Those of you who own copies of the book War Tax Resistance, put out by the War Resisters League in 2003, will want to download a copy of the 2011 supplement that brings the information in the guide up-to-date.
Francis T. King sent a letter to the Friends’ Review in November to let them know how things were going with Quakers on the other side of the lines in the American Civil War. Excerpt:
This excerpt can also be found in the book American Quaker War Tax Resistance.
Our Yearly Meeting convened at the usual time and place [] John B. Crenshaw, of Baltimore Yearly Meeting, (Richmond, Va.,) was in attendance. It was thought best to draft Epistles to all the Yearly Meetings, though we received none. All of the Quarters were represented but two, Eastern (mostly within the Federal lines), and Lost Creek (East Tennessee); two Friends were present from the former, but not as Representatives. The attendance was small, and it was particularly noticeable that very few young men were present, many of them having been taken to camp, under the conscription act; towards many of them, however, I am glad to learn that much respect is shown. Some few have paid the exemption tax and have been released, but the Meeting for Sufferings does not sanction this mode of exemption.
For more information on the topic or topics below (organized as “topic → subtopic → sub-subtopic”), click on any of the ♦ symbols to see other pages on this site that cover the topic. Or browse the site’s topic index at the “Outline” page.
- How you can resist funding the government → the tax resistance movement → publications
- ▶
- ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
- More news from the NWTRCC strategy conference, and a Peace Tax Form for the I.R.S. Also: some papers on the ethics of tax evasion from Robert McGee. And: there are some new tax credits for people who install certain types of energy-efficient and solar equipment at home or buy certain types of fuel-efficient vehicles next year.
- The I.R.S. headquarters in Washington was flooded in recent storms. They are closing shop for at least a month while they sort out the millions of dollars of damages, including the destruction of 95% of the building’s electrical and computer equipment. Also: NWTRCC publishes a new pamphlet designed to help older tax resisters.
- More news from NWTRCC’s national meeting in Las Vegas last weekend. Also: Dave Ridley gets cited for “Distribution of Handbills” after leafletting the I.R.S. office in Nashua, New Hampshire.
- How to start your tax resistance by filing a new W-4. Dave Ridley reports on the aftermath of his I.R.S. protest in Nashua. And: The I.R.S. says it’s never going to retrieve $200 million in fraudulent refunds it gave out last year because its software was hopelessly broken.
- Is your congressperson willing to sign a pledge to cut off funding for the war on Iraq? Are you? Also: useful and interesting web tidbits on the underground economy, tax credits for energy-efficient home improvements, and how to get the most tax advantage out of home office expenses.
- NWTRCC’s December newsletter is out, with notes about frivolous filing penalties, the Eugene meeting, the Peace Tax Seven cases, and the experiences of long-time resister Becky Pierce, among other things. Also: what happened when Karl Meyer put the I.R.S. to the test by filing a tax return every day in 1984.
- Raytheon retreats from Derry after anti-war saboteurs and a sympathetic jury yank away the welcome mat. Also: a new supplement updates the war tax resister’s bible. And: an interview with Spanish war tax resister Joan Surroca. Also: a news report of a war tax resistance press conference from 1971.
- The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee have put together a new study kit, designed for educators, on Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” and those who have taken it to heart.
- Half a million copies of a radical tabloid called ¡Rebelaos! (“Revolt!”) have hit the streets across Spain, promoting mass tax resistance and redirection in the service of local self-government.
- When you’re trying to expand the ranks of tax resisters in your campaign, you need good educational tools. If you can be clear, thorough, and credible in demonstrating how to resist and what the consequences are likely to be, you can eliminate the biggest obstacle to the growth of your campaign. Today I’ll give a few examples of how tax resistance campaigns have dispelled ignorance about tax resistance.
- Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → religious groups and the religious perspective → Quakers → 19th century Quakers
- ▶
- ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
- Quaker meetings would occasionally distill their discussions over war taxes and the payment of militia exemption fines into a consensus statement, which they would publish as a record of the current understanding of the Meeting. Here are some examples.
- Excerpts from Stephen B. Weeks’s “Southern Quakers and Slavery” concerning Quaker tax resistance in the post-Revolutionary period. And: excerpts from a letter from Benjamin Bates to the Virginia Legislature, explaining why Quakers felt they could not pay militia exemption fines — which makes me wonder if the passion for resistance is getting out ahead of the reasoning at this point.
- The new NWTRCC newsletter is out. Also: In 1815, Ephraim Wood spied hypocrisy in Quaker war tax resistance, but, as with so many of the old criticisms and reductiones ad absurdum, this one seems to me to be making some good arguments in favor of tax resistance while trying to invent and discredit bad ones.
- Bartering is on the rise. Also: New York Quakers sent a message to the 1821 New York state constitutional convention asserting their rights to conscientious objection to military service or equivalent payments. One delegate complained “how are we to expect our governor to withstand these quakers” — and sure enough, the governor soon took their side.
- A review of Tom Hodgkinson’s “The Freedom Manifesto.” Also: Samuel Hanson Cox wrote a condemnation the Quaker policy on militia fines in the course of a general denunciation of Quakerism. It’s a good example of a typical knee-jerk opposition to the Quaker peace testimony and its tax-resistance ramifications.
- In 1835 a Quaker writer with the pen name “Pacificus” presaged Thoreau’s argument that civil disobedience, and tax resistance in particular, could reform a nation.
- In a pamphlet titled “Views of the Society of Friends in Relation to Civil Government” (1840), the New England Yearly Meeting set down its idea of the sort of relationship a Christian ought to have with Cæsar, particularly regarding war and war taxes.
- “Human Smoke” questions the conventional wisdom about World War II. Also: Aristides Monteiro paints what he considered a comic picture of patient Confederate bandit guerrillas trying to steal requisitions from a furious Virginia Quaker family, in his 1890 book “War Reminiscences by the Surgeon of [John Singleton] Moseby’s Command.”
- Excerpts from Stephen B. Weeks’s “Southern Quakers and Slavery” concerning Quaker tax resistance during the American Civil War.
- Employees of War Resisters’ International in London tell Inland Revenue why they’re not getting those war taxes. Also: Selections from Fernando Gale Cartland’ 1895 book “Southern Heroes: The Friends in War Time” that tell how Quakers in the Confederate states coped with the military draft, exemption fees, and war taxes; including writings of conscientious objector Himelius M. Hockett, and a letter from C.S. Venable concerning conscientious objector Tilghman Vestal.
- The tax resistance of American Civil War-era resister Ann Branson, as told in her own words and in the reflections of Joshua Maule.
- Selections from Nathan F. Spencer’s “An Account of the Sufferings of Friends of North Carolina Yearly Meeting in Support of Their Testimony Against War from 1861 to 1865” concerning what happened to Friends who refused to pay the militia exemption fees.
- Am I “obsessing” about Quaker tax resistance from centuries past? There’s a good reason. Also: Quakers plead the case of conscientious objectors to Lincoln’s war cabinet. And: the story of Cyrus G. Pringle.
- You’ve heard that the I.R.S. has outsourced some of its delinquent tax collection, but it’s also outsourced some of their hunting down of tax delinquents and tax evaders by paying off snitches with a percentage of the take. Also: An 1864 debate in the U.S. Senate about Quaker resistance to militia exemption fines, and to what extent the law should respect it.
- Streaming audio from several radio shows about tax resistance. Also: Some of the global tension concerning high food and fuel prices has taken the form of organized tax protests. And: The American Peace Society suggested that the Quaker refusal to pay militia exemption fines either went too far or not far enough.
- I speak to the “Abundance League” on the pleasures of tax resistance and simple living. Also: The Westbury, New York Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends reported on what happened to one New York Quaker who refused to submit to the draft or to militia exemption fines.
- “The Haydocks’ Testimony” is a fictionalized account of Quaker conscientious objection (and refusal to pay militia exemption taxes) in the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
- If you didn’t love that whole prebate “economic stimulus” vote buying fiasco before, you may love it when you read what it’s costing the government. Also: One of the more in-depth explanations of the Quaker position against paying commutation, bounty, or militia exemption fines, came from the Meeting for Sufferings of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1865.
- Brief notes from the business meeting of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee. Also: another data point on the mystery of how American Quaker war tax resistance died out in the late 19th century.
- Anarchism, properly understood, is not aiming at a social utopia but at an individual transformation of understanding and ethics; and, says Tolstoy, the same can be said for Christian Anarchism. Also: Jonathan Harris on the Quaker conscientious objectors taxed by the Confederacy.
- After Quaker war tax resistance had gone extinct in the United States, it survived in new Zealand. Also: Foes of Hugo Chavez tear up their tax forms and go on strike in Venezuela in 2003. And: The government goes after Women’s Freedom League secretary Florence Underwood for tax resistance in 1915. And: federal workers in Manitoba in 1934 refuse to pay a state wage tax.
- American Quaker war tax resistance was still limping along in 1901. Also: David Cooper on war tax resistance during the American Revolution. And: long-time war tax resister Anna Aschenbach honored and mourned. Also: Quakers join the volunteer fire department as a way of getting out of militia exemption taxes.
- You know about John Woolman’s tax resistance, but what about his brother Abner? Also: British suffragists look back at the history of tax resistance in England. And: a British Quaker explains why they pay some war taxes. And: a man was arrested this month for not taking off his hat in court, a bit like George Fox was some 450 years ago… why do Americans tolerate such arrogant pretentiousness from judges today?
- Sarah E. Wall was one of the under-sung tax resisting heroines of the American women’s suffrage movement. Also: in 1863 a new military conscription law in the United States threatened the death penalty for Quakers who could neither serve nor pay a commutation tax.
- A profile of Nashua-area war tax resisters Francine Wall and Ruth McKay. Also: “An act to compel the Quakers to perform military service, or to pay money in lieu thereof, might properly be entitled, ‘An act for the extinction of the Religious Society of Friends,’” wrote the Friends’ Review in 1869.
- Greg Reagle touts tax resistance on Adam Kokesh’s show, Wendy McElroy ponders tax resistance in light of the Planned Parenthood funding debate, the I.R.S. is noticing more tax evasion and fraud this year, “Bushel Bob” shuts down his produce market to avoid paying war taxes, more Tax Day action reports, 10 reasons not to pay U.S. taxes, and the curious case of the Oath Keepers. Also: A Quaker in 1900 takes pains to avoid revenue stamps. And: a dispatch from the Hut Tax War of 1898.
- Some excerpts from the “History of Woman Suffrage” concerning Lucretia Mott and the influence on her of Quaker reformer Elias Hicks.
- In 1863, President Lincoln started the first federal military draft, and the pages of the “Friends’ Intelligencer” filled with debate over whether Quakers could pay the $300 commutation money to escape from bearing arms.
- In the Civil War, the Spanish American War, and World War I, the United States raised money by requiring people to affix war tax “revenue stamps” to a variety of documents and goods. What did the Quakers do about that?
- 17% of Americans think the U.S. government has the “consent of the governed.” Also: a follow-up on Steven Short’s radio show about Northern California War Tax Resistance. And: a video of Tony Serra’s keynote at the last NWTRCC national gathering. Also: Quakers were still notorious for war tax resistance at least as late as 1884…
- Gideon Frost and Samuel Rhoads spar over the duties of Quaker conscientious objectors during the American Civil War.
- A letter-to-the-editor and response from the editor in the September, 1900 edition of “The British Friend” concisely sums up one argument about war taxes and mixed taxes that came up frequently in debates about Quaker war tax resistance. Also: an update on Cindy Sheehan’s tax resistance.
- A non-sectarian Christian peace movement started developing in the early nineteenth century in the United States, distinct from the traditional “peace churches.” Here are some excerpts from writings by Thomas C. Upham and Charles Whipple touching on war taxes and militia exemption fines.
- Thomas Clarkson, though not a Quaker himself, studied the sect so closely that his writings on Quakerism were published in a long-running series in The British Friend. But on Quakers and war taxes, he missed the mark. Also, here’s what Isaac Zane and Anthony Benezet had to say about Quakers taking pledges of allegiance or paying fines for refusing.
- “War slaughters thousands and carries untold misery to desolated homes; but many professed peace men pay taxes which support it,” and otherwise explicitly or implicitly support the warfare state, mused “Z” in the Friends’ Review on this date in 1885. What to do?
- At some point, an American law enforcement agent, dressed like an imperial stormtrooper and with a death’s-head logo on his union badge, spraying a protesting citizen with poison gas or beating her with a club, may pause to ask: “wait a minute, are we the bad guys?” Also: a British Quaker counsels war tax resistance against the occupation of Afghanistan… in 1878.
- On this date in 1863, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting counseled: “Friends cannot conscientiously and consistently pay money — however small or large the sum — levied solely for warlike purposes, or in lieu of military service; whether to hire a substitute to do that which we believe to be sinful, or as a tax for the exercise of the right of liberty of conscience.”
- In 1863, President Lincoln started the first federal military draft, and the pages of the “Friends’ Intelligencer” filled with debate over whether Quakers could pay the $300 commutation money to escape from bearing arms. Here are some excerpts.
- In Germany and other parts of the continent, persecution of Quakers for their refusal to serve in the military or to pay war taxes caused the emigration of Quakers and led to the dwindling of the Society of Friends.
- Wendy McElroy on the tax resisting life of Vivien Kellems. Also: tax evasion in Italy is widespread and sometimes aggressive. And: Nereus Mendenhall sets the record straight about Quaker war tax resistance in the Confederate states.
- During the Crimean War the British government hiked the income tax in order to raise funds to carry on the fight. British Quakers debated whether this income tax increase was a “war tax” that they should refuse to voluntarily pay.
- A quickly successful tax resistance campaign in Queensland, Australia, in 1927, over complaints that seem familiar today. Also: The Society of Friends had a rough go of it in France, in large part due to government persecution: “No Government regards principles more revolutionary than the refusal of military service and of the payment of taxes.”
- On this date in 1885, The British Friend ran a letter from a Quaker putting forth the argument that Quakers should only resist explicit “war taxes” and not taxes like the income tax that just happen to go largely for war.
- The British Friend mulls over tax resistance 160 years ago today. Also: In 1950, Westbrook Pegler waxes furious and sarcastic about tax refusal and President Truman’s outrageous taxpayer-paid travel budget.
- Quaker pacifist W.H.F. Alexander challenged the London Yearly Meeting to put their money where their peace testimony was in 1894… a suggestion that seems to have fallen with a thud.
- Two Quakers each refused to pay one and a half pence for the Egyptian War in 1883 (“It would be well if the whole Society had done so,” one Quaker remarks). Also: Oklahoma merchants rally to refuse to pay a tax imposed by the Creek Nation in 1907.
- Quaker legislators voted to fund the British conquest of Egypt in 1882, so an editorialist for The British Friend said it was up to Quaker taxpayers to show some spine. Also: a video of folks from the “Δεν Πληρώνω” (“Won’t Pay”) movement in Greece reconnecting the electricity at a home where it had been shut off for failure to pay the new taxes grafted on to the utility bills.
- The successful tax resistance campaign of the Great Confederated Anti-Dray and Land Tax League of South Australia in 1850–1. Also: 150 years ago today the Philadelphia Inquirer tries to make the case that there was unanimous patriotic Civil War fervor in the North — even among the nominally pacifist Quakers.
- A variety of tactic that has occasionally accompanied tax resistance campaigns is the renouncing of government privileges and titles. Here are some examples.
- When trying to bring new tax resisters into a movement, sometimes there is no substitute for addressing potential resisters individually: whether that be through letters, petitions, face-to-face meetings, or cleverly creative modes of engagement.
- Some tax resistance campaigns have accompanied their resistance with petitions to the government asking it to change its policies or to rescind the tax. Here are some examples.
- One way a tax resistance campaign can claim victory is by convincing the government to either formally rescind the tax, or to recognize the legal validity of tax resistance. Here are some examples.
