Anonymous writes "Reprinted from http://www.sniggle.net/Experiment/

When the war in Iraq started, or at any rate when it escalated into a
full-blown invasion, I gave notice at work. My intention is to reduce my
income below the threshold of taxation so as to stop paying income tax
to the U.S. government.

I'm writing this to explain myself to my friends, who will notice a bit of
a change of lifestyle in me in the coming months. Also, I write because
writing calms my nerves, and I'm a bit nervous about this. I'm starting on
an experiment, and I'm not sure where it will take me.

I take on faith the philosophical speculation that each of us has free
will. It does seem that a lot of the evidence lately has been going in the
other direction, but that doesn't stop me. If I'm right, I have the
opportunity to try my hand at the controls. If I'm wrong, I couldn't
change my mind if I wanted to, no?

I also believe that because I have free will, I'm responsible for the
actions I choose - I cannot rent out my conscience to another person, army,
government, corporation, majority or law-book. It's not just unwise,
given the history of the last century, but it is literally impossible.
Each of my decisions is a decision I choose based on what I anticipate
the consequences will be. I may take into account what the law says, or
what the Bible says, or what the movie critic for the Chronicle says, but
ultimately I'm the one making the choice.

If I ignore my conscience, I'm committing a particularly dangerous form of
suicide - choking off the guardian of my free will and leaving behind the
sort of dangerous robot who's spent the last hundred years swerving from
cradle to grave building gulags and genetically engineering more evil
forms of smallpox. Not for me.

Then what of my choice whether or not to pay the federal income tax? The
government demands taxes from me and doesn't say I have the option to pay
them or not. But it's not that simple. I'm choosing to earn income,
knowing that for every dollar I earn, I'm turning over certain of its cents
to be spent by the U.S. government.

A government:

• which pretends to represent and protect its citizens, and yet
  keeps a vast number of them prisoner, and considers most of
  my friends to be in violation of its laws and deserving of jail
  time. (I'd shoot a dog if it were that dangerous to the
  neighborhood.)


• which is a comfort to those crooks who think that stealing
  someone else's livelihood by devising a clever law is nothing to
  be ashamed of.


• which uses "democracy" as its cover of legitimacy, but which
  cannot be bothered to correct itself or even blush at its own
  outrageous violations of democratic principles.


• which can be pretty damned sanctimonious about how deliberately
  taking the lives of innocents in order to further some political
  goal is unquestionably evil, but can't bring itself to consider
  that other ways of saying "terrorism" are "Hiroshima" or "shock
  and awe."


• which is every year more cowardly in war - preferring that
  hundreds of innocents die from bombardment rather than that an
  embarrassingly star-spangled casket come home.
• which has never seen a human endeavor that shouldn't be enhanced
  with taxation, regulation and bureaucracy. This government,
  which takes half the price of your Burning Man ticket, uses that
  money to harass you on the playa, and still ends up turning a
  profit on the hard work of the Burning Man volunteer community.


• which will condemn a brutal dictator or contract to sell him arms
  and implements of torture with the same sweet lyrics of liberty.


• which outspends on its military several of its largest
  competitors for the honor combined, stealing from all of us in
  the process to create the biggest hammer the world's ever seen so
  that its leaders can see the people of the world as a set of
  nails that need driving.


• whose judicial system would rather see a hundred innocent people
  convicted than one incumbent defeated.


• which, in the 21st Century, still condones torture when it wants
  to.
• which dangerously pretends to offer its subjects and employees
  shelter from the demands of their own consciences, of common
  sense, and of respect for human dignity.


• which confuses everyone's inalienable rights with certain
  privileges granted to citizens who can afford good lawyers.


• which arrogantly insists that its word should be international
  law, and that it should be at the same time immune from that
  law and its judge, jury and executioner.


• which acts as though the word "freedom" is just the sound of its
  theme song (or a type of fried potato), and which considers
  civil liberties to be loopholes to be evaded rather than
  treasures to be jealously guarded.

I could go on, but it's starting to be fun. This is serious. With all of
that in mind, how can I continue to choose to fund this government when I
have the alternative not to? Do I need money so badly that I'm willing to
shovel coal into the monster's belly for it?

Turns out, the answer's "no." For me, it isn't worth it.

I may or may not decide to devote myself to opposing this government, but
the least I must do is to stop supporting it:

It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote
himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous
wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage
him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it,
and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it
practically his support. If I devote myself to other
pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least,
that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man's
shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his
contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is
tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, "I should
like to have them order me out to help put down an
insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico; - see if
I would go"; and yet these very men have each, directly by
their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their
money, furnished a substitute.

- H.D. Thoreau

I've been wrestling with this decision for several months now, with my
conscience ganging up with Thoreau to keep me honest with myself. Like
most Americans, I support this government and its war - I have only to
look at my W-2 form to see how much (box #2, for those of you keeping
score at home).

But I am absolutely unable to give any moral support to the U.S. government,
and that I have been a source of financial support to that government has
been a stone in my shoe. Ultimately I have had to conclude that my lack of
moral support doesn't amount to much, that if I am to follow my conscience
I have to walk the path between my money and where my mouth is.

The U.S. government is imprisoning the harmless, butchering the innocent,
and ruling like a criminal syndicate over a country that dreams of itself
as a democracy. And it's doing this in part because I and people like me
are paying for it. I can be of better use to my country than this.

I intend to withdraw my financial support as much as I can, and I plan to
do so lawfully. Not because I have great respect for the law (hating the
leviathan as much as I do, it would be strange for me to revere its
droppings). It's a practical matter. For one thing, if I'm arrested for
something, I hope it's something better than tax evasion. Also, it would
be counterproductive in the course of trying to keep from financially
supporting the government to give it an easy excuse to seize my property.

I hope to reduce my taxable income, both by stopping the flow of my income
and through whatever clever deductions I can find, to the point where I pay
no federal income tax this year.

So how will I get by? Much more frugally, of course. I'm going to have to
give up most of the tasty luxuries and expensive habits that my salary
allowed me to enjoy. I may end up having to move out of the area. I
haven't figured it all out yet. I may try to land a volunteer job that
covers some food and lodging. I may leave the country. I'll probably
start selling off a bunch of my stuff and live on what I've been able to
save from already-taxed income for a bit (although I'm aiming to be able to
hit a stable point of being able to live below the tax-line without
supplemental income of any sort - ultimately, of course, I'll have to do
this or I'll have to give up on the experiment).

There are other ways the federal government gets its hands on my cash -
through taxes on such things as gasoline, beer, Burning Man, etc. I'll be
reducing or eliminating these contributions as well.

It's an experiment. I've come to believe that I can live without giving
Cæsar his due, even by Cæsar's rules. If Cæsar changes his rules, or if
I'm wrong, I'll have to reconsider my plan. But if I'm right, my
conscience tells me that I must not continue to feed the government.

I anticipate several objections to the train of thought that has driven me
to these conclusions, and I have not answered these, nor, of course, the
ones I haven't anticipated. I sometimes like to argue politics and
philosophy, so if you're so inclined I'll probably join you. As a
shortcut, though:

• Yes, I really do think the U.S. government is that bad. Yes,
  I know there are plenty of good candidates for worse ones.


• No, I'm not blind to what a complete rat bastard Saddam
  Hussein is.


• Yes, I know that my company may just hire someone to replace
  me who may end up paying just as much taxes as I would have.
  Answer this objection without invoking the Holocaust for 50
  extra credit points.


• Yes, I'm aware that at least some of the tax money the government
  takes is spent to perform life-saving surgery on widows and
  orphans and baby kittens, to repair sidewalks, and whatnot.
  Thoreau again:
  

  
  "It is for no particular item in the tax-bill that
  I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse
  allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand
  aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace
  the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys
  a man or a musket to shoot one with - the dollar
  is innocent - but I am concerned to trace the
  effects of my allegiance. In fact, I quietly
  declare war with the State, after my fashion,
  though I will still make what use and get what
  advantage of her I can, as is usual in such cases."



• No, I don't think I can continue to earn my salary and then just
  donate most of it to charity (because of the Alternative Minimum
  Tax). If you know otherwise, please let me know.


• Yes, I've considered that in some utilitarian way I might have
  been able to do more good by giving Cæsar his due and then
  using the remainder of my wages to oppose him, but I couldn't
  convince myself of this. I'd be interested in your thoughts,
  though.


• No, I don't think I'm some kind of goddamned saint.


• Yes, I realize that as a childless person without debt, in good
  health with some money in the bank, I'm particularly advantaged
  in my quest to assert my conscience in this way.


• Yes, I'd love some additional tax advice that doesn't involve
  weird legal theories the IRS doesn't recognize.
• No, I don't really know anyone else who's doing this. Although
  I'm starting to try to reach out to other tax resisters, most of
  them are using civil disobedience rather than income reduction.

I'll stop there. I mostly wanted to explain what I'm doing to those of you
who might be curious and for those of you who will notice me changing the
way I go about my life in the coming weeks. I hope for your understanding
and support, as well as your always good-humored mockery.