Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” → Quakers → 20th–21st century Quakers → Marjorie Nelson

The war tax resistance press blitz continues.

The Oregonian covers the tax resistance of John & Pat Schwiebert, and the recent IRS levy of their pension.

“We are real conscientious objectors to war,” John Schwiebert says. The couple is too old to be drafted — if there was still a draft — and “noncooperation is the only way we can object.”

“We are prepared, in any way, to resolve conflict by any peaceful means,” [Pat] says. “Living in community has taught us that conflict is inevitable and that there are ways to resolve that conflict peacefully.”

The Schwieberts live simply. They do not own a house, living in a community of nine adults at the 18th Avenue Peace House in Northeast Portland, a ministry of Metanoia Peace Community United Methodist Church. They have worked, not for full salaries, but for reduced stipends that are below taxable limits. They do not have checking or savings accounts and are careful not to own property that may be seized by the government.

For many years they managed to live without earning enough money to owe federal taxes. But that changed in , when John Schwiebert’s pension kicked in. Their solution has been to calculate the amount they owed, according to the IRS 1040 form, and present that money to Multnomah County. , they presented $3,500 to the Board of County Commissioners.

The Columbus Dispatch takes a look at resisters Rod Nippert, Ed Hedemann, and Marjorie Nelson and demonstrates some of the variety of tactics and motives among war tax resisters:

The IRS has continually tried to collect from Nippert and so far has failed.

“They would do all of these liens and notices, but they could never find anywhere to get any money,” he said, laughing.

Nippert said he typically owes between $500 and $1,000 a year.

“I always do sit down and fill out a tax form to see what I would owe,” he said. “I’m always sure to donate at least that much to organizations that are doing good works for humanity.”

Nippert said he doesn’t oppose everything the federal government does. He just can’t get around the war issue.

“I can’t fight in a war, and I can’t pay for anybody else to fight in a war. And anything I give (the IRS), they’ll take a percentage of it to use for war.”

Nelson is a Quaker who stopped paying part of her federal income tax in , around the time she visited Vietnam with the American Friends Service Committee.

Every year, she carefully calculates how much of her tax bill will go to fund current wars (she doesn’t mind paying for veterans’ benefits) and deducts it from her tax check. She includes a letter to the IRS explaining her reasoning.

And every year, the IRS collects the money anyway, by attaching a bank account or garnisheeing her wages. She doesn’t fight it.

“This is a testimony, this is a witness,” Nelson said. “I’m conscientiously opposed to war, but I have never tried to do anything underhanded or sneaky to keep them from collecting it if they have to do that.”

An Associated Press story that made the Columbus Dispatch:

Quaker Says She’ll Face Jail Rather Than Pay Fine

by Sue Cross
Associated Press Writer

Athens, Ohio — When Dr. Marjorie Nelson wrote “war tax deduction” on her federal income tax return to protest military spending, the Internal Revenue Service fined the 44-year-old Quaker $500 for filing a “frivolous tax return.”

Miss Nelson still hasn’t decided what to do with her tax forms, but says she’s willing to go to prison to uphold her religious beliefs if a court orders her to pay the fine. At least a half dozen other Ohioans face a similar choice.

“This business of laboring with the IRS is not my career. It’s just something that happened to me — I certainly find it strange,” said Miss Nelson, a teacher at Ohio University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine since .

In figuring a refund amount Miss Nelson believed was equal to her taxes that would go to support the military, she attached a letter explaining her religious objections. She says the $500 fine is a ploy to limit free speech on the nuclear war issue.

“It seems to me the government’s main purpose should be to collect the taxes, not to stifle a statement of conscientiousness. I get the feeling the government is trying to chill dissent, to intimidate people so they won’t speak up over issues of conscience.”

But the government attorney handling frivolous return cases in Ohio said efficient tax collection will be threatened if people aren’t stopped from filing inaccurate returns.

“It does not require great imagination to see that if all taxpayers were free to act as the plaintiff (Miss Nelson) acted here, our self-assessment system of taxation would be seriously jeopardized,” attorney Seth Heald said in documents filed in U.S. District Court at Columbus, where Miss Nelson’s case is pending.

Heald, of the U.S. Justice Department tax division, said incorrectly figuring a refund is just as wrong as falsifying income and causes just as much work for IRS clerks.

He said Congress passed the frivolous return law specifically to apply to war tax deductors and that waiting for a court to look at each return before judging it frivolous would let people ask for refunds “because the sky is blue.”

Since the frivolous return law took effect in , people across the country have challenged the fines in court.

Cases have been decided — all against the “war tax” deductors — in California and Massachusetts, but many people will fill out tax returns before their cases are decided. If courts rule against them and they don’t pay the fines, Miss Nelson believes they could go to jail.

In court documents, Miss Nelson said the IRS doesn’t fine people who refuse to pay taxes without explaining their objection.

She said her dispute with the government is the only way people who have taxes deducted from paychecks can oppose military funding. The self-employed can refuse to pay taxes, but most people can only ask for refunds of taxes they have already paid.

Bruce Campbell, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer handling Miss Nelson’s case, said it’s unlikely she or anyone else would go to prison.

Dr. Marjorie Nelson testifying at the House hearing.

Where are they now, 26 years later? Nelson is still resisting war taxes, I believe, or at least was as late as when she was interviewed for another article on war tax resisters for the Dispatch. I think also that Seth Heald is still working the tax angle at the Justice Department, and Bruce Campbell is still filing briefs for the ACLU.

Turning the chronometer in the other direction: Dr. Marjorie Nelson was captured by North Vietnam during the Tet offensive of and held as a prisoner of war for over two months. She had been doing medical work in Vietnam with the American Friends Service Committee. She later testified before Congress about evidence of torture she saw in patients she treated who had been imprisoned at the interrogation center at Quảng Ngãi prison, which had been run jointly by the forces of the United States and South Vietnam.

Some tax resistance news from hither and yon:

  • A group of people in the Netherlands called “Belastingstaking voor Klimaat” (“Tax Strike for Climate”) have decided to no longer “silently pay for global warming” via government subsidies of fossil fuels. They are refusing to pay 5% of their income tax, as that is their rough estimate of how much of central government spending (and tax breaks) subsidizes CO2-generating companies: about €17.5 billion per year. They are also using the official tax adjustment and appeals process to press their claims
    “Belastingstaking voor Klimaat” banner and signs held at the Climate March in Rotterdam, 2022
  • The “Don’t Pay U.K.” has been ramping up its public protests. One of their tactics is to stage protests in warmed public buildings (to highlight how prohibitively expensive it is to heat their own homes). In one action, the protesters sang a song to the tune of Your Cheatin’ Heart including the lyrics “your heating chart will tell on you”.
  • American war tax resisters Robert Randall and Marjorie Nelson have died. Randall was a regular participant at NWTRCC events like their periodic national meetings and the School of the Americas protests, and is one of a small, select group of war tax resisters who have had their homes seized by the IRS for their refusal. Marjorie Nelson worked as a physician with a Quaker war relief program in Vietnam during the American war there, and survived 50 days as a prisoner of war after she was captured during the Tet Offensive. In she tangled with the IRS in court after the agency hit her with a “frivolous filing” penalty for taking a “war tax deduction” on her tax return.
  • In response to a surge in Americans renouncing their U.S. citizenship, the U.S. Department of State abruptly raised its fees for processing such renunciations from $450 up to $2,350 some years back. Now, in response to a lawsuit by some expats who claim this amounts to unjust coercion and a violation of their 5th and 8th Amendment rights, Rina Bitter, the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs, told the court “the Department intends to pursue rule-making to reduce the fee for processing CLN requests from the current amount of $2,350 to the previous fee of $450.”
  • More attacks on automated traffic ticket-generating speed cameras in Germany and France.