From How To Resist The War Without Hitting The Streets :
War tax resistance is an act of civil disobedience with a long history, from before the War of Independence when taxes were levied to pay for the French and Indian war through Henry David Thoreau, who said, during the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, "If a thousand [people] were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them and enable the state to commit violence and shed innocent blood" to the historic peace churches--Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren-- Ernest Bromley who became the first modern tax resister in 1942 when he refused payment of $7.09 for a "defense tax stamp" required for all cars to Joan Baez to Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle who urged citizens to refuse to pay 50 percent of their income taxes to protest spending on nuclear weapons.
Many who refuse to pay war taxes believe--some citing international law--this refusal is just. The federal government, however, considers refusal to pay taxes illegal and imposes potential consequences through the IRS collection system on those who don't like war. With the privatization of the IRS, these consequences could get bogged down in red tape. The government does its best to stop this but is hamstrung by telephone tax resisters: there are so many and so little tax owed per person that the IRS loses money every time it makes a collection. Even the simplest IRS paperwork is far too expensive to be worth following up on resistance to war. As privatizers are interested in profit, the result may be a total lack of follow-through.
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