on the form that alters the amount of tax owed or the refund due. These ;esult in civil p~nalties-usually fines (see "Our Case" below). _ · · · High-risk actions involve the possibility of criminal penalties. These include refusal to~pay all or part of the tax.due, tampering with withholding~ a blank return, or no return at all. All options for avoiding or changing withholding involve possible fraud charges-a felony. Recently, federal judges in Portland agreed to award a mandatory yeat in jail to anyone convicted of.criminal fraud in tax cases. The Plessage: plan ahead how serious you want to be in your war tax resistance efforts, and adopt a method with acceptable risks. An hour with a sympathetic, experienced tax attorney may be money . well spent planning your ac.tion, especia.}ly if it results in a registered letter addressed to you from the IRS. ' . It is nof a '~bandwagon". cause that sweeps people alo!'-g in a groundswell -of enthusiasm . .. .·Most war tax resisters we know are·up against a very scary machine called lhe IRS, and they are alone and u~armed. War tax re~istance other tha'n through-protest letters is serious business. All involve potentially high costs in financial and psychological terms and the loss of some of your easy freedoms. There is a no more alone feeling than to get a penalty notice-or a personal visit-from the IRS. At that point you are sure the FBI has your back door staked out and is just"waiting for a signal to break it down. This is no mistake; we are all well trained in this reaction. Why then do increa$ing numbers of seemingly good citizens take these risks? The motivations, the methods, and the people are diverse, but they all have in common a willingness to take action to prevent the simplicity which Jonathan Schell describeµ as "the simplicity of nothingness. We-the human race-shall cease to be." · Our Case Our expepences with war tax resistance involve two . different actions in the last two years. We have been forced to le~rn a lot about IRS procedure and the law through experiences'probably similar to many other war tax resisters. We have done war tax resistance in an attempt to be consistent with our religious faith. As Christians we try to live the "music" of the Gospel, not just the words. There are people who profess Christian ethics because they are tax resisters (i,e. because the Gospel provides a good argument for the cause); we, on the other hand, are resisters because we are Christians (i.e. this is ortly }anuary/February 1985 RAIN Page 7 one way in which we l~;ye oµt our faith). We would not have begun t_ax resistance if not for our Christian beliefs. Of most interest now is what we did on our 1982 tax return. Following one metho.ci described in detail in several books below,, we computed our total fax due accurately (no "war tax deductions" or credits), calculated 50% of that amq,l;lnt, and added that to the refund legitimately due us..This was done by altering line 56 to read "amqunt paid to an alternative fund (see attached letter)" · and putting the50% figu,re there. We also enclosed a copy of the check 'Yhich paid50% of our tax due to Portland Peace Investors Alternative Fund. In our attached letter we explained t_hat we had paid 150°/o of our taxes (100% to the IRS, 50% to PPI) and were requesting 50% plus our "legltimate" refu~d back. In this way we were practicing tax resistance, not evasion, since we had actuallyfedirectedfunds rather than pocketed them. Until 1982, the Il~S would have considered this an error, corrected our return, and sent the refund w~ 1showed was legitimately due (though in at least one case the requested 50% refund was actually issued). Enter Internal Revenue Code Sec. 6702. Enacted by Congress in 1982, Sec. 6702 as currently applied by the IRS is a major constraint to conscientious war tax resisters who have chosen medium-risk protest methods. Ostensibly designed to punish flagrant abuses of the 1040 form (profanity); libertarian responses ("gold standard" deduction and fifth amendment returns), and blank returns, it has been applied more.rigorously. It states that if your return is either blank or obviously doesn't contain enough information to use in verifying your self-assessment, and, if you .did this for frivolous
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz