The front page article was about the confusion around various presentations of the military budget by peace groups and the proper terms to use to explain those percentages. The article sets out to explain the differences among “discretionary spending,” “mandatory spending,” “federal funds,” “trust funds,” and “Where Your Income Taxes Really Go.” The confusion is pretty much the same today, so if you need a refresher, that newsletter is still online at https://nwtrcc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/mtap0213.pdf. Another good source is the National Priorities Project website, which includes a Federal Budget 101 section with explanations about the budget process and also a Glossary that includes the terms above.

Looking at that issue from Feb./March 2013 also reminded me that some may be wondering if War Resisters League is producing a new pie chart this year. The answer is yes. It looks like Biden is releasing the 2024 budget on March 9, so as soon as it’s online we’ll work as fast as we can on the analysis and get it printed and posted online. The timeline is a bit tight for tax day, but at least this year we will be able to work from current numbers. Last year Biden’s budget came out some time after tax day. Of course, how much any administration’s budget reflects reality is an open question. It will be interesting to see the accounting for all the money they have been shipping off periodically to keep the war in Ukraine going.

That newsletter also has a commentary by Gary Erb, who, among other things, takes issue with how the federal debt is presented on the pie chart. I am not sure we have ever satisfied his concerns, but we will make an effort this year to reconsider the percent of the debt that is war-related. This is a tough one to sort through. Historically war has been the major contributor to federal debt, but the previous president’s tax cuts, the pandemic and some of Biden’s programs have added significant amounts more recently. Whether we’ll stick with the 80% is an open question for now.

If budget talk makes you yawn, that newsletter has a  write-up of a member survey that might hold some insights for organizing today. And there’s a review of Peg Morton’s memoir, Feeling Light Within, I Walk: Tales, Adventures and Reflections of a Quaker Activist. She died in 2015, and her book is a good read about a life well lived.

— Post by Ruth Benn
Co-author of the WRL pie chart

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My 2020 tax folder is piling up with letters back and forth.

However, I had to write back a dispute because they did not correct their original error. The IRS took my estimated and final payments for 2020 self-employment/Social Security taxes and applied them to my income tax debts for 2011 and 2012. This is against IRS regulations. I wrote them about this is August 2021 but got no reply, so last week I copied that text and sent it back to them with my corrected calculations.

I have a feeling this is going to go on for a while. By my original calculations my resisted income tax for 2020 was $1,216. Since the IRS misapplied my 2020 payments, they say I owe $4,431, including interest and penalties and a credit I had overlooked for one of those stimulus checks I didn’t receive.

My dispute letter repeats my calculations but includes the credit. If the IRS accepts it and returns my payments to the proper year, the down side for me is that I may end up with an overpayment for 2020. In addition, all this delay has also messed up the real amount I should be getting in my Social Security payments. That and the fact that the IRS needs to apply estimated tax payments properly and follow their own regulations are reasons to carry on this correspondence.

NYC City Council member Carlina Rivera announces the Move the Money resolution on December 7 at City Hall. Photo by Ruth Benn. More photos by Ted Reich here.

Meanwhile, I did have a better time at a press conference for the NYC Move the Money campaign. City Council Member Carlina Rivera hosted the press conference on the steps of City Hall to announce the introduction of a “Move the Money” resolution in the NYC City Council. If passed, Res. 0423-2022 puts the city on record calling on Congress and the President to cut the military budget and fund social services. City officials who spoke at the press conference spoke eloquently and with passion about the importance of moving the money.

As with most such resolutions it is symbolic, but the campaign itself is a worthy one for peace groups as far as public education goes and the opportunity to work with a broader coalition. The NYC Move the Money coalition itself is made up of 60 labor, peace, community, clergy, environmental and racial justice organizations — and growing. Many of those groups are demanding the mayor fund social services (or at least avoid cuts), but they don’t talk about the obvious source of revenue to fund these programs. Move the Money makes the connection and opens the door for more dialogue and cooperation.

— Post by Ruth Benn

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Participants:  Switzerland, UK,  Germany, Italy, Colombia, Belgium, USA,  attendance both in person and online. NWTRCC participants Ruth Benn, Cathy Deppe, Eleanor Forman, William Ruhaak.

Cathy Deppe (lower left) speaking virtually at the CPTI conference. All photos courtesy of CPTI.

Major Organizing for Conference:  CPTI–Conscience and Peace Tax International Board of Directors, with current leadership from Conscience UK Robin Brookes. CPTI has NGO standing at the United Nations regarding Human Rights Council membership.

Conference focus was on two campaigns: (1) the U.N. Human Rights Council now taking up the Conscientious Objection to Military Service quadrennial resolution submitted by CPTI and to be voted on by early October, and (2) war tax resistance.

I tuned in for the first session at midnight to hear from Dr. Michael Wiener of the OHCHR (Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights). I did miss hearing the introductory remarks by Robin Brooks, CPTI Chair, since the microphone was not turned on. I couldn’t always tell who was speaking because I only saw some of the participants on my screen, and never the main speaker.

Dr. Michael Wiener (left) from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Dr. Weiner gave a historical overview of the last 30 years in regard to “Freedom of Religion or Belief.” He explained that it is common practice to accept a resolution without a vote if no party objects. Also, there are no enforcement mechanisms for resolutions, while treaties carry legal obligations. The first resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council on “Conscientious Objection to Military Service” (COMS) was adopted in 2013, the second in 2017, and now awaits adoption in 2022. At General Assembly, 90% of the countries have accepted it, except for Iran, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and Cuba!

Positive results triggered by these resolutions include a change in the Republic of (South) Korea, where 18,000 had been jailed for refusing to serve in the military. The country now provides alternatives to military service. Armenia also made a similar U-turn. But many countries still do not recognize COMS either by law or practice.

To strengthen the rights of CO’s, we need to consider those in territories like northern Cypress and a region of Moldavia, where there may be objectors who are not protected because they do not belong to a recognized “state,” yet may be forced to fight. In Ukraine, men 18-60 years old cannot leave the country or their residence, and the CO provision that previously existed for alternative service is no longer available.

After the conference on WORLD PEACE DAY (21 September 2022), CPTI was to be part of an international protest in favor of CO’s involved on all sides of military conflicts. There are implications here for LGBTQI folks.

Colombia now recognizes some CO’s, reported the CPTI representative for Colombia.

War Tax Resistance

Cristophe Barbey speaks to the military tax situation in Switzerland.

Cris Barbey, the CPTI rep from Switzerland, who also represents CPTI at the UN, spoke about the three strategies for war tax resistance: (1) withhold and redirect, (2) go to court and then appeal using local and international law, and (3) pass legislation (e.g., peace tax fund legislation).

The Italian delegate said Italy has a mechanism to allow some taxpayers to direct some taxes away from or toward things.

The German delegate said Germany is experiencing a dramatic increase in military taxation. It is now 2% of GNP.

SESSION TWO

This began at 5:30 AM Pacific Time. First, there was a review of the U.N. structure, which I found very informative, if a bit tedious.

• Universal Periodic Reviews: These reviews must be submitted 3-4 times a year by two different bodies. CPTI has NGO status and needs to submit its report to get it into the Periodic Review.
• Special Procedures: This is the process that uses Special Rapporteurs, experts in their fields who are appointed to work on country mandates. (Not sure, but think “mandates” refer to the numbered Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Number 18 – Freedom of Religion or Belief  informs our CPTI resolutions.) We work with a Special Rapporteur who is a Professor at Oxford who handles Religious Freedom and thus handles CO’s.

CPTI’s NGO status allows it to submit allegations to the Special Rapporteur, who has 60 days to write a letter and who can call a press conference!

When a country has a human rights crisis situation, the U.N. calls for investigation by a Special Rapporteur (SR) expert in the particular human rights issue. The SR follows a process:

• Write the government either an “Allegation Letter” usually when there is a pattern, or an “urgent” letter often about an individual transgression (like a kidnapping), or “Other.” Experts base their analysis on human rights international law.
• Make a country visit and prepare a thematic report.

Derek Brett, also a CPTI rep at U.N. from Switzerland, explained that the U.N. website lists all these reports. He described the ten types of Human Right treaties and said it can take years to get a treaty ratified.

Country Reports

Milena Romero speaks of the military tax situation in Colombia.

Colombia: The goal is to publicize and recognize coups in Colombia. We came to Geneva to speak to the Special Rapporteur about freedom and conscience in Colombia, but our country itself is not open to including CO protections in military law. Military police still stop people in the streets and demand to see the “certification” they need to carry to show they have registered as available for military service.

Canada: Closing its peace tax fund but using a peace tax form letter people can send in.

United Kingdom: Conscience UK goal is to be more visible and to pass the Peace Tax Bill, with a 3-stage plan of

1. lobbying/surveying members of parliament about nuclear weapons and the legal right to claim CO status for the payment of war taxes
2. get members of parliament to sponsor bill(s), that even if the bill fails it can prepare the way for the next attempt
3. get in the news (They are offering webinars on how to protect the rights of CO’s, educational activities, and improvement of communications.)

400 people have signed up to write letters to members of parliament.

Germany: Pass the Peace Tax Bill. Reaching out to work in coalition with groups like “Rethinking Security” and “Fridays for Future” and “Green Party.”

The group is shrinking, while military spending up to 2% now, not including a new 100 billion euros only for military materials.

Sent letters to all Protestant churches about Peace Tax Bill – poor response, objections being that taxes are an “individual matter” that the church can’t direct.

Favorite moment for me… Germany post office allows you to submit a requested stamp, they print it and sell it back at more than the stamp itself costs, and you use  it on all your outgoing mail, sell to your members to raise money, get your message out, etc. (My favorite stamp here would say, “Fire the Postmaster General.”)

Switzerland & Italy: Do not have organized groups, yet.

Last Thought: There is a petition we could download and circulate that supports Russian and Ukrainians soldiers’ right not to fight. I asked for it to be sent out to us.

— Post by Cathy Deppe

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Originally, the proposed funding had some Republican support, but that soon soured and the future of the funding proposal seemed dead.

All that changed when Biden and congressional Democrats saw an opening to quickly pass the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The IRS funding would probably not had passed as a solo bill, but it found life after being added to the IRA. Last Sunday, Senate Democrats passed the IRA and the House is expected to pass it later this week.

What’s in the Bill?

The bill will increase the IRS budget by almost $80 billion over 10 years… so a yearly increase of about $8 billion. The current yearly IRS budget is $12.6 billion, so this is a yearly increase of over 60%. That is substantial. After decades of inadequate funding, the IRS will be flush with funds. In terms of people power, this bill will add 87,000 employees to the IRS over a ten-year period—roughly doubling their numbers.

Half of the new funding will be dedicated to enforcement. From the start, supporters emphasized that enforcement will focus on high-income individuals, but low to mid-income households will surely feel the repercussions of this beefed-up enforcement. At the end of the 2010, the IRS wrote off $14.6 billion of taxes due as it expired after reaching the 10-year-statute of limitations. At the end of 2019, $34.2 billion was written off. The IRS expects that increased enforcement will increase taxes collected by over $200 billion during the next 10 years.

It is unlikely that the larger IRS budget will lead to more property confiscations for war tax resisters. Photo by Sami Aksu from Pexels.

The remainder will be used for operations, tax-payer services, and technology. The IRS has an embarrassing back-log of paper returns to process, not enough people to answer the phone, and an antiquated computer system. I am sure that these three items will be priorities for the remainder of the funds.

Consequences for War Tax Resisters

Nothing in the bill indicates that the IRS will increase property confiscations for items such as cars and homes. The decrease in confiscations was largely due to a change in philosophy in the late 1990s. But as the IRS slowly rebuilds its enforcement ranks, we will likely see an increase in wage garnishments, bank levies, retirement fund levies, W-4 lock-in letters, and notices of public liens filed at local courthouses.

Of course, before they can take action on recent years for WTR paper filers, they will have to actually process their returns! As always, the NWTRCC office will stay abreast of these matters and keep you up to date.

— Post by Lincoln Rice

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This war came at a perfect time for the U.S. government and war profiteering corporations. Just as military operations in Afghanistan were ramping down and there seemed to be fewer excuses to keep producing the weapons for war at current levels, a new war appeared in which U.S. soldiers are safe, but U.S. weapon manufacturers keep raking in the profits.

Exploded House in Borodyanka, Ukraine. Photo by Алесь Усцінаў from Pexels.

In April, the Pentagon hosted representatives from the top 8 U.S. weapon manufacturers to discuss whether they could meet demand for a war in Ukraine that may last years. Yes, the U.S. and its weapon manufacturers are planning for a war that will continue the hellish conditions in Ukraine for years. And the longer this war continues, the more likely that a line will be crossed leading to a direct war between Russia and the United States.

You probably already know that the largest-funded military in the world belongs to the U.S., whose military budget surpasses the budgets of the next nine highest-funded militaries combined. On a weekly basis—and often on a daily basis—the U.S. military is killing civilians using drones. This has not stopped during the war in Ukraine.

Although U.S. imperialism does not normally make headlines on the evening news, it is a reality that affects countless lives around the globe. With the help of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee’s (NWTRCC’s) wonderful resources, I have been able to refuse the payment of taxes that fund this imperialism for over 20 years. War tax resistance is also giving me tools to refuse paying for the kind of “aid” that sends billions of dollars of U.S. weapons to Ukraine and other war-torn regions.

I first discovered NWTRCC when I joined the Milwaukee Catholic Worker in 1998. Their bookshelf contained a copy of each practical booklet published by NWTRCC. A year later, attended my first NWTRCC conference, where I met some wonderful people from all over the United States who were refusing to pay for war. Although the conferences continue, most folks discover our literature online, with NWTRCC’s website receiving visits from 40,000 unique visitors each year.

I am very proud to be part of NWTRCC’s 40 year history, as well as part of the rich and diverse history of war tax resistance that spans diverse peoples and cultures throughout human history. If you are interested in learning more about war tax resistance, NWTRCC’s resources are all freely available at www.nwtrcc.org.

[Editor’s Note: This article was previous published in the summer 2022 edition of the Servant Song, the newspaper of the Agape Community in Ware, Massachusetts.]

Post by Lincoln Rice

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Many of the speakers  on the webinar reflected on the pressing issues of the day and the context in which the June 12, 1982 events occurred. The four main issues that galvanized people to attend were the elimination of nuclear weapons and nuclear power, honoring Native American Treaties and full employment for all. You can watch one of the webinars, Defuse Nuclear War, commemorating the event here.  

The issues seem prescient and many were issues that were brought up later in the week at the Poor People’s Campaign on June 18th in Washington D.C. which you can watch here. The Campaign has centered what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called the triplets of evil—racism, militarism, excessive consumerism—and then added the climate crisis that we find interwoven in all of these issues. Rev. Barber, one of the organizers, brought up one of the key components of the original Poor People’s Campaign, utilizing nonviolent direct action to put pressure on decision makers when he declared “If we need to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience—then we will engage!”

There was some mentions at the June 12 Legacy webinar of the mass civil disobedience campaign that was organized by War Resisters League among other organizations. The words toward the end of the webinar were quite striking, “If we don’t risk doing what seems impossible then we face an unthinkable future,” It was that spirit of risk taking that inspired over 3,500 people to  shut down the United Nations missions of the 7 major known nuclear armed countries on June 14. There were over 1,700 arrests with some folks having multiple arrests on that day.  

There will be a webinar Saying No to Nuclear War through Nonviolent Direct Action Wednesday June 22nd at 7pm Eastern (4p Pacific) to share about the Blockade the Bombmakers campaign of that day and discuss upcoming events around nuclear disarmament at the UN in August. You can find out more information and register here.

I look forward to joining the webinar to learn more about that time. The role of civil disobedience in pushing for “freezing” the use of nuclear weapons likely played a part in not having escalated wars to a nuclear confrontation. I am particularly curious to learn from those who embraced war tax resistance in their attempt to prevent nuclear war worldwide. One of the organizers of the upcoming webinar, Ruth Benn, wrote, “A Good Reason to Refuse to Pay War Taxes” about how the issue of nuclear weapons motivated her war tax resistance. 

While looking through NWTRCC’s archive on nuclear issues (that you can access here) I discovered the answer to a question of how long have war tax resisters been opposing nuclear weapons. Some months after the U.S. dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima, Ammon Hennacy and other war tax resisters held public actions on Tax Day, March 15, 1946 and cited nuclear weapons as a good reason to refuse to pay war. I imagine their witness encouraged a new generation of war tax resisters. 

And for some  big news: NWTRCC is turning 40 this year! We will be celebrating this milestone with a weekend of events at our conference November 4-6, 2022.  Save the date and stay tuned for more details! We will be reaching out in months leading up to learn more of your journey with war tax resistance. 

Post by Chrissy Kirchhoefer

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In order to create an IRS account you have to verify your identity with ID.me, an online security platform. I started the whole process maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago. After putting in all the basics – address, phone, email, social security number, etc. – then you have to upload documents like your photo ID or driver’s license either from your computer or with a Smartphone photo app they link you to. I’m sure I spent at least an hour doing this the first time, using both methods when one didn’t seem to be working. ID.me seems to have pretty high standards for quality of image, and most of the time mine didn’t pass quality control.

When I finally had my pictures accepted, the system moved on to checking my credit after seeking my approval. The next message that came back was that they could not complete that step, and I’d have to use the “live video” verification option. Studying a few FAQs led me to the probable cause of this blip. A year or two ago I had frozen my credit account because of some generally reported hacking issue. I didn’t bother to go back and release the freeze, but the wait for the live video ID was more than an hour, so I gave up at this point.

Then the email reminders started coming in. “You’re almost there. Log in to your ID.me account to finish verifying your identity.”

This is kind of what I looked like.

All those emails — and the fact that it’s my turn to write a blog — launched me back into the process. I went straight for “live video ID,” because I had noticed that earlier in the day the wait is shorter. But…before you see an agent, you once again have to upload more documents, with the same quality perfection that threw me for a loop the last time. Driver’s license, social security card (with the time it took to remember where I kept that old thing), and passport, the latter of which did not want to sit flat for its portrait until I finally taped it down. After dozens of photos using both the Smartphone link and my camera-to-computer-to-file upload, taking at least an hour (and almost giving up again) I finally managed acceptable pictures. At this point my wait for the live agent was only 10 minutes!

She asked all the basic address, birth date questions, and then she needed to see all three documents during the call. It took a while to line them up with the camera without reflection or blur so that she could read them clearly. All-in-all, that step was a breeze, but did they really need me to upload everything first?

Finally I was verified as who I say I am and could log right in to my IRS account. There I was greeted with a big bold message across the top: “Your Account is in Jeopardy of Lien or Levy.” No surprise since I have 10 years of debt piled up due to my war tax resisting.

Otherwise, is it enlightening? Well, maybe. One document say the IRS received no 1040 from me for Tax Year 2020. Another document shows they received “Payment with return” with the exact amounts I sent for Social Security when I filed my 1040 on time in May 2021 for Tax Year 2020. Funny how they manage to find the money orders…. This will be useful to mail back to them saying “as you see, you had a return from me.”

I expect with the backup of paper at the IRS, some of the problems have to do with the fact that I file on paper, and they want to drive us all into the online system. Even though I got over my resistance to creating an online account, I do plan to continue resisting the online filing system (setting up this account took all my bureaucratic energy for the next few years!). And, of course, I plan to continue my economic protest. I still like being a little cog in the machine, even as the machine itself seems to be breaking down.

— Post by Ruth Benn

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Below is the statement from the group in Russia. The Ukrainian Pacifist Movement’s statement is here, which is followed by an interesting interview  with Yurii Sheliazhenko, Executive Secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement.

Get Out! campaign logo

WRI also shared links to a new campaign, Get Out!, launched by a coalition of groups and organizations internationally to support those in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine who oppose, desert or refuse to go to war. At a time when it’s hard for nonviolent activists to know what to do in response to Russia’s war, it’s great to hear about a campaign we can support.

Lest I not mention taxes, the NY Times had an article about Russian rappers who left their home country and are speaking out against the war.  On Instagram the rapper Face posted, “I don’t plan to return to Russia, to pay taxes there.”

Statement of the Movement of Conscientious Objectors (Russia) for the International Conscientious Objection Day

Dear conscientious objectors to military service, today we mark our CO day while war is being waged.

https://wri-irg.org/en

As the war with Ukraine began, the notion of refusing military service in Russia has become especially topical. Before the war, most conscripts and their relatives did not associate military service as conscripts with actual warfare. Conscription appeared to be something akin to a sports camp with elements of military training.

Regardless of their political views, the healthy feeling of fear of participating in warfare in the territory of a foreign country forces people to file appeals for alternative civilian service and to protect their right not to serve in the army by other means.

For some of the objectors to military service, the chance to specify in their application that they object to Russia’s war in Ukraine is important. This is a legal form of expressing one’s disagreement directly to the representatives of state authorities—a matter of moral significance.

In the course of the months of warfare, we have witnessed a totally new phenomenon: cases in which professional soldiers refuse to participate in the special operation[*] and demand to terminate their contracts. We wish to express our special gratitude to those soldiers and police officers who had the courage to refuse to kill and die in a foreign land, who refused to participate in the special operation.

Today, when many people apprehend the introduction of partial of full [military] mobilisation in Russia, it is precisely the right to conscientious objection to military service that offers them support.

The Movement of Conscientious Objectors in Russia expresses its solidarity with all those who oppose war, with everyone who stands against the act of aggression. We wish and pray, with all our might, for Ukraine to survive the assault and retain its independence.

[* WRI note: “The special operation” is Russia’s ongoing attack on Ukraine; formally, it is not a war, but a “special operation”, and is being referred to as such in official contexts in Russia]

— Posted by Ruth Benn, who could not seem to get her monthly blog written
last week but eventually realized the statement above might be more worthy.

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Tax Day April 18, 2022, NYC. Photo by Ed Hedemann

War tax resistance is a quarterly, paycheck-to-paycheck or even daily act of resistance to war, depending on your method, but it can be quite solitary. If nothing else, the annual tax day (thanks, IRS!) gives us a chance to act together.

This year our NYC WRL group decided to vigil at the IRS, which is in lower Manhattan, and add a short march down Broadway to Wall Street to take our protest to the corporate war profiteers. Then a friend with a foot in the antiwar movement and NYC Extinction Rebellion helped connect the peace movement tax day action to XR’s Spring Uprising week of actions.

XR tripod-sitter blocking road in NYC financial district. Tax day 2022. Photo by Ed Hedemann

It was a lively affair this year, with a performance by a new street theatre group, Rising Together Guerilla Theater, and the louder demanding voices of more youthful XR activists leading the march chants. NYC WRL activist Mike Levinson spoke well for war tax resistance. The march ended at the Charging Bull statue where XR’s activists were blocking the road with tripods featuring “NO WAR” and “NO WARMING” banners.

Hopefully this will be the start of building an ongoing coalition that more strongly connects the crises of war and climate change.

But that coalition is still too limited. A week before our tax day march, the Poor People’s Campaign held a march on Wall Street as part of their Mobilization Tour for the Mass Poor People’s & Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington, June 18, 2022.

Poor People’s Campaign march on Wall Street, April 11, 2022. Photo by Ed Hedemann

Many usual suspects from local peace groups were in the crowd, and the Rising Together Guerilla Theater did a trial run of their skits before the PPC rally started. But we are still working too separately on compatible but parallel paths at times.

Perhaps the fact that organizers of these two marches both chose Wall Street as a destination for protest is a sign that we are destined to pull together more closely and go after the corporations that steal from the poor and fuel war to increase their profits.

— Ruth Benn

Activist Hideko Otake is a prolific chronicler of all kinds of protests in NYC. She has photos and video from tax day and also from the Poor People’s Campaign rally and march.

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Biden’s budget proposal for FY 2023 totals a trillion dollars more than previous budgets with dramatic increases in every department, including tax credits that have really helped the poor in recent years, pandemic relief, big jumps in the Department of Education, food and housing programs, pandemic-related relief, infrastructure and other positive programs.

But — isn’t there always a but — before we pop the champagne, there’s more to consider than just a glance at the pie and percentages.

Ed Hedemann and I analyze the budget and write the pie chart for WRL, and it is a project that becomes more challenging as the federal budget process gets more and more dysfunctional. The President is supposed to release the proposed budget in early February, and Congress is supposed to debate and pass a new budget by the start of the federal fiscal year each October 1.* However, it was not until March 10, five months into the current 2022 fiscal year, that Congress finalized and passed a budget.

Because it takes so long for real spending to be reflected in the published budget, what we see year after year is a proposed budget that is more a policy statement than likely to become reality, with one exception: military spending.

You may recall that the FY2022 budget that Congress just passed included even more for the Pentagon than military or Biden requested, a whopping $730 billion. And, that’s just for the Pentagon; it does not include all those other agencies that we list under current military that have “security” functions. And Congress added another $13.6 billion for the Ukraine, about half of which is military aid. (At the same time, they took out the Covid aid package and, of course, had already refused to pass legislation to address climate change and invest in child care, health care and education.)

So, while the pie itself looks better than most years, percentages don’t tell the full story. On this current flyer, the $978 billion total is $13 billion higher than our analysis last year. It’s obscene.

data from DoD “National Defense Budget
Estimates for FY 2022,” August 2021, table 6.3

It’s no time to celebrate. It’s certainly no time to stop resisting!

— Post by Ruth Benn

* National Priorities Project has a good outline of the process and more budget explanations on their website. They also have a glossary that explains the difference between “mandatory” and “discretionary” spending, both of which add up to “where your income taxes go.” The WRL pie chart includes both. Many other organization show percentages based just on discretionary spending.

P.S. In the course of posting this blog suddenly a rather large word mix-up in the flyer headline jumped out at me (online versions are getting fixed). With thousands printed, we’ll have to live with it — and the embarrassment that we and proofers didn’t catch it. Oopsie…

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Here is my “statement of conscience.” Please take a moment to read it.

I have used IRS appeals procedures to communicate my reasons for withholding money from the government. And I have appealed several of the resulting IRS determinations into the federal courts. According to statute, “…[IRS] appeal procedures do not extend to cases because of moral, religious, political, constitutional, conscientious or similar grounds” (See: 26 CFR Section 601.106 (b)).  I understand that a statement of conscience is considered “frivolous” for government taxing purposes. However, my actual statement has never been included in an IRS appeals determination document. And I am also aware that such personal statements of belief are not usually quoted in their entirety in various war tax resister court case rulings.

I pursued a simple objective in recent years: to ensure that my complete statement of conscience is included in an IRS appeals determination or in a federal court ruling. If my beliefs are automatically categorized as “frivolous” by the government, then my full written statement should be provided “on the record” and therefore available for anyone to see.

I was able to appeal an IRS determination into the U.S. Tax Court because of some technical ambiguities. Eventually there was a hearing, and a trial, in Chicago, Illinois. My day in court was a marvelous experience. A number of friends were with me for support wearing pins stating: “CONSCIENCE MATTERS.” Lincoln Rice, the NWTRCC coordinator, came by train from Wisconsin. It is such a blessing to know that I am not alone.

During the trial, the judge seemed to acknowledge that excluding my “statement of conscience” from the case record was an unnecessary violation of my first amendment right to freedom of expression. He allowed my complete written statement to be submitted as evidence. Here is a link to that three-page document. I would like to thank the court for treating me with respect, and I appreciate the work that was done by Judge Joseph H. Gale. Here is a link to his Tax Court Decision.

William Ruhaak

What is at stake here? The fundamental human right to publicly express an opinion or belief. And also the right to have a written expression of that belief included in government documentation for future reference.

If you are aware of other examples of similar statements that were included in IRS appeals determinations, or that were officially incorporated into court records, then I would like to know about them.

And if you have a personal “statement of conscience” concerning the payment of taxes that are used for war, and would like to make that statement public, then please contact me through NWTRCC.  I am part of a group project that will bring many such written statements to the attention of international human rights review organizations.

— Post by William E Ruhaak.

The post Conscience Matters: Submitting a Statement of Conscience in U.S. Tax Court first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

The post Conscience Matters: Submitting a Statement of Conscience in U.S. Tax Court appeared first on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

Back in 1988, just before the sudden breakup of the Soviet Union, I was fortunate to be part of the American delegation to a peace conference that spent the first week in Moscow. We then took a train to Kyiv and spent two weeks in Ukraine — a few days in Kyiv (which is beautiful – I toured a 1000-year-old Eastern Orthodox cathedral there) and then a cruise down the Dnieper River that divides Ukraine, to the Black Sea and on to Odessa, which is also beautiful. I remember slipping away and saw the barren shelves of an Odessa supermarket, which told the story of the USSR’s tenuous economy that our hosts weren’t telling us as they plied us with vodka…

Change was in the air. Where possible, in Moscow, Kiev, Zaporizhye and Odessa, I slipped off and met with underground draft resisters. They were uniformly hopeful for the future. A man I met in Zaporizhye took me to his home, in the 10th floor of a butt-ugly, Soviet-built concrete apartment tower. After the trip, I was penpals with him for a while, as well as with a group of conference attendees from all sorts of countries who were fellow music aficionados. We bonded at 4 AM one night, slipping past Moscow hotel security guards with pillows to head to a nearly birch forest in the dim, summer solstice light to share songs.

My heart is breaking for all the Ukrainians I met from that trip, and the historic, densely populated cities of Ukraine. I hope they’re safe.

NYC, January 21, 2022. Photo by Ellen Davidson.

There is so much beauty and wonder in the world, and we see all around us that humans are so much smarter than this.

There are experts to listen to and read for perspectives on this war. Follow Democracy Now!’s coverage. As I write, Amy Goodman just read a tweet about antiwar protests in Russia. Arrests were immediate but all honor and kudos to those activists. Once again the fact that the world has not abolished nuclear weapons brings added danger. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has a statement on their website (a topic that reminds me of a Nobel Peace Prize winning president’s empty words — but a chance to reinvigorate work on the UN treaty to ban nuclear weapons).

War Resisters’ International has a statement on their website and keeps contact with peace groups in the region, including the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement. I hope they post a link to an online forum they held recently on the current crisis (mentioned in this post).

War tax resisters at No to NATO march. Chicago, May 2012. Photo by Ruth Benn

With its arms sales to and military bases in countries bordering Russia, the U.S. government is not an innocent party in this conflict. I think back to our NWTRCC meeting in Chicago in May 2012 when we joined thousands for a “No to NATO” march and rally. We were right then. We’re right now. Stop funding war. Stop the arms trade. Disband all military networks, especially NATO. Use our resources to confront the real issues we face: hunger, poverty, climate change, jobs, health care.

It’s hard to know what we can do to stop Putin and this invasion, but the least we can do is demand the United States immediately stop the saber-rattling, which only exacerbates the conflict. Which makes today an excellent day to add your name to NWTRCC’s Refuse to Pay for War public sign on statement.

— Post by Ruth Benn

* Geov is based in Seattle and posts interesting stuff on Facebook along with being an active writer and a radio host with Eat the Airwaves on KODX in Seattle.

The post WAR, ENDLESS WAR first appeared on National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.

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