Skip to content
Tax Strike Tactics

Assist Resisters Whose Property is Seized

You can show solidarity with tax resisters by coming to their assistance or offering moral support if the government seizes their property.

Example The Kehler/Corner Home

When the home of war tax resisters Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner was seized for back taxes, supporters came from near and far to maintain a ’round-the-clock occupation of the home:

[David] Dellinger and others have come from as far away as California to the Colrain [Massachusetts] house… Mr. Kehler and Ms. Corner continued to live in the house until they were arrested by Federal marshals last December [1991]. Since then, friends and supporters of the couple have arrived to occupy the almost empty house in week-long shifts marked by the Thursday “changing of the guard” ceremony. Because the house was sold in a Government auction in February, all who go inside risk arrest for trespassing.…

For Bonney Simons of St. Johnsbury, Vt., sleeping on a bedroll in the house is her first official act of civil disobedience. At 72 years of age, she said, it is time to “put your body where your mouth is.”

Example The Siege of Montefiore

British women’s suffrage tax resister Dora Montefiore barricaded her home and prevented the tax collector from seizing her property for several weeks in 1906. It came to be known as the “Siege of Montefiore.” She noted:

The tradespeople of the neighbourhood were absolutely loyal to us besieged women, delivering their milk and bread, etc., over the rather high garden wall… The weekly wash arrived in the same way and the postman day by day delivered very encouraging budgets of correspondence, so that practically we suffered very little inconvenience…

A woman sympathiser in the neighbourhood brought during the course of the [first] morning, a pot of home-made marmalade, as the story had got abroad that we had no provisions and had difficulty in obtaining food. This was never the case as I am a good housekeeper and have always kept a store cupboard, but we accepted with thanks the pot of marmalade because the intentions of the giver were so excellent.

Examples like these proved to be vivid anecdotes that the press could use when they described the siege and the support the besieged women were receiving from sympathizers.

Example Valentine Byler

The U.S. government seized Amish tax resister Valentine Byler’s horses and their harnesses while he was in the field preparing for spring planting. Sympathetic neighbors then allowed him to borrow their horses so he could continue his work. Other supporters around the country who heard about the case sent Byler money—more than enough to buy a new team.

Example Cosmas Raimondi

When war tax resister Cosmas Raimondi’s car was seized by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 1982, several families in his parish offered to loan him their cars. “I’ve not had to ask one person,” he said. “I’m beginning to wonder why I even had a car.”

Example Halifax “Vicars’ Rate” Resistance

During the 1875–76 resistance to the “vicars’ rate” in Halifax, England, when the Anti-Vicars’ Rate Union formed, its president recalled, “two resolutions were passed, the first supporting the formation of the Union, its object being the total and unconditional repeal of the Act [that instituted the rate]; and the second resolution being that of a preliminary guarantee fund of not less than £1,000 be formed to support any poor man who should suffer from the spoiling of his goods under distraint.”

Example Rebecca Riots

The Rebecca Rioters in Wales were more assertive. They sometimes assisted resisters by thwarting the government’s attempts at property seizure:

Warrants of distress were issued… The constables then went towards Talog; but when on their way there they heard the sound of a horn, and immediately between two and three hundred persons assembled together, with their faces blackened, some dressed in women’s caps, and others with their coats turned so as to be completely disguised—armed with scythes, crowbars, and all manner of destructive weapons which they could lay their hands on. After cheering the constables, they defied them to do their duty. The latter had no alternative but to return to town without executing their warrants.…

At Maesgwenllian near Kidwelly, several bailiffs were put in possession for arrears of rent to the amount of £150, but about one o’clock on the morning of 11th September, Rebecca and a great number of her followers made their appearance on the premises, and after driving the bailiffs off, took away the whole of the goods distrained on. As soon as daylight appeared, the bailiffs returned, but found no traces of Rebecca, nor of the goods which had been taken away.

Example Moral Support for War Tax Resisters

Sometimes moral support is all that is called for. When the IRS seized and auctioned off the home and farm of Art Harvey and Elizabeth Gravalos in 1996, other war tax resisters and supporters were by their sides:

“I might have cried if I were alone,” Gravalos admitted. But she was far from alone. About 75 supporters gathered outside the building and spoke of their solidarity with Elizabeth and Arthur.

In 1997, the IRS levied 78-year-old war tax resister Ruth McKay’s social security checks to recoup taxes she had refused to pay over the previous twenty years. To show their support of her stand, forty sympathizers joined her for a vigil at the federal courthouse in Concord, New Hampshire.

When war tax resister Maria Smith’s wages were garnisheed by the IRS in 2005, fifty supporters held a special church service in her honor.

Example Bardoli Tax Strike

An alternative to a solemn service or vigil is a party. One man whose property was seized by the government during the Bardoli tax strike in 1928, and “who thus lost all his valuable property, celebrated the event by inviting friends and soldiers of Satyagraha to a party.”

Example Quakers

If you’re resisting taxes in a good cause or for a good principle, and you know that government retribution is expected as part of the package, a property seizure isn’t cause for panic or mourning, or reason for your friends to take pity on you. It may instead be an opportunity to reflect with satisfaction on a job well done.

In 1822, Nathaniel Morgan was speaking with someone who was curious about Quaker practices. He remembered the conversation this way:

I told him then that I and my father had refused to pay the income tax on account of war, and had refused it on its first coming out, and withstood it 16 years, except when peace was declared, and that our goods were sold by auction to pay it. This seemed to excite his curiosity, and made a stand to hear further… asking me if we got anything by that, meaning, was anything refunded by the Society for such suffering. I immediately replied: “Yes, peace of mind, which was worth all.”

However, some Quaker Meetings have taken steps to assist members whose property has been seized. In the mid-1970s, the IRS seized and auctioned off Meg Bowman’s car. In response, members of her Meeting “formed a special support corporation and bought the car so that Meg and others may use it in their travels in and about the city” (and so the car would no longer be an asset in Bowman’s name that the IRS could seize).

Notes and Citations