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

Today, a profile of long-time tax resisters Wally and Juanita Nelson.

“Commitment may be seen as a constant state of fertilization of the heart and mind which fuels the determination to live up to one’s beliefs. It means keeping a promise to oneself and others. Sometimes it can be scary. Nevertheless, one feels a sense of integrity, striving to express in action the soul’s deepest sense of what is right and good.”

That quote comes from Wally Nelson, who died last year at the age of 93 after more than a half-century of tax resistance and activism. He spent three and a half years in prison as a conscientious objector during World War Ⅱ, was on the first of the “freedom rides” enforcing desegregation in 1947 and was the first national field organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality.

In 1948, he began his lifelong relationship with Juanita, who met him when she was working as a journalist and went to interview him in jail. Together they started engaging in tax resistance. “When we became tax resisters in 1948,” they wrote, “it included not filing, not answering notices to supply information and making sure we had something to refuse.”

Juanita Nelson’s account of her arrest can be found in the book We Won’t Pay!: A Tax Resistance Reader.

One account says: “In 1959 Juanita became the first woman in modern times to be apprehended for war tax refusal. She made her court appearance in the bathrobe she was wearing when apprehended at her home.” As for many others, jail was an opportunity for self-searching and reappraisal:

“Why am I going to jail? Why am I going to jail in a bathrobe? What does it matter in the scheme of things whether or not you put on your clothes? Are you not making, at best, a futile gesture, at worst, flinging yourself against something which does not exist? Is freedom more important than justice? Of what does freedom of the human spirit consist, that quality on which I place so much stress?”

Juanita was released the same day, and the government never did collect the money they claimed she owed them.

Over time, the Nelsons came to adopt the income-reduction method of tax refusal. “Living on a reduced income is related to our refusal only as a progression of awareness, that our entire economic life is tied into violence. It seemed logical that the less we participated, the less we’d be giving to that system.”

Their critique of the economic system went to eccentric extremes — at one point, Juanita convinced the Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters that interest payments were ethically insupportable. She then went into the bank that held the organization’s small account “to ask that we not be credited with interest [and to] return the interest we had previously collected.” The bank, after considerable puzzlement, eventually gave in to the request.

The Nelsons cut their expenses dramatically — building a house with salvaged materials and without electricity or plumbing, and growing the majority of their own food on a half-acre of land. Eventually they came to live on less than $5,000 per year. As they aged, they wrote, “we may soon face some difficult decisions… We have no insurance. In latter years we’ve had our share of medical problems. Hospitalizations are covered by aid to the indigent. We talk with doctors before they take us on. Mostly they don’t charge; sometimes we agree on something up to twenty percent of the fee. Our greatest insurance has been the outpouring of support from many, many younger friends (and some older ones).”

Wally Nelson countered complaints about government with stern words about individual responsibility. After the Tienanmien Square massacre, he told a reporter: “What happened in China last month was because you had people following orders. There was damn fools out there doing it. You got to have somebody take orders to do it.” He added: “I never accuse presidents of doing anything — we do it.”

“I guess a long time ago I got it out of my head I was going to save the world. So I act to save Wally and his integrity. Sometimes it’s a situation that’s dangerous and sometimes not so dangerous. But I would hope that other people would be inspired to do what they ought to do.”

―Wally Nelson

Here’s another excerpt from Juanita Nelson’s account of her arrest that I found today, too late, alas, to include it in last Friday’s Picket Line:

Juanita Nelson’s account can be found in the book We Won’t Pay!: A Tax Resistance Reader.

It is, as far as I can see, an unpleasant fact that we cannot avoid decision-making. We are not absolved by following the dictates of a mentor or of a majority. For we then have made the decision to do that — have concluded because of belief or of fear or of apathy that this is the thing which we should do or cannot avoid doing. And then we share in the consequences of any such action. Are we doing more than trying to hide our nakedness with a fig leaf when we take the view expressed by a friend who belonged to a fundamental religious sect? At the time he wore the uniform of the United States Marines. “I’m not helping to murder,” he said. “I’m carrying out the orders of my government, and the sin is not mine.” I could never tell whether there was a bitter smile playing around his lips or if he was quite earnest. It is a rationalization commonly held and defended. It is a comforting presumption, but it still appears to me that, while the seat of government is in Washington, the seat of conscience is in me. It cannot be voted out of office by one or a million others.

This harmonizes well with what I wrote back in March when I started this experiment:

I’m responsible for the actions I choose — I cannot rent out my conscience to another person, army, government, corporation, majority or law-book. It’s not just unwise, given the history of the last century, but it is literally impossible. Each of my decisions is a decision I choose based on what I anticipate the consequences will be. I may take into account what the law says, or what the Bible says, or what the movie critic for the Chronicle says, but ultimately I’m the one making the choice. If I ignore my conscience, I’m committing a particularly dangerous form of suicide — choking off the guardian of my free will and leaving behind the sort of dangerous robot who’s spent the last hundred years swerving from cradle to grave building gulags and genetically engineering more evil forms of smallpox. Not for me.

It feels good to find a kindred spirit who has walked the road I’m on ahead of me.

Some time back I realized that I’d left the marked trail and was heading off the map. Some of the thoughts that most engaged me were ones I was only just learning how to articulate, and ones I was having a hard time finding precedents for.

When the thing that engages you has a name, a school, a history — you can call on that tradition to help you describe yourself and what you’re thinking about, and you have a ready-made shortcut for telling people what you’re up to. “I collect early 20^th Century tobacco cards.” “I’m a zionist.” “I’m a fiscal conservative.” “I’m challenging traditional gender roles in television.” Whatever.

I’m having a hard time defining or even describing This Thing that’s engaging me these days. So I’ve been working overtime trying to find somebody who’s beat me to it so I can say, “I’m a So-and-soian” or “I believe in Such-and-suchism.” So far, no such luck. So today I’m going to ramble on for a bit about what sorts of thoughts are churning in my brain these days. Maybe you can come up with a name that encapsulates them — email me with your ideas!

It’s not that I’m a marvelously original thinker — there’s precedent for most of the elements of This Thing, just not the combination of them (or if there is, I haven’t found it yet). Some of the themes of my thinking lately:

• The importance of getting your personal ethical ducks in a row, in order to strengthen your foundation, to test your principles against reality, to testify wholeheartedly for those principles, and to cast a vote with your whole conscience for the kind of world you want to live in.

In this I find some harmony with the existentialists, or with any number of philosophers who explained that to find out what you believe, how you act is a better demonstration than what you say. I also see parallels to Thoreau, when he said hopefully: “It is not so important that many should be good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere; for that will leaven the whole lump.”

And I’m encouraged by stories like the one told in Against All Odds from this month’s Mother Jones magazine, which shows that appeals to conscience from dedicated individuals can occasionally be strong enough to conquer gargantuan institutionalized evil:

[P]icture the world as it existed in 1787. Well over three-quarters of the people on earth are in bondage of one kind or another. In parts of the Americas, slaves far outnumber free people. African slaves are also scattered widely through much of the Islamic world. Slavery is routine in most of Africa itself. In India and other parts of Asia, some people are outright slaves, others in debt bondage that ties them to a particular landlord as harshly as any slave to a Southern plantation owner. In Russia the majority of the population are serfs. Nowhere is slavery more firmly rooted than in Britain’s overseas empire, where some half-million slaves are being systematically worked to an early death growing West Indian sugar. Caribbean slave-plantation fortunes underlie many a powerful dynasty.… One of the most prosperous sugar plantations on Barbados is owned by the Church of England. Furthermore, Britain’s ships dominate the slave trade, delivering tens of thousands of chained captives each year to French, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies as well as to its own.

If you had proposed, in the London of early 1787, to change all of this, nine out of ten people would have laughed you off as a crackpot.… Looking back, however, what is even more surprising than slavery’s scope is how swiftly it died. By the end of the 19^th century, slavery was, at least on paper, outlawed almost everywhere. Every American schoolchild learns about the Underground Railroad and the Emancipation Proclamation. But our self-centered textbooks often skip over the fact that in the superpower of the time slavery ended a full quarter-century earlier.…

[T]he British anti-slavery movement leaves us an extraordinary legacy. Every day activists use the tools it helped pioneer: consumer boycotts, newsletters, petitions, political posters and buttons, national campaigns with local committees, and much more. But far more important is the boldness of its vision. Look at the problems that confront the world today: global warming; the vast gap between rich and poor nations; the relentless spread of nuclear weapons; the poisoning of the earth’s soil, air, and water; the habit of war. To solve almost any one of these, a realist might say, is surely the work of centuries; to think otherwise is naive. But many a hardheaded realist could — and did — say exactly the same thing to those who first proposed to end slavery. After all, was it not in one form or another woven into the economy of most of the world? Had it not existed for millennia? Was it not older, even, than money and the written word? Surely anyone expecting to change all of that was a dreamer. But the realists turned out to be wrong. “Never doubt,” said Margaret Mead, “that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Another theme:

• A skepticism of large-scale abstract ethical algorithms (utilitarian or Kantian for instance)

I’m not much up on ethical philosophy, but apparently there’s a new up-and-comer that’s trying to defend some territory of its own on the field where the Kantians and utilitarians have been battling it out. This newer ethics (it’s not really new — it actually predates both utilitarianism and Kantiansm but is now having a revival) goes by the name of “virtue ethics.”

In Kantian or utilitarian ethics, you are supposed to be a precise and astute person, who sizes up the situations you are confronted with and either a) puts them in categories that you can match with preselected, universal, rational principles so you can choose your best response accordingly, or b) calculates the results of different possible responses so as to pick the best one based on these predicted results.

In virtue ethics, the goal is not to be precise and astute and then to apply a guiding framework based on the data you retrieve. The goal instead is to be virtuous, to be a good person. You are encouraged to practice being virtuous, since it is a skill learned through practice and not simply the result of applied theory. When you are confronted with a situation where you need to make a choice, ask “what choice would a virtuous person make?” (For instance, “What Would Jesus Do?” if you’re a Christian).

I’ve taken some inspiration from the mythical Disumbrationist League:

If the theory of the Disumbrationists differs from other well-known forms of anarchism substantially it is in their advocacy of “nobility.” The knights-of-the-round-table language sometimes used in Disumbrationist propaganda has led some to smell therein a suspicious odor of monarchism. But this is not the nobility of the European courts, but more the nobility of Lord Buckley, who appropriated his title on the basis of being noble rather than inheriting it on the basis of his ancestry or acquiring it as a reward from political elites. Perhaps “honor” is a more appropriate word to describe what the Disumbrationists are getting at, but there is some deliberate effort on their part to play off of the ideas of romantic Arthurian knights, so “nobility” it is. The noble order here resembles less the royal court and more Jack Black’s “Johnson Family” — nobody joins the Johnson Family, and there’s no set of commandments to follow, but if you aim to do right by people, you’ll come to be known as “a Johnson.”

I’m a little discouraged at how fuzzy this sort of ethical guidance is, but I’m also pretty much convinced that fuzzy ethical guidance is about the best we can hope for. There’s no God to hand down commandments, and the best human attempts to make up for this absence have all been disappointing.

But more to the point, I think that a horror like the holocaust wasn’t caused because not enough people knew “Thou Shalt Not Kill” or because Kant wasn’t taught at the university (hell, even Eichmann called himself a Kantian). Which brings me to the next point:

• I’m concerned about the willingness of people to pretend to abdicate their responsibility for their chosen actions for the most threadbare of reasons.

This has been what has had me digging through Hannah Arendt, Jonathan Glover, and Stanley Milgram’s experiment. It also brings me back around to existentialist philosophy, where these excuses for denying choice and agency are exposed as “bad faith.”

Here I found a kindred spirit in tax resister Juanita Nelson:

It is, as far as I can see, an unpleasant fact that we cannot avoid decision-making. We are not absolved by following the dictates of a mentor or of a majority. For we then have made the decision to do that — have concluded because of belief or of fear or of apathy that this is the thing which we should do or cannot avoid doing. And then we share in the consequences of any such action.… [I]t still appears to me that, while the seat of government is in Washington, the seat of conscience is in me. It cannot be voted out of office by one or a million others.

Which leads me to reevaluate the nature of this “government.”

• “The government” is a kind of a mythical creature, like “Zeus” or “Fate” or “the wheels of history.” It’s a piece of shorthand, a literary device, but not an actual agent in the world we live in. It’s also the “bad faith” excuse behind much of the worst parts of the 20^th century.

I’ve done a casual read-through of the literature about the theory of government, and about anarchism, and I’ve had a hard time finding anything that seems to look at it from this point of view. Closest thing I got, sad to say, was from the mouth of the character Bernardo de la Paz in Robert Heinlein’s novel The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. He called himself a “rational anarchist:”

A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame… as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else.

I hesitate to claim to be in a philosophical lineage founded by a character in a utopian science fiction novel, so I looked into a libertarian by the name of Robert LeFevre who was the real-life character Heinlein based his de la Paz on. Alas, I think I’m closer to the Moon’s crazy libertarian than the one that actually lived on Earth.

• Because this “government” is really only the sum of the actions of the people who use it as an excuse, solving the problems of “government” means not to tilt at a windmill and call it “government” but to address people directly, as people.

This is humbling in its scope (there are a lot more people in the world than there are governments). It is also democratic in its spirit — not in the voting/elections sense of democratic, but in the sense of the power really residing in the people, not in some empowered minority or institution.

And maybe it’s just as quixotic as the alternative of setting your lance against the spinning arms of “government.” But the tale of the abolitionists I mentioned earlier gives me hope that through appeals to conscience and individual assertions of conscience people can change the world.

The Traprock Peace Center has put an mp3 on-line of a talk on “Economic Disarmament” given by Juanita Nelson in October, 2003. Some excerpts:

“One individual, living by firmly-held beliefs, can begin to change the world in a small but significant way.” And I really think that’s all we can do.…

And so we must look to changing ourselves. I always cringe when I hear “Oh, Bush is doing so-and-so.” Bush didn’t make all the bombs. He couldn’t just put those bombs on his back and swim over to Iraq, you know. We are enabling that. At least that’s the take I have on it.

And we’re the only ones we can really control. We can’t always do that very well, but anyway we can try to do that for ourselves.…

I have this idea that if George Bush and Company would bring about peace as we want them to do (I don’t think they’re omnipotent; I’m not sure they can do it by themselves anyway), I think there would be a real revolution in this country — and maybe some of us would join it! — because we wouldn’t be able to have everything that we have now. No way, in a peaceful world.

So my idea is: why don’t we give it up now, before we kill some more people and we get killed?

Plus the fact that I think that example is the best way, and that if we did something really good, maybe George would see the light and follow our example. If we really did something besides talk about peace, and how much we love peace.…

War tax resistance, of course, that’s very economic — don’t buy what you don’t want. I have this friend who’s made a sign — she goes to peace parades but she stands with that and says “don’t buy this war” — “I Haven’t Bought a Bomb Since 1971.” And I’m going to revise it and say I haven’t bought a bomb since 1948.…

Chris Floyd made a similar point a couple of months back:

[H]ow many of those now opposed to this horrific military action are prepared to pay the actual cost of ending it: i.e., relinquishing the guarantee of cheap oil and the lifestyle it sustains? The number is doubtless very small. The large remainder should perhaps be seen as the true “Bush base.” For while they may oppose his tactical incompetence in this instance, they share, wittingly or unwittingly, his strategic goal. With this basic common cause between the elite and the majority, the wars for oil will go on — no matter who sits in the White House.

Certainly, being the biggest bully on the block entitles the United States to a lot of swag and deference. But it’s also a very expensive hobby. Nelson & Floyd assume that if the United States pursued a path of peace and justice instead of domination, its selfish citizens would rebel at the loss of loot and privileges.

I’m not convinced this is the case. It seems to me that the return-on-investment for the truly vast sums American taxpayers spend on its military is probably very poor (except, of course, for the politicians and military contractors themselves). I would not be at all surprised to find the United States, and its citizens, prospering and thriving without the (expensive) ability and inclination to pull off shock-and-awe smash-and-grabs.

Reporter Aleksandra Todorova of SmartMoney.com brings us one of the first war tax resistance articles of the 2007 tax season: Skipping Tax Bill Is One Way Some Are Protesting Iraq War.

It mentions the tax resistance of Larry Rosenwald, Juanita Nelson, Ruth Benn, and myself.

The documentary Paying for Peace: War Tax Resistance in the United States is now available on-line.

The film was made in 1991 by Carol Coney and features interviews with Brian Willson, Robert Randall, Holley Rauen, John Shibley, Karl Meyer, Ed Pearson, Vicki Metcalf, Ernest & Marion Bromley, Juanita Nelson, Maurice McCrackin, Randy Kehler, and Carolyn Stevens.

On the video, this film is sandwiched between segments of an earnest alternative media television program called “Alternative Views” that is, in this episode anyway, devoted to the October Surprise conspiracy theory. If you want to watch only “Paying for Peace,” skip ahead to about 16:20 and play through the 45-minute mark. Beware also the opening seconds of the video (outside of the documentary portion), which are marred by a high-pitched screech.

This weekend, war tax resisters in New England have been gathering at the Woolman Hill Conference Center in Deerfield, Massachusetts. The Greenfield Recorder is covering the conference.

The conference’s theme is “Taking Control of Change: Embracing Simplicity” and is emphasizing simple living both as a tax resistance technique and for its other benefits.

Yesterday’s article mentions Ruthy Woodring, Randy Kehler & Betsy Corner, Aaron Falbel, Frances Crowe, Daniel Staub, Juanita Nelson, Erik Schickendanz, and Daniel Sicken.

The Greenfield, Massachusetts Recorder today published a profile of Juanita Nelson, who stopped paying federal income tax 60 years ago.

Some excerpts:

Recovering from a stroke… she was relaxing recently in the apartment of a Turners Falls friend with whom she’s been staying, reflecting on the coming Winter Fare and on a recent 22^nd annual conference of the Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters, which she co-founded, and how it’s all part of a whole.

“It’s all connected,” said Nelson, who since moving with her husband, Wally, to Deerfield’s Woolman Hill in 1974, has lived simply and peacefully. She and her husband, who died in 2002 at age 93, stopped paying federal income taxes 60 years ago because of their opposition to war.

It was on assignment [as a reporter with The Cleveland Call and Post] that she met her future husband, who’d been raised in Arkansas, worked in Cincinnati and Chicago and had declared himself a conscientious objector during World War Ⅱ. She interviewed him at the Cuyahoga County Jail, where he was jailed for about a year after walking out of a Civilian Public Service Camp that felt like “slave labor.”

Nelson, who never thought before about war and had even briefly considered joining the Women’s Army Corps during World War Ⅱ, said, “I was intrigued immediately. You ask, ‘What would you do if somebody was going to kill you?’ Wally said, ‘I’d try to protect myself by putting my hands over my face.’ In the end, I couldn’t see that my life was worth more than somebody else’s. It just spoke to me.”

Nelson, whose short hair is just turning gray, recalled, “Wally had been in prison. It didn’t seem to be making any sense whatever to be paying for something you were so much against.”

Living in Philadelphia, where they joined with the fledgling war-tax refusal movement, “We still felt we were so entangled in a system that called for war, we wanted to go further and get more out of the system.”

The couple moved in 1970 to a small town in New Mexico, where they made friends with Randy Kehler, a conscientious objector who was moving to Deerfield to teach at an alternative school at Woolman Hill.

He invited them to farm there, and in 1974, the Nelsons arrived to become homesteaders. Juanita was 15 years younger than Wally, who was 65 at the time. He recalled staying at Greenfield’s Weldon Hotel years earlier while working as a salesman for the Antioch Book Plate Co.

They moved an old four-room house to the Quaker-owned Deerfield site where they set up a three-quarter-acre garden, “The Bean Patch,” from which they sold vegetables at the Greenfield Farmers Market.

To this day, she laughs as she tells people, “I have running-in water, running-up water and running-out water” in the house — literally carrying buckets from the well, running up the stairs and pouring them into a can that drains to a downstairs sink and eventually an outside barrel.

Particularly since the death of her husband, who cut, split and stacked their wood, Nelson has depended increasingly on friends to bring wood, and occasionally water and vegetables, to supplement the garden that’s also supplied their food.

Nelson makes clear she’s not trying to prove anything to anyone by the simplicity of her life, and is amused by people who ask, “How can you live like that?” and adds, “I don’t appreciate being put up on a pedestal; that’s almost like an excuse. Until I had the stroke, I could still get my water and things.”

Eveline MacDougall of Greenfield, who first met the Nelsons 23 years ago, called her “the most practical person I’ve ever met, on a day-to-day, minute-to-minute level. She seems to have a singleness of purpose that’s been very impressive for me. She lives it, instead of just talking about it.

“First and foremost for her seems to be putting it into action,” MacDougall added, “It’s really grounded. There’s no enshrining. Instead of a lifestyle, it’s a life.”

“…mainly I’m concerned about what I do,” [Nelson] said. “Living simply is almost like an umbrella that can cover everything. You have to believe in it and feel it. I’m so far away from what I’d like to be, but just talking about stuff doesn’t do it for me.”

I also profiled Juanita & Wally Nelson back in 2003.

Most of the examples in today’s Picket Line can be found in greater detail in the book We Won’t Pay!: A Tax Resistance Reader.

A while back, I started looking for examples of ways tax resisters have organized mutual aid pacts to help diffuse the effects of government retaliation. In the course of doing the research, though, I started collecting examples instead of a larger variety of collective projects resisters and their sympathizers have used in support of tax resistance.

Here are some of the examples I found:

1. Tax resister “insurance”

   For instance, the Breton Association in 19^th century France, which organized to “form a common stock or fund… to indemnify the subscribers for any expense they may be put to by their refusal to pay any illegal contributions imposed upon the public.”

   Another example was the Association of Real Estate Taxpayers in 1930s Chicago, which formed a cooperative legal fund to fight an offensive legal battle against the tax.

   American war tax resisters today can use the War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund to defray penalties and interest seized by the IRS. The fund is raised as-needed by asking subscribers to contribute an equal amount.

   The oath of the Regulator tax resistance movement in the North Carolina colony bound its signers to “bear an equal share in paying and making up [the] loss” if “any of our company be put to expense or under any confinement.”

2. Communes, collectives, and co-housing projects.

   Some tax resisters have formed mutual support communities. Whiteway Colony was founded to try to live up to Tolstoyan ideals. The members of the Bijou and Agape communities live below a taxable income so as to avoid paying taxes.

3. Supporting resisters as an employer

   Some members of the Restored Israel of Yahweh ran a construction business and agreed not to withhold federal taxes from the wages of those employees who were fellow-members and who were resisting taxes.

   Vivien Kellems refused to withhold taxes from her employees’ wages, saying: “They are all free American citizens, thoroughly capable of performing all of the duties and responsibilities of citizenship for themselves. And so, from this day, I am not collecting nor paying their income taxes for them.”

   Charles Kanjama recently urged Kenyans to begin a tax resistance campaign, and said that to foil pay-as-you-earn withholding, “participating employers and employees can enter into a voluntary contract to convert monthly employment into quarterly or half-yearly employment, thus effectively delaying tax liability for several months.”

4. Disrupting auctions of seized property

   Earlier this year I recounted a dramatic and successful example of the American group “Peacemakers” blocking the sale of Ernest & Marion Bromley’s seized home.

   British nonconformists and women’s suffrage activists a century ago also used this tactic. Auctions became rallies, with speeches and banners and crowds that could number in the thousands. Supporters would pack the auction house and refuse to leave their seats. On some occasions, violence broke out. In some cases, auctioneers refused to handle goods that had been seized for tax refusal.

   Simply boycotting the auctions and refusing to buy seized goods is one way communities offer support. It was part of the Quaker “Discipline” to refuse to buy seized goods. When Valentine Byler’s horse was seized for non-payment of the social security tax, “no Amish came to bid on the horses and, due to a lack of bidders, they went for a good price, with the harnesses ‘thrown in’ by the auctioneer.”

5. Pay cash so as not to leave a paper trail

   Jessica Ramer and a Claire Files contributor brought this idea up. If you pay in cash whenever you can, you give the recipient the opportunity to decide whether or not to declare the income.

   Cash tips are easy to under-report. I asked about that recently and was told that most people pay with credit card/debit card and that the government now uses a percentage method for tips. They look at the charged meals, look at the number of total meals served, and then look at the charged tips to figure out how much cash tips you received.

   (100 meals served. 50 paid with card, tipping 15%. the government calculates 15% from 100 meals even if cash tips are only 10%)

   You can help out by tipping more when paying with cash or better yet, when you pay with card, put 1% tip on it and put the rest out as cash. I even leave a note for the server saying “this is your money, don’t tell your boss, or the government. share it with the buss boy if that is the policy.” This will help lower the average tip figures, but still give the nice server what they have earned.

6. Use barter to avoid taxable/seizable transactions

   Karl Hess found people willing to barter with him as he was dodging IRS seizures:

   The other day I welded up a fish-smoking rack for a family in Washington, D.C. It will earn me a year’s supply of smoked fish. At about the same time, I helped a friend dig a foundation. He’ll help me lay the concrete blocks for a workshop. Part of my pay for a lecture at a New England college was the use of the school’s welding shop, to make some metal sculptures. Three such sculptures have paid my attorney’s fees in maintaining the tax resistance which is the reason barter has become such an integral part of my life.

7. Manufacture and sell goods as alternatives to taxed products

   Before the American Revolution, colonists who opposed Britain’s economic control boycotted British products and began to produce homespun cloth, alternatives to tea, and so forth. Gandhi’s independence campaign in India made the wearing and production of homespun cloth central to the opposition, and the Salt March was focused on the illegal production of untaxed, non-foreign-monopoly salt.

   An example today is home-brewed beer (which beats the excise tax on alcoholic beverages).

8. Buycotts and boycotts that favor resisting businesses

   One report from World War Ⅰ-era America noted that this was a technique used by those who opposed the “Liberty Bonds”:

   Efforts to prevent banks from handling the bonds have centered chiefly in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Missouri and Oklahoma. The President of a Wisconsin bank has advised the Treasury that his depositors, mostly Germans, or of German parentage, have withdrawn many thousands of dollars from his bank because he aided the First Liberty Loan.

   These depositors, he added, had taken their accounts to two rival banks on the understanding that those banks would not aid the second Liberty Loan. The two banks, he reported, were not aiding the loan in any way.

   Many banks have felt the pressure of German influence in this propaganda, reports indicate. So pronounced was the movement that the States of Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Montana recently decided that they would withdraw State funds from any bank which did not support the loan.

9. Social boycotts / shunning / noncooperation with tax collectors
   • Adolf Hausrath writes of Roman-occupied Judaea,

     The people knew how to torment these officials of the Roman customs with the petty cruelty which ordinary people develop with irreconcilable persistency, whenever they believe this persistency to be due to their moral indignation. In consequence of the theocratic scruples about the duty of paying taxes, the tax-gatherers were declared to be unclean and half Gentile.… among the Jews the words “tax-gatherers and sinners,” “tax-gatherers and Gentiles,” “tax-gatherers and harlots,” “tax-gatherers, murderers and robbers,” and similar insulting combinations, were not only ready on the tongue and familiar, but were accepted as theocratically identical in meaning. Thrust out from all social intercourse, the tax-gatherers became more and more the pariahs of the Jewish world. With holy horror did the Pharisee sweep past the lost son of Israel who had sold himself to the Gentile for the vilest purpose, and avoid the places which his sinful breath contaminated. Their testimony was not accepted by Jewish tribunals. It was forbidden to sit at table with them or eat of their bread. But their money-chests especially were the summary of all uncleanness and the chief object of pious horror, since their contents consisted of none but unlawful receipts, and every single coin betokened a breach of some theocratic regulation. To exchange their money or receive alms from them might easily put a whole house in the condition of being unclean, and necessitate many purifications. From these relations of the tax-officials to the rest of the population, it can be readily understood that only the refuse of Judaism undertook the office.

   • A social boycott of tax collectors was practiced in the years before the American revolution. John Adams wrote:

     At Philadelphia, the Heart-and-Hand Fire Company has expelled Mr. Hughes, the stamp man for that colony. The freemen of Talbot county, in Maryland, have erected a gibbet before the door of the court-house, twenty feet high, and have hanged on it the effigies of a stamp informer in chains, in terrorem till the Stamp Act shall be repealed; and have resolved, unanimously, to hold in utter contempt and abhorrence every stamp officer, and every favorer of the Stamp Act, and to “have no communication with any such person, not even to speak to him, unless to upbraid him with his baseness.” So triumphant is the spirit of liberty everywhere.

   • Harassment of tax collectors was a signature action of the Whiskey Rebellion. An early published resolution of the rebels read in part:

     [W]hereas some men may be found amongst us, so far lost to every sense of virtue and feeling for the distresses of this country, as to accept offices for the collection of the duty:

     Resolved, therefore, That in future we will consider such persons as unworthy of our friendship; have no intercourse or dealings with them; withdraw from them every assistance, and withhold all the comforts of life which depend upon those duties that as men and fellow citizens we owe to each other; and upon all occasions treat them with that contempt they deserve; and that it be, and it is hereby most earnestly recommended to the people at large to follow the same line of conduct towards them.

10. Violently resist tax collectors, disrupt trials/auctions, intimidate collaborators

    Tax collectors were tarred-and-feathered in America, both before and after the revolution — the violent expulsion of tax collectors was a frequent technique of the Whiskey rebels. Tax collectors have been the targets of violent reprisal at many times and in many places. Because of this, governments have often had to pay high salaries — or, frequently, percentages of the take — to convince collectors to take on the job, which only increases the resentment of those being collected from.

    During the French Revolution and its aftermath, customs houses were burned by mobs, tax rolls were destroyed, excise collectors were made to renounce their jobs and then were run out of town — or in some cases killed.

    The first Boer War was triggered when an armed group of Boers seized a wagon that was being auctioned after it was distrained for resisted taxes.

    The Whiskey rebels threatened to destroy the stills of those distillers who complied in paying the excise tax.

11. Boycotts / social boycotts of non-resisters

    If a tax resisting movement is large enough, it may be able to dissuade people from paying taxes through boycotts or social boycotts of people who are tax compliant. In Massachusetts, a group enforced a boycott of taxed British imports by declaring that

    …we further promise and engage, that we will not purchase any goods of any persons who, preferring their own interest to that of the public, shall import merchandise from Great Britain, until a general importation takes place; or of any trader who purchases his goods of such importer: and that we will hold no intercourse, or connection, or correspondence, with any person who shall purchase goods of such importer, or retailer; and we will hold him dishonored, an enemy to the liberties of his country, and infamous, who shall break this agreement.

12. Maintain solidarity in the face of divide-and-conquer tactics

    In mid-19^th century Germany, the government attempted to break a tax resistance movement by offering to moderate its enforcement efforts against people who could show that they had limited means. Karl Marx, who was promoting the resistance at the time, saw this as a divide-and-conquer tactic:

    The intention of the Ministry is only too clear. It wants to divide the democrats; it wants to make the peasants and workers count themselves as non-payers owing to lack of means to pay, in order to split them from those not paying out of regard for legality, and thereby deprive the latter of the support of the former. But this plan will fail; the people realizes that it is responsible for solidarity in the refusal to pay taxes, just as previously it was responsible for solidarity in payment of them.

13. Keep a record of the “sufferings” of resisters

    The Quakers responded to persecution by keeping careful records of individuals who had suffered thereby. In the archives of Quaker meetings, you can find lists of people who had resisted militia taxes or tithes for establishment church ministers, and what property was distrained by which tax collector.

14. Sign petitions and public advertisements, engage in public protests

    When the American Amish were trying to resist compulsory enrollment in the social security system, 14,000 of them signed a petition to Congress.

    During the Vietnam War, public advertisements were taken out by tax resisters. In early 1968, for instance, 448 writers and editors put a full-page ad in the New York Post declaring their intention to refuse to pay taxes for the Vietnam War. The signatories included James Baldwin, Noam Chomsky, Philip K. Dick, Betty Friedan, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Goodman, Paul Krassner, Norman Mailer, Henry Miller, Tillie Olsen, Grace Paley, Thomas Pynchon, Susan Sontag, Benjamin Spock, Gloria Steinem, Norman Thomas, Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, and Howard Zinn.

    This year’s 2008 War Tax Boycott, Don’t Buy Bush’s War, and Pledge for Peace campaigns also have a public-signing component.

    Protests, rallies, pickets, and the like have been a part of many large-scale tax resistance campaigns.

15. Hold resisters’ property as an informal trustee

    Some resisters who are vulnerable to property seizure find sympathetic friends who are willing to hold the resisters’ property in their names as a way of foiling seizure. Some war tax resister alternative funds function partially as “warehouse banks” that hold deposits of war tax resisters.

    When a frustrated tax collector seized Ammon Hennacy’s protest signs as he was picketing the IRS office — claiming that he planned to auction them off to pay Hennacy’s tax debt — a friend of Hennacy helped him make new signs, each one marked “this sign is the personal property of Joseph Craigmyle.”

16. Keep in contact with resisters and express support

    After the press reported that Valentine Byler’s horse had been seized by the IRS as he was plowing his field, he got letters of support from all across the country.

17. Form groups for mutual support & coordinated decision-making

    Here there are too many examples to list.

18. Give financial aid to evicted rent strikers

    When the Irish Land League launched its rent strike, it claimed that “The funds will be poured out unstintedly to all who may endure eviction in the course of the struggle. Our exiled brothers in America may be relied on to contribute, if necessary, as many millions in money as they have thousands, to starve out the landlords and bring the English tenantry to its knees.”

19. Comfort and aid imprisoned resisters

    The trick to supporting imprisoned tax resisters is to respect their real needs and desires. When “someone interfered,” as Thoreau put it, and paid his taxes in order to spring him from his night in jail, they thought wrongly that they were doing Thoreau a favor, “for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall.”

    Juanita Nelson tells of the support she received in jail, where she had been taken in her bathrobe from her home. Her supporters took the time to learn how to support her in a way that was appropriate to her resistance:

    Two fellow pacifists, one of them also a tax refuser, had been permitted to come to me, since I would not go to them. I asked them what was uppermost in my mind, what they’d do about getting properly dressed? They said that this was something I would have to settle for myself. I sensed that they thought it the better part of wisdom and modesty for me to be dressed for my appearance in court. They were more concerned about the public relations aspect of getting across the witness than I was. They were also genuinely concerned, I knew, about making their actions truly nonviolent, cognizant of the other person’s feelings, attitudes and readiness. I was shaken enough to concede that I would like to have my clothes at hand, in case I decided I would feel more at ease in them. The older visitor, a dignified man with white hair, agreed to go for the clothes in a taxicab.

    They left, and on their heels came another visitor. She had been told that in permitting her to come up, the officials were treating me with more courtesy than I was according them. It was her assessment that the chief deputy was hopeful that someone would be able to hammer some sense into me and was willing to make concessions in that hope. But he had misjudged the reliance he might place in her — she was not as critical as the men. She did not know what she would do, but she thought she might wish to have the strength and the audacity to carry through in the vein in which I had started.

    And she said. “You know, you look like a female Gandhi in that robe. You look, well, dignified.”

    That was my first encouragement. Everyone else had tended to make me feel like a fool of the first water, had confirmed fears I already had on that score. My respect and admiration for Gandhi, though not uncritical, was deep. And if I in any way resembled him in appearance I was prepared to try to emulate a more becoming state of mind. I reminded myself, too, that I had on considerably more than the loincloth in which Gandhi was able to greet kings and statesmen with ease. I need not be unduly perturbed about wearing a robe into the presence of his honor.

20. Support the families of imprisoned resisters

    When Gandhi was preparing the groundwork for a tax refusal campaign in India, he noted that the Indian National Congress “should undertake to feed the wives and families of those who may be imprisoned.”

21. Study the law, give legal support

    When Elizabeth Cady Stanton was contemplating a tax resistance campaign for women’s suffrage in the United States, she noted, “One thing is certain, this course will necessarily involve a good deal of litigation, and we shall need lawyers of our own sex whose intellects, sharpened by their interests, shall be quick to discover the loopholes of retreat.”

22. Combine redirected taxes for dramatic charity giveaways

    Larry Rosenwald wrote, of this technique, “To sit on the Grants and Loans Committee of New England War Tax Resistance, and to dispense the interest on refused taxes to a youth group in Chelsea, a video for cable television on United States involvement in Central America, and a people’s garden in Roxbury is to be reminded of the ideal community, however blurred and fragmented, that war tax resistance is done on behalf of, in the hope of helping to make it clear and whole.”

Can you think of any I’ve missed?

Juanita Nelson spoke briefly about the illusory nature of money, and Dean Spade spoke about the connection between consumer desire and war (and how to use the human vulnerability for trendiness to promote a progressive agenda) on Colony Collapse Disorder Radio. Excerpts:

Here’s another documentary available on-line: A Peace of the Anarchy: Ammon Hennacy and Other Angelic Troublemakers in the U.S.A.

The life and work of Ammon Hennacy is the thread that runs through the documentary, but it does a good job of covering the breadth of 20^th century American anarcho-pacifism. It includes segments of interviews with several tax resisters including Karl Meyer, Juanita Nelson, and Kathy Kelly.

And here’s a bonus video from last year of Utah Phillips sharing a story of his encounters with Ammon Hennacy:

NWTRCC has added some Readings on Money to their website.

At the NWTRCC national gathering in Fall, 2006, we held a discussion about money. The seed for this discussion was an article by Karen Marysdaughter about The Influence of Money on Decisions to Engage in War Tax Resistance.

Some notes from this discussion are included on the new NWTRCC page, along with the following:

• George Salzman’s “Inheritance and Social Responsibility” — about how he creatively used an inheritance in socially productive ways while keeping the IRS’s hands off of it.
• A debate on interest between Juanita Nelson and Bob Irwin. Nelson sees interest on loans and bank deposits and such as inherently unethical, Irwin disagrees.
• Jay Sordean takes a look at the Federal Reserve and how money comes into being in his essay on War, the National Debt, Taxes, and the Creation of Money.
• Another collection of writings looks at various issues associated with Nonprofits and Tax-Exempt Status. While becoming tax-exempt and then defending your tax-exempt status may seem like it should be a no-brainer for folks who are tax resisters, tax exempt status comes with strings attached and may be more trouble than it is worth.
• Finally: one of the traditionally most successful outreach tools of war tax resistance groups is the “penny poll.” This page shows you how different groups have gone about making government budget priorities visible and visceral.

A reporter for the Greenfield Massachusetts Recorder had the good sense to interview civil rights veteran (and long-time tax resister) Juanita Nelson in the wake of yesterday’s inaugural hoopla.

Here’s what she had to say. (Excerpts):

For all of the celebrating in the nation’s capital and around the country as the nation’s first black president was sworn in, Juanita Nelson’s reaction was, well, reserved.

The 85-year-old African-American woman, who has been active throughout her life in civil rights, anti-war, tax refusal and other social justice movements, has a skeptical outlook on the Obama presidency as a watershed event.

“I think it’s interesting, but it doesn’t necessarily warm the cockles of my heart,” said Nelson. “He’s going to be presiding over something that’s the same old, same old. He’s only one person.”

Nelson says she didn’t even vote for Obama — or for anyone else, in fact. The only election in which she’s cast a ballot, for that matter, was for Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1944. The same holds true for her late husband, Wally, who died in 2002 at the age of 93, and who[m] she had first met as a newspaper reporter covering his imprisonment as a conscientious objector — he’d walked out of a Civilian Public Service Camp that felt like “slave labor.”

“There’s not anything to vote for,” said Nelson. “I vote with what I do or don’t do. I have to do what I believe in, you have to do what you believe in.”

What a rare and heartwarming surprise it is to hear Thoreauvian echoes in the hills this cold January.

The fate of the country does not depend on how you vote at the polls — the worst man is as strong as the best at that game; it does not depend on what kind of paper you drop into the ballot-box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.

Yesterday was the first full day of the NWTRCC National Gathering in Cleveland, Ohio.

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 last April 15^th and the Tea Party protests going on at the same time.
• 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 next month some time.

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

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

• War tax resisters Randy Kehler and Juanita Nelson are addressing the Conflict Transformation Across Cultures (ConTACt) program in Brattelboro, Vermont tonight (details and directions).
• Planning to attend the Ventura Film Festival around the end of the month? Don’t forget to put Death and Taxes on your schedule.

In a spirited, harmonious opening session of the joint National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee Fall gathering / 25^th annual New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters, more than fifty war tax resisters from across the country (and a few WTR-curious from the Boston area and elsewhere) gathered at the Cambridge Friends Meeting house last night.

The rare joint gathering started with a panel session. I took some notes along the way, but got carried away by the back-and-forth and the ideas and sometimes forgot to jot things down.

Local resister Mike Prokosch started things off by emphasizing what military spending costs us in terms of opportunity costs — that is, what things of common benefit we could be funding but are neglecting because of our pathologically bloated military spending. He suggests that the future of an organized war tax resistance movement means “organizing on the basis of interest, not ideology.” We need to find out whose ox is being gored when money is siphoned out of communities and into the Pentagon and appeal to them to join us based on, if not common objectives exactly, at least a common enemy.

Mike Prokosch addresses the gathering

Long-time war tax resisters Juanita Nelson and Bob Bady spoke next, giving an overview of the birth and growth of the modern American war tax resistance movement, from Ernest Bromley’s refusal to buy a tax stamp for his car during World War Ⅱ, to the founding of the Peacemakers in 1948, through such highlights as the IRS siege of the Kehler/Corner house, to the present day. Nelson told the story of being hauled off to jail in her bathrobe back in the day. She says that in all of the decades she’s been resisting, the IRS has only gotten $4 out of her, when part of her pay as a model was withheld. She also expressed that the war tax resistance community in her neck of the woods “has dwindled… now we’re half a dozen people meeting every other month.”

Bady suggested that a key to becoming a more effective and powerful movement is to speak up more. Too many war tax resisters, he says, are satisfied with feeling that they have a clean conscience and are content to stay safely quiet, under the radar. We need to make more noise and be more of a friction to wear down the mechanism of the war machine, which will also help us to get the attention and support of other activists.

Ruth Benn explained what the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee is, how it operates, and the range of philosophies and methods used by its members. This was old hat to me, so I didn’t take many notes, but it was an eye-opener I’m sure to some of the newbies or to those who are locally- or regionally-focused and don’t give much thought to the national organization.

Erica Weiland spoke of how she came into war tax resistance after a frustrating time trying to work within a peace movement that seemed to be counterproductive when it was productive of anything at all. Hers is one of my favorite “salvation narratives” because she always mentions The Picket Line as one of the things that helped her take the plunge into being a war tax resister.

Katherine Fisher spoke next of how her decision to become a war tax resister grew out of her joining and working within the Society of Friends. She says that when she was still in school, she heard some people from the New York Yearly Meeting (I think it was) talk about war tax resistance and she filed it away as something she’d need to consider. Since she was still a dependent on her parents’ tax returns, the concern wasn’t urgent for her, but when she got out of school and got a full-time job she had to confront her choice. She decided that she would refuse to pay her taxes to the government but would instead put the money in a war tax resisters’ escrow account and would write to the IRS to explain her position. First, though, she took this tentative decision with her to a “clearness committee” in her Quaker meeting that she had asked to help challenge and clarify her decision. She spoke of this process, and of the support she got (and continues to get) from her meeting throughout. It was an inspiring, interesting, and well-told story, and a helpful contrast to the many go-it-alone stories of tax resistance that one commonly hears.

Earlier in the day, a handful of us who are on the administrative committee of NWTRCC got together to do business. I’d love to share with you some insider tidbits of what goes on in our chamber of sedition, but… you’d be bored to tears. One of these days we’ll have to put some sinister plot on the agenda, but as it is we mostly were talking budget, fundraising, schedules, objectives, who is going to be moderating what part of what discussion, and so forth — like just about any other small organization. Useful stuff, certainly, for making the more interesting parts of the larger meeting flow smoothly, but not in itself the sort of stuff to get your blood racing.

From the 30 December 1949 Kentucky New Era:

Police Scatter “Peace” Group

Non-Taxpayer Ready To Leave Prison Cell

Ashland, Ky., Dec. 29. — (AP) — Members of a peace group of six charged today they were ordered off a highway by state police while demonstrating to welcome Katsuki James Otsuka from prison.

Otsuka, a 28-year-old American-born Japanese [sic], completed 120 days in the Ashland Federal Correctional Institution, near here, for non-payment of war taxes.

Warden R.O. Culver indicated, however, that any release was out of his hands. He said Otsuka first must appear before United States Commissioner J.C. Yeager here for non-payment of a $100 fine in connection with his sentence.

The peace group, led by the Rev. Ralph Templin of the Wilberforce, O., University faculty, appeared on the state highway near the prison at 6 a.m..

At Frankfort, Police Commissioner Guthrie F. Crowe said three troopers have been assigned to maintain order outside the institution. The troopers were sent there at the request of Warden Culver, Crowe said.

The state policemen have been instructed to keep the highway clear and to see that no one is injured, Crowe said. “The police will not interfere with placards, banners or speeches,” he added.

Crowe said the group interfered with the free movement of guards and other institutional employes as they went to work this morning.

Templin and the Rev. Ernest Bromley of Wilmington, O., later attempted to interview prison officials about Otsuka’s release, but were told by a tower guard that none was available at that hour.

Templin said that “four carloads of state police” drove up shortly after 8 a.m. and ordered him and the others, all carrying peace placards, off the road and that they broke one of the placards.

The sign read:

“You did right in refusing to pay taxes for A-bombs.”

Templin said he asked what law was being violated by the picketing, but that he got no answer.

No one was available at the Ashland state police detachment for comment.

Other demonstrators included Henry Dyer of Yellow Springs, O., employe of a printing establishment; Lloyd Danzeisen, a railroad postal clerk of Brookville, O., near Dayton, and Mr. and Mrs. Wallace Nelson of Covington, Ky.

Nelson is a construction worker.

Otsuka, native of San Diego, Calif., was sentenced to 90 days and fined $100 on Sept. 1 in Indianapolis, Ind., by Federal Judge Robert C. Baltzell for refusing to pay 29 per cent of his income taxes, amounting to $4.50, which he considered to be for war purposes.

He has served an additional 30 days in lieu of the fine, but Culver said he must still appear before the commissioner.

Ralph Templin was a former missionary stationed in India, and an admirer of Gandhi’s techniques. The British government expelled him because of his support for Gandhi’s movement.

Back in the U.S., Templin noted that Gandhi had eagerly learned from American predecessors like William Lloyd Garrison and Henry David Thoreau, and proposed that Americans should return the favor by learning a thing or two from Gandhi. To this end, he helped to form the “Harlem Ashram” and its Non-violence Direct Action Committee, which concentrated on non-violent actions to fight racial discrimination.

Dyer was one of the World War Ⅱ conscientious objectors who was further radicalized by / helped radicalize the civilian work camps to which drafted conscientious objectors in the United States were assigned (he was later one of thousands of conscientious objectors the U.S. imprisoned).

Lloyd Danzeisen was one of the “Peacemakers” group. Wally & Juanita Nelson and Ernest Bromley I’ve covered here before in more or less detail.

As I mentioned yesterday, a while back I tried to flesh out a variety of political philosophy that I whimsically dubbed “topianism.”

I meant the name to highlight the distinction between it and utopian political philosophies (meaning, most all of the rest of them, including the mainstream ones that pass for conventional wisdom) — that is to say that it’s not aiming at organizing society in some ideal way, but in understanding and navigating society as it is in the here-and-now (not in the outopos where it will never be, or the eutopos where we might ideally project it to be, but in this topos right here where we’re standing). I’m not crazy about the name “topianism,” but I need some sort of tag to attach to the idea while I look for a better one.

Topianism is almost more of an ethical code than a political philosophy, except that it has a component with profound political consequences: its claim that there is no second standard (or set of standards) by which to judge acts in the political sphere — instead, a single standard applies to everyone. Questions like “is she a citizen?” or “is he a defendant?” or “is she the queen?” or “is he licensed?” or “is that legal?” don’t play the same sort of decisive role in topian evaluation as they do in utopian philosophies.

Topianism bears a lot of resemblance to existentialism because of its emphasis on personal responsibility and on avoiding the temptation to deflect or deny this responsibility.

When you talk about responsibility, you sometimes end up getting into the tangle over free will. There’s a lot of philosophical debate over whether free will makes any sense at all, and if it does, how it must be structured so as to make sense and whether a free will so structured bears any resemblance to the more intuitive, common-sense version of the concept. And there’s a lot of psychological debate over the extent to which our conscious decision-making is actually a causal factor in our actions or is only an after-the-fact “just so story” we tell ourselves.

Be all that as it may, most of us feel that we inhabit a world in which we choose some actions and some things just happen to us and in which there is a big difference between the two. This is crucial to our sense of being living participants in existence and not just spectators along for the ride.

The existentialist tradition did a lot of work identifying some of the ways we conveniently pretend to be spectators instead of participants from time to time in order to try to cheat our way out of confronting our need to decide and our responsibility for the results of our decision-making.

Topianism emphasizes how this works (or rather doesn’t work) in the political sphere. It insists that you cannot displace an individual human decision onto an institution, a hierarchical order, a rule, or anything of the sort. In other words, you cannot say “I did it because it was the law,” or “I did it because it was my job,” or “I did it because it was an order,” or “I did it because it got more votes than the alternative” as a way of trying to mean “the choice I made to do it wasn’t really my choice.”

In its most uncompromising form, topianism won’t even let you foist your decisions off on rules of thumb, ethical principles, or topianism itself. You can refer to such things in the course of explaining your decision-making, but you can’t try to make such things bear any of the weight of your actual decision-making or shoulder any of the responsibility for your actions.

It is an anarchist philosophy, but not because it preaches that The State should be abolished, but because it asserts that The State, as an independent moral agent capable of making decisions and shouldering responsibility, does not exist. The attitude of a topian to The State is not like the attitude of an assassin to the Emperor but like the attitude of an atheist to God.

Topianism does not mandate pacifism, or the nonaggression principle, or aversion to coercion (though some, like Tolstoy in the quotes below and in what I quoted yesterday, blend the two ideas or find that they both derive from a common root). Indeed if it were to mandate such a thing, it would be self-undermining, as its practitioners would be pacifists or nonaggressive or noncoercive because of a rule rather than because of their choice.

A topian can throw a man in prison, but only by saying “it’s because I think they should be confined and I’m willing to take responsibility for confining them,” and not “I’m following the law and what the warrant says.” A topian can steal from his neighbor, but only by saying “I want his property and don’t respect his ownership of it,” never by saying “I have a legal seizure order” or “to each according to his need.” Topian decisions can be wise or unwise, good or bad, praiseworthy or blameworthy. The one thing they cannot be is foisted off on someone or something other than the person actually deciding.

A topian can never merely follow an order because it is an order or because the person who gave it holds a rank or position. But a topian may conclude that some other person has a better track record of wisdom and good judgment in some field and may follow his or her advice for that reason — though never losing track of the fact that the choice and the responsibility for the consequences lie with the person taking the advice, not the person giving it.

This may sound slippery, since it seems easy to just linguistically transform an improper delegation of responsibility into a reasonable one just by saying “I choose it.” Is there a meaningful difference between saying “I did it because of an order from my commander” and saying “I did it because I chose to follow the advice of that commander-guy who seemed to me to be well-informed and of good judgment”?

I think there is. In the latter case, you have to at least ostensibly own the responsibility for your choice and make a more-or-less honest claim of having thought it over and justified it — furthermore, your posture is obviously conditional on the good judgment of “that commander-guy” and not just an unconditional carte blanche of obedience. In the former case, none of that is true: you’re merely a tool in your commander’s hands. That said, it’s certainly possible to describe your decision in a way that formally looks proper but is really a dishonest dodge gussied up in the right package. You can’t just change your language in a “politically correct” fashion, you really do have to honestly change your attitude.

Here are some ways I’ve seen the topian creed, or something close to it, expressed:

Juanita Nelson:

“It is, as far as I can see, an unpleasant fact that we cannot avoid decision-making. We are not absolved by following the dictates of a mentor or of a majority. For we then have made the decision to do that — have concluded because of belief or of fear or of apathy that this is the thing which we should do or cannot avoid doing. And then we share in the consequences of any such action. Are we doing more than trying to hide our nakedness with a fig leaf when we take the view expressed by a friend who belonged to a fundamental religious sect? At the time he wore the uniform of the United States Marines. ‘I’m not helping to murder,’ he said. ‘I’m carrying out the orders of my government, and the sin is not mine.’ I could never tell whether there was a bitter smile playing around his lips or if he was quite earnest. It is a rationalization commonly held and defended. It is a comforting presumption, but it still appears to me that, while the seat of government is in Washington, the seat of conscience is in me. It cannot be voted out of office by one or a million others.”

“Bernardo de la Paz” in Robert Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress:

“A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame… as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else.”

Mary McCarthy:

“If somebody points a gun at you and says, ‘Kill your friend or I will kill you,’ he is tempting you, that is all.”

Hannah Arendt:

“[T]here is no such thing as obedience in political and moral matters. The only domain where the word could possibly apply to adults who are not slaves is the domain of religion, in which people say that they obey the word or the command of God because the relationship between God and man can rightly be seen in terms similar to the relation between adult and child. ¶ Hence the question addressed to those who participated and obeyed orders should never be, ‘Why did you obey?’ but ‘Why did you support?’ … Much would be gained if we could eliminate this pernicious word ‘obedience’ from our vocabulary of moral and political thought. If we think these matters through, we might regain some measure of self-confidence and even pride, that is, regain what former times called the dignity or the honor of man: not perhaps of mankind but of the status of being human.”

Vlasov, in Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago:

“For myself, I’ve decided one thing only. I’m going to tell the executioner: ‘You alone, not the judges, not the prosecutors, you alone are guilty of my death, and you are going to have to live with it! If it weren’t for you willing executioners, there would be no death sentences!’ So then let him kill me, the rat!”

Tolstoy:

“The men of our time complain of the evil current of life in our Christian world. This cannot be otherwise, when in our consciousness we have recognized not only the fundamental divine commandment, ‘Do not kill,’ which was proclaimed thousands of years ago, but also the law of the love and brotherhood of all men, and when, in spite of this, every man of our European world in reality renounces this fundamental divine law, which he recognizes, and at the command of a president, emperor, minister, a Nicholas, a William, puts on a fool’s costume, takes up instruments of murder, and says, ‘I am ready, — I will strike down, ruin, and kill whomsoever you command me to.’ ¶ What, then, can society be, which is composed of such men? It must be terrible, and, indeed, it is terrible.”

“[T]he chief evil from which men suffer has for a long time not consisted in this: that they do not know God’s true law; but in this: that men, to whom the knowledge and the execution of the true law is inconvenient, being unable to destroy or overthrow it, invent ‘precept upon precept and rule upon rule,’ as Isaiah says, and give them out as just as obligatory as, or even more obligatory than the true laws of God. And so, the only thing that now is needed for freeing men from their sufferings, is this: that they should free themselves from all the theological, governmental, and scientific reflections, which are proclaimed to be obligatory laws of life, and, having freed themselves, should naturally recognize as more binding upon them than all the other precepts and laws, that true, eternal law, which is already known to them, and gives, not only to a few, but to all men, the greatest possible good in social life.”

“ ‘What is to be done?’ ask both the rulers and the ruled, the revolutionists and those engaged in public life, always attaching to the words, ‘What is to be done?’ the meaning of, ‘How should men’s lives be organized?’ ¶ They all ask how to arrange men’s lives, that is to say, what to do with other people; but no one asks, ‘What must I do with myself?’ … ¶ [T]he chief cause of men’s stagnation in a form of life they already admit to be wrong, lies in the amazing superstition… that some men not only can, but have the right to, predetermine and forcibly organize the life of others. ¶ People need only free themselves from this common superstition and it would at once become clear to all that the life of every group of men gets arranged only in the same way that each individual arranges his own life. And if men — both those who arrange others’ lives, and those who submit to such arranging — would only understand that, it would become evident to all that nothing can justify any kind of violence between man and man; and that violence is not only a violation of love and even of justice, but of common sense.”

“Suppose a problem in psychology was set: What can be done to persuade the men of our time — Christians, humanitarians or, simply, kindhearted people — into committing the most abominable crimes with no feeling of guilt? There could be only one way: to do precisely what is being done now, namely, to make them governors, inspectors, officers, policemen, and so forth; which means, first, that they must be convinced of the existence of a kind of organization called ‘government service,’ allowing men to be treated like inanimate objects and banning thereby all human brotherly relations with them; and secondly, that the people entering this ‘government service’ must be so unified that the responsibility for their dealings with men would never fall on any one of them individually.”

Thoreau:

“It behooves every man to see that his influence is on the side of justice, and let the courts make their own characters.”

“There is but one obligation and that is the obligation to obey the highest dictate. — None can lay me under another which will supersede this. The Gods have given me these years without any incumbrance — society has no mortgage on them. If any man assist me in the way of the world, let him derive satisfaction from the deed itself — for I think I never shall have dissolved my prior obligations to God.”

“I must conclude that Conscience, if that be the name of it, was not given us for no purpose, or for a hindrance. However flattering order and expediency may look, it is but the repose of a lethargy, and we will choose rather to be awake, though it be stormy, and maintain ourselves on this earth and in this life, as we may, without signing our death-warrant. Let us see if we cannot stay here, where He has put us, on his own conditions. Does not his law reach as far as his light? The expedients of the nations clash with one another, only the absolutely right is expedient for all.”

“The disease and disorder in society are wont to be referred to the false relations in which men live one to another, but strictly speaking there can be no such thing as a false relation if the condition of the things related is true. False relations grow out of false conditions.”

“Consider the cloak that our employment or station is; how rarely men treat each other for what in their true and naked characters they are; how we use and tolerate pretension; how the judge is clothed with dignity which does not belong to him, and the trembling witness with humility that does not belong to him, and the criminal, perchance, with shame or impudence which no more belong to him. It does not matter so much, then, what is the fashion of the cloak with which we cloak these cloaks. Change the coat; put the judge in the criminal-box, and the criminal on the bench, and you might think that you had changed the men.”

“Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are not good? Is there any necessity for a man’s being a tool to perform a deed of which his better nature disapproves? Is it the intention of law-makers that good men shall be hung ever? Are judges to interpret the law according to the letter, and not the spirit? What right have you to enter into a compact with yourself that you will do thus or so, against the light within you? Is it for you to make up your mind, — to form any resolution whatever, — and not accept the convictions that are forced upon you, and which ever pass your understanding? I do not believe in lawyers, in that mode of attacking or defending a man, because you descend to meet the judge on his own ground, and, in cases of the highest importance, it is of no consequence whether a man breaks a human law or not. Let lawyers decide trivial cases. Business men may arrange that among themselves. If they were the interpreters of the everlasting laws which rightfully bind man, that would be another thing.”

“Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right. It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience; but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.”

“A common and natural result of an undue respect for the law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences… They have no doubt that it is a damnable business in which they are concerned; they are all peaceably inclined. Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the Navy Yard, and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts, a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments… ¶ The mass of men serve the State thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, &c. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens.”

“My civil neighbor, the tax-gatherer, is the very man I have to deal with, — for it is, after all, with men and not with parchment that I quarrel, — and he has voluntarily chosen to be an agent of the government. How shall he ever know well what he is and does as an officer of the government, or as a man, until he is obliged to consider whether he shall treat me, his neighbor, for whom he has respect, as a neighbor and well-disposed man, or as a maniac and disturber of the peace, and see if he can get over this obstruction to his neighborliness without a ruder and more impetuous thought or speech corresponding with his action.”

“If… a man asserts the value of individual liberty over the merely political commonweal, his neighbor still tolerates him, that he who is living near him, sometimes even sustains him, but never the State. Its officer, as a living man, may have human virtues and a thought in his brain, but as the tool of an institution, a jailer or constable it may be, he is not a whit superior to his prison key or his staff. Herein is the tragedy; that men doing outrage to their proper natures, even those called wise and good, lend themselves to perform the office of inferior and brutal ones. Hence come war and slavery in; and what else may not come in by this opening?”

Walter Raleigh:

“[N]o senate nor civil assembly can be under such natural impulses to honor and justice as single persons; for politic members meet with neither encouragement nor reproaches for what was the effect of number only. For a majority is nobody when that majority is separated, and a collective body can have no synteresis, or divine ray, which is in the mind of every man, never assenting to evil, but upbraiding and tormenting him when he does it: but the honor and conscience that lies in the majority is too thin and diffusive to be efficacious; for a number can do a great wrong, and call it right, and not one of that majority blush for it. Hence it is, that though a public assembly may lie under great censures, yet each member looks upon himself as little concerned: this must be the reason why a Roman senate should act with less spirit and less honor than any single Roman would do.”

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

• The Daily Hampshire Gazette has published a nice retrospective of the life and work of Juanita Nelson up to now, which includes the good news that Nelson is working on a memoir.
• If the IRS levies your salary for back taxes, they are supposed to leave you enough to live on and not just take the whole paycheck. They’ve recently published the table they use to calculate how much to take, which is based on how frequently you get paid, your filing status, and the number of exemptions claimed on your W-4.
• Here’s an update on the cases of Spanish war tax resisters Jorge Güemes and Hugo Alcalde, who are pursuing court actions in support of their stand:

  [Güemes’s] appeal argues that the resister’s action is the expression of fundamental rights such as the freedom of belief, which doesn’t only cover forms of thinking based on deep convictions, but also the acts consistent with them, and sets limits on the power of the State.

  Conscientious objection to the maintaining of armies by means of direct taxes would therefore be an expression of this freedom of belief. The Constitution and international laws protect this right, whether or not there is legislation that covers it. Furthermore, and more importantly, asserts the appeal, civil disobedience such as pacifist tax resistance, is also a guarantor of the collective political right to a just international order and peaceful international relations.

  The same appeal makes explicit also that the resister is not merely seeking relief against an unjust administrative decision, but rather to follow an ethical imperative to help spread tax resistance, using his case as an amplifier for these ideas.

• British war tax resister Roy Prockter tells how the tax collector confronted him:

  [H]e asked me my reasons for refusing, when I said conscientious objection to military taxation he started getting agitated, asking if I objected to paying for schools and hospitals as well — I said that I’d be pleased to pay for schools and hospitals if I could do so without paying for the military to kill people.

  He then said that he’d met some nutters in his line of work, but I took the biscuit!

From the 11 July 1959 edition of The Afro-American:

Income Tax Objector Is Still Free… But Nervous

Faces fine of $1,000 or year in jail

Philadelphia Mrs. Juanita Nelson of 3509 Baring St. was at home but in suspense last week, she said.

Her anxiety stems from the fact she hasn’t “heard a thing” from the tax agents who had arrested her on June 16 for failure to pay Federal income taxes.

She was given until June 19 to be prepared to pay a $1,000 fine or spend a year in jail for contempt of court.

Mrs. Nelson said, “I’ve been away for the past week with my husband.”

She laughed nervously and said, “I haven’t heard of anyone being here after me, and I didn’t receive any mail from the internal revenue agents.

“So I don’t know what is going to happen to me. My husband and I got home Saturday night.” Her husband, Wallace, is a book company salesman.

Mrs. Nelson and her husband are members of a nationwide pacifist movement which is called “The Peacemakers,” organized in 1948.

This is based on Gandhian principles of non-violence.

She said they believe that peace will never come by means of war and war preparation.

The group advocates that in addition to income tax refusal, they refuse to cooperate with military draft, refuse to work in war industry and will not cooperate with civil defense drills.

They propose non-violent resistance in case of invasion or suppression of freedom and wide-spread economic sharing.

Mrs. Nelson has a master’s degree in speech therapy from Ohio State University. In Philadelphia, she is well known as a neighborhood improvement worker, and is a business secretary.

When Mrs. Nelson was arrested on June 16 she was picked up bodily by deputy marshals and police and carried to a waiting patrol wagon.

The officers said they were forced to carry her bodily because she refused to accompany them willingly after they had served her with the body attachment. She was also carried out of the cellroom to a chair for the hearing.

Mrs. Nelson said she isn’t going to pay income taxes.

U.S. Attorney Harold K. Wood reported that Mrs. Nelson had failed to explain to the Internal Revenue office her reason for not paying $950 in taxes for the years of 1953 and 1954 when she was living in Cincinnati.

Taxes were also due for 1957 and 1958. A summons was ignored on March 13 and several others thereafter. Mr. Nelson was a conscientious objector during World War Ⅱ.

Nelson tells the story of her arrest (and what happened next) in her essay, “A Matter of Freedom.”

S. Brian Willson was interviewed on KQED’s radio show “Forum with Michael Krasny” yesterday. Among the things he discussed were varieties of protest tactics, symbolic tactics versus practical direct action, the need for deep and radical change as opposed to superficial changes that keep dysfunctional structures intact, and his encounters with Juanita & Wally Nelson.

Here’s some of what he had to say about tax resistance:

Willson: I think it would be good if people simplified their lives and lived below the taxable level. Or even if they didn’t do that, to become tax refusers and to begin getting rid of their property — which I did, myself, with the IRS over the years…

Krasny: Have you refused to pay taxes?

W: I refused…

K: But you didn’t get prosecuted.

W: No. And I thought I would be prosecuted.

K: ’cause there are so many in jail who have said…

W: Sixteen years… but I had to get rid of my property, my bank accounts, and pay all my bills with postal money orders. But I had to resolve going to jail. I mean I had to resolve that that was a likely consequence. But I felt free when I made that… It took me three years to get clarity on that, back in the early eighties. But when I got clear about it… I’ve had twelve meetings with the IRS over the years and I was always very clear with them that their option was to take me to prison. Because they didn’t have anything to seize, but they could seize me. And I thought — my lawyer said — pretty sure they’re gonna do that. But they didn’t.

Later they took a call from “Greg:”

Greg: I would think that if people were to become tax refuseniks at a larger scale, we’d cut off the supply — the blood supply — to people who are making some of these really poor decisions. My question is: how would that be coordinated? how would that get started? how would that become a much larger movement so it wasn’t just maybe a few people who were left hanging out there with their pants down, so to speak — how to go and make something that’s a coordinated effort that was much larger in scale and difficult to stop, and really make a big statement?

W: Well that’s a good question…

K: We’re getting this from a lot of emailers: ‘How do we organize?’ or ‘How do we get more momentum?’

W: There are about 10,000 tax refusers in the United States, I think, now. There is a national group called the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Council [sic] which is trying to do just exactly what you as the caller have suggested. It’s just very tough: it’s another leap that people make. I made the leap, myself, and it took me three years to process the thought of being a tax refuser, which I felt was the correct position for me personally, and I met other people who were tax refusers…

I’ve many times mentioned Ammon Hennacy’s tax resistance hereabouts, but have only less-frequently commented on his more-well-known Catholic Worker comrade Dorothy Day’s stance.

The site catholicworker.org now has a search engine with which I have been able to recover some of her writings on the subject, which I’ll excerpt here today.

from “If Conscription Comes For Women” The Catholic Worker January 1943

“Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.” Yes, and we have heard too much of that.

Let E.I. Watkin, founder of the Pax movement in England, author of The Catholic Center, Men and Tendencies, and The Bow in the Clouds, answer as he did in his pamphlet, “The Crime of Conscription.”

Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s. This is a favorite text with the hosts of Christian clerics, Protestant and Catholic, who both in the present and in the past, have abused and still abuse religion to enslave men’s consciences to the unjust bondages of a usurping state. They omit to notice the context. Our Lord has just asked for a coin, and having obtained the admission that it bear’s Caesar’s image and superscription, bids his questioners render to Caesar what is his. This is obviously the coin payable in taxation which bears Caesar’s stamp.

The body and soul of man, however, do not bear Caesar’s image. Whose image they do bear we are told in Holy Scripture. It is the image of God. Obviously, therefore, as we are to render to Caesar what bears his image, namely, money, we are to render to God, not to Caesar, what bears not Caesar’s stamp, but God’s; namely, human beings. Thus the same text which justifies, indeed, imposes the obligation of paying taxes, denies any right of the state to take a toll of man. All forced labor, for example, is implicitly declared unlawful. And still more does the principle here enunciated forbid military conscription. Whether a war be just or unjust, no government may without grave injustice compel me — bearing as I do the divine image which marks me as God’s bondman, but a freeman in respect to my fellows — to slay and be slain in its quarrel unless I freely consent. If a government unlawfully outsteps its prerogative and imposes conscription, any one who, from whatever motive, refuses to serve, is whether he intend it or not, fighting for human dignity and freedom, as also is anyone who abets and supports his resistance.

But now in these days it would be desirable to go even further, as did Thoreau, to refuse even the taxes which were to be used to pay for the means to kill our fellow man. In many cases, however, it is all but impossible to separate the tax from the cost of the commodity needed to maintain life.

from “More About Holy Poverty, Which Is Voluntary Poverty” The Catholic Worker February 1945

We believe that social security legislation, now balled as a great victory for the poor and for the worker, is a great defeat for Christianity. It is an acceptance of the Idea of force and compulsion.

[The people] pay taxes, and it is the city and the state and the federal government that is robbing them and pilfering them, too, They are taxed for every bite they eat, every shoddy rag they put on. They are taxed on their jobs, there are deductions for this and that, there are the war bonds, eighteen dollars for a twenty-five dollar war bond, paid on the Installment plan. And they are not only being taxed, but they are being seduced. Their virtue is being drained from them. They are made into war profiteers, they are forced into the position of usurers. The whole nation, every man woman and child, is forced to become a profiteer — hideous word — in this war.

from “Poverty Without Tears” The Catholic Worker April 1950

If you cry aloud for land and home and tools and the good natural life for the poor without which a good supernatural life is impossible, then you are either an escapist and an inhabitant of an ivory tower, or you are a Communist in disguise trying to do away with property.

And you are a communist also if you cry out for peace and against increased armaments — against the making of the hydrogen and atom bombs and the paying of federal taxes for the making of those bombs. We know, who picketed March 15 before the tax offices up on 45^th street, because we heard these jibes as we walked to and fro with our signs.

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker September 1950

We will have more to write about taxes later. We believe in paying our local taxes but not federal. Maybe this is quibbling, but the benefits of hospitals, fire department, street cleaning and health department, etc. make us firm in our decision to always pay our local taxes though we will not pay income tax.

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker February 1953

I can scarcely list all the people Ammon [Hennacy] introduced me to, all the friends he has made through his constant protest against war and taxes for war, and his distribution of the Catholic Worker. But I can give a little glimpse of Ammon’s living quarters, in his little three room bungalow on Lin Orme’s place some five miles out of town [Phoenix, Arizona].

Ammon likes to call our Lord the Celestial Bulldozer to indicate that ones way is smoothed for one, the rough ways made plain and the crooked straight. He arrived in Phoenix broke, he said, as he came further south out of the dairy region to the farming section of the country where he could work by the day and not by the month and so avoid the withholding tax. He slept all night on an anarchist’s floor (one of the readers of the CW) and got up at daylight to go to the slave market, as the corner is named in every town in every state, Calif., Texas, Florida, New Mexico and Arizona, where immigrant workers are employed. Some times there are as many as 200 trucks, sometimes only 25. They go as far as seventy miles away for the day’s work. Mexican trucks take only Mexicans. He got on the second truck, owned by the Arena brothers, a corporation which owns land in California, Colorado, and Arizona, and specializes in lettuce, melons, cabbage, celery. This was October 7, 1947, the year the withholding tax began. At the end of his day’s work he asked if there was a shack on the place where he could sleep, and a fellow worker told him of one down the road and he took his sleeping bag and camped out there for the night. He stayed there for some months and as it was on land rented by Mr. Orme to the company, he became acquainted with that old gentleman who later invited him to occupy the vacant shack on his own land. There is one room and two porches, rather than three rooms, really, and before Ammon lived there, twelve Mexicans had camped out there. I sat on the porch one afternoon with Ammon and drank strong black coffee, brewed on a little kitchen stove, stuffed with mesquite which burned fragrantly while we talked.

from “Poverty Is to Care and Not to Care” The Catholic Worker April 1953

How does property fit in, people ask. It was Eric Gill who said that property is proper to man. And St. Thomas Aquinas said that a certain amount of goods is necessary to lead a good life. The recent popes wrote at length about justice rather than charity, that should be sought for the worker. Unions are still fighting for wages and hours, and it is a futile fight with the price of living going up steadily. They are fighting for partial gains and every strike means sacrifice to make them, and still the situation in the long run is not bettered. There may be talk of better standards of living, every worker with his car, and owning his own home, but still this comfort depends on a wage, a boss, on War. Our whole modern economy is based on preparation for war and that is one of the great modern arguments for poverty. If the comfort one has gained has resulted in the death of thousands in Korea and other parts of the world, then that comfort will be have to be atoned for. the argument now is that there is no civilian population, that all are involved in the war (misnamed defense) effort. If you work in a textile mill making cloth, or in a factory making dungarees or blankets, it is still tied up with war. If one raises food or irrigates to raise food, one may be feeding troops or liberating others to serve as troops. If you ride a bus you are paying taxes. Whatever you buy is taxed so you are supporting the state in the war which is “the health of the state.”

The argument may go this way, but we still can choose what seems to us the most honorable occupations, which have to do with human needs. We can choose the kind of work most necessary to do, and if possible where there is no withholding tax for war. Ammon Hennacy in working by the day, at hard farm labor, has not paid income tax for years. One can so cut down one’s standard of living that no income tax is required; families with many children pay no income tax. One can protest in many ways this contribution to the atom and hydrogen bomb. If one owns property the government then can take a lien on it. If one has money in the bank, the government can confiscate it. So truly such protest as this calls for the most profound poverty and a voluntary doing without property.

from “The Pope and Peace” The Catholic Worker February 1954

How obey the laws of a state when they run counter to man’s conscience? “Thou shalt not kill,” Divine law states. “A new precept I give unto you that you love your brother as I have loved you.” St. Peter disobeyed the law of men and stated that he had to obey God rather than man. Wars today involve total destruction, obliteration bombing, killing of the innocent, the stockpiling of atom and hydrogen bombs. When one is drafted for such war, when one registers for the draft for such a war, when one pays income tax, eighty per cent of which goes to support such war, or works where armaments are made, one is participating in this war. We are all involved in war these days. War means hatred and fear. Love casts out fear.

from “Are the Leaders Insane?” The Catholic Worker April 1954

St. Augustine in his City of God says that God never intended man to dominate his fellows. He was to dominate the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, what crawled upon the earth, but men were not to dominate each other. He preferred shepherds to kings. It was man himself who insisted on having a worldly king though he was warned what would happen to him. God allowed the prophets to anoint the kings and once men had accepted their kings they were supposed to show them respect, to obey the authority they had set up. To obey, that is, in all that did not go against their conscience. St. Peter was ordered by lawful authority not to preach in the name of Jesus, and he said he had to obey God rather than man, and he left prison to go out again to the market place and preach the Gospel. Over and over again, men had to disobey lawful authority to follow the voice of their conscience.

This obedience to God and disobedience to the State has over and over again happened through history.

It is time again to cry out against our “leaders,” to question whether or not, since it is not for us to say that they are evil men, they are sane men.

It is all very well to say we must go to the source of all strength, to drink at the living fountain of Christ, but can we go from that fount of Love to a factory where nerve gas and incendiary bombs are manufactured?

When we have talked of a general strike it is of such work and of such evil that we are thinking; when we talk of non-payment of taxes it is of the money which is going to Indo-China in the form of these incendiary bombs and the planes to drop them that we are thinking. It is not thus that we can love God and our brother; it is not in this way that we can love our enemy.

When it is said that we disturb people too much by the words pacifism and anarchism, I can only think that people need to be disturbed, that their consciences need to be aroused, that they do indeed need to look into their work, and study new techniques of love and poverty and suffering for each other. Of course the remedies are drastic, but then too the evil is a terrible one and we are all involved, we are all guilty, and most certainly we are all going to suffer. The fact that we have “the faith,” that we go to the sacraments, is not enough. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” with napalm, nerve gas, our hydrogen bomb…

Each one of us must make our decisions as to what he should do, each one must examine his conscience and beg God for strength. Should one register for the draft? Should one accept conscientious objector status in the army or out of it, taking advantage of the exceptions allowed, but accepting the fact of the draft? Should one pay tax which supports this gigantic program?

I realize how difficult this is to decide. If one is unmarried and strong physically, it is easier to make a decision to do only day labor or work without pay. But there are many whose mental and physical strength is not equal to this decision and there is a withholding tax taken from even the smallest salary. Sometimes one can only make a gesture of protest. It is not for any one to judge his fellow man on how far he can go in resisting participation in preparation for war. In the very works of mercy which we are performing, we at the Catholic Worker are being aided by those who earn what they do only because they pay income tax for war. Oh yes, the editors of The Catholic Worker know only too well how far we too are involved in the city of this world. Perhaps Bob Ludlow, who left us much against our will, felt that he was being more honest in permitting a withholding tax to be taken from his meager wage as hospital attendant that working for nothing for the Catholic Worker. Who knows the heart of another? The temptation is always there to go out on one’s own, to walk the lone path of a St. Francis rather than the community way of a St. Benedict.

from “Mid-Summer Retreat at Maryfarm” The Catholic Worker July–August 1954

[Ammon Hennacy] has had to abandon his life at hard labor and to replace that discipline of work he is fasting Fridays; during our recent retreat he fasted, and again in August for nine days he will picket and fast in reparation for Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the cruel weapons of destruction which we have made. All men are responsible, but Ammon by not paying income tax, and by penance, is doing reparation.

from “What is Happening?” The Catholic Worker November 1955

And the other trouble? It was Federal income taxes and investigations for Ammon Hennacy, Charlie McCormick, Carol Perry and me. Charlie has had no income for all the years he is with The Catholic Worker, but the rest of us could acknowledge having earned money on which we did not pay taxes, and which we refuse to pay because eighty per cent of the money so gathered goes for wars past and present. The others were treated with great courtesy, but one of the revenue agents made a coldly insulting remark to me based on my past, which was entirely uncalled for. But perhaps he was only stupid so I acted as though I did not hear it.

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker December 1957

I would like to urge upon the bishops the idea of the non-payment of taxes by Catholic parents for school taxes, when they are sending their children to Catholic schools and so are paying double for their education.

from “The Pope is Dead. Long Live the Pope / Viva John ⅩⅩⅢ” The Catholic Worker November 1958

Yes, we must set ourselves with all the force we possess, against war, and the making of instruments of war, and our means are prayer and fasting, and the non-payment of federal income tax which goes for war.

from “Month of the Dead” The Catholic Worker November 1959

The message of The Catholic Worker is that simple one for all the rank and file, for the masses, that we have free will, we can make our choice, that our personal responsibility which we exercise is what matters. Ammon [Hennacy], in his non-payment of taxes for war, and his civil disobedience, is bringing that message to countless thousands of people.

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker March 1960

When we got home from our little tour of the neighborhood and I had explored the view from the eleventh floor, Ammon came for supper and brought us up to date on his journeyings as well as on the news of our own workers in Chicago. He had no sooner arrived in town on Saturday when he was called on to picket in front of the courthouse for Roseanna Robinson. They are keeping up a vigil night and day, people joining for a stint of three hours at a time. I certainly hope to join them sometime these next few days. Roseanna is a young colored woman who had refused to pay any income tax 85 per cent of which goes for war, or to file any returns. She had been given an indeterminate sentence and she is now for two weeks on hunger strike. I suppose they will forcibly feed her. The newspapers are paying little head to this, so it is necessary to have the picket line, and Karl Meyer has gotten out a leaflet which is signed by The Catholic Worker, 164 West Oak street and the War Resisters League which takes in all those who are not Catholic who wish to participate but might hesitate if it were only under Catholic leadership.

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker April 1961

There is much to be done in these small Indian schools throughout the country [the United States South-West], and a peace army could be at work there right now, without waiting to be drafted. There would be no pay besides a living, and so no bother about income tax, and so no contributing to war in this way.

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker June 1966

I could not help but think of Don Milani’s statement in his defense against the charges made against him of advocating resistance to conscription for war. He said that even those who cooked for troops contributed to war. How involved we all are, what with the hidden taxes we pay for war, the high standard of living all of us enjoy, even when we refuse to pay income tax, so much of which goes for war, and when we build prisons for draft refusers.

“Tribute to the Nelsons” The Catholic Worker February 1968

Every summer for the past three years a Peacemakers training program has been held at our Tivoli farm for the last two or three weeks of August. The old mansion and the Peter Maurin house are filled with guests, and campers come and set up their tents on the lawn facing the river. The organizer of the Peacemakers’ school is Wally Nelson, who has been in the workhouse in Cincinnati for the past two weeks, fasting. He and several others were arrested during a vigil for DeCourcy Squire, an 18 yr. old Antioch student who had been hospitalized after fasting since her arrest Dec. 7 and subsequent sentence of 9 mo. for participating in a peace demonstration. (DeCourcy has since been released.)

A psychiatric examination was ordered for Wally when he refused to co-operate with his arrest and trial. Found by court psychiatrists to be “sane,” he was sentenced for “loitering” to ten days in the workhouse, $25 and costs. Again refusing to co-operate with legalized injustice, he was dragged from the police van by his legs, an action that caused his wife Juanita to follow him, cradling his head in her hands. When they arrived at Wally’s cell, Nita bent over to kiss him, was arrested for “disorderly conduct” and fined $25 and costs. This she refused to pay, and was ordered to the workhouse.

Detailed stories of these arrests are given in the February 10^th issue of the Peacemaker, (10208 Sylvan Avenue, (Gano) Cincinnati, Ohio 45241). I hope that many of our readers will subscribe to the Peacemaker, since news of the conscientious objectors who are in prison and much other war-resistance news can be obtained there. Peacemakers have led in direct action for many years.

Wally and Juanita have both refused to pay income tax for many years, and it is of them particularly I wish to write, with the most heartfelt sympathy for their suffering and the greatest admiration for their dedication. It is their vocation to realize and to lead others to realize the horror of the times through which we are passing. Wally has explained that his fasting during the jail sentences he has undergone was the result not of willful refusal but of a total inability to swallow food while imprisoned. Simone Weil, the French woman whose brilliant writings on man and the state, work and war, were widely published after her death, suffered during the second world war in the same way. She was literally unable to swallow enough food to keep her alive, in the face of world starvation.

In the stories of the saints, one reads of such sensitivity, such penances undergone, such fastings endured and they are little understood by the secular world. I am convinced that this vocation, this calling, to give oneself to one’s brother, in loving communion, in loving understanding of the heinous crimes that are being committed today was at the root of Roger La Porte’s immolation in front of the United Nations two years ago. It is as though such men said, “We will suffer with you, since we have no way of stopping the bombing, the burning, the napalm, the defoliation, the destruction of homes and an entire countryside. There is no act of ours extreme enough, no protest strong enough, to deal with this horror.”

Wally Nelson was in prison for thirty-three months during World War Two and fasted for a hundred and eight days (with forced feeding by tube) as a protest against racial segregation of prisoners. He had had time to think out his position while in Civilian Public Service camp, as forced labor camps which were set up for conscientious objectors were called. These very camps were a concession to pacifists, who had been imprisoned and brutally treated during World War One. But Wally decided to walk out and did so and was arrested and jailed. His example and that of other absolutists led to further concessions. In this present undeclared war in Vietnam, to which ten thousand more men were shipped off yesterday, the conscientious objector position is recognized, and paid employment is offered in home hospitals as “alternative service.” To accept this is still to submit to the draft, hence the continued protests against war, and the drafting of youth to wage this hideous struggle.

from “Ammon Hennacy: ‘Non-Church’ Christian” The Catholic Worker February 1970

[To Hennacy,] Obedience, of course, was a bad word. Authority was a bad word. In vain I pointed out to him that when the retired army major for whom he worked in Arizona told him to do a particular job, he did it, and he did it as he was told to. He admired the army officer because he knew farming. And he cooperated with Ammon in paying him by the day and thus evading the federal income tax which the tax man was trying to collect from Ammon.

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker May 1971

I visited Art Harvey of South Ackworth, New Hampshire who has a mail order book shop handling a great number of books by and about Gandhi. Art and Ammon Hennacy served six month terms in Sandstone Prison in Minnesota for trespassing on a missile base some years ago. He carries on a practical application of Karl Meyer’s tax refusal (see article in this issue) by having teams of workers in orchards where they prune trees, harvest apples and later blueberries and work seven months of the year. They work and live in a style which frees them from the payment of taxes for war. Perhaps about a hundred are engaged in this way of life, which results usually in some settling in communities of the moshavim variety, each having some small acreage and a house built by themselves. Considering the New England climate, no small achievement! It certainly means an emphasis on the ascetic, on sacrifice.

from “On Pilgrimage: Russia Ⅱ” The Catholic Worker October–November 1971

The other young man who visited Russia was Karl Meyer, who at present is serving his sentence of a two-year term (and thousand dollar fine) at Sandstone Federal Prison, for obstructing the income tax system by refusal to pay taxes for war. He had made the San Francisco-to-Moscow walk some years before, joining the march at Chicago. The walk ended at Moscow University, where the students, though not agreeing with the American visitors, demanded that the time of their talks be extended. He also distributed leaflets in Red Square!

from “We Go On Record: CW Refuses Tax Exemption” The Catholic Worker May 1972

The Catholic Worker has received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service stating that we owe them $296,359 in fines, penalties, and unpaid income tax for the last six years. As the matter stands right now, there might be a legal battle with delays and postponements which may remind us of Dickens’ Bleak House. Or, since we will not set up a defense committee to campaign for funds, it may terminate swiftly in the confiscation of our property and our bank account (never very large). Our farm at Tivoli and the First Street house could be put up for sale by government agents and our C.W. family evicted.

One of the most costly protests against war, in terms of long-enduring personal sacrifice, is to refuse to pay federal income taxes which go for war. The late Ammon Hennacy, one of our editors, was a prime example of this. He earned his living at agricultural labor, always living on a poverty level so as not to be subject to taxes, though he filed returns. Another of our editors, Karl Meyer, recently spent ten months in jail for what the I.R.S. called fraudulent claims of exemption for dependents. He ran the C.W. House of Hospitality in Chicago for many years, working to earn the money to support the house and his wife and children. Erosanna Robinson, a social worker in Chicago, refused to file returns and was sentenced to a year in prison. While in prison she fasted and was forcibly fed. It will be seen that tax refusal is a serious protest. Wars will cease when we refuse to pay for them (to adapt a slogan of the War Resisters International).

The C.W. has never paid salaries. Everyone gets board, room, and clothes (tuition, recreation included, as the C.W. is in a way a school of living). So we do not need to pay federal income taxes. Of course, there are hidden taxes we all pay. Nothing is ever clear-cut or well defined. We protest in any way we can, according to our responsibilities and temperaments.

(I remember Ammon, a most consistent, brave, and responsible person, saying to one young man, “For the love of the Lord, get a job and quit worrying about taxes. You need to learn how to earn your own living. That is most important for you.”)

We have to accept with humility the fact that we cannot share the destitution of those around us, and that our protests are incomplete. Perhaps the most complete protest is to be in jail, to accept jail, never to give bail or defend ourselves.

In the fifties, Ammon, Charles McCormack (our business manager at the C.W.), and I were summoned to the offices of the I.R.S. in New York to answer questions (under oath) as to our finances. I remember I was asked what happened to the royalties from my books, money from speaking engagements, etc. I could only report that such monies received were deposited in the C.W. account. As for clothes, we wore what came in; my sister was generous to me — shoes, for instance.

Our refusal to apply for exemption status in our practice of the Works of Mercy is part of our protest against war and the present social “order” which brings on wars today.

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker June 1972

In the May issue of The Catholic Worker I wrote of the crisis The Catholic Worker found itself in when we received a letter from the Internal Revenue Service stating that we owe them $296,359 in fines and penalties and unpaid income tax for the tax years, 1966 through 1970. This was a very impressive bill, and we wondered what it would be if they started figuring out what they thought we owed them from the years 1933, when we began, up to 1966!

The New York Times, in a story signed by Max Seigel, with a four column head and a picture of a few of us at lunch in our headquarters at 36 East First Street, brought our situation to the attention of a vaster group of readers, and followed up the story with an editorial [“Imagination, Please” 24 May — excerpt: “Surely the IRS must have genuine frauds to investigate. Surely there must be some worthwhile work this agency could be doing instead of obstructing acts of corporal mercy for the poor.”]. The New York evening Post also editorialized on our situation. The National Catholic Reporter and the Commonweal editors also registered their protest and other papers followed suit. Letters come in daily from our friends, reassuring, comforting, indignant at the government, a few of them indignant at us, that we cause them so much worry. We certainly are grateful and must apologize that we cannot keep up with the mail and get them all answered.

There is not any real news for them at the moment, nor will be until our July–August edition of The Catholic Worker. I will have to appear before a Federal Judge on July 3 to explain why the CW refuses to pay taxes, or to “structure itself” so as to be exempt from taxes. We are afraid of that word “structure.” We refuse to become a “corporation.”

We repeat — we do not intend to “incorporate” the Catholic Worker movement. We intend to continue our emphasis on personal responsibility, an emphasis which we were taught from the beginning by Peter Maurin who used to quote Emmanuel Mounier’s Personalist Manifesto, and his Personal and Communitarian Revolution, Peter was our teacher, and being a Frenchman, a peasant, he emphasized decentralization, manual labor, voluntary poverty.

Voluntary poverty meant that everyone at the CW worked without salary, and contributions came from them, and from our readers, which kept the work going.

Rumblings first came from the Internal Revenue service after many on the CW staff, together with other peace groups, demonstrated against war in the Fifties and Sixties and were jailed for Civil Disobedience. Writing about jails and courtrooms resulted in much publicity. But it was Ammon Hennacy and Karl Meyer who wrote most consistently on Tax Refusal, and its importance. “Wars will cease when men refuse to pay for them.”

…And while you are at it, write to TAX Talk, published by War Tax Resistance, 339 Lafayette St., N.Y., N.Y. 10012 which contains letters from all over the country from individual tax resisters, telling what is happening to them. Stimulating and invigorating. Good make up and good format. First Rate.

While I write, Arthur J. Lacey comes in to hand me my mail and it contains a notice from one of our two lawyers. “Please be advised that I have been contacted by the Conference Section of the Internal Revenue Service and we have arranged for the hearing on September 7, 1972.”

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker July–August 1972

Good news first! On July 11^th we received absolution from the U.S. Government in relation to all our tax troubles. In the May Catholic Worker this year we told of the notice we had received — that we owed the government nearly $300,000 in back income taxes which included penalties for “late filing and negligence.” The examining officer of the Manhattan District had arrived at these figures through the reports we had obediently made to Albany on our appeals for funds, which we send out once or twice a year. We accept this compromise with our local state because we are decentralists, personalists, anarchists (in addition to being pacifists). When we first thought about Federal income taxes, most of which go for war or “defense,” we simplistically considered ourselves exempt because we had no income; no salaries are paid at the Catholic Worker, nor ever have been since we started in 1933. I myself have been questioned because of my writings, and lecture fees which were not really fees but offerings made to the work which covered all expenses of travelling and supported the work besides. A crowd of people living together as we do, in houses of hospitality, has to give something of an account to each other as to how well we are living up to our profession of voluntary poverty. We are always bound to have healthy guilt feelings about that, and keep trying to do better. Certainly a number of us do work on the side to provide what we need for books or rent on cheap apartments in the neighborhood, since our house at 36 East First Street is always so crowded.

But with the growing tax resistance throughout the United States, the government has become concerned. Telephone calls and official visits made us realize that trouble was impending. And we have been having it and have reported on it in both the May and June issues of our paper.

Now we are happy to report the outcome. In a conference in late June with William T. Hunter, litigation attorney from the Department of Justice, one of the Assistant Attorney Generals of the United States, we reached a verbal settlement couched in more human and satisfactory terms than the notice we later received.

“They” were willing to recognize our undoubtedly religious convictions in our conflict with the state, and were going to drop any proceedings against us. They had examined and looked into back issues of the Catholic Worker, and they had noted the support we had from the press (the New York Times news story and the editorials of the Times and the New York Post), and had come to this conclusion that ours was a religious conviction. They had come to the conclusion also that it was not necessary that the Federal Government seek for any other kind of a “conviction” against us.

The conference took place in a law office in Manhattan, 9:30 of a Monday morning. John Coster, our lawyer, Mr. Hunter and Ed Forand, Walter Kerell, Patrick Jordan, Ruth Collins and I attended. There were no hostilities expressed. As peacemakers we must have love and respect for each individual we come in contact with. Our struggle is with principalities and powers, not with Church or State. We cannot ever be too complacent about our own uncompromising positions because we know that in our own way we too make compromises. (For instance, in having a second-class mailing privilege from the government we accept a subsidy, just as Mr. Eastland does in Mississippi! [This refers to Senator James Eastland, who was a beneficiary of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in federal cotton subsidies, overseen by a Senate committee he sat on.])

It was Jesus who said that the worst enemies were those of our own household, and we are all part of this country, citizens of the United States and share in its guilt.

Yes, we would survive, I thought to myself, even if the paper were eventually suppressed and we had to turn to leafleting, as we are doing now each Monday against the I.B.M. Wall-Street offices, trying to reach the consciences of all those participating by their daily work in the hideous and cowardly war we are waging in Vietnam.

I must not forget the beautiful young ghinkgo tree which we purchased from the city last year, and which we planted in honor of Carmen Mathews, herself a great lover of the countryside (and of drama). She rescued us from a foreclosure when a first mortgage fell due and so has become part of this house on First Street, and of the bits of greenery back and front of it. The fact that prisoners on Riker’s Island so I have been told, grow these trees which brighten our streets makes that tree especially dear to me. When I pass it, I make the sign of the cross on its bark, to encourage it to grow fast and strong. Maybe we can plant another this year in gratitude to God for saving us from the hands of the tax gatherers. Fr. McNabb, the French Dominican, said that when Jesus left his apostles, “Peter could go back to his nets, but Matthew could not go back to his tax gatherings.”

Letter from the Internal Revenue Service:

From: District Director, Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Treasury, PO Box 3100, Church St. Station, New York, N.Y., 10008

To: The Catholic Worker Movement, 36 East 1^st Street, New York, N.Y. 10003

July 11, 1972

Gentlemen:

After examining your financial records and reviewing your activities for the above years, we find that you are not required to file annual returns for the years shown, and no further action is necessary regarding the proposals in our letter of January 17, 1972.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely yours,
District Director
Form L-259

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker January 1973

…of our own conflict with the IRS. We live in what we can only regard as a temporary truce. We have not applied for or received tax exemption. The letter we received (and published) from the N.Y. State Offices of the IRS stated:

After examining your financial records and reviewing your activities for the above years (1966–1970), we find that you are not required to file annual returns for the years shown, and no further action is necessary regarding the proposals in our letter of January 17, 1972.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Sincerely yours,
District Director
Internal Revenue Service

The Washington official representative who met with us conveyed to us the respect they held for our religious principles and assured us that the presented bill for almost $300,000 could be ignored. The matter would be dropped, it was indicated (but, “for the present” was the qualifying clause in my own mind).

Mr. Nixon’s first statement that he would attack the problem of “permissiveness” was a warning note. The jailing of newspaper reporters, the Ellsberg trial — in fact, any criticisms of government policies or actions was going to meet with repressive measures.

The tax refusal movement all over the country grows. The conflict between State and people is coming out into the open here in the United States. The Totalitarian State is not just Germany (Hitler), Italy (Mussolini) and the USSR (Stalin), but is here and now with the “all encroaching State” as our Catholic bishops once called it, involving China and ourselves, as well as Russia.

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker February 1974

We assure our readers that we try to get rid of our gifts as fast as they are given to us. But the threat still hangs over us of prosecution for not paying income tax. We are not tax-exempt. On principle we refuse to pay income tax, because so great a portion goes for wars, preparation for wars (defense, it is termed), and providing other countries with billion of dollars to buy our instruments of war and material and plants to make their own. There is a sizable movement truly the foundation of the peace movement which is based on tax refusal. (Contact Robert Calvert, War Tax Resistance, 912 E. 31^st St., Kansas City, Mo. 64109.)

Our refusal goes deep. Our motivation is fundamentally religious. We are told by Jesus Christ to practice the works of mercy, not the works of war. And we do not see why it is necessary to ask the government for permission to practice the works of mercy which are the opposite of the works of war. To ask that permission to obey Christ by applying for exemption, a costly and lengthy process, is against our religious principles. It is an interference of the state which we must call attention to again and again. A father who educates a young man or woman other than a blood relative is taxed for his generosity. A poor family who takes in another poor family (as many of them do in time of unemployment or crisis), cannot count that as tax deductible. Of course the poor suffer from the withholding tax which is taken from their weekly pay. To understand their rights, they must plough through booklets and forms put out by the government (which I am sure I could not manage to do) before they are able to collect money at the end of the year which is owing to them due to some change of circumstance. To get the advice of the Internal Revenue Department means standing in lines, paying excessive fares by bus or subway, with generally little redress of their grievances.

(A cheering note for us, with our very large family, which seems to increase day after day, is that when confronted by the government forces not long ago, Washington representatives from the Department of Justice were willing to concede that we were not making profits out of the poor, that we were motivated by religious principles, and that they would so notify the New York offices of the Internal Revenue Dept. which had handed us a awful bill for taxes due, along with penalties and fines, over a space of four or five years. The New York office then sent us a brief notice concluding that our income did not obligate us to file returns.)

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker May 1974

To talk economics to the rich and Jesus to the anarchists gathered in convention [a conference at New York’s Hunter College] these two days (and have to write this column) is a job. Besides, I did not “talk Jesus” to the anarchists. There was no time to answer the one great disagreement which was in their minds — how can you reconcile your Faith in the monolithic, authoritarian Church which seems so far from Jesus who “had no place to lay his head,” and who said “sell what you have and give to the poor,” — with your anarchism? Because I have been behind bars in police stations, houses of detention, jails and prison farms, whatsoever they are called, eleven times, and have refused to pay Federal income taxes and have never voted, they accept me as an anarchist. And I in turn, can see Christ in them even though they deny Him, because they are giving themselves to working for a better social order for the wretched of the earth.

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker June 1974

Proceeded to the Kansas City, Mo. House of Hospitality and War Tax Resistors’ Center in adjoining buildings and run by Bob and Angela Calvert who are gardening every inch of the land in their front and back yards. It is much to the edification of the city block families and we hope their imitation.

Spent a Sunday afternoon with Karl Meyer and Jean and their three beautiful children, and all happy in the life of voluntary poverty where he receives an income low enough to be untaxable and so will not anticipate any more jail terms. His work is with the retarded in sheltered workshops.

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker February 1975

Some of the best all around accounts of this ferment which is going on, among the young especially, is in The Peacemaker, 1255 Paddock Hills Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45229. This small packed newspaper deals extensively and specifically in works for peace, listing all those imprisoned for conscience — refusing conscription; one valiant woman is confined on Terminal Island for refusal to pay taxes (Martha Tranquilli, Terminal Island, San Pedro, Ca. 90731). All those activities which we Catholics call “works of mercy,” are also performed by many Protestant, Quaker, and other groups in the country.

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker March–April 1975

I remember a young woman who came to help us years ago, who, after her first, early enthusiasm had worn away, used to sigh wearily and say — “What’s it all about?” I am sure many of our friends and readers also pose, more seriously, the same question. For instance, what are Ernest and Marion Bromley all about? Why is this frail, elderly man in jail right now for “disorderly conduct,” that is, for distributing leaflets about the nefarious workings of the Internal Revenue Service and their ways of penalizing people for advocating tax refusal. Remember, it is the Federal taxes paid by each of us that supply arms that are keeping wars going, I cannot go into the important discussion of Tax Refusal now. (Subscribe for The Peacemaker, 1225 Paddock Hills Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45229 or write to War Tax Resistance, 339 Lafayette St., New York, N.Y. 10012.)

What I want to bring out is how a pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. And each one of our thoughts, words and deeds are like that. Going to jail, as Ernest Bromley has done, short though his stay may be, causes a ripple of conscience among us all. And of remembrance too.

Did they search him and list every item contained in every pocket? Did they strip him and search every nook and cranny of his body, as they did the young women arrested during the protests against air raids drills (psychological warfare) in the 50’s? As they are doing now to Martin Sostre in Dannemora prison even after every visit from friends or lawyers. What sadistic impulse is it that causes guards to continue these searches?

Ernest Bromley is sharing, in his (we hope) brief jail encounter, the sufferings of the world. And we hope, like the apostles, he rejoices in having been accounted “worthy to suffer.”

The Peacemaker, every issue, has a list of those imprisoned for conscientious objection to war. I was happy to see that Martha Tranquilli was due for release March 3.

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker July–August 1975

The Peacemakers discussed, among other subjects like voluntary poverty, life styles, etc., the kind of demonstrations to show our determination not to pay income tax which goes for building up monstrous implements of war. Wally Nelson and his wife Juanita were there, both of whom are familiar with arrests and jailings. I got acquainted with them years ago when Koinonia, in Central Georgia, was literally under fire from the small-towners all around them.

Next issue, I will try to write more about federal income tax which is providing the weapons for war — why we pay local taxes and not the federal income tax. We recognize the seriousness of this and the risks involved for families. The Bromley case is an example. Their house was sold from under them in Cincinnati but they have not yet been evicted. The price paid was excessively above its value. It looks like the government is trying to make an example of them. (It was not bought by friends and given back to them — an erroneous rumor; the Bromleys would not have put up with a connived sale which would mean still more money going to the government for war.)

This is a good and historic case, involving as it does, simple, plain and powerless (?) people.

from “On Pilgrimage” The Catholic Worker October–November 1975

I’d like to call special attention to a story in this issue of the paper — it is Peggy Scherer’s story, on the front page, of the Peacemaker victory [the IRS surrendered in their attempt to seize and sell Ernest and Marion Bromley’s home]. (It is the completed story of the news box which appeared on page three of the last issue.) It is a story of gentle persistence, the power of Truth — faith in Truth (remembering that Christ is our Truth). He is the Way, the Truth, the Life.

Chuck Matthei had told me the story of his interviews with the head of the Internal Revenue Service, the almost daily dialogue that went on between them, and the frank and “manly” admission, made finally by the IRS chief, that a mistake had been made, that the Peacemakers had Truth on their side. I felt a great sense of joy and thanksgiving, a sense of hope too, that our officials in Washington D.C. could be approached in this way — with dignity and perseverance, with courtesy, with the recognition that we are all, each one of us, whether government official or radical (one who gets to the roots of things), children of God. We do believe that we are all brothers and sisters. We believe, too, that we can only show our love for God by our love for our brothers and sisters. So we share our joy with you, our readers, and hope we all have a sense of renewed strength and energy to continue our opposition to all violence, to all wars.

We point out that one way not to have to pay income tax, so much of which goes to the military, into stockpiling, into sales of weapons to other countries, is to seek more ways of living a life of voluntary poverty, to follow our Lord Jesus and his loveable servant St. Francis.

[Speaking of Pentecostal Christian groups on the Mexican border:] I could tell of other works these groups have done, but there is no space here. I only wish that the cause of peace, the rejection of war and service in the armed forces, and refusal to pay income tax could be part of their way of life. Jesus told us to love our enemies and St. Francis’ followers made a rejection of feudal service to the war lords of the time part of their religious commitment.

In 1972 the Catholic Worker organization itself was targeted by the IRS for failure to pay income tax. Eventually the IRS backed down in the face of public ridicule and Catholic Worker resistance. Some of the Catholic Worker articles about this were written by Dorothy Day and I’ve already excerpted them in an earlier Picket Line post focusing on her writings.

The June 1972 issue published a couple of reader reactions to the kerfluffle:

Dear Dorothy,

Ho, you are on the right track. I just read your tax exemption article in the May issue. You are absolutely correct.

I don’t know how you will do it. But you owe to all those you help, not the money represented, but the faith and steadfast purpose for which you stand — the guiding light. I pray for you. I hope some way you can make it — somehow.

Love,
Dick Mayer
409 West 11th St.
Newton, Kansas 67114

Dear Friends at CW,

I just read the 39^th Anniversary issue and am tremendously excited by the article: “If the Present Is Different…”

We are in a bit of a “predicament,” between seizure of our car and auction by the IRS. The IRS has adjourned the open auction and declared an auction for sealed bids; peace people around here are ready to rise to that challenge also.

We are starting a peace action center in this area. We’d be interested in literature lists of books and pamphlets written by CW people.

We read that the CW has to appear in court to justify its tax refusal and its refusal to ask for exemption — as if mercy had to ask permission! We are in a three-family intentional communlty of Mennonite background. War tax resistance is one of our pillars and we’ve not yet found our way out of tbe maze of incorporation into some status that gives us the kind of freedom we seek. But our existence together, our resistance and service, are dally victories. So we keep on.

Peace and Joy be with you,
David Jansen of the Bridge

A brief article on war tax resistance by Anita Katz appeared in the April 1987 issue of Mother Jones. It is mostly the standard boilerplate war tax resistance article, but in a couple of paragraphs it tries to guesstimate the size of the movement.

This photo by Lionel Delevigne of war tax resisters Juanita and Wally Nelson accompanied the article

It was opposition to the Vietnam War that first created widespread national attention for antiwar tax resisters. The number of antiwar income-tax resisters rose from 275 in 1966 to an estimated 20,000 in the early 1970s, with telephone tax resisters during this peak period estimated at between 200,000 and 500,000.

Though figures have since leveled off — there were an estimated 5,000 income-tax resisters in 1986 — many in the movement are hoping that further revelations of the Reagan administration’s mucking about in Central America will fuel a new round of war-tax resistance. Says David Croteau at the War Resisters League, “The two fundamental needs for the government to conduct war are men to serve in the military and cash for equipment — which comes from taxes.”

From the 14 April 1982 edition of In These Times:

Pocketbook Pacifists

Some people use income tax time to send an anti-military message to the government.

by Marcia Yudkin

“Some people think tax resistance is an extreme thing to do,” muses Steven Broil, “but you have to be as extreme and active as the people you’re opposing. Money talks.” An increasing number of people are using April 15^th as an opportunity to talk back. According to a recent General Accounting Office report, tax resistance rose sharply in tax years 1979 and 1980, with a 400 percent increase in the Northeast. Accurate estimates of the number of war tax resisters are difficult to arrive at. The IRS has a category called “illegal protesters,” in which it placed 6,694 individuals in 1978 and 15,285 in 1980. According to the War Resisters League, those figures are a gross underestimate. There might be as many as 200,000 people resisting taxes from any principled position, including at least several thousand specifically protesting military spending. IRS figures would also not include individuals using wholly legal means to resist war taxes. And both the War Resisters League and the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign report a groundswell of interest since President Reagan took office.

Steven Broil, who stocks shelves in a store in Amherst, Mass., last year found himself for the first time owing the government money at tax time. He happened to hear an announcement on the radio of a number to call about war tax resistance, and after a conference with veteran tax resisters Wally and Juanita Nelsen [sic] of nearby Deerfield, he decided not to pay the $255 he owed. He filed and enclosed a statement of his decision of conscience instead of a check.

Broil might seem an unlikely recruit to the ranks of tax resisters. Both his parents were officers in the military, and only a long string of coincidences prevented his own enlistment in the Air Force. Recently, however, he has developed what he calls “pacifist leanings.”

“I was raised a Roman Catholic,” he explains, “and we weren’t exactly encouraged to read the Bible for ourselves. But when I began to read the Bible I found that it’s pretty much black and white in the Gospels not to kill and to love your enemy. From believing that it’s wrong to kill under any circumstances, the next logical step is that I shouldn’t participate in killing in any way. Working so that my taxes go toward killing is intolerable.”

He has also come to feel strongly about El Salvador. “A lot of people say they’re against U.S. aid going to El Salvador, but they don’t make the connection that money is taken out of their paycheck every week and sent to El Salvador.”

Comparative risk.

Breaking the law was not an easy thing for Broil to bring himself to do. Last year, a series of “Dear Taxpayer” letters ended with threats to garnish his wages or seize bank accounts, although neither happened. This year, his giving false information on his W-4 withholding form and deciding not to file a tax return at all make him liable to a year’s imprisonment and a substantial fine. Although he points out that Wally and Juanita Nelsen have been resisting for 30 years and Juanita was only jailed once for an hour, he knows that the government could create difficulties for him.

Erin Freed of the Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters points out that it usually costs the government more money to pursue tax resisters than it will collect, a good reason not to bother. On the other hand, the tax system relies on voluntary compliance, and the IRS must crack down on “avoidance schemes” that appear to be popular. Hence there is great variance in the government’s response to war tax resisters. One PVWTR member had the $600 in his checking account seized without notice during his second year of war tax resistance, while another member received his first phone call from the IRS nine years after he began to resist. Since court trials of war tax resisters are expensive and may generate publicity favorable to the cause, they are few and far between. From 1948 to 1971 seven pacifist refusers were criminally prosecuted, from 1972 to 1978 none, and in 1979 there were two criminal convictions.

“In our little world,” Broil says, “if my wife and I lost our savings or if I lost my job, that would really put a dent in our lives, but if you put yourself in a village of El Salvador where they can take you out and shoot you — or put yourself in a European’s place hearing about Haig’s nuclear war and knowing that the war would be in your backyard — our risks are minimal.”

The roughly $2,000 that he owes the IRS has been contributed instead to an alternative fund administered by the Pioneer Valley War Tax Resisters, a local group of about a dozen longtime members, “We feel we can do a better job with our money than the government can,” explains Broil. “We put the money toward life-affirming purposes.” Part of the money in the fund is reserved for legal fees a member might need, but most of it is loaned to local groups who don’t have access to mainstream funding.

Like many tax resisters, Broil keeps no bank accounts. Instead he gives extra money to friends on interest-free loans. “You can’t have a house or a car in your name because the IRS could seize it,” he says, “and it’s much easier to keep the money away from the government in the first place if you can be self-employed.”

Alan Eccleston, an architect and builder who also lives in Amherst, is a war tax resister in the ideal position of being able to withhold the quarterly payments required of a self-employed person. But he has a very different philosophy of resistance. He makes partial quarterly payments and doesn’t much mind that for the last seven years, the IRS has usually ended up with his full income tax assessment, plus interest and penalties on the amount held back. “Some war tax resisters put a maximum of energy into preventing collection by the IRS,” he says. “I put my energy into following my conscience and conveying my beliefs to others.” A Quaker, Eccleston opposes war in any form. “The only people who have the opportunity to be conscientious objectors against war in this country are 17-year-old males,” he points out, referring to draft registration. “But I believe that the First and Ninth Amendments to the Constitution protect my right to refuse war taxes.”

So that people like himself can satisfy both their consciences and the law, he supports the passage of the World Peace Tax Fund bill, first introduced in the Senate in 1977 by Senator Mark Hatfield and now with 333 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives. The bill would provide taxpayers with the opportunity to identify themselves on their 1040 form as conscientious objectors to war taxes. The portion of their income tax that would otherwise go to the military would instead be deposited with the World Peace Tax Fund and be available only for peaceful purposes.

Eccleston rejects the criticism of some other war tax resisters that after 40 percent or so of their taxes was handed over to the World Peace Tax Fund, the same percentage of the remainder would still go to the military. “It’s a good idea because the general fund would receive less money,” he argues, “billions less if even 4 percent of the population chose to be COs. Their $4 billion a year in the World Peace Tax Fund would clearly support alternatives to war that presently get no funding. It would spread the ethical decision to more people. Every year every taxpayer would have to think about whether or not he or she wanted to support the military.”

Another project he supports is the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign, coordinated by four activists in Bellport, N.Y. Signers of the resolution they circulate pledge to withhold at least the military portion of their income taxes when notified that 100,000 people have signed the resolution. CMTC also administers an escrow account to hold refused taxes. Yet Eccleston urges people not to wait for the safety of numbers. The important thing to him is taking personal responsibility and going on record against preparations for nuclear war.

Eccleston is accordingly less enthusiastic about the strategy of some war tax resisters to avoid contributing to the military by reducing their income to a nontaxable level. “The point is not to be self-sacrificing, but to witness for peace. The real issue is peace, not tax resistance.”

Occasionally, tax resisters will join forces to form cooperative housing or business relationships that help to facilitate their resistance. This is most often found among war tax resisters, for whom resistance is an ongoing commitment rather than a protest or rebellion against a particular government or policy. Today I’ll summarize some examples of this that I have encountered in my research.

Bijou Community

Evan Weissman wrote up some thoughts about the Bijou Community:

The Bijou community of Colorado Springs, Colorado is a living example of nonviolent community resistance in the “belly of the beast” of right-wing military and Christian extremism.

The members of this community live below a taxable income level so that they don’t pay for war.

In addition to ongoing bannering and civil disobedience at some of the 5 major military institutions in the area, the Bijou community runs services for the mentally-ill, homeless, working poor, incarcerated, and the general community including: a soup kitchen, food banks, a land trust, several homes for transitional and homeless folks, a free bicycle clinic, and a musical theater group.

The Agape Community

The Agape Community was founded in 1982 by a group of Catholics who wanted to live closer to the ideal of Christian community they found in the Bible. Among the founders were tax resisters Brayton & Suzanne Shanley and Emmanuel Charles McCarthy. They formed the community in such a way that it could support itself with members earning less than a taxable income, for example by being able to grow their own food. The Shanleys have stayed with the two-house community since its founding, and it has had dozens of more transient residents through the years. The community hosts speakers and workshops on nonviolence and related topics.

The Whiteway Colony

A group of Tolstoyans made a go of creating a colony based on their interpretation of Tolstoy’s Christian anarchism, which included tax resistance, and was eventually the home to forty people. The land was operated by a committee headed by noted Tolstoyan (and Tolstoy translator) Aylmer Maude, and this committee held the land in trust, while allowing anyone to settle on and work the land, with the understanding that nobody would own any of it except by virtue of being engaged in occupying and working on it. (The Whiteway community still exists, but has abandoned the more radical communal-ownership principles — today the land is communally owned, but the homes on it are bought and sold as private property.)

Possibility Alliance

The Possibility Alliance farm is a simple-living showcase guided by the following five principles: radical simplicity, service, social activism, inner work, and gratitude. It hosts free skills-share classes and a group called the Superheroes who dress up like caped crusaders and bike out to do good deeds here and there. The founders are war tax resisters who resist by maintaining a very low (sub-poverty line) income.

Joanne Sheehan

When the Hartford Courant profiled war tax resisters Anna Aschenbach and Joanne Sheehan, who have been resisting taxes since the Vietnam War, it noted Sheehan’s participation in cooperative projects as being helpful to her resistance:

Along with her partner, who’s also a tax resister, Sheehan raised two kids with a family income of about $24,000. Now that their children are grown, and can no longer be claimed as deductions, each earns less than about $8,000 a year in order to keep from paying taxes. They’ve lived in collectives and communes much of the time, sharing living expenses with other resisters. They practice “radical simplicity” by going “back to basics” — doing things like hanging clothes instead of using a dryer, not going to restaurants or buying pre-packaged foods.

“Land League Villages”

During the rent strike that the National Land League organized against English absentee landlords in Ireland, when landlords were successful in evicting tenants who refused to pay rent, the League would try to find them (and sometimes their livestock) a temporary home on the land of someone who was sympathetic with the resisters. These might grow to hold several families and were sometimes called “Land League Villages.”

Amish Milk Cooperatives

The cooperatives used by Amish communities to process and package milk turned out to be useful also when the Amish began resisting the then-new social security taxes (they believed the social security program would require them to violate principles of their faith, and after many years of resistance, they won a legal exemption from the program). The government tried to levy the checks that the cooperative wrote to pay those of its milk suppliers who were resisting the tax, but the responsible officials of the cooperative refused to sign the checks.

Peacemakers

The “Peacemakers” group that pioneered the modern American war tax resistance movement had a communal-living facet from the beginning. Robert Cooney & Helen Michalowski report in their book The Power of the People: Active Nonviolence in the United States:

Peacemakers attempted to build a decentralized and self-disciplined movement which stressed local initiative and group coordination along the lines of the nonviolent revolutionary movement in India. Emphasis was put on building intentional communities which practiced communal living. “Groups or cells are the real basis of the movement,” Peacemakers announced, “for this is not an attempt to organize another pacifist membership organization, which one joins by signing a statement or paying a membership fee.” Instead, Peacemakers emphasized a living program which included resistance to the draft and war taxes, personal transformation, and group participation in work for political and economic democracy.

Peacemakers at the Ohio cell organized a land trust to remove property from the market place…

Juanita and Wally Nelson, founding members of Peacemakers, and war tax resisters Betsy Corner, Randy Kehler, and Bob Bady were among the organizers of the Valley Community Land Trust. The trust resisted IRS attempts to seize the Corner/Kehler home for back taxes, and helped to get their home returned to them.

Art Harvey’s farm

Dorothy Day visited Art Harvey’s farm in 1971 and described it this way:

He carries on a practical application of Karl Meyer’s tax refusal… by having teams of workers in orchards where they prune trees, harvest apples and later blueberries and work seven months of the year. They work and live in a style which frees them from the payment of taxes for war. Perhaps about a hundred are engaged in this way of life, which results usually in some settling in communities of the moshavim variety, each having some small acreage and a house built by themselves. Considering the New England climate, no small achievement! It certainly means an emphasis on the ascetic, on sacrifice.

Peter Maurin Farm

Peter Maurin Farm is a Catholic Worker project — a “hospitality house on the land” near Manhattan that also grows food for the urban hospitality houses. Many of those involved in the project were conscientious objectors, and appreciated being able to be part of a self-supporting project that required its volunteers to earn little or no taxable income and so enabled them to stay under the tax line.

Collective Impressions

War tax resister Ed Guinan created a business to help facilitate the tax resistance of its employees. One news profile described it this way:

[I]n Washington, D.C., is another group of tax resisters who have formed a nonprofit cooperative print shop and who refuse to send their taxes to the IRS. Ed Guinan is a priest and the coordinator of the shop, called Collective Impressions. A year and a half ago Guinan and his colleagues decided to continue paying social security taxes but to send their withholding taxes to the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

“Every quarter, when taxes are due, we send a check to the Arms Control Agency,” Guinan says. “They return it with a polite note saying that they cannot accept it, and we put it into a tax escrow account which cannot be used for normal business expenses.” Collective Impressions owes only $500 per quarter to the IRS, but Guinan and his coworkers believe they are making an effective protest against U.S. military spending policies.

Restored Israel of Yahweh

Similarly, members of the small religious group called the Restored Israel of Yahweh formed a small construction business and helped those of its employees who were also members of the group to resist their taxes — eventually facing criminal tax evasion convictions for this.

There are many ways to support tax resisters when they are targeted by the police or courts, including:

1. supporting the families of imprisoned resisters (see The Picket Line for 27 September 2012)
2. accompanying resisters to and from prison and visiting them while inside (see The Picket Line for 28 September 2012)
3. holding rallies outside the courthouse or prison (see The Picket Line for 3 October 2012)
4. attending their trials (see The Picket Line for 4 October 2012)
5. assisting their legal defense (see The Picket Line for 18 September 2012)
6. disrupting the trials or breaking resisters out of prison (see The Picket Line for 6 October 2012)

Another way to help resisters who are tangling with the legal system is to pay their legal fees or their fines. About a month ago I covered “mutual insurance” plans, with which tax resistance campaigns spread the cost of fines and other such costs over more resisters than just those explicitly targeted.

Today I’ll cover some examples of more ad hoc, after-the-fact generosity in a similar vein.

Sylvia Hardy

Sylvia Hardy, retired and living in Exeter, was upset that the cost of living increase in her pension was less than 3%, while her council tax was rising at a double-digit percentage each year. So she decided to stop paying.

A sympathizer paid her bill one year, and in response Hardy wrote to the city council to ask them not to accept any further donations in her name. Later, she was told that someone had called in by telephone offering to pay her whole bill, and she again refused, saying continued refusal was “the only way to get our voices heard.”

Nonetheless, when she was jailed in 2005, an anonymous sympathizer paid her outstanding taxes, and she was released after spending two days behind bars.

Old Holborn

Nick Hogan, a Bolton pub-owner, defied a new anti-smoking ordinance and openly permitted his patrons to light up. For this he was fined £3,000, and another £7,000+ in court costs. He refused to pay and was thrown in jail.

Hogan was set free the following month when a blogger going by the handle of “Old Holborn” dressed up in a Guy Fawkes mask and cape in order to remain anonymous and delivered a suitcase full of cash to prison to pay Hogan’s fine. The funds had been donated by thousands of people around the world who were sympathetic to Hogan’s fight.

“Carter”

A man named Carter (his other name has, as far as I know, been lost to history) refused to pay a $1 militia tax for conscientious reasons in 1901. For this, his town put him in jail and vowed to keep him there (at a cost to the town of $2.50 per week) until he paid up. He was stubborn, and stayed there at least 21 months.

A newspaper article about his case says, “[f]riends offered to advance the money to Carter, but he stubbornly refused to accept the money and pay the tax.”

Zerah C. Whipple

When Zerah C. Whipple was imprisoned for refusing to pay a militia tax, an anonymous donor eventually paid the tax and costs to have him released.

At an unexpected moment an entire stranger called at the prison and desired to know the amount of the tax and costs, which he paid, saying he knew the worth of Z.C. Whipple, and that his family for generations back had never paid the military tax, and he wished to save the State from the disgrace of imprisoning a person guilty of no crime.

The money was paid and the door opened, and his friend took the receipt to his children and said, “Keep this as a reminiscence that in 1874 your father paid this bill to release a young man from prison, that he might enjoy the rights of conscience.”

Mary McLeod Cleeves

When women’s suffrage activist Mary McLeod Cleeves was threatened with imprisonment for refusing to pay a carriage license tax, the suffragist newspaper The Vote noted that “Mrs. Cleeves has been beseiged by friends asking to be allowed to pay her fine; but like a true Suffragette, she refused.”

Annuity Tax resisters

Quakers, also a nonconformist sect, were largely in sympathy with the Annuity Tax resisters of Edinburgh, Scotland, but an editorial in one Quaker periodical chided those resisters for being eager to pay up to get their colleagues out of jail, rather than to embrace martyrdom like a good Quaker would:

We are principally induced to advert to this matter, on account of the means by which the liberation of the prisoners was effected — that of a public subscription. This, we consider to have been most objectionable. … we see nothing to commend, but every thing to reprobate, in the conduct of Dissenters in this matter. The movement may bespeak their sympathy for the sufferer, but we contend that it was both injudiciously expressed, and exceedingly ill-timed. Had the public subscription been deferred till after the prisoners had been liberated, in what we should consider a legitimate manner, and its object of course been different — to testify at once the sympathy of the subscribers, and to compensate for the injury sustained by the prisoners — there would have been no objection to the manifestation.

Did it not occur to the Dissenters of Edinburgh, that it was not from want of pecuniary ability that either of the prisoners allowed himself to be immured in jail? Or again, what was the difference between these individuals paying the tax themselves, and its being paid for them by public subscription? If it was wrong in the one case, it must be equally wrong, and a violation of principle, in the other. It has surprised us, that not one of the Dissenting Journals that we have met with has taken this view of the subject. In their joyfulness at the liberation of the prisoners, they seem to have lost sight entirely of the sacrifice of principle at which it was obtained.

Lessons from Thoreau, Maurice McCrackin, and Juanita Nelson

You’ll note that in many of the cases I mentioned, the offered money was an unwelcome gift — the resisters were not going to jail for lack of funds, but for principle.

The trick to supporting imprisoned tax resisters is to respect their real needs and desires. When “someone interfered,” as Thoreau put it, and paid his taxes in order to spring him from his night in jail, they thought wrongly that they were doing Thoreau a favor, “for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall.”

When the lawyers the court assigned to defend war tax resister Maurice McCrackin — who was refusing to cooperate with the court entirely, and who wanted no legal defense whatsoever — vowed to pursue an appeal of a verdict they thought was unjust, McCracken emphatically said that he was not interested in pursuing an appeal: “I said I wanted to file no appeal, nor did I want steps taken to keep the door open, so an appeal could be perfected later. I do not recognize any appeal on my behalf… My position is not changed. This is a moral, not a legal, struggle.”

Juanita Nelson tells a happier story: of the support she received in jail, where she had been taken in her bathrobe from her home. Her supporters took the time to learn how to support her in a way that was appropriate to her resistance:

Two fellow pacifists, one of them also a tax refuser, had been permitted to come to me, since I would not go to them. I asked them what was uppermost in my mind, what they’d do about getting properly dressed? They said that this was something I would have to settle for myself. I sensed that they thought it the better part of wisdom and modesty for me to be dressed for my appearance in court. They were more concerned about the public relations aspect of getting across the witness than I was. They were also genuinely concerned, I knew, about making their actions truly nonviolent, cognizant of the other person’s feelings, attitudes and readiness. I was shaken enough to concede that I would like to have my clothes at hand, in case I decided I would feel more at ease in them. The older visitor, a dignified man with white hair, agreed to go for the clothes in a taxicab.

They left, and on their heels came another visitor. She had been told that in permitting her to come up, the officials were treating me with more courtesy than I was according them. It was her assessment that the chief deputy was hopeful that someone would be able to hammer some sense into me and was willing to make concessions in that hope. But he had misjudged the reliance he might place in her — she was not as critical as the men. She did not know what she would do, but she thought she might wish to have the strength and the audacity to carry through in the vein in which I had started.

And she said. “You know, you look like a female Gandhi in that robe. You look, well, dignified.”

That was my first encouragement. Everyone else had tended to make me feel like a fool of the first water, had confirmed fears I already had on that score. My respect and admiration for Gandhi, though not uncritical, was deep. And if I in any way resembled him in appearance I was prepared to try to emulate a more becoming state of mind. I reminded myself, too, that I had on considerably more than the loincloth in which Gandhi was able to greet kings and statesmen with ease. I need not be unduly perturbed about wearing a robe into the presence of his honor.

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.

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

• Tax Day has come and gone, and NWTRCC is collecting a list of war tax resistance actions that happened on or around that day. Here’s a photo of Juanita Nelson holding her “Haven’t Paid Taxes Since 1948” sign in front of the Brattleboro post office on Tax Day.
• The Chief Counsel of the IRS Criminal Tax Division issued something called a Search Warrant Handbook a few years back to give its Criminal Investigation personnel with guidance about when they need search warrants to do their investigations. The Handbook stated:

  [T]he Fourth Amendment [to the U.S. Constitution, governing searches and seizures] does not protect communications held in electronic storage, such as email messages stored on a server, because internet users do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in such communications.

  and

  [E]mails and other transmissions generally lose their reasonable expectation of privacy and thus their Fourth Amendment protection once they have been sent from an individual’s computer.

  A copy of the Internal Revenue Manual issued that year also says that “the government may obtain the contents of electronic communication that has been in storage for more than 180 days” without going through the hassle of obtaining a search warrant. Other agency memos, dating as recently as October 2011 restate the position.
  
  When the ACLU exposed these policies, there was a bit of an uproar. The agency didn’t help matters much by issuing a non-denial denial:

  Respecting taxpayer rights and taxpayer privacy are cornerstone principles for the IRS. Our job is to administer the nation’s tax laws, and we do so in a way that follows the law and treats taxpayers with respect. Contrary to some suggestions, the IRS does not use emails to target taxpayers. Any suggestion to the contrary is wrong.

  But the acting head of the IRS appeared before a Senate committee yesterday and seemed to indicate that the agency would back down, at least somewhat, and at least until the fuss dies down.
• The IRS is also catching flak for its ineptitude in dealing with identity theft. The USA Today editorial board concluded that “the crooks appear to be one step ahead of the IRS” as the IRS has responded to the growing problem by expanding its bureaucracy in a way that made things more complicated without making it more effective. In one example, a study of 17 people who had filed identity theft complaints with the IRS showed that the agency had responded by opening 58 distinct and uncoordinated cases in its myriad subunits in response.
• None of this is coming at a convenient time for the tax agency. The acting Commissioner, Steven Miller, recently appeared before the House Appropriations Committee to beg them not to cut the IRS budget any more. Miller “explained that the budget cuts that the IRS must make on account of sequestration will reduce IRS enforcement levels. In the short-term, revenue will drop because the number of audits will drop and collection activity will decline. In the long-term, the diminishing presence of the IRS will cause the voluntary compliance rate to drop, further reducing revenue.”
• Harriet Bicksler wrote an interesting piece — “Gambling on the Rapture” — about her on-again/off-again experiments with war tax resistance.
• The Mesa de Enlace Agropecuaria (Agricultural Liaison Bureau) in Argentina met in Santa Fe to decry encroaching “Marxism and Chavezism” in the country, and to call for tax resistance: “pay no taxes until June so the government cannot pay the bonuses and treat itself to a good time.”
• The American Enterprise Institute has issued a new edition of their useful compendium of poll results: Public Opinion on Taxes: 1937 to Today.

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

• Some more tax day news is trickling in:
  • Here’s a nice interview with war tax resister David Waters on Birmingham, Alabama’s local CBS news station.
  • And take a gander at this photo of Juanita Nelson holding her “Haven’t Paid Taxes Since 1948” sign on tax day outside the downtown post office in Brattleboro, Vermont.
• Here’s a bit more about the tax resistance campaign that activists for Catalan independence are engaged in:

  

  • “Spain is robbing us,” a number of impatient Catalan municipalities are saying, and in response several have begun depositing their taxes with the regional Catalan tax agency rather than forwarding them to the federal government as the law demands. The tax resistance campaign is being organized by Catalunya Diu Prou (“Catalonia Says ‘Enough’ ”), which says that some freelancers and independent businesses, which are responsible for their own tax withholding, will follow suit.
  • About twenty resisters gathered in the Plaza de Catalunya in Barcelona to launch a symbolic tax resistance action in which they will withhold a token amount (such as €50) from their tax payments in protest against government corruption. They plan to pay this money into an escrow account and not turn it over to the government until their demands are met, which demands include legal changes that they hope would bring transparency to the actions of the government and of politicians.
• The IRS is reacting to budget cuts by sending its employees home without pay for at least five days this year. This is bound to reduce the effectiveness of the already struggling agency, and to make it difficult to retain and to recruit talented personnel.

  In addition to the furloughs, the IRS has frozen hiring, cut spending on travel, training and supplies, and directed managers to scrutinize contract and grant funding.

  Before sequestration became a reality, the IRS had already been dealing with tighter budgets, a shrinking workforce, and an increasing workload.

  [National Treasury Employees Union president Colleen M.] Kelley noted that because of those prior budget cuts, the IRS operated “this filing season with 5,000 fewer employees than just two years ago.”

• The “Google” brand has earned a lot of warm fuzzy associations in my heart, with all of the generous contributions the company has made to the project of expanding the availability of knowledge and information. But those who find its size, ubiquitousness, and growing intrusiveness somewhat ominous have a point, and that point got a lot more pointed to me recently when someone pointed me to a page touting a new book, due to be released tomorrow I think, by Google executive chairman (and former CEO Eric Schmidt and Google Ideas director Jared Cohen (“a former adviser to secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton”).
  
  The description of the book’s content isn’t what caught my attention (it was pretty vague anyway). What grabbed me was the list of people who have provided blurbs, which includes:
  • Tony Blair
  • Bill Clinton
  • Henry Kissinger
  • Michael Hayden (former CIA director)
  • Madeleine Albright (former U.S. Secretary of State)
  • Robert Zoellick (former World Bank president and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State)
  • Michael Bloomberg (notoriously nanny-stateish New York City mayor)
  • Brent Scowcroft (former U.S. National Security Advisor and Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board chairman)
  This, apparently, is the audience Schmidt & Cohen feel like enthusing when they are talking about “the new digital age” to come, and that gives me a bit of a chill.

The August issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter is now on-line, with contents including:

• Perspectives on whether or not to pay the “social security tax” by Ruth Benn, myself, Susan Miller, and Larry Dansinger
• Notes about an especially aggressive IRS levy of Social Security payments, and about the agency’s retreat from its overzealous infliction of “frivolous filing” penalties on people who added messages of protest to their tax forms
• Reviews of Brayton Shanley’s The Many Sides of Peace: Christian Nonviolence, the Contemplative Life, and Sustainable Living and Rosalie G. Riegle’s Doing Time for Peace: Resistance, Family, and Community
• A note about an Independence Day war tax protest at which IRS forms went up in flames, and about pioneering war tax resister Juanita Nelson’s 90^th birthday
• Some resources that would be appropriate for the upcoming “Nuclear Free Future Month”
• News about the upcoming NWTRCC national gathering and the New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters
• A profile of war tax resister Cathy Deppe

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.”

Some tax resistance news briefs from the U.S.:

• Ruth Benn reports on her visit with war tax resisters in Milwaukee and some of what she found when browsing war tax resistance-related material at the Dorothy Day / Catholic Worker Collection held in the Special Collections of Marquette University.
• War tax resister Juanita Nelson has a page at First Person Oral Histories, including audio clips of some interviews with Nelson, photos, and transcripts.
• Cindy Sheehan profiles war tax resister S. Brian Willson on her blog.
• You may have heard in the news that you can move to Puerto Rico and thereby avoid U.S. income and capital gains taxes. Turns out that’s largely true, if you do it right, at least according to Forbes contributing writer Robert W. Wood.

Your tax resistance news round-up

• The third war tax resistance podcast, sponsored by the War Tax Talk blog, features war tax resisters Shirley Whiteside, Juanita Nelson, Randy Kehler, Betty Winkler, and Beth Seberger sharing the fruits of their experience.
• “Tax evasion” has a bad reputation because governments have successfully convinced people that paying taxes is of public benefit, and that those who dodge their share reap these benefits while pushing the burden off on others. But there are a lot of assumptions packaged in with that story that don’t hold up under scrutiny. Under a more realistic set of assumptions about the nature of public spending and taxation, tax dodging is an important public service that benefits all of us by limiting the invasiveness of government.
• The scam in which callers impersonating IRS agents trick people into sending them money to settle spurious tax debts continues to grow. According to the latest news:

  When the law enforcement agency that oversees the Internal Revenue Service warned in the spring of 2014 of the “largest-ever phone fraud scam targeting taxpayers,” it did not realize the 20,000 victims would be just the tip of a growing iceberg.

  As of today, close to 300,000 consumers have reported to the Treasury Inspector General for Taxpayer Administration, or TIGTA for short, that they’ve been contacted by callers claiming to be from the IRS. As we head into tax season in 2015, 12,000 people are complaining to TIGTA about the IRS impersonation scam every single week. At least $14 million have been reported to be extorted by criminals, and the actual number may be twice that high.

• The tax resistance movement that’s sprouting from the Occupy Central / Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong continues to seek guidance from tax resistance campaigns around the world. In the latest example, they look to Julia “Butterfly” Hill’s enormous war tax redirection action for inspiration.
• In Greece, a left-wing coalition loosely aligned with the “won’t pay” movement, and pledging to abolish the hated “ENFIA” tax, is leading in the polls. In response, many Greek taxpayers are keeping their money in their pockets, refusing to pay taxes until they see how the election turns out.
• The Italian tax resistance movement growing under the hashtag “#IoNonMiAmmazzo” now has a rap video to dramatize its campaign:

Juanita Nelson, who began refusing to pay war taxes in 1948 and, she liked to say, “haven’t bought a bomb since,” died yesterday. She was 91.

She was one of the last living members of the post-World War Ⅱ activists who founded the modern American war tax resistance movement, as a co-founder of the pioneering war tax resistance group Peacemakers. She was also an organizer and activist from the early years of the Civil Rights movement, and helped plan the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation that preceded and provided the template for the direct action of the Freedom Riders.

You can find an obituary notice for Juanita Nelson at the NWTRCC web site. Here’s another, from the Greenfield, Massachusetts Gazette.

Some news from the the war tax resistance movement in the U.S.:

• War tax resister Jason Rawn is interviewed by Bruce Gagnon on the This Issue show about tax resistance and related topics.
• Alexander Lee shares his memories of war tax resistance pioneer Juanita Nelson. And Democracy Now! reviewed Nelson’s life and work and reposted a 2015 interview with her.
• Peter J. Reilly, at his Forbes blog, covers the case of war tax resister Elizabeth Boardman, who has been trying to get the courts to force the IRS to stop treating conscientious objection to military taxation as a legally “frivolous” argument. A federal appeals court shot down her latest set of arguments.
• The Mennonite Central Committee (U.S.) is organizing a tax redirection campaign that focuses on supporting New Profile, a program that assists conscientious objectors in Israel.

There’s a new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter out, with content including:

• a look back at the life and work of Juanita Nelson with contributions from Bob Bady, Karl Meyer, Ginny Sсhnеider, Ed Hedemann, Lori Barg, and Ed Agro
• some notes about trends in tax enforcement including IRS levies on royalty income, the sudden decline in property seizures for the past 15 years, phone tax resistance, and Elizabeth Boardman’s attempt to get some respect for war tax resistance in the courts
• a note about the passing of Dirk Panhuis, who had been active with Conscience and Peace Tax International
• some updates about war tax resisters Julia Butterfly Hill and Joseph Olejak, the Spring Rising anti-war action, Greg Wise’s mouthing off about tax refusal, and the Mennonite Central Committee’s war tax redirection program
• news about tax day outreach on social media, at the U.S. Social Forum, at the Jewish Voice for Peace conference, and the Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship
• and a profile of Peter and Mary Sprunger-Froese of the Bijou Community — excerpt:

  Members of the Bijou Community were already involved in war tax resistance when Peter and Mary arrived. Early on, money was held in common, but that evolved over the years to each doing their own thing. One year the community did a tax protest and filed a 1040 saying they didn’t want to pay anything “because we don’t want to support the war.” That seemed to trigger an audit, which took an exhausting six months of collecting receipts to convince the IRS that members were not living off donations that came in for the soup kitchen and houses of hospitality. “The IRS said don’t file like that anymore because it messes up our system, and we said don’t audit us anymore because it messes up ours!”

Also, on the War Tax Talk blog, Jason Rawn reviews David Hartsough’s book Waging Peace: Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist. Excerpt:

David Hartsough is a Quaker and a War Tax Resister who has for decades been redirecting a large portion of his “tax obligations,” believing that if war is abolished, “humanity can not only survive and better address the climate crisis and other dangers, but will be able to create a better life for everyone. The reallocation of resources away from war promises a world whose advantages are beyond easy imagination.” (Editor’s note: The 2016 U.S. budget for past, present, and future wars is $1,300 billion.) He cofounded the Nonviolent Peaceforce, inspired in part by Gandhi’s idea of a shanti sena, a peace army, and this organization is now active in 40 countries, stationing trained professional peaceworkers in conflict areas around the globe and is sustained by an $8 million budget. He works with World Beyond War and is currently executive director of Peaceworkers in San Francisco. Waging Peace has been in the works for 27 years.

And Ruth Benn of NWTRCC was a guest on Law and Disorder radio recently.

The latest news from the U.S. war tax resistance movement:

• Erica Weiland reviews American war tax resister Frances Crowe’s memoir, Finding My Radical Soul. “Now 96 years old, she is still an activist and still getting arrested for civil disobedience.”
• Ruth Benn reflects on “The Mysterious Ways of the IRS” — the agency seems arbitrary and unpredictable at times in the ways it responds to war tax resisters.
• The three activists who boldly broke through security at the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant in 2012 have had their sabotage convictions reversed on appeal and are no longer being imprisoned. One article about their successful appeal concluded: “They are still obligated to pay the government a fine of $52,953 for the break-in at Y-12. But they took vows of poverty decades ago, don’t have bank accounts, and have neither the means nor the intention of paying it.”
• The War Tax Talk blog has reprinted an op-ed debate that was published in the Sunday Republican of Springfield, Massachusetts back in 1993. It features Juanita Nelson dueling with a U.S. Air Force Reserve Lieutenant-Colonel over the question: “Is it ever right to refuse, on principle, to pay taxes?”

• There’s a new edition of NWTRCC’s newsletter out, with content including:
  • reports from this year’s Tax Day actions
  • concerns bubbling up in the war tax resistance community, like:
    • what to do about sudden, unexpected financial gains
    • how resisters might get hit with an Estimated Tax Penalty
    • how to avoid the now-epidemic tax debt telephone scams
  • book reviews:
    • American Gandhi: A.J. Muste and the History of Radicalism in the Twentieth Century
    • Waging Peace: The Global Adventures of a Lifelong Activist (David Hartsough)
    • Peace Activist: The Autobiography of Bradford Lyttle
  • a report on NWTRCC’s recent national gathering in Milwaukee
  • Redmoonsong reflects on how tactics of dealing with tax resistance and government benefits may change as one ages

Today, a pile of tax resistance links from hither and yon:

International Tax Resistance News

• There seems to be something of a tax insurrection in Denmark including the torching of a tax office and ten tax administration vehicles.
• Dave Ridley, on The Ridley Report podcast, ponders whether or not it is ethical to try to drain resources from the government in order to weaken it (for example, by filing lawsuits against it, or forcing its bureaucracy to waste time) or whether this is just adding insult to the original injury the government performed by taking the wasted funds from the taxpayer.
• Protesters in Detroit, Michigan, blocked the street in front of the county treasury building to protest the fact that despite plunging property values in Detroit, many homes have not been reassessed in years (in spite of a law mandating annual reassessments), and so the owners are on the hook for artificially inflated property taxes, which is pushing some of them into tax foreclosures.
• A brothel in Salzburg, Austria, has launched a free drinks and free sex promotion to protest high taxes on its receipts. You will probably not be surprised to learn that the protest has been wildly popular with the brothel’s clientele as well as with clickbait “news” sites.
• Residents of Beni, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, have launched a tax strike to protest against the government’s failure to provide them with adequate security against atrocities committed by the Allied Democratic Forces rebels. The tax resistance comes on the heels of a week-long general strike, and is being organized by “civil society” groups. The taxes being resisted are largely business taxes, both those on larger businesses and stall-fees paid by market vendors. Some of the organizers have reported being subjected to death threats.
• Palmerstown (Ireland) Residents against Water Charges held a mass burning of their water bills a little while back. Meanwhile, petitions signed by 15,000 anti-water charge protesters were given the cold shoulder in Cork.
• Market vendors in Githurai, Kenya have started withholding taxes from the county government to protest the government’s unwillingness or inability to provide basic services to the market.
• As Greece prepares to bid a national “δεν πληρώνω” (“won’t pay”) to their international creditors, the domestic δεν πληρώνω movement continues to innovate — lately with a new smartphone app that tells public transit users where they can expect ticket auditors and which stations are free-and-clear. Fines are down by ¼ to ⅓ from their numbers last year. In addition, overall tax revenue is in a tailspin in Greece. The government hoped to bring in €3.728 billion in May, for example, and only managed to scrape up €2.722 billion.

War Tax Resistance News

• Pioneering American war tax resister Juanita Nelson, who helped found the first modern American group devoted to war tax resistance (Peacemakers) in 1948, and who died earlier this year, was honored with a festive parade in her hometown of Greenfield, Massachusetts.
• War tax resister Don Schrader explains his stand in the New Mexico Daily Lobo: “How much good is it to pray, hope, and march for peace if we pay for war?”
• The group Conscience, which had been an important voice for war tax resisters in the U.K., has been undertaking an image makeover lately, in which it has deemphasized tax resistance in favor of lobbying and, alas, lately is lobbying for a particularly pathetic “taxes for peace” bill that is a somewhat new formulation of the “peace tax”-style legislation but that has at least as many flaws as such bills usually have.

IRS Woes

• I see another IRS building has been evacuated because of a “suspicious package” — this time in Andover, Massachusetts.
• The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration identified an estimated two and a half billion dollars in previously-unnoticed fraudulently-requested tax refunds issued by the IRS for tax year 2012. That’s roughly the size of the budget of the National Parks Service. Many of the payments went to addresses outside of the country, like to Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Ireland, so maybe I should have compared it to a foreign aid program: in the same ballpark as the amount the State Department gave to Israel.
• The problem (or is it a solution) of identity theft playing havoc on the U.S. tax system is only likely to get worse… especially after hackers managed to lift personnel records for just about every employee of the federal government including social security numbers and a wealth of other identifying information.

Some news of interest to war tax resisters in particular:

• C.J. Hinke has a book coming out: Free Radicals: War Resisters in Prison. Here’s an excerpt. You can also follow the PrisonWarResisters blog which contains a lot of good accounts of mid-twentieth-century conscientious objection in the United States. The entries touch on war tax resistance from time to time, mostly in passing, but include information about the tax resistance stands of Juanita & Wally Nelson, Ernest & Marion Bromley, Eroseanna Robinson, Karl Meyer, and Art Harvey.
• The Spanish anti-militarist group “Tortuga” has created a comic book to explain why and how to refuse to pay war taxes.
• A transcript of Peter Goldberger’s talk on the possible ramifications of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision for U.S. war tax resisters is now available on the NWTRCC web site.
• The War Tax Talk blog has a new post from Ruth Benn announcing a new edition of a NWTRCC “practical series” pamphlet on Health Care and Income Security for War Tax Resisters.
• There’s a new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter out, with content including:
  • The IRS still seems to be trigger-happy about “frivolous filing” warnings.
  • War tax resisters have been making the tactic known hither and yon, including at a Fellowship of Reconciliation regional conference, a Fourth-of-July parade, a “People’s Budget” gathering, and the U.S. Social Forum; also, the New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters is coming up in October.
  • A profile of Sylvia Metzler.

Some bits and pieces from here and there:

war tax resistance

• Jesse Maceo Vega-Frey recalls his time with Juanita & Wally Nelson, and his own ambivalent experiences with war tax resistance, in an article for the Boston Review.
• Here’s a recap of the recent National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee gathering earlier this month in Florida.
• I stumbled on this quote, shared recently by “tandy_jack” on Instagram, from the back of a Joan Baez album:

  We paid the taxes that bought the war that hired the men and dropped the fire that burned the huts and killed the people who then were the bodies that Scott counted. It’s a rotten thing to brainwash someone into doing the dirty part of the killing while we stay at home. It’s a rotten thing to pretend the war is coming to an end when it’s only taken to the air. And in 1972 if you don’t fight against a rotten thing you become part of it.

  What I’m asking you to do is take some risks. Stop paying war taxes, refuse the armed forces, organize against the air war, support the strikes and boycotts of farmers, workers, and poor people, analyze the flag salute, give up the nation state, share your money, refuse to hate, be willing to work… in short, sisters and brothers, arm up with love and come from the shadows.

virtual cash

• National governments are trying to discourage cash, so as to eliminate the sorts of anonymous, untraceable transactions that are difficult to tax. For example, the government of India recently made a surprise announcement that 500 and 1,000 rupee notes would no longer be legal tender after a certain deadline.
• Jeff Berwick, anarcho-capitalist entrepreneur, has encouraged Trump opponents to stop paying taxes and move into the Bitcoin economy.
• The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration says that the IRS has dropped the ball on developing guidelines for pursuing people who use virtual currencies to facilitate tax evasion.
• Yet, the IRS recently contacted a bitcoin trading company, demanding the identity of all of its bitcoin traders.

If the IRS does decide to crack down on virtual currencies, it may have to do so with virtual employees, as its real enforcement staff numbers have been dropping year after year:

This is from a new TIGTA report on IRS enforcement efforts.

This article, concerning another TIGTA report, gives a good indication of how strapped the agency is. Even when shown that there’s money on the table that just needs to be picked up (in this case, high-income people who haven’t filed income tax returns but whom the agency knows about), the IRS complains it doesn’t have enough people to do the picking.

A news dispatch I found in the Lincoln Journal (Nebraska) from this date in 1948:

“Military Portion” of Tax Withheld

Moorestown, N.J. (NANA). William Bacon Evans, firm in his Quaker convictions, has paid his income tax three months ahead of time — deducting from his payment that portion he has estimated would be devoted to military purposes.

Evans has written the federal tax collectors that he does not “feel conscientiously at liberty to contribute toward… the involvement of our country in military programs of occupation and… adoption of peacetime conscription and the manufacture and storage of atomic bombs.” So he is giving the sum deducted from his income-tax check to “constructive programs of relief and reconstruction.”

“No can do,” say the tax collectors.

Evans (1875–1964) is also listed as one of eleven war tax resisters in the Philadelphia area in a 1949 newspaper article, along with Margaret Dungan, Emma & Lindley Burton, Caleb & Hope Foote, Emily & Walter Longstreth, Caroline & Lydia Phillips, and Grace Rhoads.

Here’s another article in which he is mentioned, from the 15 April 1957 Doylestown, Pennsylvania Intelligencer:

6 Countians Won’t Pay Their Tax

Six residents of Bucks County were among the 51 across the nation who announced in a joint statement today that for conscientious reasons they are refusing to pay part or all of their income taxes for 1956.

The statement, issued by Peacemakers, a pacifist organization based on Gandhian principles of non-violence, said that approximately 85 per cent of the Federal income tax is used for past, present, and future wars. The non-payers ask:

“Who knows what weapons his taxes will buy?… In full consciousness of our own involvement in a war-centered economy and of our shortcomings in the pacifist way of life, we nevertheless feel constrained to call this matter to the attention of others who may have felt they had no alternative to payment of their taxes”

The six Bucks County people announcing their tax refusal include:

Doylestown Writer

Jean V.N. DaCosta, RD 2, Doylestown, a writer and member of the Episcopal Pacifist Fellowship. Miss DaCosta declared: “If I were a man and of draft age I would refuse military service: therefore I cannot pay taxes for others to do what I could not do myself.”

Wallace and Juanita Nelson, 970 Wood Road, Southampton. Nelson, who is a construction worker, and his wife, a speech therapist, are active in race relations work. They recently stated: “The peaceful world for which we all hope cannot come about in the atmosphere of hostility created by the armaments race highlighted by the production of the hydrogen bomb. The greatest contribution our country can make toward the elimination of war is the demonstration of brotherhood through action. We cannot pay our money for war.”

Lee Pagano, New Hope, a craftsman who operates his own shop.

Robert and Marjorie Swann, 2845 Sussex Road. Trevose [sic] Swann is a designer and builder. He and his wife have three daughters.

Three other tax refusers in the Philadelphia area are William Bacon Evans of Haverford, and Irene S. Eldridge and Margaret Dungan, both of Wallingford. All are members of the Society of Friends.

From the 30 January 1950 issue of Labor Action:

Readers Take the Floor…

To the Editor:

A soft-spoken Nisei has put the internal-revenue system and the infernal prison system under a glaring spotlight that only pure peacemakers can hold.

K. J. Otsuka, 40, farmhand of near Richmond, Indiana, refused to pay $4.50 income tax because he didn’t want to finance the cold war. He didn’t comply promptly with a collector’s order to produce books and papers showing his financial condition, so he was hauled before Judge Robert C. Baltzell of Indianapolis Federal District Court.

On August 18 he had complied with the red tape and so was only reprimanded by the judge. Then the judge gave Jim until the first of September to pay the $4.50.

Jim was still of the same, stubborn mind on the first, so Judge Baltzell sentenced him to 3 months imprisonment and fined him $100. This the judge gave Jim for failure to answer the collector’s summons promptly. There was evidence of prejudice by the jurist against Americans of Japanese ancestry. Actually, the judge was mad that Jim refused to pay his income tax.

After Otsuka served his time, he was due for release December 29. A U.S. Tax Commissioner on that day, in Ashland, Kentucky, ruled that he would have to stay in jail until he paid the $100 fine plus $40 court costs. As $140 constitutes one-third the value of Otsuka’s assets, and he has not changed his mind after 90 days’ reorientation of his tax-refusal views, he is still in the Ashland penitentiary.

The warden would not speak to a mixed delegation which had come to Ashland to welcome Jim on the outside. He was shocked at the effrontery of Mrs. Wallace F. Nelson, who wanted him to give her some information! Nor would he allow any of the ministers among them to see Jim (during regular visiting hours). The welcoming committee thereupon set up a picket line, and drew up two sets of picket signs (the first set were destroyed by the Kentucky “colonels” — state troopers).

Our Workers Defense Council here protests this $4.50 injustice and permanent persecution of peace-loving citizens, and is glad to express its solidarity with Jim Otsuka. Albeit in different ways, we too are fighting the permanent war economy.

Tad Tekla, Secretary
Cleveland, Jan. 11

While I wasn’t paying attention, someone scanned in many back issues of Friends Bulletin, the journal of the Pacific Yearly Meeting and Pacific Coast Association of Friends. This has allowed me another window onto the state of American war tax resistance, Quaker war tax resistance in particular, in the last half of the 20^th century.

Here, for example, from the April, 1951 issue, is an article on an early Peacemakers tax refusal pledge that includes a complete list of signatories, including several I hadn’t heard of before:

Tax Refusal

On March 15 there were among those who did not pay their Federal income taxes the following 59 persons who joined together to support a statement distributed by the Tax Refusal Committee of Peacemakers, 2013 Fifth Ave., N.Y., N.Y. Reverend Ernest Bromley is chairman of this subcommittee of Peacemakers: A.J. Muste is secretary of Peacemakers. A part of their statement is: “Feeling that war must inevitably come unless something drastic is done by individuals to show their unwillingness to go along with war-making policies of their governments, we the undersigned state hereby that we are not going to pay our federal income taxes due March 15. For some of us this means that we will not pay that percentage which corresponds to the nation’s outlay for militarism; for others of us it means we will not pay even the first cent for the maintenance of a government whose main business is preparation for annihilation…”

The signers were: Ernest and Marion Bromley, Golay Rd., Gano, Sharonville, Ohio; Lindley and Emma Burton, Low Buildings, Bryn Mawr, Pa.; Horace and Ava Champney, 512 Phillips St., Yellow Springs, O.; Sara Chase, 1525 Sutter St., San Francisco, Calif.; Samuel and Clarissa Cooper, 214 Eastbourne Terr., Moorestown, N.J.; Dorothy DaPonte, Rte. 4, Box 374, Mobile, Ala.; Margaret E. Dungan, Wallingford, Penna.; Arthur Evans, Awbury, Penna.; Rebecca Winsor Evans, Radnor, Penna.; Fyke Farmer, Bellevue Dr., Nashville, Tenn.; Rev. Marion Frenyear, So. Hartford, N.Y.; Henry and Beatrice Dyer, Yellow Springs, O.; Walter Gormly, 412 N. 3^rd St., W., Mt. Vernon, Iowa; Konrad Halle, 76 Pinehurst Ave., New York 33, N.Y.

Gerald Haynes, R.R. No. 3, Freeport, Maine; Ammon Hennacy, Rte. 3, Box 227, Phoenix, Ariz.; Rev. George Houser, 21 Audubon Ave., New York 32, N.Y.; Woodbridge O. Johnson, Jr., 106 W. 3^rd St., Parkville, Mo.; Sandy Katz 232 W. 29^th St., New York 1, N.Y.; Ruth C. LaBarrer, 6 Nutt Ave., Uniontown, Pa.; Sarah B. Leeds, 28 E. Main St., Moorestown, N.J.; Walter and Emily Longstreth, 140 N. 15^th St., Philadelphia 2, Pa.; Mary Bacon Mason, 31 Pleasant St., Newton Center, Mass.; Rev. Maurice F. McCrackin, 1111 Dayton St., Cincinnati 14, O.; Mary S. McDowell, 555 Ocean Ave., Brooklyn 26, N.Y.; Rev. A.J. Muste, 21 Audubon Ave., New York 32, N.Y.; Ax Nelson, 501 Benvenue, Los Altos, Calif.; Wallace and Juanita Nelson, Golay Rd., in Gano, Sharonville, O.; Ray and Jean Olds, Yellow Springs, O.; Raymond F. Olds, Monterey, Mass.; Storrs F. Olds, Monterey Rd., Great Barrington, Mass.; Jim Otsuka, Rte. 1, Cloverdale, Mich.; Mrs. Gordon Parker, 1401 Wood Ave., Colorado Springs, Colo.; Mabel G. Parker, 1804 Wood Ave., Colorado Springs, Colo.;

James and Paula Peck, 552 Riverside Dr., New York, N.Y., Miriam Pennypacker, 6420 Drexel Rd., Philadelphia 31, Pa.; Grace Rhoads, Box 90, Moorestown, N.J.; Elizabeth and Edward C.M. Richards, Nur Mahal, R.D. 3, West Chester, Pa.; Francis and Valerie Riggs, 23 Coolidge Hill Rd., Cambridge 38, Mass.; Margaret Schauffler, 100 S. Cedar St., Oberlin, O.; Robert and Marjorie Swann, R. 1, Cloverdale, Mich.; Ralph and Lila Templin, Box 125, Yellow Springs, O.; Caroline F. Urie, 128 S. Walnut St., Yellow Springs, O.; Ellen Winsor, Radnor, Pa.; Abraham and Jean Zwickel, P.O. Box 232, Pismo Beach, Calif.

And here’s an early example of a plea for a “peace tax”-style accommodation for conscientious objectors to military taxation, from the January, 1951 issue:

Tax Petition

On Saturday, December 9, in Whittier, Calif., there was combined with the annual meeting of the southern California office of the Fellowship of Reconciliation a program sponsored by the Peace Board of California Yearly Meeting. One of the results of the day is the following petition:

To the Congress of the United States of America

We the undersigned citizens of the United States of America believe:

That present tensions between the free enterprise and communist group of nations are the result of reliance upon military force as an instrument of political determination;

That the threat or use of such force can never result in a just or mutually satisfactory resolution of these tensions;

That the labor and material expended in building up military might would have and still might lead to a peaceful and mutually satisfactory solution if used instead indiscriminately to rebuild the homes and industries destroyed in the last war.

We further believe:

That the military way violates the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” and the Golden Rule by which a Christian must live.

That to supply the means to induce of compel another to do that which we cannot do is equally a violation of those Commandments.

Therefore relying on our Constitutional Bill of Rights which our nation is this week honoring, and the Right of Petition thereby guaranteed, we humbly pray your august body that you pass legislation exempting all of like religious belief from income tax to be used in support of military establishment and substitute the use of that portion of our tax which is to our total tax as the amount used for military is to the national total, to that committee of the United Nations seeking a peaceful abatement of these tensions, thus giving the citizens of the United States the opportunity of paying taxes for the support of war or peace according to the dictates of their own conscience.

New Society Publishers began in 1988 to bring out a “Barbara Deming Memorial Series” of books meant to highlight women involved in nonviolent action. The first book in the series was You Can’t Kill the Spirit by Pam McAllister, which included a chapter on women tax resisters, and another separate section on the Igbo Women’s War, which was also a tax resistance campaign in part.

Here are some excerpts from this book:

Injustice, Death and Taxes: Women Say No!

The world just didn’t make sense to thirty-two-year-old Hubertine Auclert. On the one hand she was considered a French citizen expected to obey the laws of her country and to pay property taxes. On the other hand, she was denied the citizen’s right to vote simply because she was a woman. The male rulers couldn’t have it both ways, Auclert decided. She began plotting a way to unhinge the system.

On election day in February 1880, Auclert and several other tax-paying women of Paris initiated the first stage of the action. They stomped past a line of startled men and presented themselves for voter registration. They demanded that they be recognized as full citizens of France with rights as well as responsibilities. They demanded an end to the injustice of taxation without representation. The men were amazed: there was nothing wrong with the system’s inconsistencies as far as they were concerned! The women were turned away. It was time for stage two.

Taking advantage of the publicity the women had generated, Auclert called for a women’s “tax strike.” She reasoned that, since men alone had the privilege of governing the people and allotting national budgets, men alone should have the privilege of paying taxes.

“Since I have no right to control the use of my money,” she wrote, “I no longer wish to give it. I do not wish to be an accomplice, by my acquiescence, in the vast exploitation that the masculine autocracy believes is its right to exercise in regard to women. I have no rights, therefore I have no obligations. I do not vote, I do not pay.”

During the 1880 tax strike, Auclert was joined by twenty other women — eight widows and the rest, presumably, single women. When the authorities demanded payment, all but three of the women ended their participation in the strike. The remaining women continued to appeal the decision. But when law enforcement officers attempted to seize their furniture, Auclert and the others gave in. They decided they had done the best they could to call attention to the injustice.

Auclert was not the first woman to organize against the taxation of women without government representation. Mid-nineteenth-century United States saw a number of women’s rights tax resisters.

In 1858… Lucy Stone decided to publicize the injustice of government taxation of women who, because they were denied the vote, were without representation. Twelve years earlier, in 1846, Henry David Thoreau had spent a night in jail for his refusal to pay the Massachusetts poll tax, an action he had taken in opposition to the U.S. war with Mexico. Now Lucy Stone decided to use the same tactic to publicly draw attention to women’s oppression as voteless taxpayers. When she refused to pay her taxes, the government held a public auction and sold a number of her household goods.

Like Lucy Stone, [Lydia Sayer] Hasbrouck’s radicalism led her to become a tax resister, refusing to pay local taxes in protest against the denial of her right to vote. A tax collector, so the story goes, managed to steal one of Hasbrouck’s Bloomer outfits from her house and advertise it for sale, the proceeds to go toward the taxes she owed.

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Abby Kelly Foster had always been an active worker and speaker for women’s rights, but, in 1873, at the age of sixty-three, she was newly inspired. She had just heard about Julia and Abby Smith, two sisters in neighboring Connecticut, who were refusing to pay the taxes on their farm in order to protest the denial of suffrage to women. This was just the sort of nonviolent direct action that appealed to Abby. Her husband, Stephen, agreed. That year, they refused to pay their taxes on their beloved “Liberty Farm” in order to give voice to the urgency and justice of women’s suffrage.

When they refused again in 1874, the city of Worcester, Massachusetts took action. The farm was seized and put up for auction to the highest bidder.

Letters of support for the Fosters’ tax resistance poured in from the progressive leaders of the day. Boston abolitionist Wendell Phillips wrote, “Of course I need not tell either of you at this late day how much I appreciate this last chapter in the lives full of heroic self sacrifice to conviction.” Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton sent words of encouragement. William Lloyd Garrison, a pacifist abolitionist, wrote, “I hope there is not a man in your city or county or elsewhere who will meanly seek to make that property available to his own selfish ends. Let there be no buyer at any price.”

Unfortunately, Osgood Plummer, a politically conservative neighbor, bid $100 for the farm, but he retreated when Stephen Foster chided him. Later, Plummer wrote a letter to the local newspaper explaining that he had only wanted to teach the Fosters a lesson about obeying the law.

With no other bidders, the deed to Liberty Farm reverted to the city. For the next few years, Abby and Stephen lived with the fear and uncertainty of losing the farm, but they continued their tax resistance until Stephen’s ill health became an overriding concern. In 1880, the Fosters ended their protest and paid several thousand dollars to save the farm. The point had been made.

In 1911, the Women’s Tax Resistance League of London published a little pamphlet entitled Why We Resist Our Taxes… “The government of this country which professes to be a representative one and to rest on the consent of the governed, is Constitutional in its relation to men, Unconstitutional in its relation to women,” wrote Margaret Kineton Parkes, author of the pamphlet. Parkes did not mean all women, however. She hastened to reassure the reader that the tax resisters were not in the least radical but only fair-minded, concerned with votes only for women householders, certainly not for all women. The League, she claimed, was about passively resisting the unconstitutional government ruling England. Because they had been granted the municipal vote, women tax resisters were more than willing to pay local “rates,” and they promised they’d have equal willingness to pay “imperial taxes” as soon as they were granted the parliamentary vote.

The London tax resisters devised a new way to reach beyond those already enlightened members of the public who attended suffrage meetings. They began making suffrage speeches at public auctions, a tactic that had unexpectedly good results. Many people were converted to the suffrage cause once they had the chance to hear the argument from the resisters themselves. The auctioneers not only permitted the women to make their speeches, but sometimes actively invited the speeches and even addressed the cause in their own words. One auctioneer who openly supported the tax-resisting suffragists ended his remarks by saying: “If I had to pay rates and taxes and had not a vote, I should consider it a great disgrace on the part of the Government, but I should consider it a far greater disgrace on my part if I did not protest against it.”

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Since the granting of suffrage, women’s tax resistance has most often been undertaken to protest a government’s military spending or its involvement in a specific war — such as the U.S. war in Vietnam. For part of her life, Barbara Deming was a war tax resister. In her essay “On Revolution and Equilibrium,” she explained the rationale for this form of nonviolent noncooperation.

Words are not enough here. Gandhi’s term for nonviolent action was “satyagraha” — which can be translated as “clinging to the truth…” And one has to cling with one’s entire weight… One doesn’t just say, “I don’t believe in this war,” but refuses to put on a uniform. One doesn’t just say “The use of napalm is atrocious,” but refuses to pay for it by refusing to pay one’s taxes.

At 6:30 one June morning in 1959, Juanita Nelson threw on the new white terry cloth bathrobe she’d recently ordered from the Sears-Roebuck catalog and answered her door. Two U.S. marshals informed her that they had an order for her arrest. What a way to start the day.

Juanita and her husband Wally, who was out of town that day, had not paid withholding taxes nor filed any forms for eleven years, so it was, in one sense, no big surprise that the government wanted to see her. “But even with the best intentions in the world of going to jail,” she later wrote, “I would have been startled to be awakened at 6:30 a.m. to be told that I was under arrest.”

She explained to the bright-eyed government men that she would be glad to tell the judge why she was resisting taxes if he’d care to come see her. Then she proceeded to explain why she would not willingly walk out of her door to appear in court.

I am not paying taxes because the overwhelming percentage of the budget goes for war purposes. I do not wish to participate in any phase of the collection of such taxes. I do not even want to act as if I think that anyone, including the government, has a right to punish me for an act which I consider honorable. I cannot come with you.

The government men were not moved. They called for back-up assistance while Juanita considered her situation. Should she get dressed? Would getting dressed be a way of cooperating? Quickly she called a friend on the phone to let others know what was happening to her, and just as quickly she was surrounded by seven annoyed law enforcement officers. There was a brief exchange about her still being in her bathrobe, and one uncomfortable officer asked her whether or not she believed in God. She answered in the negative. (“He did not go on to explain the connection he had evidently been going to establish between God and dressing for arrest,” Juanita later reported.) Suddenly, a gruff, no-nonsense officer said, “We’ll just take her the way she is, if that’s the way she wants it.” He slapped some handcuffs on her and lifted her off the floor. In maneuvering her into the government car, he apparently tried his best to expose the nakedness under her bathrobe while another officer tried to cover her.

As the car carried her into the heart of Philadelphia, she tried to think. “My thoughts were like buckshot,” she wrote of her experience, “so scattered they didn’t hit anything or, when they did, made little dent. The robe was a huge question mark placed starkly after some vexing problems. Why am I going to jail? Why am I going to jail in a bathrobe?” The only thing she was sure of at that moment was that, until her head cleared, she would refuse to cooperate with her jailers. When the car stopped, she was yanked from the back seat, carried into the federal court building, dragged up a flight of stairs, and thrown behind bars.

[S]everal friends stopped by to visit her. (Her phone call had been a good idea.) The first visitors were two men, tax-refusing pacifists like herself. They thought it best, for the sake of appearances, to go to court in the proper clothes. They offered to get some clothes for her, and she agreed — just in case she decided she’d feel more at ease in them.

After the men left, a woman friend stopped by. “You look like a female Gandhi in that robe!” she said. “You look, well, dignified.” Juanita grinned.

When they finally came for her, Juanita, still refusing to walk, was wheeled into the courtroom in her bathrobe. The clothes the men had brought were left behind in a brown paper bag. The judge gave her until Friday of that week to comply with the court order that she turn over her financial records or be subjected to a possible fine of $1000, a year in jail, or both. Juanita Nelson went home.

Friday came and went. Many Fridays came and went. The charges were dropped and she heard nothing more. Every now and then, the Internal Revenue Service sends her a bill or tries to confiscate a car, but so far the government has met a wall of nonviolent noncooperation. They should have known when they saw Juanita in her bathrobe: nothing will make her pay for war.

Most people who take any notice of my position are appalled by my lawbreaking and not at all about the reasons for my not paying taxes. Instead of trying to make me justify my civil disobedience, why do they not question themselves and the government about a course of action which makes billions available for weapons, but cannot provide decent housing and education for a large segment of the population?

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Like the ascetics of old, Eroseanna (Rose or Sis) Robinson was singularly unburdened by material possessions. She had no bank account, owned no real estate, and when the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tried to seize her personal property, they found that all she had was an ironing board, a clock, a quilt, and some clothes.

Robinson took seriously her membership in Peacemakers (an organization founded in 1948 to promote radical, nonviolent direct action). She had been a war tax resister since the early fifties, filing no statements of income and ignoring the various notices and certified letters sent by the IRS. In 1960, thirty-five years old, single and black, Robinson was a skilled artist and athlete; creative, too, in finding ways to live in the United States without paying for the U.S. military. She tried to keep her earnings below the taxable level and for a period managed to spend less than $3 per week for food. She also arranged to earn a withholding-free income from several different work situations. Even with the little money she made, Robinson regularly sent sums greater than the taxes she owed to groups that worked for peace and social justice.

On January 26, 1960, federal marshals descended on Robinson at a community center in Chicago and demanded she come with them. When she refused, they carried her bodily out of the center and to the district court where she was seated on a bench before a judge. She refused to accept the services of a lawyer and asked instead that they lay aside their roles as judge and defendant and speak to each other as two people with genuine concerns. When the judge agreed, Robinson talked. “I have not filed income taxes,” she said, “because I know that a large part of the tax will be used for militarization. Much of the money is spent for atom and hydrogen bombs. These bombs have a deadly fallout that causes human destruction, as it has been proved. If I pay income tax, I am participating in that course. We have a duty to contribute constructively to life, and not destructively.”

After making this statement, she was handcuffed, put in a wheelchair because she refused to walk, and taken to jail.

The next day she was wheeled into court again, where she encountered a different judge. This judge ridiculed her and her supporters who were standing in a vigil in front of the courthouse. He accused her of having an attitude of “contumacious criminal contempt.” He committed her to jail until she would agree to file a tax return and show records of her earnings.

Not only would she not agree to file a tax return, she also would not agree to cooperate in any way with the prison system. She would not walk. She would not eat. She did agree to see one visitor one time — her friend Ernest Bromley, a radical pacifist and member of Peacemakers, who had come to see her in Cook County Jail. He wrote while she dictated a message for all her supporters on the outside:

I see the military system and jail system as one thing. I don’t want to give up my own will. I will not compromise by accepting a lawyer or by recognizing the judge as judge. I would rather that no one try to make an arrangement with the judge on my behalf. I ask nothing from the court or the jail. I do not want to pay for war. That is my main concern. Love to everyone.

On February 18, Robinson was again wheeled into court. It was clear that she would not compromise her principles to spare her own discomfort. The judge sentenced her to jail for a year and added an extra day for “criminal contempt.”

On March 1, she was moved to the federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia. There she continued her fast, though prison officials began to force-feed her liquids through a tube inserted into her nose. She refused to cooperate in any way with her own imprisonment nor did she try to send letters through the system of prison censorship.

Ten members of Peacemakers, including long-time activist Marjorie Swann, set up their tents just beyond the gates at Alderson and issued a press release on May 14. They explained that they were there to show support for Robinson and that most of them intended to fast just as she was fasting. They invited anyone who wanted to talk to stop by the gate where they were camping. The pacifists propped up signs along the stretch of dusty road — “No Tax for War,” “Peace Is the Only Defense,” “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” and “Rose Won’t Pay Income Tax.”

After fasting for ninety-three days, Robinson was suddenly and unconditionally discharged from prison on May 20. The judge who ordered her release said Robinson had become a burden to the prison medical facilities, adding that he felt she had been punished sufficiently. He didn’t mention the picketers camped outside.

When Robinson was released from prison late that Friday afternoon, the first thing she saw was a huge banner held high by her friends — “Bravo Rose!”

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A number of women have become war tax resisters in reaction to a specific war. Mary Bacon Mason, a Massachusetts music teacher, became a war tax resister in 1946 after World War Ⅱ. She told the government she would be willing to pay double her tax if it could be used only for aid to suffering people anywhere, but would accept prison or worse rather than pay for war. The only possible defense, she said, is friendship and mutual help. Of World War Ⅱ she said:

I paid a share in that cost and I am guilty of burning people alive in Germany and Japan. I ask humanity’s forgiveness.

---

In 1948, Caroline Urie of Yellow Springs, Ohio, bedridden and elderly, gained national attention and inspired many people to consider war tax resistance when she withheld 34.6 percent of her tax. She sent an equivalent amount as a donation to four peace organizations and wrote an open letter to President Truman and the IRS

Now that the atomic bomb has reduced to a final criminal absurdity the whole war system, leading quite possibly to the liquidation of human society, and has involved the United States in the shame and guilt of having been the first to exploit its criminal possibilities, I have come to the conclusion that — as a Christian, Quaker, religious and conscientious objector to the whole institution of organized war — I must henceforth refuse to contribute to it in any way I can avoid.

---

Eighteen years later, and in response to a new war, another woman from Yellow Springs, Ohio, Doris E. Sargent, wrote to the Peacemakers newsletter with a new war tax resistance tactic. She noted that the government had reintroduced a federal tax attached to telephone bills. The money was earmarked specifically for U.S. military expenses. Sargent proposed a radical response — that all those who demanded an end to the fighting in Vietnam ask the phone company to remove their phones in protest. If everyone who opposed the war were willing to make such an extreme sacrifice, real pressure could be put on the government. Then Sargent suggested a less extreme idea — that people keep their phones and pay their bills but refuse to pay the federal tax. Phone tax resisters could send a note with their bills each month, stating that the protest was not directed at the phone company but at the government which was using the phone tax to support war. The idea caught hold, and phone tax resistance became a popular way to protest the war in Vietnam. It is still used today as a form of war tax resistance.

The war in Vietnam turned many people into war tax resisters. Pacifist folksinger Joan Baez set an example as a tax resister early in the war years by withholding 60 percent of her income tax. She was instrumental in persuading countless others to follow her example. In April 1965, she explained:

We talk about democracy and Christianity — and we try out a new fire-bomb. We talk about peace and we move thousands more men and weapons into Vietnam. This country has gone mad. But I will not go mad with it. I will not pay for organized murder. I will not pay for the war in Vietnam.

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In 1972, life-long Quaker Meg Bowman wrote a letter to the IRS to explain why she had decided once again not to pay her federal income tax.

“Do you carefully maintain our testimony against all preparations for war and against participation in war as inconsistent with the teachings of Christ?” ― Query, Discipline of Pacific Yearly Meeting, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

The above quotation is from the book that is intended to give guidance to members for daily living. The book repeatedly stresses peace and individual responsibility.

It is clear to me that I am not only responsible for my voluntary actions, but also for that which is purchased with my income. If my income is spent for something immoral or if I allow others to buy guns with money I have earned, this is as wrong and offending to “that of God in every man” as if I had used that gun, or planned that bomb strike.

When I worked a five-day week it seemed to me that one-fifth of my income went to taxes. This would be equivalent to working one full day each week for the U.S. government. It seemed I worked as follows:

Monday for food.

I felt responsible to buy wholesome, nourishing items that would provide health and energy, but not too much meat or other luxuries, the world supply of which is limited.

Tuesday for shelter.

We maintain a comfortable, simply furnished home where we may live in dignity and share with others.

Wednesday for clothing,

health needs and other essentials and for recreation, all carefully chosen.

Thursday for support of causes.

I select with care those organizations which seem to be acting in such a way that responsibility to God and my brother is well served.

Friday for death,

bombs, napalm, for My Lai and overkill. I am asked to support a government whose main business is war.

Though the above is oversimplified, the point is clear. I cannot work four days a week for life and joy and sharing, and one day for death. I cannot pay federal taxes. I believe this decision is protected by law as a First Amendment right of freedom of religion. If I am wrong it is still better to have erred on the side of peace and humanity.

Sincerely,
Meg Bowman

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“The only thing of which I’m guilty is financially supporting the war in Southeast Asia against my better judgment until the year 1970,” said Martha Tranquilli when she was charged with the criminal offense of providing false information on her income tax forms.

At 7:30 a.m. on July 19, 1974, Tranquilli stood on the steps of the state capitol building in Sacramento, California and addressed the 100 supporters who had gathered. After a short Unitarian service held on her behalf, the aging white woman with a long gray braid told them in her calm, soft voice that she envisioned the day when scientists and workers would join in refusing to pay war taxes or do war work.

I was very much afraid of going to prison, but I think I have overcome that fear. I plan to read, write letters, and meditate as much as possible. I’m going to try my best to make an adventure out of this thing.

One after another, friends and strangers attending the rally came up to embrace Tranquilli and offer words of encouragement. After some spirited singing, they accompanied her to the federal building where she turned herself in to the federal marshals.

Hers was a media image made to order. “63-Year-Old Tax-Resisting Grandma Goes to Jail” shouted the headlines, and the war tax resistance movement didn’t mind the national publicity Martha Tranquilli generated.

Tranquilli was opposed to the Vietnam War and all the suffering the war was inflicting on the people of Vietnam, the people of the United States, and on the earth itself. She had therefore decided to withhold the 61 percent of her 1970 and 1971 income taxes (amounting to approximately $1,100) which she believed would go to pay for the war.

It was in Mound Bayou, Mississipi that Martha was tried and sentenced for tax fraud in May 1973. Like other war tax resisters, Tranquilli withheld her taxes by listing unusual dependents. Tranquilli listed seven peace organizations as dependents, including War Resisters League, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the American Friends Service Committee. (Another war tax resister in the 1970s claimed 3 billion dependents, explaining to the IRS that he felt the population of the earth depended on him and on others to refuse to pay war taxes. That case went to court and the tax resister was acquitted by a court of appeals of the charge of willfully filing a false and fraudulent W-4 form.)

Tranquilli was found guilty of tax fraud, but the judge was reluctant to send her to jail and indicated he’d give her a suspended sentence if she would only apologize and promise not to do it again. When Tranquilli refused this offer she was sentenced to nine months in prison and two years probation. The Mississippi Civil Liberties Union helped her appeal the case and, while the appeal was pending, she moved to California. Both the Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear her case.

On July 19, 1974, after making national headlines and being cheered on by supporters, Tranquilli began her stay at Terminal Island Prison in San Pedro, California. She quickly got involved in the life of the prison community…

After her release, Tranquilli wrote to a friend: “Be sure to say that I did not suffer in prison. It was a learning experience.” Tranquilli continued her tax resistance as well as her work for peace and justice until her death in 1981.

For Mason and Urie it was the Second World War. For Baez, Bowman, and Tranquilli it was the war in Vietnam. Today it is the U.S.-backed war against Nicaragua that motivates many new war tax resisters. In 1987 in Brooklyn, New York, tax resister Donna Mehle wrote an open letter to the IRS which was published in the local newspaper. She cited a religious basis for her tax resistance, protesting the war against Nicaragua.

The decision to come into conflict with the laws of my country is very difficult, but it is a decision rooted in my Christian faith. As a Christian, I am called to affirm life and reject violence… My commitment to tax resistance deepened in the past year when I travelled to Nicaragua. There I saw first hand the effect of my tax dollars ($100 million in Contra Aid 1986/87). I vowed to myself and to the Nicaraguan people I met that I would not be complicit in the U.S. backed Contra war, a war which targets innocent civilians and children.

Mehle informed the IRS that she intended to redirect the money she would have owed in taxes to an alternative fund “which supports life-affirming projects in New York City.”

In the 1980s, some women in the United States proposed a specifically feminist perspective on war tax resistance. In New York City, the Women’s Tax Resistance Assistance distributed a brochure which read in part:

We can’t keep working for disarmament, for women’s rights, including an end to lesbian oppression, and for racial equality while paying for a male-dominated government which impoverishes and exploits us now and threatens to eliminate the world’s future.

On tax day, April 15, 1985, this group performed street theater on the steps of Federal Hall. Some of the women dressed up as pieces of the federal budget “pie” while others, dressed as waitresses, explained the military menu to passersby and handed out leaflets.

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In Canada in 1982, sixty-eight-year-old Edith Adamson made headlines with her tax resistance. A lifelong pacifist and the coordinator of the Peace Tax Fund Committee of Canada, Adamson was one of approximately sixty Canadians who hoped to prevent the government from using their money to make war. Not that Adamson and the others wanted to keep the money for their own use: they wanted to redirect their dollars into a peace tax fund. With the adoption of the new Charter of Rights in the Canadian Constitution, there was a guarantee of freedom of conscience. “This means,” Adamson explained for news reporters, “that the government should provide a legal alternative to war taxes for those who object to killing on religious or ethical grounds.” Since the spring of 1982, Canadian war tax resisters — who call themselves “Peace Trusters” because they trust in peace, not war — have petitioned their government to develop a peace tax fund which would allow citizens the option of directing their money away from the military budget. They asked for a simple tax form which would allow taxpayers to check whether they want a portion of their taxes to go for warmaking or peacemaking.

In 1982, Edith Adamson explained her involvement:

In a nuclear war, you wouldn’t have a chance to be a conscientious objector. And, being an old lady, I wouldn’t be drafted, so it seemed the peace tax fund idea was a sound way to get at the root of the problem.

I not only want to exempt myself from the killing, but I want to try to influence the government to look at this problem — and other people as well to examine their consciences. A nuclear war would involve everybody and mean total destruction and I couldn’t just hide under my little exemption and stay alive.

This peace tax would be an extension of conscientious objector status for the military. It’s more appropriate today because war now depends more on money than on personnel; it only took twelve men to drop the bomb over Hiroshima, but it took millions, perhaps billions of taxpayers’ dollars in Canada, Britain, and the United States to develop that bomb.

By 1987 there were approximately 440 Peace Trusters in Canada who were withholding a portion of their taxes and putting that money into a peace tax fund. They had agreed to waive the interest on this money in order to pay the court fees involved in taking on a test case to establish the legality of the peace tax fund. The claimant Jerilynn Prior, a physician and Quaker originally from the United States where she was also a tax resister, now lives in British Columbia. In a January 1987 press release, Prior said that paying for war violates her freedom of conscience and religion.

This deep conviction rises from my commitment to work for peace. I try to live my life that way — as a mother, a physician, a teacher, a woman, a citizen of this world community. It would be hypocrisy to voluntarily allow my tax contribution to be used for war or the military or pamphlets about bomb shelters…

Each of us can work for peace in our own life, with our own resources, and in our own way. This tax appeal is the way I must work for peace.

Nigerian women used song in 1929 to ridicule, protest, and pressure a man and, by extension, the system he represented.

In November of that year, women streamed into Oloko, Nigeria from throughout Owerri Province. Word had been sent via the Ibo (Igbo) women’s network that it was time to “sit on” Okugo, the arrogant warrant chief of the Oloko Native Court. “Sitting on a man” was the figurative expression given a traditional process of punishment during which women gathered in front of a man’s home to sing songs which outlined the women’s grievances or insulted the offender. The women would dance and sing all day and all night, and sometimes, for the most serious and unrepentant offenders, give added impetus to their words by dismantling the roof of the hut until the man promised to cooperate.

On this November day, the women prepared as their mothers and grandmothers before them had prepared for the traditional settling of grievances: they bound their heads with ferns, smeared their faces with ashes, and put on the short loincloths tradition ordained. Each woman picked up a sacred stick wreathed with young palm fronds. These sacred sticks were necessary for invoking the spirit and power of their female ancestors. Thus attired, they massed on the district office to “sit on” Okugo until he got the message.

Just days before, the women had met in the market to discuss the new taxation rumors. They remembered that four years earlier, after promises to the contrary, the British had taken a census and begun collecting taxes from the men. The women were worried that taxes would soon be imposed upon them as well, especially since a district officer had ordered a new census in which they and their property would be counted. At the marketplace meeting the women had agreed to spread the alarm and act if any of them were approached for information.

And could anyone doubt their cause for alarm now? Just that morning Warrant Chief Okugo had approached Nwanyeruwa, a married woman. He had asked to count her goats and sheep. She had spat back an insult, “Was your mother counted?” In anger, Okugo had attacked Nwanyeruwa who had immediately set in motion the women’s network. Now the women were ready to act. Nwanyeruwa’s name became the watchword, Nwanyeruwa herself the catalyst.

Carrying their sacred sticks high, thousands of women marched on the district office. They danced. They sang songs of ridicule and protest, they chanted, and they demanded Okugo’s cap of office, taking from his head the symbol of his authority over them. A British officer who witnessed the event claimed that the cap, tossed into the crowd of women, “met the same fate as a fox’s carcass thrown to a pack of hounds.”

After several days of such protest, the women secured written assurances that they were not to be taxed. They also succeeded in having Okugo arrested, tried, and convicted of physical assault and of unnecessarily worrying the population.

When the news of this victory spread through the women’s networks, thousands of other women throughout the region organized to “sit on” their local warrant chiefs. The protest spread to Aba, a major trading center along the railway. The women in Aba, like those in Oloko, dressed in their traditional ferns, ashes, and loincloths and carrying the sacred sticks to invoke the mothers, gathered to dance, sing, and demand the cap of the warrant chief.

On 19 June 1873, Susan B. Anthony, convicted of voting-while-female, was sentenced by Justice Ward Hunt of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York to “pay a fine of one hundred dollars and the costs of the prosecution.”

This is Anthony’s response to the sentence:

May it please your honor, I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty. All the stock in trade I possess is a $10,000 debt, incurred by publishing my paper — The Revolution — four years ago, the sole object of which was to educate all women to do precisely as I have done, rebel against your man-made, unjust, unconstitutional forms of law, that tax, fine, imprison, and hang women, while they deny them the right of representation in the government; and I shall work on with might and main to pay every dollar of that honest debt, but not a penny shall go to this unjust claim. And I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of the old revolutionary maxim, that “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.”

She never did pay the fine or costs of prosecution. And despite some efforts to find assets to seize, the courts were never able to squeeze anything out of her.

And the following tale comes from Leo Schiff’s Toward a Nonviolence of Daily Living: The Life and Times of Juanita and Wally Nelson (1996):

The Nelsons continued to encounter the Internal Revenue Service in New Mexico. The IRS tracked them down in Ojo Caliente and tried to collect back taxes on Wally’s income from the Antioch Bookplate Company. Juanita recalls:

They came to Ojo Caliente, sixty miles north of Santa Fe, and tried to take our vehicles. One had completely gone kerplunk and was ready to be hauled off to the junkyard, but they didn’t know that, and the other one wasn’t much better. They came and placed stickers on them saying, “Property of the United States Government,” and then they got a tow truck to try and haul them away. I sat in front of one and Wally sat in front of the other, and finally the guy went away.

In other news:

• One of the tools the IRS uses against tax scofflaws like myself is to file a federal tax lien in the local court system of the scofflaw. This puts creditors and the local legal system on notice that the IRS intends to step in and assert its rights to seize money. This can make it difficult to get credit, and also makes it easier for the feds to seize anything awarded by the courts in lawsuits, probate resolution, etc. However (and this is where it gets interesting and newsworthy), filing a lien costs money. And the IRS thinks several California counties are charging them too much, and so they have started to refuse to pay. In response, some counties are refusing to process the IRS liens. Alas, this filing fee, and the standoff between the bureaucracies, also applies to paperwork to release a previously-filed lien. So this doesn’t always work in the scofflaw’s favor. Here’s some news coverage:
  • Marin Independent Journal
  • The Press Democrat
  • SFGate
• War tax resister Larry Bassett was interviewed on the Parallax Views podcast. Bassett is the subject of the recent documentary film The Pacifist and is responsible for the largest known individual act of war tax resistance, in terms of the amount of dollars resisted at once.
• Another Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report points out that reduced IRS resources means collapsing tax enforcement capability. “As more taxpayers experience little to no consequences for non-filing, the long-term impacts may include potential erosion of the voluntary compliance rate.”
• Via a review by Ariel Jurow Kleiman of Marjorie E. Kornhauser’s American Voices in a Changing Democracy: Women, Lobbying, and Tax 1924–1936, I learned of a 1935 “Meat Strike” meant to protest New Deal-era taxes on meat processing by boycotting meat purchases. The offensive tax was eventually thrown out as unconstitutional.
• The IRS issued an update to its estimate of the “tax gap” (the difference between how much tax people are supposed to pay and how much they do pay). The upshot is that they think little has changed: people pay about 84% of what the agency believes they owe. However, the last time I looked at the details of one of these “tax gap” reports, I noticed a lot of hand-waving, guesswork, and extrapolation, and only a little empirical data collection, so I would recommend taking these numbers with a grain of salt.
• More attacks on traffic ticket issuing radar cameras — in France & Italy; Mexico, Germany, and France; and France again. Revenue from the cameras is only half of what the government had hoped for and budgeted for in France this year, and the government has had to divert some of that money to installing more heavily-fortified cameras.
• The simple home of war tax resistance legends Juanita & Wally Nelson in Deerfield, Massachusetts has been restored as a “living memorial” to the inspirational couple.
• The 15^th International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns will be held November 28 through December 1 in Edinburgh. The last such conference was held in 2013 in Bogotá, Colombia.

Some recent links of note:

• One of the Extinction Rebellion tax resisters, Jane Rogers, tells her story. Excerpt:

  Money, even in tiny amounts, talks. If money — money from a growing number of tax rebels — refuses to go where the government is trying to put it, then together we can make a difference.

  That’s why I’m appealing to other self-employed writers to join me in this tax resistance.

  Rogers is part of “The Earth Tax Strike” group, which is holding its withheld taxes in an escrow account which they say they’ll pay when the government meets their demands.
• In South Kivu, the government locked a group of women traders out of the marketplace. The women have been refusing taxes there as part of a campaign to pressure the government to fix roads in the region.
• At the NWTRCC blog, Ruth Benn looks back at the creative tax resistance street theater of John-Ed Croft.
• Bob Bady discussed the lives of war tax resisters Juanita & Wally Nelson on KZFR (segment starts at 32:40).
• The human battle against traffic ticket robots continues, with recent attacks in the United States, Germany, France, and Martinique.

Some tabs that have passed across my browser in recent days:

• As part of the Biden administration’s plan to reduce the “tax gap,” they proposed that the government be given more visibility into people’s assets by requiring banks and other financial institutions to report to the IRS the amount of gross inflows and outflows from all accounts holding at least $600. There was pushback, both from opposition lawmakers and the banking industry. Now, it appears that this proposal has been dropped from the budget reconciliation package making its way through Congress. That’s not the final word, but it’s an encouraging sign.
• Avi Wolfman-Arent’s tweeted a series of tweets that form an interesting recap of some of the activism of war tax resisters Eroseanna Robinson and Juanita & Wally Nelson.
• The human war on traffic ticket robots continues, with radar cameras torched, smashed, spray painted, or otherwise disabled in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, England, and Martinique in recent weeks.

Some recent tax resistance links of interest:

• There’s a new NWTRCC newsletter out. Content includes:
  • IRS Circumvents “Statute of Limitations” by Ruth Benn. Normally, the IRS has ten years to collect unpaid taxes from you before they have to give up. Also, normally, if you decide to voluntarily pay your taxes, you can also decide for which tax year you are paying them, and by IRS policy, they’ll respect that. Ruth Benn’s tax resistance takes the form of refusing to pay her income tax, but voluntarily paying her self-employment tax. As the ten year statute of limitations approached on one of her unpaid years of income tax, the IRS tried to pull a fast one and used some sleight-of-hand to apply the money Benn was paying for the current year’s self-employment tax to the expiring year’s income tax amount. She is hoping to get the agency to change its mind and to respect its own policy, and promises to keep us up to date on how the red tape tangles.
  • Counseling Notes. Including a reminder that Social Security levies can continue past the ten-year statute of limitations date because the levy is considered “continuous” when it is first applied (not reapplied with each new Social Security check).
  • An announcement of the upcoming NWTRCC national gathering, which will have an international focus, featuring speakers from Money Rebellion (U.K.) and Grup Antimilitarista Tortuga (Spain).
  • News of a new regional war tax resistance group starting in western Massachusetts called Taxes for Peace New England.
• Democrats are keen to force banks to report how much their customers have put into and taken out of their accounts each year. They hope this will bring to the surface some of the money in the underground economy that the government has been frustrated when trying to tax. This proposal has gotten a lot of pushback, and has been an on-again / off-again part of the budget package currently oozing through Congress. The latest guesswork suggests that the Democrats may reactivate the proposal but restrict it to accounts with $10,000 or more in them.
• There’s a nice website that’s been established by the caretakers of The Nelson Homestead — the modest home of war tax resisters Juanita & Wally Nelson in Deerfield, Massachusetts. It has good recaps of the lives and activism of the Nelsons, including photos.
• Helen Thornley’s “No Vote, No Tax! The Women’s Tax Resistance League from 1909 to 1918” is featured in volume 4 of Contemporary Issues in Tax Research.
• Environmental activists hoping to stop a new incinerator in Edmonton, north London, are refusing to pay their council tax.
• The Biafra Nations League, which is trying to establish a break-away nation more representative of the Igbo people, has issued an ultimatum to oil firms in the area, ordering them to stop paying taxes to Cameroon and Nigeria, which currently claim sovereignty over the region.
• Argentina legalized abortion earlier this year. Now a group of Argentine legislators have proposed a law that would permit a sort of conscientious objection to taxpayer-involvement in abortion, of a similar sort to what is proposed in the “Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act” in the U.S.

  …a bill which, if approved, would allow conscientious tax objection to those who are against abortion for moral, ethical, religious, or scientific reasons. In essence, the practice of abortion would draw the necessary resources from a special fund, without using budget items or subsidies from the national treasury. The taxpayer could at this point expressly ask that the money paid in taxes not go to feed this fund, avoiding participating with their own money in the killing of children in the womb.

• The human war on traffic ticket robots continues, with robots taken out of service by human rebels in the U.S., Italy, France, and Germany & France in recent weeks.

Here are some excerpts from The Catholic News Archive concerning tax resistance, from sources other than Catholic Worker, from the 1947–71 span:

First, a typed news dispatch from “M. Massiani,” Paris Correspondent for the National Catholic Welfare Council (U.S.) News Service, dated 4 August 1947:

Priests and People of Vendee, France, Protest Tax on Christian Schools and Refusal of State Aid

Paris, July 28. — A delegation of 20,000 citizens from various parts of the Department of Vendee, one of the most Catholic regions of France, appeared in the town of La Roche-sur-Yon, where a number of priests were on trial for refusing to pay a tax exacted on entertainments and theatrical productions given to aid in supporting the free Christian schools of the Department.

A large group of priests and directors of Christian schools purposely decided to refuse payment of this tax and made public announcement of the decision in order to protest what is regarded by the people of the Vendee as a highly inequitable situation; the state taxing the people to support unneeded public schools, refusing to grant a subsidy to aid in maintaining the Christian schools, and at the same time taxing entertainments held to raise money for support of the Christian schools.

It is pointed out that in Vendee public schools are practically empty. The Christian schools, on the other hand, are educating the vast majority of the children of the region, saving the state more than 200 million francs in school taxes annually. Yet whenever Catholics hold a festival to raise funds for support of their schools, the state intervenes to collect part of the receipts.

It is hoped that in refusing to pay this tax, public attention will be called to the injustice and the need of a state subsidy to help support the Christian schools, such as is granted in other countries, including Belgium and Holland.

Bishop Antoine Cazaux of Lucon, who went to La Roche-sur-Yon to testify in behalf of the defendants, stated that his priests are neither rebels nor evaders, and that the court, in order to judge equitably, should take into consideration the unjust situation that exists with regard to education. Many thousands of people were in the streets outside the courtroom.

Decisions were rendered in only two of the cases, the defendants being acquitted on procedural grounds. The other cases were postponed. The action of the court caused anti-religious groups and newspapers, particularly in Paris, to demand that new suits be instituted and that the law be applied with severity.

In the Diocese of Lucon, two-thirds of the children attend the 461 primary religious schools. In six large districts, 13,757 children out of 15,183 are enrolled at the Christian schools. In two other districts, the number of pupils in the public schools is only three per cent of the total. In 41 settlements in the Department, with a population of 40,000, there are no public schools.

A National Catholic Reporter editorial (signed by editor Robert C. Hoyt) in the 3 January 1967 issue recommended that men refuse military service, concluding that in Vietnam, “we are killing people and destroying a culture without adequate justification, without a rationale that meets the minimum requirements of morality. That imposes obligations on all of us. We believe that anyone who despairs of a political solution has a right and duty to search for more effective ways, including civil disobedience and tax refusal. We have a responsibility to the rest of the world, to history, to God that nobody else can bear.”

In its 4 February 1970 issue, that paper published a lengthy article on the war tax resistance movement:

Protesters turn to taxes to fight against the war

By Gary MacEoin

Special to the National Catholic Reporter, NEW YORK— Protesters against the Vietnam war are turning to the withholding of taxes as a way of fighting against the war.

A national campaign against the payment of taxes used for the war is being organized and its goal is to involve “tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of people in conscientious tax refusal.”

The campaign is spearheaded by the War Tax Resistance, an organization founded last summer which draws support from a broad spectrum of pacifist groups. Its headquarters is in New York and it has offices in Philadelphia and Chicago.

Resistance spokesmen say they hope to have “at least a phone, an address and a contact person” in each of the principal 50 to 100 cities in the nation by mid-February. Groups organized around such regional centers are to focus their tax resistance efforts on demonstrations on March 2 and April 15.

“We picked the March 2 date more or less arbitrarily,” said Bradford Lyttle, clean-shaven and soft-spoken coordinator of War Tax Resistance. “That’s about the time that thousands of accountants all over the country hang out signs offering to help prepare tax returns. We want to provide an option for those who want not to pay.”

The choice of April 15 is more obvious, he said. “It is both the final day for filing tax returns and the start of the Spring offensive of the demonstrations against the war in Vietnam.”

Lyttle, 42, works out of an office in Lower Manhattan (339 Lafayette Street). It is also the home of the New York GI Coffeehouse, the Jewish Peace Fellowship, the Catholic Peace Fellowship, the War Resisters League, Win magazine (hippie-pacifist), and Liberation magazine (David Dellinger’s voice). Between them, they occupy the two top floors of a three-story cold-water walk-up not far from the Catholic Worker.

Organized resistance to paying war taxes is not new, dating from 1948, Lyttle said. The War Tax Resistance is trying to give the idea broader appeal by modifying the totally pacifist position that its forerunners had adopted.

Lyttle, who himself is a pacifist, said the new approach was developed by a New York teacher, Norma Becker, who recruited a group of sponsors which included Joan Baez, Noam Chomsky, Tom Cornell, Dorothy Day, Dave Dellinger, Allen Ginsberg, Stewart and Charlotte Meacham, Grace Paley and Dr. Benjamin Spock.

“The result,” says Bradford Lyttle, “was a new emphasis. Instead of stressing the total pacifist tradition as the others had done, we decided to concentrate on two more immediate and obvious reasons: the horrors of the war in Vietnam, and the misuse of the taxpayers’ money by the government to the extent that it was neglecting national priorities.

“And instead of calling on sympathizers to pay no taxes whatever, we appealed to them to make a token withholding, if only $5, without of course ceasing to urge those who had the moral courage to go further.”

War Tax Resisters chose as their prime targets the 10 per cent surtax and the 10 per cent federal excise tax on telephone service — two taxes more clearly linked to Vietnam than any others.

Both War Tax Resistance and other organizations distribute literature explaining the various ways — some legal, some doubtful, some illegal — for nonpayment of federal taxes. The first War Tax Resistance leaflet was prepared for the antiwar demonstration in Washington, D.C., last Nov. 15, and 10,000 copies were handed out there.

“The act of war tax resistance creates a confrontation between the government and the conscience of the citizens,” this pamphlet states. “We believe that the right of conscientious objection to war belongs to all people, not just to those of draft age… Do whatever makes sense to your conscience. But do it.”

Among the ways to avoid paying taxes, the first is to earn an income so low as not to be taxable. This means for the single person under 65, an earned income of less than $900 annually. Yet a considerable number of pacifists choose this method.

Another form of protest is to refuse to pay the percentage of the tax that goes for war. More than two-thirds of the federal budget pays for wars, past, present and future. This is the amount some withhold. Others refuse to pay the proportion of the federal budget (23 per cent) directly allocated to Vietnam, while others hold back a token amount.

According to Internal Revenue Service figures, 73 million Americans paid their income taxes in full last year, while 1,025 refused to pay all or part in protest against the Vietnam war. The 1,025 protesters was an increase from 592 the previous year.

IRS counted 10,511 cases of refusal to pay the telephone tax in the first nine months of 1969, down from 14,396 in the same period of 1968. Several factors combine to make the telephone tax the attractive target it has become.

For one thing, the American Telephone and Telegraph Co. has handled the situation with kid gloves. So long as the protester makes it clear to the company with each payment that the amount withheld is the tax portion, it will not cut off a phone. Printed forms are made available by the resistance groups to facilitate this notification. What the telephone company does is simply to report to IRS the fact of nonpayment and the amount.

IRS also is anxious to keep the situation as cool as possible, but it wants at the same time to maintain whatever pressure is necessary to dissuade the hesitant from joining the movement. Back in 1967, the first step was to send the defaulter a “notice of preliminary assessment” which enabled him to demand a hearing. Because of the number of cases involved and the small amount in each, the IRS quickly eliminated this step and moved immediately to Form 17-A or some other “notice of final assessment.” This notice contains a threat to seize property to collect a debt.

Ralph Di Gia of War Resisters League is one who has been through this process several times.

Early in 1969, for example, the IRS computer at Andover, Mass., sent him Form 17 demanding payment of $2.25 owed as telephone tax. Next a New York agent wrote him, then called on him in his New York office. After checking with Di Gia’s landlord and the building superintendent to establish his political views, the agent tried to place a lien on his salary at the War Resisters League, but the League refused to cooperate.

After another confrontation with Di Gia, which merely established that it was “the principle,” not the $2.25, that was at issue on both sides, the agent located Di Gia’s bank account and collected the $2.25 plus 6 per cent interest. Under the IRS code, it can take money from a bank account without a court order in payment of taxes due by the account holder.

Apparently the discovered account was then fed into the computer, because another section of IRS moved quickly to seize the entire balance in payment of income tax. And as of last month, the IRS located a savings account recently opened by Di Gia in another bank and collected yet another telephone tax bill. But Di Gia insists that he doesn’t mind.

“The issue isn’t withholding money from the government,” he says. “They’re going to get it ultimately. But I made a few collection agents think about what their job’s about, and now IRS is going to have to realize that there are people who aren’t afraid to resist. They got the tax, but they had to come and get it, like when the agents had to go to the fields in France for collection.”

Unpaid taxes, whether telephone or income, can result not only in seizure from a bank account but also a lien on salary or the attachment and sale by auction of some property, usually an automobile.

In addition, some banks make a service charge — as high as $10, reportedly each time a lien is placed on an account, and the resisters suspect that IRS is pressuring banks to do this as a deterrent. Such a fee every month would make telephone tax refusal impractical for most people. But actually, the load on the IRS is such that it usually moves against any given individual only at much longer intervals.

Everyone who refuses to pay any taxes he owes is actually exposing himself to heavy penalties, and the resistance literature spells out this danger very openly. Simple “willful failure to pay” is punishable by fine up to $10,000 and a year in jail, plus the cost of prosecution. Similar or greater penalties are available for a variety of related offenses.

Although the offense of counseling or urging others not to pay taxes would seem greater than the simple act of withholding, the law on this point is somewhat ambiguous and apparently has never been tested in the courts.

There are few, if any, cases of conscientious tax refusers being jailed for not paying taxes or filing returns. Most of the small number of cases on record have resulted from related non-cooperation with the courts, such as ignoring a court order to disclose financial records.

In addition, it would appear that prosecutions have been initiated by local collectors who did not first check with headquarters. Current IRS policy on this issue apparently stops short of court action.

The most distinguished American to go to jail for refusal to pay taxes was Henry David Thoreau, the essayist, poet and naturalist. He spent only one night in confinement, because a neighbor paid the tax, but the experience inspired his essay on Civil Disobedience, espousing the doctrine of passive resistance. It deeply influenced Gandhi and has become the bible of the resistance movement. One passage is found to be particularly relevant by today’s resisters:

“When… a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the Country to overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.” The reference is to the Mexican War of 1846–48.

About half a dozen have been jailed in the past 20 years. Juanita Nelson was arrested in Philadelphia in 1959, threatened with a year in jail and $1,000 fine if she did not disclose certain financial information, but in fact was held only some hours.

Maurice McCrackin, arrested in Cincinnati in 1958, was given a mental test, imprisoned “indefinitely” on a contempt charge, then sentenced to six months and a $250 fine. James Otsuka got 90 days and a $140 fine in Indianapolis, in 1949. Eroseanna Robinson, sentenced to a year and a day in Chicago in 1960, was released unconditionally after 93 days. Walter Gormley got 7 days in Cedar Rapids in 1960.

And in the first such imprisonment in several years, Neil Haworth of New London, Conn., got 60 days in 1968 for refusal to produce records. He had served six months in 1959 for “committing civil disobedience at a missile site” near Omaha. And in 1962, he was a crew member of Everyman Ⅲ, a boat which sailed to Leningrad to protest the Russian nuclear tests.

Those who have refused to pay federal taxes and have got away with it include the Catholic Worker settlement houses and the settlement house of the New England Committee for Non-Violent Action. “We pay local taxes,” says Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker, “and we let the IRS people examine our records, but we pay them nothing.” The New England group says that IRS has spent thousands of dollars going through their bills and receipts, without collecting a penny.

War Tax Resistance is now urging citizens “to sue the government to refund all your taxes on the grounds that the taxes have been used for illegal and immoral purposes.” The main value of such suits to date has been the publicity.

Professor Donald Kalish, chairman of the philosophy department at UCLA, filed a suit to recover his telephone tax but it was dismissed by the District Court. He appealed, and the appellate court has agreed to hear his appeal.

The most important case to date is that of Walter C. Pietsch, of Rego Park, N.Y., a 33-year-old administrative employee in a hospital. Last year, he instituted “a class action” for an injunction to enjoin IRS from collecting the 10 per cent surtax and all other taxes used to propagate the war, and also for a declaration that the Vietnam war was unconstitutional. A class action, if successful, would provide the same remedy for all taxpayers.

Pietsch, who served in Korea, “is not against all wars, just this one.” The surtax he withheld was $190.84. “The amount is insignificant,” he said, “It’s the principle I’m fighting for.” After a preliminary hearing in the Brooklyn federal district court on Dec. 19, written arguments were submitted on Jan. 2, and on Jan. 6 the case was dismissed on a motion by the defendants. An appeal was filed immediately.

Although the Vietnam war is the direct issue on which tax resisters are concentrating, many of them insist that the campaign has escalated into something much bigger — the war mentality behind much of United States foreign policy. “Maybe it’s a hang-up,” says Ted Webster, administrator of the Roxbury War Tax Scholarship fund, “but I personally have a great feeling of urgency, it seems the logic behind bombing North Vietnam can be so easily applied to China. The influence of the Pentagon on policy, and the political expediency of yielding to it seems so obvious, I see the need to rapidly escalate resistance, or there will be a greatly expanded war — maybe with China — within one to three years.”

Another National Catholic Reporter article, from the 10 April 1970 issue, asked “In the name of God, how did Milwaukeeans get so radical?” A section of it covered tax resisters:

One area in which a number of community members are discussing is tax resistance. Some say they have claimed as many exemptions as were needed to keep from paying any federal taxes used to finance the war.

[Richard W.] Zipfel, who is defense committee chairman for the Chicago 15, Feit and Father Robert W. Dundon, a Jesuit, have sent a letter to the Wisconsin Telephone Co. stating they are refusing to pay the federal telephone tax on their phone bills because “we can no longer tolerate our nation spending more than $75 billion on the military while our cities die.”

The letter, dated Jan. 7, added that “even if the present war ended, our policies would quickly create another Vietnam.”

Their resistance gesture is significant, they said, because the tax was argued through Congress as a specifically Vietnam war tax. They have reserved a reply from the utility saying their letter was being forwarded to the government.

“I do believe in the legitimacy of the magistrates,” [Michael] Cullen said. “In paying property taxes, I believe in the state.

“I’ll render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but when Caesar decides to take what is God’s, or if Caesar decides to look like God or act like God, I won’t render to Caesar.

“You only render to what is legitimate and what is human, and what is for the common good. War destroys humans.”

Milwaukee’s Casa Maria Catholic Worker House still looks to be something like a hotbed of war tax resistance, at least relative to the current national lull. Lincoln Rice of Casa Maria is the current NWTRCC coordinator. I recognize the names of war tax resisters Roberta Thurstin and Don Timmerman among their volunteers as well.

From the Pittsburgh Catholic, 17 April 1970:

Five say they won’t pay taxes

Five local clergymen handed in their income tax forms at the Federal Bldg. downtown on Wednesday with the announcement they were withholding a portion in protest to the Vietnam War.

Joining them in the protest at the Internal Revenue Office there were several dozen local lay members of War Tax Resistance, an organization whose members carried out withholding actions in a number of cities Wednedsay (April 15), the last day for filing income tax returns. It is headquartered locally at 3601 Blvd. of the Allies.

The clergymen issued a statement denouncing the Vietnam war as immoral and stating other means of protest had been futile. “Now we must do more than talk. The time is now that we must act,” they said.

They included three priests active in civil rights causes here: Fr. Donald C. Fisher of St. Francis de Sales, McKees Rocks; Fr. Donald W. McIlvane, St. Richard’s, Hill District; and Fr. John O’Malley of St. Joseph’s, Manchester. Also taking part was Fr. Bernard Survil of St. Hedwig in Smock, Greensburg Diocese.

Protestant clergy included Rev. Oscar L. Arnall, a Lutheran, Rev. Thomas Whitcroft, an Episcopalian, and Rev. William S. Richard, a Presbyterian, signed the statement but weren’t present.

The clergymen announced they were withholding 25 per cent of their income tax, the proportion of the national tax that is estimated goes for the Vietnam war, they said. Some said they would pay the money into local community action programs suffering because of the amounts given to the Vietnam war.

“We are conscious of our obligation to pay taxes, but we are equally conscious of our obligation before God to refuse to cooperate with evil,” the clergymen said.

The National Catholic Reporter, in its 19 March 1971 issue, printed the following letter from Robert Calvert of War Tax Resistance:

Tax resisters suggest: “Stop paying for it”

To The Editors:

Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos… young people by the hundreds of thousands are rebelling in disgust and anger against the squandering of lives and resources in an immoral and illegal war. They are risking their freedom, careers and often their lives to protest and resist what they see to be wrong.

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 possible our cooperation in a federal tax program geared to death more than life.

For every dollar which the administration expects to spend in fiscal year 1971, 64.8 per cent will go for wars — past, present and future. Of this amount, 48.4 per cent will go for current military expenditures, including Vietnam. (The administration has not revealed the exact costs of the Indochina war.) Another 17 per cent will go to health, education and welfare; 18.2 per cent for other expenditures.

The deadline for paying income taxes is close, April 15. Many who read this letter will owe the federal government money. Don’t pay. War tax resistance is being supported by numerous civil rights, anti-poverty and peace organizations in our call to help end the war by widespread tax refusal. Widespread tax refusal does more than force the government to spend much money to try to collect unpaid taxes. It confronts the government with the political fact of massive non-cooperation with its war-making policies.

We need to dramatize war tax resistance and to expand it from an act of individual conscience to a nationwide demonstration of collective civil disobedience.

On April 2–4, the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice — which includes such groups as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Welfare Rights organization, the American Friends Service committee and the Fellowship of Resistance — is calling for a nationwide “Tribute in Action to Martin Luther King.” The theme is “Freedom from Hunger, War and Oppression”; the event will be observed by hunger marches, fasts, teachins, demonstrations and religious services.

War tax resisters will relate to these events in a real way. We are asking people to refuse to pay $10 to $50 or more of their federal income taxes, and to publicly turn this money over to a local community group on April 2, 3 or 4. We will thus take our tax money out of the hands of the government and put it into the hands of the people. If we work hard thousands of dollars can be rechanneled to the people. We can not wait for the government to change priorities. We must change them ourselves.

Find out what actions are being planned in your city or region and build a demonstration dramatizing the transfer of funds to useful community programs. A possible action: Rally at the IRS office where people put their tax money into a container of some sort. The money is then carried to the main event and is turned over to the designated local community group.

There also will be actions at Internal Revenue Service offices across the country on April 15. We will publicly submit our 1040 forms to the IRS with all or part of our taxes deducted. This is a simple action and serves as an extension of the April 2–4 observance.

If no action appears to be under way in your community, contact the nearest war tax resistance center or the People’s Coalition office (1029 Vermont avenue, Washington, D.C.). Information about the WTR center nearest you, and about other forms of tax resistance, may be obtained from War Tax Resistance, 339 Lafayette street, New York, N.Y. 10012; telephone (212) 477‒2970.

Thousands are already engaged in these acts of peaceful, conscientious civil disobedience. If you engage in any of the above acts of civil disobedience we strongly urge you to write a letter to the IRS setting forth the reasons for the steps you have taken. Keep a copy.

Although there is a penalty for openly refusing to pay federal taxes (Section 7203 of the Internal Revenue Code — a fine of up to $10,000 and up to a year in jail, plus the costs of prosecutions) no war tax resisters have been prosecuted under this law. The only war tax resisters arrested have been those who have filed “fraudulent” W-4 forms, refused to file any income tax form, refused to present financial statements to the courts when ordered to do so. There have been prosecutions and convictions based on Section 7203 but none for openly refusing to pay for conscientious reasons, as far as we know.

We invite all Americans to join us in some form of war tax refusal. We must now take a stand by refusing to support the governments destructive policies with our bodies, our skills and our money.

Robert Calvert
New York, N.Y.

Editor’s note: The writer is a member of the Working Committee of WTR. Among sponsors of the organization are Dorothy Day, Joan Baez, David Dellinger, Arthur and Cathy Melville, the Rev. Richard J. Neuhaus, Rabbi Michael A. Robinson, Noam Chomsky, Peter Seeger and Theodore Roszak.

An op-ed from Eugene C. Bianchi, in the 28 May 1971 National Catholic Reporter:

“Maybe next year…”

To resist or not to resist

Two TV tableaus recently jarred me into fresh appreciation of how my tax money fosters the insanity of Vietnam.

In one film, helicopter gunships swooped down on a truck convoy; thousands of rounds of computer-directed cannon fire pierced the night. There goes at least one year’s withholding tax, I thought. But the commentator saw this military exercise as a demonstration of admirable killing efficiency. It was so orderly and precise; nothing out of place, except perhaps some Vietnamese flesh and bone.

The second scene showed men carefully loading bombs into B52s. The calm reporter noted how effectively these marvels of American know-how worked. The big bombs tore open huge craters and sent waves of damaging concussion. The antipersonnel bombs spewed thousands of body-ripping nails. As I viewed the distant puffs of smoke, I mused about how many income tax returns it took to accomplish such a feat.

It’s appalling how resigned we are to this insane use of our financial resources. Yet my and your tax money is closely related to the terrible statistic from the Kennedy subcommittee about 325,000 Indochinese, civilian deaths in recent years. Many more are maimed and driven from their homes. When I drop that IRS envelope through the red and blue bomb bay of the mail box, I wonder how many sad faces I’ve put behind the fences of relocation camps, how many children I’ve separated from parents. If Mr. Nixon is a prime candidate for war crimes according to the Nuremberg principles, we have all in some degree had our hands on the tax trigger.

Yet my courage rarely equals my insights. I also tell myself that some tax money goes for good causes. But the spirit of Ammon Hennacy, that holy maverick against war, won’t let me be content with such dodges. The whole Catholic Worker crowd stares up at me from their penny paper. I finally summon up the mouselike courage of refusing to pay the telephone war tax. At least that will cost the government more in time and bother than they’ll eventually get from me.

Maybe next year around income tax time, I’ll be brave enough to risk other concrete gestures. The words of Thoreau won’t go away: “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.”

War tax resistance, though only a small act before the mighty state, could have broad effects if it became more widespread. It has the educational effect of conviction in action. Such tax resistance is illegal; but the war, by an ever-growing consensus, is enormously more illegal and immoral. Even token refusal to pay war taxes confronts the government with a concrete statement about its brutal policies. Tax resistance also awakens conscience to active non-complicity, to a new level of sensibility. For the situation is overwhelmingly clear: Tax money can be as killing as the weaponry it buys.

Since some risk is involved in tax resistance, it is worth reading a brochure or two about it. These can be easily obtained from a number of peace action groups, such as the War Tax Resistance (339 Lafayette St., New York 10012; or War Resisters League-West, 833 Haight St., San Francisco 94117). A Catholic group, Ammon’s Tax Associates (Box 1744, Indianapolis, Ind. 46204) is striving to awaken church institutions to their responsibilities for supporting conscientious tax resisters, as an extension of the church’s respect for conscientious objectors.

Perhaps the American church will end its complicity of silence with the warmakers when enough of us try to stop our own complicity in war taxes.