How you can resist funding the government →
a survey of tactics of historical tax resistance campaigns →
put your taxes in an escrow fund in lieu of payment →
see also
“If you are collectible, you could consider using an escrow account,” [Tana] Hastings said.
“If you know there’s a good chance your taxes will be collected, the escrow works well, because the money and the interest are put to good use, and in the event that the IRS seizes property or garnishes your wages, you can reimburse yourself, and not end up having paid your taxes twice.”
The nation’s largest escrow account, the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign, is located in Seattle.
The escrow account is a trust fund, and war tax resisters can redirect the money they would have paid to the government to this account.
The pool of money is used to support the sort of community development and education initiatives that many war tax resisters would rather see their tax dollars fund.
In the event that a war tax resister is penalized by the IRS, he can withdraw some or all of his money from the escrow account to mitigate his losses.
Because the war tax resister has relinquished legal claims to the money he places in the escrow account, the IRS cannot seize those assets to pay back taxes.
If I had to guess, I’d say that the way the fund administrators get around this is to take complete legal title to the deposited money, but keep informal, extra-legal records of who-paid-what so that they can later disperse the funds as “gifts” or “grants” to the depositors when reimbursements are requested.
This wouldn’t appease the IRS but might make it more difficult for them to do anything about it.
Deposits into the Account are confidential.
The pooled funds are held in NACC’s name, rather than in the names of individual depositors.
Some do choose to tell the IRS that they have deposited their withheld taxes in the CMTC Escrow Account (making a levy on those funds more likely).
If you don’t tell the IRS about your deposits, it will not know about them.
The IRS could, theoretically, trace the deposits through one’s bank — but this would be costly to the IRS, and isn’t very likely (and wouldn’t be possible at all for deposits made with personal money orders).
It’s also possible that the IRS could physically seize NACC’s records (and/or those of other Alternative Funds), and thereby learn the details of the Account’s depositors.
But here again, this would be an expensive undertaking, and likely generate an enormous amount of negative publicity, probably making it more trouble that it would be worth.
If I gave money to an escrow fund in this way, and then the IRS seized a hunk of change from my bank account and I then asked the fund to reimburse me — would that reimbursement legally count as part of my income for the year in which I received it?
Because of the legal fiction behind the fund, it would not just be my money being returned to me, but a “grant” or “gift” to me.
Why is any of this important?
Because I still want to keep my income below the tax line so that I neither pay nor owe income tax, even as I resist self-employment tax illegally.
If I receive a reimbursement from one of these funds, and the IRS gets wind of it, would that boost my income above-the-line for that year and cause me to owe even more money?
— Would they try to tax me twice for the same wad of cash?
I asked about this on a war tax resister’s email list , hoping that some sharp legal minds had already been all over this, but I didn’t get much in the way of answers, and none that sounded particularly authoritative.
One correspondent noted that there are many funds that are set up in many ways:
[It] depends upon the account and how it is set up.
Does the fund have separate accounts for each depositor, or is the money all pooled?
Do you still “own” your deposit or not?
If it is a true escrow account, the money is still yours, and there really was no transaction.
The Fund we set up in Atlanta specifically eschews being an escrow account: all monies go into one pot.
Donations are made according to a formula, however, which recognizes the possibility of IRS seizures from contributors and tries to hold enough $$ in reserve so that those who request reimbursal of seized amounts, up to the amount deposited in the Fund, may reasonably expect to be able to receive such amounts.
Reimbursal is provided only if the funds are actually seized, not merely upon request, because the depositor has no ownership of any amount in the Fund.
And no promises are made; were everyone who deposited funds to incur seizure, there clearly would not be enough money to cover all requested reimbursals, because some has been given away.
Of course, not everyone is seized from, by a long shot.
This arrangement is clearly different from an escrow account which may just be holding money for you and from which you can get those funds at any time.
But the problem seems to be that either you are depositing funds into an account that you own in the sense that you can withdraw those funds from it at will (in which case, these funds are just like any other asset you own, except perhaps that they support charitable causes) or you are relinquishing your money to a fund that may in the future decide to grant its benefactors funds to reimburse them for seized money (in which case, that might be considered taxable income — more grist for the IRS mill).
If you gave any one person gifts in that valued at more than $11,000, you must report the total gifts to the Internal Revenue Service and may have to pay tax on the gifts.
The person who receives your gift does not have to report the gift to the IRS or pay gift or income tax on its value.
But I’ve got to say that at the end of this information dump, I still don’t feel like I have any absolutely authoritative answers.
For now, I think I’m going to be my own personal alternative fund.
The court said the warehouse bank was used by customers “who owe substantial tax debts or have failed to file federal tax returns.”
Evidence in the court record showed that Arant commingled nearly $28 million in customer deposits made over a four-year period and held these funds at a number of commercial banks.
Customers had Arant use their deposited funds to pay customers’ bills, which made it difficult or impossible for the IRS to identify customers’ expenditures.
…Judge Robert Lasnik of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington found that Arant falsely told customers they could legally hide their income, assets, expenditures and identities from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) through the warehouse bank.
The court said that Arant “knew or had reason to know” that his promises were false because “courts have repeatedly held that warehouse banks are tax evasion schemes.”
In a separate order, Judge Lasnik held that federal tax liens, totaling more than $250,000, which relate to penalties the IRS assessed against Arant for operating his scheme have priority over the claims of warehouse bank depositors to funds currently held by the operation.
Those funds, held at a number of commercial banks, have been frozen since ’s preliminary injunction.
The court ordered that they remain frozen.
The court also ordered Arant to give the Justice Department a list of all customers who used the warehouse bank — with customers’ addresses, Social Security numbers and telephone numbers.
“Courts have repeatedly held that this so-called ‘warehouse bank’ tax defier scheme is illegal,” said Nathan J. Hochman, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Tax Division.
“Anyone tempted to put their money in such an operation should know that, in addition to getting themselves in serious legal trouble, they could also lose all their money.”
This “warehouse bank” bears a superficial resemblance to the alternative funds into which some war tax resisters redirect their taxes.
For instance, one such fund calls itself an escrow account…
…that, since , has allowed War Tax Resisters to set aside refused military taxes.
Depositors can retrieve their money at any time (for example, to replace assets seized by the IRS).
In the meantime, it is invested in community projects around the country, and interest from the account is used to promote War Tax Resistance and to support peace and social justice activism.
The [escrow account] is the largest and most geographically diverse Alternative Fund in the U.S., holding hundreds of thousands of dollars from hundreds of depositors.
And the literature promoting the fund states:
The account is quite useful for those willing to go to great lengths to prevent the IRS from collecting.
“Hiding” all of one’s assets in the account (and/or in similar Alternative Funds or foreign banks), being self-employed or willing to change jobs at a moment’s notice, not owning major assets such as houses or cars, and being willing to forego interest from one’s assets can make it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, for the IRS to collect.
Will The IRS Know About My Deposits Into [the escrow account]?
Deposits into the Account are confidential.
The pooled funds are held in [the sponsoring organization’s] name, rather than in the names of individual depositors.
Some do choose to tell the IRS that they have deposited their withheld taxes in the [escrow account] (making a levy on those funds more likely).
If you don’t tell the IRS about your deposits, it will not know about them.
The IRS could, theoretically, trace the deposits through one’s bank — but this would be costly to the IRS, and isn’t very likely (and wouldn’t be possible at all for deposits made with personal money orders).
It’s also possible that the IRS could physically seize [the group’s] records (and/or those of other Alternative Funds), and thereby learn the details of the Account’s depositors.
But here again, this would be an expensive undertaking, and likely generate an enormous amount of negative publicity, probably making it more trouble that it would be worth.
It may be worth noting that such actions were never undertaken during — a time of similar paranoia.
I worry that to the IRS, a honeypot like this will one day prove irresistible.
The issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter, More Than a Paycheck, is now available on-line.
Among the features in this issue:
NWTRCC regulars were joined by curious locals like Tom Quinn of EcoWatch and Michael Patterson from Dennis Kucinich’s office (our meeting place is in Kucinich’s House district and he was curious enough to send an aide to take notes).
A few things jumped out at me during the opening introductory go-’round:
Jim Stockwell of North Carolina mentioned that after some initial mutual
suspicion there was surprising synergy between the traditional Tax Day
protest his war tax resistance group held
and the Tea Party protests going on
at .
Many of the local groups reported diminishing numbers and less-frequent
activity in the past months, mirroring a general doldrums in the peace
movement.
Bill Ramsey noted that it has become harder to set up alternative funds
in the post-9/11 financial paperwork era.
Ramsey also reported on an interesting and creative tax day protest in his
neck of the woods. A group grabbed hundreds of 1040 forms from public
places where such things are found (libraries, post offices, and the
like), then printed ghostly images of coffins and of children wounded in
war over the forms, and then replaced them where they had originally found
them.
Ginny Sсhnеider noted that in New Hampshire, the notoriety
of the Ed
and Elaine Brown tax protester stand-off fiasco has made it difficult
for her to do outreach in the progressive community. People hear “tax
resistance” and immediately their minds conjure up images of nuts holing
up with their arsenals and their conspiracy theories until the government
locks them up for life.
We watched a near-final cut of a film
NWTRCC is producing about war tax resistance and resisters:
Death and Taxes. It met with great acclaim (and
plenty of suggestions for last-minute edits). Last I heard, it’s due for
release .
Attendees watch a cut of Death and Taxes, an introductory war tax resistance film due to be released next month
Later, Phil Althouse, an election observer in El Salvador, updated us on conditions there, and Mike Ferner of Veterans for Peace talked about how to move from activism to organizing and build bonds between disparate parts of the broader anti-war coalition.
Mike Ferner and Phil Althouse address the gathering
While coalition building always sounds great in the abstract, when it comes
down to actually doing it, it runs into the practical difficulty of finding a
common ground and deciding where to compromise and where no compromise is
possible. Ferner thought that organizing around the larger vision of
real democracy was the way to go. Other folks were skeptical. It can
be difficult to find anything approaching an ideological common ground even in
a small group like
NWTRCC
with an inherently common, specialized and political interest.
In members of
NWTRCC
there’s often a tension between avowed nonviolent principles and promotion of
progressive projects (like universal health care and publicly-financed
elections for instance) that fundamentally rely on a coercive, violent state
to carry them out. The avowedly nonviolent progressives either don’t see the
violent ramifications inherent in such projects or I have failed to understand
the ingenious way they have squared this circle. I usually avoid the
temptation to press the point, but sometimes give in.
Anyway, after this we split up into two groups: a War Tax Resistance 101
discussion group that I moderated, and a larger group that discussed issues of
interest to more experienced resisters. There were other groups that met over
the course of the afternoon as well, but by then I found it hard to be in even
one place at once.
In the evening we heard more in-depth stories of the tax resistance from our hosts, Maria Smith and Charlie Hurst, and from Juanita Nelson and Erica Weiland.
Juanita Nelson told the story of her arrest-in-a-Sears-bathrobe that she also tells in A Matter of Freedom.
Erica described her transformation from a young Dean Democrat to a tax resisting anarchist (a salvation narrative in which, to my delight, The Picket Line plays a role).
Juanita Nelson tells her story
Many war tax resisters take the money the government wants from them and they
give it instead to “alternative funds.” Sometimes these funds donate the money
they receive from resisters to groups doing good. Other times these funds hold
the money in escrow until such time as the government seizes assets from the
resister or (don’t laugh) gives up its evil ways — meanwhile, donating any
interest or returns on investments from the funds to charity.
Quinlan: The People’s Life Fund is the escrow account that was established so that people who are refusing to pay all or part of their taxes can put that money in escrow, and the interest from that is granted each year to groups that are doing the kind of work that we feel the government should be doing.
The kind of work that’s being cut right now.
While the military is allowed to grow, our schools and social services are being cut.
Erica Weiland is on the administrative committee for the [NWTRCC] national office.
She says redirecting even a small part of what she considers a “military tax” has rewards that outweigh any fines or possible prison time.
Weiland: De-funding the military opens up a huge amount of money, resources, and time that could be used building up our communities and supporting communities around the world — who need that so much more than they need to be bombed and shot at.
Remember how former District of Columbia council member Carol Schwartz threatened to start resisting her federal income taxes over the lack of Congressional representation for people in the district?
Well, that didn’t last long.
When tax time rolled around, she backpedaled and paid up.
But since then I’ve found another example or two.
First, this one, from , from a woman with a bit more fortitude:
“Boston Tea Party” Needed, She Says; Cooking Up Scheme
by Alicia Hart
Daisy Harriman
Washington — (NEA) —
The days of crusading women suffragists are not yet dead.
That is if Daisy Harriman has her way.
A tradition here in the capital, this grand old gal is outraged that the citizens of Washington, both male and female, have no right to vote either in local or national elections.
So she’s waging a red hot no-holds campaign to get Congress to rectify this situation.
If going to prison will help the cause, then Mrs. J. Borden Harriman is game.
In fact, she’s presently cooking up a scheme that could put her back in the clink any one of these days.
Mrs. Harriman served as U.S. Minister to Norway during the critical years prior to World War Ⅱ.
She is a distant cousin of Gov. W. Averell Harriman of New York.
After years of civic and social activity, political squabbles, hair raising experiences and close friendships with the great and near great, she’s in no mood to call it quits.
A mere 84, she makes ridiculous the conventional idea that old ladies should stick to their rocking chairs.
Wake Up People
“We’ve got to do something spectacular that will wake people up to the fact that Washington is voteless,” exclaims Mrs. Harriman who is cochairman of the Washington Home Rule Committee and a power behind the drive to give the District of Columbia its own government.
“It’s so hard to get anyone excited over it.
Why most people in the country don’t even realize we can’t cast a ballot here.”
The best way to dramatize voteless Washington, Mrs. Harriman figures, is to refuse to pay D.C. taxes until something is done.
So far, she has persuaded about 10 persons to go along with the plan.
They’ll sign a paper notifying officials of their position.
“We need another Boston Tea Party,” she says.
“It’s the same situation — taxation without representation.
Washington is the only great capital in the free world where the people have absolutely no say as to how their government is run.
It’s a disgrace.”
Such a skirmish with the law could put Mrs. Harriman and anyone else behind bars.
Some of her more cautious friends have advised against such a step.
“I’d be perfectly willing to go to prison,” she comments as if referring to a coming engagement.
“I think it would be fun.”
In she was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as Minister to Norway.
The second woman in U.S. history to take on such a diplomatic post, it seemed to be a harmless spot where a female could hardly gum up international relations.
But Hitler changed that.
When the Germans attacked Norway in , she was on the spot, and her dispatch to the State Department sounded the alarm.
Then 70, she stuck out air raids until finally forced to flee to Sweden with the Nazi armies close behind.
She has also been through plenty of political battles and is a staunch Democrat ever since taking up the banner for Woodrow Wilson in .
Soon after his election, she was made the only woman member of the Federal Industrial Relations Commission.
Perhaps Daisy Harriman’s Sunday evening suppers won her the greatest fame, especially in Washington circles.
Here again, there were fireworks.
New Dealers and right wingers from the ranks of Congress, the newspaper business and government were placed side by side at her table.
Then she’d throw out for conversation a sizzling topic of the day.
When her guests got too hot under the collar, she could always cool them off with one sentence.
It was: “Isn’t this all great fun?”
The District of Columbia finally got its own, locally-elected government in , though it is subject to whatever arbitrary mandates Congress decides to throw over it from time to time, and it has turned out to be a particularly crappy government.
The residents of the district still have no full-fledged Congressional representation.
In , the non-voting District delegate to Congress, Walter E. Fauntroy…
That would risk penalties including imprisonment.
“Those of us who have decided to take this action are prepared to accept those consequences,” Fauntroy said .
Fauntroy… asked city residents to file federal tax returns but withhold payment of federal taxes and place the money in an escrow account to be established by a group called “Taxation Without Representation Committee.”
Fauntroy vowed to continue the protest until a D.C. statehood bill is passed by Congress.
The bill, considered a long shot to pass, would make the city a state and give city residents their first voting representation in Congress — two senators and one member of the House.
“Like all Americans, the people of Washington, D.C., are not different when it comes to sharing the burden of taxation,” Fauntroy said.
“Indeed, district residents pay more taxes per capita than the residents of every state in the union except one, Alaska.”
He said all records of tax returns and payments would be sealed, and he hopes to get $1 million in unpaid taxes into the account.
Jan Eichhorn, a longtime statehood activist who plans to withhold her federal tax payment, said the protest could affect the struggle for statehood.
“The only way we’re going to get statehood is the way we got home rule: by appealing to the voters of other states,” said Eichhorn, a D.C. government employee.
“If this is organized well, it can have an impact.”
Fauntroy, who for several years has waged an unsuccessful effort to achieve statehood for the district, said he would like to see $1 million in withheld tax payments made to the corporation.
He first began planning the protest late last year.
To preserve taxpayer confidentiality, data about individual contributions to the fund would be sealed, Fauntroy said.
He added that James M. Christian, a lawyer with the firm of Laxalt and Washington, had offered legal assistance to participants in the Fauntroy plan.
Fauntroy said the tax protest “will heighten the moral impropriety” of the district not having statehood and “prick the conscience” of those in Congress and other parts of the country who oppose statehood.
Tax resisters frequently face the criticism of being freeloaders who enjoy the benefits of organized society without cooperating in the taxes necessary to fund them.
This rhetorical attack paints the tax resisters as self-interested, anti-social tax evaders.
One way resisters have countered this attack is by staging flamboyant giveaways of their resisted taxes — both to make it clear that the resister does not have only selfish motives for resisting, and to demonstrate that the money is being spent for the benefit of society (and to a greater extent than if the money had been filtered through the government first).
Redirection is also a way of forging or strengthening ties with the recipient groups, and of making them aware of tax resistance as an option.
Today I will briefly describe some of the many examples of tax resisters and tax resistance campaigns that have used this technique, and the many variations they have come up with.
Julia “Butterfly” Hill in redirected more than $150,000 of federal taxes that she owed that year, and made a point of saying “I ‘redirect’ my taxes rather than ‘resisting’ my taxes”:
I actually take the money that the IRS says goes to them and I give it to the places where our taxes should be going.
And in my letter to the IRS I said: “I’m not refusing to pay my taxes.
I’m actually paying them but I’m paying them where they belong because you refuse to do so.”
They are not directing our money where it should be going, they are being horrific stewards of that money.
Antor Odu Ndep, executive director of Common Ground Health Clinic, accepts redirected taxes during a War Tax Boycott granting ceremony.
NWTRCC
organized what it called the “War Tax Boycott” in .
It encouraged people to resist as a group, and as part of their resistance, to redirect any refused taxes to one of two groups: one that concentrated on providing health assistance in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and the other that provides assistance for Iraq War refugees.
The campaign kept track of how much money had been redirected over the course of the boycott, and then held a press conference at which oversized checks adding up to about $325,000 were given to spokespeople for these campaigns.
The People’s Life Fund, associated with the group Northern California War Tax Resistance, accepts redirected taxes from resisters.
If the IRS successfully seizes money from the resisters, the resisters can reclaim their donations to the Fund.
Otherwise, the money remains there and earns interest and dividends.
Every year the group pools these returns on investment and gives them away to local charitable organizations in a granting ceremony.
Usually the grants are small — $500 or $1000 — but they give them to a dozen or more groups, which makes their granting ceremonies a good way for local charities to network with each other and for news of war tax resistance to spread in the local activist community.
This same model, or one similar to it, is followed by a number of regional redirection funds associated with war tax resistance groups.
A family in Vermont figured out a way to get extra mileage out of their redirection: “They refused to pay 50% of their tax liability and redirected it to Plan International’s Childreach program.
Childreach has a fund drive for a project to help children in Nepal and Ghana, and has received a challenge grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
This means that the $211.69 that the WTR family has redirected will result in a $423.38 matching contribution from the U.S. government!”
In , several hundred Spanish war tax resisters redirected over €85,000 to the group “La’Onf,” which was organizing and educating about nonviolent conflict resolution techniques in Iraq.
The Mennonite Central Committee has established a “turning toward peace” fund especially designed for people who want to redirect their tax dollars from the government to more constructive projects — for example, education for children in Afghanistan.
War tax resisters Paul and Addie Snyder made a point of saying “we believe in paying taxes” as they explained in that they wouldn’t be paying those taxes to the federal government, but instead would be giving the money directly to rural poverty projects nearby.
In several hundred American Quaker war tax resisters paid their tax dollars to a Catholic soup kitchen in Philadelphia.
The Women’s Tax Resistance League largely suspended its campaign during World War Ⅰ, but one woman, writing as “A Persistent Tax Resister” wrote a letter to the editor of a suffragist paper suggesting that women “should contribute the sum she owes to the Government to a National Fund of her own choosing, and should send her donation as ‘Taxes withheld from the Government by a voteless woman.’ ” Charlotte Despard, for example, “said she had offered to give voluntarily the amount demanded of her by Revenue authorities to any war charity, but her offer had not been accepted.”
A war tax resistance group in Iowa used the proceeds from their redirection fund to create a scholarship for college students who would be ineligible for government financial aid because of refusal to register for the draft.
Another, in Pennsylvania, made an interest-free loan to a defense committee that was supporting a group of draft resisters who were on trial.
In , 70 war tax resisters went to the phone company offices in Boston to pay their bills minus the federal excise tax.
They then collected this refused tax ($142 worth) by passing an army helmet around, and donated it to the United Farm Workers to help them set up a clinic in California.
Also , the Cornell branch of the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam did a similar phone company office protest and collection of redirected phone taxes, donating the money to a local Early Childhood Development program.
In , war tax resister Irving Hogan stood outside the Federal Building in San Francisco and redirected his federal income tax dollars one at a time — by handing them out to passers by.
“I want this money to be used for the delight, not the destruction, of men,” he said.
“Here: go buy yourself a beer.”
John and Pat Schwiebert did something similar: “One year they converted their war tax debt into five-dollar bills, which they gave to individuals waiting in line at the city unemployment office.
They included a letter with each donation telling why they were doing this, and they notified media beforehand.
Their actions garnered them an interview on NPR, and they received letters and cards from around the world.”
In a group of war tax resisters in New York redirected their war taxes as nickels that they handed out to people waiting at the bus stops on lines where fare hikes were being proposed, saying “this is where our tax dollars should be going.”
And here’s something kind of similar that doesn’t fit into any of my other categories, so I’ll toss it in here:
When the IRS seized back taxes from war tax resister Mary Regan’s retirement account in , she threw a fundraising party to try to raise an equivalent amount of money — not to reimburse her, but to give away to charities like “the Boston Women’s Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Friends Service Committee, a homeless shelter for youth, and the peace movement in Israel.”
Queens Foes Warn They Won’t Pay Until Communist Is Removed
Property owners among the 149 members of Richmond Hill Post, Catholic War Veterans, will refuse to pay their real estate taxey until Simon W. Gerson, a member of the Communist party, is removed from his office as confidential examiner to the Borough President of Manhattan, it was learned today.
This was decided at a meeting Thursday in the post quarters, 115–16 Liberty Ave., Richmond Hill, pending consideration and release by the organization’s executive committee.
Similar action is asked of other divisions of the Catholic War Veterans.
Will Deposit Taxes
To forestall foreclosure of their property as a result of the tax strike, members of the post will deposit their taxes in escrow with banks and loan companies holding mortgages on their property.
The taxpayers declared they were willing to bear the 7 percent penalty for late payment of the levy.
The resolution adopted follows:
“Be it resolved that in so far as the Mayor of the City of New York and the President of the Borough of Manhattan have seen fit to ignore the protest formerly taken by our organization and countless other organizations and citizens of our city and State against the appointment of Simon W. Gerson as confidential adviser and secretary to the President of the Borough of Manhattan and have seen fit to retain Mr. Gerson as a public servant on the city payroll and Mr. Gerson still continues to act as a public servant of the City of New York although an avowed Communist and as such an open enemy to the Constitution of the United States and the principles upon which our country is founded,
Refuse to Pay Taxes
“We, the members of this post, refuse to be a party to the actions taken by our public officials and pledge ourselves to do everything in our power to bring the career of Mr. Gerson as a public official to a close as speedily as possible by refusing to pay our taxes now due on our property, so that the funds necessary to supply Mr. Gerson with his weekly pay check may not be available to our Mayor and President of the Borough of Manhattan, and
“We further resolve that we will request our friends and neighbors and other available citizens that we come in contact with to pursue the same course of action;
Urge Similar Action
“Be it further resolved that copies of this resolution be forwarded to the county, State and national departments of our organization with the request that they take similar action,
“Be it further resolved also, that copies of this resolution be forwarded to the Mayor of the City of New York and to the President of the Borough of Manhattan.”
William F. McCumiskey is commander of the post.
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
There was a resurgence of war tax resistance news in the
Friends Journal in ,
including an interesting series of articles on the voluntary simplicity / low
income lifestyle as a tax resistance tactic, and the beginning chapters of
the tale of Quaker war tax resister Priscilla Adams.
A note in the issue plugged the
“Conscience and Military Tax Campaign Escrow Account”:
Established in by the Nonviolent Action
Community of Cascadia, the account allows war tax resisters to set aside
refused military taxes in a secure fund. Deposits may be retrieved at any
time (to replace assets seized by the
IRS,
for example), and interest from the account is used to promote war tax
resistance and support peace and social justice activism. Depositors’ funds
are reinvested in socially responsible institutions assisting low-income
communities and minorities. The CMTC Escrow Account is the largest and most
geographically diverse war tax redirection fund in the United States.
War tax resistance is an act of civil disobedience, and resisters potentially
face fines, levies, and seizure of assets. However, the escrow account itself
is a trust fund, and as such is confidential and entirely legal. Depositor
records are not available to the
IRS,
and individual deposits are considered to be anonymous portions of a larger
fund invested in fully insured institutions. Participants receive records of
their transactions, annual statements, and a free subscription to
NACC’s quarterly war tax resistance magazine.
(I wouldn’t rely on any of that as solid legal advice. My understanding is
that the
IRS
sometimes treats “warehouse banks” like these as illegal operations that they
can seize wholesale under the theory that they’re being operated for money
laundering or tax evasion purposes.)
In a letter in the issue, William Kriebel
called out Quakers on their careless or politically-correct use of of language;
in particular he claimed: “There are no ‘war taxes.’ All income tax money goes
into the treasury without earmarking for the military. Taxation is a legitimate
power of any government. Our points of protest really are the decisions
(budget-making, appropriation) to use money out of the common fund for military
purposes.”
An article on the Quaker Council for European Affairs in the same issue noted
in passing that “conscientious objection to war taxes” was one of the “studies
for publication” that the organization had produced. Another article in that
issue noted that the National Association of Evangelicals had endorsed the
Peace Tax Fund bill:
“At first this was just a lonely struggle for the peace churches,” said
Marian Franz, director of the campaign, “then we got the support of the
mainline churches, which represent over 12 million people. Now we have
support from more conservative religious organizations, who, until recently,
had seemed to be unlikely allies.” Marian attributes the recently attained,
broad base of support to a change in tactics from an issue of conscientious
objection to an issue of religious liberties. Marian explained that “having
this broad base of support means that members of Congress, even conservative
members, take the issue more seriously.”
On , there was a benefit premiere
showing of An Act of Conscience, a documentary on
the Kehler/Corner house seizure and subsequent occupation. There was some
tangential Quaker involvement in the benefit (it was sponsored by several
organizations, including a regional AFSC office, and some Massachusetts
Quakers took part in the occupation), and the benefit screening was covered
in a note in the issue.
In the lead editorial in the issue,
editor Vinton Deming paid tribute to Eleanor Webb:
Eleanor Webb, who died , was clerk
of the Journal board when I was appointed
editor-manager in .… It was Eleanor… who
stood firmly in support of staff who resisted paying the military portion of
their federal taxes.
One of the feature articles in the issue
was written by David R. Bassett and told his story as “The Founder of the
Peace Tax Fund Movement.” Excerpts:
marks the 25th year since the
introduction of the Peace Tax Fund Bill in the
U.S. Congress. I
have been involved in the initiation of this legislation, a laborer in the
centuries-long effort to establish on earth the type of peaceful world
envisioned by Jesus and George Fox. I firmly believe that, on some
significant day in the future, some nation will for the first time pass a
Peace Tax Fund Bill, thereby establishing legal recognition of the right of
conscientious objection to the payment of military taxes. Once this is
accomplished, other nations will follow suit. I consider this goal as one of
the crucial and route-determining “trail-signs” on the path to that time and
place where the world will realize that ahimsa (soulforce)
is the preferred way to resolve conflict and to govern communities, and where
conscientious objection to war and other forms of violence will be considered
the norm.
[My] orientation as a conscientious objector to war and of preventing
preventable suffering impelled Miyoko and me, beginning in
, to wrestle with the fact
that each year we were paying (through our federal taxes) to support the
Viemam War and the military system generally. In fact, some 50 percent of
those tax moneys went to support
U.S. military
systems! One of my most graphic memories of that time was, while working many
nights at Queens Hospital in Honolulu, hearing
U.S. Air Force jet
tankers, fully laden with jet fuel, flying over the heavily populated part of
Honolulu on their way to Indochina.
Conscientious objection to payment of military taxes
In , with the Vietnam War continuing, we
moved to Ann Arbor to work at the University of Michigan. We became members
of the Ann Arbor Meeting and found there a number of people who were actively
grappling with the issue of whether to continue to pay the military portion
of federal taxes for a war that we opposed. I came to realize that any
nation’s military programs are made possible the, monetary resources that, in
the analysis, are extracted from the nation’s citizens by taxation. It also
became clear to me that one who was conscientiously opposed to military
systems must not allow his or her funds to be used for this purpose.
Surveying the pervasive role of our military system not only in our foreign
policies, but in its effects on our economy, our environment, and on the
nation’s culture and spirit, I carne to feel that this issue was central to
our times. Conscientious objection to payment of military taxes is as
important to be established as was the ending of slavery and of apartheid and
the establishment of women’s right to vote. At the same time, I held then,
and still hold, the view that the federal government is capable of carrying
out many beneficial and constructive programs and that I am willing, indeed
obligated, to pay my full share of taxes to support those programs.
I came to know that it would not be enough simply to focus on reductions in
military spending by influencing legislators and electing new ones (though
this was obviously necessary). The challenge was to extend the right of
conscientious objection to war to include not only one’s physical body, but
also one’s economic resources. I knew further that there had been repeated
resistance in the
U.S. courts to
such change and concluded that, while civil disobedience in this area
(i.e., war tax resistance) would continue to be essential, the
principal focus of attention should be to change the tax laws.
During the year , there was for me
a struggle with my conscience, not in regard to what I believe on this issue
but whether to take some action and what that action should be. Should I live
below a taxable income level? move to Canada? engage in war tax resistance?
take our civil disobedience actions into the judicial system? or attempt to
change the federal tax laws? Miyoko and I knew that to embark on any of these
actions would require great amounts of time and energy; that each course
would require some changes and risks, not all of which we could anticipate at
the outset; and that none were assured of “success.” I knew that to commit
the time necessary to move this issue forward might conflict with my hopes of
making progress in academic medicine and in research into the causes of
atherosclerosis. We gradually came to the view that it seemed wisest to try
to resist paying the military portion of our taxes and to begin to
take steps to bring about legislative change.
It was the quiet voice of conscience that kept nagging me almost every day, as
I found one or another reason not to take some action. Finally, in the
, I phoned Professor
Joseph Sax at the University of Michigan Law School and outlined to him the
basic idea: the need to change the federal tax laws so as to have Congress
grant legal recognition to the right of conscientious objection to
the payment of military taxes, while enabling the taxpayer to pay the full
amount of his or her tax with assurance that those tax monies would
not be used for military expenditures. Professor Sax sketched out how this
might be accomplished. Over a period of eight to nine months, with the
assistance of Michael Hall, we began the process of drafting what became the
World Peace Tax Fund Bill.
Other Ann Arbor Friends, Joe and Fran Eliot and Bob and Margaret Blood, had
been considering drafting a bill. A brief written for them by Thomas Towe (a
Quaker law student) proved a helpful resource. It was not hard to draw
together a working committee of seven or eight people during
to work on
this legislation and to take the initial steps in deciding how to bring the
bill to Congress, how to publicize it, and how to raise funds. We were
encouraged when Ann Arbor’s Interfaith Council for Peace decided to support
the legislative effort and appointed two very effective members to meet with
us on a regular basis.
The World Peace Tax Fund Bill was first introduced in the
U.S. Congress on
, with Representative Ronald
V. Dellums as the lead sponsor, with nine other cosponsors. The Peace Tax
Fund office moved from Ann Arbor to the Florida Avenue Meetinghouse in
Washington,
D.C., in
. The bill was first introduced in
the Senate in , with Senator Mark Hatfield
as its sponsor. In the bill was renamed the
U.S. Peace Tax
Fund Bill. A dedicated staff, led for the past 14 years by Marian Franz, has
coordinated the lobbying effort. The orientation and the gifts that she
brings to her work are evident in her book, Questions That Refuse To Go Away.
A sidebar noted resources available from the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, and also made note of the international conferences at which similar plans proposed in other countries are discussed.
The same issue also contains Clare Hanrahan’s article “Wholesome Poverty: A Revolutionary Adventure.”
Unfortunately, in the archived PDF, some of the opening paragraph is obscured by an insert card.
The article appears to begin with Hanrahan saying that she initially adopted a lower-income simple-living lifestyle in order to resist war taxes, but then came to believe that frugality and thrift and anti-consumerism and simplicity had a larger role to play in the pursuit of “a just and sustainable global community.”
It continues:
When I must work for wages, I do so as an independent contractor so that I can maintain control over tax withholdings.
I redirect a fair percentage of cash wages and many hours of volunteer time to support life-affirming projects at home and abroad.
Self-employment suits my temperament and has enabled me to develop skills and to pursue interests I may never have had the time for in a conventional career.
I’ve tried to be resilient and open to any honest labor.
If I’m asked what I do for a living, each day I can provide a different answer.
One day I might be gathering and saving seeds for next year’s garden or harvesting wild herbs for a winter tea; another day might be spent in household repair, community organizing, or researching and writing a grant for a nonprofit organization.
I’ve learned the wisdom in giving due time each day to labor of the mind and of the body and to quiet reflection that feeds the spirit.
I value my free time and open schedule far more than any accumulation of cash or property, security, or prestige.
The freedom to choose how I will be with each moment is a gift and a challenge that I count as my greatest wealth.
Living on the edge, more or less, over the years I have honed the skills and nurtured an attitude of wholesome poverty.
Meeting basic needs without a substantial cash flow has been least stressful when I’ve lived within a stable community where interdependence and cooperative values are practiced.
But during my nomadic years I learned to trust in the kindness of strangers and the serendipity of life.
I came to value the gifts of the pilgrim spirit and to recognize the importance of the itinerant wayfarer in the lives of the comfortably settled.
I’ve lived and traveled aboard small sail boats, in a tipi, in rural cabins, and in derelict inner-city housing, trading cleanup and repair for rent.
I’ve made do in the back of an old school bus and afloat on a homemade houseboat on a Mississippi backwater.
I’ve worked in a cooperative shelter for displaced women and children, with room and board as compensation, and I’ve battered for home and garden space by exchanging pet and plant care.
My primary transportation is the slow way.
As a pedestrian, a bicyclist, and a bus rider, I keep a less frantic pace, and the more personal contact with those I encounter enriches the journey.
I can borrow a car or catch a lift from a friend if necessary, and by paying my fair share of the cost, the cooperative way serves each of us.
Nutritious food is available in surprising abundance if one is willing to look to unconventional channels:
I’ve participated in grassroots distribution networks of urban gleanings, intercepting the produce, grains, and other surplus foods otherwise lost.
Best of all, I’ve learned to grow my own food in community gardens and backyard plots whenever I had the opportunity.
As a worker-member at the local coop I claimed a significant reduction on food purchases, and by eliminating meat from my diet, the cost of my sustenance is affordable and sustainable.
Insurance against old age, disability, accident, or disease has never been an affordable option, nor one in which I place my faith.
Catastrophic illness or accident or the incapacities of age could happen to anyone.
Yet time and again, I’ve been sustained through economic precarity with help that comes at just the right moment.
This has happened so often that I live with a trust that keeps fear at bay.
I have learned to lean into the present moment, focused on the work before me, while keeping a well-honed sense of the adventure of it all and a very real faith in the unfolding process.
The inherent goodness of the universe has been made visible through the most unlikely of allies, and the travelers I’ve met along the way have been the wisest of teachers.
Peace Pilgrim, writing in her pamphlet, Steps Toward Inner Peace, recalled a visit to a city that had been her home:
In the poorer sections I am tolerated.
In the wealthier sections some glances seem a bit startled, and some are disdainful.
On both sides of us as we walk are displayed the things that we can buy if we are willing to stay in the orderly lines, day after day, year after year…
Thousands of things are displayed — and yet the most valuable things are missing.
Freedom is not displayed, nor health, nor happiness, nor peace of mind.
To obtain these, my friends, you too may need to escape from the orderly lines and risk being looked upon disdainfully.
Stepping outside the tyranny of “orderly lines” and daring to risk the uncertainties of disaffiliation can make of our very lives a revolution.
The way to the just and sustainable global community that we seek will open before us as we walk.
Another article in the same issue took the “voluntary simplicity” idea and ran with it.
Starting with Jesus’s one-sentence summary of his teachings — love your neighbor as much as you love yourself — the authors took this to mean “taking our fair share of global resources and no more.”
This starts with refusing war taxes because militarism is directly destructive of “our global neighbors.”
But that’s just step one of a six-step process.
Step two would be to imagine the world’s resources shared equally, which, the authors assert, means “an annual ‘fair share’ of just over $3,000 per person.”
But because the world is not using its resources in an environmentally sustainable way, step #3 is to reduce this fair share some more, to a more sustainable level: $1,800 per person per year.
But since that much money would go further in a place like the United States, where it’s relatively easier to live off the cast-offs of the wealthy, level #4 “challenges us to live on even less than level three, since we have an easier time doing so in a society with a relatively affluent public infrastructure.”
We’re not done yet.
Level #5 considers the non-monetary wealth most Americans enjoy because of the relatively high levels of medical care and education they have had access to.
“With such advantages (and others), we ought to be able to live on less resources than folks who lack education and have chronic medical problems.”
Finally, level #6 is for those who are not hampered by disabilities, encouraging them to sacrifice yet more so as to leave more for those who have to struggle harder.
Challenging? Certainly.
Even the authors only seem to have made it half way to step #2, limiting their income as a couple to $12,000 a year.
Some other choices they made were to “keep the majority of our savings in the form of non-interest-bearing loans” so as to avoid the sin of usury, and to “give away each year an amount equal to what we spend on ourselves.”
(A letter-to-the-editor in the issue criticized this radical simplicity, saying it smacked of “intelligent, able-bodied adults who consciously decide to let others subsidize” the benefits of society.
In particular: “In reducing their income to avoid paying taxes to support the military, this couple also avoids paying taxes that support the other half of the federal budget.
So, there goes their support for many of the roads they use, for medical research they might avail themselves of through that subsidized doctor, for other federally supported scientific and social research, for national parks, and so forth.
The authors are obviously well educated.
Their education was probably supported by local, state, and federal subsidies.
One wonders if they are repaying society for the educational benefit they’ve received.”)
Another brief note in the issue reported on the results of a “penny poll” that had been “conducted by Christian Peacemaker Teams in Elkhart, Ind.” and had indicated that those polled implicitly supported huge reductions in military spending.
A letter-to-the-editor from Marjorie Schier and Suzanne Day of the “Philadelphia Yearly Meeting War Tax Concerns Support Committee” published in the issue summarized the war tax issue as they saw it:
Resisting taxes
When a draft call finds some conscientious objectors unable to participate in war, the government not only has provided them alternatives, but also has proceeded to draft others who will participate.
It is individual conscience that makes the difference, not how the government allocates the recruits.
Some Friends have been unable to enlist, and some cannot voluntarily send dollars in federal tax for military uses.
Interacting with the federal government through tax resistance as witness for peace is more than symbolic; it can be earnest, meaningful religious conscience in action.
However, it does not change how the government allocates its resources, and efforts to witness for changed priorities are also significant.
Many Friends and others work for passage of the Peace Tax Fund Bill by the U.S. Congress because it would not only provide a legal opportunity for pacifists to pay their full federal tax without supporting war, but also give the government an indication of the numbers of citizens exercising this option.
Yes, the federal tax on telephone service is refused by many pacifists (with
a note of explanation accompanying the refusal and redirection of the money
for constructive purposes) because that tax was specifically reinstated to
support the war in Vietnam. Federal bookkeeping does not distinguish certain
tax streams for specific purposes, and has not since John Woolman wrestled
with this same issue. Nevertheless, many Friends are prompted to take a stand
for peace via taxes and thereby find a forum for disclosing that witness with
meetings, governmental representatives, families, and neighbors.
An obituary notice for Abram Bresel Goldstein in that same issue noted that
“[t]hough he worked briefly for the Internal Revenue Service, Abram left that
position during the Korean War to avoid aiding the collection of taxes for
war.”
On , NWTRCC and
the War Tax Concerns Support Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting sponsored
a seminar on “Corporate Conscience and War Taxes” at the Moorestown, New
Jersey, Meeting (according to a calendar listing in the
issue).
Priscilla Adams
The war tax resistance of Quaker Priscilla Adams became a cause célèbre that
played out over in the
Friends Journal starting in
. I’ll break with my chronological examination of the Journal for a while to follow this thread.
The issue introduces Adams and her
legal case:
Priscilla Adams, a war tax resister and member of Haddonfield
(N.J.) Meeting, is
challenging the
IRS
in court under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Her case is the
first of its kind to test conscientious war tax resistance since the passage
of the RFRA in . Priscilla and her lawyer,
Peter Goldberger, will challenge two points covered by the act: the
government’s use of penalties against war tax resisters for their stands of
conscience; and the lack of a government accommodation for conscientious
objectors to paying for war (like a Peace Tax Fund). The RFRA states that in
conflicts between the government and religious freedom, the government must
show compelling state interest and then use the least restrictive means
necessary. In this case, Priscilla is challenging the government’s lack of
recognition of conscience in response to the
IRS
assessing her taxes and penalties. She and Peter are arguing that under RFRA,
the IRS
should waive penalties for religious war tax resisters as long as they
recognize other forms of reasonable cause for noncompliance with the tax law.
They also are stating that the RFRA requires the enactment of something like a
peace tax fund for religious war tax resisters who are willing to accept a
reasonable accommodation, such as earmarking tax monies for non-warlike
purposes in the federal government. The case has completed its earliest
procedural stages and will be heard in United States Tax Court. Though no
date has been set, lawyers expect a trial date
. Priscilla has participated in
several clearness committees and is receiving guidance and support from
Haddonfield Meeting, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee,
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s War Tax Concerns Support Committee, the
National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, and family and friends.
The issue gave an update:
Priscilla Adams… will appeal the court’s decision rejecting her right to
refuse to pay taxes. The case went before the Philadelphia Tax Court, where
Adams presented an extensive outline of Quaker history and beliefs related to
war tax objections. The court’s decision states, “Religious Freedom
Restoration Act of does not exempt Quaker
from federal income taxes, despite taxpayer’s religious opposition to
military expenditures.” , Rosa Packard of Purchase
(N.Y.) Meeting and
Gordon and Edith Browne of Plainfield
(Vt.) Meeting also have filed
complaints in federal district courts seeking to protect their conscientious
acts of war tax refusal.
The issue mentioned her appeal:
Tax resister Priscilla Lippincott Adams… faced the Federal Court of Appeals
on . Her case against the
IRS for
penalizing her for her religious objections to paying the military through
taxes was dismissed in … The court
had the choice of hearing oral arguments or making a decision based on the
written briefs. In a positive turn, the judges heard oral arguments. Adams
said her lawyer, Peter Goldberger, passionately presented her case, “just
like a lawyer on T.V.”
The three judges will now make a decision, a process that could take anywhere
from six weeks to six months.
From there, to the Supreme Court, according to a
press release that formed the
basis for a
Journal news brief:
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting has filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the
U.S. Supreme Court
in support of its member, Priscilla Adams… who petitioned the high court in
, following unsuccessful efforts
in lower courts to obtain government accommodation for her conscientious
objection to paying war taxes by allowing her to pay federal taxes without
paying for military expenditures. Her employer, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,
supports religious witness by not forwarding the military portion of a
conscientious objector’s taxes to the
IRS. A
Peace Tax Fund, where tax dollars of conscientious objectors would be directed
exclusively to nonmilitary programs, is one possible solution to the dilemma
for adherents to nonviolence; a bill to establish a Peace Tax Fund has been
introduced in every Congress .
…Lower courts addressed the issue of accommodating war tax resistance only by
declaring that the government has a compelling interest in collecting taxes;
the courts have not dealt with the arguments that accommodation of
conscientious objection would be possible within the context of mandatory
participation in taxation. The Supreme Court has not heard any case that
raises these religious liberty questions under the
law.
By then it was too late, though. The issue noted that Adams’s Supreme Court appeal had been turned down:
On , the
U.S. Supreme Court
declined to hear appeals by Gordon and Edith Browne and Priscilla Lippincott
Adams to lower-court rulings that allowed the Internal Revenue Service to
impose late fees and interest for their conscientious refusal to pay the
military portion of their federal tax. The issue in this case was not paying
the tax when forced to do so by the
IRS,
but whether a “religious hardship” existed that should enable them to pay
without any penalties and interest. The lower-court rulings reaffirmed a
statement of the Supreme Court in that “The
tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge [it]
because tax payments were spent in a manner that violates their religious
belief.” The Justice Department lawyers said that “Voluntary compliance with
the tax laws is the least restrictive means of furthering the government’s
compelling interest in collecting taxes.”… “We’re very disappointed that the
Supreme Court will not be taking the opportunity to reinforce religious
freedom and freedom of conscience,” said Marian Franz, executive director of
the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund. “Congress seems like the most
appropriate place where this human right can be protected.”
Adams wasn’t going to give up though. Whether or not the government was going
to deign to make her war tax resistance legal, she was going to resist, and
the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting was willing to help her. From the
issue:
The United States Department of Justice, Tax Division, is suing Philadelphia
Yearly Meeting for refusing to forward wages of an employee to the Internal
Revenue Service. The employee, Priscilla Adams, resists paying taxes for war
and the military on the basis of religious conscience. The lawsuit, filed in
, is a move to attain funds from
PYM
as recompense for taxes owed by Priscilla Adams, plus a 50-percent penalty
for not garnishing her wages as instructed by the
IRS in
. If the
IRS
succeeds,
PYM
would owe approximately $60,000.
On ,
PYM’s
Interim Meeting decided to respond to the lawsuit and defend its position in
court.
PYM
stated that to garnish Priscilla Adams’s wages would infringe upon her
religious beliefs, and
PYM
should not “be required to act as a collection agent for the government when
doing so will require it to violate key tenets of the Quaker faith.”
Thomas Jeavons,
PYM
general secretary, commented in the Philadelphia Inquirer, “About 50 percent
of our taxes pay for weapons and warfare… We have long sought the creation of
a Peace Tax Fund, a government fund for nonmilitary use, where taxes of
[those who regard paying for war as a violation of religious conscience]
could go. Legislation for this has been in Congress for many years. It should
be passed now.”
The issue spelled out the
Meeting’s legal argument:
On , Philadelphia Yearly
Meeting filed its answer to a Justice Department lawsuit that asks a $20,000
penalty to be imposed on them and seeks to make them the collection agent for
the government. The yearly meeting’s response makes dear its intention to
stand by its essential religious principles, and publicly defend the free
exercise of religion on all possible grounds, including constitutional and
statutory religious freedom defenses. The
IRS
contends that
PYM
must garnish the salary of one of its employees and members who refuses — in
keeping with longstanding Quaker convictions — to pay taxes that support war
and preparations for war. While the
IRS
could easily take other courses to collect the back taxes it claims are due,
instead the federal government is trying to force a church to collect these
funds for it, an action that would require this Quaker organization to
violate its own essential religious convictions regarding freedom of
conscience.
PYM
has refused to do so. The answer to the suit says that the government “asks
the court to assist it in violating the most fundamental religious principles
of an established church… Although those principles and the yearly meeting’s
reasons for its actions have been painstakingly explained to the [government]…
the complaint purports to set forth the history of this matter without even
mentioning
PYM’s
efforts at communication and conciliation. Further, the complaint labels the
Yearly Meeting’s religiously mandated actions as a ‘failure’ to submit to
government coercion, and brands the [Quaker] theological scruples as
‘unreasonable’ and deserving of harsh penalties.” The news release from
PYM
adds, “Quakers have long been known for their religious pacifism, opposition
to war, and support of religious freedom and freedom of conscience.
PYM
regrets that being true to its faith has now brought us into conflict with
the government. The Quaker organization sees itself as defending freedom of
religion and freedom of conscience — and not just for itself, but for all
those who desire to be both good citizens and people of faith. While
PYM
regrets the need to resort to legal action, it looks forward to a full airing
of the issues involved in a public forum where both the sound reasons and
religious principles that guide this Quaker organization’s actions may be
upheld.
PYM’s
defense will rest on the constitutional right to freedom of religion
generally, and particularly as upheld and restated in the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act of .”
The issue reported on how far
they’d gotten with that argument:
On , A federal judge ruled that
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting must comply with a levy on the wages of war tax
refuser Priscilla Adams, but rejected a 50 percent penalty desired by the
Internal Revenue Service.
U.S. District
Judge Stewart Dalzell agreed with the Quaker argument that complying with the
levy “substantially burdens its exercise of religion,” because, as
PYM
General Secretary Thomas Jeavons earlier testified, the organization
“considers it a sacred duty to support the conscientious actions of its
individual members, especially in such historic witnesses as the Peace
Testimony.” Judge Stewan Dalzell also agreed that the
PYM
defense “raised novel and important questions,” thus demonstrating in this
instance that the previous refusal of
PYM
to comply was not a frivolous activity. But he disagreed that the
IRS had
practical alternative means to collect taxes from Priscilla Adams. The
government should not be required “to engage in a time-consuming, and
possibly fruitless, scavenger hunt for other assets.” In
, the Third
U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals had already rejected Priscilla Adams’s claim that the government
could devise a means for earmarking taxes for nonmilitary expenditures,
stating that there were “particularly difficult problems with administration
should exceptions on religious grounds be carved out by the courts.”
That issue also noted:
Film students from Brooklyn Friends School are directing and producing a
video documentary about Quaker peace activist Priscilla Adams. The students
came to Friends Center in Philadelphia to interview her about how her
religious beliefs led her to refuse payment of taxes in order to avoid
contributing to military funding. The students also interviewed George Lakey,
head of Training for Change, and Gene Hillman, adult religious education
coordinator for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. This documentary film may be an
entry for Bridge Film Festival, which is open to middle and upper school
students at Quaker schools worldwide.
The issue noted that the film had
been made — a 16-minute short titled A Need to Witness. And hey, look — it’s on-line:
From the New York Sun on comes this example of tax strikers using escrow accounts to ward off reprisals and blunt criticism:
Will Refuse to Pay Property Levy as Long as Red Holds Office.
One of the most novel of the many protests against the retention of Simon W. Gerson, a communist, on the city’s pay roll has been devised by members of the Richmond Hill War Veterans Post who, it was learned today, have voted to pay no more taxes on their property so long as Mr. Gerson remains on the salary list as confidential investigator to Borough President Isaacs.
Members of the post not only voted to take such action themselves, but to urge their friends and other posts of their organization in the city to join in the campaign.
They believe that the legal difficulty involved in non-payment of taxes can be solved by having each “tax striker” put his tax money in the bank in escrow, to be released to the city whenever Mr. Gerson is dismissed.
The protest of the veterans is the more striking because, of the 149 members of the post, 98 per cent are property owners.
They reason that if the city cannot collect taxes it cannot continue to pay the salary of the communist they feel should not be receiving pay even indirectly from them.
Veterans’ Resolution.
The resolution which the veterans empowered their executive committee to draw up was made public by William F. McCumiskey, post commander.
It follows:
“Be it resolved that insofar as the Mayor of the City of New York and the President of the Borough of Manhattan have seen fit to ignore the protest formally taken by our organization and countless other organizations and citizens of our city and State against the appointment of Simon W. Gerson as confidential adviser and secretary to the Borough of Manhattan and have seen fit to retain Mr. Gerson as a public servant on the city pay roll and Mr. Gerson still continues to act as a public servant of the City of New York, although an avowed communist, and as such an open enemy to the Constitution of the United States and the principles upon which our country is founded.
“We, the members of this post, refuse to be a party to the action taken by our public officials and pledge ourselves to do everything in our power to bring the career of Mr. Gerson as a public official to a close as speedily as possible by refusing to pay our taxes now due on our property, so that the funds necessary to supply Mr. Gerson with his weekly pay check may not be available to our Mayor and President of the Borough of Manhattan, and
“We further resolve that we will request our friends and neighbors and other fellow citizens that we come in contact with to pursue the same course of action.
“We further resolve that copies of this resolution be forwarded to the county, State and national departments of our organization, with the request that they take similar action.
“Be it further resolved, also, that copies of this resolution be forwarded to the Mayor of the city of New York and to the President of the Borough of Manhattan.”
Gerson continued in the post until .
He then became the campaign manager of Pete Cacchione, who ran a victorious campaign for New York City Council as a Communist.
He joined the U.S. military and served in the infantry in World War Ⅱ.
I saw no sign that he joined the Richmond Hill War Veterans Post on his return home.
He died in , after a lifetime of service to the Communist Party of the U.S.
