Tax Day is a holiday of sorts for war tax resisters. Local war tax resistance groups often take to the streets to promote their displeasure with about 50% of the federal budget dedicated to past, present, and future military expenses. (War tax resisters refuse to pay some or all of the federal taxes that pay for war. While you can legally refuse by lowering your taxable income, for many people war tax resistance involves civil disobedience.)
Although vaccines are being administered, the pandemic may limit the extent to which people protest in groups and hand out flyers. With this in mind, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) began providing more online resources as part of a Tax Season 2021 campaign that began in January.
On Sunday January 24, the campaign launched when NWTRCC hosted a panel of war tax resisters on Facebook Live. The panel featured five longtime war tax resisters: Kathy Kelly (Chicago), Sam Yergler (Eugene, Oregon), Erica Leigh (Seattle), as well as Charlie Hurst and Maria Smith (Cleveland). They shared their original motivations for becoming war tax resisters and why they will continue to be war tax resisters during the Biden administration.
In February, NWTRCC launched a new webpage connecting police militarization and war tax resistance. This page underscores the consequences of U.S. militarism on police departments that are already mired in practices of systemic racism. For example, only $27 million of military equipment had been transferred to police departments before 9/11 under the 1033 Program. But after 9/11, the threat of terrorism was employed as an excuse to transfer over $1.6 billion of military equipment to police departments.
In March, we are highlighting the misplaced priorities of the federal government with regard to health care, which have left so many Americans suffering during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the federal government’s dismal response to the pandemic, payments to weapons manufacturers have not skipped a beat. March also featured an interview with a family physician whose commitment to war tax resistance has only been confirmed by the U.S. response to the pandemic.
With April featuring both Tax Day and Earth Day, we plan on highlighting the devastating impact of the U.S. military on the environment, with the Pentagon being the largest institutional user of oil in the world. The pandemic has slowed much of the planning that often goes into Tax Day for local war tax resistance groups, but here is a listing of events so far. (With Tax Day being delayed until May 17, we expect local groups to stage events on either one of days or both days.) If you plan on hosting a Tax Day event, please alert the NWTRCC office and we will add it to our list.
For more information about war tax resistance, go to www.nwtrcc.org.
To connect with war tax resisters in your area, go to https://nwtrcc.org/resist/contacts-counselors/
