

By Kathy Labriola I am a counselor, nurse, and hypnotherapist in private practice in Berkeley, California, and I have been a war tax resister for nearly 40 years. With tax time fast approaching, I thought my story might be food for thought.) Any nation needs three things in order to wage war: young men and women to join the military, billions of dollars to finance a war, and a compliant and complicit public. Those of us who oppose war can take action in any or all of these three arenas. Refusing to pay taxes for war can be an important part of an overall strategy to end war, and I have tried to do my small part to obstruct wars […]

By Anne Barron, San Diego My sister was a war tax resister. She was the first person I knew who actively resisted war and an oppressive government by refusing to fund them. Still, it was hard for me to take that first step, to actually withhold taxes. I’ve always loved taxes; I even campaigned for higher taxation. (Since taxes paid my salary as a public school teacher, you could say I had a direct interest in taxation.) So it is odd to me now to be on the other side some ten years later, where I withhold 47% of what the IRS tells me is my bill for the USA. I still believe in taxes but after decades of marching […]