Chesapeake Citizens

Tax Shifting: An Idea Whose Time Has Come

By Diane Wittner
February 8, 2009
Posted on www.afterdowningstreet.org

I have always played by the rules, and I have a decent value system. I am a responsible member of my community in every way. Still, for about eight years I have fantasized about not paying taxes anymore. I have children, and so have refrained from altering my IRS forms and keeping my money.

Although I am not a libertarian, I now trust my judgment on what to do with my money more than I trust the collective judgment of this government. Today's news on the Senate's agreed-upon changes President Obama's modest recovery package is really too much, even for me.

If you are reading this, chances are you have similar concerns. And so, read the next three paragraphs quoted text out loud, and fill in the blanks with your own story:

"I am a [...write your job in here...] and my substantive contribution to the government goes mostly to: paying interest on old bad debt (thanks Reagan!), wars, unusable and death-promoting military equipment and services, health insurance corporate profits, pharmaceutical firms, and obscenely criminal Wall Street executives' personal luxuries.

The taxes I have paid for [...write number of years you have worked in here...] years to the federal government don't begin to address my basic needs today (nor my future needs), nor the needs of my community.

I won't do the math on how much I have subsidized my nonworking government because the numbers would make me ill."

Hmmm...what to do?

Well, many non-profits around the country courageously try to construct pieces of the basic social contract for Americans that the government has abandoned so thoroughly. And each cause needs our financial support. In the next months and years these appeals are only going to grow in urgency.

So how about shifting our tax dollars directly to these groups, back to all our needs?

Because even with the wonderful President Obama, even with a planet melting before our eyes, we need to face the fact that empires don't exist to enhance the social contract.

How would tax shifting work? Two great longstanding groups that have already developed similar ideas are

1. The National War Tax Resisters League
2. The National Priorities Project

And the socially responsible phone company CREDO long distance has a scheme whereby customers vote on collective support for nonprofits.

If you need inspiration from the past, check out Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience."

If you take strength from simple but powerful imagery, check out the Ruckus Society's logo.

Let's get this conversation started.