This weekend millions celebrated the liberation from bondage and slavery in Passover seders and next weekend millions honor the resurrection of a pacifist immigrant who sacrificed his life in Easter. This as Muslims completed Ramadan, fasting for self-discipline and empathy for the less fortunate. All avenues to liberation take risk-taking and acting in faith.
On Tuesday, a less auspicious day will arrive: Tax Day.
We keep hearing from people that this year feels different. It’s painful, unconscionable, irritating, or wrong to pay into a federal budget getting chopped and parceled in unconstitutional and immoral ways. Or as some say, “I can’t pay taxes to a King.”
Writing for the Guardian, Judith Levine encourages tax resistance this year saying, “Tax resistance is civil disobedience, a public, political act. The reason to withhold your taxes is not to cheat the government of much-needed funds. It is not even to cheat the crooks now running the country, satisfying as that may be. It is to expose the criminality of what is being done – and not done – with the money the state has a legal and moral obligation to collect and then to distribute, to serve all the people.”
If you feel similarly, there are resources to consider a range of options at TaxStrike.info.
If you’re still working through your tax forms, you might consider: Slowing down your tax payments by paying by mail or filing an extension and delaying payment until later. Or you could decide to pay a portion — 50% or subtract $17.76 from your tax payment in protest. (The IRS could charge you a penalty for late payment and interest on your overdue taxes.)
If you already filed your 2024 taxes, you have a year to plan for 2025! If you’re employed, you can expand your options by changing your W-4 in preparation for next April. Instructions for that and other situations on the website with more coming soon.
If you want further updates, you can join the email list.
Or, let others know you are participating in the National Tax Strike. (Write an op-ed or send a letter to the IRS like Will did below!)
People of conscience have avoided income taxes for centuries to pressure governments and to express beliefs. Whether you’ve been a tax resister for years or this crisis has inspired you to consider tax striking, by signing up to join the National Tax Strike you can get community updates, tips and companionship in this dangerous time for our country.
(If you want to join physical tax protests, you can find them here.)
This is one of many early experiments in noncooperation, so if it’s not for you, thanks for at least encouraging the spirit of resistance — and here are many other tactics to consider.
Warmly,
– Choose Democracy
Letter from Will D. to the IRS
Dear Internal Revenue Service of the United States:
I am writing to inform you that I will not be paying federal income tax this year. I do not do so lightly or flippantly but out of love for this country, its constitution and its resolute commitment to the rule of law.
I believe that Donald Trump is the rightful President, being duly elected in November, 2024. I also believe in a strong federal government, with a separation of powers outlined in the Constitution. The constitution is quite clear that Congress – and Congress alone – controls the “power of the purse:”
“All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.”
— U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 7, clause 1
“No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”
— U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 9, clause 7
President Trump and Elon Musk have circumscribed these guardrails so clearly delineated in the Constitution in numerous ways, including shuttering the US Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and cutting budgets for several other agencies.
There exists a perfectly legal manner in which this administration could accomplish its aims without resorting to illegal maneuvers through executive fiat. Congress – both chambers of which are controlled by the President’s party – could easily pass laws to realize these goals, such as eliminating USAID or the CFPB. While I would disagree adamantly with the impact of such actions, I would respect them because they would be legal.
It is out of this love of my country and commitment to its founding principles that I feel I must withhold my contribution to the commonwealth, as sending my tribute would implicate me in a crime against the plain meaning of the Constitution.
I have always paid my taxes and expect to pay them again when the Executive branch of our nation follows its duty to use public monies in accordance with the Constitution.
Thank you
Will D.