Activists Use Tax Day To Attempt To Influence Public Opinion

Think of it as the people's First Amendment answer to their 16th Amendment tax burden.

With the deadline yesterday to file federal income tax returns, activist groups seeking redress from the government fanned out across Manhattan to greet taxpayers, remind them what their government money buys, and influence public opinion — or at least try.

"Do you care about your tax dollars?" a 68-year-old Brooklyn antiwar activist and adult literacy coordinator, Joan Pleune, shouted as she handed out leaflets at Rockefeller Center. The fliers told taxpayers "where your income tax money really goes," claiming 51% for military spending. Few passers-by stopped to take one.

CNN reported yesterday that anti-war groups like Ms. Pleune's group, Grandmothers Against the War, were planning similar tax day protests from Brunswick, Ga., to Fresno, Calif., as Americans filed many of the 136 million tax returns the Internal Revenue Service predicts it will receive.

In New York City, the Grandmothers were one of a handful of groups — ranging from opponents of Wal-Mart to gay marriage supporters — that staged the protest.

The pro-gay marriage group, Marriage Equality New York, had planned to greet tax filers at the James Farley Post Office on Eighth Avenue yesterday, but it postponed the visit for two days after the IRS granted those affected by this week's nor'easter 48 additional hours to file their taxes without penalty, the group's senior events director, Ron Zacchi, said. Tax day protests are ideal, Mr. Zacchi said, because as gay people fill out their tax returns, "tax season is a big reminder" that all but a handful of states ban gay marriage. Mr. Zacchi said some gay people would pay less tax if they could file joint tax returns — and some might pay more.

Many of the elderly women at Rockefeller Center said they hoped passers-by would show interest in their long-standing anti-war message by focusing on the cost to individual Americans. The problem was, they said, many of the pedestrians around Rockefeller Center yesterday weren't Americans but tourists. Some didn't speak English. And to tourists visiting America, April 17 is just a regular day.