Att. IRS: The game has changed and duty now calls for resistance

Can a government really expect the people to continue to fund it once it turns fascist and otherwise morally bankrupt?

April 2026

To the IRS,

You will find only a partial payment included in this filing for tax year 2025. A government pursuing illegal, hegemonic aims abroad, while destroying democracy and the social safety net at home, cannot expect people to continue to be obedient, dutiful taxpayers. The game has changed and duty now calls for resistance. I am therefore withholding 50% of what I owe as a protest of the entirety of Trump’s authoritarian, imperialist, suicidal agenda.

A few of the abhorrent elements of that agenda include:

• Weaponization of the federal government and the undermining of democracy, election integrity, and civil liberties;

• Racist and cruel immigration and deportation policies,

• Funding for ICE and Border Patrol thuggery and continued militarization of the southern border;

• Continued complicity in genocide in Palestine;

• The costly, stupid, and illegal war on Iran;

• Escalated economic warfare on, and oppression of the Cuban people;

• Murder of civilians in boat attacks in the Caribbean and Pacific;

• Various other violations of U.S. and international law; and

• An obscene request for $1.5 trillion dollars for military spending in FY2027.

These are just a few of specifics. The campaign to impeach Trump (ImpeachTrumpAgain.org) lists 27 impeachable offenses. On top of all this, with the widely reported story of the IRS’s admission that it illegally shared sensitive tax information with ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, the integrity of the agency is itself now in question. Do not expect people to continue to provide their most sensitive information to an entity that will not protect it.

The proposed military budget is obscene for what it proposes to spend money on—more bombs and bulldozers for the genocide in Gaza, continued militarization of AI, and the Golden Dome pipe dream—while what’s truly important—funding for education, health care, food assistance, Social Security, and the environment all suffer.

“It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare….We have to take care of one thing: military protection, we have to guard the country.”

—President Trump, April 1, 2026

The $1.5 trillion does not even include the $200 billion extra for the war of aggression on Iran. Defense spending needs to be dramatically cut, not increased by 50%. Nearly 300 groups have sent a letter to Congress to this effect.

I am heartened to know that interest is spiking in withholding income taxes as a form of protest and I’m glad to be a part of this longstanding activist tradition.

In solidarity with life, liberty, and justice,

G. S. Brown