SENTIENT TIMES Feb/March 2001

Money Talks
By Kayla Starr

What country …?

Has the largest jail population in the world.

Spends more on defense than any other.

Has intervened militarily in 49 other nations since World War II.

Is the only nation that has used or threatened to use nuclear weapons on another nation 15 times since 1945.

Refuses to ratify the international treaty to ban land mines.

What country …?

Buys its national elections through draconian electoral practices, yet calls itself a democracy of, by and for the people.

Won’t agree to ratify the international treaty on greenhouse gases/climate warming.

Poisons, beats and imprisons non-violent political protesters.

Allows corporations to degrade the environment and workers rights with impunity.

Promotes genetically modified foods without scientific testing or regulations.

Imprisons patients who seek the benefits of medical cannabis and won’t allow farmers to grow industrial hemp.

Could this be the land of the free and the home of the brave?
No wonder half of the eligible voters stay home on election day. Even before the revolting events this year in Florida, most of us realize that elections are bought by the corporate elite. We see that even under the Democrats, Pentagon funding grows, U.S. military intervention in other nations' civil wars continues, the income gap widens between the rich and the rest of us, the last vestiges of ancient forests are falling. So, most people try to ignore political and social concerns, preferring to focus on their private lives where some semblance of satisfaction may still be possible.

We don't have to stand by helplessly watching our cities deteriorate, our resources squandered, our life support systems poisoned. All over the world, millions of people are protesting corporate dominance/globalization. We can no longer tolerate obscene income disparities, corporate welfare, illegal and immoral military interventions, human rights and environmental abuses. There is a way we can take action for change that has the potential to be highly effective, while allowing us to be true to our moral convictions. It's called war tax resistance. We have a potent opportunity here to say "No" to policies of war and destruction while saying "Yes" to human services, peace and environmental restoration in a way the really counts. We can actually use our tax dollars for good purposes and refuse to pay for what is evil.

One of the best ways to challenge the abuse of power is to refuse to fund the system that maintains it. This amounts to a financial boycott of Federal military policies. Now more than ever, the time is ripe to demand real change. A form of conscientious objection, war tax resistance—holding back all or part of federal taxes in order to prevent their use for war and injustice—has a long and honorable history in the United States, dating back to the colonial era and including such famous resisters as Henry David Thoreau. Today, more that 10,000 US citizens are openly redirecting their tax dollars to life affirming purposes.

Last year the U.S. military spent 22 times as much as its 7 top "enemies" combined. Clinton added $15 billion to the military budget and then Congress threw in another $7 billion. The US spends $75 million each and every day preparing to wage nuclear war, yet there's not enough money for basic social programs. The U.S. military serves primarily to protect corporate interests overseas—keeping Third World people in poverty and virtual slave labor, while protecting the right of the wealthy to exploit them.

Even many military experts are critical of Pentagon spending. The Center For Defense Information (CDI), an independent research organization which monitors military affairs, questions the Clinton Administration's decision to add billions of dollars in Pentagon spending over the next five years. "This budget accelerates our return to Cold War spending levels," said Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll, USN (Ret.), CDI's Deputy Director. The U.S. already spends substantially more for military forces than any other nation, with no significant threats to our national security. This is a time when we should be seriously addressing urgent national needs, not adding billions to the Pentagon's budget. The U.S. military budget remains the largest in the world and is still growing. According to the Center for Defense Information here’s how our military budget compares other countries:

United States $305.4 Billion
Russia $55.0
Japan $41.1
China $37.5
England $34.6
France $29.5
Germany $24.7
Saudi Arabia $18.4
South Korea $11.6
Taiwan $10.7
India $10.7

In most of the military conflicts in the last half century, the U.S. was directly involved— either with covert or overt aid, advisors, and/or arms sales—to one or both sides. In nearly all of these, the U.S. preference was for "stability" and against popular democracy. This means protection for U.S. corporate interests, regardless of human costs, or the cost to the U.S. public through taxes and destroyed human services. As scholar Michael Parenti has put it, "When it comes to protecting their profits, your money is no object!" The U.S. now dominates the world's arms trade, selling over twice as many weapons as every other country in the world combined. Both development and sales of these weapons are subsidized by our tax dollars.

Now, with the Bush promise to cut taxes, social programs are even more endangered. And, you can bet he won’t be cutting the Pentagon budget. In fact, he is proposing a $21 billion increase in military spending including the infamous Star Wars/national missile defense program.

While the wealthy pay a disproportionately small and decreasing share of taxes, they reap a disproportionately large share of the benefit from the worldwide system. The U.S. military does not, as it claims, protect us from people who would take what is rightfully ours; instead it protects the people who take what is rightfully ours, from us. These trends have been pushed for years by Republicans and Democrats alike—social and fiscal policies which further enrich the wealthy at the expense of all of the rest of us. While $620 billion (in fiscal year 1999) was handed to the military and its contractors, only $360 billion was available for desperately needed and rapidly disappearing programs such as health care, job training, education, environmental protection, housing, and worker safety.

Environmental destruction isn't simply a matter of carelessness or waste. It is a deliberate sacrifice of our earth for the short-term profit of those in power. Regardless of professed ideology, governments around the world aid and enforce corporate destruction of the environment. In the U.S., the gutting of environmental regulations and enforcement goes hand in hand with enormous military expenditures. The military serves not only to protect corporate pillaging around the globe; military production and training, not to mention warfare itself, use vast amounts of resources and destroy the environment directly. The 1991 Gulf War was the single most destructive environmental event in human history; nuclear war, which the U.S. spends more to prepare for than all other countries combined, would be the ultimate environmental disaster. Restoration of the environment requires new priorities. One of many tactics in the struggle for change is refusing to pay taxes for war and military spending—and redirecting refused tax money to positive uses which WE regard as essential.

Is Tax Resistance A Crime?
But, you may be wondering, what are the consequences of refusing to pay Federal income tax? The IRS has most people believing that they would be thrown in jail for such a travesty. This is absolutely not true. Intimidation can work only until we realize we have power over the lies. The IRS only has the authority to collect money. It can recommend criminal prosecution but does so only in cases of serious and flagrant violation after full investigation. The IRS does eventually collect from about 50% of tax resisters. However it costs the them an estimated $4000 for every $1000 they collect. Some tax resisters have never been pursued after 10 or more years of open tax resistance. Only about twenty tax resisters have ever been jailed and in each of those cases, there were other violations involved beyond military tax refusal. Last summer, seven tax resisters publicly tried to turn themselves in to the IRS headquarters in DC, to expose the myth of "go-to-jail-if-you-don’t-pay." They were locked out of the office. The IRS simply would not see them and wanted them to just go away quietly.

This further demonstrates that the IRS relies on massive intimidation. If many thousands stop cooperating by refusing to pay for U.S. atrocities, the government will be unable to prosecute most of us.

Here are some specific choices you can make now to become a peace and justice taxpayer instead of a war tax payer:

First, recognize that it is the responsibility of the government to serve the people and to behave morally. Second, be aware that war-making will never bring peace, serving the rich while ignoring the average citizen is immoral, and that human rights violations and destroying the environment cannot be tolerated any longer. Third, choose what degree of risk you are willing to take to follow your conscience. Levels of risk look something like this:

• Choose to live in voluntary simplicity, earning below the taxable amount, which incurs no risk at all.
• Refuse to pay the 3% federal excise tax on your phone bill. Thousands of Americans are doing this. Phone companies do not turn off your phone, they even have their computers set up to delete this amount from your next bill. This deprives the military budget of several million dollars per year. So many people are now doing this that there is no way the government can enforce payment; thus, no risk.
• Refuse to pay a percentage of your federal income tax such as the 49% that currently goes to the military, sending a letter along with your tax forms explaining why you are doing this, with a copy to your elected representatives. You risk having the IRS initiate collection procedures within 1 to 3 years. You may begin to receive letters requesting payment including interest and penalty charges. This usually goes on for several years. You may stop hearing from the IRS, or they may start threatening to seize your assets, ie: bank account, salary, and property in the amount they say you owe. You can hide your assets and/or you can decide to pay at any point in this process.
• Refuse to pay all of your federal income tax with similar risks as above. This way you can be certain that none of your money is paying for killing. There's a greater chance that collection procedures will be initiated and pursued by the IRS when more money is involved. Of course, the more people who refuse to pay, the lower the risk.
• Place the money that you have refused to send to the IRS in a special escrow account for refused military taxes such as those listed below. Your money earns interest and is combined with other refused tax monies to fund non-profit projects that serve peace, environment and human rights programs. The Seattle fund has about $350,000 of refused tax dollars invested in such projects. Your money can be withdrawn at any time if and when it is needed.
• Use the money to support projects of your own choosing, keeping records to show the IRS, to demonstrate your willingness to support positive social programs.
• Support other tax resisters with demonstrations, letters to newspapers and elected officials and financial contributions to tax resistance groups.

Many support organizations around the country for war tax resisters offer information and counseling. So when you decide to join this movement you will not be isolated. (See side-bar.)

Social change comes when many individuals act together. But before a movement develops, individuals begin to take action—even if it means acting alone. Look at our history. Henry David Thoreau spent a night in jail for refusing to pay taxes for the Mexican-American War; his essay "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" is part of the common heritage of the human race, reaching Tolstoy in Russia, Gandhi in India and, 100 years later, a young pastor in Alabama, Martin Luther King, Jr. The Civil Rights revolution began with one, two, or ten people defying racial barriers. It was united in purpose and action when Rosa Parks sat in the "whites only" section of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The Vietnam War protests began with a handful of people on the Berkeley campus. The women's suffrage movement started with a few brave women who marched and endured jail and hunger strikes to bring attention and support for their cause. So, if you’ve gotten discouraged with trying to change things through voting, letter writing or marching in the streets, consider joining the War Tax Resistance movement.

Kayla M. Starr has lived and worked in Southern Oregon for 13 years. She practices and teaches massage and Watsu in the Ashland area and can be reached at (541) 488-3495; kayla@mind.net

RESOURCES:
War Resisters League, 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012
(212) 228-0450; fax (212) 228-6193; wrl@igc.org; www.warresisters.orgj
National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC)
PO Box 6512, Ithica, NY 14851
(800) 269-7464 nwtrcc@lightlink.com; www.nwtrcc.org
Center for Defense Information
1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036
(202) 332-0600; Fax (202)462-4559; www.cdi.org
Peace House
PO Box 524
Ashland, OR 97520
(541) 482-9625
Alternative Funds or Community Peace Fund
(503) 796-3924
N. California War Tax Resistance and People's Life Fund
PO Box 2422, Berkeley, CA 94702
(510) 843-9877
Conscience and Military Tax Escrow Account
4554 12th Ave NE, Seattle, WA 98105
(206) 720-0952

SENTIENT TIMES
PO Box 1330 Ashland, OR 97520
PHONE (541) 512-1084 • FAX (541) 512-1085
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