My Offer to the IRS

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In a column published here on April 8, I explained my decision to delay my payment of federal taxes until the day that they would not go to facilitating the corruption and destruction wrought by President Donald Trump, namely January 21, 2029.

I recently received a mailing from the Internal Revenue Service notifying me of nonpayment and requesting payment be made by the end of this month, with penalties and interest applied. The mailing laid out the penalty/interest schedule going forward. 

Some additional research on my part revealed that the hard cap on such extra levies can be waived in certain cases, such as politically motivated nonpayment — which is, oddly enough, categorized as a “frivolous filing.”

Politically motivated? Check. Frivolous? I don’t think so. But I have no intention of depriving the United States of the payments I owe, only its insanely corrupt would-be dictator, as I made clear in my response to the IRS demand, which follows. 

Department of the Treasury
Internal Revenue Service
P.O. Box 9019
Holtsville, NY 11742-9019

June 19, 2026

Dear Adjuster, Internal Revenue Service:

Thank you for providing me with notice of federal tax due for TY2025, to which I am herein responding.

I will be 70 years old in January and have paid federal taxes owed in full and on schedule for over 50 years. It is a civic duty I have always taken, and continue to take, with utmost seriousness and respect.

I have fulfilled that duty during many years in which I strongly, passionately disagreed with some of the uses to which those dollars were being put. I fully understand that, as a rule, the political process is the proper arena for determining those uses, and if taxpayers sought to relitigate those decisions annually on April 15, chaos would ensue.

This year, as a consequence of the myriad ways in which President Donald Trump has flouted the rule of law and the basic standards of decency, I have found myself, for the first time, conscience bound not to fund his corrupt enterprises. The corruption far exceeds any level that a patriotic, law-abiding American citizen should be expected to tolerate; the self-dealing is blatant; the cruelty, vengefulness, and gross misuse of federal executive powers and funds are manifest.

And now Trump, who has masterfully exploited the tax code to pay virtually no taxes for many years of high earnings, has been granted, with a likely illegal stroke of the acting attorney general’s pen, blanket immunity from your own enforcement mechanisms — an immunity that extends as well to his family and “affiliates,” giving him further powers to deal such favors in exchange for loyalty and benefits to himself.

I continue to believe in and respect my country; I am eager to support it — but not the wanton destruction being wrought by this president. I acknowledge that I owe the Treasury the base sum of $xxxxxx for Tax Year 2025. I am therefore proposing this resolution of your claim for payment:

If you have the capacity and are willing to do so, please calculate the total sum, including applied penalties and interest, that would be due as of January 21, 2029. I will then set aside such sum in escrow and send you a check for the full amount dated with that date. The penalties and interest will be the price I pay for my conscience, and the Treasury will lose nothing thereby.

Please consider my proposal with the respect due to a citizen who still believes in American democracy and the values that have made America an inspiration to much of the world.

I look forward to your response, and to working through this together.

With warmest regards…

My fond hope is that my letter lands on the desk of a civil servant who understands, though I am all too aware that, at the IRS as at other federal agencies under Trump 2.0, such holdovers are an endangered species.

I am also, of course, aware that my action is symbolic — negligible to the Treasury and potentially dangerous for me. So be it. It would take millions of like-minded people to rise above the symbolic, and I cannot determine or command the actions of others. 

The course I’ve charted for myself seems fair and reasonable to me — a way of ultimately honoring my duty to country without mocking my duty to conscience. 

Each American may consider their own circumstances, consult their own conscience, sound their own heart, find their own inspiration. In that resides the essence of our freedom.