Tag: April 15

Dear Mr. President., regarding those tax bills….

Posted on by kathiemm
Feed the people, not the Pentagon. Artist Roger Roth. Published courtesy of Larry Bassett.

Note from Kathie MM: It’s that time of year again. Just 12 months ago, I published a post by Larry Bassett entitled Ain’t gonna finance war no more — another effort in a long line of efforts to pursue peace and social justice rather than war and destruction.

April is upon us and most people, excluding the obscenely greedy at the top of the military industrial complex, are trying to be “good citizens” and pay their “obligations,” although  the vast majority probably have doubts about the fairness and integrity of the system.

So Larry is back, promoting reflection about what it all means, and sharing his tax return.

 

By Larry Bassett

Here is what I am sending them this year, a greeting card! No gift enclosed!

Here is the front of the card:

My tax return. April 17, 2018. By Larry Bassett.

And here is the back of the card:

Dedication to my parents.

 

 I had substantial federal taxes in 2016 and 2017 because of taxable income that I inherited from my father. In the past my resistance had been for much smaller amounts, and since I am retired with relatively low income I would usually owe no federal taxes. But I have seized this opportunity to redirect almost a quarter of a million dollars to good causes in several years. I believe the IRS will have a hard time collecting from me, but whatever they do they will not be able to undo the many people and organizations that I have helped. I am still trying to poke the bear since if the government ignores me my resistance has had limited impact. I resisted $130,000 last year and so far the IRS has sent me five letters and filed the usual tax lien. Maybe I will get their attention when the documentary about my WTR action is released. For more about that, go to The Pacifist Facebook page.

 

That’s not enough! Artist:
Roger Roth. Published courtesy of Larry Bassett.

 

 

 

 

 

 Note from Kathie MM:  It takes courage in today’s world to believe in and work for democracy, for human rights, for social justice, for ways to be ethical when constantly confronted by corruption.  What are your views on the ways in which Larry Bassett faces these challenges? I am sure all of Engaging Peace’s readers look for ways to make the world a better place.  Please share your stories with us.

The Pacifist

 

Uncle Sam wants YOUR money!

Posted on by kathiemm

Correction: Uncle Sam wants your money unless you are among the country’s largest U.S. corporations (e.g., GE, Microsoft, IBM, Exxon, Chevron). As reported in that radical rag, the Wall Street Journal, 60 of those large corporations “parked a total of $166 billion offshore last year” shielding anywhere from 40 percent to 100% of their profits from U.S. taxes.

It takes taxes and bonds poster
Image in public domain

While avoiding payment of taxes in the U.S., these corporations relied on the U.S. government to protect their interests from, for example, those who object to extraction of their natural resources by American companies.

Today is April 15. You have probably filed your 2012 income tax return, but in the coming year it would be wise to attend to proposals being made by the President and Congress regarding who will pay taxes and how the money will be spent.

You may have heard about proposed cuts in Social Security and medical and social welfare programs. Do you also know that President Obama is proposing a half billion dollar shift of funds from nuclear nonproliferation programs to upgrading the U.S. nuclear program?

Are your priorities the same as the government’s?

Historically, Americans have found many nonviolent ways to protest or rebel against taxes they judged to be unfair or immoral.

  • In 1773, to protest the tea tax imposed by the English government to finance its wars, colonists in Boston dumped English tea into Boston Harbor;
  • During and after the Revolutionary War, many Quakers, Mennonites, and members of other peace-oriented religious denominations refused to pay taxes intended for military expenditures;
  • Henry David Thoreau refused to pay a toll tax levied to support the Mexican War, spent a night in jail, and wrote about it in the essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience.”
  • Since World War II, many individuals (e.g., Noam Chomsky) have formed groups to protest using tax dollars to finance war. You can learn more from the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee  (http://www.nwtrcc.org/ ).

War tax resistance may not be the right choice for you, but do consider this question: Are the issues raised here important enough so that you will make your own voice heard?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Morality and taxes

Posted on by kathiemm
"Tax Dollars" poster
Poster by Eric Gulliver, 2011

With April 15 (Tax Day in the U.S.) looming, I consider myself to have three moral obligations:

  • Pay taxes that can provide funding for many vital programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, public transportation, human services, education, environmental protections, and veterans’ benefits.
  • Protest tax policies that further entrench the rich and powerful while robbing the poor, depleting the middle class, and killing innocent people in the names of profit and national security.
  • Protest policies allowing huge corporations like General Electric to make billions of dollars in profits from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while paying NO federal taxes.

To find out where your tax payments go, check out the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). According to their analysis, out of each dollar paid in federal income taxes in 2010, 39 cents went to fund current and past wars. This is probably an underestimate.

The federal budget deficit has been growing alarmingly since 2001, and it makes sense to look for ways to trim expenditures. But ask yourself, is it moral, is it just, and in the long run is it wise to cut the budgets for programs such as Social Security, job training, and Head Start, while keeping the Pentagon budget “off the table” and maintaining enormous tax breaks for the wealthy (e.g., through recent tax cuts on millionaires’ estates).

For a detailed breakdown of how social programs could be saved if some of the tax breaks for the rich were reduced, see the Center for American Progress.

In last year’s “weak economy,” hundreds of new billionaires emerged in this country while more and more people were losing their jobs and homes and falling below the poverty line. Is this what you want your taxes and current tax policies to support?

Finally, I have some suggestions:

To get some idea about what a cutback in military spending could accomplish, watch this video:

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology