Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → United States → Vietnam War, ~1965–75 → No Tax for War Committee protest, 1967 → Ann & William Davidon

From the St. Petersburg Times, 10 April 1966:

360 Refuse To Pay Tax On Income

New York (UPI) — At least 360 persons, including a Nobel Prize winner, a leading folk-singer, and a controversial Yale professor, have refused to pay all or part of their federal income taxes for 1965 in protest to “illegal use” of U.S. forces in such areas as Viet Nam and the Dominican Republic.
A statement issued by the group said some of the protestors will leave their tax money in banks where it can be seized by the Internal Revenue Service. Others, it said, will contribute the money to charities.
The Federal Revenue Code provides for jail sentences of up to one year and fines as high as $10,000 for conviction of willful refusal to pay federal income taxes.
Among the protestors who signed the statement were Prof. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, nobel prize-winning bio-chemist; folk singer Joan Baez; Prof. Staughton Lynd of Yale, who made an unauthorized trip to Viet Nam last December; veteran pacifist the Rev. A.J. Muste; Helen Merrell Lynd; co-author of “Middletown;[”] poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti; publisher Lyle Stuart; Prof. William Davidon of Haverford College; Prof. Carroll C. Pratt of Rider College; editor Dorothy Day of The Catholic Worker, and Prof. John M. Vickers of the University of Illinois.

A version of the same story in The Milwaukee Journal has some minor wording changes, lists CARE and UNICEF as two of the charities some of the resisters are redirecting their taxes to, notes that “Almost every state in the union is represented in the group,” and adds a couple of paragraphs about Wisconsin resisters:

Dr. Carl M. Kline, a Wausau psychiatrist who formerly practiced in Milwaukee, was one of the signers. He said: “I am just going to refuse to pay a part of it, and I will leave that money in my bank account. I realize you can’t beat this thing, but it is a matter of expressing my feelings. I am a Quaker, and I am against war altogether, but I feel particularly that our action in Vietnam is wrong, and this is my way of protesting. I wish I could do more.”
Another Wisconsin signer was Kenneth Knudson, of Madison. Knudson picketed the Madison internal revenue office in 1964 and 1965 to protest use of federal funds for military purposes.

That article also adds this detail:

Miss Baez earlier had refused to pay 60% of her 1964 federal income tax to protest government expenditures for armament. The internal revenue service collected more than $34,000 from her after attaching a lien to her income and property.

On this date in 1967, just a few days after Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his powerful “Beyond Vietnam” speech, Eric Weinberger, the national secretary of the Committee for Nonviolent Action, wrote to to ask if King would publicly sign on to their war tax resistance campaign:

Dear Reverend King, ¶ Tax Refusal Campaigns have been conducted since 1948. Some people have traditionally refused to pay their taxes because so large a percentage of them go towards general armaments. But there are many new refusers who are taking this stand because they are deeply concerned about the war in Vietnam. ¶ There were over 600 known tax refusers last year and the number is sure to be larger this year. Perhaps the tax refusal is still at the stage of being a symbolic action and an act of personal witness, but by getting more and more refusers and also by publicizing the action widely, we come closer to the day when tax refusal may become a political act. ¶ We recommend tax refusals as another way of expressing your own commitment towards ending the war. Also because of your position of leadership, your joining the campaign would hasten the day when it becomes a significant political act. ¶ Depending on the money available, we plan to publicize the campaign as much as possible. We would like to use your name, if you adopt the tax refusal position, in that publicity. ¶ Peace and Freedom, Eric Weinberger, National Secretary, C.N.V.A.

I don’t know how (or if) King responded to this request. I have seen no indications that he participated in the war tax resistance of the period.

King had been targeted by politically-motivated tax prosecutions in areas where he had been active. Because of this he had been under particular pressure to keep to the straight-and-narrow when it came to tax filing, so as not to give his enemies a potentially fruitful avenue of attack. This may have discouraged him from making war tax resistance part of his protest against U.S. militarism and the Vietnam War. It is also possible that, since King was killed a little less than a year after this letter was written, he just didn’t have time to put any possibly-intended resistance into practice.

The CNVA letterhead as shown on this letter is a clue as to who was associated with the emerging war tax resistance movement of the time. Many of these names are familiar to me, but some others are not:

A.J. Muste (Chairman), Gordon Christiansen (Chairman, Executive Committee), Ralph DiGia (Treasurer). Staff: Eric Weinberger (National Secretary), Maris Cakars (Field Secretary), Mark Morris (Director of Publication), Peter Kiger, Gwen Reyes. Executive Committee: Peter Boehmer, Mary Cristiansen, Tom Cornell, William C. Davidon, David Dellinger, Barbara Deming, Erica Enzer, Jim Forest, Neil D. Haworth, Bill Henry, Irene Johnson, Yvonne Klein, Paul Klotzle, Anton Kuerti, Bob Larsen, Bradford Lyttle, David McReynolds, Stewart Meacham, Dorothy Mock, Jim Peck, Harry Purvis, David Reed, Charles Solin, Beverly Sterner, Mary Suzuki, Robert Swann, Charles Walker, Barbara Webster, George Willoughby, Bill Wingell, Wilmer Young. Consultants: Joan Baez, Albert Bigelow, Henry Cadbury, Dorothy Day, Richard B. Gregg, Ammon Hennacy, William R. Huntington, Ray Kinney, Milton Mayer, Mildred Scott Olmstead, Earle Reynolds, Sumner M. Rosen, Bill Sutherland, Ralph Templin, David Wieck

The time has come, and that time was 14 April 1966.

The time has come. The spectacle of the United States — with its jet bombers, helicopters, fragmentation and napalm bombs, and disabling gas — carrying on an endless war against the hungry, scantily armed Vietnamese guerrillas and civilians… this spectacle will go down in history alongside the unforgivable atrocities of Italy in Ethiopia. The spectacle of the United States invasion of the Dominican Republic — again pitting our terrifying weaponry mainly against civilians armed with rifles… this spectacle will go down in history alongside Russia’s criminal intervention in Hungary. But the spectacle of the indifference of so many Americans to the crimes being committed in their names, by their brothers, and with their tax money… this spectacle reminds us more and more of the indifference of the majority of the German people to the killing of six million Jews. The United States government has not reacted constructively to legitimate criticism, protests, and appeals: by world leaders including the Pope, U Thant, and President DeGaulle; by United States leaders including Senators Morse, Gruening, Church, Fulbright, Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, and Stephen Young; by hundreds of thousands of citizens including 2,500 clergymen and countless professors who placed protest advertisements in leading newspapers; by innumerable students, many tens of thousands of whom have taken their protest to Washington on several occasions; by celebrated individuals such as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Robert Lowell, Arthur Miller, and Dr. Benjamin Spock; and by leading newspapers, including the New York Times. We believe that the ordinary channels of protest have been exhausted and that the time has come for Americans of conscience to take more radical action in the hope of averting nuclear war. Therefore, the undersigned hereby declare that at least as long as U.S. Forces are clearly being used in violation of the U.S. Constitution, International Law, and the United Nations Charter… We will refuse to pay our federal income taxes voluntarily. Some of use will leave the money we owe the government in our bank accounts, where the Internal Revenue Service may seize it if they wish. Others will contribute the money to CARE, UNICEF, or similar organizations. Some of us will continue to pay that percentage of our taxes which is not used for military purposes. We recognize the gravity of this step. However, we prefer to risk violating the Internal Revenue Code, rather than to participate, by voluntarily paying our taxes, in the serious crimes against humanity being committed by our government.

350 Balk at Taxes in a War Protest

Ad in Capital Paper Urges Others to Bar Payment

Washington, April 14 — Some 350 persons who disapprove of the war in Vietnam announced today that they would not voluntarily pay their Federal income taxes, due tomorrow. They urged others to join them in this protest.
The Internal Revenue Service immediately made clear that it would take whatever steps were necessary to collect the taxes.
The group announced its plans this morning in an advertisement in The Washington Post.
“We will refuse to pay our Federal income taxes voluntarily,” the advertisement said. “Some of us will leave the money we owe the Government in our bank accounts, where the Internal Revenue Service may seize it if they wish. Some will contribute the money to CARE, UNICEF or similar organizations. Some of us will continue to pay that percentage of our taxes which is not used for military purposes.”

Joan Baez, Lynd, Muste

The first signature on the advertisement was that of Joan Baez, the folk singer. Others who signed it were Staughton Lynd, the Yale professor who traveled to North Vietnam last year in violation of State Department regulations, and the Rev. A.J. Muste, the pacifist leader.
The advertisement contained a coupon soliciting contributions for the protest. The ad said that further information could be obtained from Mr. Muste at Room 1003, 5 Beekman Street, New York City.
Those who placed the advertisement — which bore the heading “The Time Has Come” — said that those who sponsored it “recognize the gravity of this step. However, we prefer to risk violating the Internal Revenue Code, rather than to participate, by voluntarily paying our taxes, in the serious crimes against humanity being committed by our Government.”
The advertisement mentioned not only the war in Vietnam “against hungry, scantily armed Vietnamese guerrillas and civilians” but also “the spectacle of the United States invasion of the Dominican Republic,” an event the sponsors said “will go down in history alongside Russia’s criminal intervention in Hungary.”

Cohen Is Determined

The determination of Internal Revenue to collect the taxes the Government is owed was expressed in a formal statement by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Sheldon S. Cohen.
He said Internal Revenue would take “appropriate action” to collect the taxes “in fairness to the many millions of taxpayers who do fulfill their obligations.”
The Government has been upheld in court on all occasions when individuals have refused to pay taxes because of disapproval with the uses to which their money was being put, revenue officials said.

Ad Prepared Here

The headquarters of the Committee for Nonviolent Action, 5 Beekman Street, said yesterday that it had prepared the advertisement carried in the Washington newspaper after receiving 350 responses to invitations it had sent out soliciting participation in “an act of civil disobedience.”
A spokesman for the committee said that Mr. Muste, the chairman, was out of town and would return in about a week. The spokesman said that although monetary contributions in response to the advertisement had not yet begun to come in, the committee was prepared to mail literature explaining its program to those who responded to the advertisement.
The spokesman said that the tax protest had been intended to represent “a more radical and meaningful protest against the Vietnam War.”
The committee announced that members would appear at 2:15 P.M. today in front of the Internal Revenue Service office, 120 Church Street, to distribute leaflets concerning the tax protest.
It also said that a rally and picketing would be staged from 11 A.M. to 3:30 P.M., in front of the Federal Building in San Francisco under the sponsorship of the War Resisters League. The league also has offices at 5 Beekman Street.

With press coverage like this, including even the address to write to for more information, Muste hardly needed to pay for ad space in the Times (assuming they would have printed the ad — many papers rejected ads like this).

Some other names I recognize from the ad are Noam Chomsky, Dorothy Day, Dave Dellinger, Barbara Deming, Diane di Prima, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Milton Mayer, David McReynolds, Grace Paley, Eroseanna Robinson, Ira Sandperl, Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Ralph Templin, Marion Bromley, Horace Champney, Ralph Dull, Walter Gormly, Richard Groff, Irwin Hogenauer, Roy Kepler, Ken Knudson, Bradford Lyttle, Karl Meyer, Ed Rosenthal, Maris Cakars, Gordon Christiansen, William Davidon, Johan Eliot, Carroll Pratt, Helen Merrell Lynd, E. Russell Stabler, Lyle Stuart, John M. Vickers, and Eric Weinberger.

The text of the ad (without the signatures and “coupon”) is as follows:

The Time Has Come

The spectacle of the United States — with its jet bombers, helicopters, fragmentation and napalm bombs and disabling gas — carrying on an endless war against the hungry, scantily armed Vietnamese guerrillas and civilians… this spectacle will go down in history alongside the unforgivable atrocities of Italy in Ethiopia.
The spectacle of the United States invasion of the Dominican Republic — again pitting our terrifying weaponry mainly against civilians armed with rifles… this spectacle will go down in history alongside Russia’s criminal intervention in Hungary.
But the spectacle of the indifference of so many Americans to the crimes being committed in their names, by their brothers, and with their tax money… this spectacle reminds us more and more of the indifference of the majority of the German people to the killing of six million Jews.
The United States government has not reacted constructively to legitimate criticism, protests and appeals:

by world leaders including the Pope, U Thant and President De Gaulle —

by United States leaders including Senators Morse, Gruening, Church, Fulbright, Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy and Stephen Young —

by hundreds of thousands of citizens including 2,500 clergymen and countless professors who placed protest advertisements in leading newspapers —

by innumerable students, many tens of thousands of whom have taken their protest to Washington on several occasions —

by celebrated individuals such as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Robert Lowell, Arthur Miller and Dr. Benjamin Spock —

and by leading newspapers, including the New York Times.

We believe that the ordinary channels of protest have been exhausted and that the time has come for Americans of conscience to take more radical action in the hope of averting nuclear war.
Therefore, the undersigned hereby declare that at least as long as U.S. Forces are clearly being used in violation of the U.S. Constitution, International Law and the United Nations Charter…

We will refuse to pay our federal income taxes voluntarily

Some of us will leave the money we owe the government in our bank accounts, where the Internal Revenue Service may seize it if they wish. Others will contribute the money to CARE, UNICEF or similar organizations. Some of us will continue to pay that percentage of our taxes which is not used for military purposes.
We recognize the gravity of this step. However, we prefer to risk violating the Internal Revenue Code, rather than to participate, by voluntarily paying our taxes, in the serious crimes against humanity being committed by our Government.

Here are a handful of artifacts relating to the American war tax resistance movement circa 1967.

First, some relics that were filed alongside a letter from Herbert Sonthoff to W. Walter Boyd (though I think this filing may be arbitrary and that the letters are not related to each other):

An Open Letter ^*

At this late date it is pointless to muster the evidence which shows that the war we are waging in Vietnam is wrong. By now you have decided for yourself where you stand. In all probability, if you share our feelings about it, you have expressed your objections both privately and publicly. You have witnessed the small effect these protests have had on our government.
By April 15^th, every American citizen must decide whether he will make a voluntary contribution to the continuation of this war. After grave consideration, we have decided that we can no longer do so, and that we will therefore withhold all or part of the taxes due. The purpose of this letter is to call your attention to the fact that a nationwide tax refusal campaign is in progress, as stated in the accompanying announcement, and to urge you to consider refusing to contribute voluntarily to this barbaric war.
Signed:

Prof. Warren Ambrose Mathematics, M.I.T.

Dr. Donnell Boardman Physician, Acton, Mass.

Mrs. Elizabeth Boardman Acton, Mass.

Prof. Noam Chomsky Linguistics, M.I.T.

Miss Barbara Deming Writer, Wellfleet, Mass.

Prof. John Dolan Philosophy, Chicago University

Prof. John Ek Anthropology, Long Island University

Martha Bentley Hall Musician, Brookline, Mass.

Dr. Thomas C. Hall Physician, Brookline, Mass.

Rev. Arthur B. Jellis First Parish in Concord, Unitarian-Universalist, Concord, Mass.

Prof. Donald Kalish Philosophy, U.C.L.A.

Prof. Louis Kampf Humanities, M.I.T.

Prof. Staughton Lynd History, Yale University

Milton Mayer Writer, Mass.

Prof. Jonathan Mirsky Chinese Language and Literature, Dartmouth College

Prof. Sidney Morgenbesser Philosophy, Columbia University

Prof. Wayne A. O’Neill Graduate School of Education, Harvard University

Prof. Anatol Rapoport Mental Health Research Institute, University of Michigan

Prof. Franz Schurmann Center for Chinese Studies, University of Calif., Berkeley

Dr. Albert Szent Gyorgy Institute for Muscle Research, Woods Hole, Mass.

Harold Tovish Sculptor, Brookline, Mass.

Prof. Howard Zinn Government, Boston University

^* Institutions listed for informational purposes only

P.S. The No Tax for War Committee intends to make public the names of signers, hence if you wish to add your signature, early return is desirable. Contributions are needed, and checks should be made payable to the Committee.

The following page, dated 11 March 1967, shows a mock-up of the intended public advertisement showing the signers’ names:

The committee will publish the above statement with names of signers at tax deadline — April 15.
Send signed statements to: NO TAX FOR WAR COMMITTEE, c/o Rev. Maurice McCrackin, 932 Dayton St., Cincinnati, Ohio 45214.
For additional copies of this form, put number you will distribute and name and address on the following lines:
No. _____ Name ____________________
Address _________________________

Signers So Far

Meldon and Amy Acheson

Michael J. Ames

Alfred F. Andersen

Ross Anderson

Beulah K. Arndt

Joan Baez

Richard Baker

Bruce & Pam Beck

Ruth T. Best

Robert & Margaret Blood

Karel F. Botermans

Marion & Ernest Bromley

Edwin Brooks

A. Dale Brothington

Mrs. Lydia Bruns

Wendal Bull

Mrs. Dorothy Bucknell

John Burslem

Lindley J. Burton

Catharine J. Cadbury

Maris Cakars

Robert and Phyllis Calese

William N. Calloway

Betty Camp

Daryle V. Carter

Jared & Susan Carter

Horace & Beulah Champney

Ken & Peggy Champney

Hank & Henry Chapin

Holly Chenery

Richard A. Chinn

Naom [sic] Chomsky

John & Judy Christian

Gordon & Mary Christiansen

Peter Christiansen

Donald F. Cole

John Augustine Cook

Helen Marr Cook

Jack Coolidge, Jr.

Allen Cooper

Martin J. Corbin

Tom & Monica Cornell

Dorothy J. Cunningham

Jean DaCosta

Ann & William Davidon

Stanley F. Davis

Dorothy Day

Dave Dellinger

Barbara Deming

Robert Dewart

Ruth Dodd

John M. Dolan

Orin Doty

Allen Duberstein

Ralph Dull

Malcolm Dundas

Margaret E. Dungan

Henry Dyer

Susan Eanet

Bob Eaton

Marc Paul Edelman

Johan & Francis Eliot

Jerry Engelbach

George J. Etu, Jr.

Mary C. Eubanks

Arthur Evans

Jonathan Evans

William E. Evans

Pearl Ewald

Franklin Farmer

Bertha Faust

Dianne M. Feeley

Rice A. Felder

Henry A. Felisone

Mildred Fellin

Glenn Fisher

John Forbes

Don & Ann Fortenberry

Marion C. Frenyear

Ruth Gage-Colby

Lawrence H. Geller

Richard Ghelli

Charles Gibadlo

Bruce Glushakow

Walter Gormly

Arthur Goulston

Thomas Grabell

Steven Green

Walter Grengg

Joseph Gribbins

Kenneth Gross

John M. Grzywacz, Jr.

Catherine Guertin

David Hartsough

David Hartsough

Arthur Harvey

Janet Hawksley

James P. Hayes, Jr.

R.F. Helstern

Ammon Hennacy

Norman Henry

Robert Hickey

Dick & Heide Hiler

William Himelhoch

C.J. Hinke

Anthony Hinrichs

William M. Hodsdon

Irwin R. Hogenauer

Florence Howe

Donald & Mary Huck

Philip Isely

Michael Itkin

Charles T. Jackson

Paul Jacobs

Martin & Nancy Jezer

F. Robert Johnson

Woodbridge O. Johnson

Ashton & Marie Jones

Paul Jordan

Paul Keiser

Joel C. Kent

Roy C. Kepler

Paul & Pauline Kermiet

Peter Kiger

Richard King

H.A. Kreinkamp

Arthur & Margaret Landes

Paul Lauter

Peter and Marolyn Leach

Gertrud & George A. Lear, Jr.

Alan and Elin Learnard

Titus Lehman

Richard A. Lema

Florence Levinsohn

Elliot Linzer

David C. Lorenz

Preston B. Luitweiler

Bradford Lyttle

Adriann van L. Maas

Ben & Sue Mann

Paul and Salome Mann

Howard E. Marston, Sr.

Milton and Jane Mayer

Martin & Helen Mayfield

Maurice McCrackin

Lilian McFarland

Maureen & Felix McGowan

Maryann McNaughton

Gelston McNeil

Guy W. Meyer

Karl Meyer

David & Catherine Miller

James Missey

Mark Morris

Janet Murphy

Thomas P. Murray

Rosemary Nagy

Wally & Juanita Nelson

Marilyn Neuhauser

Neal D. Newby, Jr.

Miriam Nicholas

Robert B. Nichols

David Nolan

Raymond S. Olds

Wayne A. O’Neil

Michael O’Quin

Ruth Orcutt

Eleanor Ostroff

Doug Palmer

Malcolm & Margaret Parker

Jim Peck

Michael E. Pettie

John Pettigrew

Lydia H. Philips

Dean W. Plagowski

Jefferson Poland

A.J. Porth

Ralph Powell

Charles F. Purvis

Jean Putnam

Harriet Putterman

Robert Reitz

Ben & Helen Reyes

Elsa G. Richmond

Eroseanna Robinson

Pat Rusk

Joe & Helen Ryan

Paul Salstrom

Ira J. Sandperl

Jerry & Rae Schwartz

Martin Shepard

Richard T. Sherman

Louis Silverstein

T.W. Simer

Ann B. Sims

Jane Beverly Smith

Linda Smith

Thomas W. Smuda

Bob Speck

Elizabeth P. Steiner

Lee D. Stern

Beverly Sterner

Michael Stocker

Charles H. Straut, Jr.

Stephen Suffet

Albert & Joyce Sunderland, Jr.

Mr. & Mrs. Michael R. Sutter

Marjorie & Robert Swann

Oliver & Katherine Tatum

Gary G. Taylor

Harold Tovish

Joe & Cele Tuchinsky

Lloyd & Phyllis Tyler

Samuel R. Tyson

Ingegerd Uppman

Margaret von Selle

Mrs. Evelyn Wallace

Wilbur & Joan Ann Wallis

William & Mary Webb

Barbara Webster

John K. White

Willson Whitman

Denny & Ida Wilcher

Huw Williams

George & Lillian Willoughby

Bob Wilson

Emily T. Wilson

Jim & Raona Wilson

W.W. Wittkamper

Sylvia Woog

Wilmer & Mildred Young

Franklin Zahn

Betty & Louis Zemel

Vicki Jo Zilinkas

Following this was a page explaining how to go about resisting:

Some Methods of Nonpayment

For those owing nothing because of the Withholding Tax.

Such persons write a letter to the Internal Revenue Service, to be filed with the tax return, stating that the writer cannot in good conscience help support the war in Vietnam, voluntarily. The writer therefore requests a return of a percentage of the money collected from his salary.

Note: Of course, the IRS will not return the money. However, the writer has refused to pay for the war voluntarily and has put it in writing. This symbolic action is not to be belittled since anybody who does this allies himself with those who will withhold money due the IRS.

For those self-employed or owing money beyond what has been withheld from salary.

Such persons write a letter to be filed with the tax return, stating that the writer does not object to the income tax in principle, but will not, as a matter of conscience, help pay for the war in Vietnam. The writer is therefore withholding some or all of the tax due.

Note: In all cases, we recommend that copies of these letters be sent to the President and to your Senators.

Remarks:

The Internal Revenue Service has the legal power to confiscate money due it. They will get that money, one way or another. However, to obstruct the IRS from collecting money due (by not filing a return at all, for example) seems less important to us than the fact that each is refusing to pay his tax voluntarily. With this in mind, many of us are placing the taxes owed in special accounts and we will so inform the IRS in our letters.

Willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and up to a year in jail, together with the costs of prosecution. So far, the IRS has prosecuted only those who have obstructed collection (by refusing to file a return, by refusing to answer a summons, etc.). Usually, the IRS has collected the tax due plus 6% interest and possibly an added fine of 5% for “negligence”. The fact that the IRS has rarely, if at all, prosecuted tax-refusers to the full extent of the law does not mean they will not do so in the future.

Finally, an article from the December 1967 edition of The Capitol East Gazette:

Tax Refusal Urged by Group

Two thousand anti-war leaflets on telephone tax refusal were distributed in Capitol East on Saturday, Nov. 18, by members of CHOICE, a group of local residents who are withdrawing their support for the Vietnam war.
The leaflet explains that the 10% phone tax was enacted in April 1966 specifically to raise money for the Vietnam war.
According to CHOICE, the phone company will not remove a person’s telephone if he refuses to pay the tax. The company asks refusers to state why they are withholding the tax and then turns the matter over to the Internal Revenue Service.
According to CHOICE, there are presently 25 known tax refusers in the Capitol Hill area.
Those desiring CHOICE’s leaflet are asked to call LI 6‒9836.

While doing some book research today I stumbled on a bunch of documents concerning the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” tax resistance pledge of 1967. I found the documents at The Harold Weisberg Archive:

Item 01 (four pages): A three-page letter from David Welsh on Ramparts letterhead dated 25 September 1967 “enclosing a copy of the statement signed, so far, by 220 writers and editors…” and saying that they hoped to run the ad in the New York Times (the Times would turn them down). The letter asks Weisberg to sign on, and includes a couple of Thoreau quotes. It also says that Welsh sees this as a first step towards organizing the American “intelligentsia” to be an organized and articulate political force. The final page lists the signers to that point. Also included is Weisberg’s response in which he complements the Thoreau quote, notes that he signed the pledge and sent it in with a donation, and then goes on for four paragraphs about Kennedy assassination conspiracy research, which was his specialty.
Item 02 (eight pages): An undated letter from the Protest to “Fellow Signers” noting that “We now have over 350 names” and “hope to achieve, or surpass, 500 by the end of October” so they can put the ad in the Times “the first week in November.” The letter notes that the anticipated 10% Vietnam War tax surcharge has run into snags in Congress, but still expects a modified version to pass. It also solicits funds, noting that they’re only about half way to the budget they need to place a full-page Times ad.; A second page includes the text of a Thoreau quote and of the tax resistance pledge.; A third page includes a “coupon” that signers can fill out to register their pledge with the Protest office, and begins the partial list of signers. The next two pages continue the list, and then the following page includes “Additional Signers” (including Weisberg).; The last two pages are a “Fact Sheet” explaining the reasoning behind the protest, the process that resisters can go through to make their resistance effective, a summary of the possible legal consequences, the possibility of filing a legal challenge, and the Protest’s willingness to reach out to other groups interested in taking a similar stand.
Item 03 (four pages): Only the first page is interesting. It’s a hand-drawn invitation to a “Deficit Party” fundraiser “to help pay for our newspaper ad” to be held on 22 December “at Betty Friedan’s apartment [at] The Dakota”: “Eric Bentley, Betty Friedan, Paul Goodman, James Leo Herlihy, Larry Josephson, Dwight Macdonald, Gloria Steinem, [&] Gerald Walker invite you to join them, and all the other signers of the Writers and Editors War Tax Protest…”
Item 04 (two pages): The first page is the last of a three-page list of pledge signers (the first two pages are missing); the second page is a list of “Additional Signers” with marginal notes indicating that the number had risen to 309, and then to 324.
Item 05 (four pages): A letter from Lawrence M. Bensky & Gerald Walker of the Protest to “Fellow Signers” dated 28 February 1968. It notes that Congress did not institute the expected 10% income tax surcharge by tax filing season, and so if people want to resist, they’ll have to choose the other option, which was to refuse to pay some portion of their ordinary income tax: “we urge you to do so. Obviously, the effectiveness of our action hinges on the number of participants.” It notes that 50 more people have signed the pledge since the ads appeared “in February Ramparts, The New York Review of Books of Feb. 15, and The New York Post of Jan. 30” which brings the total signers up to that desired 500 threshold.

Hundreds of people have written us to request tax-refusal information; many of these were non-writers and non-editors who were sufficiently impressed to follow our lead, and these information requests continue to come in without any sign of tapering off.

The letter notes that contributions have been coming in as well, but proposes not to spend any more money on advertising, but to keep the funds in reserve in case the government retaliates against any signer, so as “to focus publicity on such cases; and where a case offers the opportunity to press a legal test of the government’s right to ‘draft’ our money for Vietnam, we will contribute to the costs of legal defense.” The letter then recommends that people look into the newly formed “Tax Resistance Project of the War Resisters League.”; The next page lists some sympathetic organizations, discusses the possible government retaliation actions against signers, and includes a coupon resisters could send to the War Resisters League if they want to be included in their coordinated tax resistance action.; The next page gives “some facts about tax refusal and its consequences” including a how-to guide giving several options for how to resist.; The final page announces a protest to be held at the IRS headquarters in Washington on March 15^th:

Join us in an act of collective tax resistance. Bring your completed tax return, form 1040, or a statement explaining why you’re not filing, and together we will return forms and statements accompanied by either no money or an insufficient amount of money. The action at IRS will be preceded by a public meeting nearby. Dr. Arthur Waskow of the Institute for Policy Studies and Dave Dellinger, Chairman of the National Mobilization Committee, will be among the speakers.
We act because for many verbal opposition to the war in Vietnam is no longer enough. Resistance has become necessary. Our consciences dictate it. The young men resisting the draft have shown a way and we who are not subject to the draft must develop creative parallels. Tax resistance is such a parallel act because it confronts the administration directly and challenges it at a vital point. It liberates the tax resister by showing him that he does have choices.
Item 06 (two pages): A Washington Post clipping dated 16 March 1968 — “Marchers Protest War Taxes” concerning a protest of about 40 people at the IRS Building. Protesters included Barbara Deming, Dave Dellinger, William C. Davidon, Arthur Waskow. The article includes a photo of Waskow and of protesters marching with “Don’t Pay War Taxes” signs, but the copy quality is low.
Item 07 (one page): A letter dated 10 May 1968 from Eric Bentley, John Leonard, Peter Spackman, Gloria Steinem, and Gerald Walker to “Fellow Signers” about “how best to wind up the group’s affairs.” They plan to donate the group’s remaining funds to the Civil Liberties Legal Defense Fund, which has made a reciprocal agreement to give legal assistance to any Protest signers who run into trouble in the coming year. “The Writers and Editors War Tax Protest was always a temporary organization, and its limited goals have now been achieved. We remain pledged as individuals, however, to the moral and financial support of any of our number who is prosecuted or harassed because of non-payment or simple membership.”

WEWTP certainly added its bit to the anti-war clamor which produced the current atmosphere and the many swift changes that have taken place in it. We ended up with 528 signers. And if there were that many strongly anti-war people from one small area of American Life, surely the political computers in Washington were capable of extrapolating that figure to the population as a whole. So [President] Johnson got the message. Thanks for lending your voice and your name to ours.

The “current atmosphere” of changes since the start of the Protest project included the abandonment of the 10% income tax surcharge plan, the Tet Offensive, the resignation of Secretary of Defense McNamara, Johnson’s decision not to run for another term, and the opening of peace negotiations.
Item 09 (one page): A press release from the Protest dated January 30. At this time, the Protest had attracted 437 signers, and “at least one-third” of these had pledged not only to refuse to pay any war surcharge, but also “not to pay the 23 per cent of their current income tax which is being used to finance the war in Vietnam.”

The protest was announced today at a press conference in New York’s Algonquin Hotel, traditionally a gathering place for New York’s literary world. Three writers and three editors spoke for the group: Eric Bentley, drama critic, professor of Columbia, and author of several books on the theater; James Leo Herlihy, well-known novelist and short story writer; and Sally Belfrage, author of “Freedom Summer.” Publishers included Richard Grossman of Grossman Publishers; Aaron Asher of Viking Press; and Arthur A. Cohen of Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

One of the group’s organizers announced that today’s advertisement had been rejected for publication by seven major newspapers before being printed by the New York Post. The New York Times, where ten of the advertisement’s signers are employed, twice rejected it, the second time after the advertisement had been changed to meet their earlier objection. Other newspapers which refused to accept the prepaid full-page advertisement were The Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Christian Science Monitor, the National Observer, and the Chicago Tribune. A spokesman for the Writers and Editors War Tax Protest expressed regret that the nation’s press, “which is so quick to condemn violent demonstrations, actually encourages them by frustrating conscientious expression of dissent from our actions in Vietnam.”
Item 10 (one page): A newspaper clipping dated January 1968 that, in the form of an article about the ad, essentially reproduces it, including the complete list of signers. It is unclear what newspaper the clipping is taken from.
Item 11 (one page): “Writers Vow Tax Revolt Over War” — a news clipping from the 31 January 1968 Washington Post. It gives the number of signers as 448, and explains that the Post refused to print the ad “on the grounds that it was an implicit exhortation to violate the law.”
Item 12 (one page): A letter from Lawrence M. Bensky & Gerald Walker to “Fellow Signers” dated 1 December 1967. It gives the number of signers as 450. “Two months have been spent dickering with the NY Times (where 11 of the signers work), which has just refused an ad revised to meet earlier Times objections.” (Harding Bancroft of the Times eventually said: “the advertisement was turned down by the Times in accordance with our general policy that we do not accept advertising urging readers to perform an illegal action.”) The letter notes that some signers have wondered why the Protest continues to stress the 10% surcharge which by now is looking less politically viable. Finally, the letter announces the above-mentioned “Deficit Party.”

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in 1966

On 2 November 1965, a 31-year-old American Quaker named Norman Morrison went out to the sidewalk in front of U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s office in the Pentagon, doused himself in kerosene, and set himself on fire as a protest against the American war on Vietnam.

His suicide stunned the Society of Friends and made more urgent the already percolating questions about the moribund Quaker peace testimony and how much Friends were willing to put on the line for it.

This is reflected by the increased attention given in the pages of Friends Journal in 1966 to the issue of war tax resistance.

In February, 1966, a “Friends’ Conference and Vigil on the War in Vietnam” asked the “Friends Coordinating Committee on Peace… to prepare a bulletin urging Friends to consider how paying taxes and buying war bonds involved them in financing the military.”

A number of Quakers signed a “No Taxes for Vietnam War” tax refusal vow that was organized by Maurice McCracken’s “No War in Vietnam Committee.” These included, according to the 15 March issue of the Journal, “Franklin Zahn, Bob and Marj Swann, Arthur Evans, Bradford Lyttle, Johan W. Eliot, Staughton Lynd, Wilmer Young, George and Lillian Willoughby, and Marion C. Frenyear.”

The lead editorial in that issue was entitled “To Pay or to Protest?” and the author was determined to give no definitive advice on either side of that question. The editorial begins by stating the case for Quaker taxpayer misgivings, then moves on to note that “a few pacifists” have been resisting, and to claim that “this year the number of tax-refusers will be far greater than ever before,” while other taxpayers who share their misgivings are either unwilling to take on the risks of tax resistance or believe that such an action amounts to “dodging the law and leaving someone else to carry a burden which they themselves will not assume.”

The editorialist then quotes from a letter written by a resisting employee “to her employing group” (why so coy about which group?) in which she writes that while she would be happy to “pay twice as much as required by the present law” for the more benign things the government buys, “I cannot bring myself to furnish money to be used in a way that will bring death to fine young American boys and men and also to Vietnamese men, women, and children.” If “the employing group” were to cooperate in her request to stop withholding income tax from her salary, the editorialist wonders, “[w]ill it (or its members) be penalized?”

This is another strange example of the Journal taking an issue that was obviously a direct concern to Quakers and to Quaker Meetings, and trying to abstract it and cast it off into the distance somewhere in order to consider it dispassionately and indecisively.

From here the editorialist compares the Quaker war tax resister of today to the Quaker abolitionist “in the years before the Civil War when some members wanted to give all-out aid to the cause of abolition while others counseled caution, advocating strict adherence to the letter of such laws as those requiring fugitive slaves to be returned to their masters.”

Nowadays we tend to view with shame the historical evidence that all Friends did not work wholeheartedly for the abolition of slavery; will the time come when the Friends who follow after us have a similar feeling about those of their predecessors (including the present writer) who lacked the courage to resist conscription of their dollars to do the killing that they themselves refused to do?

After a quick detour through “There are those who say… there are others who counterargue…” territory, the editorialist recommends that people interested in tax refusal contact the Committee for Nonpayment of War Taxes or the Peacemakers, and gives their addresses.

Finally, there is a brief nod in the direction of war tax resistance being a time-honored Quaker practice. The editorialist mentions that Franklin Zahn has authored a booklet on “Early Friends and War Taxes,” which includes the quote that ends the editorial, from the letter sent by John Woolman & co. to their fellow-Friends in 1755:

Raising sums of money [for] purposes inconsistent with the peaceable testimony we profess… appears to us in its consequences to be destructive of our religious liberties; we apprehend many among us will be under the necessity of suffering, rather than consenting thereto by the payment of a tax for such purposes.

In the 1 May issue, an article about a Quaker movement in which people voluntarily taxed themselves 1% of their income for the support of the United Nations began this way: “All Friends, whether or not they would refuse to take up arms, are caught up in the military machine through payment of Federal income tax.” This seems to indicate that there was still a blind spot that was making it difficult for some Quakers to even see the various alternatives to paying the federal income tax.

A report on the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in the same issue noted:

After consideration, the Yearly Meeting concurred with the concern of the Friends Peace Committee that fresh attention be given to the effort to devise a formula acceptable to the Internal Revenue Service and to Congress, which would permit persons to withhold that proportion of their income taxes applicable to military purposes and apply it to constructive purposes of government. Because a Monthly Meeting secretary and a youth worker for the Peace Committee have asked their employers to cease withholding income tax from their salaries, the problem is being thrust upon the Yearly Meeting. Friends, whatever their judgments about a particular action, are sympathetic toward those who engage in it for reasons of conscience.

In furtherance of its concern… the Friends Peace Committee received authorization to seek personal conferences with officials of the Internal Revenue Service to acquaint them with the basis and reality of the concern to refuse payment of taxes for military purposes. Perhaps such conversations may increase understanding on the part of the officials and may enable them, while carrying out their duty and enforcing the law, to understand and respect the refusers.

A conference at Pendle Hill “on the search for peace” in April, concerned the “basic question… [of] whether the militaristic society in which we all live could be influenced through techniques of reason or whether religious pacifists, in their deep alienation, should rather seek a more radical strategy of protest.” At one point, according to the coverage in the 15 June issue of the Journal, William Davidon “spoke frankly and clearly on the moral philosophy behind his refusal to pay those taxes which, he felt, would support the war in Vietnam.”

Martin A. Klaver contributed the lead editorial in the 1 June issue — “More on Tax-Refusal” — which is worth reproducing completely here as a good overview of the issue of war tax resistance as it stood at that time:

“Friends Journal,” writes John R. Ewbank, patent attorney and a member of Abington Meeting, Jenkintown, Pa., “might well mention the ‘mildest form of tax-refusal for Milquetoasts’: the refusal to pay the federal tax on telephone usage when billed for it. The telephone company can carry the accumulated unpaid tax until it equals the deposit, and then assess a charge for nominal discontinuance and reconnection, so that the penalties for prolonged persistence are paid to the phone company instead of to the government. How long it is worth while to carry the protest is a matter of individual judgment…”
For nearly a hundred years, John Ewbank adds, Americans have not been faced with a levy so conspicuously labeled “war tax” as this revived tax on telephone usage. According to his letter to the telephone company, “The publicity connected with the telephone tax has been so specifically related to the Vietnam war, and I am conscientiously so opposed to the Vietnam war, that my payment herewith omits the $1.03 federal tax. There are so few opportunities for protest — even feeble, futile protest — that [this] becomes one of the few available gestures.”
For Milquetoasts or not, feeble or not, the gesture is a form of civil disobedience differing more in degree than in kind from refusal to pay the federal income tax — or that part of it that goes for war. It seems a little unfair to make it at the expense of the telephone company, which is thereby put to added trouble and expense, if only in its bookkeeping department, but it is a protest.
This year, it appears, the thin ranks of those refusing to pay income taxes for reasons of conscience were somewhat augmented. An April release from the office of A.J. Muste cites a statement signed by 360 persons, declaring that they would refuse to pay taxes voluntarily as long as United States forces continue to be used “in violation of the U.S. Constitution, international law, and the United Nations Charter.”
The release says that some signers are leaving the money they owe the government in banks, where the Internal Revenue Service can seize it, while others will contribute it to CARE, UNICEF, or similar agencies. It also notes that, according to the Internal Revenue Code, “willful refusal to pay taxes may be punished by jail sentences of up to one year and fines as high as $10,000.”
This is not tax-refusal for Milquetoasts, although in the past fines and jail sentences have been rare indeed. The law is enforced by placing a lien on the tax refuser’s property or attaching his salary. There have been a number of instances where actions instituted against individuals were simply dropped. But if tax-refusal should reach important proportions, the present seemingly casual attitude might change; the IRS might decide that it must do something to show that it is not virtually inviting more and more trouble.
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting was concerned this year with the problem posed by employes of two Quaker groups who have asked their employers not to withhold federal taxes from their salaries. The Yearly Meeting’s Peace Committee is not only seeking a solution to this problem but is also seeking special conferences with Internal Revenue Service officials to acquaint them with the reasons why some Friends refuse to pay their taxes.
During the Yearly Meeting’s discussion it was brought out that Friends Committee on National Legislation for some time has been exploring the possibility of drafting legislation in this area making it possible for Americans who have conscientious objections to having their property used for war to pay equivalent taxes for other uses. A number of congressmen have been receptive to the idea, but so far no formula has been found that promises to attract the necessary support.
Meanwhile most Quakers (like this one) pay their income taxes (including the reimposed telephone tax) without a murmur. But there is a consensus on a fundamental: Friends’ basic belief that in matters of conscience each individual must choose his own course. If that course brings him into conflict with government, he must decide for himself what he must do: obey in silence, obey and at the same time protest, or resort to civil disobedience of one kind or another. Whether any government can grant any of its citizens the “right” to violate any of its laws is open to debate. The citizen can hardly lay claim to such a right, yet when he feels that he has a duty to break the law, when he says, “God helping me, I can do no other,” then we must accord him our respect.

The 15 July issue noted that “two young Quaker workers… have voluntarily taken drastic cuts in salary rather than pay taxes for war in Vietnam.” The two were John L.P. Maynard and Robert W. Eaton, who reduced their incomes to the maximum allowable before federal income tax withholding began — something on the order of $75 per month.

The Conservative branch of the Ohio Yearly Meeting met in August. According to William P. Taber, Jr.’s report on the meeting, “we asked our members to consider supporting tax refusal and the sending of aid to the civilians of all Vietnam.”

On the other hand, at the Westerly (Rhode Island) Monthly Meeting, the message was more mixed: “Many Friends feel that not to pay their taxes is disrespect for the law, breeding anarchy. Yet they deplore the fact that their tax money is being used to prosecute a morally indefensible war in Vietnam.” The best they could come up with was to approve a suggestion that Friends accompany their tax payments with a statement of protest.

The pseudonymous history columnist “Now and Then” took up the issue of war tax resistance in the 1 September issue:

A scruple against paying taxes which directly or indirectly support war has had a long if sporadic history among members of the Society of Friends. It received official support in London in 1679 when decision was made that fine or punishment for such refusal could be reported by the meeting in the annual listing of “sufferings for Truth.” At Philadelphia Yearly Meeting every year lately this concern has been voiced by individuals. In 1966 the Meeting went so far as to authorize some minor action on the subject, including a delegation to visit the Internal Revenue authorities and to explain the tender conscience of the increasing number of Friends who refuse part or all of their Federal income tax.
The most intensive consideration of the matter among the Meeting’s membership appears to have occurred more than two centuries ago. Before 1700 the Pennsylvania Assembly was asked by the mother country to supply men and funds for British military enterprises in the colonies. The Quaker legislators, when they complied, did so uneasily, with the excuses that it was for defense or that the money was voted nominally for the sovereign’s use and that they were not responsible for what use the king (or queen) chose to make of it. They also accepted as a permanent unqualified mandate the words of Jesus, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.” Sometimes Friends distinguished as acceptable mixed taxes and as unacceptable those taxes that were definitely labeled for war.
We are indebted to John Woolman’s Journal (Chapter Ⅴ) for an account of the exercise that arose in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting both in 1755 and in 1757. In the former year a committee was appointed which issued an epistle expressing the feeling that “the large sum granted by the late act of Assembly for the King’s use is principally intended for purposes inconsistent with our peaceable testimony,” and that “as we cannot be concerned in wars and fightings, so neither ought we to contribute thereto by paying the tax directed by the said act, though suffering be the consequence of our refusal.” Woolman speaks of the conference on the subject “as the most weighty that ever I was at.” There was not unanimity in the group. Some who felt easy to pay the tax withdrew, but twenty-one substantial Friends subscribed the epistle; they included John Woolman, John Churchman (who also mentions the matter in his Journal), Anthony Benezet, John Pemberton, and Samuel Fothergill, an English public Friend visiting America.
In the Yearly Meeting of 1757 the matter was opened again, and a committee of about forty Friends were appointed to consider “whether or no it would be best at this time publicly to consider it in the Yearly Meeting.” Visitors from other Yearly Meetings — including John Hunt and Christopher Wilson from England — were asked to join the committee. The decision was negative. There was difference of opinion on the subject, and “for that and several other reasons” the committee unanimously agreed that it was not proper to enter into public discussion of the matter. Meanwhile it recommended that Friends of differing opinions “have their minds covered with fervent charity towards one another.” One wonders why the different result from two years before and what were some of the “other reasons.”
Part of the answer, I think, is to be found in a letter to John Hunt and Christopher Wilson, sent to them by the Meeting for Sufferings in London. This letter is dated 9.ⅶ.1756 and is signed by Benjamin Bourne, clerk. I shall quote it as I have copied it from the manuscript minutes of the Meeting. It falls in date between the two Philadelphia Yearly Meetings described above, at the second of which Hunt and Wilson were present and in a position to transmit the urgent advice of London Friends.
The main purpose of their mission to Pennsylvania, as is well known, was to prevent the home government’s proposed requirement of an oath for members of the Assembly by asking Friends to refuse to run for election. The British Friends asked the government to let them attempt first to bring about the purging of the Assembly of Quakers. In this they succeeded to the extent that most Friends withdrew from the Assembly; thus the threat was averted. Evidently the same pressure was exercised to encourage Friends to pay provincial war taxes to the British crown and particularly not to publicize their scruple against paying them. But neither the minutes of Philadelpha Yearly Meeting for 1757 (under 9 mo. 23) nor its epistles — whether to London Yearly Meeting or to its own members — are so explicit as the letter. After repeating the primary commission to the English delegates to try “to prevail on Friends in Pennsylvania to refuse being chosen into Assembly during the present commotions in America” and “to make them fully sensible of their danger, and how much it concerns them, the Province, and their posterity to act conformably to this request and the expectations of the government,” the letter continues:

And as you will know that very disadvantageous impressions have been made here by the advices given by some Friends against the payment of a tax lately laid by the provincial assembly, it is recommended in a particular manner that you endeavour to remove all occasions of misunderstanding on this account, and to explain and enforce our known principles and practice respecting the payment of taxes for the support of civil government agreeable to the several advices of the Yearly Meeting founded on the precept and example of our Saviour.
May that wisdom which is from above attend you in this weighty undertaking, and render your labours effectual for the purposes intended that you may be the happy instruments of averting the dangers that threaten the liberties and privileges of the people in general and restore and strengthen that union and harmony which ought to subsist in every part of our Christian Society.

Two brief lists were delivered with the above letter: extracts from London Yearly Meeting minutes of 1715, 1732, 1733, 1734, and 1735, in which the payment of dues to the government is inculcated; and titles of Acts of Parliament, seven chapters in four Acts from the reigns of William and Mary and Queen Anne, “wherein it is expressed that the taxes are for carrying on a war.” The final phrase was to leave no doubt that English Friends encouraged no escape on the ground that a Quaker conscience could assume the doubtful or peaceful purpose of the legislation.
The grounds on which the scruple among Friends was silenced in 1757 are clear. Friends had long paid such taxes and wished to obey the laws. If Pennsylvania Friends refused to vote for them as assemblymen or to collect them as tax collectors or to pay them as subjects, the liberties enjoyed in the colony, such as permitting affirmations in place of oaths, would be terminated. The exhortations in the gospels and New Testament epistles in favor of paying Caesar his dues were applicable. The early Quaker examples of civil disobedience in other matters were forgotten, and the relevance of the continuing Quaker testimonies against personal participation in war and against the payment of tithes was not cited. In the latter area Friends were resolutely against payment and suffered ruinous distraints. Evidently dues for the support of “hireling ministers” seemed more obnoxious than taxes for the prosecution of war. If Colonial Friends disagreed with the practice of Friends in England or even with one another they would expose the Society to disharmony.
When Woolman’s Journal was reprinted in England in 1775 the whole section on paying or not paying taxes was omitted, but in America the problem already was taking a different form. Friends and others had opposed taxation without representation when the Stamp Act was passed in 1765. With the outbreak of the Revolution the issue was one of using continental currency or of paying taxes to support war against Great Britain. This, many American Friends (like Job Scott) and Meetings were willing openly to oppose.

The New York Yearly Meeting issued a statement “on the tragic situation in Vietnam,” saying that it represented “a supreme test” to “the spiritual vitality of the Religious Society of Friends.” The statement, reprinted in the 15 September issue of the Journal included this point:

We call upon Friends to examine their conscience concerning whether they cannot more fully dissociate themselves from the war machine either by tax refusal or by changing their occupations.

The 1 November issue noted that “the newsletters of several Friends’ organizations” are encouraging their readers to “protest your telephone war tax” but also suggests that in some cases the protest was a pretty pathetic one: “Stickers saying ‘The Vietnam War Tax Included in This Bill Is Paid Only Under Protest’ are available from the American Friends Service Committee.”

The following issue included a letter-to-the-editor from Franklin Zahn in which he encouraged a more practical approach: “Each month I pay all of my phone bill but 7 percent, informing the company it is against my conscience to pay the direct war tax. For five months the company added the unpaid balances to each new bill, then wrote it was referring the unpaid total to Internal Revenue Service and wiping my bill clean of debt… How will Internal Revenue handle this? Past experience with unpaid income taxes indicates IRS may ask for payment but make no bank account seizure until the amount totals more than $5, at which time it takes an extra 6 percent (per annum) as fine. Not paying direct war taxes is part of Quaker peace testimony. Don’t pay for a wrong number.”

Franklin Zahn

We’ve encountered Franklin Zahn before. He was listed as the contact person for “a leaflet on tax refusal” in a 1959 issue, and also something described as “the historical material” on the subject — “Early Friends and War Taxes” (perhaps the same leaflet).

Here is some more of his work:

In the 1 June 1969 issue, he responded in a letter-to-the-editor to an article that apparently suggested “that Friends drop their middle-class attitude of changing law and join the less privileged whose only method has been evading law.” Zahn responded:

A basic test for conscience is the categorical imperative: What happens if everybody else did the same? For [draft] evasion, I can see only the tightening up of conscription law. For open resistance, however, the end of conscription.
For myself, personally beyond the applicable age, the corresponding form of resistance is refusal to pay war taxes. If everyone in the world practiced it, the result would be close to total elimination of war.

I recently harbored an AWOL who jumped ship fifteen minutes before it sailed for Vietnam, but a better Quaker witness and confrontation would have been for both of us openly to declare our civil-military disobedience — he, his desertion; I, my aiding and abetting, and face the penalties for our actions. But maybe I should rejoice in that having evaded the law I have lost some middle-classness.
In the 15 April 1972 issue, he suggested that the spirit of the gospels meant that the “Render Unto Caesar” episode should be interpreted anew:

In the matter of war taxes, were Jesus addressing Christian stewards of God’s wealth who were citizens in a free democracy and responsible for its conduct and were be to pick up an American coin with its inscription, “In God We Trust,” his words might very well be:
If the God you trust is Mars, pay your taxes to him.
In the 1 March 1973 issue, he gave “a historical summary” of how Quakers had dealt with the issue of war taxes:

With war taxes as with slavery, John Woolman stands out as the pioneer in getting the Society of Friends to face the issue. His motivation in bringing the concern to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in 1755 came from the increasing willingness of the Quaker government of the colony of Pennsylvania to vote money for war.
The Quaker Assembly had begun to weaken in its peace testimony in 1709. First it had refused to vote £4000 for an expedition into Canada, forthrightly saying, “It was contrary to their religious principles to hire men to kill one another.” But later they voted £500 “for the Queen” as a token of their respect, with a rider saying, “The money should be put into a safe hand till they were satisfied from England it should not be employed for the use of war.” But in 1711 a similar request resulted in £2000 being voted, with Isaac Norris echoing Fox in explaining: “We did not see it to be inconsistent with our principles to give the Queen money notwithstanding any use she might put it to, that not being our part but hers.”
That same year William Penn reputedly wrote the Queen (I have not found historical verification): “Our civil obedience is only due to Christ, not to confound the things of God with Caesar’s; for no man can be true to Him that’s false to his own conscience, nor can he extort from it a tribute to carry on any war, nor ought true Christians to pay it.” [I also have been unable to find a source for this quote —♇]
Whatever influence the letter may have had, the fact seems to be that none of the £2000 voted “for the Queen’s use” was spent on the military expedition. But the principle of passing the buck for war seems to have been established in the Assembly, which took the view that while Quakers refused to bear arms themselves they did not condemn it in others. In 1737 the Assembly told the Governor it could not vote money for war, but acknowledged that on the other hand it had obligations to aid the government. The crisis, however, came in the French and Indian War in 1755, when individual taxpayers decided they could no longer pass the war buck to the Assembly.
In November of that year John Churchman and other Friends met with Assembly Friends, and about twenty of them said, in part:
“…As the raising sums of money, and putting them into the hands of committees, who may apply them to purposes inconsistent with the peaceable testimony we profess, …appears to us in its consequences, to be destructive of our religious liberties; we apprehend many among us will be under the necessity of suffering, rather than consenting thereto, by the payment of a tax for such purposes; and thus the fundamental part of our constitution may be essentially affected, and that free enjoyment of conscience by degrees be violated;…”
The setting for this ultimatum is of interest: Quaker tax-payers, one-third of the population of the colony, Quaker Assemblymen a majority in a legislature which had non-Quakers like Benjamin Franklin — the most important person in the colony.
The Assembly, when the vote came, said it could not give money for munitions but that, as a “tribute to Caesar,” it was voting £4000 for “bread, beef, pork, flour, wheat, or other grain.” The Governor who had received the request from New England for a grant to buy a different granular material, told the Assembly that their term “other grain” meant gunpowder and so spent the money.
Woolman’s thoughts about war taxes and his journeying to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting that year with his concern are familiar in his Journal. One passage, however, seems pertinent to 1973 as Friends urge a divided Congress to cut off war funds:
“Some of our members who are officers in civil government are… called upon in their respective stations to assist in things relative to the wars… if they see their brethren united in payment of a tax to carry on the said wars, may think their case not much different, and so might quench the tender movings of the Holy Spirit in their minds.”
On December 12, 1755, he; Churchman and others drew up an Epistle to Pennsylvania Friends:
“…The large sum granted… is principally intended for purposes inconsistent with our peaceable testimony; we therefore think that as we cannot be concerned in wars and fightings, so neither ought we to contribute thereto, by paying the tax directed by said act, though suffering be the consequence of our refusal.… Though some part of the money to be raised… is said to be for such benevolent purposes as supporting our friendship with our Indian Neighbors and relieving the distresses of our fellow-subjects, who have suffered in the present calamities, …we could most cheerfully contribute to those purposes, if they were not so mixed, that we cannot… show our hearty concurrence therewith without at the same time assenting to… practices which we apprehend contrary to the testimony which the Lord hath given us to bear…”
The “tax” committee of Yearly Meeting decided that refusal should be an individual matter, and in 1756 we find Friends like Joshua Evans conscious there was no solid front: “I found it best for me to refuse paying demands on my estate which went to pay the expenses of war, and although my part might appear at best as a drop in the ocean, yet the ocean, I considered, was made of many drops.”
The effect of such witness was not to stop the war but, as Woolman may have felt of even greater importance, to help Quaker legislators to be true to their own “tender movings.” In that year the last of the Quaker Assemblymen had resigned and no more ran for the office — in Franklin’s approving words, “choosing rather to quit their power than their principle.” The 70-year experiment of a Quaker government came to an end over the question of war taxes. By 1757, according to James Pemberton, it was clear the war-makers were extracting their toll: “The tax in this country [is] pretty well collected and many in this city particularly suffered by distraint of their goods and some being near cast into jail.”
Two decades later, when the bigger test of the Revolutionary War came and the “fighting” Free Quakers separated, tax refusal was so well established that some Quakers appear almost to have over-reacted. In The Quakers in the American Colonies, Rufus Jones writes:
“There was plenty for the overseers to do in these early days of the war.… Shutting their hearts against the pleadings of mercy for their brothers and sons who had joined the ‘associators’ or paid war taxes, or placed guns for defence upon their vessels, or paid fines for refusing to collect military taxes, or in any way aided the war on either side, they cleared the Society of all open complicity with it. The offense was reported to one Monthly Meeting, and at the next the testimony of disownment would go out.”
While by today’s permissive standards of the Society such peace witness seems more hysterical than historical, we need to be aware that in this period as in the Civil War, “tax” sometimes meant the substitutionary amount paid in lieu of military service by COs.
In New England the question of paying war taxes to the rebelling colonial governments was the precipitating cause for the split-off of Free Quakers. There, as elsewhere, when the Revolutionary War broke out, Friends generally agreed they should not pay specific war taxes but on “mixed” taxes — the subject of the 1755 Epistle in Pennsylvania — there was no consensus.
Job Scott in New England Yearly Meeting was the most erudite and detailed advocate of not paying mixed taxes. In his essay, subtitled “A truly conscientious scruple with respect to the payment of such taxes as are in part demanded for and applied to the support of war and fighting,” and addressed to “Friendly reader,” he reasoned in 1780:
“Now then, if a collector of taxes comes to me and in Caesar’s name demands a tax of £20 which I am persuaded is so far mixed, part for war and part for other charges, that my conscience forbids my paying it… I am not to blame for not paying it: if Caesar pleaseth to separate them I can gladly pay the one part and refuse the other.… though magistry be a divine ordinance, yet it does not follow that every requisition of the civil magistrate ought to be actively obeyed, anymore than because it is a duty indispensable and incumbent on all mankind to pay all their just debts, that therefore we must pay all demands however unjust.”
Tradition-minded Friends who used the Caesar argument sometimes pointed to George Fox who in 1667, paying a specific war tax for the Dutch war, made a distinction between this and direct military service. But the homeland of Quakerdom by the end of the 18th century had also moved towards tax refusal; in 1796 London Yearly Meeting minuted its censure on “the active compliance of some members with the rate (tax) for raising men for the Navy” and directed local Friends to have such cases under their care. Those who paid war taxes without even waiting for the process of distraint were considered to have acted “inconsistently.”
In the 19^th century less material on taxes was published by Friends. Perhaps there is here a fruitful field awaiting some researcher of yearly and quarterly minutes [indeed there is –♇]. Was there less interest in the problems, or was refusal taken for granted? Did non-Friend Thoreau’s ringing call to refusal in the Mexican-American War preempt the field? Whatever the reasons, as Friends face today’s violence with its automated battlefields and nuclear missiles — where the conscription of human bodies for mass armies may become less important — and conscription of money for sophisticated technology more important — the relevancy of the tax question to a modern, effective peace testimony has reached an all-time high.
In its 1 May 1973 issue, the Journal noted that the IRS had made a half-hearted attempt to seize Zahn’s “1955 Dodge station wagon” for $6.58 in resisted phone tax.

Although contemplating lying in front of the car as a final protest before the towing, Franklin calmly removed his personal effects from the car and showed no agitation at this seizure of his property. At the last minute, however, the IRS men suddenly removed the chains, saying, “We just got new orders — we’re calling off the dogs.” The mood changed from one of tense formality to joviality as the men left. “It was as though,” Franklin says, “they were glad the little bluff had failed.”
A letter-to-the-editor from Zahn appears in the 15 November 1978 issue, in which he responds to “a frequent objection to war tax refusal: that it logically leads to a host of other tax refusal.” He suggests that because military expenses are such an overwhelming part of the federal budget, only war resisters are likely to find tax resistance to be a tempting tactic. And anyway, “if a few other than war objectors choose to refuse, I see no objection to their doing so.”
In the 1 January 1980 issue, Zahn writes in to make a fresh case for war tax refusal:

In refusing personal service, one considers one’s integrity — conscience: Can I be part of a machine geared to agony and death? But often a different criterion is applied to refusal to pay: How effective a protest is it? If the protest-value of tax refusal is the only consideration, Friends may feel the effort is better spent in writing a legislator or phoning the White House. (But I have found that a letter to the government saying I am refusing to pay war taxes is one letter officials never ignore.)
Arguments against the effectiveness of war tax refusal can be self-fulfilling prophecies. Friends may not wish to join a public witness which is so small it attracts little notice — therefore it remains small. Yet it is possible that an announcement of intention to pay no further war taxes would be the most single effective act against the arms race that members of the Society of Friends could take.
But sudden, dramatic decisions for effectiveness are not in the manner of Friends. Perhaps we should forget all about witness and consider tax refusal purely as personal integrity. This basis, after all, is the one for our day-to-day decisions in matters of principle. We refuse to steal, not as some witness in influencing others, but because for us stealing is wrong. We refuse to cheat, not as some protest against dishonesty or against anything else, but because cheating is not the way of the life of the Spirit. Questions of effectiveness become irrelevant.
The corresponding question for taxes could be, explicitly: Should I, a person in whom there is that of God, voluntarily pay all money asked of me for the purpose of injuring and killing millions of other persons in whom there is also that of God?
If trying to hold back some one-third of our federal income tax (which will go next year for current military uses) is too boggling, we can start modestly and refuse payment of only ten dollars — a small pinch of incense not voluntarily laid on Caesar’s altar. It can, to our conscience, be a symbol of our refusal of total submission to the military-industrial complex. But it can also symbolize the positive. It can be given to the Right Sharing of World Resources of Friends World Committee. It is possible a small amount like ten dollars will not even be collected by IRS. Each of us can try such an experiment for one year, and from then proceed as way opens.
Finally, in the March 1997 issue, the Journal announced Zahn’s death (nearly a year after the fact). It called him “a peace activist and worldly ascetic” and said that he practiced “religious asceticism — regular meditation, vegetarianism, celibacy, and voluntary poverty — as both the sustenance for his personal spiritual life and public witness to the power of love and truth in the world.” He was among those conscientious objectors who at first accepted alternative civilian service, and then decided to resist the draft entirely. He also was among those who tried to sail into nuclear weapons test zones to disrupt the tests.

An Associated Press dispatch from 15 April 1966:

Doctor to Lose Scholarship If He Refuses to Pay Tax

Washington (AP) — Professor William C. Davidon of Haverford College, one of the signers of a published statement pledging to withhold payment of federal income taxes in protest against the Viet Nam war, has been warned he may lose a Fulbright scholarship for study abroad if he carries out the plan.
U.S. officials said the Board of Foreign Scholarships, a non-governmental group which selects recipients for scholarships administered through the State Department, had reminded Davidon that he could forfeit the scholarship if he violates the law.
Officials said the board has asked the Internal Revenue Service to let it know if Davidon breaks the law.
Davidon, chairman of Haverford’s physics department, was awarded the $12,000 grant for a study trip to Denmark next year.

The FBI was nice enough to take careful notes at a war tax resistance protest that took place in Washington, D.C. on this date in 1968, and write up what they saw. Seems that the government does sometimes pay attention to protests.

Tax Resistance Action in Washington, D.C., March 15, 1968

An advertisement in the March 7, 1968, issue of “Village Voice,” a weekly newspaper concerning activities in Greenwich Village, and other sections of New York, N.Y., was captioned “Tax Resistance Action in Washington, D.C.” It stated the Catholic Worker, Resist, Writers and Editors War Tax Protest, and the War Resisters League would sponsor the activity at 1 p.m. on March 15, 1968, at the Internal Revenue Service, Washington, D.C. (WDC).
This advertisement indicated the peaceful action at the Internal Revenue Service would be preceded by a public meeting in Judiciary Square, Fourth and E Streets, N.W., WDC, at 11 a.m. Dr. Arthur Waskow of the Institute for Policy Studies; Dave Dellinger, Chairman of the National Mobilization Committee (to End the War in Vietnam); Harold Tovish of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Barbara Deming, an author; and Professor William C. Davidon of Haverford College would be among the speakers at this public meeting.
On March 13, 1968, a confidential source, who has furnished reliable information in the past, made available a flyer published by the Tax Resistance Project, War Resisters League, 5 Beekman Street, New York, N.Y., calling for support of the activity on March 15, 1968. This flyer asks participants to bring their completed income tax return or a statement explaining why they are refusing to file a return. It is stated that these returns and/or statements, accompanied by an insufficient amount of money or no money at all, will be turned in to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), WDC, at 1 p.m., March 15, 1968.
A copy of this flyer is attached.
The publication, “Washington ’68” describes the Institute for Policy Studies, 1520 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W., WDC, as an institution created to serve as an independent center of research and education on public policy problems in WDC.
The National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam was formerly known as the Spring Mobilization Committee (SMC).

The SMC is described in the publication entitled “Communist Origin and Manipulation of Vietnam Week (April 8–15, 1967),” a report by the Committee on Un-American Activities, House of Representatives. On page 53, the report states in part, “Communists are playing dominant roles in both the Student Mobilization Committee and the Spring Mobilization Committee.”

A second source, who has furnished reliable information in the past, as of August 3, 1967, identified Arthur Waskow as a member of the Steering Committee of the Washington Mobilization to End the War in Vietnam, an outgrowth of the SMC.
A third confidential source, who has furnished reliable information in the past, reported on May 14, 1963, that during a symposium in New York City on May 10, 1963, David Dellinger, editor of Liberation magazine, identified himself as a pacifist, advocated a communist society, and said, “I am a communist.” However, he pointed out that he was not a “Soviet-type” communist.
On March 30, 1961, Professor William C. Davidon was a participant in a program on Radio Station WEAU, Chicago, Illinois, concerning “Peace Walks.” During this program he admitted being a sponsor of the Committee to Secure Justice for Morton Sobell (Committee to Free Morton Sobell) (CFMS).
A characterization of the CFMS is attached.
An article appearing in the January 10, 1967 issue of the “Cape Cod Standard-Times,” a daily newspaper, Hyannis, Massachusetts, stated that Barbara Deming returned to the United States the previous day after spending eleven days in North Vietnam. She accused the United States of waging a war of terror against a civilian population.
On March 15, 1968, Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation observed approximately fifty-five people gathered in Judiciary Square, WDC. At approximately 11:30 a.m., Professor William C. Davidon, acting as master of ceremonies, opened the program by stating that a large number of people are not paying taxes because their money is being used to kill in Vietnam. He estimated that four thousand people are not paying the telephone tax.
Professor Davidon then introduces Arthur Waskow as a representative of Resist. Waskow described Resist as a group encouraging and supplying funds to those who refuse to kill. Waskow said they were assembled to uphold the law. He said that the war in Vietnam is illegal, and that the crime is in the White House and executive offices, not in the streets. He claimed that the President and the Secretaries of State and Defense are the ones violating the law.
Waskow further stated that the President has helped wreck the dollar with the war in Vietnam. He urged those present to uphold the economy and the law by withholding that portion of their income tax that is paying for the “obscene” war. Waskow also felt it is illegal for IRS to collect money to pay for that war.
The next speaker, Harold Tovish, stated the Johnson Administration has alienated the youth of today with lies and a foul war. He said that the youth of America wants a life that is worth living, and he was not certain that life today is worth living. Tovish also said they had gathered in WDC to show that they cannot tolerate the type of life that has been formed for Americans today.
At approximately noon, March 15, 1968, the majority of the group left Judiciary Square and walked to the Constitution Avenue entrance of the IRS building. About fifteen carried posters reading, “Don’t Pay War Taxes.”
Beginning at about 12:15 p.m., Barbara Deming spoke to the gathering. She said she believes in government of, by, and for the people, and stressed how little tax money is spent for people. She claimed the United States is saying to the Vietnamese — let us self-determine you or we will have to destroy you. Deming stated the lives of the Vietnamese do not belong to the Government, and that she refuses to pay her taxes to deliver these lives “up to Caesar.”
An individual identified as Wally Nelson stated that in 1948 he affirmed that no human being should be killed and indicated he has refused to pay taxes since that date. He said that rational people should not pay for slaughter, and should not allow a portion of their taxes to be used for that purpose. Nelson stated that any government that prides itself on killing people owes its people an apology. He indicated he will continue to refuse to pay taxes.
James Leo Herlihy, a novelist, spoke briefly about the inflated cost of killing people you do not really hate. He said that at one time it cost $14,000. to kill a person during a war, but that now that cost has risen to $234,000.
David Dellinger spoke of refusing to pay taxes to a government that tortures, kills, and maims people. He stressed the need for door to door contact to ask people how long they are going to be willing to pay for killing.
Professor Davidon then read what he said was a telegram from three doctors in Cambridge, Massachusetts, supporting their action against IRS.
At approximately 1 p.m., March 15, 1968, a delegation of seven of the demonstrators was admitted to the IRS Building to meet with IRS officials. This delegation said they were prepared to deliver “thirty envelopes” to IRS.
Whle waiting outside the entrance one ⸺ ⸺ of Connecticut state an associate has been harassed by IRS since 1965 for not paying taxes, and that he, Hayworth, is now suffering the same harassment. [Probably Neil Haworth―♇]
A ⸺ from the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania area, and ⸺ of Princeton, both spoke briefly against paying taxes to support the illegal war in Vietnam.
The demonstrators passed out literature of the War Resisters League. One leaflet captioned, “Resist Vietnam War Taxes,” states that about 67 percent of taxes collected by the Government go for war and preparations for war, and that about 23 percent goes for the war in Vietnam. Another captioned, “Hang Up on War! — Telephone War Tax Refusal Campaign,” urges refusal to pay the ten percent telephone tax.
The delegation that had been admitted to the IRS Building at about 1 p.m. left the building at approximately 1:55 p.m., and the demonstrators dispersed shortly thereafter. There were no arrests or incidents during this demonstration.
On March 15, 1968, Mr. Ray Brennan, Internal Security Division, Office of the Assistant Commissioner, Inspection, IRS, advised that the following were admitted to meet with Deputy Assistant Commissioner Leon C. Greene and a representative of the IRS Baltimore District Office:

David Hartsough

Arthur Waskow

Barbara Deming

William Davidon

Wallace Nelson

Harold Tovich

David Dellinger

A copy of an IRS news release dated March 15, 1968, concerning the activity on that date is attached.

The attached flyer announcing the action was a typewritten sheet with a crudely-drawn headline:

Friday, March 15
Tax Resistance Action in Washington, DC

Internal Revenue Service Headquarters, 12^th St. & Constitution Ave.

Join us in an act of collective tax resistance. Bring your completed tax return, form 1040, or a statement explaining why you are not filing, and together we will return forms and statements accompanied by either no money or an insufficient amount of money. The action at IRS will be preceded by a public meeting at Judiciary Square, 4^th & E St. N.W., 11 a.m. Dr. Arthur Waskow of the Institute for Policy Studies and Dave Dellinger, Chairman of the National Mobilization Committee, will be among the speakers.
We act because for many verbal opposition to the war in Vietnam is no longer enough. Resistance has become necessary. Our consciences dictate it. The young men resisting the draft have shown a way and we who are not subject to the draft must develop creative parallels. Tax resistance is such a parallel act because it confronts the administration directly and challenges it at a vital point. It liberates the tax resister by showing him that he does have choices.
Total refusers, partial tax refusers, and telephone tax refusers will all be there. Join us.

That flyer then listed the sponsors (Catholic Worker, Writers & Editors Tax Protest, Resist, and War Resisters League) and included a tear-off section that could be returned to War Resisters League headquarters for people who wanted more information or transportation options. It encouraged recipients to also sign this pledge: “I dissociate myself from my government’s actions in Vietnam and therefore I am not paying all or more portion of my 1967 income taxes. Signed:…”

The IRS press release, also attached to the FBI report, was mostly uninteresting. It snidely contrasted the protesters with “[t]he overwhelming majority of taxpayers [who] carry out this obligation of citizenship in a conscientious manner” and also suggested that the protesters were part of a tiny movement, most of whom would ultimately buckle: “In a relatively few cases, IRS has had to enforce collection against tax protestors. Most have paid when asked and some who failed to pay voluntarily notified the IRS where the taxes could be collected from their bank accounts.”

Get Yourself a Peace. Seventy cents of every 1969 tax dollar went to pay for the costs of America’s past wars and the War in Vietnam. You spend $400 yearly on the Vietnam War. Where was your peace, and how can you go about getting it? Tax resistance is what some people have decided to do for peace. They have kept the 10% Federal Tax on telephone bills. All of this tax is allocated to War costs. Customers who have refused to pay, and submitted a written explanation to the telephone company, have not had their service discontinued. Telephone officials simply forward these messages to Internal Revenue. Others have declined to pay the 10% surtax, all of which was levied in 1968 to pay war costs. And a few people have withheld the percentage of their tax that supports the Defense Establishment. These funds, placed in an escrow account, generate income used to promote and support human resource projects. The time has come for you to get a peace. A form of tax resistance could get you a big one. For more detailed information, contact: Boston War Tax Resistance… — from the 14 May 1970 edition of Cycle

The 14 May 1970 edition of Cycle, a student paper from Fitchburg (Massachusetts) State College, gives us a good peek into the rhetoric and tactics of the war tax resistance movement at that time:

If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bill this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure as it would be to pay them and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood.
Henry David Thoreau

A Call to War Tax Resistance

In 1968, the United States government spend $103 billion to pay for present and past wars and to be prepared in case of future wars. This was 66% of the entire federal budget of $156 billion. One hundred and three billion dollars exceeds the gross national product of all but six nations.
Of this $103,198,100,000, $29 billion was spent on the Vietnam war, to continue a conflict whose brutality, immorality, and illegality have sickened most Americans and the vast majority of the people of the world. Already, this war has brought death to more than 42,000 Americans and more than two million Vietnamese. It is a spur to the arms race and continually threatens world peace.
Almost $20 billion will be invested this fiscal year in making more frightful our nuclear missile and bomber arsenal, weapons already so destructive that they can deliver ten tons of explosive power for every person on the globe.
$330 million will be spent on chemical and biological weapons that are polluting the environment and endangering the people in the United States and other countries without even being used; simply by being improperly stored.
$7.5 billion will go toward research on new and yet more fearful weapons.
$1.2 billion has been authorized for the Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) system in 1968.
$500 million to $1 billion is the estimated budget of the CIA.
Vast sums will be paid to the corporations and research institutes that design and build the weapons. In fiscal year 1968, the following companies, a handful of the biggest among thousands engaged in war production and research, enjoyed these military contracts:

General Dynamics $2.2 billion

Lockheed Aircraft $1.8 billion

General Electric $1.4 billion

United Aircraft $1.3 billion

McDonnell-Douglas $1.1 billion

AT&T $777 million

The following amounts were spent in fiscal 1968 for projects that seem to have little to do with primary human needs:
For moon and other space exploration $3.4 billion.
For farm subsidies to wealthy landowners $3.1 billion.
In comparison to the enormous expenditures for acts and instruments of military violence, luxury space programs, and subsidies to the wealthy, and at a time when city governments are crying for more funds, the United States government spent these sums on improving the health, education, and general welfare of the people within this country.
Slum rebuilding $1.9 billion.
Other poverty programs $7.2 billion.
Health programs $1.8 billion.
Educational programs and subsidies $3.7 billion.
Direct, nonmilitary foreign aid to underdeveloped countries totaled about $1.6 billion.
The U.S. appropriation to the United Nations was $109 million, about the cost of one Polaris submarine.
In fiscal 1968, the total of all non-military expenditure was approximately 34% of the military expenses.
Throughout the United States, young people by the hundreds of thousands are rebelling in disgust and anger against this squandering of resources on war, and neglect of the day-to-day practical needs of the people. They are not alone in seeing only massive social disruption and probably nuclear war as eventual consequences. They are risking their freedom, careers, and often their lives to protest and resist what they see to be wrong.
In the face of this shameful and alarming situation and in solidarity with the youth resisting it, we, as participants in War Tax Resistance, are resolved to confront our own complicity in war, waste, and callousness. We resolve to end to the extent we can our cooperation in a federal tax program geared to death more than life. The least measure of our resistance will be not to pay voluntarily $5 of federal taxes due.
We are prepared to bear the consequences of our actions, be these criticism and unpopularity, financial penalties, confiscation of our bank accounts and property, and, perhaps, imprisonment. These seem to us small inconveniences beside the agony of those killed or bereft by war, and the numb hopelessness of those crippled by poverty.
We invite all Americans to join us in some form of tax refusal. War tax resistance is not always easy, particularly for those whose taxes are withheld from their wages, but for most there is some variety of tax refusal that they can conscientiously adopt. It may be by not paying part or all of a balance “owed,” or by not paying federal telephone tax. War Tax Resistance has prepared literature and is setting up counseling services designed to help each individual find the best way of tax refusal and resistance for him. A list of Methods of War Tax Resistance follows this statement of purpose.
We also are developing a war tax resistance promotional program that will include advertisements, demonstrations, meetings, a bulletin, and other literature distribution. If you become a war tax resister, we hope you will allow yourself to be publicly identified with the movement and permit your name to be used on tax resistance literature.
War Tax Resistance will do more than concentrate on the weeks just before April 15. We are planning a year round educational and resistance program. If you agree with conscientious tax resistance as a means for opposing war, we hope you will communicate with us now. The included coupon is for your convenience.

Methods of Refusal

Refuse to pay at least $5 of your tax

The first goal of War Tax Resistance is to convince as many people as possible to refuse at least $5 of some tax owed the government. Nearly everyone can do this by refusing their federal telephone tax or part of their income tax. If hundreds of thousands refuse to pay $5, they will establish mass tax refusal. Besides having the burden of collecting the unpaid amounts, the government will be faced with the political fact of massive noncooperation with its warmaking policies.

Better yet, refuse to pay all the taxes you can

Even if some of your taxes are withheld, you can refuse to pay the balance and other taxes. These might include: taxes on additional income, the 10% surtax, and the telephone tax.

You can refuse to pay that percentage of your tax that goes for war

Two thirds or more of the federal budget pays for wars past, present, and future. To protest against war, a person can refuse that percentage of his tax. He can base his refusal on the percentage of the total national budget used for war, on the cost of the war in Vietnam, or on other calculations. Some people pay part of their tax and contribute the rest as a peace tax. Some give to the UN, or a relief agency, or some other organization engaged in peaceful, constructive work.

You can refuse to pay the 10% surtax

This surtax was imposed in 1968 to help pay for the war in Vietnam. Refusing to pay it is a direct protest against the war.

You can refuse to pay the federal telephone tax

The federal telephone tax was revived in 1966 to help pay for the war. Thousands are already not paying it. In all cases known to us but one, the telephone companies have continued service and referred the tax collection to IRS.

To Reduce or Eliminate the Withholding of Your Taxes You Can

Claim additional dependents

If you claim a sufficient number of dependents on your W-4 form you can reduce the amount of taxes withheld from your salary to zero. The law reads that a dependent has to live in your household and be supported by you. The fact is that many people, particularly draft age young men and the Vietnamese, depend on you. So long as you declare at the end of the year that by the government’s standards you owe so much and are refusing to pay it, the moral point is made

The law reads that it is illegal — fraudulent — to state on a tax form that someone claimed as a dependent falls within that category, as defined by the IRS, when he does not. But no fraud appears to be involved if the people claimed as dependents are identified as being outside the IRS categories. The issue has not been tested in the courts.

Make your employer an ally

Although the law reads that it is illegal not to withhold taxes from an employee’s wages, your employer may be sympathetic to your protest and be willing to assist — and make a protest of his own — by not withholding from your salary. It is always valuable to raise the question.

Organize an employment agency

Have your agency hire you and then have your present employer hire the agency to supply him with you. Naturally, an agency that you control will not withhold taxes from its employees. Getting organized is complicated, but if you and a few friends get together you can work out the problem. Write us for information.

Also You Can

Demand a refund

There are four ways to do this:

You may request a refund right on the 1040 form and stand a good chance of receiving it. Ask for a tax credit on Part Ⅴ of the form.

You may file form 843 for a refund.

If the above demands are refused, go to the Income Tax Board of Appeals. If the Board turns you down, sue.

You can also sue the government to refund all your taxes on the grounds that the taxes have been used for illegal and immoral purposes.

Protest by letter or in person

Any protest to IRS or other government officials will help express opposition to the war and to militarism. If you are unable to refuse taxes, protest them as vigorously as you can.

Maximize the Impact

Talk about your tax refusal with friends, neighbors, co-workers. This sort of direct contact changes many minds. Distribute tax refusal literature.
Inform the newspapers and other mass media in your neighborhood that you are resisting war taxes and why. Start a war tax resistance group in your community.
Organize or join demonstrations at your local IRS office.
Inform yourself thoroughly and become a tax refusal counselor. Let your community know through ads, leaflets, etc. that a counseling service is available.
Keep the War Tax Resistance Clearinghouse informed by writing or phoning about your activities. Communication is the lifeblood of any movement.
We invite war tax resisters to send War Tax Resistance the first $5 or more refused the federal government. This money will be used to publicize and expand the war tax resistance movement.
Until now, the government has not imprisoned anyone for conscientious tax refusal. A few have been given short sentences for refusing to reveal information about their incomes. In general, the IRS has been content to take money from tax refusers’ bank accounts, garnishee part of their wages, or, on rare occasions, seize and auction property.

Sponsors of War Tax Resistance

Winslow Ames

Joan Baez

Norma Becker

James Bristol

Prof. Noam Chomsky

Prof. Frank Collins

Tom Cornell

Prof. William Davidon

Dorothy Day

Dave Dellinger

Barbara Deming

Ralph DiGia

Prof. Douglas Dowd

Prof. Margaret Eberbach

Ruth Gage-Colby

Allen Ginsberg

Bob Haskell

James Leo Herlihy

Faye Knopp

Kennett Love

David McReynolds

Stewart and Charlotte Meacham

Rev. and Mrs. Arthur G. Melville

Karl Meyer

Jack Newfield

Grace Paley

Igal Roodenko

Rev. Finley Schaef

Dr. Benjamin Spock

Marj and Bob Swann

Arthur Waskow

George and Lillian Willoughby

Irma Zigas

Working Committee (in formation)

Norma Becker

Maris Cakars

Frank Collins

John Darr

Jerry Dickinson

Ralph DiGia

Bob Haskell

Neil Haworth

Peter Kiger

Kennett Love

Bradford Lyttle

Mark Morris

Christopher Pollock

Melinda Reed

Kay Van Deurs

Eric Weinberger

Prof. Warren Ambrose	Mathematics, M.I.T.
Dr. Donnell Boardman	Physician, Acton, Mass.
Mrs. Elizabeth Boardman	Acton, Mass.
Prof. Noam Chomsky	Linguistics, M.I.T.
Miss Barbara Deming	Writer, Wellfleet, Mass.
Prof. John Dolan	Philosophy, Chicago University
Prof. John Ek	Anthropology, Long Island University
Martha Bentley Hall	Musician, Brookline, Mass.
Dr. Thomas C. Hall	Physician, Brookline, Mass.
Rev. Arthur B. Jellis	First Parish in Concord, Unitarian-Universalist, Concord, Mass.
Prof. Donald Kalish	Philosophy, U.C.L.A.
Prof. Louis Kampf	Humanities, M.I.T.
Prof. Staughton Lynd	History, Yale University
Milton Mayer	Writer, Mass.
Prof. Jonathan Mirsky	Chinese Language and Literature, Dartmouth College
Prof. Sidney Morgenbesser	Philosophy, Columbia University
Prof. Wayne A. O’Neill	Graduate School of Education, Harvard University
Prof. Anatol Rapoport	Mental Health Research Institute, University of Michigan
Prof. Franz Schurmann	Center for Chinese Studies, University of Calif., Berkeley
Dr. Albert Szent Gyorgy	Institute for Muscle Research, Woods Hole, Mass.
Harold Tovish	Sculptor, Brookline, Mass.
Prof. Howard Zinn	Government, Boston University

General Dynamics	$2.2 billion
Lockheed Aircraft	$1.8 billion
General Electric	$1.4 billion
United Aircraft	$1.3 billion
McDonnell-Douglas	$1.1 billion
AT&T	$777 million

Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → United States → Vietnam War, ~1965–75 → No Tax for War Committee protest, 1967 → Ann &amp; William Davidon

360 Refuse To Pay Tax On Income

350 Balk at Taxes in a War Protest

Ad in Capital Paper Urges Others to Bar Payment

Joan Baez, Lynd, Muste

Cohen Is Determined

Ad Prepared Here

The Time Has Come

We will refuse to pay our federal income taxes voluntarily

An Open Letter *

Signers So Far

Some Methods of Nonpayment

Tax Refusal Urged by Group

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in 1966

Franklin Zahn

Doctor to Lose Scholarship If He Refuses to Pay Tax

Tax Resistance Action in Washington, D.C., March 15, 1968

Friday, March 15 Tax Resistance Action in Washington, DC

Internal Revenue Service Headquarters, 12th St. & Constitution Ave.

A Call to War Tax Resistance

Methods of Refusal

To Reduce or Eliminate the Withholding of Your Taxes You Can

Also You Can

Maximize the Impact

Sponsors of War Tax Resistance

Working Committee (in formation)

Some historical and global examples of tax resistance → United States → Vietnam War, ~1965–75 → No Tax for War Committee protest, 1967 → Ann & William Davidon

An Open Letter ^*

Friday, March 15
Tax Resistance Action in Washington, DC

Internal Revenue Service Headquarters, 12^th St. & Constitution Ave.