Specific Concerns
I'm afraid of the IRS
The mission of the IRS is to collect your taxes. When you owe money, they send you a bill that says how much you still owe, and what the penalties and interest are to date. For withholding $10.40 for one year, interest comes to $0.75 (at January 1, 2002 rates; rates subject to change quarterly, dependent on Federal short term loan rate), and penalty $0.64, for a total $11.79 due. An outstanding $10.40 plus change is not worth their time, energy, or money to hassle you, let alone do much to collect it. This is why we say it is a very low risk civil disobedience.
Some members of One Million Taxpayers for Peace have been doing this for years, with no consequences other than form letters from the IRS, and about $10.50 deducted from the tax rebate of summer, 2001.
I’m afraid of an audit
It’s been our experience that peace tax payers (aka war tax resisters) don’t get audited, regardless of their income bracket. Perhaps our returns go directly into the "collections" stream and bypass the "random audit" stream.
I’ve been stretching the truth on my returns
See above regarding audits. But if you’re still concerned about being found out, pay your tax obligation as usual, and write letters saying you are paying under protest.
I don’t want to go to jail
Only a handful of war tax resisters over the last 50 years have gone to jail. They did not go to jail for refusing to pay, but refusing to comply with orders to show up in court or to produce certain documents. These were people who owed thousands of dollars over many years time, and on principle made themselves "uncollectable" and refused to cooperate with the IRS or the court acting as war-tax collectors.
Cooperation with IRS stops their legal actions against you, and they proceed with collections process.
I don’t want to lose my house, my car
Legally, the IRS can come after only those possessions of value equivalent to what’s owed.
I’m dependent on Social Security, and don’t want to jeopardize my benefits.
The
IRS may take money owed them out of Social Security payments, up to 15% of your
Social Security benefits.
War tax resistance is ineffective; it doesn’t work
One person not paying for war will not make a difference nationwide, however, to that person who honors his or her conscience, it will make a difference. And if that person writes some letters about her/his action, then others are affected. A pebble is dropped into the pond of awareness and makes ripples.
Imagine the inner peace of 10,000 people honoring their consciences, refusing to pay a portion of their war taxes, and choosing peace instead. Imagine the ripples from their writing 60,000 letters and talking to their families and friends. Imagine the inner peace and ripples of 1,000,000 peace taxpayers doing that.
We might not get instant results in Congress, but we will be heard across the country, and possibly the world. The yearning for peaceful solutions exists in many, if not all, of our lawmakers. We need to stir it awake. What better way to stir them in this capitalist culture than with our money?
For more information, see www.warresisters.org/wtr.htm and www.nwtrcc.org
Some thoughts