War Tax Resistance: Letter for 2024

TO: Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service, Kansas City, MO 64999-0002

Copies to : Rep. Jefferson Shreve, Senator Todd Young, Senator Jim Banks, President Donald Trump

To my government representatives,

As a USA citizen I see our laws as a community agreement, and I do my best to obey laws. However, I believe that God’s laws must come first, and God tells us, “Thou shalt not kill.” Currently the majority of every tax dollar goes to pay for past, present, and future wars. I will not pay the tax amount I owe to the federal government. I will instead pay the amount to groups working to heal the wounds of war and prevent future violence. According to Acts 5:29 in the Bible, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.” (NRSV).

I am not against the idea of taxes. I wish that I could fulfill my financial responsibilities to the country I live in without denying my conscience and faith. Unfortunately I’m given a choice of paying to kill or dealing with federal penalties. I have to choose your penalties. I won’t pay for war.

My 2024 tax return said that I owe $2,192 in taxes. This year I will donate $1,000 to Friends Peace Teams joining communities in conflict around the world to create enduring cultures of peace, $1,000 to the Palestine-Global Mental Health Network promoting mental wellbeing, dignity, and social justice for all peoples (particularly Palestine), and $192 to Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center working to promote justice, peace, and reconciliation and to deepen the faith and unity of Palestinian Christians. These non-profit groups are working to meet needs of the people suffering from the destruction and killing our USA government is funding. I am not benefitting financially from my refusal to pay for war. I want every cent I owe paid to save lives and build peace, not to destroy lives.

Sincerely,

Susan Lee Barton

War Tax Resistance: Letter for 2023

Last year I filed my 2023 tax return and purchased money orders on time, but didn't have the energy to write a letter to the IRS and my elected officials. Even though this letter says it's for the 2023 tax year, the statistics quoted are from 2025.

TO: Department of the Treasury Internal Revenue Service, P.O. Box 931000, Kansas City, MO 64999-0002

Copies to : Rep. Jefferson Shreve, Senator Todd Young, Senator Jim Banks, President Donald Trump

To my government representatives,

I am once again writing to explain why I will not pay the tax amount I owe to the federal government. I will instead pay the amount to groups working to heal the wounds of war and prevent future violence. According to Acts 5:29 in the Bible, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.” (NRSV). Currently the majority of every tax dollar goes to pay for past, present, and future wars. I can not pay for war. As much as I value our country’s laws, I believe that God’s laws must come first, and God tells us, “Thou shalt not kill.”

Over the past two years I have cried over the war between Israel and the Palestinians. There is no justification for Hamas militants murdering and kidnapping Israelis, and there is no justification for murdering thousands of Palestinians. It appears that Israel is attempting to wipe out the population of Gaza, not to mention the deaths on the West Bank, regardless of any connections to Hamas. Here are some reasons I can not contribute financially to this.

• In fiscal year 2023, Israel received $3.3 billion in USA military aid (according to the Pew Research Center).

• The United States is overwhelmingly the biggest supplier of arms to Israel. In 2023 69% of Israel's arm imports came from the USA, according to a 10/2024 report on international arms transfers by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

• Israel has been the largest cumulative recipient of USA foreign aid since its founding, receiving about $310 billion (adjusted for inflation) in total economic and military assistance.

• As of the 23^rd of March, 2025, according to Gaza's Ministry of Health, at least 50,021 Palestinians have been killed and 113,274 wounded since Israel began attacking the besieged territory following October 7, 2023.

• The 50,021 number is considered a conservative estimate, only counting the people who have been registered at health facilities across the Gaza Strip. There are many others buried without being registered or who have gone missing, trapped under piles of rubble.

• Since October 7, 2023, Israel has killed at least 17,400 children, including 15,600 who have been identified (as of the 3^rd of February, 2025). Again, many more are suspected to be buried under the rubble. An average of 30 children were killed every day over 535 days. That works out to killing a child in Gaza every 45 minutes. Whether it is one child or thousands of children killed, it is too many.

• Many of the surviving children have endured the trauma of multiple wars, and all of them have spent their lives under the oppressive shadow of an Israeli blockade, affecting every aspect of their existence from birth.

• Israeli forces recently struck the surgical building inside Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, one of the largest health facilities in Gaza.

• In June 2024 the UN Human Rights Office published an assessment of six emblematic attacks by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) in Gaza that led to high numbers of civilian fatalities raising serious concerns under the laws of war. “The requirement to select means and methods of warfare that avoid or at the very least minimise to every extent civilian harm appears to have been consistently violated in Israel’s bombing campaign," said High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.

• According to Amnesty International Israeli “strikes are likely direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects and must be investigated as war crimes. Fresh evidence of deadly unlawful attacks in the occupied Gaza Strip... demonstrates how Israeli forces continue to flout international humanitarian law, obliterating entire families with total impunity.”

• Since the start of Israel's war with Hamas on October 7, 2023, the United States has enacted legislation providing at least $12.5 billion in direct military aid to Israel, which includes $3.8 billion from a bill in March 2024 and $8.7 billion from a supplemental appropriations act in April 2024. Other analysts have reported that Israel received $17.9 billion in U.S.A. military aid during this period, a figure that additionally accounts for the cost to the U.S.A. Defense Department of replenishing the stock of weapons provided to Israel.

• I sincerely believe that Israel’s continued destruction of the Gaza strip endangers Israelis as well, provoking more violence rather than building peace.

It pains me not to pay all of the federal taxes I owe each year. I want to fulfill my financial responsibilities to the country I live in without denying my conscience and faith. Unfortunately current tax dollars help fund a horrific war rather than meet human needs. Given a choice of paying to kill or dealing with financial penalties and the threat of prison, I have to choose your penalties. I won’t pay for war.

My 2023 tax return said that I owed $1,863 in taxes. Instead I donated $1,000.00 to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund addressing the medical and humanitarian crisis facing Palestinian youths, and $863.00 to Doctors Against Genocide, a global coalition of healthcare workers active in Palestine. These non-profit groups are working to meet needs of the people suffering from the destruction and killing our USA government is funding. I am not benefitting financially from my refusal to pay for war. I want every cent I owe paid to save lives, not to destroy lives.

Sincerely,

Susan Lee Barton

War Tax Resistance: Letter for 2022

TO: Internal Revenue Service, P.O. Box 931000, Louisville, KY 40293-1000

Copies to : Rep. Greg Pence, Senator Todd Young, Senator Mike Braun, President Joe Biden

To my government representatives,

My 2022 tax return says that I owe $1,859 in taxes. I am once again writing to explain why I will not pay the amount I owe to the federal government. A Bible verse stood out for me recently: “We must obey God rather than any human authority.” (Acts 5:29, NRSV) Currently the majority of every tax dollar goes to pay for past, present, and future wars. I can not pay for war. As much as I value our country’s laws, I believe that God’s laws must come first, and God tells us, “Thou shalt not kill.”

Our country is the leading producer of firearms in the world, and much of that is through military contracts. The USA ranks number one in arms exports and number one in weapons trafficking. Although the Arms Trade Treaty became international law in 2014, our country still hasn’t ratified it. Irresponsible arms trading does not only affect those living in areas of armed conflict; the vast majority of people impacted by gun violence are not living in conflict zones. Globally, more than 500 people die every day because of violence committed by firearms. In addition to sending weapons to many countries, tax dollars pay for the increased use of military weapons in the USA through the State Homeland Security Program, the Urban Areas Security Initiative, and the 1033 program of the National Defense Authorization Act. We have militarized police departments to treat our communities as war zones, particularly targeting African-Americans and other minorities and countering nonviolent demonstrations. Police are being trained as occupying forces in our cities and towns. The number of civilians killed by police keeps increasing, and black people are three times more likely to be killed than white people.

My government is asking me to both support war in other countries and also pay to kill people in my own country, particularly people whose skin is darker than mine. In the USA it is illegal to pay for the murder of another person, yet our government is asking me to do just that. Whether in other lands or in the USA, our government’s saying that war and killing is right does not make it so.

It pains me not to pay all of the federal taxes I owe each year. I want to fulfill my financial responsibilities to the country I live in without denying my conscience and faith. Unfortunately current tax dollars help destroy some communities rather than meet human needs. Given a choice of paying to kill or dealing with financial penalties and the threat of prison, I have to choose your penalties. I won’t pay for war.

This year I will donate $1,000.00 to March for Our Lives, organizing against gun violence in our country, and $859.00 to The Color of Change, a racial justice organization organizing people for effective societal change. These non-profit groups work to prevent violence rather than feed it. I am not benefitting financially from my refusal to pay for war. Every cent I owe is being paid to save lives, not to destroy lives.

I urge you to make it possible for USA citizens to follow our faith and conscience without breaking the law. Many faiths urge us to treat others as we would treat ourselves. I urge you to think deeply about how we can change our country’s direction in order to live out the “Golden Rule.”

Sincerely,

Susan Lee Barton

War Tax Resistance: Letter for 2021

Department of Treasury
Internal Revenue Service
P.O. Box 931000
Louisville, KY 40293-1000

Copies to : Rep. Greg Pence, Senator Mike Braun, Senator Todd Young, President Joseph Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris

To my government representatives,

            My 2021 tax return says that I owe $ 783.00 in taxes. Following my practice for over a decade I am once again writing to explain why my conscience will not allow me to pay the amount I owe to the federal government. Currently the majority of every tax dollar goes to pay for past, present, and future wars. I can not pay for war. I am not against taxes, but I first need to follow God’s law, “Thou shalt not kill.”

            You might have heard of the Religious Society of Friends’ religious testimony regarding integrity. We attempt to live out our faith so that our words and actions are in harmony with our beliefs. Truth is not conditional to circumstances. Unfortunately my government is asking me to go against my religious beliefs in order to support war, essentially mass murder in my name. We have set murder and theft outside legal and moral bounds in most contexts, yet suddenly say it is moral if our government declares it to be so. Why is war legal? Why is it that when a conflict transcends national boundaries, we have not planned and worked toward any recourse against aggression other than threatening or carrying out more violence in return? Why is it still legal for states to compel their citizens to use violence?

            There are non-violent methods to de-escalate and diffuse conflict, and yet any system of international law has been undermined at every turn to protect the ability of strong countries to do what they please. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an opt-in situation, applying only to those countries that have accepted the jurisdiction of the court, and the U.S.A. has not opted in. We want to be able to pick and choose who should be held accountable for war crimes, including our racist ideas but excluding us. Most cases listed on the ICC docket target African or Middle Eastern officials, making it clear who the court is meant to punish for aggression and crimes against humanity.  There are many major and minor conflicts across the globe today, for example in the Sahel, Yemen, or Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of people have been murdered and millions have had their lives destroyed by violent conflict with zero recourse, and the USA has refused many refugees from these conflicts. The scale of global attention on the war in Ukraine makes evident the deep racism and Islamophobia at play in shaping whose lives may be acceptably threatened by war. I find all of it unacceptable.

It is time to invest in developing tools and methods for peacebuilding that have the same level of authority and resources that we have invested for generations in war-making. We need systems of accountability that allow us to nonviolently address conflicts. We must invest in research and development for means to interrupt violence without more violence, both at home and abroad. We need to invest in the underlying issues that drive violent conflict in the first place. We can look to examples of non-violent, civilian-based defense that have been successful in conflicts across the globe, even in cases of asymmetrical power. (One example close to Ukraine is Solidarnosc’s success in attaining free elections in Poland.)

War is NOT inevitable. Conflict is part of life, but we can choose how to participate. I worship a God of surprises, a God who can guide us to solutions much better than what we humans imagined, a God who exceeds our expectations of what is possible. Human evolution starts with envisioning a better way and making a decision to change. I know that our country can do better, and I am trying to direct my tax dollars to support that change.

            I want to fulfill my financial responsibilities to my community without denying my conscience and faith. Unfortunately we seem committed to destroying some communities rather than meeting human needs. Since I believe change begins at home, this year I will donate $783.00 to Color of Change challenging injustice, holding corporate and political leaders accountable, researching systems of inequality, and advancing solutions for racial justice that can transform our world. I am not benefitting financially from my refusal to pay for war. I am trying to follow God’s lead and save lives. Given a choice of paying to kill or dealing with financial and other penalties, I have to choose your penalties. I won’t pay for war.

            I urge you to make it possible for USA citizens to follow our faith and conscience without breaking the law. I also urge you to start researching the many examples and methods available to begin addressing conflict in healthy restorative ways. Our country can change to create a better future. Please help us do so.

 

                        In peace, Susan Lee Barton

War Tax Resistance: Letter for 2020

To: Department of Treasury, Internal Revenue Service

Copies to : Rep. Dwight Evans, Senator Bob Casey, Senator Patrick J. Toomey, President Joseph Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris

To my government representatives,

My tax return says that I owe $ 355.00 in taxes. Following my practice for the past 13 years I am once again writing to explain why I will not pay the amount I owe to the federal government. Currently the majority of every tax dollar goes to pay for past, present, and future wars. I can not pay for war. I am not against taxes, but I first need to follow God’s law, “Thou shalt not kill.”

In addition to paying for foreign wars, our taxes are now funding “war” against USA citizens, mostly people of color. The 1033 Program allows the Department of Defense to get rid of excess equipment by passing it off to local authorities, thereby militarizing our USA police forces and treating civilians in our communities the same as armed combatants in a war zone. The Office of the Inspector General, the USA Department of Defense, the USA Government Accountability Office, the NAACP, and the ACLU are among the many critics of this program. The 1033 program equipment is now used to counter nonviolent demonstrations and policing in communities of color. Instead of police protecting their communities, they are now being trained as occupying forces in our own cities and towns.

The number of civilians killed by police keeps increasing. In 2020 there were 1,021 fatal police shootings, up from 999 fatal shootings in 2019. According to the USA Census Bureau, only 12.3% of the USA population is black and 12.5% is Hispanic, yet from 2015 to March 2021, the rate of fatal police shootings per million of the population reached 35% African-Americans and 26% Hispanics.

Black people are three times more likely to be killed by police than white people, and a higher percentage of unarmed black people are killed compared to unarmed white victims. Black men aged 15–34 are between 9 and 16 times more likely to be killed by police than other people. Unarmed victims of police shootings are more likely to be minorities, according to FBI statistics. 13 of the largest USA city police departments kill black men at higher rates than the USA illegal murder rate.

My government is asking me to not only support war in other countries, but to also pay to kill my neighbors, particularly people whose skin is darker than mine. In the USA it is illegal to pay for someone else to murder, yet our government is asking me to do just that. Our government saying that war and killing is right does not make it so.

It pains me not to pay all of the federal taxes I owe each year. I want to fulfill my financial responsibilities without denying my conscience and faith. Unfortunately we seem committed to destroying some communities rather than meeting human needs. Given a choice of paying to kill or dealing with financial penalties and the threat of prison, I have to choose your penalties. I won’t pay for war.

This year I will donate at least $355.00 to Christian Peacemaker Teams working to prevent future wars by transforming violence and oppression. I am not benefitting financially from my refusal to pay for war. Every cent I owe is being paid to help save lives, not to destroy lives.

I urge you to make it possible for USA citizens to follow our faith and conscience without breaking the law. I also urge you to think deeply about how we can change our country’s direction in order to live out God’s command to love our neighbors.

In peace, Susan Lee Barton

Politics and Fear

1 John 4:18: “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced God’s perfect love.” (New Living Translation)

Politics and Fear

      My country is living in a culture of fear, and I’m part of it. We are always supposed to be afraid, and we let fear guide our actions and decisions. Many people I know talk about transforming our society, and yet we fear what will happen if we push too hard for change. What will the pushback be? How much worse will we make things by working for real change?

      I believe that “the powers that be” purposefully use fear to keep the status quo. Fear can decrease our hope and limit our victories. If our energy goes into fear and efforts to survive from day to day, we have little energy left for changing our lives for the better. If we only focus on our fear of others – people who carry guns, people with different backgrounds, people with different skin colors, people who might give us a disease (that’s pretty much everyone), people who are stronger than we are, people who pay our wages, people who don’t fit our perceptions of genders, people who don’t use the same religious languages or practices that we do, people struggling with mental illness, people who voted for Donald Trump….. – then fear can keep us from uniting for change. Divide and conquer.

      What does fear do in my life when I give in to it? I cut myself off from others. I give into depression, which leaves me fatigued, without energy to keep up connections, and without energy to work for change in myself and the world. It also cuts me off from God. I fear the changes which might come in my life if I give in to possible leadings, so I stop listening for God’s lead and try to direct my own life. That keeps me from growing. How can I change our society when I can’t change myself? How can I change anything when I’m alone?

      I remember a Colombian friend amazed and troubled by the level of fear she found in the USA, and the constant focus on being “safe.” What I learned from her and from Bolivian friends and Salvadoran friends is that there is no such thing as safety in human terms. We in the USA work hard to develop a false sense of security, and place our faith in the “safety nets” we build for ourselves. Many of us complain about our government’s efforts to build “a wall” along the border, and yet we build our own walls to keep ourselves and families “safe.” Friends I’ve met in other parts of the Americas accept that they don’t know what will happen next and don’t have control over it all, so they trust in God and build communities and strive to fully live each day. They express gratitude for the gift of every day. They have shared joy and laughter w/me. (After two visits to Colombia, it seems to me that a great sense of humor is a national trait.) A Bolivian Friend (who risked losing his job in order to follow a leading to travel in service among Friends) told me that seeking God first was the best thing he had ever done, letting go of fear and finding great joy in his new (unpaid) work. (His employer ended up letting him work part-time with flexible hours around his travel.) They live with uncertainty, and I’ve met many who seem to live much better lives than I do.

      So what does this have to do with politics?

      The USA will elect a president in November. I hear many people so angry and scared with what we’re living through with our current president, that they’re willing to put aside any hopes and political ideals and willing to settle for the person the polsters declare is most likely to get the most electoral votes against Trump. “Anyone but Trump...” is the uniting cry.

      Yes, things are bad. Our country is very sick, and we have a president bringing out the worst in us and the worst of us, and destroying lives and causing much damage. I’ve also heard the same voting refrain over and over and over again. I started paying attention to politics when I was 12 (the Watergate years), and I’m now in my 60th year. So, for at least 48 years, I’ve watched people try to find someone closest to “the middle” (and I’ve seen “the middle” move further to the right). Both major political parties are eager to maintain the status quo. Anyone who wants to transform our society terrifies us – that’s going too far – so we say they’ll never win and we go for person who will keep things as we know them.

      As long as we keep letting the mainstream media and pundits and our own fears decide who we should vote for, rather than consider whose ideas are most in line with the future we would like to see in our country, we will never obtain real change. War doesn’t cause peace, and true transformation does not come from maintaining the status quo.

“But this is different! Things are really serious this time!”
“If we can get rid of Trump, THEN we can work for real change.”
“Anyone other than Trump will make our country better.”

      I’ve heard this argument for years, with different names thrown in. I’ve heard it from Republicans and Democrats and Libertarians and Greens and Independents. The first time I remember hearing my parents arguing about their votes, the first time my parents ever voted for different people, was when Jesse Jackson formed the Rainbow Coalition. One parent voted for Jackson as the person most likely to point our country in the right direction. The other respected Jackson, but felt that any vote other than for Mondale was just giving the election to Reagan. Others thought the same, and while Jackson (originally seen as a “fringe candidate”) did quite well in the primaries, the majority stayed closer to the middle. It didn’t work. Mondale lost to Reagan, and we successfully weakened or silenced voices further to the left.

      In 2016 the Democratic Party selected Hilary Clinton to run against Donald Trump. Some were quite excited about Clinton, and excited about having a woman as the frontrunner. (Those are the folks I think rightly voted for Clinton.) Many more simply thought Clinton was more mainstream and had a better chance of winning. They preferred other candidates but were afraid to vote for them. Bernie Sanders was seen as “too far out there” to win, and of course he associated with that dirty word in politics, “socialism.” Many were shocked when Trump was able to get many voters out to the polls who didn’t usually vote, but were ready for change and wanted anyone who wasn’t mainstream and part of the current establishment. Some of these folks who saw Sanders as a possibility switched to Trump when he seemed to be the only one who didn’t fit the norm.

      People all over our country want change. I don’t know anyone who is 100% happy with our current state of affairs. However, if the left keeps sliding further and further to the right in order to win over more voters, it’s the left who are being won over, and over, and over. The right can use our fear to gain more and more ground, and prevent any real societal change.

      I am not saying that you shouldn’t vote for someone “in the middle” or on the right if that person’s actions and statements line up most closely with your own beliefs and hopes. If that’s the case, go for it. What I am hoping is that the deciding factor will be who you think will help move our country in the direction you want us to go. Please don’t let your deciding factor be fear.

      Should we be afraid right now? Heck, yes! However, do we want fear to rule the day, and our futures? Really?

      Working for change is hard. Peacemaking is hard work. Transforming centuries of racism, sexism, and oppression in many forms into a more equitable and just society will take a long time, and meanwhile people get killed, lives get stomped on, oil reserves get drained, species get wiped out, and our earth gets hotter. However, if we keep settling for the lesser of evils, the lowest common denominator, and the weakest parts of ourselves (my big challenge for myself), we’ll never see the future we say we long for.

      I’ve been told that “fear not” is used at least 80 times in the Protestant Bible (Old and New Testaments). When adding similar terms, depending on the interpretations, it could be in the hundreds. Some samples are listed below. The message I get is not that fear is bad. Fear is natural and extremely useful as a sign for me to stop, think, and ask God for guidance. The message I get is that I can’t let fear rule. Fear can’t have the final voice. I have to get past the fear if I want to live in love. If I want to grow in love, I need to act in spite of my fears.

      That’s easier said than done! For me, that’s why God provides communities. Leaning on God and leaning on others around me, I’ve followed some leadings I never would have thought possible when I focussed on “what if...” Love can give me strength and courage to stretch beyond my “safety zone.” I’m not alone.

I will end with a song I learned recently by Melanie DeMore. https://www.riseupandsing.org/songs/lead-love?fbclid=IwAR1z_2UVT2J8MF8vgBC0OsFscY6FaZEu8r6NTPlNLYMiK1xc_hB8W8hxzSg

You gotta put one foot in front of the other
And lead with love
Put one foot in front of the other
And lead with love
(repeat all 4 lines)

Verses (call and response):
1) Don’t give up hope
You’re not alone
Don’t you give up
Keep movin on

2) Lift up your eyes
Don’t you despair
Look up ahead
The path is there

3) I know you’re scared
And I’m scared too
But here I am
Right next to you

Words & music (c) Melanie DeMore.

Here are some Bible messages about fear:

Deuteronomy 31:8 “God will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (New International Version)

Isaiah 43:1 ““Do not be afraid. I will set you free. I will send for you by name. You belong to me.” (New International Reader’s Version)

Isaiah 41:13: “For I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.” (King James Version)

Joshua 1:9: “Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Psalm 23:4: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” (King James Version)

Psalm 56:3: “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you."

Psalm 94:19: “When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.”

Proverbs 12:25: “Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, But a good word makes it glad. (New King James Version)

Proverbs 29:25: “Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.” (New International Version)

John 14:27: “Peace is what I leave with you; it is my own peace that I give you. I do not give it as the world does. Do not be worried and upset; do not be afraid.”

Luke 12:25: “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?” (New International Version)

2 Timothy 1:7: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

1 John 4:18: “There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.” (The Message)

War Tax Resistance: Letter for 2018 Tax Return

To the Internal Revenue Service; Copies to : Rep. Dwight Evans, Senator Bob Casey, Senator Patrick J. Toomey, President Donald Trump To my government representatives, My 2018 tax return says that I owe $215 in taxes. I am once again writing to explain why I will not pay the amount I owe to the federal government. Currently the majority of every tax dollar goes to pay for past, present, and future wars. I can not pay for war. As much as I value our country’s laws, I believe that God’s laws must come first, and God tells us, “Thou shalt not kill.” In addition to paying for foreign wars, the 1033 Program transfers excess military equipment to civilian law enforcement agencies. The program legally requires the Department of Defense to make various items of equipment available to local law enforcement, thereby militarizing our police forces and treating civilians in our communities the same as armed combatants in a war zone. The Office of the Inspector General, the USA Department of Defense, the USA Government Accountability Office, the NAACP, and the ACLU are among the many critics of this program. Barack Obama signed an Executive Order prohibiting certain types of equipment and requiring police agencies to justify their need for other military equipment, but Donald Trump rolled back that order so that police departments now have access to military surplus equipment typically used in warfare, including grenade launchers, large-caliber weapons and ammunition, armored vehicles and bayonets. The 1033 program was originally created to assist local law enforcement in drug investigations, yet equipment is now used to counter nonviolent demonstrations and policing in non-white communities. Instead of police protecting their communities, they are now being trained as occupying forces in our cities and towns. In 2014 a sleeping baby was maimed and nearly killed by a grenade used during a police raid of a drug suspect. At least 81 civilians and 13 police officers died in “dynamic entry” house raids from 2010 to 2016. The number of civilians killed by police keeps increasing. In 2018 police killed 1,166 people, up from 1,147 in 2017. Black people were 25% of those killed despite being only 13% of the population. Black people are three times more likely to be killed than white people, and a higher percentage of unarmed black people are killed compared to unarmed white victims. There were only 23 days in 2018 when police did not kill someone in the USA. Only one-fourth of our way through 2019 there have already been 265 people shot and killed by police this year (as of 03/20/2019). The toll on African-American communities is especially serious. Several studies have found that black males are shot by police at disproportionately high rates. Black men aged 15–34 are between 9 and 16 times more likely to be killed by police than other people. In 2017, police killed 19 unarmed black males. Police usually use fatal force against people armed with knives or guns, but unarmed victims of police shootings are also more likely to be minorities, according to FBI statistics. 13 of the largest USA city police departments kill black men at higher rates than the USA illegal murder rate. My government is asking me to not only support war in other countries, but to also pay to kill people in my own country, particularly people whose skin is darker than mine. In the USA it is illegal to pay for someone else to murder, yet our government is asking me to do just that. Whether in other lands or in the USA, our government saying that war and killing is right does not make it so. It pains me not to pay all of the federal taxes I owe each year. I want to fulfill my financial responsibilities to the country I live in without denying my conscience and faith. Unfortunately we seem bent on destroying some communities rather than meeting human needs. Given a choice of paying to kill or dealing with financial penalties and the threat of prison, I have to choose your penalties. I won’t pay for war. This year I will donate at least $215.00 to non-profit groups working to heal the wounds of war and prevent future wars in various parts of the world. I am not benefitting financially from my refusal to pay for war. Every cent I owe is being paid to save lives, not to destroy lives. I urge you to make it possible for U.S.A. citizens to follow our faith and conscience without breaking the law. I also urge you to think deeply about how we can change our country’s direction in order to live out God’s command to love our neighbors. In peace, Susan Lee Barton