Tax Resisters Hold Phone Tax Protest

A group of about 70 young and old people joined in a quiet lunch-hour march to New England Telephone and Telegraph's Boston offices yesterday to protest the use of phone taxes to support the war.

At the phone company, they paid their February phone bills-minus the tax. The tax money, which totalled $112, was presented to Marces Muncis, a New England representative of the United Farm Workers. The Farm Workers will use the money to help support a clinic in Delanos, California.

The money was collected in a helmet which symbolized the 101 Americans who died in Southeast Asia during the past week. The marchers obtained this figure-which represents the highest toll in five-and-a-half months-from the Record American on the way to New England Tel and Tel.

The Roxbury War Tax Scholarship Fund and the Boston Tax Resistance organized the "tax march." The Roxbury group, which is about three years old, now has about $25,500 in unpaid income and phone taxes in its accounts. The principle is held in escrow, but the interest is donated regularly to community projects. In January, the Roxbury fund gave $354 to the Storefront Learning Center in Boston.

Boston Tax Resistance, a newer group, has collected about $2500 in unpaid phone taxes.

The Internal Revenue Service now collects about one-and-a-half billion dollars annually through the phone tax, which was instituted to provide funds for the war.

"It seems like a small thing when it's tacked on your phone bill, but this [the $142] shows that it really adds up," a woman from Boston Tax Resistance said at the phone company rally yesterday.