A young boy with an injury to his eye stands next to a young woman who has a crutch and is wearing an eye bandage. Photo: S. Brian Willson.
By S. Brian Willson – Sep 12, 2025
Throughout the late 1970s and early 80s, as I was getting more interested in US foreign policy, I sensed that it was likely that I was going to become an activist and I didn’t want to keep paying for policies that repelled me. I realized that without becoming a tax refuser, and continuing to pay for the policies of my government, I was still complicit and a hypocrite. I had been having stomach problems throughout this time and a conservative farmer friend of mine told me: “You’re having stomach problems because you’re doing something that you really don’t believe in, which is paying taxes.”
In the letter below is the letter to the Internal Revenue Service announcing my plans to refuse paying any further taxes.
I then began to plan my life in such a way that the government had no property to seize from me. This would include bank accounts, property, a car, etc. They would have nothing to seize except me and I fully expected to do two or three years in prison as my lawyer had advised me. With no holdings taken, as I was self employed, I still continued to file my taxes every year but did not pay.
I had close to a dozen meetings with the Internal Revenue Service either at my rental house or their office. Each time I replied the same way: “It’s in your hands. It’s not complicated. I’m not paying for war.”
One of these times, at my house, a five-year-old Nicaraguan boy, Erick Ramon Cano Lopez who had been severely wounded by the US-funded counter revolutionaries (Contras) was staying with me and Holley. I was in the middle of a game of checkers with him as I heard a knock on my door and opened it and lo and behold it was my IRS agent once again. Erick, with his seriously disfigured face from two bullet wounds was standing next to me, and I looked at my IRS agent and I said “Do you think I’m going to pay for policies that pay for this?”
The statute of limitations expired after 10 years and they never prosecuted or imprisoned me, much to my surprise.
I have been a tax refuser for 41 years now since first starting in 1984.
Group of Friends in Defense of the UN Charter Condemns US Interference in Latin America
A letter to the Internal Revenue Service: ‘With all due respect … I must refuse your request.’
January 24, 2016
Dear Official of the Internal Revenue Service and/or Judge of the US, District Court, or other Judicial or Quasi-Judicial Officers:
I am aware of your request for my cooperation in producing monetary amounts or documents to aid in the collection of those amounts, to satisfy a debt that you claim I owe the US government. I disagree vehemently with the basis for your claim of my indebtedness as I have explained in previous writings and discussions with representatives of the IRS. Therefore I cannot honor your request(s).
This refusal on my part is not personally directed to you or any other person(s), nor is it due to any reluctance to support the need of the common good. Again, my previous communications explain my personal, philosophical, moral, legal, and Constitutional reasons for resistance and refusal to support illegal and immoral activities and expenditures of the US government.
I have no assets to speak of. I have given away all funds received from the US government as a result of our mutually agreed upon out-of-court settlement. As you are probably aware, the US Attorney General agreed to payment of a sum of money in lieu of trial for the act of the US Navy knowingly accelerating a munitions train to over three times the legal speed limit running over me and others while peacefully protesting the illegal shipment of munitions designed to murder and maim innocent human beings in Central America.
I am prepared to pursue acquisition of funds in the amount equal to that figure that the US government claims I owe it. But, I will donate these funds directly to duly recognized non-profit organizations. I will not voluntarily pay any money to the US government.
I am fully aware that by not cooperating with your request(s) I am extraordinarily vulnerable to being forced to serve substantial time in prison as well as being subjected to other forms of governmental interference into my life. I am as prepared as I can be to serve the prison time. I will serve this prison time without my two artificial legs in an as-is condition just as the US government left me on the Concord, CA tracks after severing my legs and fracturing my skull. The Navy ambulance that arrived on the scene provided virtually no medical assistance and refused to transport me to a hospital causing a substantial delay in receipt of the emergency attention my traumatic injuries demanded. I will offer to you an earlier pair of artificial legs, a valuable asset I do possess, that perhaps can be used by another unfortunate victim of US “low intensity” warfare being carried out in any one of a number of “Third World” countries. I also will decide at various times to partake in political and spiritual fasts for durations to be determined by personal discernment.
I would prefer to be tried in a public proceeding at which time I would have the opportunity to present the legal, as well as moral, basis for my actions. I am led to believe that no US administrative or legal tribunal will allow me to substantively present my arguments based on international and US Constitutional law and the Nuremberg Obligation. Thus I do not wish to waste precious funds and the valuable time and work of lawyers and others, in a futile effort. I hope that my example will provoke others to search their own consciences as to their own manner of exercising responsible and lawful citizenship in a society whose government is committing countless lawless and heinous criminal acts on a regular basis in many parts of the world. But no matter what others do, I must follow my own conscience.
The Nuremberg Obligation, one that the US was so adamant in advocating as a standard under international law after conclusion of the Nuremberg trial following World War II, prohibits citizens from committing acts that are illegal under international law even when commanded to do so by one’s government and its officials. Nuremberg established the principle of individual responsibility for the crime of attacking international peace. SEE Jackson, Statement of Chief Counsel Upon Signing of the Agreement, 19 Temple L.Q. 169 (1945-6).
I have acquired voluminous evidence of the active involvement, directly or indirectly, of the US government’s participation in crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. This evidence has been developed from extensive reading of various books, reports and documents; from extensive interviews and discussions with former members of US military, security and intelligence agencies; and from personal observations acquired during visits to a number of countries where the US is or has been actively intervening in various overt and covert ways.
I also want it to be clear that I do not have some peculiar desire to spend time in prison or to subject myself to needless deprivation. I believe that in a democracy the ultimate legal and moral authority resides within the heart and mind of each citizen—in conscience. When this government commits a pattern of behavior that consistently violates its own laws, then the government has relinquished its authority to act on behalf of its citizenry. I must act according to my conscience.
I conclude by quoting from Henry David Thoreau’s 1849 essay on Civil Disobedience:
“If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the state to commit violence and shed innocent blood.”
With all due respect for your position and perspective, I must refuse your request.
Sincerely yours,
S. Brian Willson
Sent December 1990
(Substack)
