Peace Activists Protest War by Refusing Taxes
On Sat., May 3, in Birmingham, AL, $93,000 of unpaid "war taxes" - federal income taxes - will be publicly redirected away from the Internal Revenue Service to a New Orleans health clinic and to a group in the Middle East aiding Iraqi refugees. This redirection ceremony will take place during a meeting of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.
On Sat., May 3, in Birmingham, AL, $93,000 of unpaid "war taxes" - federal income taxes - will be publicly redirected away from the Internal Revenue Service to a New Orleans health clinic and to a group in the Middle East aiding Iraqi refugees. This redirection ceremony will take place during a meeting of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.
For reasons of conscience, over 520 people from 44 states have "boycotted" $325,000 of their 2007 federal taxes. Of that total, $50,000 has been designated for the Common Ground Health Clinic in New Orleans and the Direct Aid Initiative will receive $43,000. The remaining $232,000 has been designated for scores of other humanitarian projects in the United States and around the world. These taxpayers are committing civil disobedience to demonstrate to Congress how to cut off the funds for this war and redirect resources to the pressing needs of people.
The money will provide healthcare to survivors of Katrina and refugees from the Iraq war, living in Jordan and Syria. (For details on each project, see www.cghc.org or www.directaidiraq.org.).
The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee is a 25-year-old coalition of groups who support war tax resisters.
Man denies IRS, saying he won't support war effort
Joshua Klein was one of millions of procrastinators who flocked to post offices around the nation to file their tax returns mere hours before the deadline.
Holding his 15-month-old daughter Finnegan Rose in one arm, Klein walked up to the U.S. post office on Spring Street on Tuesday afternoon and dropped a small envelope into the mailbox.
The envelope, addressed to the Internal Revenue Service, contained Klein's 1040 form.
But in lieu of a check to Uncle Sam, Klein submitted a letter explaining why he is refusing to pay his federal income taxes this year.
Klein, a 31-year-old city retail manager, said he could not "in good conscience" pay his income taxes, knowing some of the money would be used to fund the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the country's other "violent military ambitions." "I may be facing potential jail time, but I cannot look my daughter in the eye and know that I'm paying for others to suffer," said Klein of Nashua.
Klein said he was also driven to take this admittedly "drastic step" because of the Bush administration's approval of using harsh interrogation techniques against terror suspects.
"I cannot stand for my hard-earned labor and dollars to pay for torture," he said. "It's not something I believe in."
Klein, who declined to reveal his faith, said he's refusing to pay his taxes because his "chosen religion requires nonviolence and compassion."
Klein would not reveal how much he owed but said he's donating the money to America's Second Harvest, the largest domestic hunger-relief organization in the country, and the American Civil Liberties Union, although he's not affiliated with either group.
Klein is joining a war tax resistance movement that has gained interest among peace activists upset over the Iraq war.
According to the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, between 8,000 and 10,000 Americans have refused to pay some or all of their federal taxes because they object to the Iraq war.
The IRS says it doesn't have figures for that specific category, but last year it reported an overall noncompliance rate of 16.3 percent and estimated the annual tax gap at about $345 billion.
The IRS considers it a "frivolous argument" when a taxpayer cites disagreement with the government's use of tax money as the reason for not paying taxes. The penalty for filing frivolous tax returns is $5,000.
Weary of War? Don't Collaborate.
In light of reports that rising oil prices will endow Iraqis with a large surplus of funds, it's helpful to consult commentary by seasoned analysts regarding energy issues. On April 11, UPI's Energy Editor Ben Lando clarified that "Iraq would not make $100 billion in oil sales this year ... unless the price of oil went substantially higher, like nearing $200 per barrel. And the 'surplus' would be anything beyond the $50 billion 2008 budget, which at current oil prices will give it just about a $10 billion surplus."
In February, Iraq produced 2.4 million barrels per day of oil, of which about 1.6 million barrels per day are exported from the south (the rest being for domestic consumption). Assume a price of $100 per barrel of oil; multiply it by 1.6 million barrels; and multiply again by 365 days and you get $58.4 billion in annual revenue from oil. Iraq's budget for 2008 is about $54.3 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund. Any decline in oil prices, damage to Iraq's oil infrastructure, or other shock to production and Iraq's "surplus" vanishes into thin air.
Before U.S. lawmakers imagine ways to spend Iraq's possible "surplus", they should be asked about the "rights" of an aggressor nation that illegally invades another country. The U.S. waged an unprovoked war of choice against Iraq, a country which posed no threat whatsoever to U.S. people. Did Iraq have any "rights" after it invaded Kuwait? An aggressor nation has no rights. Period. Indeed, the international community--via the U.N. Security Council--continues to punish the Iraqi people for the crimes of Saddam Hussein's regime by requiring Iraq to pay five percent of its oil revenues as "war reparations" for the prior regime's invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990-91 (with virtually all of the remaining payments going to the governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia or those country's state owned oil enterprises).
Commenting on suggestions that the U.S. impose financial obligations on Iraq, Lando writes:
"This begs the question as to whether a country can invade another country - which inherently destroys the capital, political and societal infrastructure - poorly spend both occupying and occupied funds, unilaterally create conditions of chaos requiring ongoing security and reconstruction funds, and then bind the occupied country to make reparations and take out loans from the occupying country?"
What are some of the "conditions of chaos requiring ongoing security and reconstruction funds" in Iraq? In 1991, the United States deliberately targeted, bombed and destroyed Iraq's infrastructure--in particular its water treatment plants, its electrical plants, and its electrical power grid. This damage was exacerbated over the next thirteen years as the U.S. and UK insisted that the UN maintain brutally punitive economic sanctions that prevented Iraq from substantively rebuilding and caused further decay and debilitation in every sector of Iraq's infrastructure. The sanctions also caused widespread disease, starvation and impoverishment--directly contributing toward the deaths of over one half million children under age five.
Today, available statistics about the consequences of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq speak of misery and chaos nearly unimaginable to most U.S. people. One out of six Iraqis has been displaced from their homes. A March 2007 report from Save the Children, a US based NGO, stated that 122,000 Iraqi children didn't reach their fifth birthdays in the year 2005 alone. UNAMI, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, in its most recently issued report on humanitarian conditions in Iraq, stated that 54% of Iraqis live on less than $1 per day, including 15% who are forced to live on less than fifty cents per day. 70% of Iraq's people lack access to potable water. 43 % of Iraqi children under age five suffer a form of malnourishment, with 23% suffering from chronic malnourishment and 8% suffering acute malnourishment. 40% of Iraq's population are children under 15 years of age. Should these children be deprived of food and clean water so that their country is instead forced to pay U.S. forces to drop bombs on them, shoot at them, and exacerbate any or all of the three civil wars which analyst Juan Cole says are now well underway in Iraq?
In the past year, U.S. aerial bombardments of Iraqi neighborhoods increased five fold while the number of Iraqis incarcerated in U.S. prisons in Iraq has doubled. (Some 24,000 Iraqis are now imprisoned by U.S. forces, approximately 650 of whom are juveniles). If a foreign country were bombing U.S. cities and imprisoning U.S. civilians, would we ever agree to pay the invaders' military expenses? Would we agree that the aggressor nation had no fiscal responsibilities to pay for reparations?
Perhaps news of U.S. lawmakers' weariness over Iraq's "free ride" will prompt some Iraqis currently aligned with U.S. forces to stop aiming their weapons against other Iraqis and to instead find common cause, using all means of nonviolent resistance, to defy the U.S. occupation.
Man denies IRS, saying he won't support war effort
Joshua Klein was one of millions of procrastinators who flocked to post offices around the nation to file their tax returns mere hours before the deadline.
Holding his 15-month-old daughter Finnegan Rose in one arm, Klein walked up to the U.S. post office on Spring Street on Tuesday afternoon and dropped a small envelope into the mailbox.
The envelope, addressed to the Internal Revenue Service, contained Klein's 1040 form.
But in lieu of a check to Uncle Sam, Klein submitted a letter explaining why he is refusing to pay his federal income taxes this year.
Klein, a 31-year-old city retail manager, said he could not "in good conscience" pay his income taxes, knowing some of the money would be used to fund the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the country's other "violent military ambitions." "I may be facing potential jail time, but I cannot look my daughter in the eye and know that I'm paying for others to suffer," said Klein of Nashua.
Klein said he was also driven to take this admittedly "drastic step" because of the Bush administration's approval of using harsh interrogation techniques against terror suspects.
"I cannot stand for my hard-earned labor and dollars to pay for torture," he said. "It's not something I believe in."
Klein, who declined to reveal his faith, said he's refusing to pay his taxes because his "chosen religion requires nonviolence and compassion."
Klein would not reveal how much he owed but said he's donating the money to America's Second Harvest, the largest domestic hunger-relief organization in the country, and the American Civil Liberties Union, although he's not affiliated with either group.
Klein is joining a war tax resistance movement that has gained interest among peace activists upset over the Iraq war.
According to the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, between 8,000 and 10,000 Americans have refused to pay some or all of their federal taxes because they object to the Iraq war.
The IRS says it doesn't have figures for that specific category, but last year it reported an overall noncompliance rate of 16.3 percent and estimated the annual tax gap at about $345 billion.
The IRS considers it a "frivolous argument" when a taxpayer cites disagreement with the government's use of tax money as the reason for not paying taxes. The penalty for filing frivolous tax returns is $5,000.
Weary of War? Don't Collaborate.
In light of reports that rising oil prices will endow Iraqis with a large surplus of funds, it's helpful to consult commentary by seasoned analysts regarding energy issues. On April 11, UPI's Energy Editor Ben Lando clarified that "Iraq would not make $100 billion in oil sales this year ... unless the price of oil went substantially higher, like nearing $200 per barrel. And the 'surplus' would be anything beyond the $50 billion 2008 budget, which at current oil prices will give it just about a $10 billion surplus."
In February, Iraq produced 2.4 million barrels per day of oil, of which about 1.6 million barrels per day are exported from the south (the rest being for domestic consumption). Assume a price of $100 per barrel of oil; multiply it by 1.6 million barrels; and multiply again by 365 days and you get $58.4 billion in annual revenue from oil. Iraq's budget for 2008 is about $54.3 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund. Any decline in oil prices, damage to Iraq's oil infrastructure, or other shock to production and Iraq's "surplus" vanishes into thin air.
Before U.S. lawmakers imagine ways to spend Iraq's possible "surplus", they should be asked about the "rights" of an aggressor nation that illegally invades another country. The U.S. waged an unprovoked war of choice against Iraq, a country which posed no threat whatsoever to U.S. people. Did Iraq have any "rights" after it invaded Kuwait? An aggressor nation has no rights. Period. Indeed, the international community--via the U.N. Security Council--continues to punish the Iraqi people for the crimes of Saddam Hussein's regime by requiring Iraq to pay five percent of its oil revenues as "war reparations" for the prior regime's invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990-91 (with virtually all of the remaining payments going to the governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia or those country's state owned oil enterprises).
Commenting on suggestions that the U.S. impose financial obligations on Iraq, Lando writes:
"This begs the question as to whether a country can invade another country - which inherently destroys the capital, political and societal infrastructure - poorly spend both occupying and occupied funds, unilaterally create conditions of chaos requiring ongoing security and reconstruction funds, and then bind the occupied country to make reparations and take out loans from the occupying country?"
What are some of the "conditions of chaos requiring ongoing security and reconstruction funds" in Iraq? In 1991, the United States deliberately targeted, bombed and destroyed Iraq's infrastructure--in particular its water treatment plants, its electrical plants, and its electrical power grid. This damage was exacerbated over the next thirteen years as the U.S. and UK insisted that the UN maintain brutally punitive economic sanctions that prevented Iraq from substantively rebuilding and caused further decay and debilitation in every sector of Iraq's infrastructure. The sanctions also caused widespread disease, starvation and impoverishment--directly contributing toward the deaths of over one half million children under age five.
Today, available statistics about the consequences of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq speak of misery and chaos nearly unimaginable to most U.S. people. One out of six Iraqis has been displaced from their homes. A March 2007 report from Save the Children, a US based NGO, stated that 122,000 Iraqi children didn't reach their fifth birthdays in the year 2005 alone. UNAMI, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq, in its most recently issued report on humanitarian conditions in Iraq, stated that 54% of Iraqis live on less than $1 per day, including 15% who are forced to live on less than fifty cents per day. 70% of Iraq's people lack access to potable water. 43 % of Iraqi children under age five suffer a form of malnourishment, with 23% suffering from chronic malnourishment and 8% suffering acute malnourishment. 40% of Iraq's population are children under 15 years of age. Should these children be deprived of food and clean water so that their country is instead forced to pay U.S. forces to drop bombs on them, shoot at them, and exacerbate any or all of the three civil wars which analyst Juan Cole says are now well underway in Iraq?
In the past year, U.S. aerial bombardments of Iraqi neighborhoods increased five fold while the number of Iraqis incarcerated in U.S. prisons in Iraq has doubled. (Some 24,000 Iraqis are now imprisoned by U.S. forces, approximately 650 of whom are juveniles). If a foreign country were bombing U.S. cities and imprisoning U.S. civilians, would we ever agree to pay the invaders' military expenses? Would we agree that the aggressor nation had no fiscal responsibilities to pay for reparations?
Perhaps news of U.S. lawmakers' weariness over Iraq's "free ride" will prompt some Iraqis currently aligned with U.S. forces to stop aiming their weapons against other Iraqis and to instead find common cause, using all means of nonviolent resistance, to defy the U.S. occupation.
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