Links of Interest to Tax Resisters

A few more links from here and there:


From the issue of Labor Action:

Readers Take the Floor…

To the Editor:

A soft-spoken Nisei has put the internal-revenue system and the infernal prison system under a glaring spotlight that only pure peacemakers can hold.

K. J. Otsuka, 40, farmhand of near Richmond, Indiana, refused to pay $4.50 income tax because he didn’t want to finance the cold war. He didn’t comply promptly with a collector’s order to produce books and papers showing his financial condition, so he was hauled before Judge Robert C. Baltzell of Indianapolis Federal District Court.

On he had complied with the red tape and so was only reprimanded by the judge. Then the judge gave Jim until to pay the $4.50.

Jim was still of the same, stubborn mind on , so Judge Baltzell sentenced him to 3 months imprisonment and fined him $100. This the judge gave Jim for failure to answer the collector’s summons promptly. There was evidence of prejudice by the jurist against Americans of Japanese ancestry. Actually, the judge was mad that Jim refused to pay his income tax.

After Otsuka served his time, he was due for release . A U.S. Tax Commissioner on , in Ashland, Kentucky, ruled that he would have to stay in jail until he paid the $100 fine plus $40 court costs. As $140 constitutes one-third the value of Otsuka’s assets, and he has not changed his mind after 90 days’ reorientation of his tax-refusal views, he is still in the Ashland penitentiary.

The warden would not speak to a mixed delegation which had come to Ashland to welcome Jim on the outside. He was shocked at the effrontery of Mrs. Wallace F. Nelson, who wanted him to give her some information! Nor would he allow any of the ministers among them to see Jim (during regular visiting hours). The welcoming committee thereupon set up a picket line, and drew up two sets of picket signs (the first set were destroyed by the Kentucky “colonels” — state troopers).

Our Workers Defense Council here protests this $4.50 injustice and permanent persecution of peace-loving citizens, and is glad to express its solidarity with Jim Otsuka. Albeit in different ways, we too are fighting the permanent war economy.

Tad Tekla, Secretary
Cleveland,