Politics
Interest in War Tax Resistance on the Rise Due to Recent Military Action, Groups Say
Some Americans are using taxes to protest the Trump administration — more specifically, the refusal to pay taxes.
The action is called tax resistance and while it has grown in popularity following actions in Gaza and the war in Iran, it is a tactic that some groups have been spreading the word on for decades.
Rachel Cohen, a Chicago-area attorney and organizer, shared a video earlier this year on Instagram detailing her intentions to withhold her income tax payment from the federal government in order to protest the Trump administration.
Cohen calls the move a “calculated additional risk,” citing her discontent with having her tax dollars fund U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention centers, opting instead to only pay local and state taxes.
She still filed her taxes, which likely results in lesser penalties as opposed to if she did not file or pay. The action is not without its risks.
Genevieve Tokić associate director of the tax program and professor of instruction in law at Northwestern’s Pritzker School of Law, cautions against any refusal to pay federal income taxes.
Though, she understands Cohen’s decision to still file her taxes, saying, “it’s still probably a very good idea in sort of managing the potential penalties and risks from doing this to still file a return, and then the act of civil disobedience of failing to pay, there’s a little bit less of a penalty, potentially at least from a financial perspective.”
While the move to file taxes and then choosing not to pay is likely to result in the least amount of penalties, Tokić still says the risks could still be severe.
“The federal government has quite a few tools at its disposal — there are also criminal penalties for willful tax evasion,” she adds, “There’re some pretty famous cases too, right? Wesley Snipes, who was kind of advised by a tax protestor, essentially that he didn’t need to pay taxes. He’s a famous actor and he ended up, you know, serving time.”
Additional penalties can be collected by the IRS including but not limited to one’s own inability to file, pay or failure to deposit their taxes. Failure to do any of these is illegal, regardless of the intent.
But for some, that’s the point.
Several organizations have been involved in this not-so unique form of civil disobedience.
The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, based out of Milwaukee, was founded in 1982 with the intention of combating war profiteering.
Chrissy Kirchhoefer, outreach consultant for the group, emphasizes the risks associated with tax resistance saying, “we as an organization, advocate or share information with people about tax resistance, so we don’t encourage people to lie and cheat in their taxes.”
Instead, they are careful to inform people about their options, but add the disclaimer that they themselves are not accountants or lawyers, just people trying to educate those on their options.
Some of those options include withholding a symbolic amount, refusing to pay some or all taxes owed to the federal government, adjusting one’s living to earn below taxable income and writing letters to the IRS expressing their concerns.
The committee has seen an increase in interest around tax resistance. Kirchhoefer said that in 2018, the group’s Instagram page only had 157 followers as opposed to 42,000 today. Their website also has seen an uptick in traffic with 40,000 unique visitors a year before the war in Gaza to last year with 400,000 in 2025 and 380,000 so far in 2026. WBEZ previously reported on the growth.
Kirchoefer believes the pique in interest comes from a growing sense of discontent between the public and the government that is supposed to represent them.
“In recent years , we’ve seen that we’ve given so many resources to the Pentagon and to the military that there’s been so much that has come out,” Kirchoefer said. “ I think people are really making that connection and seeing how that is related in terms of wars abroad and increased militarization here in the United States.”
Em Jacoby, fund manager for the New England War Tax Resistance, says that war tax resistors, “don’t disagree with taxing. OK, we actually wanna pay our taxes, but we want them to go back into the communities that we live in. We wanna see this money benefit our neighbors and we’re against war.”
The organization they work for was founded in 1968 in the Boston area to protest the Vietnam War. Since then, The New England Tax Resistance has helped to provide information to people choosing to participate in tax resistance as a means to avoid directly funding war.
“They’re like, really angry, or they have personal experiences of impact — they’re active in their communities a lot,” Jacoby said. “Like it’s unusual for war tax resisters to jump into tax resistance without having done, you know, organizing around social justice issues already. Most of them have done that in some form.”
While not to downplay the risks associated with refusing to pay federal taxes on any level, Jacoby adds that IRS enforcement has not always been consistent.
Since the 1990s, Jacobey says the organization has only seen two cars and one house be seized by the IRS, adding, “it’s very unlikely that that would happen.”
Tokić urges those pondering about war tax resistance or tax resistance of any kind, to think through their options and understand the legal ramifications.
She adds that for workers receiving a W2 form from their employer, that the money is already being paid to the government through payroll taxes, with no real way to get that back.
For Tokić, this raises questions about feasibility.
“The reality is that not everyone can engage in tax resistance — it does take a certain level of financial wherewithal to be able to engage in meaningful tax protest, you know, without seriously impacting your quality of life,” Tokić said.
Those resisting to pay their federal taxes could acquire penalties and interest that the government has means of collecting which is high risk.
“The act of paying taxes, I think, is such a fundamental part of being an American citizen, and there’s such a clear link between, you know, taxpayers and our government,” Tokić says. “We also need to think about what are other ways besides potentially, you know, criminal failure to pay and file taxes. Could you be making a meaningful impact politically, if that’s your goal.”
