We Pay our 2012 Taxes Under Protest

Dear Commissioner Shulman,

As the 47th Commissioner of IRS in the United States of America, you preside over our nation’s existing tax structures which collects $2.4 trillion in tax to help fund the government and operate it’s public services.  Your agency presents itself in every facet of American society, but especially presents yourself in a intimate way to us as taxpayers which is different from the way we see it through our corporations, organizations and businesses.  Your position is tasked with balancing the relationship between the taxpaying structure and it’s enforcement.  Your IRS website says your goal is to make voluntary compliance easier but also to enforce others who don’t voluntary participate. However, as a struggling tax payer, I want to encourage you to add a third way to your position.  It takes a person with intellect to balance, redesign and maintain a machine such as the taxes, however it takes heart to use the machine to portray a better vision for our tax money.  Voluntary tax participation would be stronger, not by a bigger consequence but by casting a vision of integrity to us taxpayers.  Show us a return of investment on our money.

The taxes you collect for the Federal Government, in the budget, is proposing spending 48%-53% of every tax dollar to recover the expenses of past and present wars.  We as a family are thankful to live in America, but sad to see the way our tax money has been yielded.  The federal government believes it is a government of the people and for the people, but you’re lacking true understanding of the consciences of the major majority of Americans.  A democracy should address at least the main concerns of several of it’s majorities.  We are part of a very large majority, who opposes these uses of our money.

I must say you have not properly been wise stewards of this country or of our money, loosing our trust and respect in the rift.  As long as America has been a country, we have never seen America become more safe and secure from wars or violent behavior. In fact, in the past our tax money has even gone to train other countries to fight for us, only to watch them use that training to fight against us – we cannot justify using our tax money to defeat those we feel called to love as followers of Jesus.  We cannot respect our money used to oppose and kill our own people.

We voluntarily pay our tax with a respect that is not returned.  We have chosen to use our 1st Right Amendment, to write this letter as a way to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. It is under active protest that we pay our income taxes, because of the inconceivable way that the money brought in from the tax payers is spent.  We as a family, are followers of Jesus who taught us to turn the other cheek, and who taught us nothing is greater than to love God and love our neighbor.

We ask the legislature to pass a law recognizing the right of conscientious objection to paying for war (see the The Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill) and the executive branch to cease and desist from limiting the free exercise of our religion by forcing us to pay for war. Listen to your people, show us not the threat of the tax payer structure, but show us a structure that invests in the good of the people and do not tax us as peasants who pay to belong to a country.

Sincerely and with prayers for your position,

Katie and Jeff McLain