Some historical and global examples of tax resistance →
United States →
Vietnam War, ~1965–75 →
Writers & Editors War Tax Protest, 1967 →
Dwight Macdonald
, Dwight Macdonald wrote a letter to the IRS in which he said “[a]s a patriotic American concerned for my country’s good name, I can no longer find it in my conscience, or in my common sense, to continue to pay taxes in support of my government’s military operations in Vietnam.”
The movement chronicled in this book includes many of the movers-and-shakers in the war tax resistance movement in in the United States, which is part of what drew me to read it (war tax resistance only features in a small part of the book).
The story in summary is about a small, dedicated core of activists in the United States who broke from the Marxist “old left” in to explore a brand of activism influenced by Christian anti-war traditions, the non-violent confrontation techniques of Gandhi, and American contrarian individualist thinking along the lines of Thoreau.
This group of activists was forged in the camps for conscientious objectors that were run by America’s traditional peace churches as part of a compromise during World War Ⅱ, survived the McCarthyist in part due to their principled distancing from authoritarian communism, and came to play decisive roles in shaping the form of the civil rights movement and the movements against the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race.
It’s an interesting story — and the author, James Tracy, is good at pointing out how the principles and theories of these activists served them well at some times (allowing them to outlast the “old left” and influence the “new left” for instance), and proved unhelpful at other times (the radical individualism and focus on lifestyle change that allowed the group to stay focused during the conformist scaled poorly to the sort of mass movement that coalesced around civil rights and Vietnam in ).
Truth be told, part of my harsh reaction to the Iraq Moratorium that I posted here on was probably from envy at how their call to vague and lukewarm action has attracted some 2,000 signers, support from dozens of organizations, and endorsements from various celebs, while the War Tax Boycott is still trying to build up a head of steam, without much in the way of organizational or big-name support.
There was a time, though, when influential people were eager to sign on to a war tax boycott.
On , the New York Times reported:
WRITERS PROTEST VIETNAM WAR TAX
133 Will Refuse to Pay if Surcharge Is Approved
By MORRIS KAPLAN
A number of writers and editors have joined in opposing tax payments to support the war in Vietnam by pledging to withhold payment of President Johnson’s proposed 10 per cent income tax surcharge if Congress approves it.
Many of them have also promised to deduct 23 per cent from their tax bills as an estimate of the percentage used to fight the war.
A statement in support of this dissent has been signed by 133 writers.
Each dissenter has sent $10 or more to the Writers and Editors War Tax Protest, a group headed by Gerald Waker of Manhattan. Mr. Walker, assistant articles editor of The New York Times Sunday Magazine, said the money would be used for expenses and to pay for a newspaper advertisement planned for .
The proposal for a 10 per cent surcharge on corporate and individual taxes is now before the House Ways and Means Committee and is expected to be reported out next month.
The President has said it would relieve a budget deficit of possibly $28-billion.
More Support Sought
Mr. Walker expressed hope that the protest would win the support of from 300 to 500 writers and editors.
Among those who have pledged support are Eric Bentley, drama critic who is Brander Matthew Professor of Dramatic Literature at Columbia University, and Ralph Ginzburg, the New York publisher who is still appealing a Federal Government pornography conviction.
Others include Fred J. Cook, author and magazine writer; Betty Friedan, author of “The Feminine Mystique”; Dwight Macdonald, New Yorker Magazine critic, and Merle Miller, Thomas Pynchon and Harvey Swados, novelists.
A letter accompanying the protest statement points out the possible consequences of willfully refusing to pay Federal income taxes.
Violators of the law could receive up to one year in prison and up to $10,000 in fines.
Others Not Prosecuted
Mr. Walker said, however, that of the 421 signers of a similar no-payment ad last year in a Washington newspaper, not one had been prosecuted and sentenced.
Of an estimated total of 1,500 additional protest nonpayers, he added, none has been prosecuted since the war in Vietnam began.
The Internal Revenue Service has chosen, so far, to collect unpaid taxes by placing a lien on the incomes of those who refuse to pay, or by attaching their bank accounts or other assets.
In addition, a 6 per cent interest penalty is charged each year on the unpaid tax balance.
The group’s appeal for support included a quotation from Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience,” written in and protesting American involvement in the Mexican War.
The writer said, in part:
That’s a weird note to end the piece on.
The Thoreau quote is strangely ellipsized to make it sound like he thought that somehow the United States had been overrun and conquered by Mexico or something, or that civil disobedience was appropriate only when you’ve been invaded by a foreign army and subjected to military law.
Here’s the full quote, which makes its relevance (to the Vietnam War then, to the Iraq War now) more clear:
But enough nitpicking.
This appeal brought in 133 writers and editors. , the list had swelled to 448 (it would go even higher than the 500 that Gerald Walker originally hoped for), and included such names as Nelson Algren, James Baldwin, Noam Chomsky, Philip K. Dick, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Goodman, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Tillie Olsen, Grace Paley, Robert Scheer, Susan Sontag, Terry Southern, Benjamin Spock, Gloria Steinem, William Styron, Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, and Howard Zinn.
As far as I can tell, the IRS didn’t take legal action against anyone who signed on to this list (though it probably sent threatening letters or engaged in administrative sanctions like levies and liens).
Nixon won the presidential election in , and among his campaign promises had been to end Johnson’s 10% surtax and somehow salvage “peace with honor” in Vietnam.
A couple of years later, the surtax breathed its last.
It took a few more years to get U.S. troops out of Vietnam.
From the edition of The Village Voice:
War Tax Resistance
by Mary Breasted
A number of spring harbingers in Manhattan are much more reliable than the weather on Groundhog Day (which was sunny this year, by the way).
We have stickball players and nodding junkies out in droves to tell us the fair season is coming.
We have some big gathering or other in Central Park, and, like as not, a report in the social columns that Jackie O. was recently seen taking the air on horseback.
And now, just as seasonal, we have the re-awakening of the Peace Movement.
It began last week with a news conference in Washington Square Methodist Church that was as passionless as it was repetitive.
The news release announcing the event had said: “Leading Intellectuals to Explain Why they Refuse to Pay War Taxes.”
And there they all were, seated at a long row of tables Thursday morning, squinting into TV lights, Paul Goodman, Grace Paley, David McReynolds, Dwight MacDonald, familiar faces offering familiar moral aphorisms about mankind’s higher laws superseding the laws of the nations.
And although they were as outspokenly critical of the war as ever they had been in demonstrations and news conferences past, they seemed muted even as they redeclared themselves, as if this time they felt secretly defeated right at the start.
Seven “leading intellectuals” in all, they contributed a total of $325 to an account called the People’s Life Fund or to various beneficiaries of the fund (the Welfare Rights Organization, the Women’s Bail Fund, the United Farmworkers Organizing Committee and Operation Move-In).
The purpose of the conference, aside from giving them a public forum for personal testimonials, was to launch an intensified campaign for the War Tax Resistance in these last two weeks before we all file our returns.
Robert Calvert, the national director of War Tax Resistance, tried to put some zing into the subdued conference by stressing the inconvenience his group would cause the Internal Revenue Service.
“It usually takes the government six months to a year to move and get the money,” he said, adding happily, “I’ve been resisting my telephone tax for a year.
The government has not got a penny from me.”
But Paul Goodman, the most openly cynical of the group, countered that hopeful note by observing, “It would be unrealistic for us to think that this is an economic burden on the government.”
But he said he did hope the action would have some influence upon the opinions of legislators.
When the conference was over, Goodman walked off saying cheerily, “Well, it’s nice to give money to the Women’s Bail Fund.
I always like to see people get out of jail.”
Founded in , the War Tax Resistance now has more than 170 tax resistance centers in various parts of the country.
And in Manhattan, where they’ve been picketing the IRS office, they’ve attracted one clandestine ally, a young man who works for IRS but who opposes the war.
Although he won’t give his name, he did tell me he planned to help the War Tax Resistance people figure out other ways to keep the government from collecting taxes.
If you’re interested in war protest through tax withholding, Calvert’s group suggests that you deduct between $10 and $50 from your federal taxes this year and send the difference to the People’s Life Fund, War Tax Resistance, 339 Lafayette Street, New York 10012 (telephone 477‒2970 or 777‒5560).
The government will eventually collect the money you withhold and charge you a penalty fee for your action, but according to the IRS employee who is counseling War Tax Resistance, “the expense to collect the tax that is not being paid is far greater than the additional penalty imposed for the delinquent action.”
That’s why the Tax Resistance people suggest you withhold such a small sum.
The money will go to the beneficiaries of the People’s Life Fund on , when the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice will lead a demonstration to Wall Street to protest both the war and unemployment.
Writers and Editors War Tax Protest
Attention: Gerald Walker
145 West 86th Street
Apt. 7D
New York, N.Y. 10024
Fellow Writers and Editors:
Join us in signing the enclosed statement proclaiming our refusal to let our
tax dollars support the war in Vietnam. Tell us in writing that we may list
your name with ours in ads and statements. Send us your check for $10.00 or
more (payable to Writers and Editors War Tax Protest) to pay for advertising
and other expenses. Ask other writers and editors to join. Mail copies of
this letter and the enclosed statement, “We Won’t Pay” (which will comprise
the substance of ads we plan to run), to your own list of colleagues. Extra
copies available at $1.00 per hundred, plus 25¢ for mailing.
How we will go about tax refusal
Should President Johnson’s surcharge be adopted by Congress, we will
refuse payment. We will not add this extra war tax to our current tax
when preparing our return and we will enclose a letter with our return
explaining why.
Many of us will also deduct from our tax the 23% which represents the
amount currently being spent on Vietnam.
Possible consequences
It is a violation (up to one year in prison and/or up to $10,000 in fines) of
Sec. 7203 of the Internal
Revenue Code willfully to refuse to pay federal income taxes. However, of the
421 signers of a similar no-payment ad in ,
not one has been prosecuted and sentenced; of the estimated 1500 additional
protest non-payers, none has been prosecuted since the war began. The
IRS, so
far, has chosen to exercise the power to collect unpaid tax money by placing
a lien on refusers’ income or attaching their bank accounts or other assets,
when these can be traced. In addition, a penalty of 6% interest is charged
annually on the unpaid tax balance, a rate estimated to be less than the
collection expense.
Vietnam drags on. Casualties rise, $28 billion are wasted yearly,
U.S. prestige and
moral fabric rot away. No solution, political or military, is in view. The
President’s prescription is more of the same — 45,000 new men (for a total of
525,000) and a proposed 10% income tax increase specifically for this
undeclared, unconstitutional, unprofitable, and unjust war.
“The needs of this country’s riot-shaken cities are being neglected to pay
the war bill,” The New York Times has
editorialized. It is time for escalation by those who want peace in
order to focus on our critical domestic dilemma. Peace marches have not
worked; nor have pickets, protest ads, teach-ins, or pleas to the President’s
conscience by public figures here and abroad. We are not consoled by reports
of atrocities committed by the other side; we want to stop those committed by
our side. So we must now go beyond mere expressions of dissent to strong,
affirmative, and dramatic action by responsible citizens.
We, the undersigned writers and editors for publications and publishing
houses large and small, have not had to give our lives in Vietnam — that has
fallen on younger Americans. But we have lent our passive support in the form
of our tax dollars. From now on, we are willing to lay our middle-class lives
on the line in pledging:
That none of us voluntarily will pay the proposed 10% income tax
surcharge, or any war-designated tax increase.
That many of us will also refuse to pay that part of our current income
tax (23%) being used to finance the war.
Many of us, too, will give an equivalent sum to humanitarian organizations.
Even so, this was not an easy decision to make. We have been law-abiding,
tax-paying citizens all our lives, and we are now subjecting ourselves to
possible legal penalties of up to one year in prison and/or up to $10,000 in
fines for willful non-payment of taxes. But we believe our taxes should not
be used to support a war that violates not only our own Constitution but the
Charter of the United Nations.
By this act, we aim to awaken the Administration to the fact that a
significant number of responsible citizens are so fundamentally opposed to
this war that they are willing to go to this extreme. And we wish to show
other Vietnam-haunted Americans that there is a simple, swift, effective way
to vote no-confidence in the Administration’s policy. It can be done
individually or in groups. It cannot wait until the 1968 presidential
election. Your ballot is your next tax return, and other ads such as this
placed in every newspaper in the land.
There are not enough prisons to hold the millions in this country who,
according to Gallup and other recent polls, strongly oppose this ugly war.
Time now to end our tacit acceptance of what is being done in Vietnam in our
name.
Much of the text of the above declaration didn’t make it in to the final
advertisement (I’m guessing it was cut down to make room for the many names
of signers, but maybe there was more to it than that). Horowitz himself did
not make the list.
I am enclosing a copy of the statement signed, so far, by 220 writers and
editors who pledge to refuse payment of the proposed 10 per cent income tax
surcharge or any tax increase earmarked for the Vietnam War. At this writing,
seven New York Times writers and editors have signed. We plan to run a
full-page advertisement in the Times in
, giving the quote from
Thoreau, the pledge and the list of names. The placing of the ad will
coincide with Congressional debate on the tax surcharge. By that time we hope
to have 500 persons pledged to refuse payment.
If you would be interested in signing the statement, please fill in the blank
and mail it in as soon as possible. And please tell your writer and editor
friends about it and urge them to do the same. As Thoreau said, “If a
thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a
violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State
to commit violence and shed innocent blood.” During his incarceration for
refusal to pay his war tax, Thoreau was paid a visit by Emerson, who asked,
“What are you doing in here?” To which Thoreau replied, “What are you
doing out there?”
I feel strongly that the collective involvement of writers and editors in the
nation’s politics should not stop with the War Tax Protest. Many of our
colleagues share this view, and are preparing this fall to organize local
chapters of what can become a national writers and journalists association.
An organized and articulate “intelligentsia” can be a political force in
America as it is in France. And it must become a political force if
the increasingly oppressive policies of the present United States government — in Vietnam, in Southern Africa, in Latin America, and here at home — are to
be permanently reversed. Not to organize, not to amplify our voices so that
an ill-informed America may hear alternatives, is to accede, in effect, to
the policies of the present government. For more information, please write me
immediately at 377 Green Street, San Francisco, California 94133.
Included with this letter is a somewhat different version of the proposed ad:
— Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience,
commenting upon American involvement in the Mexican War.
We the undersigned writers and editors, believing that American involvement
in Vietnam is morally wrong, pledge:
None of us voluntarily will pay the proposed 10% income tax surcharge or
any war-designated tax increase.
Many of us will not pay that 23% of our current income tax which is
being used to finance the war in Vietnam.
Following this was a sign-up sheet, asking signers to agree with the statement
“I believe American involvement in the war in Vietnam is morally wrong,” and giving three further options:
“As a writer/editor, I wish to add my name to the Writers and Editors War Tax Protest. I dissociate myself from my government’s actions in Vietnam and I am willing to use my next tax return to vote no-confidence in the present Administration. I enclose a check (payable to Writers and Editors War Tax Protest) for $10.00 or more to help pay for running this statement as a newspaper advertisement and for other expenses.”
“I am in sympathy with what you are doing. Enclosed is my check for $____.”
“I would like more information. Please send me your fact-sheet on tax refusal.”
A number of additional signers had been added to the list by this time:
(Spock was listed out-of-order and in a different typeface in the original.)
While doing some book research today I stumbled on a bunch of documents
concerning the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” tax resistance pledge of
. I found the documents at
The Harold Weisberg Archive:
A three-page letter from David Welsh on
Ramparts letterhead dated
“enclosing a copy of
the statement signed, so far, by 220 writers and editors…” and saying
that they hoped to run the ad in the New York
Times (the Times would turn them down).
The letter asks Weisberg to sign on, and includes a couple of Thoreau
quotes. It also says that Welsh sees this as a first step towards
organizing the American “intelligentsia” to be an organized and articulate
political force. The final page lists the signers to that point. Also
included is Weisberg’s response in which he complements the Thoreau
quote, notes that he signed the pledge and sent it in with a donation,
and then goes on for four paragraphs about Kennedy assassination
conspiracy research, which was his specialty.
An undated letter from the Protest to “Fellow Signers” noting that “We
now have over 350 names” and “hope to achieve, or surpass, 500 by
” so they can put
the ad in the Times
“.” The letter notes that the anticipated 10% Vietnam War
tax surcharge has run into snags in Congress, but still expects a
modified version to pass. It also solicits funds, noting that they’re
only about half way to the budget they need to place a full-page
Times ad.
A second page includes the text of a Thoreau quote and of the tax
resistance pledge.
A third page includes a “coupon” that signers can fill out to register
their pledge with the Protest office, and begins the partial list of
signers. The next two pages continue the list, and then the following
page includes “Additional Signers” (including Weisberg).
The last two pages are a “Fact Sheet” explaining the reasoning behind the
protest, the process that resisters can go through to make their
resistance effective, a summary of the possible legal consequences, the
possibility of filing a legal challenge, and the Protest’s willingness to
reach out to other groups interested in taking a similar stand.
Only the first page is interesting. It’s a hand-drawn invitation to a
“Deficit Party” fundraiser “to help pay for our newspaper ad” to be held
on “at Betty Friedan’s
apartment [at] The Dakota”: “Eric Bentley, Betty Friedan, Paul Goodman,
James Leo Herlihy, Larry Josephson, Dwight Macdonald, Gloria Steinem,
[&] Gerald Walker invite you to join them, and all the other signers
of the Writers and Editors War Tax Protest…”
The first page is the last of a three-page list of pledge signers (the
first two pages are missing); the second page is a list of “Additional
Signers” with marginal notes indicating that the number had risen to 309,
and then to 324.
A letter from Lawrence M. Bensky & Gerald Walker of the Protest
to “Fellow Signers” dated . It notes that Congress did not institute the expected 10%
income tax surcharge by tax filing season, and so if people want to
resist, they’ll have to choose the other option, which was to refuse to
pay some portion of their ordinary income tax: “we urge you to do so.
Obviously, the effectiveness of our action hinges on the number of
participants.” It notes that 50 more people have signed the pledge since
the ads appeared “in
Ramparts, The New York
Review of Books of ,
and The New York Post of ”
which brings the total signers up to that desired 500 threshold.
Hundreds of people have written us to request tax-refusal information;
many of these were non-writers and non-editors who were sufficiently
impressed to follow our lead, and these information requests continue to
come in without any sign of tapering off.
The letter notes that contributions have been coming in as well, but
proposes not to spend any more money on advertising, but to keep the funds
in reserve in case the government retaliates against any signer, so as
“to focus publicity on such cases; and where a case offers the
opportunity to press a legal test of the government’s right to ‘draft’
our money for Vietnam, we will contribute to the costs of legal defense.”
The letter then recommends that people look into the newly formed “Tax
Resistance Project of the War Resisters League.”
The next page lists some sympathetic organizations, discusses the
possible government retaliation actions against signers, and includes a
coupon resisters could send to the War Resisters League if they want to
be included in their coordinated tax resistance action.
The next page gives “some facts about tax refusal and its consequences”
including a how-to guide giving several options for how to resist.
The final page announces a protest to be held at the
IRS
headquarters in Washington on :
Join us in an act of collective tax resistance. Bring your completed
tax return, form 1040, or a statement explaining why you’re not filing,
and together we will return forms and statements accompanied by either
no money or an insufficient amount of money. The
action at
IRS
will be preceded by a public meeting nearby.
Dr. Arthur Waskow of the
Institute for Policy Studies and Dave Dellinger, Chairman of the
National Mobilization Committee, will be among the speakers.
We act because for many verbal opposition to the war in Vietnam is no
longer enough. Resistance has become necessary. Our consciences dictate
it. The young men resisting the draft have shown a way and we who are
not subject to the draft must develop creative parallels. Tax
resistance is such a parallel act because it confronts the
administration directly and challenges it at a vital point. It
liberates the tax resister by showing him that he does have choices.
A Washington Post clipping dated
— “Marchers Protest War
Taxes” concerning a protest of about 40 people at the
IRS
Building. Protesters included Barbara Deming, Dave Dellinger, William C.
Davidon, Arthur Waskow. The article includes a photo of Waskow and of
protesters marching with “Don’t Pay War Taxes” signs, but the copy
quality is low.
A letter dated from Eric
Bentley, John Leonard, Peter Spackman, Gloria Steinem, and Gerald Walker
to “Fellow Signers” about “how best to wind up the group’s affairs.” They
plan to donate the group’s remaining funds to the Civil Liberties Legal
Defense Fund, which has made a reciprocal agreement to give legal
assistance to any Protest signers who run into trouble in the coming
year. “The Writers and Editors War Tax Protest was always a temporary
organization, and its limited goals have now been achieved. We remain
pledged as individuals, however, to the moral and financial support of
any of our number who is prosecuted or harassed because of non-payment or
simple membership.”
WEWTP certainly added its bit to the anti-war clamor which produced the current atmosphere and the many swift changes that have taken place in it. We ended up with 528 signers. And if there were that many strongly anti-war people from one small area of American Life, surely the political computers in Washington were capable of extrapolating that figure to the population as a whole. So [President] Johnson got the message. Thanks for lending your voice and your name to ours.
The “current atmosphere” of changes since the start of the Protest
project included the abandonment of the 10% income tax surcharge plan,
the Tet Offensive, the resignation of Secretary of Defense McNamara,
Johnson’s decision not to run for another term, and the opening of peace
negotiations.
A press release from the Protest dated
. At this time, the Protest
had attracted 437 signers, and “at least one-third” of these had pledged
not only to refuse to pay any war surcharge, but also “not to pay the 23
per cent of their current income tax which is being used to finance the
war in Vietnam.”
The protest was announced today at a press conference in New York’s
Algonquin Hotel, traditionally a gathering place for New York’s
literary world. Three writers and three editors spoke for the group:
Eric Bentley, drama critic, professor of Columbia, and author of
several books on the theater; James Leo Herlihy, well-known novelist
and short story writer; and Sally Belfrage, author of “Freedom Summer.”
Publishers included Richard Grossman of Grossman Publishers; Aaron
Asher of Viking Press; and Arthur A. Cohen of Holt, Rinehart &
Winston.
One of the group’s organizers announced that today’s advertisement had
been rejected for publication by seven major newspapers before being
printed by the New York Post. The New York Times, where ten of the
advertisement’s signers are employed, twice rejected it, the second
time after the advertisement had been changed to meet their earlier
objection. Other newspapers which refused to accept the prepaid
full-page advertisement were The Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch,
the Christian Science Monitor, the National Observer, and the Chicago
Tribune. A spokesman for the Writers and Editors War Tax Protest
expressed regret that the nation’s press, “which is so quick to condemn
violent demonstrations, actually encourages them by frustrating
conscientious expression of dissent from our actions in Vietnam.”
A newspaper clipping dated
that, in the form of an article about the ad, essentially
reproduces it, including the complete list of signers. It is unclear what
newspaper the clipping is taken from.
“Writers Vow Tax Revolt Over War” — a news clipping from the
Washington Post. It gives the number of
signers as 448, and explains that the Post
refused to print the ad “on the grounds that it was an implicit
exhortation to violate the law.”
A letter from Lawrence M. Bensky & Gerald Walker to “Fellow Signers”
dated . It gives the
number of signers as 450. “Two months have been spent dickering with the
NY Times (where 11
of the signers work), which has just refused an ad revised to meet
earlier Times objections.” (Harding Bancroft of the
Times eventually said: “the advertisement was
turned down by the Times in accordance with our general policy that we do
not accept advertising urging readers to perform an illegal action.”) The
letter notes that some signers have wondered why the Protest continues to
stress the 10% surcharge which by now is looking less politically viable.
Finally, the letter announces the above-mentioned “Deficit Party.”
I just finished Between Friends: The Correspondence of Hannah Arendt and Mary McCarthy.
There were a handful of tidbits about war tax resistance, mostly passing mentions during mostly unflattering gossip about war tax resister Dwight Macdonald, who was in their circle, but nothing notable.
But amusingly, McCarthy was living in Castine, Maine at the time of a tax revolt that took place there in (see ♇ ), and she shared her impressions of it with Arendt, who had a strong philosophical interest in the practical workings of the polis.
Here are some excerpts from McCarthy’s report, dated :
Things have been very quiet here until Jim’s arrival , which more or less coincided with a fearsome heat wave and a village political storm over a property tax voted by the state legislature for the purpose of equalizing Maine’s education.
It is a weird business.
Castine has had sixteen minutes on national television (CBS), it has been in all the papers because it has voted to refuse to collect or pay the tax.
The local people are fired with the Spirit of ’76 and acting like a bunch of minute-men.
Ten days ago a Superior Court judge in Portland (Maine) ordered the town officials to pay the tax or be held in contempt, so last night a town meeting was held to decide what action to take in view of the court order.
Everybody attended, some virtually in wheelchairs, with Bangor reporters and TV cameras watching.
The point is that the legislation was designed to penalize the “rich coastal towns” with high property assessments to favor the poor parts of the state which don’t raise enough money in property taxes to pay for their local schools.
The coastal towns, naturally, are indignant and some have banded together to declare the law unconstitutional and fight it in the courts.
On that point almost everybody here is in agreement; they believe the law is unjust, whether because of the principle involved (that the rich should be soaked for the poor) or because property assessments in the state vary widely, some being fixed too high (Castine’s case) and some too low (a few towns like Camden that are full of millionaires and have property assessments that might be suitable for a trailer camp).
But on what methods to be used to correct the inequity, there is heated disagreement.
The other coastal towns that have joined the legal battle have levied the tax and either paid it over provisionally to the state or are holding it in escrow until the Supreme Court (state) hands down a decision.
Castine, however, stands alone in its mutinous attitude and the five town officials risk going to jail or paying a whacking fine.
Last night’s town meeting was held to decide whether to persist in this open rebellion or pay up temporarily and remain within the law.
The moderate or law-abiding party includes most of our friends and us; Phil Booth has emerged as a leader.
Whereas the immoderates include most of the natives and some transplants like the local retired military (Col. Dodge up the street, Gen. Gillette, who sold us our house).
The situation thus is paradoxical, with the richer, i.e., more educated residents — those who stand to suffer the most from the new law — urging compliance, while the poorer — the bulk of the population — are up in arms. In general the moderate party are liberals, and the few liberals among the natives have either been converted to our view or are trying to stay out of it — especially, as you can imagine, the shopkeepers, anxious not to offend anybody — and have found various pretexts for not voting (“Well, you see, I don’t think I ought to vote, because I’m on the school board”).
Another complication is that the moderates are mostly summer residents and therefore can’t vote, though they were allowed to speak last night, they weren’t allowed to cast a ballot.
At the same time they pay a high share of the property taxes.
By a freak of circumstance, Jim and I are on the town rolls as residents and can vote.
…Last night was comical, also depressing, as an example of village democracy.
I said to Jim at one point “I do hope the polis wasn’t like this.”
The atmosphere was so inflamed that anybody who didn’t want to see the town officials go to jail was treated as a public enemy, and this morning it was being said — by extreme elements — that Phil Booth was “socialist,” even a “communist.”
There have been numerous references to “Russia,” now identified with Augusta, Maine.
Of course the natives have good reason in a way to be angrier than we are, because they can’t afford, many of them, to pay the additional tax, while we can.
So that there is a class division, though the leadership elements of the locals are, naturally, the illiberal rich and propertied.
It is easy to pick out, looking at the tense excited faces, the fascists in embryo in the village, who are carrying the more conservative and frightened innocents along with them.
Well, it’s a microcosm.
And where “Russia” was much invoked by the minute-men, Watergate, though not mentioned by name, played an obvious part in swaying those natives who moved over to the moderate position, mentioning the necessity for “respect for the law” on the part of public officials.
In the town meeting of course we lost but did much better than anybody expected — 125 to 65.… I have a feeling that despite the victory and the jubilation all is not over.
There may be another town meeting, when people have started to notice that they will be paying heavy fines and legal costs as well as — probably — the jacked-up property tax in the long run.
This prospect, quite realistic, I fear, was not even mentioned last night.
This morning, to cap the story, Jim and I saw a large tourist bus from Brunswick, Maine, drive down Main Street and pause to look at Emerson Hall, the scene of ’s action.
A hankering for publicity has a good deal to do with ’s vote.
The eye of television has hypnotized these poor people.
An obituary for Dwight Macdonald in the Catholic Worker touched on his tax resistance.
Excerpt:
In , he joined the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” in refusal to pay taxes for the Vietnam War.
This was his first act of civil disobedience.
Dwight defended his action as “the deliberate, public, and non-violent breaking of a law because to obey it would be to betray a higher morality.”
The National Catholic News Service sent this dispatch over the wires on .
Excerpts:
British Churchmen Urge Disarmament Steps
By Robert Nowell
London (NC)—
Two top church leaders in Great Britain have urged nuclear disarmament initiatives by their country and a third revealed that he is waging a tax protest against England’s military spending.
On a new booklet on conscientious objection to military taxation carried the text of a letter in which a prominent Anglican, Canon Paul Oestreicher, announced to the government that he was withholding part of his income tax “as an act of conscientious objection to the manufacture, possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons” by the British government.
Canon Oestreicher is assistant general secretary of the British Council of Churches.
Canon Oestreicher wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer announcing that he was withholding a token sum of 30 pounds (about $46) “as a symbol of my duty as a Christian citizen to refuse to be party to a policy which I believe to be of doubtful legality and certainly immoral.”
His letter was printed as an appendix to a booklet on military tax resistance issued by the Quaker Council for European Affairs.
The Service sent out this dispatch on :
Bishop Thanks War Tax Resisters for “Witness”
St. Paul, Minn. (NC)— Bishop Raymond Lucker of New Ulm has thanked war tax resisters “for their witness” while stating that he does not “personally hold that position.”
“I believe that the arms race is evil.
I believe that the very possession of nuclear weapons as long as we are making no sustained commitment to achieve multilateral disarmament is evil,” wrote the Minnesota bishop in a column published in The Catholic Bulletin, newspaper of the St. Paul-Minneapolls Archdiocese.
The paper also serves the neighboring New Ulm Diocese.
Bishop Lucker compared war tax resistance with other forms of civil disobedience to unjust laws or immoral public policy, saying for example that he would go to jail rather than obey a law requiring him or a Catholic hospital under his jurisdiction to participate or cooperate in an abortion.
He said he resolves the problem of not supporting the “madness” of the arms race by not earning enough income to be subject to federal taxes.
“I do not want to contribute to this madness,” he wrote. “What I do is take such a small salary that I no longer pay income tax.
I make sure that my annual salary each year is less than $3,600.
This is no special hardship; my needs are few.
I have no family to support.
I am free to contribute to the poor.”
In Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle announced that he was refusing to pay half of his federal income tax as a symbol of his resistance to U.S. involvement in the nuclear arms race.
He said he was giving the money instead to worthy charitable causes.
In at least 10 Catholic priests around the country, including eight in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, refused to pay a portion of their taxes as a protest against U.S. nuclear arms expenditures.
The eight Pittsburgh priests announced that they would again refuse to pay the part of their taxes that goes to pay for nuclear war and nuclear weapons.
They planned to hold a press conference and prayer service in Pittsburgh before delivering their tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service.
In discussing civil disobedience Bishop Lucker cited “many instances in history where Catholics and other Christians disobeyed a law rather than violate their conscience.”
“They used non-violent means and were willing to pay the consequences,” he wrote.
“Frequently their witness was what got an unjust law or sinful public policy changed.”
Among cases he cited were those of early Christian martyrs who refused to worship the Roman emperor, St. Thomas More’s refusal to acknowledge King Henry Ⅷ as head of the Church of England and the non-violent resistance to racist laws in the United States by the Rev. Martin Luther King and his followers.
He said that Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States were beaten and jailed before the U.S. Supreme Court recognized their right to refuse to salute the flag because they believe the action would violate the First Commandment.
“Hundreds of thousands of Americans are working to change the interpretation of the Constitution which allows abortions taking life away from the unborn.
We have a right to dissent.
We must dissent.
The issue is not going to go away,” he wrote.
He also wrote that a Christian soldier has an obligation to disobey an order that is immoral and that a person “can be a good Catholic and a conscientious objector” to all war or to a particular war.
“Each of us in our own way must respond to the Lord’s call,” Bishop Lucker wrote.
He said that not engaging in direct civil disobedience but not earning enough money to be subject to U.S. income taxes “is one way for me.”
The Service sent out this dispatch on :
Tax Resistance Funds Go to Catholic Agencies
By Brian Baker
Albany, N.Y. (NC)—
Catholic and Catholic-affiliated agencies were among 33 social service and community organizations that received donations from a war tax resistance fund in Albany.
On , the day before the deadline for filing tax returns, the Military Tax Resistance and Alternative Fund distributed more than $5,500 in checks, ranging from $50 to $600, to the non profit organizations.
The money came from people who, for reasons of conscience, refused to pay the portion of their federal income tax that they estimated would be used for military purposes.
At least five of the recipient organizations were agencies affiliated with the Diocese of Albany, among them Catholic Family and Community Services of Schenectady.
The tax resistance fund has grown each year, from $1,000 when it was begun in to $5,500 .
total was $1,500 more than despite a new federal law passed last summer which adds a $500 penalty for filing a frivolous return on top of already existing penalties for failing to pay all taxes owed.
Maureen Casey, a spokesperson for the fund and a member of St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Albany, said she has been a tax resister for three years because “it is wrong to kill people, either personally or through war.”
“I see what I am doing as the continuation of a tradition followed by many respectable people, including Dorothy Day,” a pacifist and foundress of the Catholic Worker movement, Ms Casey added.
Donald Roberts, a public affairs officer for the Internal Revenue Service, said that tax resisters could have assets seized or levies placed against their salaries to recover the taxes and applicable penalties.
In addition, he said, if the IRS decides to launch a criminal investigation a resister could be prosecuted and imprisoned.
He added, however, that the agencies receiving donations from a tax resistance fund face no legal risks for doing so.
This “news in brief” item was carried by the Service on :
Indianapolis (NC)— An Indianapolis parish has been ordered to pay for its pastor’s act of civil disobedience.
The Internal Revenue Service has issued a notice of levy on the salary of Father Cosmas Raimondi of Holy Cross Parish for $604.18 for unpaid income tax, penalties and interest.
While Father Raimondi was associate pastor at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish, Indianapolis, in he informed the IRS that he was withholding 50 percent of his income tax “as a protest against the nuclear arms race, military intervention in Central America and efforts to reinstate a mandatory military draft.”
And a follow-up on this, from a dispatch:
Friends Pay Priest’s Taxes After IRS Seizes His Car
By Jim Jachimak
Indianapolis (NC)—
An Internal Revenue Service case against an Indianapolis pastor has been settled, but the priest’s tax protest has not ended.
The IRS seized Father Cosmas Raimondi’s car on to cover federal income taxes which he withheld in but other parties have decided to pay the tax so the car can be returned.
Taxes, penalties and interest owed by Father Raimondi, pastor of Holy Cross Church, amounted to $608.14.
The car, a Honda Civic, was valued at $2,500 by the IRS.
“I have been informed that people who care about me are getting the car back by paying the taxes, which I would rather not have happen,” Father Raimondi said. “But that is their decision.”
He withheld $564.87 from the IRS to protest the nuclear arms race, U.S. intervention in Central America and draft registration.
the IRS has been attempting to collect the back taxes.
He said his action has focused attention on the issue of militarism and caused the parish council at Holy Cross to discern “the good and moral thing to do given the teachings of our church.”
In an IRS levy against Father Raimondi’s salary ordered the Holy Cross parish council to pay the amount he owed.
The council announced that it had decided not to honor the levy.
Father Raimondi said that he plans to take a reduction of salary in the future so that he will not be required to pay any federal income tax.
Jane Sammon wrote an article on tax resistance for the Catholic Worker.
There’s very little meat in it, but it does have the earliest mention I’ve found so far in this archive to the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (with a post office box address in East Patchogue, New York, and Kathy Levine listed as the contact person).
