[Mb-civic] Anti-War Activists Promote "Tax Resistance" As Direct Protest

Fri Apr 15 19:40:50 PDT 2005

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/1675

Anti-War Activists Promote ‘Tax Resistance’ As Direct Protest
by Martha Baskin (bio)

Plenty of Americans will miss this year's deadline for federal income 
tax filing, but for one segment of society, refusing to file or withholding 
partial funds is a very personal and direct form of protesting 
burgeoning US military expenditures.

Apr 12 - By April 15, the Internal Revenue Service estimates that 132 
million individual income tax returns will be filed and that two trillion 
dollars will be collected for the US Treasury. But in protest of the 
federal government's military expenditures, an estimated ten thousand 
people will not file their taxes or will deliberately withhold money from 
the IRS this year.

Glen Milner, an electrician and father of three in Seattle, Washington, 
files his taxes every year. His approach, however, is unusual. On the 
top of his 1040 form he writes in large print: "Some taxes withheld in 
protest of funds appropriated for illegal military purposes."

"What I'm doing," says Milner, "is telling the IRS right up front that 
somewhere in the form I'm withholding funds." He doesn't tell the 
agency where the missing funds are, but Milner has filed his taxes in 
this manner since 1985. A conscientious objector during the Vietnam 
War and an active proponent of US nuclear disarmament, Milner says 
he is putting his money "where his mouth is." He cannot resist 
militarization and war and pay for it at the same time, he says.

The government spends over half of its annual budget on past, present 
and future military expenses, before even considering tens of billions in 
supplementary funding allocated by Congress for ongoing wars such 
as those in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Antimilitarist tax resisters are fond of noting Principle IV of the 
Nuremberg Principles, drawn up to punish some individuals who 
committed crimes against humanity during the Second World War. 
"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or 
of a superior," the Principle reads, "does not relieve him from 
responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in 
fact possible to him." The moral choice for Milner is clear: withhold 
taxes from the government, in spite of the unpredictable risks.

A key component of serious war tax resistance is redirecting withheld 
federal tax dollars to humanitarian needs. The Conscience and Military 
Tax Campaign Escrow Account in Seattle is one of the largest such 
repositories in the country. A kind of charitable trust, interest from the 
account is granted on a yearly basis to nonprofit organizations 
dedicated to peace and justice. The beneficiaries have included Casa 
Maria Catholic Worker House in Milwaukee to help provide temporary 
housing to the homeless; the Columbia River Fellowship for Peace in 
Hood River, Oregon for counter-recruitment efforts; and the Palestine 
Solidarity Committee in Seattle, which runs informational programs 
about the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The escrow account, says organizer Eddie Tews, himself a tax 
resister, is also a good way for tax resisters to hide assets like cash or 
stocks from the IRS. "Say you owe the IRS at the end of the year," 
explained Tews. "You set it aside and put it into our account. If the IRS 
ever decides to collect, the money will be available."

Tews said the account was levied once in the 1980's. "The IRS 
somehow found out and we were ordered to pay -- which we didn't do."

The majority of tax resisters redirect federal income tax money 
independently, choosing to donate to a wide variety of local, national 
and international peace and justice organizations in critical need of 
financial support.

War tax resisters find a variety of ways to withhold money. Some resist 
phone taxes, others practice "W-4 resistance" by adding exemptions to 
their W-4 forms other than those they are legally entitled to. Others pay 
only a fraction of their taxes to reflect the portion of every dollar they 
perceive as committed by the government to military expenses. Still 
others simply live below the taxable income level.

The most common approach is phone tax resistance, which simply 
means deducting the 3 percent federal excise tax itemized on most 
telephone bills. The federal excise tax has been associated with war 
throughout most of its history. First imposed on toll calls in 1898 during 
the Spanish-American war era, it was removed in 1902. During World 
War I it was re-imposed as a temporary tax, and continued to tax 
telephone use in order to raise additional funds for wars from World 
War II through Vietnam. In 1990, the tax became permanent and was 
set at 3 percent.

Ruth Benn, with the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating 
Committee, says Congress was close to disposing of the phone duty 
prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks. In 2000, at a time of budget 
surplus, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed HR 
236, which would have repealed the 3 percent tax. The tariff survived, 
however, and now the government is so desperate for money, says 
Benn, that it will probably not be removed in the foreseeable future.

Many see withholding the phone tax as the least intimidating option for 
tax refusal because collection of delinquent dues is up to the IRS, not 
the phone company. Veteran tax resisters say the easiest way to 
refuse the phone tax is to write a letter of explanation to the phone 
company. Many companies, says Benn, have clear policies for war tax 
resisters.

Milner, the long-time 1040 tax resister, first began resisting war tax by 
not paying the federal excise tax on his phone bill. When he recently 
switched phone companies from Qwest to Tel West, Milner withheld 
the federal excise tax amount and wrote on his bill, "Federal tax 
withheld in protest of illegal military expenditures." After internal 
discussions, Tel West decided to credit the amount Milner had 
deducted to his account and pay the excise tax owed to the IRS itself.

In an email to Milner, Kerry Myers, Tel West's Manager of Financial 
Services wrote: "I have established this as the official Glen Milner 
policy! It was easier for me to make you federal excise tax exempt until 
we get our arms around how to handle [it] properly." Myers explained 
that from a customer satisfaction perspective, it was easier to credit 
Milner's account; especially since he is the company's sole customer 
who withholds excise tax to protest military expenditures.

The IRS monitors what it calls "noncompliance," but does not maintain 
a specific category of "war tax" withholding. In March the IRS issued a 
paper rebutting what it refers to as "frivolous arguments" for failure to 
pay taxes. These include arguments that the income tax is 
unconstitutional and that taxes may be withheld as a protest against 
government programs. War tax resistance would appear to fit this 
category.

Asked for comment, IRS media spokesperson, Eric Smith, referred 
The NewStandard to an IRS publication entitled, "The Truth About 
Frivolous Arguments." Page 19 of the 56-page document reads: 
"Some argue that taxpayers may refuse to pay federal income taxes 
based on their religious or moral beliefs, or objection to the use of 
taxes to fund certain government programs. These persons mistakenly 
invoke the First Amendment in support of this frivolous position. The 
First Amendment does not provide a right to refuse to pay income 
taxes on religious or moral grounds, or because taxes are used to fund 
government programs opposed by the taxpayer." The IRS then cites 
relevant case law supporting their position.

The consequences for war tax resistance are unpredictable, as are 
most direct actions for peace, says Milner. Criminal prosecution is 
possible, but in practice so rare that in most cases the risk is 
considered negligible. Since the modern war tax resistance movement 
began in the 1940s, less than 30 people have been jailed for resisting 
war taxes, the vast majority of them on convictions related to 
resistance such as refusing to provide records to the government and 
falsely filling out their W4 forms.

The more likely outcome is for the IRS to try collecting the tax owed 
through less coercive means. Those who file but refuse to pay will 
probably receive several tax-due notices and assessed penalties. Civil 
penalties may be added in the 5 to 25 percent range, plus compound 
interest at a rate of 10 percent. Eventually, the IRS will send a "Final 
Notice" letter that may take years to initiate more serious steps.

"They're all meant to intimidate you," said Tews, the Escrow account 
organizer, of the collection process.

Once the IRS issues a "final demand," its power of collection includes 
garnishing wages, seizing bank accounts and, in reportedly rare 
instances, seizing cars and houses. The National War Tax Resistance 
Coordinating Committee's website lists all of twelve tax resisters 
whose cars or houses were seized in the 1980s. Ruth Benn, member 
of the Committee, says the practice has become less and less 
common.

In Glen Milner's 22 years of withholding taxes, the IRS has audited him 
twice, with no additional taxes owed. He has also seen his wages 
garnished once from his union employer, once had monies taken from 
his union vacation fund and once more from his bank account. Milner 
admits that he and his wife, Karol Milner, were "scared to death" when 
they first began withholding money on their 1040 form. He reasons, 
however, that in a "democratic" society such as the United States, 
individuals have the responsibility to check their government's illegal 
actions, especially those connected to the war in Iraq and the nation's 
massive arsenal of nuclear weapons.

On the other hand, some non-filers may go undetected for years. In 
1994, Tews himself began practicing war tax resistance by refusing to 
pay the IRS hundreds of dollars annually. Every year, he says, the IRS 
demands payment by sending him a couple of letters, which he 
discards. In subsequent years Tews has avoided paying federal taxes 
altogether by practicing what he calls "W-4 resistance" or adding more 
exemptions than he's legally entitled to.

Nevertheless, Tews says the IRS has never audited him. "If I consent 
to pay more taxes, then more bombs are dropped, more pollution is 
made and more lives are destroyed; and if I have to suffer some 
infinitesimal level of consequences as a result of my actions compared 
to the consequences suffered by other people as a result of [me] 
consenting to pay my taxes, well to me that's -- it's not even worth 
talking about," he said.

Tax resistance is not a highly publicized component of the peace 
movement. The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee 
consists of a network of organizations and tax counseling services. 
There is a strong religious element, marked in part by the involvement 
of Quakers, Mennonites, and members of the Fellowship of 
Reconciliation.

A more recent affiliate is the Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness. 
Founded in 1996 to end economic and military sanctions against the 
Iraqi people, the organization has since expanded its objectives and 
urges serious peace advocates to engage in tax resistance.

"The one thing that the US government wants from most average, 
ordinary people in regards to this war is our money," says Kathy Kelley, 
one of the founders of Voices in the Wilderness. "From most of us, 
they don't want our lives – we certainly think of those who are being 
enlisted – but the reality of what the government wants is people to pay 
for this war and not to ask a lot of questions about it."

Kelley has been a war tax resister for most of her working life. She 
says she began by lowering her salary below the taxable income when 
she taught religion at a Jesuit school in Chicago. When she moved to 
one of Chicago's poorest neighborhoods on the north side at the height 
of the arms race between the former Soviet Union and the US, Kelley 
says she could not talk religion and then turn around and pay for a 
weapons build-up that could destroy the planet.

"The contradiction was just too much," she recalled. "I certainly 
couldn't take money that my neighbors desperately needed for food, 
for housing, for a drop-in center, for an alternative school – for so 
many needs in this impoverished area. I couldn't say well I don't have 
funds because I'm going to put it into buying more weapons."

She added, "I'm through with buying materials to kill people. Once you 
make that decision – if you really believe it – you can make it for a 
lifetime and then it's possible to withhold all federal income tax."

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