Conscientious Objection to Military Taxation(COMT)

COMT is the civilian version of conscientious objection. Basically it's where you stop paying taxes that fund wars. So in the US, depending on who you ask, that would be 18-53% of your tax money funds wars. So if you object to war, you with-hold 53% of your taxes owed. Some people donate it to a peace funds, some donate elsewhere, some keep it, etc.

Where this gets really interesting is when you apply religions like jediism and others. The law has a provision:
"Nothing contained in this title shall be construed to require any person to be subject to combatant training and service in the armed forces of the United States who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form. . . the term `religious training and belief' does not include essentially politics, sociologics, or philosophical views, or a merely personal moral code. Any person. . . whose claim is sustained by the local board shall, if he is inducted into the armed forces. . . be assigned to noncombatant service. . . or shall, if he is found to be conscientiously opposed to participation in such noncombatant service. . .perform ... civilian work contributing to the maintenance of the national health, safety, or interest. . . "-Section 6(j) of the Military Selective Service Act.

So in the Jedi doctrine, it states "We oppose the use of torture" and the US military states "We use torture". Also, in the jedi teachings it says "Each action performed, no matter the scale, influences the world. With this in mind Jedi perform each action with peace, caring, love, compassion and humility. So it is that each Jedi improves the world with each deed they perform." and "Jedi are guardians of peace".

I'm not bringing this up to convince anyone of anything, rather to show (or not) citations for the legal argument that goes something like this: Paying for war is a form of participation in war.

In the UK Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs will soon be able to take unpaid tax straight from bank accounts.

How do you suggest a balance between not paying tax but having the suffer the repercussions that come with that, not everyone can claim religious objection (or claim it successfully).

Edan wrote: In the UK Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs will soon be able to take unpaid tax straight from bank accounts.

How do you suggest a balance between not paying tax but having the suffer the repercussions that come with that, not everyone can claim religious objection (or claim it successfully).

There's currently a case in the EU Human Rights Court by a group called the peace tax seven. Depending on how that goes, there may not be any repercussions for people in the UK.

There is currently a bill in the US house to allow this kind of protest. Until that passes, you just have to be prepared to deal with the consequences. One compromise is to keep your income below the poverty line so that you have no tax liability. If that's not possible, you just need to be ready to go to court. The IRS can't just take your house without seeing a judge first and that's when you can show your proof that you paid taxes and have this religious belief. I'm sure it will become one of those supreme court things eventually.

My concern is that it will not be the military which is reduced by a reduction in the tax income to the Fed Gov... unless it reached such a threshold that it was a serious burden on the economy - but in the meantime most every other area of Fed Gov services/projects would have been crippled. IMO they'd wipe NASA out before they'd wipe out any one part of the DoD.

Adder wrote: My concern is that it will not be the military which is reduced by a reduction in the tax income to the Fed Gov... unless it reached such a threshold that it was a serious burden on the economy - but in the meantime most every other area of Fed Gov services/projects would have been crippled. IMO they'd wipe NASA out before they'd wipe out any one part of the DoD.

Yes... you can't really say 'I'm paying this tax but you can only use it to pay for these things.'
Tax gets put into a pool and then divvied out from there.

I looked it up.
This IRS memo is dated just two years ago.


http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-lafa/20133303f.pdf

Good luck getting any sort of protective law passed that lets people chose not to pay the same taxes as other people due to religious beliefs. And I'm not referring to non-profit organizations, but rather the standard tax payer.

If person A chooses to not pay all their taxes due to a religious objection against it going to the DoD and courts agree, then Person B can claim religious objections against it going to. . . science programs or the healthcare system or transportation or. . . . basically anything.

That's why they do exactly what Edan said... Mass pool all tax money and then divide. So people can't nitpick what they do and don't pay taxes for.

And it's not like the people who don't want to pay the taxes to the DoD can all be moved to a location where they don't benifit from DoD protection.

You point me in the direction of doctrine for the US MILITARY that states we use torture. Whyte Horse, you have obviously been suckered into believing the acts of a few MILITARY personnel using torture tactics was condoned by the higher military officials as being LEGAL, and it IS NOT legal by ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM.

Ah I forgot about the torture part. Yeah we're not allowed to do that. We have required yearly training on those laws too. We're even required to give medical aid to a more injured enemy troop before our own (lesser injury) people for Force sake.