The Ides of April: “Hang Up on War”

Procrastinators — rejoice!

If you’re still waiting to file this year’s federal income tax returns, you’re just in time to strike a personal blow against funding the Iraq war.

Best of all, it’s legal — and the Internal Revenue Service will help you do it.

Amy Goodman, a columnist and host of Democracy Now!, a nationally syndicated radio news program, provides details — and a Web site link — in her April 5 posting on alternet.org. Click here to read it.

Briefly, the deal is this:

Back in 1898 — yes, 1898 — the federal government slapped a tax of one percent (later raised to three percent) on telephone calls as a way to fund the Spanish-American War. Say what you will about William McKinley, but he was one Republican who evidently had no compunction about taxing the wealthy — the only ones in those days who could afford telephones.

Soon after the “splendid little war” ended, the U.S. annexed Puerto Rico and the Philippines — and forgot all about the phone tax, which it kept collecting.

Then came the Vietnam War.

War tax resisters started targeting the phone tax by refusing to pay it.

The IRS, with Javert-like tenacity, prosecuted a number of tax resisters for their refusal, but eventually concluded it wasn’t worth its time and money.

And so, notes Goodman, in 2006 the IRS decided to offer a “retroactive rebate for phone taxes paid between March 1, 2003 and July 31, 2006. Typical refunds will be between $30 and $60.”

“While Congress and President Bush trade barbs over war funding,” Goodman concludes, “with a simple check mark on your tax return you can help defund the war. Claim your telephone tax rebate. Let the Pentagon hold a bake sale.”

— Adam Simms