Portland Couple Has Refused to Pay Taxes for 30 Years to Protest Military Funding

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. Posted April 15, 2008.

AMY GOODMAN: Today is April 15th, Tax Day, a day when tens of millions of Americans scramble to file their income taxes on time. It's also a day when people across the country are planning to protest the use of tax dollars to fund war. In dozens of communities across the country, demonstrations are planned at IRS offices, federal buildings, post offices and other public places to protest the continued funding of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A recent study by the National Priorities Project shows more than 40 percent of every income tax dollar in 2007 went towards military spending. The largest share of that was for the war in Iraq, which has been estimated to cost taxpayers $12 billion per month. The total amount allocated for the Iraq war through fiscal year 2008 is more than $520 billion.To protest the continued funding of the war, some Americans are taking a stand today by personally refusing to fund the military. Tax resisters across the country are planning to withhold part or all of their taxes to protest the war.Pat and John Schwiebert have been war tax resisters for the past thirty years. John Schwiebert is a retired pastor who spent more than four decades as a United Methodist minister. His wife Pat Schwiebert is a registered nurse who founded support groups for parents who have lost their children. They both join me here in our Portland, Oregon studio. We welcome you to Democracy Now!

JOHN SCHWIEBERT: Welcome to Portland. It's good to have you.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, it's good to be back here. John, how long haven't you paid taxes?

JOHN SCHWIEBERT: Well, it's been over thirty years. I'm not exactly sure. I think it was 1977 when we stopped paying.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about your decision thirty years ago.

JOHN SCHWIEBERT: I think we just pretty much together came to the realization that we're conscientious objectors to war, and if you object to war, you don't participate. The only way we could participate at our age at the time is by refusing to support it. And so, we just said, well, we won't send in the military portion, the military percentage of our taxes.

AMY GOODMAN: And how do you work that out?

JOHN SCHWIEBERT: Well, you -- in that case, we just filled out our tax return, we told the IRS what we owed, and we said we're only paying a percentage of it, and we're refusing to pay the rest. The IRS just treats it as if it were a failure to pay, so the only thing they've ever done with us is to try to collect the money. And in some cases they have, and in some cases they haven't been able to collect it.

AMY GOODMAN: Pat Schwiebert, how do they try to collect it?

PAT SCHWIEBERT: Well, they've garnished our wages. They've taken a --

AMY GOODMAN: What does that mean?

PAT SCHWIEBERT: Well, it means that they will attach part of your wages and take it without your permission to pay the portion of taxes that you've refused to pay.

AMY GOODMAN: So your check is just smaller?

PAT SCHWIEBERT: Right.

JOHN SCHWIEBERT: Yeah.

PAT SCHWIEBERT: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: And in terms of the percentage, what are you calculating, for example, this year, the percentage that would go to the military? What percentage aren't you paying?

JOHN SCHWIEBERT: Actually, we've gotten to the point we're so upset by the direction the country has taken and the demise of democracy in this country, that after the Iraq war broke out we completely stopped cooperating. So we're paying nothing now. So the percentage that's estimated by the War Resisters League is more like 50 percent. But I haven't paid any attention to it this year, because we --

PAT SCHWIEBERT: We don't care.

JOHN SCHWIEBERT: -- we just didn't give anything. We're in total non-cooperation with the federal government.

AMY GOODMAN: So, do you set money aside at all to give somewhere?

JOHN SCHWIEBERT: We have traditionally redirected the money to some other cause. And now, since 2002, our decision has been to take the money that the federal government says we owe and to pay it directly to our local Multnomah County government. And so, day after tomorrow, we're going to go down to the Multnomah County Commission meeting, their weekly meeting, with a check in hand, and we'll give the reasons why we cannot support the federal government, and we'll thank them for not having a military department, and we'll give them the money to be used however they wish. But we have in mind that our county government has a heavy cost to pay for healthcare for people, including people who are in the position they are because of their involvement in the war and the suffering from the war.

AMY GOODMAN: What does Multnomah County, the officials there, say when you come to bring the money?

PAT SCHWIEBERT: "Thank you."

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Amy Goodman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio news program, Democracy Now!

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