Meet the Americans refusing to pay their taxes in protest of the Trump administration

Ed Hedemann hasn’t paid federal income taxes since 1970. The Brooklyn freelancer received a draft notice for Vietnam a year earlier and refused his induction because he didn’t believe in war or killing people. Once he began working, he realized he didn’t want to fund the military with his paycheck either. 

“I was thinking, well, it’s a little inconsistent for me to refuse induction, refuse to go into the military, yet pay taxes that would fund other people to go into the military,” the 81-year-old told Fortune. He estimates he’s withheld roughly $85,000 from the federal government over the decades.

Hedemann is a war tax resister—someone who refuses to pay federal income taxes as a form of protest against government spending they find morally reprehensible. And while he’s been at it for more than 50 years, recently he’s been getting a lot more company.

In the 15 months since the Trump administration returned to office—a period that has included ICE and Border Patrol killing Americans in Minnesota, the capture of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, and the start of a war in Iran—a growing number of Americans have decided that paying their federal taxes amounts to complicity. Some are withholding what they owe. Others are restructuring their lives to owe nothing at all.

Tax resistance has a long history in the United States, going back to the Boston Tea Party. During the Vietnam War, an estimated 200,000 Americans refused to pay a 10% telephone tax that directly funded the war. But organizers say the current wave is unlike anything they’ve seen in decades.

The war in Gaza was a “watershed moment,” said Lincoln Rice, national coordinator at the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC), which provides guidance on conscientious tax objection. Before Oct. 7, NWTRCC hosted a couple of Zoom workshops a year for 20 to 25 attendees. During the last few tax seasons, the organization has offered sessions every other week, drawing 100 to 500 people, and has seen a surge in calls, emails, and social media........

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