[Peace] Fwd: Hang Up on War: Get a Tax Refund

[Belden Fields]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: moderator at PORTSIDE.ORG
> Date: April 8, 2007 8:31:57 PM CDT
> To: PORTSIDE at LISTS.PORTSIDE.ORG
> Subject: Hang Up on War: Get a Tax Refund
> Reply-To: moderator at PORTSIDE.ORG
>
> Hang Up on War: Get a Tax Refund
>
> By Amy Goodman
>
> King Features Syndicate
> Posted April
> 5, 2007.
> http://www.alternet.org/story/50171/
>
> If you are upset that Congress won't defund the war in
> Iraq, there's something you can do: Stop paying a tax.
> Legally.
>
> The Internal Revenue Service is giving a rebate this
> year on a telephone war tax. This is one of those line
> items at the bottom of your phone bill. The tax was
> instituted in 1898 to help the United States pay for
> the Spanish-American War. Individuals and businesses
> have one chance to obtain a refund on this telephone
> war tax, by asking for it in their 2006 income tax
> returns.
>
> Remarkably, the Internal Revenue Service has made it
> easy to request the refund, yet IRS Commissioner Mark
> Everson says that many taxpayers are overlooking it.
> Obtaining the refund is easy. But first, a little
> history.
>
> The Spanish-American War lasted from April to August of
> 1898 and was predicated on a U.S. government demand
> that Spain abandon its colony in Cuba, which the U.S.
> subsequently occupied. By the end of 1898, the United
> States had also taken over the Philippines, Guam and
> Puerto Rico.
>
> The war was also used as an official pretext to take
> over Hawaii. The Senate debated over the annexation in
> secret, some arguing for total annexation, others for
> just Pearl Harbor. Sen. Richard Pettigrew of South
> Dakota derided the annexation plan as money "thrown
> away in the interest of a few sugar planters and
> adventurers in Hawaii." Military bases and raw
> materials -- sound familiar?
>
> The telephone tax was instituted as part of the War
> Revenue Bill, which expanded the government's ability
> to collect taxes, ostensibly to pay for the war. As
> with the myriad controversial "pork" items added to the
> recent Iraq war funding authorization, the 1898 bill
> was the subject of scores of amendments that benefited
> big business. These included tax breaks for powerful
> industries like the insurance companies and tobacco
> dealers.
>
> The telephone tax of 1 cent per call targeted the
> wealthy, who were generally the only ones who had
> telephone access in 1898. After the war, the tax was
> eventually raised to 3 percent. Since the Vietnam War,
> it has been the target of war tax resisters, people who
> refuse to pay taxes because they do not want to fund
> war.
>
> Tax resistance has a long history. Henry David Thoreau
> promoted it in his essay "Civil Disobedience" to fight
> slavery: "If a thousand men were not to pay their tax
> bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody
> measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the
> State to commit violence and shed innocent blood."
>
> The IRS has vigorously targeted full-fledged tax
> resisters -- ranging from those refusing to pay the
> Pentagon's percentage of their taxes, to those who
> outright refuse to pay anything to the government --
> making an example of them by garnishing wages, sending
> them to prison for tax evasion and confiscating their
> homes.
>
> Tax resisters figured out that they could protest the
> telephone tax simply by writing their checks to the
> phone company, withholding the amount of the tax. The
> IRS deemed the collection of the tax too expensive,
> relative to the small amount of the tax itself.
>
> According to the National War Tax Resistance
> Coordinating Committee, early collection efforts by the
> IRS included the auctioning of Jim Glock's bicycle for
> $22 in 1973 and of George and Lillian Willoughby's VW
> Bug in 1971 for $123 (in 2004, Lillian, at 89, with the
> support of her husband, George, 94, was jailed for
> protesting the Iraq war).
>
> Court losses convinced the IRS to dump the telephone
> war tax in 2006 and to offer the retroactive rebate for
> phone taxes paid between March 1, 2003, and July 31,
> 2006. Typical refunds will be between $30 and $60.
> Ironically, while the IRS has dropped the tax on long-
> distance and "bundled" services, like high-speed
> Internet, the tax remains for older, standard local
> phone services and rental of equipment that enables the
> disabled to use phones.
>
> Thus, this tax on the rich is now a tax on the poor.
> Congressman John Lewis, D-Ga., has submitted a bill to
> permanently wipe this remnant clean. Two-thirds of the
> bill's co-sponsors are anti-tax Republicans, so
> Democrats might be leery about passing it.
>
> The website, www.refundsforgood.org, lists step-by-step
> instructions on how to recoup the telephone tax rebate,
> and recommends donating it to charity.
>
> While Congress and President Bush trade barbs over war
> funding, with a simple check mark on your tax return
> you can help to defund the war. Claim your telephone
> tax rebate. Let the Pentagon hold a bake sale.
>
> --------------
>
> Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated
> radio news program, Democracy Now!
>
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