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a survey of tactics of historical tax resistance campaigns →
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The Bijou Community
In the middle of an article about nonviolent resistance, Evan Weissman mentions the Bijou community, which I otherwise know nothing about but which sounds pretty wonderful from this description — I’d like to know more:
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.
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:
Tax resister “insurance”
For instance, the Breton Association in
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
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.”
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.
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.”
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.”
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.
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.
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).
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.
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-gatherersand 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.
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.
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.
Maintain solidarity in the face of divide-and-conquer tactics
In
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.
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.
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 , 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.
Protests, rallies, pickets, and the like have been a part of many
large-scale tax resistance campaigns.
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.”
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.
Form groups for mutual support & coordinated decision-making
Here there are too many examples to list.
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.”
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.
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.”
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.”
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?
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.
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 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 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 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’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
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!”
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.
This is the twenty-fifth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal
of the (Old) Mennonite Church.
The debate about war tax resistance continued at a simmer through
, and by the end of the year it was clear that
the Mennonite Church would have to have the same debate about withholding taxes
from its employees’ salaries that had occupied the General Conference Mennonite
Church .
Joel Kauffmann’s “Pontius” comic strip was a regular feature in
Gospel Herald. This example comes from the
issue.
The Center for Discipleship and the Peace Studies Program at Goshen College
will cosponsor a seminar on “Conscientious Objection to Military Taxes” on
Goshen’s campus, .
The program will feature an Internal Revenue Service representative addressing
the legalities of withholding military taxes; discussion of improved
communication between tax withholders, the government, and the church; and a
look at various patriotic and biblical objections raised by nonwithholders.
The purpose of the seminar is not to foster debate on the morality of tax
withholding; rather, persons who are already withholding taxes or who are
seeking additional information on the issue are encouraged to attend. In lieu
of a registration fee, participants will be asked to make a $10 tax-deductible
contribution.
I wonder if you could rope an
IRS
spokesperson into addressing a war tax resistance conference today.
The included an article that
summed up the state of the war tax issue in the Mennonite community. It’s the
same article that appeared in The Mennonite around
the same time and that I reproduced here when I was going through those
archives (see ♇ 4 August 2018 — search
for “Military taxes — continuing agenda in 1984”).
War tax resistance foe D.R. Yoder wrote
a commentary
for the issue in which he
argued that tax resistance was ineffective because the government can just rely
on borrowing or seigniorage if it runs out of tax money, which means ultimately
the costs not paid by war tax resisters just get shifted to other people, which
isn’t very Christian.
One stewardship issue that is seldom brought up, although one of the most
important, is how we use our tax dollars. Becky and I are comfortable in
paying local and state taxes but have come to feel that we cannot pay any of
our federal income taxes, given their use in fueling the arms race. We note
the irony that while the average Mennonite family gives the church $430 a year
for peacemaking it pays the
IRS
$1,500 for its militarism. A 4 percent tithe for the church, and a 10 percent
tithe for the government! Our response is to reduce our taxable income and
refuse to pay anything, choosing instead to use this money for serving the
kingdom. Friends of ours have taken other options such as matching their
giving to the
IRS with
their giving to the church, refusing to pay a percentage of their tax dollars,
enclosing a letter of protest with their payment. We feel that how we use our
money is a crucial test of our loyalties and commitments and must become a
stewardship issue for this generation.
Imagine with us what could happen if we Mennonites were to take the steps outlined in books like Beyond the Rat Race.
Imagine if we were to give as much to the church as we give the IRS, or if we gave our tax dollars to the work of the church, withholding them from military use?
I want to make a few comments… especially on the last part concerning the
average Mennonite family giving “a 4 percent tithe for the church, and a 10
percent tithe for the government.” I cannot understand how he can withhold all
income taxes from Uncle Sam in light of the fact the
U.S. government is
very reasonable in its demands. The government allows us to give 50 percent to
charitable causes without too many restrictions, though there are some.
Thus I ask, until we give 50 percent to charity which the government allows,
who is responsible if it is not spent right? Peters talked about the tithe for
the church. Personally I believe many of us should give much more. Just
because we feel our government does not spend all our tax money right does not
give us the right to withhold all or part of our tax money.
There was a passing mention of war tax resistance at the Bijou Community in
a article:
[Esther (Leatherman)] Kisamore, formerly of Pennsylvania, is a member of a
Christian community, called Bijou House, consisting of 13 persons. There are
four other Mennonites in this house community; the next largest group
represented is Roman Catholic. The group shares economic resources and lives
below the taxable income level as a way of avoiding the payment of war taxes.
The issue contained
a pro-taxpaying op-ed from Harold Hartzler.
Christians should pay taxes gladly, he wrote, citing Romans 13. Taxes help our
terrific government; we shouldn’t try to lower our taxes but should indeed pay
even more than is required; the government should simplify taxes and broaden
the tax base, and should increase taxes even if that makes things “unbearable.”
Alongside that commentary was this one, credited to Call to
Peacemaking:
Praying and paying: a dilemma
The question begins to sound like a cliché, we’ve heard it so often: Can we go
on praying for peace while paying for war?
But the question won’t go away. Every year in the United States we are
reminded of the reality of military preparations when the president presents
the proposed budget to congress. This year the figures reach almost beyond our
imaginations, near a trillion in total spending with more than a third for
war. A military expenditure of that enormity was once associated only with the
waging of all-out war. Now it is only preparation for war, plus minor (?)
interventions here and there.
We only need to reflect for a moment on the consequences of the kind of war
we’re preparing for to know in our hearts that the government is buying us
less security. That’s the purpose of the state? To brandish a nuclear sword
which guarantees that if used it will fulfill the prophecy of Jesus: “They who
take the sword will perish with the sword.”
Between the time the budget is unveiled and when we can no longer delay the
moment of truth with the Internal Revenue Service is usually a little less
than three months. Plenty of time to agonize whether what Caesar is demanding
to support the arms race is really what is due to Caesar.
An increasing number of concerned persons recognize the dilemma of praying and
paying and are seriously trying to decide how to resist. A leaflet, “Stages of
Conscientious Objection to Military Taxes,” by Bill Strong at the Philadelphia
Yearly Meeting of Friends and Linda Schmidt of Mennonite Central Committee
describes what some have done in response to the question of taxes for war.
The leaflet is available from New Call to Peacemaking, Box 1245, Elkhart,
IN…
Milo and Viola Stahl presented bags of groceries to a staff person at the
regional office of the Internal Revenue Service, Staunton,
Va.
Reporter Steve Shenk brought this news in the issue:
As tax season rolls around, taxpayers are faced with many facts and figures
that concern the conscience as well as the wallet. For some Christians payment
of federal income tax — the portion which goes to finance the military — is a
dilemma.
This year a group called Christians for Peace, consisting of largely
Mennonites from the Harrisonburg,
Va., area, gathered at the
regional office of the Internal Revenue Service in Staunton,
Va., on
, 1984. They came to register their concern about the amount of
income tax money which is used for military purposes. Instead of bringing
their normal checks, they came with a truckload of food for the
IRS.
The food was purchased with money that the participants withheld from their
tax payments. “We seek to follow Jesus’ call
to be peacemakers by directing our resources away from the instruments of
death and toward life,” explained Wendell Ressler, one of the organizers of
the event. “We cannot reconcile Jesus’ call to love our enemies with our
government’s call to help pay for their destruction.”
The group began the witness with a short worship service in front of the
IRS
building. There was a short mime skit entitled The Global Garden Deli which
visualized their feelings about paying for military expenditures. The theme
song, “I Am Not Willing to Buy Your Bombs, Sam,” sung to the melody “I Have
Decided to Follow Jesus,” was heard between prayers and testimony of the group
members.
Wendell Ressler then read a short statement of purpose to the small crowd of
onlookers. He explained that this action was really a pledge to reexamine the
effects of the group’s lifestyle on other people. “We do not wish to be
protected if it means others are killed in our names. We gladly pay taxes
which are used to enrich the lives of others, but it is immoral for our
government to play Russian roulette with the future of our planet.”
Christians for Peace members, Milo and Viola Stahl, then entered the
IRS
building to offer their bags of groceries in payment for the military portion
of the income tax. They were cordially received by the representative for the
regional director of the
IRS,
but told that the
IRS
could not accept the bread. When the Milo Stahls asked the representative what
the IRS
would like them to do with the food, the representative replied, “That is your
prerogative, but I cannot accept it.”
The food was then presented to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank,
Inc., a nonprofit
community organization that distributes 220,000 pounds of food each month to
hungry people in the area. Executive Director Phil Grasty was careful to note
that he did not want to take a political stand on the issue, but he was “happy
to receive the food.” Over 1,000 pounds of canned goods were donated to the
organization.
The group repeatedly tried to explain that their intention was not to harass
the IRS
personnel. Instead their goal was to represent their concern as a Christian
witness. “The reason that I am here,” said Christian for Peace member Nate
Barge, “is that for me it is an act of faith. I am trying to bring evangelism
and social action together.”
The event attracted passersby to stop and watch the demonstration. One of
them, Dave Murphy, a member of the Staunton Christian Fellowship Baptist
Church, said, “I think it is a nice effort on their part to present what they
believe about military spending… after all it is the American way to speak
out. I am particularly pleased that they are giving the food to the Food Bank
where it will do some good.”
Members of the Christians for Peace group tried to donate food to the
IRS,
but it was refused, so they turned the food over to the Blue Ridge Area Food
Bank.
Two years after Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen’s decision to withhold
half of his federal income taxes, a religious “war tax” movement is growing
rapidly. Its numbers are being swelled both by Hunthausen imitators and by
creative new forms of protest by people who are upset by the nuclear arms race
but reluctant to put themselves outside the law.
According to new Internal Revenue Service figures, the type of protest
popularized by the Seattle archbishop has increased nearly fivefold in the
last three years, while alternative forms of protest, some of them revived
from the Vietnam War era, have also become more frequent. Among the latter
protesters are people who refuse to pay a small, token amount of tax, or
withhold federal excise taxes from their monthly telephone bills. Others file
a return and write “paid under protest” on the check, or file for a refund of
military taxes already paid. Increasing charitable giving to reduce the amount
of income subject to tax, and changing one’s lifestyle to live below a taxable
income level, are also gaining acceptance. Many religious groups, in addition,
are pressing Congress for legislation that would allow “conscientious
objectors” to divert all their taxes to “peaceful” purposes.
The Mennonite Central Committee held its executive committee meeting in
:
Executive Secretary Reg Toews reported that three staff members have requested
that
MCC
no longer withhold the military portion of the federal withholding tax from
their paychecks.
Member Larry Kehler of Winnipeg,
Man., noted that "this is a
very volatile issue in our constituency." It was observed that
MCC
is in a unique position, since it represents a wide coalition of conferences,
who come to this issue with various degrees of intensity. “Just to discuss
this issue is to raise concern in many groups,” Toews said.
The executive committee stated their intention to take seriously the request
from the staff members, as well as constituency concerns. They asked
administrative staff to work on a plan, to be discussed by the committee in
, concerning how this issue should
receive broader testing.
A letter to the editor
from Steven G. Gehman ()
rejected on scriptural grounds the “witnessing” justification of war tax
resistance, but left open the possibility that it was justified on the grounds
of conscientious objection to participation in war:
I have struggled with the war tax issue and have not reached any definite
answer. I cannot feel comfortable knowing that a great portion of my taxes is
devoted to killing or creating the potential to kill, and knowing that Jesus
commands us to have no part in war. But neither am I comfortable with war tax
resistance. There are no records of Jesus opposing taxes to the Roman military
machine. In Romans 13:1–5 Paul states his view that the government bears the
sword as God’s servant. First Peter 2:13 gives us the injunction to submit to
human authority.
I do not think either or both of these passages in themselves yield a final
answer to the war tax issue. They do help to sharpen the questions. If the
government bears the sword as God’s servant, total disarmament cannot be the
goal or the reason for war tax resistance. Neither is the desire for an
effective witness to the government sufficient reason to resist payment since
we are commanded to submit to human authority.
The question of whether or not payment of war taxes is right hinges on whether
or not payment of these taxes constitutes participation in a killing machine
to an extent forbidden by the example and teachings of Jesus. What effect does
current military technology have on our response to this issue?
Michio Ohno, pastor of the Mennonite congregation in Toke outside Tokyo, told
of his pilgrimage which included being a pastor in the United Church before
becoming a Mennonite. He also made an eloquent appeal for a peace stance and
the nonpayment of military taxes.
J. Ward Shank, in a
“Update on the peace movement in the Mennonite Church”,
criticized the modern centrality of anti-war activism among Mennonites,
suggesting that it had displaced more basic Christian themes. “Peace is a fruit
of the gospel, not its basis, or necessarily the heart of it,” he wrote. The
article only mentioned war tax resistance in passing, but of course was
relevant to it. It prompted a great deal of back-and-forth in the letters to
the editor column.
The Mennonite Church’s general board’s
“council on faith, life, and strategy”
met in . It turned out that
the Mennonite Church, like its cousins the General Conference Mennonite Church,
had employees who wanted their church to stop withholding war taxes from their
paychecks. This time around, the Mennonite Church wouldn’t have the luxury
of playing spectator in the debate:
One of the stickier issues arose out of a request from a couple employed by
Mennonite Board of Missions that federal income taxes not be withheld from
their paychecks. They want to stop paying the portion of their taxes that goes
to the military. The council tried to clarify the issue by raising underlying
questions such as “Shall a church perform a function on behalf of the state,
in this instance collecting taxes?” and “Should a church institution place
employees in a position where they do not have the option to follow their
conscience on this issue?” Vigorous discussion led to two recommendations: (1)
That this question might be considered in the forthcoming Conversations on
Faith Ⅱ meeting. (2) That a task force be appointed by the General Board.
I noticed that tax resistance was on the agenda at the General Conference
Dialogue on Faith
in also, but there wasn’t
anything meaty in the article worth reprinting here.
