Some historical and global examples of tax resistance →
United States →
Vietnam War, ~1965–75 →
David McReynolds
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.
On , just a few days after Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his powerful “Beyond Vietnam” speech, Eric Weinberger, the national secretary of the Committee for Nonviolent Action, wrote to to ask if King would publicly sign on to their war tax resistance campaign:
I don’t know how (or if) King responded to this request.
I have seen no indications that he participated in the war tax resistance of the period.
King had been targeted by politically-motivated tax prosecutions in areas where he had been active.
Because of this he had been under particular pressure to keep to the straight-and-narrow when it came to tax filing, so as not to give his enemies a potentially fruitful avenue of attack.
This may have discouraged him from making war tax resistance part of his protest against U.S. militarism and the Vietnam War.
It is also possible that, since King was killed , he just didn’t have time to put any possibly-intended resistance into practice.
The CNVA letterhead as shown on this letter is a clue as to who was associated with the emerging war tax resistance movement of the time.
Many of these names are familiar to me, but some others are not:
The time has come, and that time was .
350 Balk at Taxes in a War Protest
Ad in Capital Paper Urges Others to Bar Payment
Washington, — Some 350 persons who disapprove of the war in Vietnam
announced that they would not
voluntarily pay their Federal income taxes, due
. They urged others to join them
in this protest.
The Internal Revenue Service immediately made clear that it would take
whatever steps were necessary to collect the taxes.
The group announced its plans
in an advertisement in The Washington Post.
“We will refuse to pay our Federal income taxes voluntarily,” the
advertisement said. “Some of us will leave the money we owe the Government in
our bank accounts, where the Internal Revenue Service may seize it if they
wish. Some will contribute the money to
CARE,
UNICEF or similar organizations. Some of us
will continue to pay that percentage of our taxes which is not used for
military purposes.”
Joan Baez, Lynd, Muste
The first signature on the advertisement was that of Joan Baez, the folk
singer. Others who signed it were Staughton Lynd, the Yale professor who
traveled to North Vietnam in violation
of State Department regulations, and the
Rev. A.J. Muste, the
pacifist leader.
The advertisement contained a coupon soliciting contributions for the protest.
The ad said that further information could be obtained from Mr. Muste at
Room 1003, 5 Beekman Street, New York City.
Those who placed the advertisement — which bore the heading “The Time Has
Come” — said that those who sponsored it “recognize the gravity of this step.
However, we prefer to risk violating the Internal Revenue Code, rather than
to participate, by voluntarily paying our taxes, in the serious crimes
against humanity being committed by our Government.”
The advertisement mentioned not only the war in Vietnam “against hungry,
scantily armed Vietnamese guerrillas and civilians” but also “the spectacle
of the United States invasion of the Dominican Republic,” an event the
sponsors said “will go down in history alongside Russia’s criminal
intervention in Hungary.”
Cohen Is Determined
The determination of Internal Revenue to collect the taxes the Government is
owed was expressed in a formal statement by the Commissioner of Internal
Revenue, Sheldon S. Cohen.
He said Internal Revenue would take “appropriate action” to collect the
taxes “in fairness to the many millions of taxpayers who do fulfill their
obligations.”
The Government has been upheld in court on all occasions when individuals
have refused to pay taxes because of disapproval with the uses to which their
money was being put, revenue officials said.
Ad Prepared Here
The headquarters of the Committee for Nonviolent Action, 5 Beekman Street,
said that it had prepared the
advertisement carried in the Washington newspaper after receiving 350
responses to invitations it had sent out soliciting participation in “an act
of civil disobedience.”
A spokesman for the committee said that Mr. Muste, the chairman, was out of
town and would return in about a week. The spokesman said that although
monetary contributions in response to the advertisement had not yet begun to
come in, the committee was prepared to mail literature explaining its program
to those who responded to the advertisement.
The spokesman said that the tax protest had been intended to represent “a
more radical and meaningful protest against the Vietnam War.”
The committee announced that members would appear at
in front of the Internal
Revenue Service office, 120 Church Street, to distribute leaflets concerning
the tax protest.
It also said that a rally and picketing would be staged from
, in front of the Federal
Building in San Francisco under the sponsorship of the War Resisters League.
The league also has offices at 5 Beekman Street.
With press coverage like this, including even the address to write to for
more information, Muste hardly needed to pay for ad space in the
Times (assuming they would have printed the ad — many
papers rejected ads like this).
Some other names I recognize from the ad are Noam Chomsky, Dorothy Day, Dave
Dellinger, Barbara Deming, Diane di Prima, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Milton Mayer,
David McReynolds, Grace Paley, Eroseanna Robinson, Ira Sandperl, Albert
Szent-Gyorgyi, Ralph Templin, Marion Bromley, Horace Champney, Ralph Dull,
Walter Gormly, Richard Groff, Irwin Hogenauer, Roy Kepler, Ken Knudson,
Bradford Lyttle, Karl Meyer, Ed Rosenthal, Maris Cakars, Gordon Christiansen,
William Davidon, Johan Eliot, Carroll Pratt, Helen Merrell Lynd, E. Russell
Stabler, Lyle Stuart, John M. Vickers, and Eric Weinberger.
The text of the ad (without the signatures and “coupon”) is as follows:
The Time Has Come
The spectacle of the United States — with its jet bombers, helicopters,
fragmentation and napalm bombs and disabling gas — carrying on an endless war
against the hungry, scantily armed Vietnamese guerrillas and civilians…
this spectacle will go down in history alongside the unforgivable
atrocities of Italy in Ethiopia.
The spectacle of the United States invasion of the Dominican Republic — again
pitting our terrifying weaponry mainly against civilians armed with rifles…
this spectacle will go down in history alongside Russia’s criminal
intervention in Hungary.
But the spectacle of the indifference of so many Americans to the crimes
being committed in their names, by their brothers, and with their tax money…
this spectacle reminds us more and more of the indifference of the
majority of the German people to the killing of six million Jews.
The United States government has not reacted constructively to legitimate
criticism, protests and appeals:
by world leaders including the Pope, U Thant and President De Gaulle —
by United States leaders including Senators Morse, Gruening, Church, Fulbright, Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy and Stephen Young —
by hundreds of thousands of citizens including 2,500 clergymen and countless professors who placed protest advertisements in leading newspapers —
by innumerable students, many tens of thousands of whom have taken their protest to Washington on several occasions —
by celebrated individuals such as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Robert Lowell, Arthur Miller and Dr. Benjamin Spock —
and by leading newspapers, including the New York Times.
We believe that the ordinary channels of protest have been exhausted and that
the time has come for Americans of conscience to take more radical action in
the hope of averting nuclear war.
Therefore, the undersigned hereby declare that at least as long as
U.S. Forces are
clearly being used in violation of the
U.S. Constitution,
International Law and the United Nations Charter…
We will refuse to pay our federal income taxes voluntarily
Some of us will leave the money we owe the government in our bank accounts,
where the Internal Revenue Service may seize it if they wish. Others will
contribute the money to CARE,
UNICEF or similar organizations. Some of us
will continue to pay that percentage of our taxes which is not used for
military purposes.
We recognize the gravity of this step. However, we prefer to risk violating
the Internal Revenue Code, rather than to participate, by voluntarily paying
our taxes, in the serious crimes against humanity being committed by our
Government.
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.)
Links have been piling up in my bookmarks as I spent
poring through
back issues of The Mennonite.
International Tax Resistance News
A new law in Samoa requires previously untaxed church
ministers to pay income tax. Many, including those from the country’s
largest church,
are refusing to pay.
The United States government has begun
denying passports to people with large tax debts.
If you’re one of the 362,000 or so Americans who owe more than $51,000 and
you haven’t entered into an installment payment plan (I’m one of those),
you will likely soon find that you cannot successfully apply for or renew
your passport. While the government also has the legal authority to revoke
existing passports from such people, it is not yet exercising that
power.
Guerrilla electricians in Greece continue to
reestablish electric power
to households who have had their power cut off for inability or
unwillingness to pay the state utility monopoly’s bills which have been
inflated to support the state’s austerity budget policies.
Veterans of the successful campaign to abolish the
“écotaxe” in Brittany held
a celebratory picnic
on the anniversary of the destruction of one of the highway portals that
would have enforced the hated tax. In part the picnic was meant to show
solidarity with those who had been convicted of criminal charges for the
parts they played in destroying such portals, and in part it was meant as a
show of strength to let the government know they would not tolerate any
attempts to reestablish the tax.
The increasing use of traffic-ticket-issuing cameras worldwide as a
government revenue booster has led to a rash of direct action by the victim
population. This usually takes the form of destroying, disabling, or
blocking the cameras. Here are several recent examples:
Launched on as another variety of civic struggle against the dictatorship, the proposal to carry the thesis of civil disobedience to the extreme of applying a “tax strike” is still in force, but has not yet switched on, except in the Mercado Oriental.
On that date, the Academy of Sciences, and the Academy of Legal and Political Sciences, called for “civil disobedience as a national imperative to be put into operation immediately,” inviting employers, workers, students, and taxpayers to immediately suspend the payment of taxes to DGI, DGA, and city hall, in particular “withholding of Income Tax from salaries.”
Although the call for tax resistance enters the popular imagination as a civil form — and for that reason a legitimate one — of resisting the regime of Daniel Ortega, neither businesses nor individuals have responded with determination to the proposal, from fear or from caution.
Caution as demonstrated by the sources consulted for this article, who requested anonymity as they explained that people, business-owners and managers in particular, are afraid that the tax administration will fine them or, worse yet, temporarily take over operation of their companies or shutter their business.
Not all of the sanctions are catastrophic.
There are cases in which the fine applied is equivalent to 2.5% of the amount not paid in the case of the monthly advance payment of the business income tax, or 5% in the case of the value-added tax or of income tax withheld from the salaries of employees.
“Technically, it’s an invalid appropriation of withholdings, and can be criminally sanctioned,” in addition to being shut down, fined, or temporarily put under government management, explained a source with extensive experience in tax matters.
That said, this source sees a variety of reasons to doubt that they would decide to take such extreme measures, beginning with “as far as I know, they have never applied them to anyone.”
Another is that to close a business means sending its workers into unemployment, which implies that they will not receive taxes from the business or from those consumers.
But beyond believing in the mercy that any of these reasons implicitly assumes, the source points out fact that is easier to accept:
“If the resolution is massive, the tax administration simply does not have the capacity to audit and penalize everyone at once.”
Larger Companies Have More Fear
If it is decided to penalize only some in order to set a precedent that strikes fear into the others, surely one of the larger ones will be chosen, which not only has more ability to defend itself in the courts, but also to negotiate, precisely because of its size.
Another source asserts that “although it may seem obvious, the businesses that take the least risk are the most powerful ones, for the simple reason that they are not big taxpayers but big tax collectors.
“The DGI, does not want to be bothered with them, because if they weaken them, this affects tax revenues, principally value-added tax withholding.”
When the big companies that could take such measures don’t apply them, despite their intrinsic power, they are demonstrating “the cowardly face of big capital.
If they would decide, the blow to DGI would be immense,” s/he says.
Róger Arteaga, former director general of Revenue, agrees, saying that “big capital has not wanted to go all-in.
It is true that it gave its approval to the strike, but did so with fear and only temporarily.”
There is at least one group that risks more in a tax strike: import and export companies, which require clearances that can only be obtained once they have paid the corresponding taxes.
“If one of these business doesn’t make its monthly statement, or makes it but doesn’t pay, it falls into insolvency, and can neither import nor export.
The only importers who could afford that ‘luxury’ would be those that have sufficient product already on hand, especially at times like these, when there is little movement of inventory,” explained one of our sources.
Small- and medium-sized businesses — both fixed-quota and general regime — can stop paying taxes as long as the situation does not normalize, and while this makes them vulnerable to penalties, it is not likely that this will occur, especially, again, if a critical mass applies this measure of fiscal chastisement.
How long can the government last without taxes?
Our sources note that before making tax payments, the employer must guarantee the salary of its employees, and that the decision not to pay taxes is “protected by the higher legal concept, legally enshrined in the national legislation, as the Act of God and the Force Majeure.
Nobody is obligated to do the impossible, and the reason for this impossibility lies outside the control of the employer or employee.”
Citizens, on their part, could put pressure on big and medium-sized business, offering to act together if the Treasury moves against them.
“In this context, big capital must play a consistent role, acting firmly in the face of a Treasury that has granted them such special privileges.
It would be their most authentic repentance for the eleven years of tax advantages they have taken in the shadow of power.
That stain should be washed out right away,” they say.
As an expert, Arteaga proposes “that the businesses do not charge value-added tax, and the citizens not pay it.
Income tax also.
There are penalties, but the penalties and decisions of this government must be ignored, as they have no legitimacy.
How long can the government last without taxes?” he asked.
“Tax resistance aims to respond to Ortega’s claim that he will stay on through : we must find a solution, and one of these is for the private sector finally to decide on civil disobedience of a monetary and tax nature,” he explained.
Pedro Muñoz Fonseca, president of the executive committee of Costa Rica’s Social Christian Unity Party, urged Nicaraguans to use tax resistance against their government:
Social Media Tax Protest in Uganda
The government of Uganda has imposed a 5¢-per-day tax on using social media and
other services. This was designed as both a revenue measure and a way of
reducing what Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni calls lugambo
(“fake news”). Amnesty International has been among those to see through the
government’s rhetoric and cast the tax as
“a
clear attempt to undermine the right to freedom of expression.”
Robert Kyagulanyi, a Member of Parliament better known by his musician
stage name Bobi Wine, whose election is in part credited to his success on
social media, has been at the forefront of protests against the tax.
He was arrested, along with
three reporters when a march protesting the tax was attacked by police
with tear gas and rubber projectiles, but they managed to escape.
Ugandan protest marchers wearing shirts featuring a smart phone screen that
reads “This Tax Must Go”
War Tax Resistance Around the World
ABC reports on war tax resisters in Valencia — “the new refuseniks”.
War tax resisters there typically refuse to pay some percentage of their taxes, often basing this on the percentage of the federal budget that is spent on the military and similar items, and redirect this money to more worthy charities.
They declare this deduction on their tax forms in such a way that the tax agency typically does not treat it as illegal tax evasion but as an error or mistake.
The Global Day of Action on Military Spending Final Report has been released.
It gives a summary of the various events that took place around the world, including several by war tax resisters and groups promoting war tax resistance.
There’s a new NWTRCC newsletter out, with content including:
Ideas & Actions concerning weapons-free investing, responding to arguments against war tax resistance, a fast for nuclear disarmament, and more
You can now listen to audio excerpts from the upcoming documentary The Pacifist, about war tax resister Larry Bassett, on Spotify.
Erica Leigh pores through back issues of Conscience, the newsletter of the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign, an American war tax redirection group that slightly predates the founding of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.
Raymond Hunthausen has died.
As Catholic archbishop of Seattle, he took a remarkably strong stand on nuclear weapons — famously calling the Trident nuclear submarine program being developed nearby “the Auschwitz of Puget Sound” — and began practicing war tax resistance in response.
This earned him enemies in Washington and in the Catholic hierarchy. Here are some of the obits and remembrances:
A biography of Hunthausen, A Disarming Spirit, will be released soon.
David McReynolds has died.
He was a long-time War Resisters League and Socialist Party activist and was also on the staff of the Committee for Nonviolent Action which helped to spearhead war tax resistance as a tactic during the campaigns opposing the American war in Vietnam.
He was among the signers of the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” in and of a similar public pledge .
David Paul Irish has died.
He was active with the Fellowship of Reconciliation, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Peace Brigades International, and Witness for Peace.
He was an advocate for war tax resistance in the Society of Friends, drafting a minute in favor of of war tax resistance that the Twin Cities and Minneapolis Meetings approved in .
from the edition of
Cycle
The edition of Cycle,
a student paper from Fitchburg (Massachusetts) State College, gives us a good
peek into the rhetoric and tactics of the war tax resistance movement at that
time:
In , the United States government spend $103
billion to pay for present and past wars and to be prepared in case of future
wars. This was 66% of the entire federal budget of $156 billion. One hundred
and three billion dollars exceeds the gross national product of all but six
nations.
Of this $103,198,100,000, $29 billion was spent on the Vietnam war, to
continue a conflict whose brutality, immorality, and illegality have sickened
most Americans and the vast majority of the people of the world. Already, this
war has brought death to more than 42,000 Americans and more than two million
Vietnamese. It is a spur to the arms race and continually threatens world
peace.
Almost $20 billion will be invested this fiscal year in making more frightful
our nuclear missile and bomber arsenal, weapons already so destructive that
they can deliver ten tons of explosive power for every person on the globe.
$330 million will be spent on chemical and biological weapons that are
polluting the environment and endangering the people in the United States and
other countries without even being used; simply by being improperly stored.
$7.5 billion will go toward research on new and yet more fearful weapons.
$1.2 billion has been authorized for the Anti Ballistic Missile
(ABM)
system in .
$500 million to $1 billion is the estimated budget of the
CIA.
Vast sums will be paid to the corporations and research institutes that design
and build the weapons. In , the following companies, a handful of the biggest among thousands
engaged in war production and research, enjoyed these military contracts:
General Dynamics
$2.2 billion
Lockheed Aircraft
$1.8 billion
General Electric
$1.4 billion
United Aircraft
$1.3 billion
McDonnell-Douglas
$1.1 billion
AT&T
$777 million
The following amounts were spent in
for projects that
seem to have little to do with primary human needs:
For moon and other space exploration $3.4 billion.
For farm subsidies to wealthy landowners $3.1 billion.
In comparison to the enormous expenditures for acts and instruments of
military violence, luxury space programs, and subsidies to the wealthy, and at
a time when city governments are crying for more funds, the United States
government spent these sums on improving the health, education, and general
welfare of the people within this country.
Slum rebuilding $1.9 billion.
Other poverty programs $7.2 billion.
Health programs $1.8 billion.
Educational programs and subsidies $3.7 billion.
Direct, nonmilitary foreign aid to underdeveloped countries totaled about $1.6
billion.
The U.S.
appropriation to the United Nations was $109 million, about the cost of one
Polaris submarine.
In , the total of all
non-military expenditure was approximately 34% of the military expenses.
Throughout the United States, young people by the hundreds of thousands are
rebelling in disgust and anger against this squandering of resources on war,
and neglect of the day-to-day practical needs of the people. They are not
alone in seeing only massive social disruption and probably nuclear war as
eventual consequences. They are risking their freedom, careers, and often
their lives to protest and resist what they see to be wrong.
In the face of this shameful and alarming situation and in solidarity with the
youth resisting it, we, as participants in War Tax Resistance, are resolved to
confront our own complicity in war, waste, and callousness. We resolve to end
to the extent we can our cooperation in a federal tax program geared to death
more than life. The least measure of our resistance will be not to pay
voluntarily $5 of federal taxes due.
We are prepared to bear the consequences of our actions, be these criticism
and unpopularity, financial penalties, confiscation of our bank accounts and
property, and, perhaps, imprisonment. These seem to us small inconveniences
beside the agony of those killed or bereft by war, and the numb hopelessness
of those crippled by poverty.
We invite all Americans to join us in some form of tax refusal. War tax
resistance is not always easy, particularly for those whose taxes are withheld
from their wages, but for most there is some variety of tax refusal that they
can conscientiously adopt. It may be by not paying part or all of a balance
“owed,” or by not paying federal telephone tax. War Tax Resistance has
prepared literature and is setting up counseling services designed to help
each individual find the best way of tax refusal and resistance for him. A
list of Methods of War Tax Resistance follows this statement of purpose.
We also are developing a war tax resistance promotional program that will
include advertisements, demonstrations, meetings, a bulletin, and other
literature distribution. If you become a war tax resister, we hope you will
allow yourself to be publicly identified with the movement and permit your
name to be used on tax resistance literature.
War Tax Resistance will do more than concentrate on the weeks just before
April 15. We are planning a year round educational and resistance program. If
you agree with conscientious tax resistance as a means for opposing war, we
hope you will communicate with us now. The included coupon is for your
convenience.
Methods of Refusal
Refuse to pay at least $5 of your tax
The first goal of War Tax Resistance is to convince as many people as
possible to refuse at least $5 of some tax owed the government. Nearly
everyone can do this by refusing their federal telephone tax or part of
their income tax. If hundreds of thousands refuse to pay $5, they will
establish mass tax refusal. Besides having the burden of collecting the
unpaid amounts, the government will be faced with the political fact of
massive noncooperation with its warmaking policies.
Better yet, refuse to pay all the taxes you can
Even if some of your taxes are withheld, you can refuse to pay the balance
and other taxes. These might include: taxes on additional income, the 10%
surtax, and the telephone tax.
You can refuse to pay that percentage of your tax that goes for war
Two thirds or more of the federal budget pays for wars past, present, and
future. To protest against war, a person can refuse that percentage of his
tax. He can base his refusal on the percentage of the total national
budget used for war, on the cost of the war in Vietnam, or on other
calculations. Some people pay part of their tax and contribute the rest as
a peace tax. Some give to the
UN, or a
relief agency, or some other organization engaged in peaceful,
constructive work.
You can refuse to pay the 10% surtax
This surtax was imposed in to help pay
for the war in Vietnam. Refusing to pay it is a direct protest against the
war.
You can refuse to pay the federal telephone tax
The federal telephone tax was revived in
to help pay for the war. Thousands are already not paying it. In all cases
known to us but one, the telephone companies have continued service and
referred the tax collection to
IRS.
To Reduce or Eliminate the Withholding of Your Taxes You Can
Claim additional dependents
If you claim a sufficient number of dependents on your W-4 form you can
reduce the amount of taxes withheld from your salary to zero. The law
reads that a dependent has to live in your household and be supported
by you. The fact is that many people, particularly draft age young men
and the Vietnamese, depend on you. So long as you declare at the end of
the year that by the government’s standards you owe so much and are
refusing to pay it, the moral point is made
The law reads that it is illegal — fraudulent — to state on a tax form
that someone claimed as a dependent falls within that category, as
defined by the
IRS,
when he does not. But no fraud appears to be involved if the people
claimed as dependents are identified as being outside the
IRS
categories. The issue has not been tested in the courts.
Make your employer an ally
Although the law reads that it is illegal not to withhold taxes from an
employee’s wages, your employer may be sympathetic to your protest and be
willing to assist — and make a protest of his own — by not withholding
from your salary. It is always valuable to raise the question.
Organize an employment agency
Have your agency hire you and then have your present employer hire the
agency to supply him with you. Naturally, an agency that you control will
not withhold taxes from its employees. Getting organized is complicated,
but if you and a few friends get together you can work out the problem.
Write us for information.
Also You Can
Demand a refund
There are four ways to do this:
You may request a refund right on the 1040 form and stand a good
chance of receiving it. Ask for a tax credit on Part Ⅴ of the
form.
You may file form 843 for a refund.
If the above demands are refused, go to the Income Tax Board of
Appeals. If the Board turns you down, sue.
You can also sue the government to refund all your taxes on the
grounds that the taxes have been used for illegal and immoral
purposes.
Protest by letter or in person
Any protest to
IRS
or other government officials will help express opposition to the war and
to militarism. If you are unable to refuse taxes, protest them as
vigorously as you can.
Maximize the Impact
Talk about your tax refusal with friends, neighbors, co-workers. This sort of
direct contact changes many minds. Distribute tax refusal literature.
Inform the newspapers and other mass media in your neighborhood that you are
resisting war taxes and why. Start a war tax resistance group in your
community.
Organize or join demonstrations at your local
IRS
office.
Inform yourself thoroughly and become a tax refusal counselor. Let your
community know through ads, leaflets,
etc. that a
counseling service is available.
Keep the War Tax Resistance Clearinghouse informed by writing or phoning about
your activities. Communication is the lifeblood of any movement.
We invite war tax resisters to send War Tax Resistance the first $5 or more
refused the federal government. This money will be used to publicize and
expand the war tax resistance movement.
Until now, the government has not imprisoned anyone for conscientious tax
refusal. A few have been given short sentences for refusing to reveal
information about their incomes. In general, the
IRS has
been content to take money from tax refusers’ bank accounts, garnishee part of
their wages, or, on rare occasions, seize and auction property.
