War tax resisters refuse to pay up

ST. LOUIS -- While many people scrambled Tuesday to file their taxes at the last minute, some in St. Louis -- like thousands of others around the nation -- planned exactly how not to pay them.

Jenny Truax purposely lives below the poverty level so she doesn't have to pay hers.

Rebekah Hassler calculated the percentage of her taxes she believes is spent to fund the military. She bought medical supplies to donate to wounded people in Iraq instead.

Tom Makarewicz, 42, of St. Louis, and his wife Suzanne filled out a federal tax form with the correct amount owed, but sent the government a letter saying they couldn't, in good conscience, turn over $300 of it because they believed it would support the military. Instead, they donated the money to a fund that pays for social causes they support.

The Makarewiczs, along with about 24 others, protested outside a federal building in downtown St. Louis during Tax Day.

They superimposed the photo of an Iraqi child they said was wounded by an American bomb over 1040 tax forms, which they placed in area libraries near the official tax forms and handed out on the street with literature explaining war tax resistance.

They also attempted to deliver medical supplies for wounded Iraqi people in lieu of taxes, which they said the IRS politely refused. The group sang a song about Tax Day, with lyrics including, "For the cost of cluster bombs that maim and leave to bleed, our kids could have more teachers helping them to read."

Ramsey said about 30 war tax resisters here won't pay all or part of their taxes. A few hundred more won't pay the federal excise tax that appears on their phone bill, a form of protest since the Vietnam War, he said.

Ramsey doesn't have a bank account. He's self-employed and he doesn't own a house. That way, he said, the government can't get his tax money. In 1993, he spent 30 days in jail. He was arrested for leafleting without a permit on federal property, he said, and the judge made paying his back taxes a condition of his probation. When Ramsey refused, he was jailed.

Ramsey said he collects money from tax protesters, equivalent of what they would pay in taxes, and donates it to social causes.

The Internal Revenue Service said people have a right to their opinions. But the agency will pursue to collect unpaid money.

The IRS was focusing its efforts on getting information out to the 132 million people who were filing their taxes this year, spokesman Bill Barksdale said.

"When it comes to arguments on why not to pay your taxes, there are many of them," he said, noting that ideology is set aside when the IRS reviews taxes. "It's purely just looking at individuals based on the numbers."

Nationally, it's estimated that 5,000 to 8,000 people engage in some form of tax resistance to show they don't support the military, said Mary Loehr, with the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee. That includes those who don't pay the federal excise tax on their phone bills, she said.