National War Tax Resisters Prepare For “Get Your Wars Off Our Backs” Protests

“Fund the future of the 99%, not the wars of the 1%!” is the theme of a Tax Day flash mob event on April 17 in Oakland, California. Students will demand that taxes be used for education and not militarization. They are calling on the 1% to “get your wars off our backs.” The student action will be followed by another tax day event where members of Northern California War Tax Resistance will be giving away their income taxes to passersby instead of the IRS in a defiant act of conscientious objection to war.

April 17 is also the second annual Global Day of Action on Military Spending, sponsored by the International Peace Bureau in Switzerland and the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC. Around the world, people will be leafleting, marching, doing street theatre and civil disobedience, and picketing at post offices, IRS offices, federal buildings, and other public spaces, using educational materials about the detrimental effects of military spending. A list of U.S. Tax Day events is below and links to international actions are posted at http://www.nwtrcc.org/taxday2012.php

Many will be making a stand with their own money including: Marjorie Swann Edwin (CA), whose resistance to war taxes began as a response to World War II; Ed Hedemann (NY), who began refusing in 1970 because of the Vietnam War; David Waters (AL), stopped paying taxes during the first Gulf War in 1991; and Erica Weiland (WA), who began her refusal to pay the IRS during the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Right after tax day on April 19, well-known peace activist and Gold Star Mother Cindy Sheehan will appear in court in Sacramento, California, to respond to an IRS summons about her tax refusal. “If the feds can give me my son back, I’ll pay my taxes,” she says, having refused to pay since her son’s 2004 combat death in Iraq, a war she now sees as “illegal and supremely immoral.”

More than 280 individuals have made their war tax refusal public on the War Tax Boycott website, http://www.wartaxboycott.org, an online campaign initiated by NWTRCC, a 30-year-old coalition of local, regional and national groups providing information and support to people who are conscientious objectors to paying taxes for war.

—————————
For More Information Visit:
—————————
http://www.nwtrcc.org
http://www.nwtrcc.org/taxday2012.php
http://www.wartaxboycott.org

Author: Ralph White