A woman who camped out near former President George W. Bush’s Texas ranch to protest the war in Iraq admits she is delinquent in filing several years of tax returns. Now, the Internal Revenue Service is asking her to turn over financial records in an effort to try to force her into the filing of accurate returns.
The federal government has sued the anti-war protester, asking her to release her financial paperwork to the IRS pertaining to the time period from August to November 2011. An IRS revenue officer says the records could assist the IRS in tabulating and collecting the woman’s taxes from 2005 and 2006.
Up until recently, the woman had at least been on speaking terms with IRS officials. The officer and the woman met in November and agreed to an extension on the taxes until January 2012. In January, however, the woman said she would not provide any paperwork the IRS requested and she wouldn’t answer questions.
The IRS says she is self-employed. But it’s also worth asking what income she has collected in the last few years, since she has devoted much of her time to activism.
The woman is steadfast in her refusal to pay her taxes and hasn’t since 2004, saying she doesn’t want her money to go toward the war. She has said she won’t give the federal government anything because the government can’t give her what she wants: her son.
Her son, a specialist in the Army, died while fighting in Iraq in 2004. After he died, his mother organized the group Gold Star Families for Peace, and then in 2005, she set up her camp outside former President Bush’s vacation home in Crawford, Texas. She had hoped to force a meeting with the president.
Source: News 10, “Feds sue anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan over back taxes,” George Warren and Cornell Barnard, Feb. 22, 2012
