Posted on 07/04/2007 1:04:42 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Fed up with war, some won't pay taxes
By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN, Associated Press Writer 43 minutes ago
When the United States invaded Iraq more than four years ago, war opponent David Gross asked his bosses for a radical pay cut, enough so he wouldn't have to pay taxes to support the war.
"I was having a hard time looking at myself in the mirror," Gross said. "I knew the bombs falling were in part paid with my tax dollars. I had to actually do something concrete to remove my complicity."
The San Francisco technical writer was making close to $100,000 a year. He didn't know exactly how big of a pay cut he would need to fall below the federal tax threshold, but later figured out he would have to make less than minimum wage.
In any event, his employer turned him down and he quit. Gross, 38, now works on a contract basis, and last year he refused to pay self-employment taxes.
War tax resistance, popularized by Henry David Thoreau in the 19th century and by singer Joan Baez and others during the Vietnam War, is gaining renewed interest among peace activists upset over the Iraq war.
"Clearly this year we definitely had more people calling, sending e-mails about how they decided to start resisting," said Ruth Benn, coordinator of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee in New York.
Based on the committee's mailing list and reports from numerous groups it works with around the country, Benn estimates 8,000 to 10,000 Americans refuse to pay some or all of their federal taxes over war objections.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Some how I doubt that this genious of an idea ever entered his drug burned out mind when we started bombing the heck out of Bosnia during the Klinton administration.
$100K per year in San Fran Sicko... that’s less than the “living wage” isn’t it?
Good point. How much of the budget goes for national defense and how much of that goes to the war? I bet the total is much smaller than the amount of money that goes towards entitlements..
THROW HIM IN JAIL!
“Peace activists are considering a mass tax resistance campaign next April to step up pressure to end the war in Iraq, Benn said.” I hope that they do—nothing pisses off liberal democrats in congress more than not getting their taxes....they will go after these tax resisters...
Hows about we all quit paying taxes in protest against welfare.
Can they start secession hearing SOON and just move out of the U.S.?
No doubt. Especially considering that most of the money spent "on the war" is really the money that have been cut from military budget and have not been spent during Clinton years due to "peace dividend" after dissolution of Soviet Union, and in reality are now spent on the routine maintenance, and production of new equipment and new weapons that have been in research stage but had no funding. That was one of the Rumsfeld's priorities - development and production of new technology, along with reorienting military to adapt to the new kind of asymmetric war, i.e. support for special ops and intelligence ops, not supporting less effective old and expensive Army systems. No wonder some old Army cadre didn't like this as much and fought for old systems in budget allocations.
Bush's choices of JCOS + VJCOS of Air Force + Marine, Marine + Navy, Navy + Marine instead of Army were not accidental. We already are or soon will be seeing the deployment of 21st century technology designed against asymmetrical warfare, lethal and non-lethal - like lasers, AI robotics, stink bullets, disable-non-kill explosives etc.
throw them all in jail.
Ok, he won’t pay his taxes because he doesn’t want the money to go to the war. Then he should stop driving on public roads that were built with the help of Federal grants. He needs to stop eating any food grown on a farm that received a federal subsidy or loan. I could go on and on. What a wacko!!!
Ain’t it the truth. If these folks just said the 16th amendment was never ratified, they’d be heroes.
what percentage of abortions does our tax $ help fund? How about free drug needles? I bet he’s fine with that
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