When Ruth Benn of Brooklyn filed her federal income taxes , she left out an important element: the check.
“In good conscience I cannot pay this money to the US government,” Ms. Benn wrote in a letter to the IRS that accompanied a completed, but unpaid, 1040 form.
“I do not want my tax dollars to be used for killing and war.”
Jim Allen, a retired Army social worker now teaching at St. Louis University, knows he is breaking the law by withholding some of his income taxes.
But he and his wife, Jan, became fed up with the billions of dollars spent to fund the war in Iraq and decided to take a moral stand.
“I am not opposed to paying taxes, but I am when such a large percent is going to pay for war,” says Mr. Allen, who served in the Army for 20 years.
Becky Pierce of Boston says she evades the IRS by not filing at all.
Each April she fills out a 1040 form to determine how much she’ll donate to charity, then puts the income tax form in her filing cabinet.
Ms. Pierce says she is part of a long American tradition of tax resistance, reaching back to when revolutionaries tossed tea into Boston Harbor.
But to follow in the footsteps of American protesters such as Henry David Thoreau — who went to jail for withholding taxes during the Mexican-American War — Pierce says she must live on a Walden Pond level of thrift.
“You need to have control of your money,” she says.
“I’m a self-employed carpenter.
No one is reporting what I make.
That’s why I can go unnoticed.”
But Jim Stockwell of Micaville, N.C., refuses to take a vow of poverty for what he considers “a simple act of conscience.”
He laughs about how he never paid income taxes while working as a vitamin supplement salesman in Maine and a Home Depot employee in North Carolina.
“I made bundles and bundles of money and gave bundles away [to charity],” Mr. Stockwell says.
“I arranged my life my own way and the IRS never caught up with me.”
Like most Americans, Peter Smith and his wife, Ellyn Stecker, sit down each year to fill out a federal tax form.
Then they write a check to the U.S. Treasury for half the sum in the “amount you owe” box.
They are among thousands of Americans who refuse to pay part or all of their federal taxes as a protest against war and military spending.
“It takes two things to fight a war: people and money,” says Smith, 67, a retired math and computer science teacher.
“I can’t refuse anymore to go, but I certainly can refuse to send the money.”
Smith and Stecker donate their withheld tax money to charities, such as Oxfam America, which fights global poverty and hunger, and a local shelter for battered women.
Stecker, 60, a physician, wishes the government would spend tax dollars on those sorts of programs instead of war.
“You look at what your money is being spent for, and you say, ‘No, I will not give my money for that,’ ” she says.
But the IRS eventually gets its share.
The couple know the routine: By July, they get a letter from the IRS asking them to pay the rest of what they owe.
They respond with a note explaining their reasons for not paying the full amount.
Then there’s a final notice.
The IRS says in 30 days it will extract the money from paychecks, bank accounts or retirement funds.
And the agency does just that.
The couple figure that over the years, the IRS has collected about $75,000 in back taxes, penalties and interest from them.
, thanks to withholding and charitable giving, they owe nothing to the federal government.
Want your anti-war protest to get noticed? Don’t pay your taxes.
Susan Quinlan’s been doing it for , and she’s attracted plenty of attention from the Internal Revenue Service, which showed up at her front door demanding she pay a portion of her earnings or face imprisonment.
Quinlan refused to cooperate, the IRS slunk away and, , she’s dodging federal tax laws as gamely as ever.
Quinlan, a Berkeley resident, has retooled her life to keep negative consequences to a minimum.
She doesn’t own property or maintain much cash in bank accounts and she declines jobs that require she withhold money from her paycheck.
“My approach was, I don’t want to pay any taxes at all, which means adapting my lifestyle to make that possible,” Quinlan said.
As a full-time volunteer peace advocate, Quinlan falls beneath the tax line and need not pay a dime.
In the past, though, when she’s owed money, she’s had to navigate thorny legal territory to ensure her earnings steer clear of federal war coffers.
One problem facing many aspiring resisters is that taxes are typically taken out of paychecks automatically, thwarting the opportunity to resist.
Solutions include self-employment, contract work, or loading up on W-4 allowances that minimize per-paycheck deductions.
When April 15 rolls around, many resisters either submit a 1040 then refuse to pay their taxes or eschew filing altogether.
Quinlan opts for the latter.
She hadn’t filed a federal income tax return , when the IRS came after her wages from a job she held at a nonprofit Latina employment agency.
Rather than pay up, she quit, and would do it again, she said.
“I loved that job, but my commitment to not pay for war came first,” she said.
Does that mean she pockets the money and heads for the outlets?
Definitely not, she said.
Like many resisters, Quinlan redirects those tax dollars to local charities and community groups.
“I always calculated what taxes would be owed because I do feel it’s important that I contribute to the community,” she said.
“I just don’t want it to go to illegal, immoral, imperialistic wars.”
For David Gross, was the year outrage turned into action — which in his case meant filling out a lot of forms.
Gross quit his job to reduce his income, put his money into things like tuition and retirement savings, and filled out reams of paperwork for the associated tax credits.
All this keeps his adjusted income below the taxable level.
“Before I started I was making a pretty good amount of money at a software company over in the East Bay, living pretty fat, and enjoying all that San Francisco has to offer,” he says.
Now, he does just enough contract work to fulfill his needs, and home-brews his beer.
But it’s worth it, he says, for the satisfaction of not owing the feds a single red cent.
Upside: Totally legal.
“They could audit me and look at all my paperwork, and I’d come out smelling like a rose,” says Gross.
Downside: Besides the paperwork, no more Anchor Steam on tap.
The “Democracy Now” radio show features Ruth Benn of NWTRCC and Pamela Schwartz of the National Priorities Project, talking about the cost of war and how to stop buying it.
(This segment starts at 28:45, if you download the audio, or here’s the transcript.)
Benn discusses the phone tax and its recent partial repeal, the history of war tax resistance and of her own resistance, and how the government typically responds to resisters (including an update on the imprisoned tax resisters from the Restored Israel of Yahweh group).
The National Priorities Project has released their estimate of how much of your tax bill feeds the war machine.
They use a different methodology from that used by the War Resisters League in their pie chart, so they come up with different numbers.
If you’re curious, read the fine print.
Kennedy, 59, a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War, has not paid a full federal tax bill as his way to protest war and object to the billions of dollars spent by the U.S. government on bolstering defense.
“It’s a valid moral stance,” said Kennedy, a former Santa Cruz mayor.
“To me, it’s not just an extraordinary waste of resources, but withholding taxes is part of the effort to build a more humane world community.
We’re happy to pay taxes for a good purpose.”
I felt like we had a harder time staying on-message with this show than with others, but we still got a lot of good information out, and judging from the number of callers and the boost in hits to the Northern California War Tax Resistance web site, we helped generate some interest.
Code Pink sent this out to their mailing list this morning:
“It is not enough to say we must not wage war.
It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.
As we honor Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, we want to celebrate his legacy not just with words, but with action.
We ask you to join us in taking one of the strongest stands you can against war: refusing to fund it with your money.
Former Secretary of State Alexander Haig once said “Let them march all they want, as long as they pay their taxes.”
Well, we have marched, we have vigiled, we have sent letters and phone calls and faxes, but Congress continues to fund Bush’s war.
In the spirit of Martin Luther King, Jr. and as part of the American tradition of non-violent civil disobedience that goes back to Henry David Thoreau, now is the time for us to take the matter of war funding into our own hands and stage a tax revolt.
In our flash video at the end of his anti-war speech MLK says; “Take a Stand, Tomorrow may be to late.”
Each year we have taken a stand, and it is a very personal one, but one we can do together.
Our Don’t Buy Bush’s War campaign calls people of conscience to take a stand against the war in Iraq or the threat of war in Iran by signing a pledge that when joined by 100,000 other signatories, they will refuse to pay their taxes until the US gets out of Iraq (a fully operational plan begun).
Our campaign offers safety in numbers and a firm stand against the Administration’s funding of the war.
We know you’ll have many questions about the campaign, and perhaps some fears.
Please go to www.dontbuybushswar.org to sign our pledge, learn about other ways to support the campaign, and find answers to your concerns.
Be assured that CODEPINK will continue to work to end to this war, to restore our Constitution, to close Guantanamo, and to redirect our nation’s resources towards the needs of its people.
Thank you for standing with us in Dr. King’s memory.
Six hours later, over a hundred new people have made the pledge, and they’re still coming in fast.
Here are what some of the signers have written:
As the Bush administration responds only to threats of defunding, this is my line in the sand.
Steven Humes, Durham, North Carolina
As an educator, I believe that we have a responsibility to invest in our next generation here at home, rather than in military dominance of sovereign nations halfway around the world. I will put the amount I withhold directly into our educational system.
Suzanne Knoll, Goleta, California
I love a good Tea Party!
Kimberly Wyke, Camden, Maine
I will no longer pay for what I do not want. I will no longer act as an American who is for war. I am a human being on this planet who respects other human beings and my actions will follow in line with my words. My tax dollars will be used for the cause of good not evil.
Sarah Ealey, Kentfield, California
A government that does not listen to us should not be funded by us.
Tara Mulqueen, Brooklyn, New York
Don’t feed the hand that bites you.
Paul Eagle, Belfast, Maine
There is strength in numbers but even if this becomes a solitary endeavor, I’ll know I tried.
Mary Jane McElrath, Miami, Florida
Don’t wait for the group to do it. Start (or refine) your practice of mindful consumption by refusing to consume war, and redirect your money now.
Lee Gough, Brooklyn, New York
When the American people stop paying for war, wars will cease. Lets set a good example for Congress on how to stop a war!
David Hartsough, San Francisco, California
The war in Iraq costs $6,000.00/second. That figure doesn’t take into account all the other police actions ‘our’ government forces on ‘sovereign’ nations around the world. How can anyone of conscience support that?
Matthew Schmidt, Barnesville, Ohio
War can not continue without our taxes. Pure and simple.
Lakshmi Kerner, Oakland, California
I get angry every time I think of my tax dollars going toward anything this current regime endorses!
Diane Birmingham, Fort Collins, Colorado
I have not paid the percentage of taxes that go to war voluntarily for over 20 years. I will continue to protest war in this way. The government eventually comes and gets the money, but my conscience is clear that I haven’t willingly paid for people to die.
Mike Ellison, Vancouver, Washington
This is a beautiful thing!
Christopher Constantin, Three Rivers, California
I started resisting . This is the only real way we the people can change the coarse in our foreign policy.
Nicholas Collins, Phoenix, Arizona
Let’s stop funding the war and fund peace instead! Imagine a world where we fund peace, not war.
anonymous, Venice, California
I am encouraging all my friends to join in the modern day tea party
Bridget Miller, Centreville, Maryland
I worry about tax gestapo at the door, but we have to do something they will notice!
Emery Goff, Farmington, Maine
Enough’s enough. I have to take a stand and so does everyone else.
Reich Benasutti, Lawrenceville, Georgia
Thank you, Code Pink.
Jason Dalldorf, Fresno, California
We have lost our Democracy; we have destroyed another nation illegally, immorally and unjustly. I refuse to continue paying for death and destruction.
Rayeanne King, Oak Bluffs, Maryland
It’s about time we all take this stand!
Lyn Gottschalk, Green Bay, Wisconsin
I am an American citizen living in Canada. I pay U.S. taxes, but the amount is minimal. Nevertheless, I will sign the pledge and withhold a % (not sure how much yet). What the U.S. does affects everyone in the world, wherever they are.
Elizabeth Whitmore, Ottawa, Ontario
I’ve already cried out in this wilderness known as America. We the people are and have been struggling against the ‘policies’ of this misadministration. Perhaps this action will open your eyes and ears. Can you hear us yet?
Kathy Walsh, Lake Worth, Florida
This is not our war! Hear our voices we will not fund your war any more! If you want war go there yourselves!
Krystal Ansley, Jacksonville, Florida
My husband and I withheld 28% of our federal income taxes for . That percentage is the portion that the AFSC (Quakers) said goes toward current military and defense spending i.e. war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We don’t plan on paying at least that amount , either. We have been receiving threatening letters from the IRS for months. The last letter we got threatened us with a $5000 fine or jail time. We know the IRS only wants their stinking money, and they don’t want to throw us in jail and have to pay for us to be there.… In the letter we received from the IRS last week, they said our reason for not wanting to pay was frivolous. We call it taking a principled stand and doing the right thing. We will wait them out.… These fascists in U.S. government are a bunch of murdering thieves. We will not give our hard-earned dollars to people who wantonly kill other people and steal the natural resources of their country. If they won’t listen to anything else they’ll damned well listen up when the money spigot is turned off. Every single American taxpayer should suck it up, stop being afraid of the government we are all 100% part owner of and cut off the money that goes toward maiming and killing innocent people and contributes directly to the bloated war machine.
Kris Graham, Houston, Texas
I will no longer support this war with my tax money. We have voted and tried to work within the system to no avail. I do not know what else to do to stop war.
Susan Thorpe, Tucson, Arizona
What gives you the right to take my money and millions of taxpayers’ money and use the billions to bully, harass, and kill innocent victims.
Cynthia Stokes-Adam, Brooklyn, New York
Bush threatens to bomb Iran unless its citizens engage in just such civil disobedience as this. Let’s show them how like we did in Boston Harbor.
Tim Wood, Atlanta, Georgia
The two of us signed this prepared petition because we have been withholding the military portion of our income tax liability . At that time we realized we could not conscientiously pay for war when we were praying for peace.
Barbara & Jim Dale, Decorah, Indiana
Like the majority of citizens of the United States of America I am fed up with the Bush/Cheney Administration’s illegal tactics to scare us into funding a war that should never have been started.
Valory Warncke, Maumee, Ohio
We know the wars are created to line the pockets of the thugs who create it for greed and to control the people. I won’t pay and I won’t be controlled by the thugs.
Shiara Lightfoot, Buena Vista, Colorado
I have not ever done this before, but I am ready to do it now.
Liz Aaronsohn, New Britain, Connecticut
Thank you Code Pink.
Ann Meany, Saint Paul, Minnesota
I cannot, in good conscience, continue to throw away my hard-earned money to fund killing in the name of capitalism’s violence against American citizens, innocent foreigners, and our dying planet.
Hal Goldfarb, Mesa, Arizona
It is a human right to refuse to participate in killing and war. I am happy to join with others in redirecting our taxes away from aggression and violence and toward building a peaceful world.
Susan Quinlan, Berkeley, California
No funding of Bush/Cheney illegal war. Not now nor in the future.
Kathleen Wolfe, Des Moines, Washington
It’s funny, not really, that I have been saying this for many years: civil disobedience works.
Leslie Provatas, Orient, New York
When our children and grandchildren look back at this moment in history and ask what we did to stop the insanity, I hope we can say that we did at least this much, if not much more.
Christopher Senn, Orcas, Washington
This is a fantastic idea! I have thought about this long and hard in the past. I don’t want my hard earned tax dollars funding a senseless war! Thank you for your sincere hard working efforts which I wholeheartedly support!
anonymous, Muskegon, Michigan
I can no longer support the death of innocent people, by funding this war through my hard earned and very needed dollars! War serves no one! This one, in particular, is insane, and we must stop it! No funding from my part!
Susan Janes, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
War is evil, and the wars being waged in my name on the Iraqi & Afghani people are particularly sickening. Terrorism is best deterred with ethical behavior & education. My ethical behavior will now include withholding my tax dollars. My government has disregarded every other effort I and hundreds of thousands of others have made to request & demand the cessation of these wars. We must push back. Thank you Code Pink.
Mary E. Stone, Montague, California
Yes, it’s time for this action. Nothing seems to have an impact in this country any more except for money. Brilliant!!
Carol Bayard, Maplewood, New Jersey
We must stop plundering and destroying out of greed. I will not let my money go there anymore.
Karen Boyer, Portland, Oregon
I strongly support this effort to make war tax resistance a more public statement against the war machine. Thanks!
anonymous, Portland, Oregon
I’m sick of my tax dollars going to this blood war for oil, and I have nothing for myself or my daughter. But most of the people I know don’t want to pay taxes for this lying crap.
Brenda Brown, Placitas, New Mexico
No Killing in my name. Signing this petition is an ethical necessity for me personally. I have to take this stand in order to live honestly.
Mathilda Cassidy, Santa Rosa, California
Susan Quinlan and Elizabeth Boardman from Northern California War Tax Resistance (the host group of the upcoming national gathering of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee) were on the Raising Sand radio show recently.
Here’s the show:
Around the middle of April as the federal income tax filing deadline
approaches, tax resistance articles hit the media frequently. Here are some
examples from past years:
War tax resister Irwin Hogenauer hasn’t filed a tax return for 35 years. (don’t miss the ad below the article for a special on the Sony Walkman: only $89.00)
An op-ed piece by Horace G. Davis on personal entanglement with the military-industrial complex includes notes on Raymond Hunthausen and some of the publications of the war tax resistance movement.
Clare Hanrahan is redirecting her taxes to a group that helps the homeless. “We’re not evading taxes. We’re redirecting them and putting them where they’ll do the most good, immediately.” Also quotes Karen Marysdaughter.
Quinlan: The People’s Life Fund is the escrow account that was established so that people who are refusing to pay all or part of their taxes can put that money in escrow, and the interest from that is granted each year to groups that are doing the kind of work that we feel the government should be doing.
The kind of work that’s being cut right now.
While the military is allowed to grow, our schools and social services are being cut.
Erica Weiland is on the administrative committee for the [NWTRCC] national office.
She says redirecting even a small part of what she considers a “military tax” has rewards that outweigh any fines or possible prison time.
Weiland: De-funding the military opens up a huge amount of money, resources, and time that could be used building up our communities and supporting communities around the world — who need that so much more than they need to be bombed and shot at.
Shortly after Tax Day, Cindy Sheehan will appear in court where the IRS will ask a judge to compel her to fill out a collection information statement so they can find assets to seize for her back taxes (or, possibly, so they can determine she doesn’t have enough assets to be worth pursuing).
When the IRS takes Cindy Sheehan to court to try to force her to support the war machine that killed her son, other war tax resisters from Northern California will be standing with her.
On , the IRS will ask a judge of the U.S. Federal Court, California Eastern District (501 I St., Sacramento) to compel Cindy Sheehan to give them information that would help them collect money from her.
Northern California War Tax Resistance supports Sheehan’s continued refusal to cooperate.
Cindy Sheehan is not waiting for Congress to shut off the spigot of funding for war and militarism — she’s taking a stand of conscience by refusing to pay the taxes that make the wars possible.
And she’s not alone: war tax resisters across the country are refusing to pay into the Pentagon’s budget.
Among them are members of the group Northern California War Tax Resistance.
“I wish more antiwar activists would put their money where their mouth is like Cindy does,” says David Gross, 43, of Berkeley, California.
Gross hasn’t paid any federal income tax .
“I didn’t feel like I could really say I was against the wars until I stopped supporting them with my tax dollars, so I decided to stop paying.
Now I put all of my energy on the side of my values instead of being a reluctant parttime worker for the Pentagon.”
Jan and David Hartsough of San Francisco, California, have been resisting the federal telephone excise tax , and today they also refuse to pay half of their federal income tax.
“The U.S. Government has already taken Cindy’s son for the immoral and illegal war in Iraq,” David says.
“She should not in addition be forced to pay for other mothers’ sons to kill and be killed in Afghanistan.”
“This year I’m celebrating of refusing to pay war taxes to the federal government,” says Jon Marley, 50, of Berkeley, California.
“I choose this kind of civil disobedience because I believe it is morally wrong for the U.S. to spend nearly 50% of our taxes on murder, torture, and rape in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.
We should be using those dollars for projects that provide housing and food and education and health care.
Cindy Sheehan understands this, and that’s why she has my full support in her brave stand as a war tax resister.”
“How many of our sons and daughters must die in faraway lands?
And how many faraway sons and daughters must die at their hands?” asks war tax resister Susan Quinlan of Berkeley, California, who has been resisting taxes .
“Thank you to Cindy Sheehan and to the other mothers and fathers who say ‘no!’ to this military madness!
Not our children, not their children, and not with our taxes!”
Martha Cain, of Berkeley, California, says: “[Former U.S. Secretary of State] Alexander Haig said [of antiwar protesters], ‘Let them march all they want as long as they continue to pay their taxes.’
Cindy Sheehan interpreted this advice and acted on it.
I support and admire Cindy for her courage and commitment in refusing to pay for more violence in this world.”
“I refuse to allow any of my tax money to be spent on wars, torture, rape, and killing people for whatever excuse the government and our corporations want to make up,” says Xan Joi, of Berkeley, California.
“To attempt to force Cindy Sheehan to pay for this war on Iraq that actually took her child’s life is unconscionable, immoral — and demanding that she participate in supporting, condoning, and accepting the murder of her own child — let alone other mothers’ children.
I feel so tender toward the women of this nation and other nations that I will not allow myself or others to injure their sons and daughters.
Cindy Sheehan is a courageous mother who is refusing to be bought by the greed of our nation.
I support her stands.”
“I have been resisting the military portion of my income taxes since
Vietnam,” says Lorin Peters, 69, of Lafayette, California. “For two reasons:
our military is being used for domination and empire, and not for defense;
[and] nonviolent defense works better than violent defense, as was
demonstrated by Gandhi and others.”
Sheehan appreciates the company: “I would like this to be a movement,” she
says. “There are many, many people who are conscientious tax resisters around
the country, but I think we need to make it a movement with more and more
people joining us. There are many ways people can be conscientious tax
objectors. You don’t have to do it 100% like I do.”
The latest issue of More Than a Paycheck, NWTRCC’s newsletter, is now on-line.
It’s a special edition, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the founding of the committee.
current events in tax resistance including a Pacific Yearly Meeting fund to help tax resisting Quakers, innovations in tax resistance in Spain, and the implications of Mitt Romney’s infamous “47%” comment
ideas and actions including the Afghan Peace Volunteers group, a recent talk radio broadcast about war tax resistance, an on-line penny poll, and updates on a recent Plowshares action and on the Iran Pledge of Resistance
upcoming evens like the NWTRCC national gathering next month in Colorado, the New England regional gathering later this month in Massachusetts, the School of the Americas action in November, and next year’s international war tax resistance conference
American Quaker war tax resistance reemerged in the Friends Journal in , with some real live resisters telling their stories and sharing the processes by which they had developed their methods of resistance.
The issue had several mentions of war tax resistance.
Editor Vinton Deming’s lead editorial concerned his annual confrontation of the “agonizing question” of what to do at tax-filing time.
Excerpt:
an ad from the issue of Friends Journal
For many years I sought ways to protest.
I started by submitting a letter with my 1040 objecting to the large sums going to the Pentagon and the neglect of other needed programs. No one responded.
At other times I requested a refund so I might send a sum to a human service program not being adequately funded.
Nice idea, I thought, but IRS didn’t think so.
One year they told me the request was “frivolous,” and they tried to penalize me for asking.
My lawyer got them to drop the matter.
Then about 15 years ago I stopped filing a tax return altogether, choosing instead to write a letter to the president explaining why I was not willing as a Friend to pay for things like B-1 bombers, cruise missiles, or Star Wars.
The latter approach clearly got the attention of IRS officials.
Suddenly I was “playing in the big leagues.”
The government took me to court on two occasions and threatened to do the same to my present employer unless my back taxes, interest, and penalties were paid at once [see ♇ ].
Reluctantly, and after much soul searching, the Journal agreed to pay.
I released them to do so, being convinced we had resisted as long as we could and had explored all legal means.
Friends rallied to support us with financial gifts to help pay the large debt.
In I made my last monthly payment to the Journal.
I continue to struggle with IRS on this matter, which dates back to my tax resistance of .
The government disagreed with our math for what we believed was actually owed in back taxes.
My lawyer is maneuvering to try to prevent IRS from seizing my Individual Retirement Account, an argument to be decided by a judge later this year.
In more recent tax years I have filed and paid, trying to claim as many exemptions as possible and to limit the government’s take.
I have lobbied for the Peace Tax Fund Bill and supported others who are resisting.
David Shen also wrote of his war tax resistance in that issue.
Excerpts:
For 12 years, I have withheld a portion of my income tax from IRS.
I refuse to give money to the military to kill people.
There is too much need around us.
For the last three years, I have given this portion to My Brothers’ House, a homeless shelter my Quaker meeting supports in the inner city of Philadelphia.
Each year at tax time, I sigh deeply.
I know IRS may punish me.
And I know I stand on the side of life.
For these 12 years, IRS and I have been corresponding politely.
They send me notices; I write back.
Since I received notices of intent to levy and since they have not levied, I assume I have been lost in their millions of files.
I was surprised, then, when my college employer received the levy on my salary.
My first talks with IRS, lawyers, and F/friends left me feeling depressed and helpless.
IRS would get what they thought was theirs.
Then God intervened.
Inadvertently, my lawyer angered me.
In my anger, I took a position of reducing my wages to a level IRS could not levy.
(By law IRS must leave me a wage to live on.)
I had not considered it before, since doing so would cost me $2,200 — more than the levy’s $1,200.
I think Shen is being too modest here in giving God the credit for a bold decision that came direct from Shen.
I approached the college dean, my superior.
“Reduce my wages,” I said, “so IRS cannot satisfy its levy.”
But the dean shocked me.
Her superior, the vice president, would not allow me to reduce my wages.
I had to quit or pay the levy.
That sounds very familiar.
When I first started resisting, I went in to the human resources department of my employer to ask if reducing my salary below the tax line was an option.
They told me it was out of the question.
My response was to resign and become an independent contractor.
Shen took a different tack:
After a conversation with one of my students, I decided to continue teaching and pay the levy.
I would, however, also continue learning about love and Truth.
Could I reach administrators, I wondered, if I used Gandhi’s principle of selfsuffering?
I would direct suffering to me, and not to the college, by teaching at reduced income rather than quitting and leaving the college with 80 angry students.
I met with the administrator who wrote my paycheck, the department chair, the dean again, and then the vice-president.
Three respected my position (the vicepresident didn’t reveal his stand).
The payroll administrator blurted out, “Isn’t there a legal way you can do this (pay income tax without paying the military)?”
When I met with the president of the college, six weeks had passed and the levy was almost fully paid.
He was busy.
He startled me by agreeing with my right to take my position, and he would seek how I could do so at the college.
Two weeks later, he informed me he could not find a legal way to accommodate me.
I, though, was thrilled.
In our two conversations, the president and I connected.
We talked about my tax situation for 20 minutes and unexpectedly talked about his and my family for 90 minutes.
He was late for one of his appointments.
As I waved goodbye, he asked, “Stop in for coffee again, will you?”
What did I learn?
I am poorer by $1,200, but I am richer in intangible ways.
I feel in the flow of God’s will for me and feel connected to people — F/friends who support me and opponents who respect me.
I am invigorated and happy
It must be comforting to feel that “God’s will” is responsible for all the difficult and fuzzy decisions you make.
Whether you zig or you zag, whether things turn out well or ill, God’s in charge and if you’re willing to give Him all the credit, He’ll be glad to take all the blame.
The same issue published part of an interview that Susan Van Haitsma conducted with Paula Rogge .
Excerpts:
What were the motivating factors in your decision to become a tax
resister?
Deciding to refuse to pay taxes for war was a slow, gradual process for
me… As I grew older and attended Illinois Yearly Meeting, I heard more about tax resistance.
I met two men who had served time in prison for refusing to pay war taxes or resisting cooperation with the Internal Revenue Service.
I saw them as very committed people with a lot of integrity, and I could see that the yearly meeting supported them.
So, at some level I felt that tax resistance was the logical extension of my pacifist views, and I knew there was a community of support for tax resistance among the Friends and the wider peace community as well.…
How did you go about your tax resistance?
That first year, I think I owed one dollar.
I refused to pay the dollar
and sent a letter to the IRS explaining my position.
The next year, I increased the number of withholding allowances on my W-4 form so that I owed the IRS at the end of the year instead of vice-versa.
I began by refusing to pay 40–50 percent of my federal tax money because at the time, that was the approximate percentage being used to fund current and past wars.
Then, over time, I realized that of the 50–60 percent I was paying, 40–50 percent was still being used for military purposes, so I stopped paying the whole kit and caboodle.
I stopped paying all taxes because I had no control whatsoever over how the money was being spent.
In the last several years I’ve also stopped paying social security taxes because the government borrows from those funds to help cover the deficit, indirectly financing the defense system.
So, it’s been a gradual process of taking my tax resistance further and further.
I’ve always filed, and the IRS and I have always agreed about how much I’ve owed (now over $60,000 including penalties and interest).
At this point, I don’t feel led to stop filing.
For myself, I feel better being open about it, but I realize many tax resisters don’t file, and I respect their reasons for going that route.
Have you redirected your tax money?
The first couple of years that I did tax resistance, I put the money
aside in a bank account, assuming it would be seized.
It wasn’t seized right away, however, and I’m afraid the money was spent without having been donated as it should have.
But I learned, and since then I’ve made sure the amount of money owed in taxes and social security is donated every year to charitable groups.
I’ve had a lot of fun giving this money away.
Sometimes when I have sent the contribution, I have included a note explaining that the donation represents refused war taxes, and I have received supportive notes in return.
It’s a very empowering feeling to know that my money is doing some good.
Have there been special ways in which you would say your life has been
affected positively by your practice of tax resistance?
When I finished my residency, I worked in a migrant clinic for two years
in the Rio Grande Valley in Harlingen, Texas: a very conservative community.
The second year I was there, I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper explaining that I was a war tax resister and why.
The newspaper editor phoned me to make sure I really wanted the letter printed!
I said yes, and they did print it.
I was afraid of the response I might get from the community, but I felt it was important to be public about my stance.
After the letter was printed, the other doctors in Harlingen actually became much friendlier and began to take a certain interest in me.
I don’t think any of them agreed with the tax resistance, but they seemed to respect my position.
Several nurses and a nuclear medicine technician I hadn’t known before introduced themselves and expressed their support of my war tax resistance.
I didn’t get any negative reactions.
In , I began a medical family practice in Austin, Texas, along with another doctor.
The first year into the practice, the IRS sent notice that my wages would be garnisheed.
I asked that my salary be lowered to $100 per week, as that is the amount exempt from levy.
In order to supplement this reduced income, I began to work moonlighting jobs in various agencies: the city Health Department, Planned Parenthood, and the State Commission for the Blind, for example.
I had to find new moonlighting jobs every two years or so because that was about the length of time it usually took the IRS to catch up and begin attaching wages again.
Something good happened as a result of this.
I’ve had to explain to all potential employers that at some point the IRS would begin to levy my wages and when that happened, I would no longer be able to work for them.
When I explained this to the Texas Commission for the Blind during my interview, for example, they were quite taken aback, and I thought I probably wouldn’t get the job.
But, a few weeks later, they did hire me!
The woman who hired me said she understood why I was doing tax resistance and that she agreed with my convictions.
I came to feel a real sense of support and community there.
In , the
IRS
seized your automobile.
Could you describe what happened?
Well, some time before the car was seized, an
IRS
agent, accompanied by a law officer, came to our clinic to pay me a visit.
I could tell they were nervous and even a bit hostile.
But as we sat and talked, and I explained why I simply could not pay for war, I could see them both soften a little.
Toward the end of the interview, the officer began asking questions about our practice and commented that it was unusual for us to be located in such a poor neighborhood.
As they were leaving, I complemented the officer on his cowboy boots — he had on some kind of exotic boots — and I think he was tickled pink that I had noticed them.
He told me where he had gotten them.
It was kind of a humorous exchange and I felt very good about that.
We had related as people.
I figured that since my wages had become uncollectible and I had no bank account, eventually my car would be seized.
But even so, the morning it happened, it came as a bit of a shock.
My IRS agent came to the bouse and, poor woman, she was just shivering in her shoes, she looked so nervous.
She placed a sticker on the car and then asked if she could use my phone to call the tow truck!
I decided that they were going to tow it one way or another, so I invited her in to use the phone.
I had a sick patient in the emergency room at the time, so I took a taxi to the hospital right away.
Having a patient to worry about took my mind off the car long enough to ease my worry about the situation.
Then friends came forward and loaned me their cars without my having to ask.
A month following the seizure, the car was auctioned.
About 20–30 Quakers and other friends came and protested the auction, asking potential buyers not to bid on the car.
At least one potential buyer was convinced to refrain from bidding, but a used car dealer did, in the end, buy the car.
A week following the auction, a doctor I had once worked with phoned and said that he wanted to buy the car back from the car dealer and donate it anonymously to our practice.
That was such a wonderful surprise.
I was very moved because I respected him very much as a doctor.
I talked the offer over with friends.
Though I didn’t want the money going, even indirectly, to the IRS, I did want this doctor to have an opportunity to support the whole cause of war tax resistance, and this was his way of contributing.
I decided to accept the car.
It came back with new tires, looking much cleaner than it had before it was seized!
A friend of the doctor had also done a tune-up on it — and it was great.
I think the best part of this story is that when I tell it, people chuckle.
You see, it’s such a good example of how limited the power of the IRS is in the face of creative resistance.
It’s also an example of how our needs are often met in unexpected ways when we take a stand for peace.
I think these three experiences in particular — the return of my car, receiving the job at the Commission for the Blind, and the reaction to the letter in Harlingen paper — were all occasions when I felt that speaking out for truth actually opened doors and tore down barriers between other people and me.
When I was willing to take a stand for what I felt was right, I discovered a community of support I hadn’t realized existed.
Perry Treadwell also wrote about his war tax resistance in that issue.
Excerpts:
Today I received another one of those white envelopes from the Internal Revenue Service — the ones that tell me I failed to pay $35 in or $106 in and now I owe a lot more in penalties and interest.
I file them away with the other ones from .
But this time their arrival reminded me of an anniversary of sorts.
It has been .
I refused to pay for people to kill other people.
I resigned my tenured university position [see ♇ ] and drastically simplified my lifestyle so the fruits of my labors would not be used for war.
I still get that little twist in the stomach when those IRS letters come.
Sometimes the IRS actually raids a bank account or Individual Retirement Account.
However, I know that Friends are there should I ever need their support in not cooperating with a government whose only answer to conflict is violence.
I have been able to simplify my life to a point where I am below the taxable level.
Friends’ support has helped.
The richness of my life is proportional to my friendships.
That is what I have learned in , and that is what I pass on to others.
The issue had an obituary notice for Jane Palmer which noted that she “chose to live in accordance with the Quaker peace testimony and purposefully limited her income to avoid paying taxes that supported war efforts,” and one for Mildred Teusler Ringwalt which mentioned “her refusal to pay the portion of her income taxes she believed supported such [war] efforts.”
One of the events at the Friends General Conference Gathering in — the “Henry J. Cadbury Event, sponsored by Friends Journal” — was “an original production in story and song about the war tax witness of Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner from Colrain, Massachusetts.
The stage performance won a favorable review from those who crowded the auditorium (despite the heat and lack of air conditioning!).
A video of the show was made and will be available at a later date.”
At the Illinois Yearly Meeting in (according to a Journal article ), “Sebrina Tingley explained not just the nuts and bolts of war tax resistance but also the spiritual call to do so” and “Bill Ramsey (American Friends Service Committee) told of his personal experiences involving war tax resistance.”
The lead editorial of the issue was all about the Peace Tax Fund Bill and an effort to get 10,000 people to write letters to Congress supporting it.
“The Peace Tax Fund Bill,” according to one supporter’s letter, “when it becomes law, will give us our religious liberty.
We’ll be able to pay our taxes in good conscience since we’ll be allowed to pay for peaceful projects rather than for war.”
Two letters-to-the-editor in the issue reacted to that project: one, by Marge Schier, thanking the Journal for aiding the cause — “We’re even more sure now that we can do it!”
— and the other, by Elizabeth Campuzano, giving the gist of the letter she had sent: “I told them that I voluntarily live below the federal poverty limit in order to avoid paying income taxes for war.
I told them that if this bill passes, I will raise my income in order to pay for education, road and bridge repairs, anti-monopoly enforcement, etc.” She added: “I think this is one of the greatest things FJ has ever done!”
International news
“a Spanish war resistance sticker: peace (paz) and bread (pan), not bombs”
A report about the previous year’s Canadian Yearly Meeting in the issue mentioned that “[t]he ad hoc committee on war tax concerns has found a method which potentially will allow Canadian Yearly Meeting to redirect the military portion of employees’ income tax remittances to the federal government’s Debt Service and Reduction Fund.
This is not an entirely satisfactory solution, but perhaps a first step.”
’s Canadian Yearly Meeting (according to a story in the issue) “reached joyful unity in a decision as an employer to stop remitting to Revenue Canada the military portion of taxes for those employees who request it.”
This decision follows several years of study, prayerful consideration, and the attempt during for use of legal means of expressing our conscientious objection to paying for the military.
The remittance will instead be paid into Conscience Canada, with consideration given to establishing in the future a specific trust fund.
The Fifth International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns was held in Spain in and was covered in the Journal in a report by Steve Gulick.
Excerpt:
About 70 activists from all over Europe and a number of other parts of the world gathered in Hondarribia, Spain, , to charge our batteries, to compare conditions in our various countries, to get to know each other, and to carry on business.
It was inspiring to meet, get to know, and work with war tax resisters and peace campaigners from all over Europe and from the United States, Canada, Peru, Iraq, and Palestine.
The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee raised money to make it possible for the Palestinian, Elias Rishmawi from Beit Sahour, West Bank, to attend.
The Iraqi and the Peruvian attenders are currently living in Europe.
One problem with the gathering — similar to the War Resisters International gathering that I attended in — was the difficulty of getting a diverse attendance.
Folks from India were unable to attend, for example, in part because of the distance.
I attended as a delegate from the War Tax Concerns Support Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
Other attenders from the United States were David Bassett and Marian Franz (National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund), Susan Quinlan and Larry Rosenwald (National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee), Cynthia Johnson (Women Strike for Peace), and Gerri Michalska (Pax Christi) — which gave some of us from the U.S. movement the opportunity to get to know each other.
The conference issued a number of public documents — the most important being the bylaw of a new non-governmental organization which will have consultative powers with both the UN and the European parliament: Conscience and Peace Tax International.
The role/goal of the organization will be to espouse the cause of those who take stands of conscience in relation to military expenditures — and also military service and issues of conscience and civil and human rights more generally.
A report back from the Germany Yearly Meeting mentioned war tax resistance matter-of-factly:
In our commitments to projects such as “alternatives to violence,” civilian peace service, war tax refusal, and in our decision to give financial support to the setting up of a Quaker Center in Moscow, Russia, we express that we not only ask ourselves “how do we see God?” but also “how do we do God?”…
The annual tax season “fifteen minutes of fame” for the American war tax resistance movement has begun:
Vice magazine published a nice feature by Charles Davis titled “Don’t Pay Your Taxes” that spotlights American war tax resisters like David Hartsough, Susan Quinlan, Erica Weiland, and Ruth Benn.
Excerpt:
“They’ve never actually done anything,” Erica Weiland, a 30-year-old activist from Seattle, Washington, told me when I asked her about the consequences of her tax resistance.
Weiland generally tries to avoid owing taxes in the first place, but when she does owe something, she files a return without paying a dime.
And while she’s received a few letters, she’s never responded, nor had a problem.
Freed from the burden of paying for broken fighter jets, she has been able to give money instead to those causes she believes in, which, she said, is “one of the things that’s the most rewarding about being a war-tax resister.”
Weiland learned about tax resistance while working with the group Food Not Bombs, which helps feed the homeless in cities across the United States (at least where its activities are not banned).
She met a war refugee from Sri Lanka who refused to accept anything more than room and board as payment for his labor, not wanting to contribute in any way to the sort of violence he witnessed firsthand — funded, in part, by the U.S. government.
If a poor immigrant could do it, Weiland decided she could too, and she hopes her actions will send a message that Americans are not as powerless as popularly imagined.
“I want to show people that there’s more that we can do to resist war and stop military actions than just marching and sending letters to Congress,” she said.
