Letter to Commissioner

Robert J. Burrowes

P.O. Box 167

North Carlton

Victoria 3054

Tel/Fax: (03) 9482 4973

4 October 1996

Michael Carmody

Commissioner of Taxation

GPO Box 9990

Melbourne

Victoria 3001

Re File Number 311 971 065

Dear Mr. Carmody

I wish to advise that I will not be submitting a 1996 tax return because I have earned no income during the financial year 1995-96.

Moreover, as I have recently committed myself to offering all of my work - for nonviolent social change - as a gift, I will receive no income for the rest of my life. Consequently, I will not be submitting a tax return at any time in the future.

This commitment is another outcome of my ongoing effort to live in accordance with the vision of the world that I am trying to create. The commitment to offer my life's work as a gift demonstrates my faith in a future when human relationships are treated as sacred, and not reduced to a series of commercial transactions. The commitment also reflects my long- standing intention to noncooperate with (and thereby facilitate the systematic dismantling of) the parliamentary, legal and bureaucratic institutions of the state, because of its life-destroying roles as a structure of exploitation and the chief perpetrator of violence.

In my view, the above actions are necessary elements of the struggle to create a just, peaceful and ecologically sustainable world.

I have not yet decided who should receive my resisted taxes, totalling $194.40, for the year 1993-94. When I decide what to do with this money, I will let you know.

Yours sincerely

Robert J. Burrowes