JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
You know this because it happens every year - April 15, tomorrow, your taxes are due. But several times throughout American history, people have refused to pay as a form of protest against the way the government is spending tax dollars. This may be one of those moments as some people oppose the U.S.-Israel war in Iran. Ruth Braunstein joined me recently to talk about this. She wrote the book, "My Tax Dollars: The Morality Of Taxpaying In America." And she's also a professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University.
I want to just unpack this piece by piece. First, when we talk about tax protests, we're generally talking about federal taxes - right? - not our state and local taxes.
RUTH BRAUNSTEIN: Yes. Primarily, we're talking about protesting by refusing to pay the federal income tax.
SUMMERS: And is the crux of this tax resistance against people filing their taxes, or is it more about paying them?
BRAUNSTEIN: It's a mix. When we're talking about people who refuse to pay their income taxes because they're concerned about war, they often will actually file their income tax, and they will send a letter along with that explaining why they are concerned about how their money is being used. And then that sometimes will also include, you know, not paying the full amount that they owe.
SUMMERS: Your book focuses on the morality behind taxpaying. What did you hear from people that you talked to about why they've chosen to not pay their taxes at any given time?
BRAUNSTEIN: So for the most part, this is a community of people who takes really seriously their responsibilities as citizens, and they often lead with that. They say I appreciate all of the positive things that my tax dollars do, but I just can't pay taxes that are going to be contributing to a war. And that is sometimes because, as religious people, they are opposed morally or theologically to war. It is sometimes because of an ethical concern with a specific war. It's sometimes because of concerns about the sort of leaders and how they're approaching the war. But it's almost always framed as they're in an impossible situation, where they really want to do their duty as citizens, but they can't in good conscience have their money contributing to war.
SUMMERS: How can we measure if people are actually choosing not to file their taxes this year? This is something I've heard anecdotally from even people in my own life.
BRAUNSTEIN: It's tough. There's no official records kept on the number of people who file their taxes but do so with protest or by underpaying their taxes, or, of course, the number of people who aren't filing because of these kinds of moral or political reasons. And so in large part, we'll rely on public statements that people will make. Often, if you are working with an organization that supports people doing war tax resistance, they will encourage you to make your resistance public by publishing the letter that you send to the IRS or writing an op-ed. And we've seen several op-eds this year from different people.
And then also the amount of attention that organizations that support war tax resistance are doing. The main organization nationally is the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, and they've reported a massive increase in hits to their website, in people who are coming to their workshops and reaching out to them for support and assistance.
SUMMERS: Setting aside the sentiments or reasons that people choose to resist paying taxes, how effective do you think this form of protest is?
BRAUNSTEIN: As a direct action, this is not likely to defund the military. What it can do is, for individuals, and particularly those who are theologically and deeply morally opposed to war and committed to pacifism, it can alleviate some of their sense of moral conflict as citizens where, you know, they then wouldn't feel as if they're being personally implicated in what they might view as a sin, much in the way that our conscientious objectors' program allows people to not serve in the military if that would go against their kind of moral or ethical position.
SUMMERS: That's sociology professor Ruth Braunstein. Thank you so much.
BRAUNSTEIN: Thank you for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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