Dissident Veteran For Peace: Take Back a Little Money from the War Machine

Dissident Veteran For Peace

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." —Alexis de Tocquevile. Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter XV.

With a nod to the Most Rev. Dom Helder Camara: When I support Palestinians some call me an 'anti-Semite', when I try to explain why I stand in solidarity with Palestinians they call me a Nazi.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." —Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)

"... no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." —character of O'Brien in 1984, part 3, ch. 3 by George Orwell.

"Every prophet has realized that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions. Every prophet has realized that most of us want peace at any price as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price. That is why the prophet Jeremiah said, ' "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace,' ..." —The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. "Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword."

Friday, January 19, 2007

Take Back a Little Money from the War Machine

Unless you're already a telephone war tax resister then Uncle Sam, a.k.a. Uncle Scum, may owe you a refund. Thanks to corporate greed, the Internal Revenue Service conceded last May that its excise tax on long distance telephone service is illegal.

The federal telephone excise tax began with long distance calls under the Spanish War Act of 1898; it was applied to local calls shortly before the US entered World War II. The War Resisters League estimates that in 1972, perhaps one-half million people resisted the US war in Vietnam/Southeast Asia by refusing to pay the federal telephone tax. In 1990, the tax was set at 3%; phone companies collect the tax for the IRS and the money is allocated as general revenue for discretionary spending. According to IRS figures, from 1995 through 2001, the tax brought in over $34 billion to the US Treasury, including a record $5.7 billion in 2001 alone.

According to the IRS' "Telephone Tax Refund Questions and Answers" page, the IRS "will refund to you the taxes on long-distance or bundled service billed to you for the period after Feb. 28, 2003 and before Aug. 1, 2006" plus interest. To get this money you have to request it when you file your 2006 tax returns. Sweethearts that they are, "The IRS is making it easier for individual taxpayers by offering a standard refund amount between $30 and $60, so that these taxpayers don’t need to gather old phone bills."

The tax change does not apply to local telephone service. So, if you're opposed to the US war in Iraq and against funding the US war machine in general then now is a good time to consider telephone war tax resistance. Check out Hang Up On War! which is sponsored by the Iraq Pledge of Resistance network, which coordinated nonviolent civil disobedience actions to oppose the war; the War Resisters League, which has supported war tax resisters at all levels since World War II; and the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, a network of organizations that provide resources, information, and support for war tax resisters.

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