April 10, 2007

• Hang Up on War: Get a Tax Refund

  Well, it seems that y'all quit talking to me if I don't post something new every once in a while.    And I like to hear from you my readers; it's the only way I have of knowing that I'm still alive.  So here's a timely and fascinating and even remunerative tidbit for you.  Tell 'em you heard it first right here....

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  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!

  • 11:02 pm
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