While the rest of us political junkies spend Tax Return Day contemplating who will report what in their campaign-donation reports also due today, some of opponents of the Iraq War plan to spend lunch time downtown conducting what they call a “penny poll.”

“As War and Occupation takes lives in Iraq and Iran and the Bush 
Administration Threatens Iran with War, St. Louisans are Joining the 
2008 War Tax Boycott,” one group of protesters say in a release just sent out.

Members of the Women’s International League for 
Peace, and Freedom, the Peace Economy Project and the St. Louis 
Covenant Community of War Tax Resisters plan to distribute leaflets in 
front of the Main Post Office (Market and 18th) from 11:30 to 1:00 p.m.

The action is being duplicated in a number of cities nationwide, the groups say.

“The leaflet is a pie chart, displaying how President Bush’s proposed 
2009 budget will devote 54% of each tax dollar allocated by the U.S. 
Congress to war and preparations for war, past and present,” the release says.

The pie chart leaflet and documentation also can be viewed by clicking here.

“Among those distributing the leaflets will be local citizens who have 
decided for reasons of conscience to participate in the 2008 War Tax 
Boycott, refusing to pay all or a portion of their federal income 
taxes and redirecting the taxes to a Health Clinic in New Orleans and 
Direct Aid Initiative, a project providing health care to Iraqi 
refugees,” the release adds.

Details of the boycott can be found by clicking here.

The group says that nationally, the redirected money — estimated to amount to at least $300,000 in federal income taxes – ”will be presented to the Common Ground Health Clinic and the Direct Aid Initiative in New Orleans on May 5, 2008.”

MEANWHILE:

Members of the Missouri Progressive Vote Coalition (Pro-Vote) plan to gather outside the downtown St. Louis Post office at noon “with a message for Congress: Invest in America’s Future, Not War in Iraq…”

Activists plan “to talk to late tax-filers about where their tax dollars go—urge them to call Congress…about ending President Bush’s misplaced priorities of tax breaks for the rich and corporations while dumping trillions of dollars into a needless war in Iraq and slashing human needs at home,” the group’s release says.

“Missouri Pro-Vote will call on Congress to reverse the administration’s upside-down priorities by ending the war and tax breaks for the wealthy so we can invest in America’s future.”

“Missouri Pro-Vote is an affiliate of USAction, which opposed the 2003 invasion and now leads a national coalition of academics, advocates, grassroots leaders, labor organizations and others to end the war, reform tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations and invest in America’s Future.”