Just in Time for Tax Season, it's WRL's famous "Pie Chart": Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes

For almost 40 years, War Resisters League has researched and produced an annual pie chart flyer to call attention to the vast amount of our income tax dollars spent on the military and war. This year the pie percentages look different than previous years: the red slices add up to 37% — but the military budget keeps going up and up. The $978 billion for “current military” is $13 billion higher than last year’s analysis, but there were also increases in every department, plus pandemic relief spending. The reverse side graphically shows the massive amounts of money thrown at the Pentagon — and the text highlights the victims and winners of all this spending.

Order Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes FY2023 today!

Too late for our analysis this year, the president just released his updated FY2023 budget. Biden wants more money for the Pentagon, another 10% above what Congress approved in March for the current year. They increased the Pentagon budget 5.6% over 2021’s massive budget, and then added nearly $14 billion in aid to Ukraine, most of which is military aid. That was on top of the millions of dollars in military equipment the administration had already sent to Ukraine.

This trend will continue unabated unless we persist in pressuring for change. Take the pie chart flyer to the streets on Tax Day, April 18. Mail it to elected officials and remind them that, as Albert Einstein said, “You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.” Post it on social media. Use the information to determine how much you are willing to pay or not to pay the IRS. Send it along with your tax return and a protest letter. *

This flyer is a kind of “pie in the face” to wake up the general public to the crime of massive military spending. Use this information to demand that the Pentagon be dramatically slashed and the money moved to desperately underfunded social programs, to aid victims of U.S. wars, to save the planet from the growing climate crisis — to prevent war not prepare for war.

Order Where Your Income Tax Money Really Goes FY2023 today!

In solidarity,

War Resisters League

* See our war tax resistance web pages for more information. If you are refusing some or all of your federal taxes, see the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee’s Refuse to Pay for War Sign on Statement.