How you can resist funding the government → the tax resistance movement → birth of the modern American war tax resistance movement → Lillian Willoughby

The Philadelphia Inquirer brings us the obituary of long-time tax resister and tireless activist Lillian P. Willoughby.

Willoughby was for a time the clerk of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s “War Tax Concerns Support Committee” (now called the “Conscience, Militarism, and War Tax Concerns Working Group”). At one point the IRS seized her family’s car in an attempt to retrieve over $10,000 in back taxes (the Willoughbys bought the car back at auction for $900).

More recently, she was jailed for a week after helping to blockade the Federal Building in Philadelphia in an Iraq War protest shortly before her 90^th birthday, after refusing the option to pay a fine.

There’s a new issue of More Than a Paycheck, NWTRCC’s newsletter. In this issue:

• The lead story concerns Frank Donnelly, a war tax resister from Maine who pled guilty to tax evasion charges and is due to receive prison time. It is rare for a war tax resister to face criminal charges. In this case, Donnelly resisted by working in the underground economy and underreporting his income. The IRS seems to be treating it as an ordinary tax evasion case.
• Some notes on tax law and IRS enforcement policy changes.
• International news including a note on the World Council of Churches policy on war tax resistance, war tax resistance in Canada, and the upcoming International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns in Norway this July.
• Obits for recently-deceased war tax resisters Dennis Brutus, George Willoughby, and Lillian Willoughby.
• An announcement of the upcoming NWTRCC national gathering coming up in May in Tuscon, and a call for nominations to fill positions opening up on the Administrative Committee.
• A report on the first Southeast Gathering of War Tax Resisters held over the New Year holiday.

From the 23 April 1983 Afro American:

Tax resisters give money to agency

Philadelphia — Several hundred tax resisters, who have refused to pay their taxes as a protest against government military spending, turned over their tax money to a Roman Catholic agency which runs a soup kitchen for the poor at a ceremony in Philadelphia April 14.

The event at St. John’s Hospice, 13^th and Race Sts, is part of a war tax resisters’ witness and rally which started at noon at City Hall West, Philadelphia.

The funds were received by Brother Stanley O’Neil. The hospice is run by the Brothers of the Good Shepherd.

Following the presentation at the Hospice rally participants met with Senators Arlen Specter and John Heinz at their offices in the Federal Building, 6^th and Arch Sts, Philadelphia, to petition for the transfer of military taxes to peaceful purposes.

The rally is being organized by the War Tax Concerns Committee of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

Bill Strong, of the committee staff, said a growing number of Quakers and other Philadelphians are refusing to pay their taxes through a variety of methods including: non-payment of the military portion (34 percent of income taxes goes for current military spending), non-payment of the three per cent “military tax” levied on phone bills, adaptation to a simpler life style below the taxable level, and general protest activities.

Speakers at the rally included Peggy Hasbrouck, of the Brandywine Peace Community; Robin Harper, of Pendle Hill, a tax refuser for the past 19 years; Lillian Willoughby, a founder of the Movement for a New Society, a social change agency based in Philadelphia; Joe Volk, peace education secretary of the American Friends Service Committee and Father Paul Washington, Episcopal Church of the Advocate, Philadelphia. The program will include music by several high school choral groups.

For a while, it seems, Bill Strong was the Philadelphia go-to guy for quotes about Quaker War Tax Resistance. Here’s another article, from 1983 that confusedly refers to war tax resistance as a modern invention among Quakers rather than an old tradition being rediscovered after nearly a century of near-dormancy:

Quakers consider withholding taxes to protest arms

Philadelphia — For three centuries, Quakers have refused to go to war. Now, an increasing number of them are considering whether they also should refuse to help pay the country’s military bills.

Tax resistance — withholding all or part of tax payments as a protest against military spending — will be the central topic of discussion Friday among Quakers gathered at the Friends Meeting House here for the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.

The program for the yearly meeting, which began Tuesday and concludes Sunday, lists tax resistance as a “burning concern” for Quakers to consider.

A grass-roots interest in tax resistance has developed among Quakers in the 100 monthly meetings — local Quaker congregations — in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland that make up the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, according to William Strong of the yearly meeting’s War Tax Concerns Committee.

The issue was one of three main topics of concern suggested by the monthly meetings for this year’s agenda, said Betty Balderston of the yearly meeting’s Committee on Aging.

Some Quakers “never have seen their own financial involvement” in war, even though they might have worked for peace, said Strong, a former bank trust officer.

Historically, the burden of opposing war has fallen on young Quaker men who refuse to fight, Strong said. Tax resistance spreads the responsibility to other Quakers.

And here’s an Associated Press dispatch from the same year:

Quaker-Led Tax Protest Gets Boost from Other Faiths

Philadelphia, (AP) — Quakers are taking the lead in a growing movement that subjects members to a painful dilemma — obeying the law or following their pacifist beliefs by refusing to pay taxes that go to the military.

When most Americans meet the Internal Revenue Service deadline Friday for filing income tax returns, up to 10,000 forms from Quakers will contain adjustments for withholding the “war tax,” said Bill Strong, a member of the Religious Society of Friends’ War Tax Committee.

“I used to think three years ago that this was an off-the-wall, peculiar obsession of a handful of particular Quakers,” said Strong, who has chosen to keep his income below the taxable level for three years.

“But we’re convinced now that this is moving to the center. You’re getting people who are thinking about it for the very first time. That’s exciting,” Strong said.

Other churches are beginning to join the movement, Strong said, adding he’s particularly heartened by support from Roman Catholics.

“We’re 100,000; they’re 50 million. When our concern starts bouncing back as their concern, don’t you think we feel good?”

Some members of the two faiths were preparing to join in protest today, when several hundred protesters planned to turn over their tax money to the Catholic hospice Brothers of the Good Shepherd during a Quaker witness and afternoon rally at City Hall.

The protest was among 70 planned across the country, with thousands of Quakers participating, said Strong, 53, who is on leave from his job as a trust officer at a bank to advise tax resisters.

Quakers, who abhor killing and live by the creed of “God in every man,” helped lead the struggle to free American slaves in the early 19^th century. Some were imprisoned for refusing to fight in World War Ⅰ; others persuaded Congress in 1940 to establish a conscientious objector provision to the draft laws.

The Quakers’ tax resistance has taken many forms.

Some have refused to pay a 3 percent excise tax on their telephone bills, which Strong claims raises $2 billion a year for the military.

Others refuse to pay 36 percent of their income taxes, claiming 28 percent goes to the military and 8 percent represents interest on the Social Security trust fund which they say goes to the military.

And some have also withheld an additional 17 percent of their taxes that they say covers the cost of past wars, including veterans payments and war-related interest on the national debt, Strong said.

“For others, withholding 53 percent isn’t enough because they know that no matter what taxes you put in, they go to the military. And they refuse all taxes, turning in a blank 1040. That’s a criminal offense,” Strong said.

A Quaker in Seattle, Irwin Hogenauer, 70, says he hasn’t paid taxes since 1948.

“I’ve lived a life of principle and I’ll continue to stand by it,” he said.

Hogenauer was the subject of my 4 March 2010 Picket Line entry. A different version of the above article continues as follows:

Hogenauer, who is now retired, managed for most of his working life to keep his income below the taxable level.

“People who are conscientious objectors often mold their lifestyles so they don’t have any taxes to pay,” said Helen Provost-Kees, an IRS spokeswoman in Seattle.

Single people who earn $5,400 or less a year or couples who earn under $7,400 owe no taxes, she said.

Still, the decision to break the tax law is difficult for many.

“It troubles us to find ourselves in conflict with what we judge to be a fair obligation to pay the taxes,” said Joe Volk, secretary of the American Friends Service Committee’s Peace Education branch and a tax resister since 1969.

Robin Harper is still an active tax resister. Lilian Willoughby remained a dedicated activist into her 90s, and died in 2009. Joe Volk is now the executive secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Paul Washington died in 2002 after a long career of shaking things up in Philadelphia.

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

1. 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.
2. 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.

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.

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in 1971

War tax resistance continued to come up frequently in the pages of the Friends Journal in 1971.

In the 15 March issue, Clifford Neal Smith examined radical, communal economic restructuring as one potential Quaker approach worth considering — not state Communism, but something along the lines of Hutterite communities that took their inspiration from Acts 2:45–46: “All that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.” Smith suggested “that Friends give thought to the possible restructuring of our Meetings into communes” along these lines.

In particular, he thought, “the communal way will recommend itself to Friends who with to resist the payment of war taxes, for, as the Hutterites have found, there is a considerable tax saving to the communal way, particularly as practiced by a religious organization.” He also anticipated that “in the event that Friendly testimony against the military-industrial complex should become effective enough to be recognized by the establishment as the real foe of the present system,” communes would help Quakers be more resilient against the persecution that would inevitably follow.

In the same issue was a letter-to-the-editor by Philip van der Goes in which he made the hopeful suggestion that the government allow taxpayers to designate on their tax forms which federal agencies they want to fund.

In the following issue, Betty Gulick wrote a piece in which she expressed that Quakers, by “personally lending support to the most violent of societies (our own) by our taxes, our jobs, our investments, by silence and by our merely going along with things as they are,” lose the credibility they need to have to recommend nonviolence to the “aggressive victims of aggressive prejudice and poverty.”

In that issue also was an article about activists in Puerto Rico who had constructed a chapel in a U.S. Navy firing range on the island of Culebra, in defiance of a Federal injunction. One of those arrested was Dan Balderston. The article reprinted his statement, from which I take the following excerpt:

My people, the Quakers, have always insisted that God is to be obeyed and not men, and that we are neither to be satisfied with the state of things, nor with a promise of salvation in the hereafter, but live as though the Kingdom were already here — without doing violence or harming our brother. They refused to own their brothers as slaves, refused to kill or to pay taxes to kill — for example, my great-great-grandfather, Lloyd Balderston, refused to pay war taxes during the Civil War and the government expropriated several of his hogs. The Quakers have fallen with the rest of the Babylonians, but there is a remnant which seeks to recall the voice of Jesus to the Society of Friends, and I think that we of A Quaker Action Group seek to act for that remnant and to find once more the spirit of the early Christians and the early Friends.

In seeking the will of Jesus for our time, some of us have been led to break the laws of the United States — thus A Quaker Action Group sent the sailboat Phoenix to North Vietnam with medical supplies in violation of the law against “trading with the enemy,” and thus I have refused to register for war, and last year refused to pay the ten percent war tax on telephones.…

Jane Meyerding wrote in from prison, where she was serving time for her action in destroying draft board, U.S. Attorney, and FBI records. Excerpts:

We have to stop this war. We have to end the military takeover of our economy, our minds, and our young men. We have to retake control of this nation in order to stop its wanton destruction of lives here and abroad.

Of course, these things will not be accomplished simply because we want them to be. The first step in the direction of change is to look for opportunities to act effectively. This first step is harder than it sounds. I had to be practically hit over the head with it before I opened my eyes to see how I could be useful. (I thank God the action was successful even with my reluctance to accept disruption of my “business as usual.”)

After the opportunities are discovered, they have to be taken. We all have opportunities to stop paying war taxes, to publicly remove our support from the government’s war policies, to “aid and abet” those who take direct action against the institutions of war. Why do we so often leave the most radical and risky parts of our witness to the young men who have already put at least some aspects of their futures in jeopardy by refusing to comply with the draft?

With so much to be done, we all just have to become activists of one sort or another. From now on — each time a step away from war and toward peace needs to be taken — if I do not take it, you will have to; if you do not take it, I shall have to. None of us can afford to miss any more opportunities.

So, what will I be doing when I get out? As much as I can of what needs to be done. With as many friends (and Friends) as possible.

The 15 May issue noted that the Ann Arbor (Michigan) Meeting was asking telephone tax resisters to pay their phone bills, minus the excise tax, as a group, in order to “[p]rotest the obscenity of war.”

Brinton Turkle shared his decision to start resisting in the 1 July issue:

One of the most familiar Quaker stories concerns William Penn’s reluctance to give up wearing his sword when he became a Friend. With great wisdom (and some humor, I think), George Fox is supposed to have told William Penn to wear his sword as long as he could. On April 15, I sent this letter to the Internal Revenue Service and thus took off a sword I had been wearing long enough:

Sirs:

To repudiate a government that no longer represents me, I am not filing a federal, state, or city income tax this year.

I am self-employed. In the past, federal taxes I have filed but refused to pay in protest were simply seized from my savings account. To make my earnings less accessible for uses I abhor, I have been deliberately remiss in keeping records of my income and expenses. An accurate assessment of my taxes is therefore impossible.

I expect harassment and retribution to follow my defiance of a government that has made my nation the greatest scourge mankind has ever suffered. Imprisonment may end my career as a creator of books for children. It is a privilege to be able to bring enrichment and delight to young people. It is work I do with love and pride. My work is not murder.

I would not release a bomb or pull a trigger. I would not pay another man to do these things, nor would I buy his weapons.

My Lai stops with me.

Brinton Turkle

How long was it before the awareness of the sheer senselessness of encumbering himself with a sword caused William Penn to discard it? What a relief it must have been to him to be rid of it!

It was a long time until the awareness of the enormity of underwriting murder brought me to the act of civil disobedience I have just committed. About twenty years ago, I began to see that America’s war machine rolled on our tax dollars and nothing else. Tentatively, I sent notes to Internal Revenue with my tax payments disapproving of our national priorities and the Korean war.

When the horrors piled up in Vietnam five years ago, I sent a letter of protest instead of payment with my federal income tax file. I thought I was facing prison, but it turned out that I was not a criminal — only a delinquent. There followed a correspondence of one-sided passion between me and a computer. Internal Revenue took the money from my savings account with six percent interest.

The war continued. A Quaker president in the name of peace-seeking opened up the war in Cambodia and Laos and began to show unmistakable signs of affliction: Either he was captive to his own overweening ambition, or else he was in pawn to the Pentagon and the industries it supports. Perhaps he was doubly afflicted and thus worthy of a compassion that I did not have the goodness to give him.

Holding in the Light a man to whom truth is a mere expedience, a man who is using his power to tear our country apart, a man who has caused the death and maiming of thousands, is beyond my present capabilities. My tax status, however, as a self-employed person gives me a peculiar opportunity, and I have grasped it.

I have heard the objections. Some of them I cannot answer. One does what one must. Swordlessness will never be understood by some.

Father Daniel Berrigan has summed it up for this Quaker:

“…To be right now in some serious trouble with respect to the ‘powers and principalities’ of this nation means to occupy a most important geographical position — if one wishes to struggle with others all over the world for their freedom; and by the same token to be in no trouble at all is to share in what I take to be a frightening movement towards violence and death. To resist that movement is one’s choice.”

A choice has been made, and I feel pounds lighter.

The 1 September issue brought the news that the New York Yearly Meeting planned to file a friend-of-the-court brief in the AFSC lawsuit challenging mandatory employer income tax withholding from the paychecks of conscientiously resisting employees (see ♇ 15 July 2013). The 15 October issue added that the Meeting also “agreed to publicize… a two-year-old minute regarding the non-payment of the telephone tax for war by the Yearly Meeting Office. It urges Friends who are also nontaxpayers to join in a possible advertisement” and proposed a “minute on the deliberate nonwithholding of wage tax levies for Internal Revenue Service when requested by Yearly Meeting employees. The complex procedure would notify Internal Revenue Service of the percentage of wages not withheld and the possible setting up of a special fund of these monies for peaceful uses.”

The “Sufferings” column of the 15 November issue include listings for Paula & Howard Cell, who “[h]ad an automobile seized by Internal Revenue for refusal to pay the war tax on their telephone,” for Bill Himmelbauer, who was “[s]entenced to one year in prison for refusal to pay war taxes on his income. To do this he openly altered his W-4 form,” and for Lilian & George Willoughby, who “[h]ad an automobile seized by Internal Revenue for refusal to pay the war tax on their telephone.”

Robin Harper

The 15 February issue brings the first mention of the war tax resistance of Robin Harper, who will periodically appear in the context of war tax resistance in the magazine for the following forty years. His first appearance comes in the “Sufferings” column:

Robin and Marlies Harper, London Grove Meeting, Pennsylvania: Falsely assessed, after a decade of resistance to military taxes, for $32,000 in alleged unpaid taxes, interest, and penalties. The Harpers actually refused less than $8000, including penalties, over these years.

The “Sufferings” column in the 1 June 1972 issue gave an update:

[The Harpers s]ucceeded in convincing IRS to reduce its claim upon the family for a decade of unpaid federal income taxes from thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars to a bit more than seven thousand dollars.

Robin explained: “Under duress, I sent IRS income tax returns for 1958 through 1967 to set the record straight — a clear compromise in order to protect our family from great financial hardship should IRS proceed to seize such unwarranted sums from me.”

The 15 March 1973 issue mentioned Harper among a number of war tax resisters, and described his resistance thusly:

Conscientiously opposed to participation in war of any form, Robin began his tax resistance in 1958 in opposition to the nuclear arms race. The war in Indochina has deepened his conviction. He insists that during the 10 years between 1958 and 1967 he contributed $3,385 to “organizations engaged in constructive programs designed to repair ravages of war abroad and counteract the ugly wounds inflicted by segregation and discrimination at home…” The IRS, however, claims he owes $3,206 plus $1,502 in penalties and $2,700 in interest. Robin is asking the U.S. Tax Court to reject all IRS claims for the 10-year period.

In the 1 October 1979 issue, Harper is mentioned as being “a member of the War Tax Concern Support Committee” who addressed the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting about that subject, “urging a symbolic tax refusal of a small portion of these taxes as a witness to the Peace Testimony.” Alas, “[a]fter a deep and searching discussion, there remained some who did not feel comfortable with this kind of witness. Later in the week a revised minute was presented, and after renewed searching it was adopted.” No details are given about this revised minute.

I next notice Harper in the Friends Journal archives in the 1 November 1982 edition, which finds him again (still?) battling the IRS in court:

In three court hearings, attended by as many as 40 supporters, tax resister Robin Harper… testified recently that he could not be compelled against his religious beliefs to participate in the collection of taxes for war purposes. In the final hearing, Edwin Bronner, Haverford College history professor, appeared as an expert witness to spell out the 300-year history of the Friends Peace Testimony.

The government apparently considered the arguments presented, including an excellent brief prepared by volunteer attorneys, as too compelling. Department of Justice lawyers abruptly withdrew their subpoena issued to Harper a year earlier to force him to present documents and answer questions in federal court in Philadelphia.

In the May 1993 issue, Harper wrote at length about war tax resistance in the Society of Friends. He mentioned the cases of three Philadelphia Yearly Meeting employees who were resisters, and how the IRS had filed lawsuits to try to compel the Meeting to levy their salaries.

In her decision in December 1990, Judge Norma Shapiro denied the validity of the [refusal to pay] penalty but upheld the levy, which the yearly meeting then paid “under duress.” In each instance the yearly meeting incurred legal expenses, but the individual employee reimbursed it for the full amount of the actual IRS collection.

Harper then proposed a series of queries “for the purposes of discussion and discernment… mindful that beneath each lies the Grand Query: ‘What does the Spirit require of me?’ ”:

Query 1: If I am opposed to the military conscription of my body, am I called to bear witness to the military conscription of my tax dollars?

Query 2: How do I approach the dilemma of paying taxes for constructive government programs while resisting payment for war preparation?

Query 3: Does the fact that billions of military tax dollars are unearmarked and hidden “in the mixture” in the U.S. treasury lessen my burden to bear witness?

Query 4: Have I sought clearness on what to do with the money I have refused to pay in military taxes? Are alternative funds that use my refused taxes to pay for peace and social justice initiatives an adequate spiritual response from me?

If the Peace Tax Fund were passed by Congress, would the escrow account thereby established be an acceptable alternative?

Query 5: How much inconvenience or suffering am I prepared to accept for the “moral disarmament” of my federal taxes, such as penalties and interest on refused taxes, seizure of bank accounts, salaries, or other assets, or loss of credit?

Query 6: As a military tax refuser, am I sufficiently sensitive to the impact my witness may have on loved ones, co-workers and others who may not share my conviction but whose personal, spiritual, financial, or professional well-being might be affected by my witness?

Query 7: When a Quaker employer must choose between compliance with government demands and honoring the conscientious witness of an employee, where does its allegiance lie? What issues of faith make this decision a difficult one?

Query 8: Honoring the conscientious witness of an employee may place serious risk on the Quaker employer, its members, and other employees. How do Friends institutions balance support of employee conscience against these risks?

Query 9: Should Quaker employers rest easy serving as collectors of federal military taxes by routinely withholding income taxes from their employees and remitting them, without protest, to the Internal Revenue Service?

Query 10: When making a strong, public witness against military taxes by protest or refusal to pay, is a Quaker institution likely to strengthen or weaken the peace movement? The Religious Society of Friends? The possibility of doing successfully the work for which the institution was created? (This query is taken from page 189 of the Handbook on Military Taxes and Conscience, edited by Linda Coffin…)

In the April 2009 issue, Harper responded with a letter-to-the-editor to a critic of war tax resistance as a Quaker practice who had published a piece earlier the same year. Harper recommended a carefully-designed form of war tax resistance that might overcome the critic’s objections:

[L]et us suppose a conscientious taxpayer, engaging in open civil disobedience,

• refuses to render 100 percent of her/his federal income tax to the Internal Revenue Service (say “no” to war).
• carefully calculates the tax liability and redistributes the entire sum to recipients engaged in building up civil society in peaceful ways, thus excluding any personal benefit. Includes list of recipients/amounts and a “letter of conscience” along with tax return — a transparent witness (say “yes” to peace).
• declares to IRS that he/she recognizes a moral responsibility to contribute to the general welfare by paying one’s fair share of taxes — hence this “alternative service” for the tax (taking personal responsibility).
• clarifies to IRS that the full tax would gladly be paid, provided the government would assure the taxpayer that it would be spent exclusively for nonmilitary purposes, as defined by Congress, which is the legislative architecture of the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill, still pending in Congress (support legal relief for this dilemma of conscience).

Finally, in the June 2011 issue, Harper’s war tax resistance got a mention in an article by Parker J. Palmer, based on a speech he gave on the occasion of the 80^th anniversary of the founding of the Pendle Hill Quaker Center:

I am going to end with a small story that has big meaning for me. Back in the day, a wonderful man named Robin Harper was head of buildings and grounds… Robin was and still is a conscientious war tax refuser. Not only did this mean the possibility of prosecution and imprisonment, but tax resistance made very heavy demands on his life. He had to be employed by people who would agree not to withhold any taxes, which shrinks one’s job opportunities dramatically, and he could not own any real property that could be seen by the IRS as capable of being turned into cash. But he has never done time because his integrity is so self-evident, not unlike that of John Woolman.

When I was a young man here, I shared Robin’s abhorrence of war (as I do to this day), but I could not imagine taking the risks and making the sacrifices required of me. I was at that stage of moral development where I had very high ethical aspirations and equally high levels of guilt about the way I continually fell short. One day I went to Robin and told him of my dilemma. “I believe what you believe,” I said, “and I want to put my beliefs into action, but I just cannot bring myself to do what you do.”

Robin responded plainly,simply, and with great compassion. “Keep holding the belief,” he said, “and follow it wherever it may lead you. As time goes on you will find your own way of resisting violence and promoting peace, one that fits with your gifts and your calling.” That is Quakerism at its best. That is community at its best. That is teaching at its best. That is friendship at its best.

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in 1990

Mentions of war tax resistance in the Friends Journal in 1990 tended to either look back fondly at resisters of the past, or to look forward to a time when a peace tax fund law would magically dispel the dilemma of praying for peace while paying for war.

Paul Zorn’s article from the previous October which cast a skeptical eye on the value of Quaker war tax resistance picked up some dissent in the January issue.

• Merrill Barnebey felt that Zorn “fails to fully grasp the significance and timeliness of tax resistance. For one thing… Quakers who do not protest war taxes are establishing a credibility gap.” He also felt that tax resistance helped to pressure Congress to pass the Peace Tax Fund bill.

Also in the January issue, Elwood Cronk told a story of how a meeting that was involved “an ecumenical effort to establish a food cupboard” reacted with hostility to war tax resisters in their midst:

A couple, wishing to make a war tax witness to IRS, presented the meeting with a check for $100, the portion of tax they were withholding. Their accompanying letter stated they felt this was an appropriate gift to the meeting, in view of federal budget cuts in social services. They asked that the money be accepted as a start-up fund for the food cupboard.

…One person walked out, another questioned their motivation, and the meeting declined the check. The one positive thing which did happen occurred the next Sunday. A member of the adult class proposed that war taxes be discussed that day.

An obituary notice for Ronald E. Chinn in the February issue noted that Chinn “helped found a university endowment fund for lectures on peace issues, using money withheld by Alaskan war tax resisters.”

In the May issue, Kenneth Miller wrote in to share the exciting news that, after persistent lobbying and lots of hard work, Peace Tax Fund bill supporters had managed to convince Nancy Pelosi to cosponsor the bill. (Pelosi at the time was just starting her career as a U.S. Representative. She became Speaker of the House in 2007 and is currently the Minority Leader there. She is no longer a cosponsor of the present peace tax fund scheme.)

The June issue announced a new edition of Conscience Canada’s book The First Freedom which “reviews the legal history of conscientious objection for taxpayers in Canada and provides an overview of new charter decisions and recent court cases.”

“Honoring employees’ requests not to withhold the military portion of their federal income tax is now the official policy of Baltimore Yearly Meeting,” began a short piece in the July issue. “In taking the action as requested by individual employees, the yearly meeting emphasized its history of supporting military tax resistance through urging passage of the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill, as well as supporting other religious organizations involved in military tax refusal. In 1972, the yearly meeting minuted that it ‘stands in loving support of those moved by conscience to witness against making payments for war and preparation for war, including those who refuse to pay military taxes voluntarily.’ ”

D.H. Rubenstein penned an op-ed piece for the September issue in which he reviewed the difficulty that Friends and Friends Meetings had with the issue of war taxes, and held out hope that Congress would throw Quakers a rope by passing some sort of Peace Tax Fund plan. Excerpts:

It is a perplexing problem to be a citizen of a country whose policies include militarism and war as a means of relating to other nations and at the same time be a member of a religious society whose traditions are contrary to such policy. Conscientious objection to military service is now accepted. But what about paying taxes to support war and militarism?

When Friends gather to consider this dilemma it is often expressed that each person must decide on the basis of the individual’s own leading how to resolve the claims of conscience between being a law-abiding citizen and a faithful Friend. Rarely is unity achieved.

Another entanglement is the matter of Friends organizations and their involvement in the payment of war taxes. One of the key questions is whether or not such organizations have a “corporate conscience” and a responsibility to act in accord with traditional Quaker witness and its historic peace testimony.

Relatively few individual Friends are prepared to refuse to pay war taxes — an illegal, punishable offense — and suffer the consequences of such refusal. How could they, therefore, adopt a policy which would make the corporate body and its officers liable for such consequences? In other words, is it fair for me to expect a higher order of morality from the corporate body than from its individual members?

(Please consider a slight digression. Is it fair to assume that if a legal way of not paying war taxes existed we would take that option? If the answer is yes, we should commit ourselves to the promotion and support of the Peace Tax Fund Bill… whose aim is to provide that specific option.)

Friends are staunch in their belief that that of God within each individual should be the guiding light by which life is lived. Quaker experience, however, has verified the need for the admonition of Paul, who cautioned believers in Rome, “Do not be conformed to this world…” (Rom. 12:2). The light of the Spirit is available to each one of us: its accessibility without distortion by our own willfulness or societal influences is a hazard we do not always recognize. It is this of which Paul reminds us. This is one of the reasons our corporate wisdom has established that although the Light is available to each of us, it is essential we gather together for communal seeking and sharing in order that our findings be validated in the group, which is less likely to be misled than the individual.

If we are unable to discern God’s leading, that is a very different matter than God saying no. It means further seeking is required until clarity is achieved. It does not mean no action is required. We need to recognize that at present we are involved in actions which by implication indicate Friends support and believe in militarism and war. This is what our present tax paying and tax collecting actions declare.

What do we believe? Must our apparent schizophrenia on this subject be a permanent state, or can we thresh our way out of it?

The Peace Tax Fund would create a legal alternative. The enactment of an economic conversion bill (several now in Congress) could provide for a specific application of CO tax funds to a basic civilian need and away from the military-industrial behemoth. Our energies applied to the support and adoption of these two legislative proposals might supply some ameliorative therapy for our dilemma while we pursue some serious threshing.

That same issue included a profile of George & Lillian Willoughby that included a section on their tax resistance:

Working for Peace, not Paying for War

Another significant protest in the Willoughbys’ lives has been their ongoing tax resistance. “I object to taxes that go completely out of my hands and have no connection to me — that are supporting things I cannot tolerate, such as bombs and nuclear energy,” Lillian says.

After years of refusal to pay their federal telephone tax, IRS officers seized the Willoughbys’ Volkswagen to collect the $100 they owed. But the Willoughbys’ many friends raised more than a thousand dollars through a “peace bond” mailing so they could submit the winning bid and recover the car. The extra funds were donated to the Philadelphia War Tax Resistance Fund.

“One IRS official complained,” George recalls, “ ‘Here we seize your car to raise money for IRS, and you are using it to raise money for your cause!’ ” After that incident, there were no more seizures of automobiles of tax resisters in the Philadelphia area for the next nine years, the Willoughbys say.

Explaining their tax witness, Lillian notes, “Some sacrifice is involved, and not everyone can do it.” For George, it is a matter of integrity and empowerment. “Tax resistance is something I can do to withdraw support from the government,” he says. “Why should I give them money to do evil things I wouldn’t do myself?”

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in 1992

There was a great deal about war tax resistance in the Friends Journal in 1992, in part because of the occupation of the Randy Kehler/Betsy Corner home which the IRS was trying to auction off, and in part because of the IRS suit against the Journal to try to force it to pay its editor’s resisted taxes, and in part because of the Peace Tax Fund bill’s first congressional hearing.

A note in the January issue pointed out that politicians were playing a name game that had apparently fooled some Quakers into thinking that the telephone excise tax had been transformed into something benign:

The telephone tax continues as a source of money for military expenditure, contrary to recent confusion about its status. The tax, which was due to expire in December 1990, was extended under the Act for Better Child Care. Those who proposed the act were searching for a way to finance their new program and seized upon the telephone tax as their “new” source of money. However, the phone tax revenues continue to go into the General Fund, as always, and are not earmarked for the child care programs. More than 50 percent of the General Fund is used for military expenditure. The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee recommends that conscientious resistance to the telephone tax continue, as it can have a powerful impact if enough people are involved.

That issue also had a follow-up on the “Alternative Revenue Service” protest:

In 1991, the Alternative Revenue Service reports that individuals redirected $104,740 of their federal income taxes away from the military to areas of human need. The total includes $12,898 redirected through the ARS, $38,416 redirected by Alternative Funds, and $53,426 that individuals redirected to social action and relief programs. The Alternative Revenue Service campaign is designed to educate taxpayers about how their federal income tax dollars are used. The service provides the EZ Peace Form, which participants can use in registering their opposition to military spending at the time they file their taxes. The service reports that 70,000 EZ Peace Forms were distributed nationwide last year. This year’s form is simplified, with clearer instructions.

The February issue brought the news that the Peace Tax Fund promoters had finally managed to get a Congressional Committee hearing for their bill, which was scheduled for that Spring. “The hearing will be informational to determine the need for such legislation, not a preparation for floor action. The need is assessed from the testimony of both individuals and religious bodies. The hearing will support the bill by providing a permanent public record, by lending it legitimacy, by possibly attracting more serious consideration from prospective cosponsors, and by providing a record of congressional scrutiny. The hearing will be brief, not lending itself to extended exchanges. However, written testimony can be added and will become part of the official record.”

A follow-up in April described the latest Peace Tax Fund bill as one that “would amend the Internal Revenue Code to permit qualified conscientious objectors to have part of their federal taxes — that part equal to the military portion of the federal budget — to be paid into a fund for peace-related projects.” It encouraged readers to submit “written testimony for the official hearing record,” to publicize and perhaps attend the hearing, to contact Congressional representatives and encourage them to attend and to support the bill, and to donate money to the cause.

The August issue described how the 21 May hearing before the House Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures went — “the first actual hearing held since a Peace Tax Fund Bill was first introduced in Congress 20 years ago.” Excerpts:

“If we give the right to a person to withhold their body from a war as a conscientious objector, that person should be able to withhold his money as well.”

So spoke Sen. Mark Hatfield in his lead-off testimony…

…Several hundred spectators from across the country packed the hearing room. Many attended as concerned individual taxpayers. Others came as members of religious denominations and peace groups long associated with the Peace Tax Campaign. Three chartered buses, one from Lancaster, Pa., two others from Philadelphia, swelled the numbers by some 150 supporters. When the last of them filed in from a late-arriving bus to find all spectator seats occupied, Chairman Charles Rangel stopped the hearings momentarily, inviting standing-room only observers to move forward and to occupy empty seats normally reserved for officials and the press. Many did so. Veterans of peace demonstrations, several parents holding small children, young bearded men in simple dress, older couples from the peace churches created a colorful patchwork as they mixed with congressional aides, heads of foundations, and Capitol bureaucrats in business suits.

…Over 2,300 letters in support of the Peace Tax Fund Bill were bound in large volumes and set on a front table to be presented to the committee. From 50–100 such letters a day continued to arrive as of the time of the hearing.

Following the introductory testimony of Mark Hatfield, lead sponsor of the bill (S.689) in the Senate, there were also presentations by four members of Congress: Andy Jacobs (lead sponsor of the bill in the House), Nancy Pelosi, and John Conyers.…

…[A] panel of religious leaders testified. One, Thomas Gumbleton, Roman Catholic bishop from Detroit, and past president of Pax Christi, pointed out that two of the first leaders of the church, John and Peter, said that sometimes it is necessary to obey God before obeying the law. How much better it would be, Gumbleton said, for COs to be able to pay all their taxes, knowing their money would be used for life-affirming purposes.

William Davidson, retired Episcopal bishop of western Kansas, a CO in World War Ⅱ, has actively opposed war since 1939. “Having lived past draft age, I have been saddened and conflicted each year having to pay taxes to support war,” he said. The Episcopal Peace Fellowship has consistently supported war tax resistance as a religious witness.

John A. Lapp, executive secretary of Mennonite Central Committee, Akron, Pa., spoke on behalf of the three historic peace churches (Mennonites, Quakers, and Church of the Brethren). The issue of war-related taxes is one of religious freedom, Lapp said. “Many of us feel the pain of having our religious institutions serve as tax collectors for war.”

During committee questioning, Representative Jacobs asked Rabbi [Phil] Bentley [with the Jewish Peace Fellowship], “Is [passage of this bill] going to give rise to requests for similar legislation from people who don’t want their money going for a golf course?”

…[Friends Journal] editor-manager Vint Deming, associate editor Melissa Elliott, typesetter Susan Jordhamo, and board members Robert Sutton and Sam Legg joined several hundred other citizens in packing the hearing room…

The hearing was informational, to give legislators material to use in future considerations, rather than to schedule the bill for action. As such, it gave supporters a chance to formally present the case, get testimony in the written record, and show the depth and breadth of people’s interest in the bill.

The pace of this legislative process is frustratingly slow, but, for many of us, the hearing was a heartening experience. There, we heard people testify in a formal legislative setting to our most deeply held beliefs. One activist-participant said, “All my life I’ve been on the side that opposes government decisions. It was a weird experience to see all those peace movement people in the same room with legislators. I’ve never seen anything like that before, nor ever imagined it. It gave me a different vision of what might be possible.”

The Peace Tax Fund Bill has come a long way since its introduction in 1972, with many technical refinements, and it has a long way to go in gathering widespread support. On May 21 we witnessed one small step in validation, acknowledgment of our beliefs, and moving the dream closer to reality. Perhaps one day we will look back, as do those who watched the process of legalizing conscientious objection, and be glad we were involved in making it legal to follow our beliefs with our money-as well as with our bodies.

“This is not a political issue, but a moral issue of conscience,” responded Bentley…

Jacobs, in response, thanked the Rabbi and others of religious conscience who had testified. “I am a sponsor of this bill,” he said, “but I am not a pacifist.” He called to mind one of his favorite movies, Friendly Persuasion, and the lines spoken toward the end of the film: “It’s good to know that somebody is holding out for a better way of settling things!”

Terrill Hyde, tax legislative counsel for the Department of the Treasury, presented the Bush Administration position opposing the PTF. She mentioned “problems of complexity, confusion, and increased administrative burden,” sure to arise if the bill were passed. There would be no deterrent either, she said, to restrain taxpayers from inappropriately claiming CO status. If taxpayers were allowed to designate the uses for which their tax dollars were spent, “our entire budgetary process would be undermined.” There would likely be loss of revenue to needed federal programs.

Others, however, presented differing views. Several speakers argued that there would likely be substantial increases in revenue as a direct result of the bill. Many who currently refuse to pay a portion or all of their taxes would gladly pay. Also, large costs resulting from IRS efforts to collect from tax resisters would be avoided. Answering the criticism of how the act might increase paperwork and administrative costs, several people testified to the simple nature of the bill and of the tax filing process.

As to IRS claims that the bill raises possible legal questions, a panel of two law specialists responded. Mark Tushnet, professor of law at Georgetown University, said, “A nation that wants to protect the religious freedom of its citizens can reasonably be expected to enact legislation to enable the freedom to be expressed.” It seems perfectly appropriate, he concluded, that such legislation be enacted. “It is needed in addition to the Religious Freedom Act.”

Philadelphia, Pa., attorney and war tax specialist Peter Goldberger agreed. “Legislation of this kind has a noble history in our country,” and he quoted from a 1790 letter from then-President George Washington to Philadelphia Quakers. The nation’s laws, Washington wrote, must always be “extensively accommodated” in cases of individual conscience.

Alan Eccleston, a Quaker and an organizational development consultant from Hadley, Massachusetts, told about how, in his own tax witness, he has endured penalties, punishments, and the threat of losing his home. The IRS has a lien on his house right now. “Conscience must be taken into account. Spiritual values are real. They are not to be treated as incidental or expendable to fit the needs of the state. This is what the First Amendment is all about.”

Ruth Flower, legislative secretary of Friends Committee on National Legislation, emphasized that the Peace Tax Fund Act would not offer an escape to those who do not wish to pay their taxes, because they would have to pay the same amount either way. It would, however, provide a legal way out of violating one’s religious beliefs in order to comply with the laws of the land.

Her point was born out by Patricia Washburn, who gave perhaps the most moving testimony of the hearing. She talked about the challenge presented to each of us, and to her personally, in Micah 6:8: “…what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, to love constantly, and to walk humbly with your God?” Walking humbly requires us to acknowledge the seeds of violence in our own hearts, rather than projecting them onto someone else. “Loving constantly” can be a discouraging and difficult task, especially in today’s climate of distrust and alienation.

“I am not opposed to paying taxes, but I find no alternative form of tax payment… Thus, I see no current alternative to withholding the military portion of my taxes… I pray that my witness is done in love and that it will help to build a bridge across the chasm of violence and fear.”

After the hearing and following the press conference, [Marian] Franz [executive director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund] gave a brief workshop on lobbying for the bill. She pointed out that the testimony would now be entered in written record and could be referred to in the future. She added, “the fact that we got a hearing is absolutely amazing.” Many other pieces of legislation have not yet been so lucky, and the demand is great. “If all members of the committee had been present, they all would have been deeply moved, and we would be a lot further down the road.”

Franz encouraged people, when lobbying, to talk in terms of conscience, as defined by Pope John ⅩⅩⅢ, who said, “Deep inside, each one of us finds a law that we did not put there. It tells us to do this and shun that.” That is what puts the issue of paying taxes for war in the arena of religious decisions and touches on every individual’s right to follow their faith — whether they are housewives, bureaucrats, lawyers, teachers, or politicians.

That is why it is important to keep trying to open doors and ears and minds. Marian Franz has a suggestion for how to approach people: “Talk to aides and legislators as though you’re sharing something personally. You will often find that when you are talking about conscience, people are moved deeply.”

The February issue also plugged “Good Use: Songs of Peace, Tax & Conscience” — “a tape of War Tax Resister Songs, featuring Charlie King, Luci Murphy, Geof Morgan, Lifeline, and others. It was produced by Don Walsh, who donates the royalties.”

The lead editorial (by Vinton Deming) in the March issue concerned the ongoing Randy Kehler/Betsy Corner case:

Finding Affinity

Randy Kehler and his wife, Betsy Corner, have been tax resisters since 1977. They have given the tax money instead to a variety of groups doing constructive community work. Since 1989 the IRS has been trying to sell their house in Colrain, Mass., in an effort to collect $25,896 in back taxes — but it hasn’t been easy.

First of all, there’s been a growing tax resistance movement there in Franklin County. Bob Bady and Pat Morse, for instance, had their house seized and auctioned in 1989. (They still live in the house, however, and the buyer hasn’t taken possession.) Shelburn Falls dentist Tom Wilson had his dental license revoked when he refused to cooperate with IRS. (He continues his practice, however; even the local sheriff remains one of his regular patients).

So when the word got out that IRS planned to auction Betsy and Randy’s house, supporters in large numbers turned up on the announced day to oppose the sale. There were lots of signed bids (such as an offer to clean the teeth of an IRS agent, others pledging to do community work or to be peace activists for life) — but no cash buyers came forward. Not a one.

So, in November 1991, IRS upped the ante. Betsy, Randy, and daughter Lillian, 12, were given an eviction notice. When Randy decided to stay, he was held in contempt and tossed in the county jail for 6 months.

This didn’t go unnoticed by friends and neighbors, however. A sign-up sheet got circulated, and volunteers committed themselves to stay in the house around the clock. There’s been a continuous presence there since December 3. Groups from as far away as Washington, D.C., have signed up to come and help out. In early January, members of Mount Toby (Mass.) Meeting formed such an affinity group for a week.

Meanwhile, Randy stays in jail and makes the most of his time there. He has made friends with many of the prisoners, has organized a chess tournament, and does what he can to interpret his tax witness. Allan Eccleston, member of Mount Toby Meeting, has been approved as the meeting’s official minister and visits Randy twice a week.

So what’s next? IRS has scheduled another auction, this time out of the area in Springfield, Mass. — in the hope, it seems, of attracting a buyer for the house, someone who doesn’t know about this whole chain of events. Randy will not be there to talk about it, but lots of his friends will. Even if the house is sold, the issue will be far from over. The house is part of a land trust (Randy and Betsy own the house but not the land on which it stands) — and there’s the likelihood of a continuing nonviolent presence in the house to welcome any potential new buyer.

How might Friends respond? I asked this question in late January of Francis Crowe, long-time head of the American Friends Service Committee office in western Massachusetts and a supporter of Randy and Betsy. She suggests:

• Form an affinity group to help sustain the presence in the house. (To be scheduled, contact Traprock Peace Center…
• Funds are also needed to support the action (checks made out to “War Tax Refusers Support Committee”…).
• Letters to the editor on the subject of taxes and militarism are always helpful.
• More sponsors are needed in Congress for the Peace Tax Fund bill.…

At a rally last fall in support of Betsy and Randy, Juanita Nelson — who, with husband Wally, has been a tax refuser for decades and is known to many Friends — offered these words by Goethe: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has Genius, Power, and Magic in it.” Good advice as another tax season is upon us, when many of us seek to find our way on this difficult question of taxes for war.

In a later issue, David Zarembka reported in a letter-to-the-editor about how the occupation / blockade of the Kehler/Corner home was proceeding:

On Feb. 12, federal marshalls arrested seven members of the Flowing River Affinity Group who were occupying the Kehler/Corner home and removed the furniture into storage. At 2 p.m. that same day, the IRS sold the house to the highest bidder in an auction for $5,400. The seven affinity group members were released from jail later in the afternoon. So was Randy, who had served two months of his sentence.

Do not think, however, that Betsy and Randy have lost their home in an exotic cause! As soon as the federal marshalls left the house, an affinity group reoccupied it, and other groups, including one from Washington, D.C., of which I am a member, have continued to occupy the house on a 24-hour basis. Affinity groups, which occupy the home for a week each, have been organizing since late 1989, but new ones are still being formed…

The “buyers,” a young couple with a two-month-old son, have visited the house several times but have not as yet forced the issue. They are consulting with their lawyers. Betsy and Randy have become members of the Colrain Neighbors Affinity Group, which will occupy the home for the week beginning April 16. They and their twelve-year-old daughter, Lillian, will move back into their home when they can comfortably live there once again.

I would hope that this action would lead Friends to consider how their cooperation with the federal tax collection process — even those who are symbolic tax resisters or those who force the IRS to take their taxes from them — allows the present military system to thrive.

A report in that issue on the Canadian Yearly Meeting that had taken place the previous Fall noted that:

Canadian Yearly Meeting, in its role of employer, was asked to refuse to remit that portion of its employees’ taxes that will be used to support the military. Concern was expressed by the yearly meeting’s trustees, who would bear the legal results of such actions. Although the yearly meeting came close to supporting a minute for this action, it agreed to seek clearness with the trustees and monthly meetings and return to this issue next year.

The May issue was largely devoted to war tax resistance. It began with an editorial from Vinton Deming concerning his war tax resistance and the response of his employer, the Journal. Excerpt:

From the outset, I knew it wasn’t a very practical thing to do. The government was too powerful, and all the tax laws were against me. I’d just end up paying much more in the end, so why not choose a better way to work for peace? A good letter to my congressman, for instance, or a tax vigil at the federal building on Apri1 15.

But this was in the late 1970s. Our war in Vietnam was just over, but the Cold War continued. As the Reagan years unfolded, with still larger military expenditures and big cuts in domestic programs, I became even more clear: I must resist as fully as possible the payment of taxes for war.

The Journal board was always supportive of my witness. It refused twice to honor IRS levies on my wages. In doing so, Friends openly accepted the possibility of being taken to court one day and fined severely. The board wrote to IRS: “Our position of noncompliance to the requests of the Internal Revenue Service is not an easy one. We do not question the laws of the land lightly, but do so under the weight of a genuine religious and moral concern.”

Well, as they say, “What goes ’round comes ’round.” This February, Friends Journal was told by the U.S. Justice Department to pay up or we’d be taken to court.…

I am grateful for the steadfastness of the Journal’s board of managers. Since the board first addressed the tax issue in 1979, it has been faithful to the Quaker peace testimony. The road has been an uncertain and confusing one at many points, but Friends have shown courage in continuing.

In my own personal war tax journey, these words by John Stoner have served to guide: “We are war tax resisters because we have discovered some doubt as to what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, and have decided to give the benefit of the doubt to God.”

Sam Legg, clerk of the Friends Journal Board of Managers, gave his take on the Deming situation and on why the Journal had decided to throw in the towel and pay the IRS’s demands. Excerpts:

[F]rom 1979 to 1983… Vinton refused to pay any federal taxes. Each tax year he sent a blank 1040 along with a letter to the president explaining his opposition to war and his unwillingness as a Friend to pay for it. Since there was no Peace Tax Fund, Vinton reasoned, he would instead contribute the money to worthwhile projects and see that it was used for peaceful purposes. In 1987, the IRS served a levy on Friends Journal for $22,714.16, Vinton’s taxes for the period, plus interest and penalties. The IRS asked Friends Journal to withhold part of Vinton’s salary each month, but the Journal Board refused, writing that “We… are in support of Vinton Deming’s conscientious witness.”

In early February of this year, Friends Journal received a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice reminding us of the levy on Vinton’s salary and asking us to try to “resolve this matter short of litigation.” That is, to pay the original assessed amount plus interest and a possible 50 percent penalty on the total. We were given until Feb. 28 to respond.

If we were to continue refusing to honor the levy, an immediate court action would follow. The 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Smith vs. Oregon, as Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and the American Friends Service Committee have learned, teaches us that there is no way we could win such a case in court, nor could our assets be protected from seizure. More troubling, this seizure could make others who are not involved in our decision, undergo unwelcome investigation. Finally, a court case offers IRS the opportunity to set a legal precedent requiring the payment of the 50 percent penalty (which a sympathetic judge excused in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting case last year). We fear that the inevitable negative decision could establish that precedent and thereby restrict other individuals’ or groups’ religious freedom. And so, most reluctantly, the Friends Journal Board has agreed to negotiate with IRS and to pay the least amount IRS will accept ($31,300) as settlement of this claim.

Our painful recognition of failure is heavy upon us. We have to accept that our witness in its present form can no longer serve a useful purpose. We can hope Vinton’s action and our support will have brought the issue of tax refusal to the attention of others, thereby becoming a part of the tradition of citizen pressure that in the long run eliminates or diminishes social evils such as slavery and war.

Our protest is on record. What we will do now is support the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1991… which aims to reestablish the first amendment religious rights lost in the Smith vs. Oregon decision. We also urge support for the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill… which makes the same witness, but provides money to finance peace-enhancing projects. (Needless to say, if there had been a Peace Tax Fund in 1979, Vinton’s taxes would have been paid gladly, and there would have been no need for an IRS levy.) We ask all those who share our concerns to join in these legal approaches to the continuing effort to convince ourselves and others of the futility of armed conflict and the necessity of finding other means to resolve human disputes.

The immediate financial challenge to the Journal is a very real one. In a year in which we already face a substantial budget deficit, the payment of such a large lump sum adds an enormous burden. Vinton has engaged to repay the Journal through payroll deductions over time. We have been heartened as well, as word of our tax witness spreads, to receive gifts of support from our readers. One contributor writes: “I hope everyone at the Friends Journal can be made aware of Friends’ approval of [your] Board action. To help this happen, I encourage the Journal to go as public with the story as is consistent with respect for Vint’s privacy and the Journal’s limited resources. I am convinced that other Friends will wish to help financially when so informed.” For such words, and unexpected gifts, we are most grateful.

Readers wrote in with their feedback about the Journal’s decision, and some of their letters were printed in the July issue:

• Duane Magill wrote to “applaud” and “sympathize” with the Journal’s stand. “As a war tax resister myself for the past quarter of a century, I have had some brushes with the IRS myself and know what it is like. I also appreciate your giving publicity to the subject. I know that not many Quakers take this position, and giving the matter this extensive coverage just might encourage more to take this stand.”
• Yvonne Boeger wrote in on behalf of the Live Oak (Texas) Meeting to say that the meeting had recently “discussed the importance of war tax resistance as a means of witnessing to Friends’ long-standing opposition to all forms of war and violence” and that the Meeting was supportive of the Journal’s (and Deming’s) action. “We send the enclosed check as a token of our support and solidarity in Friends’ resistance to war. Thank you for the example you have set for us all.”
• Lillian and George Willoughby wrote to express gratitude for the Journal’s “courage in standing in support of Vint Deming.” They wrote: “Most important is the example of a Quaker religious employer providing support to staff who endeavor to live according to Friends’ teachings. The Journal has run considerable risk and incurred heavy expenses. We enclose our check as a demonstration of our support. We think that many other Friends will want to help carry the financial burden of this witness.”
• An editorial note in the letters column expressed “thanks to all those who have sent checks!” and a later editorial note (in the December issue) said that they had received “$8,000 from individuals and meetings, $7,000 from a Sufferings Fund of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,” and almost $4,000 from Deming himself.

Mennonite war tax resister (and, according to his author bio, “itinerant prophet and spiritual retreat leader”) John K. Stoner wrote about the call he got from an IRS employee. Excerpts:

We talked for about ten minutes, as I explained why Janet and I had said “no” to paying the full amount of our income tax. The man could not understand why anyone would invite the collection pressures of the IRS upon themselves by withholding some taxes. But by the time the conversation was over, he was a little closer to understanding that this was, for us, a matter of faith and a question of the practice of our religion.

It was a Mark 13:9 kind of experience of being called before the authorities, “before governors and kings,” because of Jesus, as a testimony to them. By the sound of Mark 13, Jesus expected this kind of thing to happen regularly to his followers. Mark 13 is a good text to remember when everybody around you is quoting Romans 13.

The Christian Peacemaker Teams organization is promoting symbolic war tax refusal as a way to make a clear witness in the matter of war taxes. Taxes for Life is a plan to have taxpayers redirect to education an amount equivalent to 1 penny for every billion dollars in the military budget. For tax year 1991 this is $3.03, which can be mailed to Christian Peacemaker Teams… Listen to your conscience when you pay your taxes. Write a letter of witness to the IRS, with copies to Congress and your local newspaper. Redirect some taxes to education through CPT.

If the IRS calls, tell them that it makes you a little bit nervous to break their law and that you do not enjoy being harassed by the collectors of blood money. Go on to say that you are far more apprehensive, however, about breaking God’s law. Tell them that you hear God’s warning rising up from the bulldozed mass graves of Iraqi conscripts, fathers and husbands, and the nightmares of their children. Explain that you are really afraid to harden you heart to the cry of the victims and that you have decided you will not take their blood upon your hands.

When Randy Kehler was thrown in prison on contempt of court charges for refusing to vacate the home that had been seized by the IRS, he prepared a statement that he hoped to read. The court denied him permission to address it. The Journal printed the statement he’d hoped to have made, which is a good thing: it would be a shame if such an articulate statement was left to sit unread in a file folder somewhere.

My refusal to give up our home is not an act of contempt or defiance of your court order. I regard it as an act of conscience and also an act of citizenship. The two go hand in hand. The first obligation of responsible citizenship, I believe, is obedience to one’s conscience. Obedience to one’s government and to its laws is very important, but it must come second. Otherwise there is no check on immoral actions by governments, which are bound to occur in any society whenever power is abused.

I want to assure you, however, that I am not someone who treats the law lightly. Even when a particular law seems at first to have no clear purpose or justification, I try to give it — that is, give those who created and approved it — the benefit of the doubt. In an ideal sense, I see law as the codification of those rules and procedures by which the members or citizens of a community, be it local or global, have agreed to live. A decent respect for one’s community requires a decent respect for its laws. At their best, such laws express the conscience of the community, causing conscience and law to coincide.

The international treaties and agreements that my wife, Betsy, and I cited in the legal documents recently submitted to, and rejected by, this court are wonderful examples of the coincidence of law and conscience. These agreements, each one signed by our government, include the United Nations Charter, which outlaws war and the use of military force as methods of resolving conflicts among nations; the Hague Regulations and Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the use or threatened use of weapons that indiscriminately kill civilians and poison the environment; and the Nuremberg Principles, which forbid individual citizens from participating in or collaborating with clearly defined “crimes against humanity,” “war crimes,” and “crimes against peace,” even when refusal to participate or collaborate means disobeying the laws of one’s government.

These international accords — which, as you know, our Constitution requires us to regard as “the Supreme Law of the Land” — are at least as much affirmation of conscience, rooted in universal moral standards, as they are statements of law. Betsy and I regret that you chose to deny our request for a trial, which would have allowed us to argue the relevance of these international laws before a jury of our peers.

Even in the absence of such laws, however, I believe that citizens would still have an affirmative obligation to follow their conscience and refuse to engage in or support immoral acts by governments. It is not true, as is commonly thought, that if large numbers of people put conscience ahead of the law and decided for themselves which acts of government were immoral, civilized society would break down into violence and chaos — that is, greater violence and chaos than there is now. In fact, the opposite would likely occur. There would likely be greater compliance with those laws that are fundamentally just and reasonable — in other words, most laws — and there would be greater public pressure to abolish or reform those laws (and policies) that are unjust or unreasonable.

There would be exceptions for the worse, of course. In the name of conscience, certain individuals would, no doubt, do some terrible things and cause much injury and death, which happens now. On balance, however, the historical record is clear: from the Spanish Inquisition and the African slave trade, to Stalin’s purges, Hitler’s Holocaust, the genocide of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and our own devastation of Vietnam and Iraq, far more killing and suffering, has resulted from people following “legal” orders and obeying the law than from people refusing to do so in obedience to conscience.

My own refusal to kill (which led me to spend nearly two years in federal prison rather than cooperate with the Vietnam draft), Betsy’s and my refusal to pay federal taxes used for killing (which caused the IRS to seize our home), and now our refusal to turn over our home in lieu of taxes, are all acts of conscience. It has not been easy for us to deliberately violate the law in these instances, and in so doing incur the anxiety and disapproval of some of our friends and family, as well as the scorn and censure of many members of the community. We are painfully aware that even though we do pay our town and state taxes, and even though we have given away to the poor and to the victims of our war-making in other countries every cent that we have withheld from the federal government, nevertheless we are still regarded by some as irresponsible and not contributing our fair share.

These are times, however, when all of us are confronted with difficult choices. Betsy and I, and many others like us, feel we must choose between knowingly and willingly paying for war and killing, and openly and nonviolently breaking the law with respect to federal taxes. Our consciences compel us to choose the latter.

For me, the issue is larger than simply the taking of another human life, or even the instance of a particular war in which many lives are lost. I have increasingly come to see the larger issue as war itself. Whereas there has always been a moral imperative to end war and refrain from killing, today the imperative is much greater. Today the logic of peace, the logic of nonviolence, is also the logic of survival.

It is impossible to dis-invent today’s nuclear, chemical, biological, and so-called conventional weapons of mass destruction. Therefore, we have no alternative but to effectively abolish war. This is the one essential adaptation the human species must make — and, I firmly believe, can make — if life as we know it is to continue.

War today is the scourge of the planet. It is tragic enough that war is daily claiming the lives of people, maiming more, leaving orphans and widows, and destroying homes, schools, and hospitals — to say nothing of the irreplaceable treasures of human civilization destroyed in Baghdad last year and in Dubrovnik over the past several months. What makes war today even more tragic, more horrible, are the incalculable economic, social, and environmental costs that go along with it. Instead of using our human and material resources to produce food, medicine, housing, schools, and other desperately needed commodities, the world’s nations, led by our own, are annually spending trillions of dollars to purchase more and more weapons of even greater destructive capability. The hundreds of millions of children, women, and men whose lives are ravaged by poverty, hunger, and homelessness — around the world and here in the States — are as much victims of our addiction to war and militarism as are those who are hit directly by the bullets and bombs.

While the awful gap between the rich minority and the poor majority of the world’s people grows wider and wider, war’s assault on the earth — the earth that sustains us all — becomes more savage and less reversible with each new armed conflict. The severe and longterm ecological damage to the Persian Gulf region that resulted from only a few weeks of war last year is just the tip of the iceberg. The cumulative impact of the many smaller, less publicized wars elsewhere around the globe is no less severe and, ultimately, no less threatening to the well-being of people everywhere, including the United States. Furthermore, here at home, where ecological damage to our own environment is proceeding at a frightening pace, the single largest polluter by far, producing more toxic and radioactive waste than any other single entity, is the U.S. military.

I am not at all suggesting that our country bears sole responsibility for the global state of affairs. But we bear a good deal of it, and therefore any steps we take to move away from war will have great influence upon other countries around the world. Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, we had the most powerful armed forces in the world, the most sophisticated weaponry, and by far the largest number of military bases outside our own borders. Since World War Ⅱ, we have used our military might to bomb, invade, or otherwise intervene in more countries around the world than any other nation. We were the first to develop the atomic bomb, and we are the only nation ever to use it. For years we have led the Soviets in atomic test explosions, and we ani continuing these tests even though Soviet testing has stopped. In addition, we have long been the world’s largest arms merchant, today supplying 40 percent of the entire overseas arms market.

We have been told that all of this is necessary for our security, but the opposite is true. This military colossus we have created has greatly undermined our security — by creating more enemies than it destroys, by wasting our precious resources and poisoning our environment, by degrading our democracy with “national security” secrecy, covert actions, and official lying, and by undercutting our highest Judeo-Christian values with the insidious doctrine of “might makes right.”

Betsy’s and my actions that have brought us to court are testament to our belief that there is another way for us to live in the world, and another way for us to resolve our conflicts with our fellow human beings. It is a way that is rooted in the best of our values: the values of generosity and justice, of human dignity and equality, of compassion and mutual respect. The seeds of this alternative way — the way of nonviolence that Dr. Martin Luther King tried to teach us — already exist within our society, and within each person. We have only to honor and nurture those seeds, individually and collectively. This is a prescription based not on wishful idealism, but on practical necessity. It is our only real hope for survival.

The transformation required cannot be accomplished without our accepting some measure of personal responsibility for the mess we are in. It would be futile to expect our government, or any other, to initiate it. In any event, we cannot afford to wait. The transformation must begin with us. Because we profess to be a self-governing people, it is all the more our responsibility.

We can exercise this responsibility by means of the choices each of us is called upon to make. For example, we can choose to speak out publicly against governmental practices and priorities that we know to be wrong. Many of us can also choose not to hand over to the federal government some part of our tax money — instead redistribute it to those in need, until such time as those in need become our government’s first priority. And each of us can choose to continue leading lives based on materialism, consumerism, and environmental exploitation, or we can find ways of living based on simplicity, sharing, and respect for the Earth. The choices we make as individuals will determine the choices we make as a nation.

This is, no doubt, a dangerous and ominous time to be alive in the world. Yet it is also a very exciting time to be alive. People all over the world, despite the opposition of their governments, are taking initiative to bring about momentous and long overdue changes. These winds of change are sweeping the planet, and they are not likely to stop at our borders.

If the people of Prague and Moscow can overthrow Soviet communism and bring about democracy and human rights; if the people of Soweto and Johannesburg can abolish South African apartheid and establish an egalitarian, multi-racial society; then, I feel sure, it is equally possible for us to dismantle U.S. militarism and replace it with attitudes and institutions of nonviolence.

It is my great hope, my silent prayer, that Betsy’s and my struggle to see that the fruits of our labor are used for nurturing and healing, rather than for killing and war, will somehow contribute to that process.

Following this, Christopher L. King had a piece promoting the Peace Tax Fund. He described it as the brainchild of David Bassett, who some twenty years before had come up with the idea of allowing taxpayers to perform “alternative service” money the way conscientiously objecting draftees could with their labor. King wrote that he was surprised to find little awareness of the bill in Quaker circles and described some of the work that he and his comrades were doing for the bill.

Those of us who meet each month and a quiet group of supporters in the surrounding communities believe in our consciences that war and militarism are wrong. We don’t believe they should be the major tools of our foreign policy. We sympathize with citizens like Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner of Colrain, Massachusetts, who have chosen to pay no taxes because they are pacifists.

We empathize with those brave souls who choose alternative lifestyles so they can keep their income below taxable levels. It often means their children must learn to sacrifice at an early age. It means stepping out of the mainstream culture.

Most of us don’t want to change our lifestyles radically or go to jail for our beliefs. Some might argue that if we are true to our faith, we have no other choice. On the other hand, there is a need to resist the fundamental tyranny that requires that we must become rebels if we wish to stand firmly for peace.

King’s article was pretty vague on the mechanics of what the Peace Tax Fund bill would actually accomplish, and it was written as if there were no reason why a conscientious objector to paying to war might not find it a satisfactory solution.

The July issue included a brief review of the video Paying for Peace: War Tax Resistance in the United States, which was produced by Carol Coney. Excerpt:

Among those interviewed are Brian Willson, a war tax resister and Vietnam veteran who in 1987 was run over by a train while blocking munitions shipments at the Concord naval weapons plant in California. Also interviewed is Maurice McCrackin, a minister who was sentenced to jail for war tax resistance in the early 1950s; Ernest and Marion Bromley, who have lived under the taxable income level to avoid paying taxes for military purposes; and Juanita Nelson, an early civil rights organizer who was the first woman to spend a night in jail for war tax resistance.

The August issue included an op-ed from Allan Kohrman suggesting Quakers ought to be more patriotic, perhaps singing “God Bless America” during their Sunday meetings, and in particular should rethink their permissive attitude toward civil disobedience and war tax resistance. “Many Friends seem to define civil disobedience as breaking any law they feel is morally wrong. Some will not pay war taxes, testifying that God has called them to resist. I would argue that paying taxes is a basic responsibility of citizenship, a function of my almost mystical relationship to my country. God calls me to pay my taxes much as God calls others to resist them.” That’s what “an almost mystical relationship to my country” will get you, I guess.

Another note in that issue concerned two Quakers in Germany — Christa & Klausmart Voigt — who had been prosecuted for war tax resistance. “About 40 Friends from all over Germany attended the hearing, which was overseen by five judges.” Klausmart had “placed his money in an account for a peace tax initiative,” and at press time they were still awaiting the court’s decision.

There was another note about the Tax Resisters’ Penalty Fund in the October issue, which described it this way: “When a request for assistance comes in, the committee that oversees the fund takes it under consideration, then notifies people who have agreed to participate of the amount each would need to contribute to cover the tax resister’s penalty and interest debt. Contributions are not used to cover the tax liability itself. The fund is administered in cooperation with the North Manchester (Ind.) Fellowship of Reconciliation.”

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in 2004

In 2004, Quaker Meetings were still wrestling with whether to go on the record in support of war tax resistance, and, if so, whether to do so in an explicit, uncompromising way, or one that played it safe and left a lot of wiggle room.

In an op-ed in the April issue of the Friends Journal, Nadine Hoover urged Quaker Meetings to take a concrete stand opposing the payment of war taxes:

Should War Tax Resistance be a Corporate Testimony?

At New York Yearly Meeting in 1999, I was given a message: The Spirit calls Friends to claim a corporate testimony against the payment of war taxes and participation in war in any form. Of course, we have had a testimony against war since George Fox’s declaration to Charles Ⅱ in 1660:

Our principle is, and our practices have always been, to seek peace, and ensue it, and to follow after righteousness and the knowledge of God, seeking the good and welfare, and doing that which tends to the peace of all. All bloody principles and practices we do utterly deny, with all outward wars, and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretense whatsoever, and this is our testimony to the whole world.

Yet there is what British Friends in Quaker Faith and Practice call “Dilemmas of the Pacifist Stand” (24.21–24.26), which opens with a quote from Isaac Penington, 1661:

I speak not against the magistrates or peoples defending themselves against foreign invasions; or making use of the sword to suppress the violent and evil-doers within our borders — for this the present estate of things may and doth require, and a great blessing will attend the sword where it is borne uprightly to that end and its use will be honourable — but yet there is a better state, which the Lord hath already brought some into, and which nations are to expect and to travel towards. There is to be a time when “nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more.” When the power of the Gospel spreads over the whole earth, thus shall it be throughout the earth, and, where the power of the Spirit takes hold of and overcomes any heart at present, thus will it be at present with that heart. This blessed state, which shall be brought fotth [in society] at large in God’s season, must begin in the particulars [that is, in individuals].

New York Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice, under which I currently reside, advises (p. 60–61):

Friends are earnestly cautioned against the taking of arms against any person, since “all outward wars and strife and fighting with outward weapons” are contrary to our Christian testimony. Friends should beware of supporting preparations for war even indirectly, and should examine in this light such matters as noncombatant military service, cooperation with conscription, employment or investment in war industries, and voluntary payment of war taxes. When their actions are carefully considered, Friends must be prepared to accept the consequences of their convictions. Friends are advised to maintain our testimony against war by endeavoring to exert an influence in favor of peaceful principles and the settlement of all differences by peaceful methods. They should lend support to all that strengthens international friendship and understanding and give active help to movements that substitute cooperation and justice for force and intimidation.

NYYM corporately advises against taking up arms against another person, yet more vaguely warns to “beware of” voluntary payment of war taxes. The yearly meeting calls Friends to examine their own actions and “accept the consequences of their convictions” (emphasis is mine). This is about individual conviction, not the corporate conviction we have against bearing of arms. We are squarely in the Penington tradition of advising Friends to testify against war by “endeavoring to exert an influence in favor of peaceful principles.” We commit to the conversion of hearts and minds, one at a time, “seeking the good and welfare, and doing that which tends to the peace of all.” Patience and persistence are employed in our participation with government.

As late as the 1970s, it even seemed that our experiment would come to fruition. Larry Apsey of New York Yearly Meeting called out, “the time is at hand.” The Gandhian, civil rights, and women’s movements made it clear that patience and persistence were about to pay off; we were about to come into this blessed state, not just as a people, but as a nation. What a far cry we are from that now! Fruits of the Spirit are a significant test of discernment for Friends, a test that our path has failed. We cannot put new wine into old wine flasks. We cannot be in that blessed state and support a military for those who have not yet arrived. We are called to choose, we are called to choose now, and we are called to choose as a people.

When we get quiet, every Friend I know says that payment of war taxes violates their conscience. It’s been a long time since we acknowledged a new corporate testimony; this practice has fallen away. So let us remember. Friends experience a Living Presence among us and commit to being taught, guided, and shaped by the Living Spirit, placing great reliance on spiritual discernment. Meeting for business was organized to test the spiritual discernment of its members, affirm or suggest further laboring, and support those suffering for conscience’ sake. If a Friend’s testimony were affirmed, the question was, “Is this true for them alone, for others as well, or for all of us?” If it were true for everyone, then it was a corporate testimony.

If we are quiet and ask the question, “Does the payment of war taxes violate my conscience?” and the response is yes for all of us, then, Friends, this is no longer a personal act of conscience but rather a corporate testimony of the meeting. I am not suggesting we all do any particular thing. I am asking a question of faith. What we do about it will only be sought once we are clear on what we believe. We may pay in protest, become vocal, or resist payment, but whatever we do, we do, not only as an individual, but also as a religious body.

The Spirit is calling us to unite in the Power of the Living Spirit to give life, joy, peace, and prosperity in the world through love, integrity, and compassionate justice among people and to acknowledge that paying for war violates our religious conviction. It will be a long, hard, humble road, but it is the only road that promises a future for humanity. Life will go on with or without us. Let us stand up for our children and grandchildren and say we chose peace.

The response to Hoover’s plea — at least from the record of it we have in the Journal — was muted. There was a single letter-to-the-editor from William Ashworth (who describes himself as a former war tax refuser) in the June issue that began: “Friend Nadine Hoover asks us if war tax resistance should be a corporate testimony among Friends. The answer is ‘no.’ ” Ashworth argues that because taxes are mixed, and not specific war taxes, there’s no grounds for refusal to pay; furthermore if we did refuse to pay, Congress would probably cut beneficial spending before military spending; and in addition there’s the familiar slippery slope argument wherein other churches might apply the Quaker precedent to refuse to pay for “family planning, education, environmental protection, and a host of other government services that we value.”

A feature on Lillian Willoughby in the May issue mentioned her war tax resistance as follows:

By the time of [the] Vietnam [war], Lillian, a lifelong tax resister, had become well acquainted with the Internal Revenue Service; she liked to speak of herself as “educating the IRS.” In one celebrated incident, after the IRS seized the Willoughbys’ car, the couple raised sufficient funds to redeem it at auction. Indeed, they raised much more than enough, and so they could claim their car and a refund as well. Lillian had brought a cake and lemonade to the IRS offices on the day of the auction. Once their bid had been declared the winner, she staged a party outside the auction room; one or two of the agents shared refreshments with [PDF cuts off here].

When she was summoned to trial, she and another Quaker wrote a letter to the judge advising him that they would not rise at a judge’s entrance, although they meant no disrespect. The bailiff instructed everyone to remain seated when the court came into session and the judge seemed predisposed to leniency. When he asked Lillian to account for her actions, she gave what had become her standard statement, that “we [the United States] should not be making war on people, and we [Lillian and like-minded taxpayers] should not have to pay for it.” The judge levied a $250 fine; she announced that she had no intention of paying it; he gave her 30 days to think it over. As George put it many years later, “She’s still thinking about it.”

The article ends with Willoughby, at 89, facing trial for a civil disobedience action in protest of the Iraq War and contemplating how she would confront the system: “One thing was certain, she told her family as they sat in daughter Anita’s New York apartment the day after Christmas: she would not pay the fine. None of them seemed surprised.”

A review of Robert Turner Shaping Silence: A Life in Clay in that issue calls it “the story of a conscientious objector, a tax resister, a generous donor of his time, skills, and possessions,” among other things.

An obituary notice for Susumu Ishitani in the same issue noted that “[i]n 1974, Susumu introduced tax refusal into Japan, and was one of six plaintiffs who sued the Japanese government over the issue of military spending.… From 1974 to 2000, he was a member of Citizens Group of Conscientious Military Tax Refusers, sometimes serving as clerk.”

The May annual gathering of the Northern Yearly Meeting approved a minute giving its interpretation of the Peace Testimony, which included this statement:

We will continue to stand and work for peace and justice. We will continue to support those who for conscience’ sake refuse to participate in the military. We support those who, for conscience’ sake, refuse to pay taxes for war. We support those who are involved in nonviolent peacemaking.

A minute approved in August by the South Berkshire (Massachusetts) Meeting quoted from the New England Yearly Meeting’s “Advice on Peace and Reconciliation,” which said:

Friends are urged to support those who witness to their governments and take personal risks in the cause of peace, who choose not to participate in wars as soldiers nor to contribute to its preparedness with their taxes.

Though the context in which this was quoted did not concern taxes, but merely an expression of “appreciation” for those Canadian Quaker organizations who were helping Americans who had fled to Canada to avoid military service.

A retrospective on the Friends World Committee for Consultation’s Peace Conference the previous year — which had been entitled “Friends Peace Witness in a Time of Crisis” — mentioned “ ‘Conscience and War Tax Witness’ with Rosa Packard” in a long list of “Other workshops.”

The August issue included a review of Henry Climbs a Mountain — a children’s story based on Henry David Thoreau’s night in jail for tax refusal.

That issue also included an article about Mary Stone McDowell, who is the only person I know of who was a war tax resister through both World Wars (she was fired from her job as a teacher in part because she would not participate in urging her students to buy “Thrift Stamps” — a sort of junior version of the Liberty Bonds the U.S. government was using to fund its participation in World War Ⅰ). Unfortunately, the brief paragraph about her war tax resistance is cut off in the PDF in the archives, but it ends “…income taxes each year and, according to Vernon Martin [a conscientious objector McDowell had helped], the IRS dutifully ‘attached part of her pitifully small teacher’s pension, out of which she also gave to charity.’ ”

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in 2006

Some Quaker war tax resisters of the past and present made appearances in the Friends Journal in 2006.

Another article on George and Lillian Willoughby, in the February issue, mentioned how early American Quakers had been sensitive to the issue of war taxes:

In colonial America, tremendous pressure was exerted on Penn and other Quakers to support militias, to provision the British army, to pay taxes for unexplained uses that might well turn out to be military expeditions. Governing a large colony (Pennsylvania) in which Quakers were a minority, and in which the majority wanted protection from Indian attacks, forced further compromises. Only with the advent of John Woolman, who with others sent a letter to the Pennsylvania assembly concerning a royal levy, [a portion of the PDF is illegible at this point] -tion of Christ and Fox. As reported by Peter Brock in his The Quaker Peace Testimony, 1660–1914, it states in part:

And being painfully apprehensive that the large sum granted by the… Assembly for the King’s use 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 directly by the said act, though suffering be the consequence of our refusal.

Despite the influence of John Woolman and Anthony Benezet, Friends remained divided on the question of “rendering unto Caesar” that which “Caesar” claimed.

The Willoughbys, the article said, “have acted on their beliefs — through war tax refusal” and other means.

An obituary notice for Louis E. Jones in that issue noted that among the ways he “championed Friends causes” was by “for many years avoiding paying federal income tax, instead contributing to charitable causes.… He served as Downers Grove Meeting’s treasurer for many years, giving him the opportunity to witness against war taxes in the form of refusing war/excise tax for phone service.”

A retrospective on the life and work of the pacifist activist A.J. Muste in the April issue noted:

Throughout these years [the 1950s and early 1960s], he often faced jail and prosecution for refusing to pay income taxes (he constantly followed the dictates of the 18^th century Quaker John Woolman, who insisted that “The spirit of truth required of me as an individual to suffer patiently the distress of goods, rather than pay actively”)…

That same issue also noted that the Quaker Council for European Affairs planned to “present a resolution, under Article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights on Freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, to the Council of Europe” that would enshrine a “right for individual taxpayers to direct a portion of their taxes away from military uses and towards peace-building, international development, and other alternatives to war.” The note mentioned the difficulties with the resolution: “1) the state’s need to maintain a uniform tax system is deemed more important than designing a tax system through which some taxes are diverted for conscientious objection, and 2) in the absence of legislation that allows for the diversion of taxes away from military purposes, the courts have no power to rule in favor of peace tax protestors.”

That issue also noted that the American Friends Service Committee had nominated Ghassan Andoni for the Nobel Peace Prize, and mentioned that “[d]uring the First Intifada, 1987–1993, Andoni was an active participant in Beit Sahour’s tax resistance.”

An obituary for Glenn S. Mallison in the May issue noted that “[d]uring the Vietnam War, he refused entry to IRS agents who confronted [his] family’s refusal to pay phone taxes.”

The June issue reported that “New York Yearly Meeting approved a statement against paying for war.”:

The following minute was approved at their Spring Business Sessions on April 1: “The Living Spirit works to give joy, peace, and prosperity through love, integrity, and compassionate justice among people. We are united in this Power. We acknowledge that paying for war violates our religious conviction. We will witness to this religious conviction in each of our communities.” This statement reflects Quakers’ steadfast testimony that any participation in war, including payment of taxes for war, is a violation of our faith. By compelling support of war-making through taxation, our government and political leaders have forced many people of faith to subordinate God’s Word to the dictates of the state. The statement seeks to uphold a foundational principle of our nation that freedom to practice our religious faith is a matter of moral imperative, and is not dependent upon the grace of rights or privileges granted by the legislature.

For nearly 350 years, members of the Religious Society of Friends have upheld a testimony of peace and nonviolence that embodies the belief that God’s spirit, present in every person, empowers all of us to resolve disputes without resorting to the machinery of war. Quakers, Mennonites, and people of other faiths came to the New World to escape persecutions in Europe for their religious convictions. The work of these “peace churches” in the United States eventually led to the legal recognition of the right of all persons not to be forced into military service in violation of their conscience. To date, however, the United States government has failed to respect the right of religious conscience, recognized by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free exercise of religion, not to be compelled to support war through the collection of taxes.

The U.S. Congress has before it legislation introduced by Congressman John Lewis of Georgia and supported by 35 Representatives… (the “Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill”) that would provide conscientious objectors [subject] to military taxation with an option. Individuals who establish a sincere religious objection would have their tax payments directed towards nonviolent and life-affirming means for protecting and promoting national security, consistent with their faith. Until that time, many Quakers and others are being forced to choose between being faithful to their religious convictions and being in compliance with our federal tax laws.

“As a religious body, we cannot in good conscience support war, and we have borne that witness for over 350 years,” said Christopher Sarnmond, general secretary of New York Yearly Meeting. “We are clear that violence only begets more violence, in a neverending cycle of horror that diminishes all humankind. Being required to pay almost half our taxes to support war-making is a violation of our religious convictions, and we will be seeking ways to redress this, individually and corporately.”

In an op-ed in the October issue, Stan Becker used his column inches to present the dilemma of Quakers paying for the Iraq War and other such militarism. He asserted that “[V]ery few Friends have been able to conscientiously refuse to pay the military portion of their income tax and succeeded in doing so” because “[t]he Internal Revenue Service simply does what is necessary to get its monies.” The option of “living below the taxable income level,” he insisted, “is nearly impossible as well.”

To the rescue is “the Peace Tax Fund legislation that would allow pacifists to have their taxes used only for nonmilitary purposes.” Meanwhile, he suggested that Friends calculate how much of their time and money is going to pay for war and try to counterbalance this with some peace-minded donations.

Nadine Hoover had an article in the same issue in which she mentioned her frustrations at trying to forward the cause of war tax resistance in the New York Yearly Meeting:

In 1999, a member of Peace Concerns Committee of New York Yearly Meeting approached me outside the auditorium at yearly meeting: “We were talking in committee today about how we are being prepared for something, something historic. We don’t know what it is, but we feel ready! We thought of asking people and your name came up. What do you sense we are being prepared for?”

The answer was laid upon me in that instant. I replied: “Don’t ask the question if you’re not prepared to yield. Our dear Friend Sandra Cronk warned us of the dis-ease that settles in when we think we are ready but, when the Light comes, we refuse to yield. You really do not want to know the answer.”

“Yes, yes! We do. We really do. We’re ready.”

“Okay.” I said, “It’s a corporate conviction against paying for war.”

He paled and said, “Oh, no. That may be a bit too much.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. You wanted an historic action that would not change your life. Well, let me see…”

He smiled.

That was the end of that conversation…

But…

Seven years after that conversation, New York Yearly Meeting approved a statement of faith testifying to the Power of the Living Spirit and acknowledging that paying for war violates our religious conviction. This statement not only reaffirms our Peace Testimony, but shifts from supporting or encouraging individual acts of conscience to claiming a corporate testimony laid upon all of us. U.S. courts have rejected cases on war tax resistance saying they cannot accommodate individuals, but the courts may not say no so easily to an entire religious body.

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in 2009

There was a bit of an anti-war tax resistance backlash in the Friends Journal in 2009.

In the February issue, Peter Phillips came out against war tax resistance in a two-page article. Here is a summary of his argument:

• Friends’ advice against paying war taxes is sometimes incoherent. The New York Yearly Meeting suggests that friends “examine… voluntary payment of war taxes” but taxes by definition aren’t voluntary. The practice of some Quakers of refusing to pay but allowing the government to seize the amount by levy makes such war tax resistance “insignificant.”
• What do people mean by “war taxes”? If it’s the percentage of the revenue that goes to the Pentagon, even some of that money isn’t spent for war (for instance the Army Corps of Engineers work to rebuild hurricane-damaged New Orleans). What about “reparations to Iraqis whose property is damaged” or “the Air Force’s remarkable mediation program that resolves employment and procurement disputes without litigation” — or, in the other direction, what about the Interstate Highway system, which was initially designed as a defense measure: is money raised for that, too, “war taxes”? Is everyone on their own to decide what taxes are war taxes, or is there an authoritative answer, or is it okay to withhold symbolic amounts — what is the justification for withholding Elizabeth Boardman’s $10.40, an arbitrary amount that has nothing to do with war spending?
• Withholding of taxes is not a good way of withholding funds from the war machine for the simple reason that the government won’t decide how to respond to a shortage of funds by respecting the reasons why the tax resister withheld them. It is every bit as likely (perhaps more likely) to cut spending elsewhere. “Should Head Start, research on solar energy, unemployment benefits, and support for healthcare all be underfunded in the exercise of our righteousness? A consequence of my not joining the armed forces in 1971 was that someone else did who would not otherwise have had to. People were hurt because I was not there to help. This too is a consequence of conscientious objection. Are those who advocate withholding part of their taxes prepared as well to live with the consequences of their actions?”
• There is a Quaker ethic of trying to adapt to communal consensus that is expressed in many of its teachings, and the ethos of participating as equals in trying to probe a dilemma and adopt a communal consensus is one of the things Quakers have contributed to the American polis — war tax resistance turns its back on this with its ethos of individualism and rejection of the decisions of the community.

You will not be surprised to learn that Phillips’s article led to some exchanges in the letters-to-the-editor column in later issues. Here is a summary of some of the back-and-forth:

• Dennis P. Roberts thought the article was “the finest work on war taxes I have yet seen in the pages of your journal” and then told a half-remembered story about a terrible massacre in colonial Pennsylvania that could have been prevented but for the pacifism of the “strong Quaker elements within the settlement.” — “I cannot say or recall with certainty whether this story is fact or fiction. What does it matter? Either way, an important lesson is drive home eloquently and powerfully: military preparations sometimes must be made.”
• Robin Harper responded with some suggested guidelines for Quaker war tax resistance that he thought might meet some of Phillips’s criticisms (see ♇ 19 July 2013 for an excerpt from this letter).
• David R. Bassett felt that Phillips had been too dismissive of war tax resistance in general after concentrating his criticism on a few specific arguments and methods he found to be weak or ineffective. What about resisters who keep their income below the tax line? Or people like Bassett who work in the judicial and legislative arenas to try to get something like conscientious objection to military taxation legalized? Or folks who try to make sure their investments and purchases are clear of involvement in war?
• Perry Treadwell compared Phillips’s “rationalizations” to “Friends’ historical resistance to confronting their complicity in enslavement,” and thought that just as a few Friends had to break from the pack and lead Quakers to an abolitionist stand, it will take Quakers speaking out against paying for war to make their “spiritual testimony” come to life.
• Daniel Jenkins called Phillips’s argument “smooth and lawyerly” and “crafted… to lead to a foregone conclusion.” He felt that Phillips gave short shrift to occasions when “conscience may sometimes transcend the constraints of conventionality and pressures of conformity.”
• Naomi Paz Greenberg considered Phillips’s argument that by not serving or not paying taxes you are merely foisting the responsibility off on someone else to be flawed:

  The moral consequence [of Phillips’s decision not to serve in the military] is not that other people were made to serve in his stead, as Phillips suggests. The moral consequence of his not serving in war is simply that he did not violate his conscience by serving. Others could have and did make their own choices, consulting conscience or not.

  The moral consequences of not paying taxes for war are similarly direct.

  She even suggested a more radical outlook toward taxes that I have rarely seen in Quaker circles:

  Our taxes are compulsory, and in some sense they are the least desirable way to provide a constructive economic foundation for a compassionate society. They presuppose that there is no Friendly nor Christian nor Jewish nor Hindu nor Muslim nor conscientious nor atheistic nor socialist love for one another and so we must be forced. Paying taxes separates us from those with whom we might otherwise be in community, and with whom we might shake hands, share food, share laughter and tears. Paying taxes for war separates us from many of them irrevocably.

  Some Friends testify that we expect better of ourselves than that, because we know experimentally that God expects better of us.

  Greenberg also felt that there was a big difference between the Quaker ethos of consensus and conformity when “recognizing the sense of the meeting” and trying to figure out how to confront “legislation written by lobbyists and summarized by Congressional interns in a process that has been compared to the making of sausage.”

An obituary notice for Kent Larrabee in the February issue noted that “[f]or much of his life, Kent purposely lived below the poverty line in order to identify with the poor and to avoid payment of income taxes for war.”

In the May issue, Arthur Waskow offered a reading of the “Render unto Caesar…” koan that puts it into a context of thousands of years of Rabbinical debate about the passage in Genesis that reads: “God created humankind in God’s own Image.” He thought that Jesus had been intending to refer to this debate, and not intending to give any advice about taxes.

An obituary notice for Lillian Willoughby in the May issue mentioned that “Lillian felt called to refuse to pay war taxes, and the IRS seized her car in the spring of 1970.” An obituary notice for Arthur Evans in the August issue said that “[f]or 20 years, Arthur withheld the portion from his federal income tax that he believed went to war and weapons, and in 1963, he was jailed for 90 days for refusing to turn over income records to the Internal Revenue Service.” And an obituary notice for Merrill Hallowell Barnebey in the December identified him as “a war tax resister.”

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in 2011

In 2011, most of the mentions of war tax resistance in the Friends Journal were brief and retrospective.

The January issue noted that Christopher Moore-Backman had lost a federal district court suit in which he had asserted “that the use of his federal income tax payments for military spending substantially burdened his religious exercise in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”

An obituary notice for Alfred Frederick Andersen in the April issue noted that “[h]e refused to pay federal income taxes for most of his adult life, and the family home was sold at auction by the IRS in the early 1970s.”

A review of a book on conscientious objectors of World War Ⅱ mentioned that, among the activities such conscientious objectors took after the war, “Stephen L. Angell, a Quaker CO and a social worker, started his own business during the Vietnam war to avoid paying taxes toward a war he could not morally support.” And an obituary notice for Angell, in the October issue said that “[i]n 1967, to avoid paying taxes for the Vietnam War, he resigned from Nassau County Health and Welfare Council and formed a consulting organization that would pay him less than taxable wages.”

There were also some mentions of Robin Harper’s war tax resistance in that issue (I covered these in the 19 July 2013 Picket Line).

A retrospective on the lives of George & Lillian Willoughby in the September issue remembered:

Lillian had always felt a deep calling to refuse to pay income taxes since such a large percentage went to war costs. One day after lunch, George and some students and I [Lynne Shivers] were chatting under the trees. Two IRS agents approached us and announced that they planned to confiscate the Willoughbys’ red Volkswagen Beetle. We were stunned and said little. A few minutes later, Lillian walked briskly toward all of us, carrying a briefcase with papers she needed as a dietary consultant. She opened the car door and got in, saying, “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I have to get to work!” And she drove away! Friends bought the car when it was auctioned off and gave it back to the Willoughbys, but the IRS did not use an auction again in the Philadelphia region for the next 30 years. The IRS called it “The Willoughby Principle.”

Chapter 36 of Elizabeth McGuinness’s People Waging Peace: stories of Americans striving for peace and justice in the world today concerns war tax resisters George & Lillian Willoughby. Here are some excerpts from that chapter:

[I]n the mid-60s, when all four of their children were going to college, the couple took money-making more seriously and started to feel the government’s sticky fingers reaching into their paychecks. That’s when Lillian called a halt: “I quit paying taxes — and I mean all taxes — because I was not about to support the old men’s dreams.” The old men, she said, were those who were foisting things like military buildups, selective service, and governmental secrecy upon the nation. Lillian Willoughby wasn’t having any of it.

George was right with her. It’s a “myth,” he said, recalling those days, “that you can’t do anything, that it’s impossible and you’re trapped. This is the kind of slavery, kind of servitude you get into. We allow ourselves to be enslaved by these shibboleths, these rules laid down on us. You don’t need bars and whips to keep people in line; you just need ideas!” Neither Willoughby bows willingly to such regimentation.

Although tax resistance has been just one part of the Willoughbys’ personal protest to the nation’s military involvement, they did make some fundamental life changes which helped to avoid the tax man. Lillian, who was working as a dietitian in the mid ’60s, changed her job status from employee to consultant, thus avoiding automatic deductions. In later years, when the children were through school, the couple reduced their income so no taxes were due; now retired, they live on Social Security. Recently they gave their home and land in nearby Deptford, N.J., to a land trust, so they no longer own property. And they “rent” a car from a friend for $1 a year, remembering an earlier time when the IRS “collected” their VW bug because the couple refused to pay their telephone tax.

McGuinness next describes some of the couple’s other history in anti-war activism, including George’s conscientious objector status during World War Ⅱ and later work with the American Friends Service Committee, Lillian’s work with war refugees and her civil disobedience action at the Nevada nuclear weapons testing grounds in 1957, George’s participation in the sailing of the Golden Rule to the South Pacific nuclear testing area, Lillian’s participation in a multi-day sit-in at the Atomic Energy Commission, George’s participation in the San Francisco to Moscow peace march and then in another from New Delhi that was stopped before it could continue to Beijing, and the couple’s involvement in the Movement for a New Society network. These are briefly described, among several other examples of determined direct action.

At the time the book was published, George was secretary of Peace Brigades International, and Lillian was “helping plan a nonviolence and feminist conference.” The chapter opens with the couple going to a tax day protest, which the plays out later in the chapter:

George and Lillian Willoughby have proceeded with the other tax protestors to City Hall. TV crews, radio and newspaper reporters move among the group; photographers and cameramen take pictures of the Halloween-masked “Ronald Reagan” and the gray-faced, khaki-clad “contra” taking part in a bit of street theater. The audience is led through tax-protester parodies of well-known songs.

Lillian is among the speakers here, telling how, back in the ’40s, she refused to buy War Bonds, although her employer was pressuring for 100% employee participation; how she stopped paying taxes in the ’60s; how she and George turned their property into a land trust. She invites anyone interested in details to see her. But, Lillian said privately, she would never tell anyone to totally stop paying taxes as she did: “We figure we just raise people’s consciousness; they have to figure out what they’re going to do themselves.”

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:

1. 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.
2. You may file form 843 for a refund.
3. If the above demands are refused, go to the Income Tax Board of Appeals. If the Board turns you down, sue.
4. 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