Texas Women Refuse to Pay Social Security Tax for Household Help
Here is a little more data on the “Texas
housewives’ rebellion” against paying social security taxes on the wages of
their household help, first from a United Press dispatch:
Marshall,
Tex.
(UP) — Eleven
Texas housewives told Secretary of the Treasury John W. Snyder
to quit trying to get them to collect
Social Security taxes from their servants.
“Texas housewives” Carolyn Abney, Dorothy Martin, Rubye Pelz, and Etheldra
Spangler go over some paperwork.
They indicated they would stick by their guns even if it meant a court test.
The women sent a letter to Mr. Snyder curtly requesting him to stop sending
tax agents to their homes.
Their spokesman, Mrs. Carolyn M. Abney, said they don’t intend to become “tax
collectors without compensation” and consider their refusal a “petition a
just grievance.”
All 11 involved Social Security returns on their domestic employes as
required under the new statute, but balked on paying the bill.
On , a pair of agents from the
Internal Revenue Office called to present each with a letter, urging payment
of the tax in order that “compulsion” would not be necessary.
The 11 payments ranged from $1.63 to $4.58. But, said Mrs. Abney, “it’s not
the money, it’s the principle. That law is unconstitutional.” None have paid.
Mrs. Abney said the agents were “very courteous” to the women but charged
they made “intimidating and frightening” remarks to the servants involved.
In one case a Negro maid was told “your good white folks must not think much
of you if they wont pay this tax,” she said.
The women said they don’t want “any color line” drawn.
In their letter to Mr. Snyder, the housewives suggested use of the
U.S. mails for
future communications in the controversy, saying it would be faster and
cheaper than sending agents to call.
They said their decision to fight the new law was reached after “long and
prayerful consideration.”
“We have in good conscience petitioned our government on a just grievance,”
they said.
One of the protesting women lost her maid simply by requesting her Social
Security number, Mrs. Abney said, and “most of the domestic employes don’t
want it.”
Marshall,
Tex.
(AP) —
Treasury agents came back to Marshall
to extract more money from bank
accounts of housewives who refuse to pay Social Security taxes on servant’s
wages.
But some of the rebellious housewives have so far been overlooked, and they
are puzzled.
“I can’t understand it,” said Mrs. Mary V. Hicks. “Why, I have a personal
account in one of the banks, and there’s enough money in it to pay the tax
and penalty and leave six cents.”
As a new treasury agent, Gus W. Davis of nearby Longview, served additional
seizure warrants, the housewives’ spokesman made these announcements:
1. The housewives did not withdraw their deposits. (When treasury agents
moved in and served seizure
warrants against bank accounts, it appeared several accounts had been
withdrawn.)
“There was enough money to cover every warrant issued,” declared Mrs. Carolyn
Abney, spokesman for the housewives. “The accounts must just have been
overlooked.” A bank spokesman said this could have happened in the confusion
of the treasury agents’ visit.
2. There are only 13 women — that she knows of — who are refusing to pay the
taxes, said Mrs. Abney.
Davis levied against the account of Mrs. Zach Abney
Sr., for $4.14 and against the
account of Mrs. J.C. Quinn for $4.08. This brought the Internal Revenue
Bureau’s take in two days to $44.23 from ten bank accounts.
The housewives say that they will ask the Internal Revenue Bureau to give
their money back.
The Texas Housewives lost their first court case in
, and in
they lost a Supreme Court appeal. At first, the women remained defiant and
continued to refuse to pay, claiming that the Supreme Court had not really
answered the Constitutional question but had only verified the interpretation
of the tax statute. They eventually caved in and began to pay the required
quarterly taxes.
