A Time for War Tax Resistance
David Hartsough / Nonviolent Peaceforce
& National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee
(April 18, 2023) — My wife and I have been resisting/refusing to pay the 50% of our taxes, which go for war and the Pentagon every year since the Vietnam war. Each year we write a letter to the IRS with copies to the local newspaper and our Congresspeople saying:
“We cannot in conscience work for peace and pay for war and participate in killing our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world. We write a check for 50% of what we owe to the Department of Health and Human Services and send it together with our IRS form to the IRS and write another check for the other 50% of our taxes to the Peoples Life Fund which contributes the refused taxes of many war tax refusers to local groups working for peace and justice and a liveable future.”
The IRS usually cashes the check to the Department of Health and Human Services and sometimes loses that year’s paperwork in their computer and, in other years, attaches our Social Security checks to get the refused taxes.
The Peoples Life Fund then returns to us the contribution we made in refused taxes. If millions of Americans refused to pay for the wars — which are killing thousands of people and could end up with nuclear war and the deaths of most of the people in the world — they would have to end their forever wars.
If this seems a little scary, try refusing a token $10.40 or $100.40 together with your letter to the IRS. If millions of people did that, the government would certainly get the message.
For wars to exist, governments need young people willing to fight the wars and the taxes of the rest of us.
One of President Nixon’s top staff, when he looked out the window of the White House and saw over 100,000 people protesting, said: “Let them march all they want to as long as they pay their taxes.”
Wars can only continue if the people cooperate! Lets stop our cooperation with this madness!
For more information about war tax resistance, contact the War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee at nwtrcc@nwtrcc.org (800) 269‒7464 and the Peoples Life Fund at www.nowartax.org
Peace,
David Hartsough
