Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” →
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20th–21st century Quakers →
David R. & Miyoki Inouye Bassett
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
There was a great deal about war tax resistance in the Friends Journal in , in part because of the occupation of the Randy Kehler/Betsy Corner home which the IRS was trying to auction off, and in part because of the IRS suit against the Journal to try to force it to pay its editor’s resisted taxes, and in part because of the Peace Tax Fund bill’s first congressional hearing.
A note in the issue pointed out that politicians were playing a name game that had apparently fooled some Quakers into thinking that the telephone excise tax had been transformed into something benign:
The telephone tax continues as a source of money for military expenditure, contrary to recent confusion about its status.
The tax, which was due to expire in , was extended under the Act for Better Child Care.
Those who proposed the act were searching for a way to finance their new program and seized upon the telephone tax as their “new” source of money.
However, the phone tax revenues continue to go into the General Fund, as always, and are not earmarked for the child care programs. More than 50 percent of the General Fund is used for military expenditure.
The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee recommends that conscientious resistance to the telephone tax continue, as it can have a powerful impact if enough people are involved.
an ad for NWTRCC in the issue of Friends Journal
That issue also had a follow-up on the “Alternative Revenue Service” protest:
In , the Alternative Revenue Service reports that individuals redirected $104,740 of their federal income taxes away from the military to areas of human need.
The total includes $12,898 redirected through the ARS, $38,416 redirected by Alternative Funds, and $53,426 that individuals redirected to social action and relief programs. The Alternative Revenue Service campaign is designed to educate taxpayers about how their federal income tax dollars are used.
The service provides the EZ Peace Form, which participants can use in registering their opposition to military spending at the time they file their taxes.
The service reports that 70,000 EZ Peace Forms were distributed nationwide last year.
This year’s form is simplified, with clearer instructions.
The issue brought the news that the Peace Tax Fund promoters had finally managed to get a Congressional Committee hearing for their bill, which was scheduled for .
“The hearing will be informational to determine the need for such legislation, not a preparation for floor action.
The need is assessed from the testimony of both individuals and religious bodies.
The hearing will support the bill by providing a permanent public record, by lending it legitimacy, by possibly attracting more serious consideration from prospective cosponsors, and by providing a record of congressional scrutiny.
The hearing will be brief, not lending itself to extended exchanges.
However, written testimony can be added and will become part of the official record.”
A follow-up in described the latest Peace Tax Fund bill as one that “would amend the Internal Revenue Code to permit qualified conscientious objectors to have part of their federal taxes — that part equal to the military portion of the federal budget — to be paid into a fund for peace-related projects.”
It encouraged readers to submit “written testimony for the official hearing record,” to publicize and perhaps attend the hearing, to contact Congressional representatives and encourage them to attend and to support the bill, and to donate money to the cause.
The issue described how the hearing before the House Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures went — “the first actual hearing held since a Peace Tax Fund Bill was first introduced in Congress .”
Excerpts:
“If we give the right to a person to withhold their body from a war as a conscientious objector, that person should be able to withhold his money as well.”
So spoke Sen. Mark Hatfield in his lead-off testimony…
…Several hundred spectators from across the country packed the hearing room.
Many attended as concerned individual taxpayers.
Others came as members of religious denominations and peace groups long associated with the Peace Tax Campaign.
Three chartered buses, one from Lancaster, Pa., two others from Philadelphia, swelled the numbers by some 150 supporters.
When the last of them filed in from a late-arriving bus to find all spectator seats occupied, Chairman Charles Rangel stopped the hearings momentarily, inviting standing-room only observers to move forward and to occupy empty seats normally reserved for officials and the press.
Many did so.
Veterans of peace demonstrations, several parents holding small children, young bearded men in simple dress, older couples from the peace churches created a colorful patchwork as they mixed with congressional aides, heads of foundations, and Capitol bureaucrats in business suits.
…Over 2,300 letters in support of the Peace Tax Fund Bill were bound in large volumes and set on a front table to be presented to the committee.
From 50–100 such letters a day continued to arrive as of the time of the hearing.
Following the introductory testimony of Mark Hatfield, lead sponsor of the bill (S.689) in the Senate, there were also presentations by four members of Congress: Andy Jacobs (lead sponsor of the bill in the House), Nancy Pelosi, and John Conyers.…
…[A] panel of religious leaders testified.
One, Thomas Gumbleton, Roman Catholic bishop from Detroit, and past president of Pax Christi, pointed out that two of the first leaders of the church, John and Peter, said that sometimes it is necessary to obey God before obeying the law.
How much better it would be, Gumbleton said, for COs to be able to pay all their taxes, knowing their money would be used for life-affirming purposes.
William Davidson, retired Episcopal bishop of western Kansas, a CO in World War Ⅱ, has actively opposed war .
“Having lived past draft age, I have been saddened and conflicted each year having to pay taxes to support war,” he said.
The Episcopal Peace Fellowship has consistently supported war tax resistance as a religious witness.
John A. Lapp, executive secretary of Mennonite Central Committee, Akron, Pa., spoke on behalf of the three historic peace churches (Mennonites, Quakers, and Church of the Brethren).
The issue of war-related taxes is one of religious freedom, Lapp said.
“Many of us feel the pain of having our religious institutions serve as tax collectors for war.”
During committee questioning, Representative Jacobs asked Rabbi [Phil] Bentley [with the Jewish Peace Fellowship], “Is [passage of this bill] going to give rise to requests for similar legislation from people who don’t want their money going for a golf course?”
…[Friends Journal] editor-manager Vint Deming, associate editor Melissa Elliott, typesetter Susan Jordhamo, and board members Robert Sutton and Sam Legg joined several hundred other citizens in packing the hearing room…
The hearing was informational, to give legislators material to use in future considerations, rather than to schedule the bill for action.
As such, it gave supporters a chance to formally present the case, get testimony in the written record, and show the depth and breadth of people’s interest in the bill.
The pace of this legislative process is frustratingly slow, but, for many of us, the hearing was a heartening experience.
There, we heard people testify in a formal legislative setting to our most deeply held beliefs.
One activist-participant said, “All my life I’ve been on the side that opposes government decisions.
It was a weird experience to see all those peace movement people in the same room with legislators.
I’ve never seen anything like that before, nor ever imagined it.
It gave me a different vision of what might be possible.”
The Peace Tax Fund Bill has come a long way , with many technical refinements, and it has a long way to go in gathering widespread support.
On we witnessed one small step in validation, acknowledgment of our beliefs, and moving the dream closer to reality.
Perhaps one day we will look back, as do those who watched the process of legalizing conscientious objection, and be glad we were involved in making it legal to follow our beliefs with our money-as well as with our bodies.
“This is not a political issue, but a moral issue of conscience,” responded Bentley…
Jacobs, in response, thanked the Rabbi and others of religious conscience who had testified.
“I am a sponsor of this bill,” he said, “but I am not a pacifist.”
He called to mind one of his favorite movies, Friendly Persuasion, and the lines spoken toward the end of the film: “It’s good to know that somebody is holding out for a better way of settling things!”
Terrill Hyde, tax legislative counsel for the Department of the Treasury, presented the Bush Administration position opposing the PTF.
She mentioned “problems of complexity, confusion, and increased administrative burden,” sure to arise if the bill were passed.
There would be no deterrent either, she said, to restrain taxpayers from inappropriately claiming CO status.
If taxpayers were allowed to designate the uses for which their tax dollars were spent, “our entire budgetary process would be undermined.”
There would likely be loss of revenue to needed federal programs.
Others, however, presented differing views.
Several speakers argued that there would likely be substantial increases in revenue as a direct result of the bill.
Many who currently refuse to pay a portion or all of their taxes would gladly pay.
Also, large costs resulting from IRS efforts to collect from tax resisters would be avoided.
Answering the criticism of how the act might increase paperwork and administrative costs, several people testified to the simple nature of the bill and of the tax filing process.
As to IRS claims that the bill raises possible legal questions, a panel of two law specialists responded.
Mark Tushnet, professor of law at Georgetown University, said, “A nation that wants to protect the religious freedom of its citizens can reasonably be expected to enact legislation to enable the freedom to be expressed.”
It seems perfectly appropriate, he concluded, that such legislation be enacted.
“It is needed in addition to the Religious Freedom Act.”
Philadelphia, Pa., attorney and war tax specialist Peter Goldberger agreed.
“Legislation of this kind has a noble history in our country,” and he quoted from a letter from then-President George Washington to Philadelphia Quakers.
The nation’s laws, Washington wrote, must always be “extensively accommodated” in cases of individual conscience.
Alan Eccleston, a Quaker and an organizational development consultant from Hadley, Massachusetts, told about how, in his own tax witness, he has endured penalties, punishments, and the threat of losing his home.
The IRS has a lien on his house right now.
“Conscience must be taken into account.
Spiritual values are real.
They are not to be treated as incidental or expendable to fit the needs of the state.
This is what the First Amendment is all about.”
Ruth Flower, legislative secretary of Friends Committee on National Legislation, emphasized that the Peace Tax Fund Act would not offer an escape to those who do not wish to pay their taxes, because they would have to pay the same amount either way.
It would, however, provide a legal way out of violating one’s religious beliefs in order to comply with the laws of the land.
Her point was born out by Patricia Washburn, who gave perhaps the most moving testimony of the hearing.
She talked about the challenge presented to each of us, and to her personally, in Micah 6:8: “…what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, to love constantly, and to walk humbly with your God?” Walking humbly requires us to acknowledge the seeds of violence in our own hearts, rather than projecting them onto someone else.
“Loving constantly” can be a discouraging and difficult task, especially in today’s climate of distrust and alienation.
“I am not opposed to paying taxes, but I find no alternative form of tax payment… Thus, I see no current alternative to withholding the military portion of my taxes… I pray that my witness is done in love and that it will help to build a bridge across the chasm of violence and fear.”
After the hearing and following the press conference, [Marian] Franz [executive director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund] gave a brief workshop on lobbying for the bill.
She pointed out that the testimony would now be entered in written record and could be referred to in the future.
She added, “the fact that we got a hearing is absolutely amazing.”
Many other pieces of legislation have not yet been so lucky, and the demand is great.
“If all members of the committee had been present, they all would have been deeply moved, and we would be a lot further down the road.”
Franz encouraged people, when lobbying, to talk in terms of conscience, as defined by Pope John ⅩⅩⅢ, who said, “Deep inside, each one of us finds a law that we did not put there.
It tells us to do this and shun that.”
That is what puts the issue of paying taxes for war in the arena of religious decisions and touches on every individual’s right to follow their faith — whether they are housewives, bureaucrats, lawyers, teachers, or politicians.
That is why it is important to keep trying to open doors and ears and minds.
Marian Franz has a suggestion for how to approach people: “Talk to aides and legislators as though you’re sharing something personally.
You will often find that when you are talking about conscience, people are moved deeply.”
The issue also plugged “Good Use: Songs of Peace, Tax & Conscience” — “a tape of War Tax Resister Songs, featuring Charlie King, Luci Murphy, Geof Morgan, Lifeline, and others.
It was produced by Don Walsh, who donates the royalties.”
The lead editorial (by Vinton Deming) in the issue concerned the ongoing Randy Kehler/Betsy Corner case:
Finding Affinity
Randy Kehler and his wife, Betsy Corner, have been tax resisters .
They have given the tax money instead to a variety of groups doing constructive community work.
the IRS has been trying to sell their house in Colrain, Mass., in an effort to collect $25,896 in back taxes — but it hasn’t been easy.
First of all, there’s been a growing tax resistance movement there in Franklin County.
Bob Bady and Pat Morse, for instance, had their house seized and auctioned in .
(They still live in the house, however, and the buyer hasn’t taken possession.)
Shelburn Falls dentist Tom Wilson had his dental license revoked when he refused to cooperate with IRS.
(He continues his practice, however; even the local sheriff remains one of his regular patients).
So when the word got out that IRS planned to auction Betsy and Randy’s house, supporters in large numbers turned up on the announced day to oppose the sale.
There were lots of signed bids (such as an offer to clean the teeth of an IRS agent, others pledging to do community work or to be peace activists for life) — but no cash buyers came forward.
Not a one.
So, in , IRS upped the ante.
Betsy, Randy, and daughter Lillian, 12, were given an eviction notice.
When Randy decided to stay, he was held in contempt and tossed in the county jail for 6 months.
This didn’t go unnoticed by friends and neighbors, however.
A sign-up sheet got circulated, and volunteers committed themselves to stay in the house around the clock.
There’s been a continuous presence there .
Groups from as far away as Washington, D.C., have signed up to come and help out.
In , members of Mount Toby (Mass.) Meeting formed such an affinity group for a week.
Meanwhile, Randy stays in jail and makes the most of his time there.
He has made friends with many of the prisoners, has organized a chess tournament, and does what he can to interpret his tax witness.
Allan Eccleston, member of Mount Toby Meeting, has been approved as the meeting’s official minister and visits Randy twice a week.
So what’s next?
IRS has scheduled another auction, this time out of the area in Springfield, Mass. — in the hope, it seems, of attracting a buyer for the house, someone who doesn’t know about this whole chain of events.
Randy will not be there to talk about it, but lots of his friends will.
Even if the house is sold, the issue will be far from over.
The house is part of a land trust (Randy and Betsy own the house but not the land on which it stands) — and there’s the likelihood of a continuing nonviolent presence in the house to welcome any potential new buyer.
How might Friends respond?
I asked this question in of Francis Crowe, long-time head of the American Friends Service Committee office in western Massachusetts and a supporter of Randy and Betsy.
She suggests:
Form an affinity group to help sustain the presence in the house.
(To be scheduled, contact Traprock Peace Center…
Funds are also needed to support the action (checks made out to “War Tax Refusers Support Committee”…).
Letters to the editor on the subject of taxes and militarism are always helpful.
More sponsors are needed in Congress for the Peace Tax Fund bill.…
At a rally in support of Betsy and Randy, Juanita Nelson — who, with husband Wally, has been a tax refuser for decades and is known to many Friends — offered these words by Goethe: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has Genius, Power, and Magic in it.”
Good advice as another tax season is upon us, when many of us seek to find our way on this difficult question of taxes for war.
In a later issue, David Zarembka reported in a letter-to-the-editor about how the occupation / blockade of the Kehler/Corner home was proceeding:
On , federal marshalls arrested seven members of the Flowing River Affinity Group who were occupying the Kehler/Corner home and removed the furniture into storage.
At , the IRS sold the house to the highest bidder in an auction for $5,400. The seven affinity group members were released from jail later in the afternoon.
So was Randy, who had served two months of his sentence.
Do not think, however, that Betsy and Randy have lost their home in an exotic cause!
As soon as the federal marshalls left the house, an affinity group reoccupied it, and other groups, including one from Washington, D.C., of which I am a member, have continued to occupy the house on a 24-hour basis.
Affinity groups, which occupy the home for a week each, have been organizing , but new ones are still being formed…
The “buyers,” a young couple with a two-month-old son, have visited the house several times but have not as yet forced the issue.
They are consulting with their lawyers.
Betsy and Randy have become members of the Colrain Neighbors Affinity Group, which will occupy the home for the week beginning .
They and their twelve-year-old daughter, Lillian, will move back into their home when they can comfortably live there once again.
I would hope that this action would lead Friends to consider how their cooperation with the federal tax collection process — even those who are symbolic tax resisters or those who force the IRS to take their taxes from them — allows the present military system to thrive.
A report in that issue on the Canadian Yearly Meeting that had taken place noted that:
Canadian Yearly Meeting, in its role of employer, was asked to refuse to remit that portion of its employees’ taxes that will be used to support the military.
Concern was expressed by the yearly meeting’s trustees, who would bear the legal results of such actions.
Although the yearly meeting came close to supporting a minute for this action, it agreed to seek clearness with the trustees and monthly meetings and return to this issue next year.
an ad from the issue of Friends Journal
The issue was largely devoted to war tax resistance.
It began with an editorial from Vinton Deming concerning his war tax resistance and the response of his employer, the Journal.
Excerpt:
From the outset, I knew it wasn’t a very practical thing to do.
The government was too powerful, and all the tax laws were against me.
I’d just end up paying much more in the end, so why not choose a better way to work for peace?
A good letter to my congressman, for instance, or a tax vigil at the federal building on Apri1 15.
But this was in .
Our war in Vietnam was just over, but the Cold War continued.
As the Reagan years unfolded, with still larger military expenditures and big cuts in domestic programs, I became even more clear: I must resist as fully as possible the payment of taxes for war.
The Journal board was always supportive of my witness.
It refused twice to honor IRS levies on my wages.
In doing so, Friends openly accepted the possibility of being taken to court one day and fined severely.
The board wrote to IRS: “Our position of noncompliance to the requests of the Internal Revenue Service is not an easy one.
We do not question the laws of the land lightly, but do so under the weight of a genuine religious and moral concern.”
Well, as they say, “What goes ’round comes ’round.”
, Friends Journal was told by the U.S. Justice Department to pay up or we’d be taken to court.…
I am grateful for the steadfastness of the Journal’s board of managers.
, it has been faithful to the Quaker peace testimony.
The road has been an uncertain and confusing one at many points, but Friends have shown courage in continuing.
In my own personal war tax journey, these words by John Stoner have served to guide: “We are war tax resisters because we have discovered some doubt as to what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, and have decided to give the benefit of the doubt to God.”
Sam Legg, clerk of the Friends Journal Board of Managers, gave his take on the Deming situation and on why the Journal had decided to throw in the towel and pay the IRS’s demands.
Excerpts:
… Vinton refused to pay any federal taxes.
Each tax year he sent a blank 1040 along with a letter to the president explaining his opposition to war and his unwillingness as a Friend to pay for it.
Since there was no Peace Tax Fund, Vinton reasoned, he would instead contribute the money to worthwhile projects and see that it was used for peaceful purposes.
In , the IRS served a levy on Friends Journal for $22,714.16, Vinton’s taxes for the period, plus interest and penalties.
The IRS asked Friends Journal to withhold part of Vinton’s salary each month, but the Journal Board refused, writing that “We… are in support of Vinton Deming’s conscientious witness.”
In , Friends Journal received a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice reminding us of the levy on Vinton’s salary and asking us to try to “resolve this matter short of litigation.”
That is, to pay the original assessed amount plus interest and a possible 50 percent penalty on the total.
We were given until to respond.
If we were to continue refusing to honor the levy, an immediate court action would follow.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision, Smith vs. Oregon, as Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and the American Friends Service Committee have learned, teaches us that there is no way we could win such a case in court, nor could our assets be protected from seizure.
More troubling, this seizure could make others who are not involved in our decision, undergo unwelcome investigation.
Finally, a court case offers IRS the opportunity to set a legal precedent requiring the payment of the 50 percent penalty (which a sympathetic judge excused in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting case last year).
We fear that the inevitable negative decision could establish that precedent and thereby restrict other individuals’ or groups’ religious freedom.
And so, most reluctantly, the Friends Journal Board has agreed to negotiate with IRS and to pay the least amount IRS will accept ($31,300) as settlement of this claim.
Our painful recognition of failure is heavy upon us.
We have to accept that our witness in its present form can no longer serve a useful purpose.
We can hope Vinton’s action and our support will have brought the issue of tax refusal to the attention of others, thereby becoming a part of the tradition of citizen pressure that in the long run eliminates or diminishes social evils such as slavery and war.
Our protest is on record.
What we will do now is support the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of … which aims to reestablish the first amendment religious rights lost in the Smith vs. Oregon decision.
We also urge support for the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill… which makes the same witness, but provides money to finance peace-enhancing projects.
(Needless to say, if there had been a Peace Tax Fund in , Vinton’s taxes would have been paid gladly, and there would have been no need for an IRS levy.)
We ask all those who share our concerns to join in these legal approaches to the continuing effort to convince ourselves and others of the futility of armed conflict and the necessity of finding other means to resolve human disputes.
The immediate financial challenge to the Journal is a very real one.
In a year in which we already face a substantial budget deficit, the payment of such a large lump sum adds an enormous burden.
Vinton has engaged to repay the Journal through payroll deductions over time.
We have been heartened as well, as word of our tax witness spreads, to receive gifts of support from our readers.
One contributor writes: “I hope everyone at the Friends Journal can be made aware of Friends’ approval of [your] Board action.
To help this happen, I encourage the Journal to go as public with the story as is consistent with respect for Vint’s privacy and the Journal’s limited resources.
I am convinced that other Friends will wish to help financially when so informed.”
For such words, and unexpected gifts, we are most grateful.
Readers wrote in with their feedback about the Journal’s decision, and some of their letters were printed in the issue:
Duane Magill wrote to “applaud” and “sympathize” with the Journal’s stand.
“As a war tax resister myself for the past quarter of a century, I have had some brushes with the IRS myself and know what it is like.
I also appreciate your giving publicity to the subject.
I know that not many Quakers take this position, and giving the matter this extensive coverage just might encourage more to take this stand.”
Yvonne Boeger wrote in on behalf of the Live Oak (Texas) Meeting to say that the meeting had recently “discussed the importance of war tax resistance as a means of witnessing to Friends’ long-standing opposition to all forms of war and violence” and that the Meeting was supportive of the Journal’s (and Deming’s) action.
“We send the enclosed check as a token of our support and solidarity in Friends’ resistance to war.
Thank you for the example you have set for us all.”
Lillian and George Willoughby wrote to express gratitude for the Journal’s “courage in standing in support of Vint Deming.”
They wrote: “Most important is the example of a Quaker religious employer providing support to staff who endeavor to live according to Friends’ teachings.
The Journal has run considerable risk and incurred heavy expenses.
We enclose our check as a demonstration of our support.
We think that many other Friends will want to help carry the financial burden of this witness.”
An editorial note in the letters column expressed “thanks to all those who have sent checks!” and a later editorial note (in the issue) said that they had received “$8,000 from individuals and meetings, $7,000 from a Sufferings Fund of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,” and almost $4,000 from Deming himself.
Mennonite war tax resister (and, according to his author bio, “itinerant prophet and spiritual retreat leader”) John K. Stoner wrote about the call he got from an IRS employee.
Excerpts:
We talked for about ten minutes, as I explained why Janet and I had said “no” to paying the full amount of our income tax.
The man could not understand why anyone would invite the collection pressures of the IRS upon themselves by withholding some taxes.
But by the time the conversation was over, he was a little closer to understanding that this was, for us, a matter of faith and a question of the practice of our religion.
It was a Mark 13:9 kind of experience of being called before the authorities, “before governors and kings,” because of Jesus, as a testimony to them.
By the sound of Mark 13, Jesus expected this kind of thing to happen regularly to his followers.
Mark 13 is a good text to remember when everybody around you is quoting Romans 13.
The Christian Peacemaker Teams organization is promoting symbolic war tax refusal as a way to make a clear witness in the matter of war taxes.
Taxes for Life is a plan to have taxpayers redirect to education an amount equivalent to 1 penny for every billion dollars in the military budget.
For tax year this is $3.03, which can be mailed to Christian Peacemaker Teams… Listen to your conscience when you pay your taxes.
Write a letter of witness to the IRS, with copies to Congress and your local newspaper.
Redirect some taxes to education through CPT.
If the IRS calls, tell them that it makes you a little bit nervous to break their law and that you do not enjoy being harassed by the collectors of blood money.
Go on to say that you are far more apprehensive, however, about breaking God’s law.
Tell them that you hear God’s warning rising up from the bulldozed mass graves of Iraqi conscripts, fathers and husbands, and the nightmares of their children.
Explain that you are really afraid to harden you heart to the cry of the victims and that you have decided you will not take their blood upon your hands.
When Randy Kehler was thrown in prison on contempt of court charges for refusing to vacate the home that had been seized by the IRS, he prepared a statement that he hoped to read.
The court denied him permission to address it.
The Journal printed the statement he’d hoped to have made, which is a good thing: it would be a shame if such an articulate statement was left to sit unread in a file folder somewhere.
My refusal to give up our home is not an act of contempt or defiance of your court order.
I regard it as an act of conscience and also an act of citizenship.
The two go hand in hand.
The first obligation of responsible citizenship, I believe, is obedience to one’s conscience.
Obedience to one’s government and to its laws is very important, but it must come second.
Otherwise there is no check on immoral actions by governments, which are bound to occur in any society whenever power is abused.
I want to assure you, however, that I am not someone who treats the law lightly.
Even when a particular law seems at first to have no clear purpose or justification, I try to give it — that is, give those who created and approved it — the benefit of the doubt.
In an ideal sense, I see law as the codification of those rules and procedures by which the members or citizens of a community, be it local or global, have agreed to live.
A decent respect for one’s community requires a decent respect for its laws.
At their best, such laws express the conscience of the community, causing conscience and law to coincide.
The international treaties and agreements that my wife, Betsy, and I cited in the legal documents recently submitted to, and rejected by, this court are wonderful examples of the coincidence of law and conscience.
These agreements, each one signed by our government, include the United Nations Charter, which outlaws war and the use of military force as methods of resolving conflicts among nations; the Hague Regulations and Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the use or threatened use of weapons that indiscriminately kill civilians and poison the environment; and the Nuremberg Principles, which forbid individual citizens from participating in or collaborating with clearly defined “crimes against humanity,” “war crimes,” and “crimes against peace,” even when refusal to participate or collaborate means disobeying the laws of one’s government.
These international accords — which, as you know, our Constitution requires us to regard as “the Supreme Law of the Land” — are at least as much affirmation of conscience, rooted in universal moral standards, as they are statements of law.
Betsy and I regret that you chose to deny our request for a trial, which would have allowed us to argue the relevance of these international laws before a jury of our peers.
Even in the absence of such laws, however, I believe that citizens would still have an affirmative obligation to follow their conscience and refuse to engage in or support immoral acts by governments.
It is not true, as is commonly thought, that if large numbers of people put conscience ahead of the law and decided for themselves which acts of government were immoral, civilized society would break down into violence and chaos — that is, greater violence and chaos than there is now.
In fact, the opposite would likely occur.
There would likely be greater compliance with those laws that are fundamentally just and reasonable — in other words, most laws — and there would be greater public pressure to abolish or reform those laws (and policies) that are unjust or unreasonable.
There would be exceptions for the worse, of course.
In the name of conscience, certain individuals would, no doubt, do some terrible things and cause much injury and death, which happens now.
On balance, however, the historical record is clear: from the Spanish Inquisition and the African slave trade, to Stalin’s purges, Hitler’s Holocaust, the genocide of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and our own devastation of Vietnam and Iraq, far more killing and suffering, has resulted from people following “legal” orders and obeying the law than from people refusing to do so in obedience to conscience.
My own refusal to kill (which led me to spend nearly two years in federal prison rather than cooperate with the Vietnam draft), Betsy’s and my refusal to pay federal taxes used for killing (which caused the IRS to seize our home), and now our refusal to turn over our home in lieu of taxes, are all acts of conscience.
It has not been easy for us to deliberately violate the law in these instances, and in so doing incur the anxiety and disapproval of some of our friends and family, as well as the scorn and censure of many members of the community.
We are painfully aware that even though we do pay our town and state taxes, and even though we have given away to the poor and to the victims of our war-making in other countries every cent that we have withheld from the federal government, nevertheless we are still regarded by some as irresponsible and not contributing our fair share.
These are times, however, when all of us are confronted with difficult choices.
Betsy and I, and many others like us, feel we must choose between knowingly and willingly paying for war and killing, and openly and nonviolently breaking the law with respect to federal taxes.
Our consciences compel us to choose the latter.
For me, the issue is larger than simply the taking of another human life, or even the instance of a particular war in which many lives are lost.
I have increasingly come to see the larger issue as war itself.
Whereas there has always been a moral imperative to end war and refrain from killing, today the imperative is much greater.
Today the logic of peace, the logic of nonviolence, is also the logic of survival.
It is impossible to dis-invent today’s nuclear, chemical, biological, and so-called conventional weapons of mass destruction.
Therefore, we have no alternative but to effectively abolish war.
This is the one essential adaptation the human species must make — and, I firmly believe, can make — if life as we know it is to continue.
War today is the scourge of the planet.
It is tragic enough that war is daily claiming the lives of people, maiming more, leaving orphans and widows, and destroying homes, schools, and hospitals — to say nothing of the irreplaceable treasures of human civilization destroyed in Baghdad last year and in Dubrovnik over the past several months.
What makes war today even more tragic, more horrible, are the incalculable economic, social, and environmental costs that go along with it.
Instead of using our human and material resources to produce food, medicine, housing, schools, and other desperately needed commodities, the world’s nations, led by our own, are annually spending trillions of dollars to purchase more and more weapons of even greater destructive capability.
The hundreds of millions of children, women, and men whose lives are ravaged by poverty, hunger, and homelessness — around the world and here in the States — are as much victims of our addiction to war and militarism as are those who are hit directly by the bullets and bombs.
While the awful gap between the rich minority and the poor majority of the world’s people grows wider and wider, war’s assault on the earth — the earth that sustains us all — becomes more savage and less reversible with each new armed conflict.
The severe and longterm ecological damage to the Persian Gulf region that resulted from only a few weeks of war last year is just the tip of the iceberg.
The cumulative impact of the many smaller, less publicized wars elsewhere around the globe is no less severe and, ultimately, no less threatening to the well-being of people everywhere, including the United States.
Furthermore, here at home, where ecological damage to our own environment is proceeding at a frightening pace, the single largest polluter by far, producing more toxic and radioactive waste than any other single entity, is the U.S. military.
I am not at all suggesting that our country bears sole responsibility for the global state of affairs.
But we bear a good deal of it, and therefore any steps we take to move away from war will have great influence upon other countries around the world.
Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, we had the most powerful armed forces in the world, the most sophisticated weaponry, and by far the largest number of military bases outside our own borders.
Since World War Ⅱ, we have used our military might to bomb, invade, or otherwise intervene in more countries around the world than any other nation.
We were the first to develop the atomic bomb, and we are the only nation ever to use it.
For years we have led the Soviets in atomic test explosions, and we ani continuing these tests even though Soviet testing has stopped.
In addition, we have long been the world’s largest arms merchant, today supplying 40 percent of the entire overseas arms market.
We have been told that all of this is necessary for our security, but the opposite is true.
This military colossus we have created has greatly undermined our security — by creating more enemies than it destroys, by wasting our precious resources and poisoning our environment, by degrading our democracy with “national security” secrecy, covert actions, and official lying, and by undercutting our highest Judeo-Christian values with the insidious doctrine of “might makes right.”
Betsy’s and my actions that have brought us to court are testament to our belief that there is another way for us to live in the world, and another way for us to resolve our conflicts with our fellow human beings.
It is a way that is rooted in the best of our values: the values of generosity and justice, of human dignity and equality, of compassion and mutual respect.
The seeds of this alternative way — the way of nonviolence that Dr. Martin Luther King tried to teach us — already exist within our society, and within each person.
We have only to honor and nurture those seeds, individually and collectively.
This is a prescription based not on wishful idealism, but on practical necessity.
It is our only real hope for survival.
The transformation required cannot be accomplished without our accepting some measure of personal responsibility for the mess we are in.
It would be futile to expect our government, or any other, to initiate it.
In any event, we cannot afford to wait.
The transformation must begin with us.
Because we profess to be a self-governing people, it is all the more our responsibility.
We can exercise this responsibility by means of the choices each of us is called upon to make.
For example, we can choose to speak out publicly against governmental practices and priorities that we know to be wrong.
Many of us can also choose not to hand over to the federal government some part of our tax money — instead redistribute it to those in need, until such time as those in need become our government’s first priority.
And each of us can choose to continue leading lives based on materialism, consumerism, and environmental exploitation, or we can find ways of living based on simplicity, sharing, and respect for the Earth.
The choices we make as individuals will determine the choices we make as a nation.
This is, no doubt, a dangerous and ominous time to be alive in the world.
Yet it is also a very exciting time to be alive.
People all over the world, despite the opposition of their governments, are taking initiative to bring about momentous and long overdue changes.
These winds of change are sweeping the planet, and they are not likely to stop at our borders.
If the people of Prague and Moscow can overthrow Soviet communism and bring about democracy and human rights; if the people of Soweto and Johannesburg can abolish South African apartheid and establish an egalitarian, multi-racial society; then, I feel sure, it is equally possible for us to dismantle U.S. militarism and replace it with attitudes and institutions of nonviolence.
It is my great hope, my silent prayer, that Betsy’s and my struggle to see that the fruits of our labor are used for nurturing and healing, rather than for killing and war, will somehow contribute to that process.
Following this, Christopher L. King had a piece promoting the Peace Tax Fund.
He described it as the brainchild of David Bassett, who some twenty years before had come up with the idea of allowing taxpayers to perform “alternative service” money the way conscientiously objecting draftees could with their labor.
King wrote that he was surprised to find little awareness of the bill in Quaker circles and described some of the work that he and his comrades were doing for the bill.
Those of us who meet each month and a quiet group of supporters in the surrounding communities believe in our consciences that war and militarism are wrong.
We don’t believe they should be the major tools of our foreign policy.
We sympathize with citizens like Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner of Colrain, Massachusetts, who have chosen to pay no taxes because they are pacifists.
We empathize with those brave souls who choose alternative lifestyles so they can keep their income below taxable levels.
It often means their children must learn to sacrifice at an early age.
It means stepping out of the mainstream culture.
Most of us don’t want to change our lifestyles radically or go to jail for our beliefs.
Some might argue that if we are true to our faith, we have no other choice.
On the other hand, there is a need to resist the fundamental tyranny that requires that we must become rebels if we wish to stand firmly for peace.
King’s article was pretty vague on the mechanics of what the Peace Tax Fund bill would actually accomplish, and it was written as if there were no reason why a conscientious objector to paying to war might not find it a satisfactory solution.
The issue included a brief review of the video Paying for Peace: War Tax Resistance in the United States, which was produced by Carol Coney.
Excerpt:
Among those interviewed are Brian Willson, a war tax resister and Vietnam veteran who in was run over by a train while blocking munitions shipments at the Concord naval weapons plant in California.
Also interviewed is Maurice McCrackin, a minister who was sentenced to jail for war tax resistance in ; Ernest and Marion Bromley, who have lived under the taxable income level to avoid paying taxes for military purposes; and Juanita Nelson, an early civil rights organizer who was the first woman to spend a night in jail for war tax resistance.
The issue included an op-ed from Allan Kohrman suggesting Quakers ought to be more patriotic, perhaps singing “God Bless America” during their Sunday meetings, and in particular should rethink their permissive attitude toward civil disobedience and war tax resistance.
“Many Friends seem to define civil disobedience as breaking any law they feel is morally wrong.
Some will not pay war taxes, testifying that God has called them to resist.
I would argue that paying taxes is a basic responsibility of citizenship, a function of my almost mystical relationship to my country.
God calls me to pay my taxes much as God calls others to resist them.”
That’s what “an almost mystical relationship to my country” will get you, I guess.
Another note in that issue concerned two Quakers in Germany — Christa & Klausmart Voigt — who had been prosecuted for war tax resistance.
“About 40 Friends from all over Germany attended the hearing, which was overseen by five judges.”
Klausmart had “placed his money in an account for a peace tax initiative,” and at press time they were still awaiting the court’s decision.
There was another note about the Tax Resisters’ Penalty Fund in the issue, which described it this way: “When a request for assistance comes in, the committee that oversees the fund takes it under consideration, then notifies people who have agreed to participate of the amount each would need to contribute to cover the tax resister’s penalty and interest debt.
Contributions are not used to cover the tax liability itself.
The fund is administered in cooperation with the North Manchester (Ind.) Fellowship of Reconciliation.”
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
American Quaker war tax resistance reemerged in the Friends Journal in , with some real live resisters telling their stories and sharing the processes by which they had developed their methods of resistance.
The issue had several mentions of war tax resistance.
Editor Vinton Deming’s lead editorial concerned his annual confrontation of the “agonizing question” of what to do at tax-filing time.
Excerpt:
an ad from the issue of Friends Journal
For many years I sought ways to protest.
I started by submitting a letter with my 1040 objecting to the large sums going to the Pentagon and the neglect of other needed programs. No one responded.
At other times I requested a refund so I might send a sum to a human service program not being adequately funded.
Nice idea, I thought, but IRS didn’t think so.
One year they told me the request was “frivolous,” and they tried to penalize me for asking.
My lawyer got them to drop the matter.
Then about 15 years ago I stopped filing a tax return altogether, choosing instead to write a letter to the president explaining why I was not willing as a Friend to pay for things like B-1 bombers, cruise missiles, or Star Wars.
The latter approach clearly got the attention of IRS officials.
Suddenly I was “playing in the big leagues.”
The government took me to court on two occasions and threatened to do the same to my present employer unless my back taxes, interest, and penalties were paid at once [see ♇ ].
Reluctantly, and after much soul searching, the Journal agreed to pay.
I released them to do so, being convinced we had resisted as long as we could and had explored all legal means.
Friends rallied to support us with financial gifts to help pay the large debt.
In I made my last monthly payment to the Journal.
I continue to struggle with IRS on this matter, which dates back to my tax resistance of .
The government disagreed with our math for what we believed was actually owed in back taxes.
My lawyer is maneuvering to try to prevent IRS from seizing my Individual Retirement Account, an argument to be decided by a judge later this year.
In more recent tax years I have filed and paid, trying to claim as many exemptions as possible and to limit the government’s take.
I have lobbied for the Peace Tax Fund Bill and supported others who are resisting.
David Shen also wrote of his war tax resistance in that issue.
Excerpts:
For 12 years, I have withheld a portion of my income tax from IRS.
I refuse to give money to the military to kill people.
There is too much need around us.
For the last three years, I have given this portion to My Brothers’ House, a homeless shelter my Quaker meeting supports in the inner city of Philadelphia.
Each year at tax time, I sigh deeply.
I know IRS may punish me.
And I know I stand on the side of life.
For these 12 years, IRS and I have been corresponding politely.
They send me notices; I write back.
Since I received notices of intent to levy and since they have not levied, I assume I have been lost in their millions of files.
I was surprised, then, when my college employer received the levy on my salary.
My first talks with IRS, lawyers, and F/friends left me feeling depressed and helpless.
IRS would get what they thought was theirs.
Then God intervened.
Inadvertently, my lawyer angered me.
In my anger, I took a position of reducing my wages to a level IRS could not levy.
(By law IRS must leave me a wage to live on.)
I had not considered it before, since doing so would cost me $2,200 — more than the levy’s $1,200.
I think Shen is being too modest here in giving God the credit for a bold decision that came direct from Shen.
I approached the college dean, my superior.
“Reduce my wages,” I said, “so IRS cannot satisfy its levy.”
But the dean shocked me.
Her superior, the vice president, would not allow me to reduce my wages.
I had to quit or pay the levy.
That sounds very familiar.
When I first started resisting, I went in to the human resources department of my employer to ask if reducing my salary below the tax line was an option.
They told me it was out of the question.
My response was to resign and become an independent contractor.
Shen took a different tack:
After a conversation with one of my students, I decided to continue teaching and pay the levy.
I would, however, also continue learning about love and Truth.
Could I reach administrators, I wondered, if I used Gandhi’s principle of selfsuffering?
I would direct suffering to me, and not to the college, by teaching at reduced income rather than quitting and leaving the college with 80 angry students.
I met with the administrator who wrote my paycheck, the department chair, the dean again, and then the vice-president.
Three respected my position (the vicepresident didn’t reveal his stand).
The payroll administrator blurted out, “Isn’t there a legal way you can do this (pay income tax without paying the military)?”
When I met with the president of the college, six weeks had passed and the levy was almost fully paid.
He was busy.
He startled me by agreeing with my right to take my position, and he would seek how I could do so at the college.
Two weeks later, he informed me he could not find a legal way to accommodate me.
I, though, was thrilled.
In our two conversations, the president and I connected.
We talked about my tax situation for 20 minutes and unexpectedly talked about his and my family for 90 minutes.
He was late for one of his appointments.
As I waved goodbye, he asked, “Stop in for coffee again, will you?”
What did I learn?
I am poorer by $1,200, but I am richer in intangible ways.
I feel in the flow of God’s will for me and feel connected to people — F/friends who support me and opponents who respect me.
I am invigorated and happy
It must be comforting to feel that “God’s will” is responsible for all the difficult and fuzzy decisions you make.
Whether you zig or you zag, whether things turn out well or ill, God’s in charge and if you’re willing to give Him all the credit, He’ll be glad to take all the blame.
The same issue published part of an interview that Susan Van Haitsma conducted with Paula Rogge .
Excerpts:
What were the motivating factors in your decision to become a tax
resister?
Deciding to refuse to pay taxes for war was a slow, gradual process for
me… As I grew older and attended Illinois Yearly Meeting, I heard more about tax resistance.
I met two men who had served time in prison for refusing to pay war taxes or resisting cooperation with the Internal Revenue Service.
I saw them as very committed people with a lot of integrity, and I could see that the yearly meeting supported them.
So, at some level I felt that tax resistance was the logical extension of my pacifist views, and I knew there was a community of support for tax resistance among the Friends and the wider peace community as well.…
How did you go about your tax resistance?
That first year, I think I owed one dollar.
I refused to pay the dollar
and sent a letter to the IRS explaining my position.
The next year, I increased the number of withholding allowances on my W-4 form so that I owed the IRS at the end of the year instead of vice-versa.
I began by refusing to pay 40–50 percent of my federal tax money because at the time, that was the approximate percentage being used to fund current and past wars.
Then, over time, I realized that of the 50–60 percent I was paying, 40–50 percent was still being used for military purposes, so I stopped paying the whole kit and caboodle.
I stopped paying all taxes because I had no control whatsoever over how the money was being spent.
In the last several years I’ve also stopped paying social security taxes because the government borrows from those funds to help cover the deficit, indirectly financing the defense system.
So, it’s been a gradual process of taking my tax resistance further and further.
I’ve always filed, and the IRS and I have always agreed about how much I’ve owed (now over $60,000 including penalties and interest).
At this point, I don’t feel led to stop filing.
For myself, I feel better being open about it, but I realize many tax resisters don’t file, and I respect their reasons for going that route.
Have you redirected your tax money?
The first couple of years that I did tax resistance, I put the money
aside in a bank account, assuming it would be seized.
It wasn’t seized right away, however, and I’m afraid the money was spent without having been donated as it should have.
But I learned, and since then I’ve made sure the amount of money owed in taxes and social security is donated every year to charitable groups.
I’ve had a lot of fun giving this money away.
Sometimes when I have sent the contribution, I have included a note explaining that the donation represents refused war taxes, and I have received supportive notes in return.
It’s a very empowering feeling to know that my money is doing some good.
Have there been special ways in which you would say your life has been
affected positively by your practice of tax resistance?
When I finished my residency, I worked in a migrant clinic for two years
in the Rio Grande Valley in Harlingen, Texas: a very conservative community.
The second year I was there, I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper explaining that I was a war tax resister and why.
The newspaper editor phoned me to make sure I really wanted the letter printed!
I said yes, and they did print it.
I was afraid of the response I might get from the community, but I felt it was important to be public about my stance.
After the letter was printed, the other doctors in Harlingen actually became much friendlier and began to take a certain interest in me.
I don’t think any of them agreed with the tax resistance, but they seemed to respect my position.
Several nurses and a nuclear medicine technician I hadn’t known before introduced themselves and expressed their support of my war tax resistance.
I didn’t get any negative reactions.
In , I began a medical family practice in Austin, Texas, along with another doctor.
The first year into the practice, the IRS sent notice that my wages would be garnisheed.
I asked that my salary be lowered to $100 per week, as that is the amount exempt from levy.
In order to supplement this reduced income, I began to work moonlighting jobs in various agencies: the city Health Department, Planned Parenthood, and the State Commission for the Blind, for example.
I had to find new moonlighting jobs every two years or so because that was about the length of time it usually took the IRS to catch up and begin attaching wages again.
Something good happened as a result of this.
I’ve had to explain to all potential employers that at some point the IRS would begin to levy my wages and when that happened, I would no longer be able to work for them.
When I explained this to the Texas Commission for the Blind during my interview, for example, they were quite taken aback, and I thought I probably wouldn’t get the job.
But, a few weeks later, they did hire me!
The woman who hired me said she understood why I was doing tax resistance and that she agreed with my convictions.
I came to feel a real sense of support and community there.
In , the
IRS
seized your automobile.
Could you describe what happened?
Well, some time before the car was seized, an
IRS
agent, accompanied by a law officer, came to our clinic to pay me a visit.
I could tell they were nervous and even a bit hostile.
But as we sat and talked, and I explained why I simply could not pay for war, I could see them both soften a little.
Toward the end of the interview, the officer began asking questions about our practice and commented that it was unusual for us to be located in such a poor neighborhood.
As they were leaving, I complemented the officer on his cowboy boots — he had on some kind of exotic boots — and I think he was tickled pink that I had noticed them.
He told me where he had gotten them.
It was kind of a humorous exchange and I felt very good about that.
We had related as people.
I figured that since my wages had become uncollectible and I had no bank account, eventually my car would be seized.
But even so, the morning it happened, it came as a bit of a shock.
My IRS agent came to the bouse and, poor woman, she was just shivering in her shoes, she looked so nervous.
She placed a sticker on the car and then asked if she could use my phone to call the tow truck!
I decided that they were going to tow it one way or another, so I invited her in to use the phone.
I had a sick patient in the emergency room at the time, so I took a taxi to the hospital right away.
Having a patient to worry about took my mind off the car long enough to ease my worry about the situation.
Then friends came forward and loaned me their cars without my having to ask.
A month following the seizure, the car was auctioned.
About 20–30 Quakers and other friends came and protested the auction, asking potential buyers not to bid on the car.
At least one potential buyer was convinced to refrain from bidding, but a used car dealer did, in the end, buy the car.
A week following the auction, a doctor I had once worked with phoned and said that he wanted to buy the car back from the car dealer and donate it anonymously to our practice.
That was such a wonderful surprise.
I was very moved because I respected him very much as a doctor.
I talked the offer over with friends.
Though I didn’t want the money going, even indirectly, to the IRS, I did want this doctor to have an opportunity to support the whole cause of war tax resistance, and this was his way of contributing.
I decided to accept the car.
It came back with new tires, looking much cleaner than it had before it was seized!
A friend of the doctor had also done a tune-up on it — and it was great.
I think the best part of this story is that when I tell it, people chuckle.
You see, it’s such a good example of how limited the power of the IRS is in the face of creative resistance.
It’s also an example of how our needs are often met in unexpected ways when we take a stand for peace.
I think these three experiences in particular — the return of my car, receiving the job at the Commission for the Blind, and the reaction to the letter in Harlingen paper — were all occasions when I felt that speaking out for truth actually opened doors and tore down barriers between other people and me.
When I was willing to take a stand for what I felt was right, I discovered a community of support I hadn’t realized existed.
Perry Treadwell also wrote about his war tax resistance in that issue.
Excerpts:
Today I received another one of those white envelopes from the Internal Revenue Service — the ones that tell me I failed to pay $35 in or $106 in and now I owe a lot more in penalties and interest.
I file them away with the other ones from .
But this time their arrival reminded me of an anniversary of sorts.
It has been .
I refused to pay for people to kill other people.
I resigned my tenured university position [see ♇ ] and drastically simplified my lifestyle so the fruits of my labors would not be used for war.
I still get that little twist in the stomach when those IRS letters come.
Sometimes the IRS actually raids a bank account or Individual Retirement Account.
However, I know that Friends are there should I ever need their support in not cooperating with a government whose only answer to conflict is violence.
I have been able to simplify my life to a point where I am below the taxable level.
Friends’ support has helped.
The richness of my life is proportional to my friendships.
That is what I have learned in , and that is what I pass on to others.
The issue had an obituary notice for Jane Palmer which noted that she “chose to live in accordance with the Quaker peace testimony and purposefully limited her income to avoid paying taxes that supported war efforts,” and one for Mildred Teusler Ringwalt which mentioned “her refusal to pay the portion of her income taxes she believed supported such [war] efforts.”
One of the events at the Friends General Conference Gathering in — the “Henry J. Cadbury Event, sponsored by Friends Journal” — was “an original production in story and song about the war tax witness of Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner from Colrain, Massachusetts.
The stage performance won a favorable review from those who crowded the auditorium (despite the heat and lack of air conditioning!).
A video of the show was made and will be available at a later date.”
At the Illinois Yearly Meeting in (according to a Journal article ), “Sebrina Tingley explained not just the nuts and bolts of war tax resistance but also the spiritual call to do so” and “Bill Ramsey (American Friends Service Committee) told of his personal experiences involving war tax resistance.”
The lead editorial of the issue was all about the Peace Tax Fund Bill and an effort to get 10,000 people to write letters to Congress supporting it.
“The Peace Tax Fund Bill,” according to one supporter’s letter, “when it becomes law, will give us our religious liberty.
We’ll be able to pay our taxes in good conscience since we’ll be allowed to pay for peaceful projects rather than for war.”
Two letters-to-the-editor in the issue reacted to that project: one, by Marge Schier, thanking the Journal for aiding the cause — “We’re even more sure now that we can do it!”
— and the other, by Elizabeth Campuzano, giving the gist of the letter she had sent: “I told them that I voluntarily live below the federal poverty limit in order to avoid paying income taxes for war.
I told them that if this bill passes, I will raise my income in order to pay for education, road and bridge repairs, anti-monopoly enforcement, etc.” She added: “I think this is one of the greatest things FJ has ever done!”
International news
“a Spanish war resistance sticker: peace (paz) and bread (pan), not bombs”
A report about the previous year’s Canadian Yearly Meeting in the issue mentioned that “[t]he ad hoc committee on war tax concerns has found a method which potentially will allow Canadian Yearly Meeting to redirect the military portion of employees’ income tax remittances to the federal government’s Debt Service and Reduction Fund.
This is not an entirely satisfactory solution, but perhaps a first step.”
’s Canadian Yearly Meeting (according to a story in the issue) “reached joyful unity in a decision as an employer to stop remitting to Revenue Canada the military portion of taxes for those employees who request it.”
This decision follows several years of study, prayerful consideration, and the attempt during for use of legal means of expressing our conscientious objection to paying for the military.
The remittance will instead be paid into Conscience Canada, with consideration given to establishing in the future a specific trust fund.
The Fifth International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns was held in Spain in and was covered in the Journal in a report by Steve Gulick.
Excerpt:
About 70 activists from all over Europe and a number of other parts of the world gathered in Hondarribia, Spain, , to charge our batteries, to compare conditions in our various countries, to get to know each other, and to carry on business.
It was inspiring to meet, get to know, and work with war tax resisters and peace campaigners from all over Europe and from the United States, Canada, Peru, Iraq, and Palestine.
The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee raised money to make it possible for the Palestinian, Elias Rishmawi from Beit Sahour, West Bank, to attend.
The Iraqi and the Peruvian attenders are currently living in Europe.
One problem with the gathering — similar to the War Resisters International gathering that I attended in — was the difficulty of getting a diverse attendance.
Folks from India were unable to attend, for example, in part because of the distance.
I attended as a delegate from the War Tax Concerns Support Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
Other attenders from the United States were David Bassett and Marian Franz (National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund), Susan Quinlan and Larry Rosenwald (National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee), Cynthia Johnson (Women Strike for Peace), and Gerri Michalska (Pax Christi) — which gave some of us from the U.S. movement the opportunity to get to know each other.
The conference issued a number of public documents — the most important being the bylaw of a new non-governmental organization which will have consultative powers with both the UN and the European parliament: Conscience and Peace Tax International.
The role/goal of the organization will be to espouse the cause of those who take stands of conscience in relation to military expenditures — and also military service and issues of conscience and civil and human rights more generally.
A report back from the Germany Yearly Meeting mentioned war tax resistance matter-of-factly:
In our commitments to projects such as “alternatives to violence,” civilian peace service, war tax refusal, and in our decision to give financial support to the setting up of a Quaker Center in Moscow, Russia, we express that we not only ask ourselves “how do we see God?” but also “how do we do God?”…
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
There was a resurgence of war tax resistance news in the
Friends Journal in ,
including an interesting series of articles on the voluntary simplicity / low
income lifestyle as a tax resistance tactic, and the beginning chapters of
the tale of Quaker war tax resister Priscilla Adams.
A note in the issue plugged the
“Conscience and Military Tax Campaign Escrow Account”:
Established in by the Nonviolent Action
Community of Cascadia, the account allows war tax resisters to set aside
refused military taxes in a secure fund. Deposits may be retrieved at any
time (to replace assets seized by the
IRS,
for example), and interest from the account is used to promote war tax
resistance and support peace and social justice activism. Depositors’ funds
are reinvested in socially responsible institutions assisting low-income
communities and minorities. The CMTC Escrow Account is the largest and most
geographically diverse war tax redirection fund in the United States.
War tax resistance is an act of civil disobedience, and resisters potentially
face fines, levies, and seizure of assets. However, the escrow account itself
is a trust fund, and as such is confidential and entirely legal. Depositor
records are not available to the
IRS,
and individual deposits are considered to be anonymous portions of a larger
fund invested in fully insured institutions. Participants receive records of
their transactions, annual statements, and a free subscription to
NACC’s quarterly war tax resistance magazine.
(I wouldn’t rely on any of that as solid legal advice. My understanding is
that the
IRS
sometimes treats “warehouse banks” like these as illegal operations that they
can seize wholesale under the theory that they’re being operated for money
laundering or tax evasion purposes.)
In a letter in the issue, William Kriebel
called out Quakers on their careless or politically-correct use of of language;
in particular he claimed: “There are no ‘war taxes.’ All income tax money goes
into the treasury without earmarking for the military. Taxation is a legitimate
power of any government. Our points of protest really are the decisions
(budget-making, appropriation) to use money out of the common fund for military
purposes.”
An article on the Quaker Council for European Affairs in the same issue noted
in passing that “conscientious objection to war taxes” was one of the “studies
for publication” that the organization had produced. Another article in that
issue noted that the National Association of Evangelicals had endorsed the
Peace Tax Fund bill:
“At first this was just a lonely struggle for the peace churches,” said
Marian Franz, director of the campaign, “then we got the support of the
mainline churches, which represent over 12 million people. Now we have
support from more conservative religious organizations, who, until recently,
had seemed to be unlikely allies.” Marian attributes the recently attained,
broad base of support to a change in tactics from an issue of conscientious
objection to an issue of religious liberties. Marian explained that “having
this broad base of support means that members of Congress, even conservative
members, take the issue more seriously.”
On , there was a benefit premiere
showing of An Act of Conscience, a documentary on
the Kehler/Corner house seizure and subsequent occupation. There was some
tangential Quaker involvement in the benefit (it was sponsored by several
organizations, including a regional AFSC office, and some Massachusetts
Quakers took part in the occupation), and the benefit screening was covered
in a note in the issue.
In the lead editorial in the issue,
editor Vinton Deming paid tribute to Eleanor Webb:
Eleanor Webb, who died , was clerk
of the Journal board when I was appointed
editor-manager in .… It was Eleanor… who
stood firmly in support of staff who resisted paying the military portion of
their federal taxes.
One of the feature articles in the issue
was written by David R. Bassett and told his story as “The Founder of the
Peace Tax Fund Movement.” Excerpts:
marks the 25th year since the
introduction of the Peace Tax Fund Bill in the
U.S. Congress. I
have been involved in the initiation of this legislation, a laborer in the
centuries-long effort to establish on earth the type of peaceful world
envisioned by Jesus and George Fox. I firmly believe that, on some
significant day in the future, some nation will for the first time pass a
Peace Tax Fund Bill, thereby establishing legal recognition of the right of
conscientious objection to the payment of military taxes. Once this is
accomplished, other nations will follow suit. I consider this goal as one of
the crucial and route-determining “trail-signs” on the path to that time and
place where the world will realize that ahimsa (soulforce)
is the preferred way to resolve conflict and to govern communities, and where
conscientious objection to war and other forms of violence will be considered
the norm.
[My] orientation as a conscientious objector to war and of preventing
preventable suffering impelled Miyoko and me, beginning in
, to wrestle with the fact
that each year we were paying (through our federal taxes) to support the
Viemam War and the military system generally. In fact, some 50 percent of
those tax moneys went to support
U.S. military
systems! One of my most graphic memories of that time was, while working many
nights at Queens Hospital in Honolulu, hearing
U.S. Air Force jet
tankers, fully laden with jet fuel, flying over the heavily populated part of
Honolulu on their way to Indochina.
Conscientious objection to payment of military taxes
In , with the Vietnam War continuing, we
moved to Ann Arbor to work at the University of Michigan. We became members
of the Ann Arbor Meeting and found there a number of people who were actively
grappling with the issue of whether to continue to pay the military portion
of federal taxes for a war that we opposed. I came to realize that any
nation’s military programs are made possible the, monetary resources that, in
the analysis, are extracted from the nation’s citizens by taxation. It also
became clear to me that one who was conscientiously opposed to military
systems must not allow his or her funds to be used for this purpose.
Surveying the pervasive role of our military system not only in our foreign
policies, but in its effects on our economy, our environment, and on the
nation’s culture and spirit, I carne to feel that this issue was central to
our times. Conscientious objection to payment of military taxes is as
important to be established as was the ending of slavery and of apartheid and
the establishment of women’s right to vote. At the same time, I held then,
and still hold, the view that the federal government is capable of carrying
out many beneficial and constructive programs and that I am willing, indeed
obligated, to pay my full share of taxes to support those programs.
I came to know that it would not be enough simply to focus on reductions in
military spending by influencing legislators and electing new ones (though
this was obviously necessary). The challenge was to extend the right of
conscientious objection to war to include not only one’s physical body, but
also one’s economic resources. I knew further that there had been repeated
resistance in the
U.S. courts to
such change and concluded that, while civil disobedience in this area
(i.e., war tax resistance) would continue to be essential, the
principal focus of attention should be to change the tax laws.
During the year , there was for me
a struggle with my conscience, not in regard to what I believe on this issue
but whether to take some action and what that action should be. Should I live
below a taxable income level? move to Canada? engage in war tax resistance?
take our civil disobedience actions into the judicial system? or attempt to
change the federal tax laws? Miyoko and I knew that to embark on any of these
actions would require great amounts of time and energy; that each course
would require some changes and risks, not all of which we could anticipate at
the outset; and that none were assured of “success.” I knew that to commit
the time necessary to move this issue forward might conflict with my hopes of
making progress in academic medicine and in research into the causes of
atherosclerosis. We gradually came to the view that it seemed wisest to try
to resist paying the military portion of our taxes and to begin to
take steps to bring about legislative change.
It was the quiet voice of conscience that kept nagging me almost every day, as
I found one or another reason not to take some action. Finally, in the
, I phoned Professor
Joseph Sax at the University of Michigan Law School and outlined to him the
basic idea: the need to change the federal tax laws so as to have Congress
grant legal recognition to the right of conscientious objection to
the payment of military taxes, while enabling the taxpayer to pay the full
amount of his or her tax with assurance that those tax monies would
not be used for military expenditures. Professor Sax sketched out how this
might be accomplished. Over a period of eight to nine months, with the
assistance of Michael Hall, we began the process of drafting what became the
World Peace Tax Fund Bill.
Other Ann Arbor Friends, Joe and Fran Eliot and Bob and Margaret Blood, had
been considering drafting a bill. A brief written for them by Thomas Towe (a
Quaker law student) proved a helpful resource. It was not hard to draw
together a working committee of seven or eight people during
to work on
this legislation and to take the initial steps in deciding how to bring the
bill to Congress, how to publicize it, and how to raise funds. We were
encouraged when Ann Arbor’s Interfaith Council for Peace decided to support
the legislative effort and appointed two very effective members to meet with
us on a regular basis.
The World Peace Tax Fund Bill was first introduced in the
U.S. Congress on
, with Representative Ronald
V. Dellums as the lead sponsor, with nine other cosponsors. The Peace Tax
Fund office moved from Ann Arbor to the Florida Avenue Meetinghouse in
Washington,
D.C., in
. The bill was first introduced in
the Senate in , with Senator Mark Hatfield
as its sponsor. In the bill was renamed the
U.S. Peace Tax
Fund Bill. A dedicated staff, led for the past 14 years by Marian Franz, has
coordinated the lobbying effort. The orientation and the gifts that she
brings to her work are evident in her book, Questions That Refuse To Go Away.
A sidebar noted resources available from the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, and also made note of the international conferences at which similar plans proposed in other countries are discussed.
The same issue also contains Clare Hanrahan’s article “Wholesome Poverty: A Revolutionary Adventure.”
Unfortunately, in the archived PDF, some of the opening paragraph is obscured by an insert card.
The article appears to begin with Hanrahan saying that she initially adopted a lower-income simple-living lifestyle in order to resist war taxes, but then came to believe that frugality and thrift and anti-consumerism and simplicity had a larger role to play in the pursuit of “a just and sustainable global community.”
It continues:
When I must work for wages, I do so as an independent contractor so that I can maintain control over tax withholdings.
I redirect a fair percentage of cash wages and many hours of volunteer time to support life-affirming projects at home and abroad.
Self-employment suits my temperament and has enabled me to develop skills and to pursue interests I may never have had the time for in a conventional career.
I’ve tried to be resilient and open to any honest labor.
If I’m asked what I do for a living, each day I can provide a different answer.
One day I might be gathering and saving seeds for next year’s garden or harvesting wild herbs for a winter tea; another day might be spent in household repair, community organizing, or researching and writing a grant for a nonprofit organization.
I’ve learned the wisdom in giving due time each day to labor of the mind and of the body and to quiet reflection that feeds the spirit.
I value my free time and open schedule far more than any accumulation of cash or property, security, or prestige.
The freedom to choose how I will be with each moment is a gift and a challenge that I count as my greatest wealth.
Living on the edge, more or less, over the years I have honed the skills and nurtured an attitude of wholesome poverty.
Meeting basic needs without a substantial cash flow has been least stressful when I’ve lived within a stable community where interdependence and cooperative values are practiced.
But during my nomadic years I learned to trust in the kindness of strangers and the serendipity of life.
I came to value the gifts of the pilgrim spirit and to recognize the importance of the itinerant wayfarer in the lives of the comfortably settled.
I’ve lived and traveled aboard small sail boats, in a tipi, in rural cabins, and in derelict inner-city housing, trading cleanup and repair for rent.
I’ve made do in the back of an old school bus and afloat on a homemade houseboat on a Mississippi backwater.
I’ve worked in a cooperative shelter for displaced women and children, with room and board as compensation, and I’ve battered for home and garden space by exchanging pet and plant care.
My primary transportation is the slow way.
As a pedestrian, a bicyclist, and a bus rider, I keep a less frantic pace, and the more personal contact with those I encounter enriches the journey.
I can borrow a car or catch a lift from a friend if necessary, and by paying my fair share of the cost, the cooperative way serves each of us.
Nutritious food is available in surprising abundance if one is willing to look to unconventional channels:
I’ve participated in grassroots distribution networks of urban gleanings, intercepting the produce, grains, and other surplus foods otherwise lost.
Best of all, I’ve learned to grow my own food in community gardens and backyard plots whenever I had the opportunity.
As a worker-member at the local coop I claimed a significant reduction on food purchases, and by eliminating meat from my diet, the cost of my sustenance is affordable and sustainable.
Insurance against old age, disability, accident, or disease has never been an affordable option, nor one in which I place my faith.
Catastrophic illness or accident or the incapacities of age could happen to anyone.
Yet time and again, I’ve been sustained through economic precarity with help that comes at just the right moment.
This has happened so often that I live with a trust that keeps fear at bay.
I have learned to lean into the present moment, focused on the work before me, while keeping a well-honed sense of the adventure of it all and a very real faith in the unfolding process.
The inherent goodness of the universe has been made visible through the most unlikely of allies, and the travelers I’ve met along the way have been the wisest of teachers.
Peace Pilgrim, writing in her pamphlet, Steps Toward Inner Peace, recalled a visit to a city that had been her home:
In the poorer sections I am tolerated.
In the wealthier sections some glances seem a bit startled, and some are disdainful.
On both sides of us as we walk are displayed the things that we can buy if we are willing to stay in the orderly lines, day after day, year after year…
Thousands of things are displayed — and yet the most valuable things are missing.
Freedom is not displayed, nor health, nor happiness, nor peace of mind.
To obtain these, my friends, you too may need to escape from the orderly lines and risk being looked upon disdainfully.
Stepping outside the tyranny of “orderly lines” and daring to risk the uncertainties of disaffiliation can make of our very lives a revolution.
The way to the just and sustainable global community that we seek will open before us as we walk.
Another article in the same issue took the “voluntary simplicity” idea and ran with it.
Starting with Jesus’s one-sentence summary of his teachings — love your neighbor as much as you love yourself — the authors took this to mean “taking our fair share of global resources and no more.”
This starts with refusing war taxes because militarism is directly destructive of “our global neighbors.”
But that’s just step one of a six-step process.
Step two would be to imagine the world’s resources shared equally, which, the authors assert, means “an annual ‘fair share’ of just over $3,000 per person.”
But because the world is not using its resources in an environmentally sustainable way, step #3 is to reduce this fair share some more, to a more sustainable level: $1,800 per person per year.
But since that much money would go further in a place like the United States, where it’s relatively easier to live off the cast-offs of the wealthy, level #4 “challenges us to live on even less than level three, since we have an easier time doing so in a society with a relatively affluent public infrastructure.”
We’re not done yet.
Level #5 considers the non-monetary wealth most Americans enjoy because of the relatively high levels of medical care and education they have had access to.
“With such advantages (and others), we ought to be able to live on less resources than folks who lack education and have chronic medical problems.”
Finally, level #6 is for those who are not hampered by disabilities, encouraging them to sacrifice yet more so as to leave more for those who have to struggle harder.
Challenging? Certainly.
Even the authors only seem to have made it half way to step #2, limiting their income as a couple to $12,000 a year.
Some other choices they made were to “keep the majority of our savings in the form of non-interest-bearing loans” so as to avoid the sin of usury, and to “give away each year an amount equal to what we spend on ourselves.”
(A letter-to-the-editor in the issue criticized this radical simplicity, saying it smacked of “intelligent, able-bodied adults who consciously decide to let others subsidize” the benefits of society.
In particular: “In reducing their income to avoid paying taxes to support the military, this couple also avoids paying taxes that support the other half of the federal budget.
So, there goes their support for many of the roads they use, for medical research they might avail themselves of through that subsidized doctor, for other federally supported scientific and social research, for national parks, and so forth.
The authors are obviously well educated.
Their education was probably supported by local, state, and federal subsidies.
One wonders if they are repaying society for the educational benefit they’ve received.”)
Another brief note in the issue reported on the results of a “penny poll” that had been “conducted by Christian Peacemaker Teams in Elkhart, Ind.” and had indicated that those polled implicitly supported huge reductions in military spending.
A letter-to-the-editor from Marjorie Schier and Suzanne Day of the “Philadelphia Yearly Meeting War Tax Concerns Support Committee” published in the issue summarized the war tax issue as they saw it:
Resisting taxes
When a draft call finds some conscientious objectors unable to participate in war, the government not only has provided them alternatives, but also has proceeded to draft others who will participate.
It is individual conscience that makes the difference, not how the government allocates the recruits.
Some Friends have been unable to enlist, and some cannot voluntarily send dollars in federal tax for military uses.
Interacting with the federal government through tax resistance as witness for peace is more than symbolic; it can be earnest, meaningful religious conscience in action.
However, it does not change how the government allocates its resources, and efforts to witness for changed priorities are also significant.
Many Friends and others work for passage of the Peace Tax Fund Bill by the U.S. Congress because it would not only provide a legal opportunity for pacifists to pay their full federal tax without supporting war, but also give the government an indication of the numbers of citizens exercising this option.
Yes, the federal tax on telephone service is refused by many pacifists (with
a note of explanation accompanying the refusal and redirection of the money
for constructive purposes) because that tax was specifically reinstated to
support the war in Vietnam. Federal bookkeeping does not distinguish certain
tax streams for specific purposes, and has not since John Woolman wrestled
with this same issue. Nevertheless, many Friends are prompted to take a stand
for peace via taxes and thereby find a forum for disclosing that witness with
meetings, governmental representatives, families, and neighbors.
An obituary notice for Abram Bresel Goldstein in that same issue noted that
“[t]hough he worked briefly for the Internal Revenue Service, Abram left that
position during the Korean War to avoid aiding the collection of taxes for
war.”
On , NWTRCC and
the War Tax Concerns Support Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting sponsored
a seminar on “Corporate Conscience and War Taxes” at the Moorestown, New
Jersey, Meeting (according to a calendar listing in the
issue).
Priscilla Adams
The war tax resistance of Quaker Priscilla Adams became a cause célèbre that
played out over in the
Friends Journal starting in
. I’ll break with my chronological examination of the Journal for a while to follow this thread.
The issue introduces Adams and her
legal case:
Priscilla Adams, a war tax resister and member of Haddonfield
(N.J.) Meeting, is
challenging the
IRS
in court under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Her case is the
first of its kind to test conscientious war tax resistance since the passage
of the RFRA in . Priscilla and her lawyer,
Peter Goldberger, will challenge two points covered by the act: the
government’s use of penalties against war tax resisters for their stands of
conscience; and the lack of a government accommodation for conscientious
objectors to paying for war (like a Peace Tax Fund). The RFRA states that in
conflicts between the government and religious freedom, the government must
show compelling state interest and then use the least restrictive means
necessary. In this case, Priscilla is challenging the government’s lack of
recognition of conscience in response to the
IRS
assessing her taxes and penalties. She and Peter are arguing that under RFRA,
the IRS
should waive penalties for religious war tax resisters as long as they
recognize other forms of reasonable cause for noncompliance with the tax law.
They also are stating that the RFRA requires the enactment of something like a
peace tax fund for religious war tax resisters who are willing to accept a
reasonable accommodation, such as earmarking tax monies for non-warlike
purposes in the federal government. The case has completed its earliest
procedural stages and will be heard in United States Tax Court. Though no
date has been set, lawyers expect a trial date
. Priscilla has participated in
several clearness committees and is receiving guidance and support from
Haddonfield Meeting, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee,
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s War Tax Concerns Support Committee, the
National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, and family and friends.
The issue gave an update:
Priscilla Adams… will appeal the court’s decision rejecting her right to
refuse to pay taxes. The case went before the Philadelphia Tax Court, where
Adams presented an extensive outline of Quaker history and beliefs related to
war tax objections. The court’s decision states, “Religious Freedom
Restoration Act of does not exempt Quaker
from federal income taxes, despite taxpayer’s religious opposition to
military expenditures.” , Rosa Packard of Purchase
(N.Y.) Meeting and
Gordon and Edith Browne of Plainfield
(Vt.) Meeting also have filed
complaints in federal district courts seeking to protect their conscientious
acts of war tax refusal.
The issue mentioned her appeal:
Tax resister Priscilla Lippincott Adams… faced the Federal Court of Appeals
on . Her case against the
IRS for
penalizing her for her religious objections to paying the military through
taxes was dismissed in … The court
had the choice of hearing oral arguments or making a decision based on the
written briefs. In a positive turn, the judges heard oral arguments. Adams
said her lawyer, Peter Goldberger, passionately presented her case, “just
like a lawyer on T.V.”
The three judges will now make a decision, a process that could take anywhere
from six weeks to six months.
From there, to the Supreme Court, according to a
press release that formed the
basis for a
Journal news brief:
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting has filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the
U.S. Supreme Court
in support of its member, Priscilla Adams… who petitioned the high court in
, following unsuccessful efforts
in lower courts to obtain government accommodation for her conscientious
objection to paying war taxes by allowing her to pay federal taxes without
paying for military expenditures. Her employer, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,
supports religious witness by not forwarding the military portion of a
conscientious objector’s taxes to the
IRS. A
Peace Tax Fund, where tax dollars of conscientious objectors would be directed
exclusively to nonmilitary programs, is one possible solution to the dilemma
for adherents to nonviolence; a bill to establish a Peace Tax Fund has been
introduced in every Congress .
…Lower courts addressed the issue of accommodating war tax resistance only by
declaring that the government has a compelling interest in collecting taxes;
the courts have not dealt with the arguments that accommodation of
conscientious objection would be possible within the context of mandatory
participation in taxation. The Supreme Court has not heard any case that
raises these religious liberty questions under the
law.
By then it was too late, though. The issue noted that Adams’s Supreme Court appeal had been turned down:
On , the
U.S. Supreme Court
declined to hear appeals by Gordon and Edith Browne and Priscilla Lippincott
Adams to lower-court rulings that allowed the Internal Revenue Service to
impose late fees and interest for their conscientious refusal to pay the
military portion of their federal tax. The issue in this case was not paying
the tax when forced to do so by the
IRS,
but whether a “religious hardship” existed that should enable them to pay
without any penalties and interest. The lower-court rulings reaffirmed a
statement of the Supreme Court in that “The
tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge [it]
because tax payments were spent in a manner that violates their religious
belief.” The Justice Department lawyers said that “Voluntary compliance with
the tax laws is the least restrictive means of furthering the government’s
compelling interest in collecting taxes.”… “We’re very disappointed that the
Supreme Court will not be taking the opportunity to reinforce religious
freedom and freedom of conscience,” said Marian Franz, executive director of
the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund. “Congress seems like the most
appropriate place where this human right can be protected.”
Adams wasn’t going to give up though. Whether or not the government was going
to deign to make her war tax resistance legal, she was going to resist, and
the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting was willing to help her. From the
issue:
The United States Department of Justice, Tax Division, is suing Philadelphia
Yearly Meeting for refusing to forward wages of an employee to the Internal
Revenue Service. The employee, Priscilla Adams, resists paying taxes for war
and the military on the basis of religious conscience. The lawsuit, filed in
, is a move to attain funds from
PYM
as recompense for taxes owed by Priscilla Adams, plus a 50-percent penalty
for not garnishing her wages as instructed by the
IRS in
. If the
IRS
succeeds,
PYM
would owe approximately $60,000.
On ,
PYM’s
Interim Meeting decided to respond to the lawsuit and defend its position in
court.
PYM
stated that to garnish Priscilla Adams’s wages would infringe upon her
religious beliefs, and
PYM
should not “be required to act as a collection agent for the government when
doing so will require it to violate key tenets of the Quaker faith.”
Thomas Jeavons,
PYM
general secretary, commented in the Philadelphia Inquirer, “About 50 percent
of our taxes pay for weapons and warfare… We have long sought the creation of
a Peace Tax Fund, a government fund for nonmilitary use, where taxes of
[those who regard paying for war as a violation of religious conscience]
could go. Legislation for this has been in Congress for many years. It should
be passed now.”
The issue spelled out the
Meeting’s legal argument:
On , Philadelphia Yearly
Meeting filed its answer to a Justice Department lawsuit that asks a $20,000
penalty to be imposed on them and seeks to make them the collection agent for
the government. The yearly meeting’s response makes dear its intention to
stand by its essential religious principles, and publicly defend the free
exercise of religion on all possible grounds, including constitutional and
statutory religious freedom defenses. The
IRS
contends that
PYM
must garnish the salary of one of its employees and members who refuses — in
keeping with longstanding Quaker convictions — to pay taxes that support war
and preparations for war. While the
IRS
could easily take other courses to collect the back taxes it claims are due,
instead the federal government is trying to force a church to collect these
funds for it, an action that would require this Quaker organization to
violate its own essential religious convictions regarding freedom of
conscience.
PYM
has refused to do so. The answer to the suit says that the government “asks
the court to assist it in violating the most fundamental religious principles
of an established church… Although those principles and the yearly meeting’s
reasons for its actions have been painstakingly explained to the [government]…
the complaint purports to set forth the history of this matter without even
mentioning
PYM’s
efforts at communication and conciliation. Further, the complaint labels the
Yearly Meeting’s religiously mandated actions as a ‘failure’ to submit to
government coercion, and brands the [Quaker] theological scruples as
‘unreasonable’ and deserving of harsh penalties.” The news release from
PYM
adds, “Quakers have long been known for their religious pacifism, opposition
to war, and support of religious freedom and freedom of conscience.
PYM
regrets that being true to its faith has now brought us into conflict with
the government. The Quaker organization sees itself as defending freedom of
religion and freedom of conscience — and not just for itself, but for all
those who desire to be both good citizens and people of faith. While
PYM
regrets the need to resort to legal action, it looks forward to a full airing
of the issues involved in a public forum where both the sound reasons and
religious principles that guide this Quaker organization’s actions may be
upheld.
PYM’s
defense will rest on the constitutional right to freedom of religion
generally, and particularly as upheld and restated in the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act of .”
The issue reported on how far
they’d gotten with that argument:
On , A federal judge ruled that
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting must comply with a levy on the wages of war tax
refuser Priscilla Adams, but rejected a 50 percent penalty desired by the
Internal Revenue Service.
U.S. District
Judge Stewart Dalzell agreed with the Quaker argument that complying with the
levy “substantially burdens its exercise of religion,” because, as
PYM
General Secretary Thomas Jeavons earlier testified, the organization
“considers it a sacred duty to support the conscientious actions of its
individual members, especially in such historic witnesses as the Peace
Testimony.” Judge Stewan Dalzell also agreed that the
PYM
defense “raised novel and important questions,” thus demonstrating in this
instance that the previous refusal of
PYM
to comply was not a frivolous activity. But he disagreed that the
IRS had
practical alternative means to collect taxes from Priscilla Adams. The
government should not be required “to engage in a time-consuming, and
possibly fruitless, scavenger hunt for other assets.” In
, the Third
U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals had already rejected Priscilla Adams’s claim that the government
could devise a means for earmarking taxes for nonmilitary expenditures,
stating that there were “particularly difficult problems with administration
should exceptions on religious grounds be carved out by the courts.”
That issue also noted:
Film students from Brooklyn Friends School are directing and producing a
video documentary about Quaker peace activist Priscilla Adams. The students
came to Friends Center in Philadelphia to interview her about how her
religious beliefs led her to refuse payment of taxes in order to avoid
contributing to military funding. The students also interviewed George Lakey,
head of Training for Change, and Gene Hillman, adult religious education
coordinator for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. This documentary film may be an
entry for Bridge Film Festival, which is open to middle and upper school
students at Quaker schools worldwide.
The issue noted that the film had
been made — a 16-minute short titled A Need to Witness. And hey, look — it’s on-line:
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
In long-time Friends Journal editor (and war tax resister) Vinton Deming stepped down.
The amount of coverage of war tax resistance in the Journal had been declining throughout the decade, and was no exception to this trend.
A note in the issue read:
In signing A Call to Noncooperation with the War in Yugoslavia, 55 opponents of the conflict expressed a commitment to refuse to pay taxes for the war.
National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee in released the group’s declaration along with the list of signers.
On releasing the call, Bill Ramsey, a Friend from St. Louis, Mo., and a signer, said, “We oppose this diversion of public money [from the Social Security surplus] to a new war, but most urgently we are refusing to pay for war on Yugoslavia because it is killing people in Kosovo, Serbia, and Montenegro.
We are choosing to redirect our taxes to heal people.”
The issue included a letter-to-the-editor from Bill and Fran Taber announcing a particularly large war tax redirection:
A few weeks ago we received several phone calls from a Friend who, like us, has long been concerned about how to avoid paying taxes to support the military-industrial complex.
Our friend had recently been in touch with an Olney Friends School graduate who was excited about new governance arrangements being worked out to allow the official control of the school to pass from Ohio Yearly Meeting to a board composed of alumni and friends of Olney.
This enthusiasm and the school’s need for scholarship funds at this time of transition prompted our friend to ask us to be transmitters of an anonymous gift of $100,000 to the Friends of Olney, Inc., (the group responsible for the school beginning ).
Naturally we said we would be glad to do this.
We soon received an express package containing an anonymous $100,000 check from our friend’s financial agency as well as the friend’s letter explaining how this gift was a way of placing money in a worthy cause rather than allowing it to go for destructive purposes.
After we had passed the check and the letter on to the new board, our friend suggested and we agreed that the publication of the letter which accompanied the check would be a good way to continue the ongoing Quaker exercise on how to avoid complicity in war, as well as showing one way to put excess money to good use.
The letter follows.
Dear Friends of Olney —
In the spirit of Isaiah’s prophetic calling that would have us turn our swords into plowshares and in concert with Creation’s own declarations of God’s transforming power as recorded and envisioned in the Bible, I have been led to transfer to you these funds in the amount of $100,000, that they might serve to support your new tenure at Olney School.
It is my wish that this contribution be utilized to provide partial scholarship funding for ten or more students who might thereby be enabled to attend school there .
I offer this gift as one who has long wrestled with and refused payment of military taxes to our government, and has now resolved to cease paying such taxes in light of revelations through written and other sources that our nation has over many years been engaged in the development and testing of “doomsday weaponry” — acknowledged at a recent Pentagon news conference as likely to become a “growth industry.”
By way of sorting out my own personal response to such darkness, I have been endeavoring to turn my daily walk, personal and financial resources, and whatever presence and service I can offer, towards honoring that living Word which would have us dwell together in peace with all our neighbors and ourselves — “not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord.”
And in this regard, I have become particularly concerned with some of the problems that our families and children are experiencing, living as we are under the shadow of an increasingly mesmerizing, materializing, and mortifying “high-tech” way of life, dominated and fueled by our nation’s military-industrial complex, which President Eisenhower himself tried to forewarn us of more than 30 years ago.
It is my fervent prayer that we will all be moved by the Spirit and our own lives’ particular needs and concerns to invest ourselves in helping shepherd our young ones back into the fold of that “everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure” which David knew (Ⅱ Samuel 23:5) as his felt experience of God’s rainbow covenant (Gen. 9:12) “which I make between me and you and all living creatures that is with you for perpetual generations.”
Indeed, my own personal experience in recent years persuades me that as we covenant together to re-engage ourselves in more reverently-related interactive ways of living (as early Friends and many native cultures have and do) we will recover that love of life Way of experiential truth-seeking, together with our own “still small voice.”
And hopefully, as we become more attentive to and enlivened through this wider context of God’s creation “in which we live and move and have our being,” we shall realize all the blessings it holds for our own health, balanced living, and well-being.
So I have great respect and hope for your Friends of Olney group and the new course you are charting and pray it will prove an exciting and successful adventure in community learning for all involved.
May the Spirit bless and abide with you!
Yours in good faith,
A Friend
The issue noted:
Lake Erie Yearly Meeting minuted support for David and Miyoko Inouye Bassett as conscientious objectors to the payment of military taxes.
the Bassetts have refused to pay voluntarily the military portion of their federal taxes.
They have actively worked for U.S. Peace Tax Fund legislation, resubmitted this year, that would allow a person to pay full taxes but direct that none of the money be used for military purposes.
The couple worked for years as doctors in India with American Friends Service Committee.
Spencer Coxe attacked the Peace Tax Fund scheme in an op-ed in the issue:
The Peace Tax movement has dangerous implications
David Bassett’s article on the Peace Tax movement, which appeared a couple of years ago [see ♇ ] was of interest to me, for I had long been unclear (and uneasy) about the concept.
As a Friend and a pacifist with a lifelong affinity to dissent and lost causes, my heart sympathized with the movement, but my head warned me it was in error.
Even after reading David Bassett’s article, my head, which writes this essay, has prevailed.
The Peace Tax is meaningless in practical effect.
Congress determines; and will continue to determine, the military budget.
“Earmarking” one’s taxes for non-military purposes will have no influence whatsoever, except in the inconceivable event that so many subscribers signed up that there were not enough non-earmarked funds to satisfy what Congress considered military needs — at which point Congress would repeal the law.
A large number of subscribers would be required to reach this point.
A smaller number of determined lobbyists and agitators could persuade Congress to curb military expenditures, even though the protesters represented a minority of the electorate, just as the gun lobby is effective despite the rejection of its agenda by a majority.
A Peace Tax Fund is not only meaningless, but counterproductive and potentially dangerous.
It would ease the conscience of pacifists by creating the illusion that they are influencing policy, but it would deflect attention from meaningful and essential activity aimed at a) electing sympathetic members of Congress and a sympathetic President and b) lobbying, demonstrating and agitating to persuade the executive and legislative branches to reorder the national agenda.
The movement has dangerous implications.
It undermines representative democracy, the only viable system of government for a huge, diverse nation.
Policy-making is entrusted to democratically elected representatives who can be (but often aren’t) held accountable to the electorate.
On any issue, there are bound to be voters who disagree with a decision of Congress.
Our social contract requires us to accept — with rare exceptions to be discussed below — decisions we dislike.
To allow an end-run around this compact for one group invites other interests to demand equal treatment.
The lumber baron can forbid the use of his taxes to extend national parks.
Rightwing bigots will withhold their taxes from a school lunch program.
Permitting individuals to allocate their taxes as they see fit would probably result in a government agenda worse than what we have now, and it would ultimately lead to chaos.
For several reasons the Peace Tax movement will have symbolic significance of little or no value.
First, the movement will not generate publicity.
It is so low-key and so “legal” that it will be disregarded.
Second, unlike the tax-refuser, the peace-taxer courts no risk of prosecution or penalty.
His or her act will not be seen as brave or noteworthy; it will evoke no admiration, no controversy, no reflection (in fact, it will be invisible).
Third, since the earmarking will be sanctioned by statute, its use will cause the government no embarrassment and almost no inconvenience.
By legally sanctioning the earmarking, Congress is effectively removing the movement’s symbolic significance, and channeling a potentially effective resistance movement into a harmless backwater.
Each of us should, as a general rule, abide by decisions of Congress.
For today’s pacifist — as for last century’s abolitionist — the occasion will arise when an act of government is so repugnant to conscience that one must resort to civil disobedience.
This point is reached when in one’s estimation the issue of conscience transcends the demands that society lays upon us.
The Peace Tax movement boils down to a feel-good means of salving the conscience of those of us distressed by militarism.
It deflects us from hard work within the democratic process, and it absolves us from the penalties inflicted upon those who choose civil disobedience.
This long-overdue criticism of the Peace Tax Fund scheme would provoke a great deal of debate in the letters-to-the-editor column .
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
After noting several years of dwindling coverage of war tax resistance in the Friends Journal, it was a pleasant surprise to see that the magazine devoted its issue to the topic.
Robert Dockhorn wrote the opening editorial.
Excerpt:
Historically, many Friends have refused to participate in armed forces, and occasionally Friends, in an organized way, have refused to pay taxes to finance military activity.
But mostly, especially in recent years, only a few individuals, acting on the basis of individual conscience, have refused to pay taxes that are “mixed” — i.e. where one cannot determine which monies are funding which functions of government.
These individual Friends have sometimes received endorsement from their meetings, and on occasion, meetings (including yearly meetings) have gone so far as to encourage individual Friends generally to think seriously about tax resistance.
In this issue of Friends Journal, we offer several
articles that address this subject. At the center of them is a moral dilemma:
how can those of us who are clear that our government is pursuing an immoral,
militarist course live with our consciences in the knowledge that we are
funding this activity? What is required of us? What are our
real choices? What is our most effective response? And, at
another level: are we required only to be faithful to our
consciences, and to leave the consequences in God’s hands?
For — my wife, Roma, and I refused to pay the military portion of our federal income tax, as calculated by Friends Committee on National Legislation.
We donated the refused amounts to various causes that we felt were appropriate.
During these years I was employed by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
Eventually, the IRS came to my employer and sought to levy my wages for the owed amounts.
Much searching resulted, and the yearly meeting, while declining to turn over the funds, placed them in a separate account and did not hide them.
Eventually, they were attached.
And in , Roma and I prayerfully considered our course, sensed that we were no longer led to this resistance, and settled with the IRS, paying a substantial amount of interest and penalties.
We followed a leading, and the leading changed for us.
In the entire process, we were supported and nurtured by my monthly and yearly meeting (I am a Friend, Roma is not) — but it was our leading, supported by meetings, not the meetings’ leading.
And that is part of the question in these articles. It is not just about what
individuals can do, and should do. It is also about what all
Friends can and should do — together. How are Friends led today?
The first war tax resistance article in the issue came from Nadine Hoover, who told the story of Dan Jenkins’s attempt to get the courts to recognize conscientious objection to military taxation as a right of individual conscience that American citizens had before the enactment of the U.S. Constitution and that they had deliberately not relinquished by means of that document (see ♇ ).
The courts weren’t buying it, and in fact found the argument so far-fetched
that they upheld a $5,000 fine against Jenkins for using legally-frivolous
arguments. Hoover thought the arguments were good enough to be worth
repeating in the Journal, however.
She noted that “nearly three dozen Quakers and other supporters” joined Jenkins when he was arguing his appeal, and she argued:
To pay war taxes or to purchase from or invest in corporate structures that profit on war or use military might in order to secure wealth, in violation of our religious conviction, plants a dis-ease among us.
Friends’ witness is letting our lives speak — not that we will be protected but that we are willing to make ourselves vulnerable — knowing our faith will sustain us, set us free, and give us joy.
I have experienced this joy when I live in accord with my conscience and faith, regardless of the apparent, temporal consequences.
She invited “Friends who will stand before the courts and proclaim our faith… [or] write their statements of conscience and share them with others… [or] make the commitment to represent and/or support any Friend who is called to this witness” to write a war tax resistance committee of the New York Yearly meeting.
She hoped that if enough Quakers began to resist, they might make a change in the country the way the women’s suffrage movement did.
The change Hoover was hoping this would bring about was that the government
would legally acknowledge conscientious objection to military spending by
passing the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund bill, or something along those
lines:
Quakers, Mennonites, Shakers, and others have maintained this testimony throughout U.S. history.
Still many people today, of a wide variety of faiths, do not pay taxes for military purposes because this action violates their essential religious beliefs and moral convictions of conscience.
Passage of this bill by Congress would facilitate the payment of all taxes owed by these principled people.
Perish the thought.
Hoover shared a minute from the New York Yearly Meeting, dated
:
The Living Spirit works in the world to give life, joy, peace and prosperity through love, integrity and compassionate justice among people.
We are united in this Power.
We acknowledge that paying for war violates our religious conviction.
We will seek ways to witness to this religious conviction in each of our communities.
Then she listed off some possible “ways to witness”:
encourage your congregation to write and deliver a statement of
conscientious objection to paying for war
write a statement of conscience to include with your tax return and to
send to various other people
redirect some or all of your taxes “to an escrow account to be held in
trust for the
U.S.
government”
file more lawsuits using Jenkins’s 9th
Amendment argument
live on a below-the-tax-line income
divest from “corporations that profit from war” and invest and spend more
responsibly
“Pursue local ordinances that deny corporations recognition as persons,
and that deny recognition of corporate charters as contracts”
It was a long, rambling, repetitive, sometimes vague and random-seeming (what did corporate charters have to do with any of this?) argument.
It represents one weird extreme of the Peace Tax Fund idea, which had come to be seen by some supporters as an end in itself, rather than a means to a more important end.
Why do we resist paying war taxes?
Because that might help us get the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund bill passed!
The following article, edited by Karen A. Reixach, tried to account for how
enthusiasm for conscientious objection to military taxation had taken hold in
the New York Yearly Meeting in recent years. It began by identifying a
“movement of conscience” in much the same way that voluntaryists describe
ideal noncoercive politics, with a quote from
Jim
Corbett:
Nonviolent civil initiative by covenant communities is… the way human beings preserve and develop society based on consent, in which the rule of law, as distinguished from the rule of commanders, is necessarily grounded… Civil initiative must be societal rather than organizational, nonviolent rather than injurious, truthful rather than deceitful, catholic rather than sectarian, dialogical rather than dogmatic, substantive rather than symbolic, volunteer-based rather than professionalized, and based on community powers rather than government powers.
The article hoped to describe how when individuals articulate and share their conscientious yearnings, by means of a “statement of conscience,” they can find like-minded souls to form a “movement of conscience” that can work together to “act on our collective beliefs of conscience,” using the recent activity in the New York Yearly Meeting as an example.
She described some of the minutes and reports from the Meeting that had touched
on peace and justice issues in recent years, and on the Meeting’s support for
Dan Jenkins in his court cases. Then:
In the yearly meeting’s Committee on Conscientious Objection to Paying for War sponsored a series of conferences in support of this growing movement of conscience.
The first conference was held at Purchase Meeting the weekend following the oral argument of Jenkins in the Second Circuit in .
The court hearing and the conference were attended by about 35 Friends and others from the metropolitan area and the northeast region.
Out of that conference arose two strands of action: exploring the possibility of group legal action, and expanding the movement of conscience [PDF illegible] step of writing a statement of conscience.
The second conference, in at
Rochester Meeting, featured a public forum on the failure of violence that
included Robert Holmes, professor of Philosophy at University of Rochester;
Derek Brett, of Conscience and Peace Tax International; and Frederick
Dettmer, the attorney representing Daniel Jenkins. During the following day
and a half, Friends continued to consider action steps individually and in
concert with others.
The third conference was held at Flushing Meeting in … It focused on international venues for raising freedom of conscience issues as they apply to paying taxes for war.
A fourth conference , is being planned; and as momentum builds, we envision more every few months, inviting ever-widening circles of participants.
I don’t see many details there about what, if any “action steps” the conferees decided on.
Jens Braun is quoted in the article as suggesting some possible next steps:
to develop a better theoretical understanding of pacifism and the failure
of violence, so as to share this vision more convincingly
to “explore, develop, and improve the many ways Friends can work towards
not paying for war” —
get the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund bill passed
try new court challenges along the lines of Dan Jenkins’s
develop and use workshops and other outreach material
to join with counterparts in other countries, for instance at international
conferences
The Yearly Meeting then issued this Minute:
To Conscientious Objectors to Paying for War Everywhere,
New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends invites you to
join us in acknowledging that paying for war violates our conviction in the
Power of the Living Spirit to give life, joy, peace and prosperity through
love, integrity and compassionate justice among people.
We call on all conscientious objectors to paying for war to state in writing 1) your belief against paying for war and the preparations for war, 2) major influences in forming your belief, 3) how it is demonstrated by the way you live, and 4) a request that our government recognize and accommodate our convictions.
We ask anyone who prepares such a statement to send it to
NYYM
Committee on Conscientious Objection to Paying for War… We ask Friends to
send your statement to your monthly, quarterly and yearly meetings to record
in the minutes having received your testimony.
The thing that unnerves me is that it’s possible to read the whole article without seeing a single reference to one of these newly enthused New York Yearly Meetingers actually refusing to pay their taxes (except for Jenkins himself, who put his taxes in escrow with a promise to pay them into a government “Peace Tax Fund” once one was established).
There’s lots of talk about writing statements of conscience and holding gatherings and planning legal strategies and contacting legislators and all that, but where is the actual not-paying-for-war part?
Of “the many ways Friends can work towards not paying for war,” you’d think some of them might involve not paying for war.
Hopefully this just went without saying, but I worry.
A sidebar from David R. Bassett and Karen Reixach concerned the status of the
Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund bill, and where one could look on-line to
find information about it. Another, by John Little Randall, described his
work with the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund and with Conscience and
Peace Tax International.
The following article, by Jens and Spee Braun, wrote about war tax resistance as part of (and contributing to) a larger project of living a life of integrity, and how not-straightforward it all is.
It’s a good overview of what a typical modern American war tax resister is in for:
Are you frustrated thar the war goes on and on?
Has your conscience brought up with you the subject of not paying for war?
Be careful; your conscience can make you do things (albeit for a good cause) that can turn your life upside down!
You don’t really want to think of refusing to pay part of your taxes to the
government, do you? For starters, no matter how you calculate the percentage
to refuse, there will always be some frustrating other formula that makes
just as much sense. You can use the FCNL percentage of the budget
going towards war, but the War Resisters League has another calculation and
number. You can refuse to pay a token amount, or you can simply not pay the
estimated 50 percent or so of the tax burden that goes to war-making, past
war debts, the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons work, and all that
spying we do. How to decide?
And then, to top it off, you have to figure what to do with the money not going to the government!
Give it to charity?
Put it in an escrow account?
Use it for peaceful and life-affirming purposes at home or overseas?
Of course this problem can be avoided by living under the taxable-income level — if you don’t mind life without all the great stuff we have nowadays.
After you make these decisions of how to go about not paying for war, have
fun telling your employer that you don’t want any funds withheld from your
paycheck and not to send any money directly to the government for you!
If you get really serious, you can take the government to court, try to change the laws, or try to change the lawmakers.
So many options!
And that is not all. Deciding to be a conscientious objector to paying for
war and setting up the mechanisms by which you put action into your
intentions is the easy part. Once you do that, you know your conscience will
have taken a few strides into your being. And with that foothold (not to
mention the knowledge and understanding you have been given for having taken
those steps), your conscience will begin to demand all manner of other
deviations from a normal daily way of living!
Here is where life gets really dicey.
The problem is integrity.
As your conscience integrates one part of your life with your belief structure (and who says they need to be integrated — people have believed one thing and done another for as long as there have been people!), the process can turn into a domino effect with all sorts of other areas likewise wanting to be integrated.
It becomes a terrible sacrifice.
And don’t believe those who say it is actually liberating! It is like putting
your house in order: once you start organizing the mess, you keep finding
other things to clean up that you didn’t even know were out of place. Take
finances. It turns out that we could all pay less in taxes,
i.e., buy fewer bombs, if we took all the deductions coming to
us. What? Well, for example, if you keep track of all that travel to Quaker
committee meetings and write down the mileage in a little book to document
the expenditure, it may be deductible.
Businesses deduct driving and lunches (and even golf games), but Quakers seldom do.
That is so because we Quakers generally are not hagglers; we want to pay our full share of taxes to support our government as it builds roads, keeps up national parks, and pays politicians’ salaries.
We just don’t like that uncomfortable part that goes to war.
In the house-in-order analogy we want to share our cake, but not have part of it be eaten by our neighbor the landmine manufacturer.
You might think about something as useful and simple as your credit cards.
Who really wants to question those little pieces of plastic that make renting
cars or buying great books over the Internet so easy? Even (especially) if
you pay off your bill in full every month, there can’t be anything wrong, you
think, in using a system that would collapse if everyone were responsible,
saved their money before making purchases, paid off debts promptly, and
weren’t willing to pay usurious interest charges. In particular, don’t think
about how, if you do pay off your bill each month, the credit company
tolerates your borrowing money free of charge only because others don’t pay
up and you might not in the future. See? If you get started, who knows what
trouble you will make for yourself Now you have to think about going inside
to pay cash and talking to the gas station attendant rather than swiping the
plastic card out at the pump!
Can we retain integrity in our relationship to money?
Forget it!
You know very well that money is not important enough to spend precious time keeping track of, even if some folks call it a representation of our life force.
Better to spend time on that street corner protesting the lousy war.
And heaven forbid the government would audit our finances, since we have been occupied with the real spiritual tasks of speaking truth to power in public places.
They say money talks, but not like we can!
We’ve been told that early Friends opened their financial books to their
meeting communities. We can’t do that anymore — it’s hard enough to talk
about sex, but to talk about our money? Who can trust others that far — well,
except if the others are insurance companies, brokerage firms, or retirement
planners? We sure can’t trust our spiritual community to have the power and
scale of resources to support us in need or relieve the fears of what would
happen to us without money!
Yes, money is scary, so don’t bother pondering the irony of why fear of getting out from under its control ends up being even scarier then being part of a war-based society where you can believe whatever you want, as long as you pay up.
It’s not worth it — and besides, a messy house is so much more comfortable!
The next article was by Elizabeth Boardman.
She laid out the problem this way:
Among Friends, there is not much debate about whether war taxes are problematic.
Depending upon the federal budget for the year and how you count the line items, about half of our income tax dollars will be used for the outrageous costs of war.
Thousands of our personally earned dollars will be used to enrich the military-industrial complex, to make killers of young men and women,. and to cause death and destruction in the world.
Letting our own money be used this way is not consistent with good stewardship, with right sharing, with Quaker testimonies, or with Christian teachings.
The question of whether and how we can resist is much more complex. Standing
up to Goliath is possible only for the most confident David.
She mentioned a different set of anxieties than the Brauns had covered in their piece: worries that tax resistance or protest might trigger an audit (and then worries that such an audit might uncover math mistakes, or worse, “convenient” errors)… worries that the accountant who helps her with her tax forms will disapprove of her stand and maybe drop her as a client… difficulty reconciling willingly racking up IRS penalties & interest with her otherwise frugal and practical economic practices… difficulty finding the time to research and plan her tax resistance strategy… reluctance to break the law (or to be known as a law-breaker).
In the face of things like this, Boardman recommends that prospective war tax
resisters start small: maybe with phone tax resistance, or some sort of
symbolic protest like withholding $10.40 from your taxes or supporting the
Peace Tax Fund.
She also recommended that people who resist quietly, by slipping below the taxable income line, start making some noise about what they’re doing — otherwise “we accomplish nothing but a sense of personal righteousness.”
Following this were an excerpt from John Woolman’s journals
(see Excerpts from the Journal of John
Woolman) and from the letter Woolman and twenty other Quakers sent
to their fellow-Friends in to explain why
they could not pay taxes being raised for war expenses
(see ♇ ).
The next article in the set was by Steve Leeds.
He described becoming a war tax resister in and then drifting away in discouragement after the IRS garnished his salary for the taxes, penalties, and interest.
Then:
Fifteen years later, through renewed spiritual commitment and membership in a Friends meeting, I was led to take action with other Quakers on war tax resistance.
It began among a few of us, and that’s all it takes.
, my meeting began cohosting
war tax resistance gatherings with Northern California War Tax Resistance. We
urged Friends in our meeting to engage in symbolic war tax
resistance — refusing federal phone taxes, paying under protest, withholding
symbolic amounts, or living below the tax line — and letting our legislators
know about it. We found that a number of households in the meeting partook in
some form of war tax resistance, symbolic or otherwise.
Philosophically, it’s a slam dunk.
No more war.
Not with my dollars.
Logistically, though, it’s easy to become fixated on the mechanics and legal
aspects of war tax resistance. There’s a lot to learn and consider. My
journey, through discernment, prayer, and the support of others, led me to
focus on complex social and financial issues. Mostly, I have been confronting
my fear of the
IRS and
the insecurity of not knowing where this will lead.
For I have held back $1,040 from the IRS (symbolic of the IRS 1040 form).
Living with multiple feelings — fear, joy, and liberation — makes life whole.
My faith as a Quaker, striving to be nonviolent and to oppose all wars, has led me down this path.
I am sustained by the knowledge that many Quakers throughout history have resisted paying taxes for war.
When I think that we as a faith community need to do more, I know that the we starts with me.
So!
Quite a bit of material and many perspectives there — and a great deal of contrast in approaches between the pursuit of legal accommodation from the New York Quakers and the cautious but deliberate war tax resistance of the California Quakers (Boardman and Leeds were both from the San Francisco Meeting).
It had been years since the Journal devoted that much attention to the topic, and they haven’t done so since.
The series of articles prompted a lot of discussion in the
letters-to-the-editor column of subsequent issues — some of it quite hostile
to war tax resistance.
Dennis P. Roberts noted that the Bible is full of stories of war, and that
it “establishes beyond any doubt that the performance of an army in the
field is directly correlative to the quality of the faith and spirit of
the society or nation that put it there” and that because “the heart,
faith, honor, and spirit of a nation” is best represented by “the fighting
soldier, the fighting sailor, the fighting marine, the fighting airman,”
he finds that “this nonpayment of war taxes can indeed be carried to
frivolous extremes.”
Lucinda Antrim thought that war tax resistance “contradicts the Testimony
of Community… We are, here in the
U.S., members
of the community of the United States.… I find myself agreeing, somewhat
to my surprise, with the judge’s imposition of a ‘frivolous” fine on Dan
Jenkins.” (Naomi Paz Greenberg responded that she could not understand how
this vague and unarticulated “Testimony of Community somehow nullifies our
historic Peace Testimony”.)
Perry Treadwell responded that he did not recognize the
U.S. government
as his “community.” “Thirty-six years ago I was led to refuse to pay war
taxes… I currently send the small amount that I calculate this warrior
nation wants to agencies that support the families of wounded military
personnel. I have followed Thoreau’s warning:
‘What I have to do is to see, at any
rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.’”
David Zarembka wrote in to correct “the impression that the
IRS
is as omniscient as God, all seeing, all knowing, never making a mistake
in getting the last farthing out of the helpless tax resister. Nothing
could be further from the truth.” He recounted some
IRS
blunders in his own case, and said, “I have always made sure that the cost
of the
IRS
getting funds from me exceeded any penalties and interest that they might
charge. In my 37 years of war tax resistance I am certain that I (and all
the other active war tax resisters I know as a group) have withheld much
more funds for government war-making and given them to peace organizations
than the
IRS
has ever collected, including penalties and interest. I don’t think that
this excuse should be used by Quakers as a group as a cop-out for refusing
to pay for our wars. In fact, if all Quakers in the United States were war
tax resisters, the
IRS
couldn’t even cope with our collective resistance.”
George Levinger, who said he’d been a phone tax resister in the Vietnam
War era, had soured on war tax resistance, considering it ultimately
counterproductive largely because the government succeeded in seizing the
taxes from him with penalties and interest. He suggested channeling the
resources you might otherwise use in war tax resistance “to contribute to
various sorts of peace-promoting organizations” instead.
Ruth Hyde Paine wrote in to promote the “penny poll” idea.
Gary Shuler wrote in to sing jingo bells: “As a retired military man, I
take exception to anyone who wants to use the privileges of this country
and not help to foot the cost. Many of my forefathers and yours died for
this freedom and you don’t want to pay taxes to keep it? Move! Cuba is
nice!” (Isn’t it cute that in someone
was still using the idea of tyranny in Cuba as a contrast to the
U.S. rather
than an example of it?)
For Pamela Haines, the challenge presented by war taxes seemed largely to
be a challenge to come up with good excuses not to resist them. Excerpts:
I don’t think the problem is just lack of courage, at least I hope not!
Part of the difficulty, I believe, is the extent to which we are embedded and enmeshed in a deeply violent world.
It’s not just the portion of my tax dollars that goes to deadly warfare.
It’s my computer, the disposal of which poisons poor people in Africa and Asia.
It’s my everyday purchases from invisible corporations that destroy lives and habitats far from mine.
It’s my energy consumption that threatens the very viability of future generations.
If war tax resistance seems too hard for most of us, what do we do if
that’s just the tip of the iceberg? Some Friends are not deterred by the
seemingly impossible and set out to disentangle themselves from the
whole mess — living below taxable level, with only the bare necessity of
purchases and a minimal carbon footprint. This may be a true calling for
some, and certainly a courageous one, but I know it’s not mine. To me
the focused goal of living a life free from complicity with
institutional violence would involve participating in another sin, that
of separation from my neighbors.
Is it better not to do a right thing, if by doing a right thing you would
be being inconsistent in not doing all possible right things?
In the issue, Jamie K. Donaldson explained why she gave up on trying to change the United States and left it rather than continue to be part of its war machine.
She’d contemplated tax resistance at one point, but decided it wasn’t for her.
Here’s how she describes that decision:
I was haunted by the quote attributed to former Secretary of State Alexander Haig: “Let them march all they want as long as they pay their taxes.” Suddenly the television shots of millions of people in the streets protesting the start of war lost their inspiration for me, and I wallowed in our powerlessness to prevent it.
Haig’s cynical remark exemplified my inner struggle as well as a wrenching
and age-old moral dilemma for all Friends. Some bear it as a cross, enabling
them to continue the Lamb’s War on behalf of love, truth, and justice. Could
I, too? Alas, the contradiction of working for peace while paying for war, of
being complicit by mere participation in the
U.S. “system,”
became untenable and intolerable. I explored war tax resistance, but rejected
it because I hold the assets of my incapacitated mother and could not allow
the government to garnish money for her care to recuperate my taxes withheld.
An obituary notice for Stephanie Kennedy in the issue mentioned her work on war tax resistance.
An obituary notice for Charles Richard Johnson in the issue called him “a dedicated war tax resister.”
an ad from the Friends Journal in
pitches the Monteverde community in Costa
Rica, which was founded by American Quaker taxpatriates, as an ethical
investing opportunity and also a potentially attractive tax-break junket
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
There was a bit of an anti-war tax resistance backlash in the Friends Journal in .
In the issue, Peter Phillips came out against war tax resistance in a two-page article.
Here is a summary of his argument:
Friends’ advice against paying war taxes is sometimes incoherent.
The New York Yearly Meeting suggests that friends “examine… voluntary payment of war taxes” but taxes by definition aren’t voluntary.
The practice of some Quakers of refusing to pay but allowing the government to seize the amount by levy makes such war tax resistance “insignificant.”
What do people mean by “war taxes”?
If it’s the percentage of the revenue that goes to the Pentagon, even some of that money isn’t spent for war (for instance the Army Corps of Engineers work to rebuild hurricane-damaged New Orleans).
What about “reparations to Iraqis whose property is damaged” or “the Air Force’s remarkable mediation program that resolves employment and procurement disputes without litigation” — or, in the other direction, what about the Interstate Highway system, which was initially designed as a defense measure: is money raised for that, too, “war taxes”?
Is everyone on their own to decide what taxes are war taxes, or is there an authoritative answer, or is it okay to withhold symbolic amounts — what is the justification for withholding Elizabeth Boardman’s $10.40, an arbitrary amount that has nothing to do with war spending?
Withholding of taxes is not a good way of withholding funds from the war machine for the simple reason that the government won’t decide how to respond to a shortage of funds by respecting the reasons why the tax resister withheld them.
It is every bit as likely (perhaps more likely) to cut spending elsewhere.
“Should Head Start, research on solar energy, unemployment benefits, and support for healthcare all be underfunded in the exercise of our righteousness?
A consequence of my not joining the armed forces in was that someone else did who would not otherwise have had to.
People were hurt because I was not there to help.
This too is a consequence of conscientious objection.
Are those who advocate withholding part of their taxes prepared as well to live with the consequences of their actions?”
There is a Quaker ethic of trying to adapt to communal consensus that is expressed in many of its teachings, and the ethos of participating as equals in trying to probe a dilemma and adopt a communal consensus is one of the things Quakers have contributed to the American polis — war tax resistance turns its back on this with its ethos of individualism and rejection of the decisions of the community.
You will not be surprised to learn that Phillips’s article led to some exchanges in the letters-to-the-editor column in later issues.
Here is a summary of some of the back-and-forth:
Dennis P. Roberts thought the article was “the finest work on war taxes I have yet seen in the pages of your journal” and then told a half-remembered story about a terrible massacre in colonial Pennsylvania that could have been prevented but for the pacifism of the “strong Quaker elements within the settlement.”
— “I cannot say or recall with certainty whether this story is fact or fiction.
What does it matter?
Either way, an important lesson is drive home eloquently and powerfully: military preparations sometimes must be made.”
Robin Harper responded with some suggested guidelines for Quaker war tax resistance that he thought might meet some of Phillips’s criticisms (see ♇ for an excerpt from this letter).
David R. Bassett felt that Phillips had been too dismissive of war tax resistance in general after concentrating his criticism on a few specific arguments and methods he found to be weak or ineffective.
What about resisters who keep their income below the tax line?
Or people like Bassett who work in the judicial and legislative arenas to try to get something like conscientious objection to military taxation legalized?
Or folks who try to make sure their investments and purchases are clear of involvement in war?
Perry Treadwell compared Phillips’s “rationalizations” to “Friends’ historical resistance to confronting their complicity in enslavement,” and thought that just as a few Friends had to break from the pack and lead Quakers to an abolitionist stand, it will take Quakers speaking out against paying for war to make their “spiritual testimony” come to life.
Daniel Jenkins called Phillips’s argument “smooth and lawyerly” and “crafted… to lead to a foregone conclusion.”
He felt that Phillips gave short shrift to occasions when “conscience may sometimes transcend the constraints of conventionality and pressures of conformity.”
Naomi Paz Greenberg considered Phillips’s argument that by not serving or not paying taxes you are merely foisting the responsibility off on someone else to be flawed:
The moral consequence [of Phillips’s decision not to serve in the military] is not that other people were made to serve in his stead, as Phillips suggests.
The moral consequence of his not serving in war is simply that he did not violate his conscience by serving.
Others could have and did make their own choices, consulting conscience or not.
The moral consequences of not paying taxes for war are similarly direct.
She even suggested a more radical outlook toward taxes that I have rarely seen in Quaker circles:
Our taxes are compulsory, and in some sense they are the least desirable way to provide a constructive economic foundation for a compassionate society.
They presuppose that there is no Friendly nor Christian nor Jewish nor Hindu nor Muslim nor conscientious nor atheistic nor socialist love for one another and so we must be forced.
Paying taxes separates us from those with whom we might otherwise be in community, and with whom we might shake hands, share food, share laughter and tears.
Paying taxes for war separates us from many of them irrevocably.
Some Friends testify that we expect better of ourselves than that, because we know experimentally that God expects better of us.
Greenberg also felt that there was a big difference between the Quaker ethos of consensus and conformity when “recognizing the sense of the meeting” and trying to figure out how to confront “legislation written by lobbyists and summarized by Congressional interns in a process that has been compared to the making of sausage.”
An obituary notice for Kent Larrabee in the issue noted that “[f]or much of his life, Kent purposely lived below the poverty line in order to identify with the poor and to avoid payment of income taxes for war.”
In the issue, Arthur Waskow offered a reading of the “Render unto Caesar…” koan that puts it into a context of thousands of years of Rabbinical debate about the passage in Genesis that reads: “God created humankind in God’s own Image.”
He thought that Jesus had been intending to refer to this debate, and not intending to give any advice about taxes.
An obituary notice for Lillian Willoughby in the issue mentioned that “Lillian felt called to refuse to pay war taxes, and the IRS seized her car in .”
An obituary notice for Arthur Evans in the issue said that “[f]or 20 years, Arthur withheld the portion from his federal income tax that he believed went to war and weapons, and in , he was jailed for 90 days for refusing to turn over income records to the Internal Revenue Service.”
And an obituary notice for Merrill Hallowell Barnebey in the identified him as “a war tax resister.”
This is the twenty-second in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal
of the (Old) Mennonite Church.
was marked by heated debate in the pages of
Gospel Herald about war tax resistance, while
Mennonite Church institutions continued to struggle with whether or how to take
a stand.
The issue reported on
Mennonite war tax redirection:
Mennonite Central Committee
U.S. Peace
Section’s Taxes for Peace Fund experienced a substantial increase in
contributions during 1980. The amount of $10,400 was contributed in
, compared to $6,200 in
.
The Taxes for Peace Fund was established in late
. “Persons whose consciences forbid them to
yield money on request to the government’s death-by-technology militarism are
contributing the military portion of their income tax instead to the
life-supporting work of
MCC
U.S. Peace
Section,” says John K. Stoner, executive secretary of the section.
During , the
U.S. budgeted $138
billion for current military spending. Thirty-two percent of the income tax
paid by every American during contributed to
raising this money. An additional 15 percent went to veterans benefits and the
portion of the national debt related to past wars. Thus, nearly half of the
federal budget, raised almost entirely by individual and corporate income
taxes, is military related.
A recent preliminary census taken by
U.S. Peace Section
found that over 200 Mennonite families and individuals are refusing to pay a
portion of their income taxes and are instead contributing that money to
organizations working for peace.
Withholding a portion of one’s income tax is only one of many ways to witness
against military spending. Some Mennonites are using other methods, such as
reducing income below taxable level, increasing charitable contributions,
refusing to pay the federal telephone tax, and actively supporting the World
Peace Tax Fund.
The Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries was distributing
a war tax study packet
by this time, according to the issue:
A revised and updated War Tax Packet covering a variety of issues
related to the question of payment of taxes for military purposes is
available. The packet contains articles by Willard Swartley, Marlin Miller,
David Schroeder, Donald Kaufman, John Stoner, and William Durland; the stories
of some persons’ own experiences; several brochures and other reprints; an
issue of God and Caesar newsletter; a list of peace
organizations; and a bibliography. Copies of the War Tax Packet are $2.00 and
may be requested from MBCM… or
MCC…
If the church wants to speak to the peace and justice issues of our day with
credibility, we will need to live out more radically our status as God’s
children. We must really be, in fact, the peacemakers we are called to be.
This goes for the church in all parts of the world, but most importantly, it
is for all of us who are citizens of a nation which insists on being number
one in the world.
After hearing my views on peace, a student leader in Spain asked me what I
intended to do about paying taxes to support the armament race. I personally
do not see how Christians can proclaim the gospel of peace with integrity
while intentionally supporting America’s desire to be the number one military
power. This contradiction is compounded when we realize that, in the eyes of
the rest of the world, the United States is the great bastion of evangelical
Christianity.
Things really began to heat up starting in the issue, which featured this commentary (I corrected the
numbering of items 5–7, where the numbers were missing from the original, but
there was some ambiguity so I might have gotten it wrong):
Editor’s Note: The question of war taxes has been a subject of
discussion among Mennonites for years. It does not appear any nearer solution
than before. Should we then cease discussing it? On the contrary, the issue
is so important that we should listen to all who have insights, especially
those who not only speak, but practice their convictions.
This is a blunt article, but I believe it is written with love. Can we
receive it as such? See also the author’s personal note at the end of his
article.
Introduction For years I have struggled with the knowledge that there
are in our Mennonite Church many pastors, educators, theologians, seminary
professors, and writers who have condoned, justified, and rationalized the
payment of war taxes, even placating those whose tender consciences were
bothering them every April 15.
Many times I have argued with the Spirit when confronted with the request that
I witness against this inconsistency. I had good excuses too! Except for a
year of junior college Bible at Eastern Mennonite College, my academic
training has been in engineering and natural science. I can’t read Greek or
Hebrew! How then could a non-seminary, practically illiterate nobody have
any influence? These little dialogues were nearly weekly experiences
(some more detailed), while driving the car, alone in the field, reading
Scripture in sermon preparation, even in silent prayer.
Finally on , while husking
corn, a terrible dread came over me. I stopped the husker right there in the
middle of the field and shouted: “Okay God, if You want me to make a fool of
myself. I’ll do it, I will, I will.” (No one heard me above the noise of the
John Deere, else they might have questioned my sanity.) What a relief and joy
I felt! I think I sang all the hymns I knew by heart the rest of the day!
It was my day off at the hospital, but that evening I was just “too tired” to
“start anything,” and for two weeks I was just “too busy.” Always when I come
home at 12:30 or 1:00 a.m. I fall asleep
the minute I get to bed. Then one night I was wide awake! After an hour of
tossing I finally got up, picked up my Bible and came down to the kitchen,
dropped it on the table rather disgustedly, got a drink of water, and sat
down. The Bible had fallen open and the first words I read were Ezekiel 3:20,
21. That did it for me! (Don’t bother to tell me that is not the
proper way to read the Bible. I already know that; I’m just telling
you what happened to me.)
I thought I should share these experiences with you so that you may know the
motivation for this communication.
Come then, my brothers and sisters, let us reason together concerning the
payment of war taxes!
The United States Internal Revenue Service has stated: “The
IRS
can only collect income taxes because of the voluntary
cooperation of the citizens.” Let no one say that they voluntarily
pay income taxes, because they have no choice. That is not true!
The payment of war taxes is viewed by the government as voluntary
cooperation; the final endorsement of their policies.
If you choose not to pay voluntarily, and make no
other deduction arrangements, then the
IRS
will eventually try to collect in some other way. We have never paid war
taxes and are now giving our entire farm to the church so that we will pay
no income tax. It is costing us something. The burden of proof is upon you
who approve of war taxes because it costs you nothing.
Now I know that many of our people are not in a position to do as we
are doing, so I have with many others been working for seven or eight
years to get the World Peaee Tax Fund passed. The only reason it
has not passed and will not pass is because of lack of concern. United
States senators and representatives have told us many times that except
for the few of you, “There is no evidence that anyone else has any problem
paying war taxes; so why are you bothering us with this bill?”
A highly educated theologian of our denomination said to me, “You can’t
hang a guilt trip on me about war taxes, because we aren’t in a war.”
Doesn’t everyone understand that this is a “Pay now, go later plan”? I
doubt that we will ever again pay for a war during a war. When the atomic
destruction comes it will be no consolation for the victims to remember
that these atomic bombs were paid for by peace-loving Mennonites, not some
terrible heathen Russians! If I should live to see that total destruction
(may God spare me that) I will know that my own brothers and sisters in
the faith have helped make it possible!
It has been pointed out to me that Menno Simons said “we should pay our
taxes” as justification for paying war taxes today. Based on Menno’s life
and teachings, how can anyone even suggest that he would voluntarily pay
our war taxes? I don’t know how it would be possible to dishonor the man
more than to hang that on him, when he was hunted like a criminal for
things a whole lot less contradictory to Jesus’ life and teaching than
voluntarily paying for killing!
In Luke 13:10–17,
the ruler of the synagogue was correct in calling attention to the laws of
the Sabbath. Sabbath observance was a good rule of conduct to obey, but
when it interfered with meeting human need, Jesus demonstrated that
meeting human need took precedence over Sabbath observance.
Now, suppose for the sake of comparison, I allow you to take
Romans 13:1–7
as universally applicable for today’s world. Now you have the same
difference that existed between Jesus and the Pharisees, namely literal
observance of the law versus human good and well being. You are opting for
the former (as the Pharisees did), but Jesus opted for the latter.
Even verses 8, 9, 10 of the same chapter
make it impossible to obey verse 7 if “their dues” are whatever they ask,
because today the payment of war taxes and loving my neighbor as
myself are mutually exclusive!
Certainly Jesus would not view preparation to kill someone as
the proper way to express God’s love.
Some of you say, “The Bible specifically says, ‘Pay your taxes,’ so
that’s what I do and what the government does with it is not my
responsibility.” That was the position of the church during Hitler’s
extermination of the Jews, a position which some of you have criticized
very severely even though to “be faithful” then was much more disastrous
than to be so now. Personal responsibility is such a consistent principle
throughout the Holy Scriptures that I should not need to belabor the
point. Even the worldly legal system has affirmed personal responsibility
regardless of government demands!
If you really behaved in such a simplistic literalism, then you ought
to advocate hatred of parents, because Jesus Himself said that if you
don’t hate your father and mother you can’t be His disciple. Since this is
completely opposite to all His teachings, we know that He said that for
comparison, for emphasis. In the same way, I wished to pay all my taxes
(and always had) until doing so became completely contrary to the life of
Christ!
Some of you argue, “The government will get the money anyway,” or
“Withholding my war taxes won’t stop the arms race.” The exact same
reasoning should put you into a military uniform! I could have reasoned
(as many did) that if I didn’t go into the military, they would just get
someone else to take my place. The day that I was drafted into Civilian
Public Service, I didn’t really notice any lessening of hostilities! I
didn’t take conscientious objector position because I thought it would be
successful (nor is that why I am writing this). The words I want
to hear from my Lord are: “Thou hast been faithful.”
Our citizens are told that all our “defense” (?) budget is to protect
our life and property. (Even if I were in favor of that, I wouldn’t
approve exceeding that by at least 25 times for the personal profit of
special interests.) Some years ago a Mennonite bishop wrote in the
Gospel Herald, “We shouldn’t criticize our
government because they protect our property.” The logical honest
extension of that is: “There is nothing more important than our property.”
What could be more contrary to the essence of the gospel, or the faith of
the Anabaptist martyrs? Didn’t Jesus specifically teach in
Luke 9:24
that if your overriding concern is to save your life, then you
will lose it? Certainly you can already see the beginning of the
financial destruction of our country because of the irresponsible and
insane spending of the military! How pathetic that the Mennonite Church,
because of our worldview, our concept of discipleship, and our persecution
history, could have been in the strength of the Holy Spirit, a powerful
mover toward peace and sanity, but instead has become a farce
instead of a force! History (if there will be any) will say of us
as Jesus said of the Pharisees: “They say, but they do
not.”
Is it any less a sin to kill someone than to ignore human need? If not,
then it seems very appropriate to paraphrase 1 John 3:17
for today. “If any of you have this world’s goods and voluntarily allow
some of it to be used to prepare to kill your brothers and sisters and to
destroy all that God has made, how is it possible for the love
and spirit of the God and Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to
dwell in a heart like that?”
What a horrifying possibility that any one might some day tell Jesus,
“Haven’t we held many evangelistic meetings, preached many great sermons,
written wonderful books, healed the sick, spoken in tongues, sang your
praises with great fervor?” and Jesus will have to say to you, “Depart
from me, ye workers of destruction!”
Have you ever considered this question: What effect will my being an
accomplice to the American military have on our worldwide witness to God’s
love and His saving power?
If I were an unbeliever in some Third World country and knew that
“Christian America” is the only country that ever dropped an atomic bomb
on a civilian population, and that “Christian America” supports and arms
42 repressive dictatorships in order to maintain the highest standard of
living on earth for themselves, and that they sell six times more weapons
of violence and destruction than any other country, and that the church
justifies all that, I am sure that I would never want to become a
Christian or have anything to do with such a God!
I fully expect that you will be able to put me down with theological
arguments, or discredit me with a self-righteous application of Scripture
taken out of context to justify and rationalize your position; but, at least,
ask yourself this pragmatic question: If everyone did as I do,
regarding war taxes, what difference would it make? If everyone (or
even all so-called pacifists) would respectfully decline to pay for war, what
difference would that make?
Why are Mennonites unable to take an official position against paying for war?
Is it because we really don’t know what the truth is? Is it because we never
had it so good and we don’t want to risk anything? Is it because we have
become so acculturated, so affluent that we don’t want martyrs anymore. Do we
much prefer millionaires now?
It is my firm conviction that, as far as God is concerned, the day that I pay
war taxes I effectively discredit all that I have ever said, written, or given
for the cause of peace!
The forces of evil do not care what you say, or how you pray as
long as you pay!
A personal note, please: None of us is “off limits” to Satan’s deception! I
therefore remind you of your responsibility to tell me if you believe that I
have been misled in my search for the path of obedience!
Daniel Slabaugh is pastor of Ann Arbor
(Mich.) Mennonite Church. He
is a laboratory supervisor at
St. Joseph Mercy Hospital and
has a farm as a hobby.
I have only one point of disagreement with Mr. Slabaugh; that is the matter
of paying our war taxes voluntarily. I pay taxes, but not voluntarily. I
happily pay the portion of my taxes which go for human services and running
the government (even if some is wasted), but I do not happily pay the
portion that goes for military support. We have a Quaker friend who once
“arranged” not to pay his war taxes and the
IRS
showed their “appreciation” by “arranging” for him to spend several months
in prison. Some years ago, we refused to pay our telephone surcharge tax but
later found that our checking account had been debited for that amount,
which they claimed we owed. We then refused to pay that tax by having our
telephone removed.
I would like to “arrange” not to pay war taxes, but the consequences for
exercising that “freedom” would be too harsh for me at this Hme. I,
therefore, pay my war taxes “under protest,” and may God have mercy.
I thought this was a pretty extraordinary example of tying yourself in
knots to justify continuing to pay war taxes:
Does a Christian have to pay all of his taxes? I don’t believe that he can
be taxed on what he does not have; and I don’t see any compelling reason
why a Christian should have to accumulate things just so as to pay
more taxes. In fact, a Christian who in his work gathers a great amount of
money to himself probably is doing more harm in participating in whatever
is bringing him the money than is being done by whatever portion of the
money is going to taxes.
But, what happens if we withhold part of the taxes on our incomes? If we do
not pay all of the taxes, people who are employed by defense contractors
and defense-related industries as well as military personnel may be thrown
out of work. Unemployment will be a hardship to these people; it will be
suffering caused by the actions of nonresistant Christians.
I should think that the appropriate method to be used by nonresistant
Christians to close the defense plants would be to convert such a large
part of the population to the discipleship of Christ that there would not
be enough people remaining to man the defense plants. The fact that this is
not now the case may very well be the fault of Christians, past and
present, and not the fault of the defense workers.
Of course, the easy answer is to cause suffering to someone we don’t like
so as to alleviate the suffering of someone we do; or to see the problem in
terms of things (money and bombs) rather than people. We
Christians are not to seek vengeance on the defense workers because of
their production of bombs, but it seems easier to overcome evil with evil
than to attempt to overcome evil with good. In this evil world we would
like to keep just a little evil for our own use, just for self-defense.
We in our human fear forget that man has no more power to destroy himself
than he has power, of himself, to draw his next breath. So we abandon the
methods of Jesus Christ and allow Satan to win the decisive battle and so
rob us of our share in the assured victory of Christ.
Took the traditional Render-unto-Caesar / Romans 13 line, asserting that
U.S. currency
belongs to the
U.S.
government, which can reclaim from Christians it at will.
I found myself cheering enthusiastically when the article by Pastor
Slabaugh on the payment of war taxes appeared… I hope there will be more
and more freedom in church papers to deal with this up and coming concern.
Considerations of conscientious war-tax resistance point up some larger
problems that we as the Mennonite Church live with but don’t necessarily
resolve. These problems have to do not with the ample biblical teaching
supportive of noncompliance with war support, but rather, with the lack of
practical models as well as awareness of support resources and groups.
These facilities would greatly enhance our ability to work out responsible
individual witness stances. Several kinds of practical questions seem to
emerge.
In the first place, what ranges of governmental receptiveness (especially
IRS
receptiveness) have been encountered by members of our faith and what
constructive follow-up responses have we Mennonites explored after we are
categorized as tax-evaders? Second, and more specifically, what kinds of
deduction possibilities have been attempted and upon what rationale?
Third, how may we relate the quality of committed Anabaptist peace
perspectives to the degree we withhold tax dollars? Finally, what types of
congregational support models have emerged and what growth has occurred in
each process?
I seem to hear the Apostle Peter speaking across a vast expanse of time
and firmly addressing not only a failing government but a growing church
as well with a burning perspective — “One should obey God more than men”
(Acts 5:29).
Yes. Now how does it happen within the war-tax arena in practical terms?
There is much discussion about the war tax. Maybe we should also give some
thought to the balance of our tax money. We can name the education tax, the
research tax, welfare tax, road tax, regulatory tax, as a few. We can also
identify the abortion tax, tobacco subsidy tax (although maybe this isn’t a
concern since we accept the fact that a lot of grain goes to the liquor
industry), the waste and fraud tax, and of course the congressman salary
tax that pays the people that vote for the war tax. On the local scene we
have others, including the state, county, and city police tax. I wonder if
paying the tax for local law enforcement could be understood to say that we
recognize that the state needs to carry a stick. Is it possible that it’s
the church’s responsibility to decide how big that stick should be? All
this gets somewhat complicated and confusing. It would be much simpler if
taxes were just taxes.
I thought Fretz’s commentary was a good demonstration of how much the
terms of the debate had shifted, even from the point of view of the
pro-taxpaying faction:
Nonresistant Christians pay taxes
Jesus’ kingdom is one of testimony to truth, saving truth, truth that
changes lives, truth that builds character. Caesar’s kingdom was one that
used the sword to restrain evil and even to crucify the innocent.
And yet Jesus had told inquirers to show Him the coin used for paying
taxes to Caesar.
Then He asked them, “Whose portrait is this? and whose inscription?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied. Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar what is
Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
Jesus did not discuss what percent of the tax money was spent for soldiers
or for war, even though He knew this. There was no implication in His
teaching that taxes paid to Caesar should be called “war taxes” or that
nonresistant Christians should try to avoid payment of such taxes because
they knew they would be used for military purposes.
In reference to payment of specific taxes for support of the military
enterprise such as were imposed by the Continental government in the time
of the Revolution, one can understand that nonresistant Christians found
themselves unable to pay them and especially so since it was
revolutionaries who were asking for them — to subsidize their rebellion.
Then, too, one can understand the attitude of the nonresistant Hutterites
in Moravia who were asked to pay a special war tax to support the war
against the Turks in the 1500s. Peter Riedemann, their leader, said: “For
war, killing, and bloodshed (where it is demanded especially for that) we
give nothing but not out of wickedness or arbitrariness, but out of the
fear of God (1 Tim. 5)
that we may not be partakers in strange sins” (“Taxation,”
The Mennonite Encyclopedia,
p. 688).
I do not agree with Daniel Slabaugh that the federal income tax is a war
tax, per se. His entire article is based on calling it
that… However, it is a good thing to give one’s farm to the church (and so
reduce one’s payment of a tax that is partly used for military purposes).
But should such gifts be given to the church only to reduce payment of
federal income tax? Would not a more scriptural reason be to help the
church in its mission of testifying to the truth?
When I was a young man of 18, I was graciously healed from a critical
attack of pneumonia, and I decided to devote my life to full-time service
to the Lord, wherever and whenever He would want me to serve. For fifty
years I have served in mission work or Christian school teaching on an
income basis that took care of my needs (Phil. 4:19),
but often exempted me from payment of federal income tax, especially if I
was faithful in support of the Lord’s work and diligent to claim other
exemptions and deductions.
But I do not call federal income tax a war tax, nor think I should promote
nonpayment of it on this basis. Should others want to follow my example of
devoting their lives and income to the Lord’s work I would encourage them
to do so, not primarily to avoid payment of federal income tax, but in
order to build Christ’s church on earth.
I think we need to watch that we don’t lose our salvation in going overboard
in some subjects. I do appreciate a country where we have freedom of worship
to our God. The best way to show our appreciation is to pay our taxes. To
hold some back and refuse to pay, saying, “We don’t want to pay for war” is
not the answer. How do you know that the remaining taxes you pay can also be
put in the military? The taxes are for the government to use and it is
theirs. The responsibility of how and where it is used is theirs also.
I have become increasingly aware of the fact that the issue of payment of
war taxes is dividing the Mennonite Church. I have indeed found myself
pulling for both sides at different times and I realize that much study in
the Word of God is required.
As far as Daniel Slabaugh’s article… is concerned, he raised some very good
questions and made us more aware of our need as a church to come together on
this issue. I am not sure that our problems will go away by all of us
turning our properties over to the church but I do believe Daniel made an
honest response.
I’m not convinced that war taxes is the real issue. Right now this is the
issue that is surfacing, but somehow I believe that God is speaking to all
of us about how we use His money. We are living in an age where luxuries are
now necessities, and giving is done when it is convenient. That doesn’t add
up to the teachings in the New Testament at all.
My suggestion would be to try to live a simpler lifestyle. It is very
obvious only those that make increasing amounts of money pay taxes. Could we
lower our standard of living and give more thereby reducing our taxable
income? My suggestion would include taking a look at the Macedonian church
as Paul talks about them in 2 Cor. 8:1–7.
He tells us that they have given as much as they were able and even beyond
their ability. It would be good to learn a lesson from them. Also let’s look
at what Paul says to the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 9:6–7:
“Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows
generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has
decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God
loves a cheerful giver”
(NIV).
Farrar saluted Kratz’s letter, and added: “we must first really tithe all
of our incomes… a life of voluntary simplicity… would make all talk or tax
resistance superfluous. Indeed, I believe the only radical response to
war — that which strikes at the root causes — is voluntary poverty.”
Shall we tell our Caesar that he is wrong? Peter and Paul both said that we
should submit to the authorities and that we should show them honor and
respect. Since we live under a democracy instead of a dictatorship I would
like to suggest that we show respect and honor to our president by sending
him a message. No, not just a letter or a phone call, but a money message.
You know, money speaks!
Let all Mennonites and any others that care to join them send their tax
monies to the Mennonite General Board to forward to the
IRS in
one lump payment with the message, "We, the people, request these monies be
used for people programs and none be used for military purposes.” That would
be democratic and respectful, would it not?
The implications of this statement for the Mennonite Church today are
enormous. Most Americans, believing what the popular media and the
government propaganda tells them, are not really aware of the dangerous path
we are walking as we pile up arms and simultaneously arm other nations
involved in active wars — both internal and international. Mennonites have
been well informed for years about these things but have done far too
little, even symbolically, to redress the imbalance. There is no excuse for
this. When will the church recoil from the unavoidable fact that our taxes
and our greed are destroying our brothers and sisters while we read these
lines? When will we give a strong, clear “No” to the government’s growing
demand for funds for war?
There remains but one immediate response that will suffice — that of
voluntary poverty (living below the federal tax line) and personal service
to those we have wronged. The list of places to work is staggering and
growing longer: Somalia, Cambodia, Italy, Lebanon, the Persian Gulf,
Bangladesh, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Mississippi, the inner city,
Appalachia…
Mr. Reagan proposes to cut taxes while increasing the war budget
drastically. He knows there is a real economic crisis simmering in the
U.S., yet is
blind to the fact that our military dominated economy is the single greatest
cause of inflation and unemployment. While he officially opposes the draft
he wants more sophisticated instruments of mass slaughter, costing enormous
amounts of money.
I call the Mennonite Church to stop evading responsibility and challenge her
to stand up publicly, and by word and action, witness for peace and justice
and a nation more ready to welcome the kingdom of God.
Helmuth made a long-overdue frontal assault on the traditional
interpretation of Romans 13:
Is one government ordained as much as another?
Taxes and the faithful church
Twenty years ago efforts to introduce ideas of war-tax refusal into the
Mennonite church met with little response. Times have changed and Daniel
Slabaugh’s “Testimony Regarding the Payment of War Taxes”… indicates how
deeply we are now being challenged on this issue.
No one who endeavors to live in the spirit of Christ can feel easy while
helping to finance the machinery of war. We all want to feel our lives are a
consistent witness for the truth of Christ’s love and are, therefore, made
increasingly uneasy as the testimony against war taxes gains currency within
the church.
The standard method of reasoning, to put at ease those whose conscience has
grown tender on this point, is to remind them that the government is
ordained of God and that Christians, therefore, are to obey the government.
(An exception to this reasoning is made in the case of personal military
service. Having allowed this exception we must, it seems to me, allow that
growth in moral sensitivity may well lead to further civil disobedience. )
What exactly does it mean to say “the government is ordained of God”? To
approach this question we need to distinguish two levels of ordination.
First, we hold the church to be ordained of God in a unique way, quite
distinctly different in origin, character, and mission from other social
institutions. Second, because God is the origin and sustainer of all life,
it may be said that, in general, social institutions are ordained of God.
Plainly, the idea of government being ordained of God belongs to the second
level.
Now, it seems to me, that when someone argues that I must pay my taxes
because the government is ordained of God, they are confusing the two
levels. They are talking as if the government was as uniquely and as
specifically ordained of God as the church. This is plainly not true, and a
good many of our ancestors laid down their lives to avoid this confusion.
Government is born out of a human predisposition to organize and control.
Slavery, being derived from the same human predisposition, may also be
regarded as having once been ordained of God. Slavery evidently gave the
apostle Paul no moral pause. He did not foresee that it would become
intolerable to Ghristian morality. Nor did he foresee that governments would
fall and rise through a wide variety of processes, including representative
assemblies, constitutional conventions, force of arms, and subversive
manipulation.
To regard all governments as somehow equally ordained of God is to sever the
concern for social justice from its biblical mandate. A large talent for
political naivety would be required to see the government visited on Uganda
by Idi Amin and the government of Switzerland as equally legitimate.
It is possible to argue that one’s own government is “more ordained” than
others, but such a self-serving view brings with it the whole baggage of
civil religion, and ill befits the world-servant role to which we understand
ourselves called. Governments may be ordained of God in some general
naturalistic sense, but people who care about social justice and human
well-being must judge whether they are legitimate or illegitimate.
Perhaps because Mennonites have a traditional aloofness from politics, the
matter of legitimacy in government often seems poorly understood. I have
seen it argued recently in the Mennonite press, and supported by biblical
proof texts, that opposing the government on the war-tax issue is the same
as opposing God.
It is important to understand that the political framework needed to support
this argument is something very close to the “divine right of kings.” Why
this antique political notion, deriving from ancient and medieval despotisms
and seriously confusing church and state, should be used against the
testimony of tax refusers in the Mennonite Church is, indeed, a curious
matter. Perhaps others, better equipped than I, can delve lovingly into the
motivations of this desperate argument.
Life in North America has been so good to our people that it is difficult to
imagine Mennonites becoming an outlaw church on the issue of war taxes. Yet
the teachings of Jesus and the demands of faithfulness, if taken seriously,
plainly move us in that direction. The conviction that the faithful church
must, at times, become an outlaw church should not be shocking to those
acquainted with Anabaptist origins and history.
If we don’t draw the line at paying for nuclear weapons (or conventional
weapons, for that matter), will we draw it at their use? Military planners
no longer regard nuclear weapons as of deterrent use only. They are openly
talking about a limited use of their offensive first-strike capacity.
What if a nuclear bomb had been dropped on Hanoi in an effort to end the war
in Vietnam? What if the American government uses nuclear weapons to maintain
access to Middle East oil? Would the church then draw the line and move into
a position of active tax refusal? Or will we sit tight, no matter what the
government does?
Is there any threshold of violence or oppression which the government might
cross that would cause the Mennonite Church to advocate tax refusal?
Yoder was having nothing of such scriptural revisionism:
“The teachings of Jesus and the demands of faithfulness, if taken
seriously, plainly move us in that direction [of resisting taxes which may
be used for military purposes],” writes Keith Helmuth…
Whatever teachings he has in mind, however, he neglects to identify. Of
course, that is a common omission among Mennonite writers who advocate tax,
draft, and other forms of “resistance” and “civil” disobedience. Bold
assertions, sharp reasonings, and generalized allusions to Scripture. But,
no direct quotes or citings of passages.
I feel the teachings of Jesus plainly move us in a direction radically
different from tax resistance. I find those teachings in such places as
Mt. 5:41
where Jesus is quoted as instructing those who would seriously seek the
kingdom to, if forced to go a distance, continue on an additional distance.
It is my understanding that this teaching likely referred to the practice
of the Roman army to conscript civilians, literally off the street, and
force them to carry military supplies for perhaps a mile or so. From that
it seems logical for me to conclude that Jesus did not even exclude forced
assistance of the military (such as by taxes) from the compensatory love
response he prescribed for those who are beaten, stolen from, forced to do
things against their will.
Certainly the faithful church will often also face becoming an outlaw
church. The Scripture makes that plain. But, search as I may, I can’t find
any scriptural evidence that resisting taxes is something our Lord would
call us to. Rather, I can only conclude tax resistance to be a symptom of
the philosophy of those seeking a political kingdom and a social salvation
through the exercise of earthly power.
It seems to me that it is only fair that Mennonite editors ask writers
supporting tax resistance to document all supportive references found in
Scripture for their points. I think we readers are by now quite familiar
with their reasonings and rhetoric. If they have a scriptural basis, let’s
hear it.
D.R. Yoder is correct. I cannot cite a specific teaching of Jesus on war tax
refusal.
The case for war tax refusal, however, rests not on proof texts, but on the
fact that Jesus introduced a profound moral vision, with an extraordinary
potential for growth, into the stream of human consciousness. When Jesus was
asked about the “greatest commandment” He replied: “Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it.
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
Starting from this masterly summation of spiritual life, faithfulness, it
seems to me, depends on our growth in moral sensitivity and not on our
ability to correctly analyze all the cultural idiosyncrasies to which Jesus
was necessarily responding. Should we help finance the defoliation of our
neighbor’s rice fields or the massacre of her family just because Jesus
never had the occasion to comment on those situations? I think it entirely
fair to say the “teachings of Jesus” move us away from such behavior.
It was recognized by the early Anabaptists that personal military service
was seriously out of harmony with “the teachings of Jesus.” The refusal of
state ordered military service is not a specific injunction of Jesus, but
the growth in moral sensitivity which accompanied the Anabaptist movement
drew out this inherent aspect of the gospel. The same process, apparently,
kept the Anabaptist settlers in the New World from making use of readily
available slave labor, though Jesus nowhere condemns the institution of
slavery. It is this same growth in moral sensitivity, …which is now focusing
the issue.
As for “seeking a political kingdom and a social salvation through the
exercise of earthly power,” I doubt that very many who support the witness
of war tax refusal have any such aspirations. “Political kingdoms” can only
exist on the conscripted lives and resources of our communities and it is
exactly this that tax refusal opposes. The concept of “social salvation”
has, by now, lost even its nostalgia value. Our dreams are far more modest.
We hope to avoid nuclear holocaust and keep the planet habitable. We want
the resources now being wasted in military budgets to help feed, house, and
clothe the poor of the world. This is not “social salvation.” It is only
good sense and common decency.
One final note: The issue of war tax refusal is one that all persons have to
weigh in the balance against all the other important factors in their lives.
Judge not is the rule here. What makes no sense from the standpoint of a
growing family might come to make good sense after 50.
Our lofty discussion is probably beside the point. If we could see the
anguish that brings people to the point of tax refusal we would be inundated
with images of napalm and herbicides raining down on Vietnam, families
massacred in El Salvador, and the chilling vision of the neutron bomb
grinning over empty cities.
All our rhetoric, all our proof texts stagger and fall in the face of a dead
child and screaming mother with helicopters thundering overhead. The
crucifixion of Christ’s flesh is ever before us. Our sins roll across the
landscape. We do what we must and pray for strength.
In the Mennonite Board of
Congregational Ministries board of directors met.
Among their decisions:
In harmony with the General Board
action to support the General Conference Mennonite Church in their judicial
challenge of the collecting of taxes by church agencies, the board acted to
encourage staff “to publicize among our congregations the issues involved in
the judicial action and the need for funds for this purpose.”
The organizers of the Smoketown Consultation (which was in part a conservative
Eastern Mennonite backlash against war tax resistance and other innovations)
met again in in what was
called the “Berne consultation.” This time, however, according to
Gospel Herald:
“Little attention at Berne was given to war taxes, a dominant theme at Smoketown…”
…neither the Mennonite Church nor the IKV
feels comfortable with individual radical action. Example: Dirk Visser, a
Dutch Mennonite journalist working for the equivalent of the Associated Press
wire services in the Netherlands, called my attention to Willem-Jan Maas, a
Mennonite minister serving in Opeland. This minister tried to funnel what he
considered the war-taxes portion of his income tax to the Dutch Mennonite
Peace Group via the local income tax office.
This effort was fraudulently aborted by the tax officers, but even had it been
successful, the minister would not have been applauded by the IKV,
according to Visser. The IKV
has taken the political action route and with that the churches can cooperate.
In a Peace Tax Fund-boosting article
in the issue, it was noted that
war tax resisters acted as the “bad cop” to the “good cop” of lobbyists:
“[David] Bassett and others cited the ‘inconvenience factor’ of current war tax
resistance to the IRS as further incentive for change in the tax laws.”
Richerd Lewman, Jr. went back on
the offensive with a forceful rebuttal of Christian war tax resistance for the
issue:
To accept the statements that justify the nonpayment of war taxes is to accept
the statement that Jesus was a hypocrite.
After reading much about the war-tax issue and listening to much discussion,
both pro and con, I wanted to find out more about the issue, so that I could
take a stand consistent with God’s teachings. I read all that I could that
justified not paying taxes. Then I read as much as possible justifying the
payment of taxes. Both of these included much Bible reading and prayer. I then
did a lot more praying and asking God to guide me to what his truth is. He led
me to more reading and research.
After all of this, I was led to only one conclusion. If we believe Jesus
taught that we should not pay taxes to a government in the process of or
planning to slaughter people, then Jesus was a hypocrite because he paid his
taxes. If Jesus was a hypocrite, because he taught one thing and did another,
then Jesus sinned and he was not the unblemished lamb suitable to die for our
sins. So there cannot be salvation through him.
The first point made by those who would condone, even encourage, the
nonpayment of war taxes, is that income tax is voluntary, because it requires
citizen cooperation and to pay it is to agree with the government’s policies.
Using this same line of thinking we could say that all laws are voluntary, and
to obey them is to agree with them. I may not agree that I should not drive
any faster than 55 miles per hour, but if I decide not to obey the law I will
be penalized for it. If I pay my taxes I do not necessarily agree with how my
tax money is spent. But I still must pay.
A second point that is made is that the personal responsibility of loving my
neighbor comes before the law. I agree. But, I ask this question. What were
some of Jesus’ actions and how did they coincide with his teachings? Many
instances of civil disobedience and tax evasion have been justified using
Jesus’ teachings. I feel that his teachings are removed from their context if
they are not in agreement with the example of his perfect life. Do we read in
the Bible that Jesus went to Rome to picket in front of the Senate about the
atrocities committed against Jerusalem. Do we find Jesus lobbying to have the
Roman troops withdrawn from the temple, or for the exemption of the Jews from
paying the many taxes levied on them largely for the support of the
bloodthirsty Roman army? Or do we find Jesus not paying his war taxes? The
answer to each of these questions is a very clear “No!”
But wait, you say it was different back then. Was it?
They say that we must not pay our taxes, in order to make a witness, since we
as Mennonites are not drafted anymore. Well, the Jews in Jesus’ time were not
drafted either. They say they did not have conscription back then. Wrong.
Conscription dates back to the earliest civilization. They say that our
government needs our money more than our bodies. Well, the Roman government
needed money, because many of the soldiers were professionals and they fought
for the money. They say today we have the atom bomb, the most destructive war
machine ever devised by man, up to this time. Back then it was the Roman army,
the most destructive and bloodthirsty war machine ever devised by man, up to
that time.
How do we know that Jesus paid his taxes? The Tribute Coin referred to by
Jesus was a coin used to pay the poll tax which had to be paid by every male
person, ages 14–65, and by females, ages 12–65. If Jesus had not paid his tax,
would not the Pharisees and Sadducees have brought this to the attention of
Pilate when Jesus was before him, since they were looking for something to
convict him of?
If you say that Jesus’ teachings are that we should not pay our war taxes, I
cannot accept this. I believe that Jesus was the perfect example of the
Christian life and that his life was consistent with his teachings and that he
was not a hypocrite. If Jesus paid taxes to the government of his time, then I
can do no less. In fact, I must pay those taxes if I am to be in accordance
with Jesus’ life and teachings.
You say that we must follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. I agree, but how
do we discern the leading of the Holy Spirit? We must go to the Bible. If the
Bible and Jesus’ example contradict what we thought was the leading of the
Holy Spirit, then it can’t be the leading of the Holy Spirit. The leading of
the Holy Spirit, if it is authentic, will always agree with the life and
teachings of Jesus.
You ask. Why doesn’t the Mennonite Church take an official position against
payment of war taxes? I ask you. How can we take an official position
condemning something that Jesus did? I am in no position to question Jesus’
actions!
If we are to be consistent about not paying our war taxes because we disagree
with their purpose, then let’s stop paying that portion of our taxes that goes
for abortion and subsidizes the tobacco industry. But then, why not withhold
our property taxes if the schools teach evolution or sex education? Once the
pattern of nonpayment as protest is begun, there will be no logical place to
stop.
Jesus taught us to pay our taxes and his example showed us we must do the
same. If I am to be a Christian and desire Jesus to say to me someday, “Well
done, good and faithful servant,” then I can do no less than pay my taxes.
A
letter from Elvin Glick
fired just about every arrow from the traditionalist quiver: “there is no such
thing as a war tax” — “The government has a right to its armies and police
forces.” — “Governments have a right to levy taxes.” — Render unto Caesar, two
kingdoms, go the extra mile, Romans 13, Jesus & Paul never resisted their
governments, war taxes are different from military service,
etc.
[One extreme of the feedback:] In 22½ hours of business sessions, 266
delegates who answered the roll call “dragged their feet in giving women equal
leadership opportunities in the church, in speaking with a clear voice on
nuclear armaments and war taxes, and in preparing a relevant and up-to-date
confession of faith.”
In their business sessions delegates… in the longest discussion of the
week — struggled with how to realize reconciliation with a delegate who
denounced them for continuing to pay war taxes.
Most of the floor discussion centered in the letter to President Reagan…
“There’s an unfortunate philosophy behind this letter,” said James Hess,
Bethel, Pa. “It’s that
because I’m a Christian, I’m qualified to advise the government how to go
about its business. That goes against our historic doctrine of the separation
of church and state.”
Said Dan Slabaugh, Whitmore,
Mich.: “The president will
laugh when he reads this letter — if he reads it at all. He’ll laugh because
he knows that every payday we disavow what we say when we continue to pay our
taxes for war.”
A sidebar to that article read:
A prophetic voice?
How does the assembly process minority viewpoints? That became the focus in an
intense discussion engaging assembly delegates for 2½ hours beyond their
scheduled closing time in the final business session.
Impetus for the discussion came when Dan Slabaugh, Whitmore Lake,
Mich., asked permission to
make a four-minute statement on a concern of his. He confronted delegates with
their failure to back up their sentiments about peace, as stated in their
letter to President Reagan, with their actions. “Why do you continue to pay
taxes that go for war purposes?” he asked. “The religious community in America
could stop the arms buildup if it wanted to; I can’t understand why this
doesn’t excite us.”
Slabaugh reported he had wanted to put two motions on the floor but had been
advised by assembly leaders not to. (Later discussion revealed one motion
would have called delegates to acknowledge that paying war taxes was sin but
that they planned to continue doing so anyway; the other would have called for
all Mennonites to stop paying war taxes immediately.) In frustration Slabaugh
concluded: “I joined the Mennonite Church because of its stand on peace and
nonresistance. I will leave it for the same reason.” He then walked off the
assembly floor to participate in a seminar on war taxes.
In subsequent discussion, many delegates voiced concern about the incident and
called for reconciliation to be effected between Slabaugh and assembly
leaders. There was also discussion on how the assembly can hear a prophetic
word and what is the process by which it is determined whether or not a
minority opinion is prophetic.
After long discussion, delegates approved a motion which (1) made Slabaugh’s
concerns about war taxes a part of the official record of the assembly; (2)
asked the Council on Faith, Life, and Strategy to bring proposals to the next
assembly for dealing with the war tax issue and for discerning “prophetic
voices”; (3) called for immediate steps to be taken to bring about
reconciliation between Slabaugh and the assembly.
For Suzanne Polen, a part-time research microbiologist in Pittsburgh,
President Reagan’s recent decisions to increase arms spending mean that she
will no longer pay that portion of her taxes she says would fund national
defense. “The government is buying weapons which will eventually kill me,”
said the 45-year-old tax protester. Instead of paying her full tax bill to the
government, she plans to deposit about 50 percent of the money into the newly
created Pittsburgh Fund for Life, which describes itself as a peace and
justice ministry.
Since the Vietnam War ended, Wildon Fadely of the Internal Revenue Service
said, the number of those who have withheld taxes to protest Pentagon
activities has been “minuscule.” The category is so small that no separate
records are kept, he added. But he admitted his general impression was the
“protests of all kinds are on the rise.”
A conservative Anabaptist conference on “Basic Biblical Beliefs”
was held in . Among its
concerns for the church: “There is a growing alignment with ‘leftist elements’
who advocate civil disobedience, demonstrations, and nonpayment of taxes used
for military purposes.”
We call for acts of tax resistance to be undertaken since our federal income
taxes fuel the arms race. We suggest giving funds denied for use in building
nuclear weapons to groups working for peace and disarmament, and to groups
meeting human needs.
Jim Longacre, Peace Section chairman, brought a statement of concern to the
group for possible adoption. After the document was criticized for not being
specific enough, the group moved to add a paragraph on the war tax issue.
Although there was some dissent regarding the usefulness of a statement (one
person noted: “It’s easier to assent to a piece of paper than to be
accountable”), and the initial voting process was confused and had to be
repeated, the majority of the participants approved the statement.
That section of the statement read:
We were repeatedly reminded in this Assembly that the conscription of our
income supports the nuclear arms race. Moreover, we saw that the government is
increasing expenditures for nuclear and other weapons by decreasing
expenditures for human services for the poor and oppressed. We encourage
people to consider ways to witness against this evil use of the power of
taxation, such as refusing to pay the military portion of the federal income
tax.
Episcopal Bishop Robert H. Cochrane of Olympia,
Wash., while denouncing the
worldwide buildup of nuclear arms, stopped short of condoning a tax revolt as
did his Roman Catholic counterpart.
“Please know that I shall continue to pay to my government every penny of my
income tax, but at the same time every penny that I save under our president’s
new tax plan I shall give away to meet the needs of the poor and uncared for,”
Bishop Cochrane said in his annual address to the diocesan convention.
“I invite you to do the same.”
Bishop Cochrane’s diocese covers western Washington, the same area taken in by
the archdiocese of Catholic Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen of Seattle. The
archbishop has become a rallying point for a growing anti-nuclear movement
among leaders of nearly a dozen denominations in the Pacific Northwest.
Archbishop Hunthausen has said that people would be morally justified in
refusing to pay 50 percent of their income taxes in nonviolent resistance to
nuclear “murder and suicide.” He also said he favors unilateral nuclear
disarmament.
Truman H. Brunk, Jr., snuck a
war tax resistance message into his article
“Disarmed by his peace”:
Neither can Christians hide their eyes from the evil insanity of the arms
race. Christ came to signal peace on earth, not preparation for war. Christ’s
peace means that we cannot participate in the crime of preparation for nuclear
war. The obedience of Christians to their government is not absolute and
unconditional. We need the courage to avoid adding even a particle of evil to
our broken creation. How long can good Mennonites pray for peace and pay for
nuclear readiness with our tax dollars?
[T]here are three things God is doing in Ames, Iowa… [including] the
formulation of guidelines for a war tax alternative fund.
[Ames Mennonite Fellowship] is taking the lead in establishing a war tax
alternative fund for persons in the Ames area who are conscientiously opposed
to paying taxes for war. In ,
AMF
took formal action to establish the fund. Since then, some $300 has been
contributed to it. On
seven persons gathered and drew up guidelines for participation in the fund.
In brief, the group determined that contributors to the fund need to pay “an
equivalent to the amount actually withheld from Internal Revenue Service.”
Participants are expected to sign a “statement of purpose and guidelines” at
the time of the first deposit. Keith Schrag, Dan Clark, and other
AMF
participants in the fund welcome questions and counsel from the broader church
in this matter.
As the millennium came to a close, the chorus of war tax resisters that had sung strongly in the Church of the Brethren through the sixties, seventies, and eighties faded to a handful of crickets, and then, finally, to nearly nothing.
In the on-line archives of the Messenger and Brethren Evangelist give out at Internet Archive.
But maybe that’s just as well.
In there was almost nothing in either magazine touching on war taxes or war bonds.
a Peace Tax Fund advertisement from the Messenger
I was able to find a couple of things in the on-line Messenger archives at brethren.org.
A article profiled David R. Bassett and his war tax resistance and his work with the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund.
The page containing this article also has an audio interview with Bassett.
A article on “The Brethren in World War Ⅰ” noted that “the Sedition Act… criminalized speaking out against purchase of Liberty (war) Bonds, which resulted in charges against Brethren pastors J.A. Robinson of Iowa and David Gerdes of Illinois.”
The Pilgrim recounted this story in its issue (source):
In the Old Brethren had existed as a separate brotherhood for only five years.
One of the elders of the church in Carroll County, Indiana, then was a brother named John Leedy.
He was known as being very firm in his views.
When neighbors came to persuade John to buy war bonds, he refused.
How could he do such a thing when he believed this was so opposite the Gospel of our Lord?
John would not use a gun to take his enemy’s life.
How could he willingly and purposefully finance someone else to do so?
This was not understood by the patriotic neighbors of Brother John.
They could not understand how he could think it was right just to let the enemy go on without resistance.
But we think Brother John would rather have given up all his possessions and been mistreated than to be unfaithful to the Lord Jesus and the example of the small flock of Jesus through the centuries.
We as Christians are called to actually love our enemies.
So not only is this a matter of legalistic obedience.
But how could a Christian want to take part in warmongering or support others to do?
One evening as John and his wife were about to retire for the night, they heard a knock on the door.
John opened the door, and when he saw the men, he prepared to go outdoors.
His wife begged him to stay indoors, but John knew that the men who bid him come outdoors were angry, so he motioned his wife to stay indoors.
He stepped outside and closed the door.
Someone said, “Grab him!” They took John and roughly set him in then midst.
Someone produced scissors, and they cut large pieces of his beard and hair, but left parts of it in a grotesque pattern.
John offered no resistance.
The men prepared to go, and one said to him, “John, you buy bonds or we will return, and you will be handled worse the next time.”
John stood quietly in the doorway.
I imagine his lip trembled as yours or mine would have done.
I imagine he felt sorry for the men, as you and I should feel.
Then he said in his characteristic way, “Well, men, when you return I expect you’ll find the same John.”
The next day John went into the local village.
Respectful businessmen in town were enraged that someone would treat their fellow neighbor in such fashion.
In spite of John’s protests, they put a guard around his house for awhile to protect them.
When I ask some old folks today, “Do you remember John Leedy?” they invariably smile and say, “John was a firm man.”
— From Fred Benedict’s The Same John printed in the , Vindicator.
Christians have the obligation to pay tribute and custom to and to fear and honor the “powers that be.” (Rom. 13:6–7) This principle came acutely under test during the World War.
The problem did not arise with reference to the payment of taxes some of the proceeds of which were definitely used to carry on the war, but with reference to the purchase of Liberty Bonds which was voluntary, the proceeds of which directly supported the war program.
Here the nonresistant conscience asserted itself.
The former was clearly within the teaching of scripture, but the latter was voluntary and became a measure of one’s wartime patriotism.
Men who were physically unable on account of the rigors of warfare could render their bit toward the winning of the war by the purchase of bonds.
