Some historical and global examples of tax resistance →
United States →
American revolution, 1765–81
In the course of researching tax resistance in American “non-resistant” movement, I was led to a remarkable pamphlet that I hadn’t heard of before.
The name of the pamphlet is Evils of the Revolutionary War (that is, the American Revolution) and it was written by one Charles K. Whipple and issued by William Lloyd Garrison’s “New England Non-Resistance Society” in .
(I haven’t seen the original pamphlet; the version I reproduce below is one that was printed in The Living Age in and might differ from the original for all I know.)
The title was meant to be provocative.
Most of the pacifist literature of the time intended to build up pacifism as a logical conclusion from examining Christian scripture, showing it to follow necessarily from the teachings of Jesus and therefore to be obligatory, regardless of the consequences (which were, in any case, in God’s hands).
More practical and worldly-minded people, unconvinced, would respond by presenting scenarios in which war seemed the best answer, and pacifism a poor one, and would address the question from more of a utilitarian/consequentialist point of view.
And, in the United States, there was no better example scenario for this purpose than the American Revolution — the perfect example of a justified war for liberty and against tyranny.
Whipple took the bait.
What he came up with is the first example I know of that makes a detailed and sober case for mass civilian nonviolent resistance as an alternative to war, an alternative that is not only effective but that promises greater gains for fewer costs than the violent alternative.
Nowadays, there are think tanks and even Pentagon working groups devoted to large-scale civilian nonviolent resistance, and researchers have devoted hours to delving into historical examples and testing theories.
Whipple had to rely on faith and imagination, but what he came up with, with few changes, could be issued a century later by Gandhi or today by Gene Sharp’s crew.
What, all war wrong?
Yes, says the Peace man.
Then the war which gained American Independence, our glorious Revolutionary war, was wrong!
It was.
Then, sir, tell me this, if you can.
Where would our great, prosperous, and happy country have been at this moment, but for that war?
I will tell you.
It would have been more prosperous, more moral, and happier than it now is.
You cannot surely believe such an absurdity.
Wonderfully prosperous and happy we should be, no doubt, remaining to this hour under the tyranny of Great Britain
There is your mistake, my friend.
You take it for granted, without examination, that we could never have freed ourselves from British domination, except by war.
Now, I say, that we should have attained independence as effectually, as speedily, as honorably, and under very much more favorable circumstances, if we had not resorted to arms.
Very well: now show me how it could have been done.
Our fathers might have accomplished this object, great as it was, merely by taking the course which the society of Friends took to maintain their rights, and by which, though a small and despised body of men, they compelled the English and American governments to recognize and protect those rights.
This course consisted of three things.
1st. A steady and quiet refusal to comply with unjust requisitions; 2d. Public declarations of their grievances, and demands for redress; and 3d. Patient endurance of whatever violence was used to compel their submission.
We have every reason to expect that steady perseverance in a course like this will ultimately succeed, wherever the cause is just.
Because “moral might is always on the side of right;” and because governments are composed of men, and not of brutes.
Let us suppose, for a moment, that our fathers had acted in the manner I have mentioned, and see what the various stages of the process would have been.
In every part of the contest, they strictly adhere to the principles above stated.
They carefully refrain from violence, constantly remonstrate against the oppressive acts, and persevere in passive resistance.
— When the taxed tea is brought to their shores, they universally abstain from the use of it.
It lies undemanded in the ware-houses, and thus the plan of taxation, as far as that article goes, is as completely defeated as it could have been by violence and robbery.
When the stamped paper is taxed, they carry on their business without it.
This involves great difficulty, inconvenience, and embarrassment of business.
No matter!
They are patriots, and willing to suffer for their country; and the evils thus endured are infinitely less than the calamities of war.
If direct taxes are laid upon them, they quietly, but universally, refuse payment.
Their property is seized and sold to raise the tax.
They patiently submit to this evil, for their country’s sake, and rejoice that it is so slight in comparison with war.
Imprisonment, insult, and abuse of every kind, are added to enforce the oppressive acts of parliament.
Still no violence is used, either for defence or retaliation; but petitions, remonstrances, delegations are multiplied as the occasions for them recur.
When all these measures are found to fail of success, they unite in solemn assembly to make to the world a declaration of their wrongs, and pronounce their formal separation from, and independence of the British nation.
This movement excites new and more violent demonstrations of hostility on the part of the British functionaries.
The signers of the Declaration of Independence, and the officers of the new government, are seized and sent to England to take their trial for high treason.
No opposition is made, no defence attempted by the patriot leaders.
They are ready to lay down their lives in support of the liberty of their country, and they rejoice to meet the danger in this form, in which they can explain and defend their principles, rather than to submit their cause to the decision of brute force on the battle-field, where their own fall would involve the destruction of thousands of their countrymen.
They are tried by the constituted authorities of England, and calmly avow and defend their revolutionary measures.
They are found guilty, sentenced to death, and (for we will suppose the worst) actually executed as traitors.
But their defence, their bold and clear explanation of the principles of liberty, their new views of the relative rights and duties of a government and its subjects, are in the mean time eagerly read and pondered by all the British nation.
And while this good seed is taking root in the hearts of the people, the source of power, let us return to the United States, and see what the revolutionists, thus suddenly deprived of their leaders, are doing.
As soon as that noble band of pioneers is taken from them, they choose others to administer the affairs of the new nation.
These, too, are seized as rebels.
They immediately elect more.
What shall the colonial officers do against such pertinacious, yet unresisting opponents?
The whole population avow their determination to be flee.
The whole population offer themselves for punishment.
The prisons are filled to overflowing with rebels; yet they have accomplished nothing, for every man they meet is a rebel.
What is to be done?
Shall they send for an army?
That is needless, for their present force is unresisted.
But suppose an army comes.
They can do nothing but take prisoners and destroy property, and perhaps execute a few persons; for I take it for granted that they would not attempt to put to death the great mass of the population.
All that they do to enforce obedience renders them more odious to the people, and nothing is effected towards destroying the principles of liberty.
Intelligence arrives of the death of their leaders in England.
This adds fuel to the fire.
Their determination, before strong, is now irrevocable.
On the other hand, the news of their measures, their pertinacity, and their non-resistance, is constantly going to the people of England, a people already moved to sympathy by the constancy and heroism of the patriot leaders, and already half persuaded by the arguments of those leaders that their cause is just.
Can it be imagined, is it consistent with the attributes of human nature to suppose, that such a persevering and undaunted defence of principles so just would fail of working conviction in the hearts of a people like the English?
Even were it possible for parliament to persevere in the attempt to subjugate such opponents by force, the whole English people, the whole civilized world, indeed, would cry out shame upon them, and force them to abandon the design, and finally to recognize the independence of the Americans.
It follows as a necessary inference from the principles before alluded to, namely, that moral might is altvays on the side of justice, and that governors and legislators are never destitute of the feelings and sympathies of men, that firm perseverance in such a course as I have described must have resulted in the acknowledgment of American Independence; and probably that result would have occurred in much less time than was occupied by the revolutionary war.
This will be made perfectly clear by looking, for a moment, at the reason why Great Britain at last gave up the contest.
Did we conquer that mighty nation?
Not at all!
Still less did they conquer us!
Why, then, did not the war continue?
Simply and solely because Great Britain was tired of fighting! absolutely wearied out by contention and its necessary consequences!
Would not a similar pertinacity in time produce the same effect without the use of physical force?
I say, we should certainly in this way have attained our Independence.
We will now suppose this object effected.
Let us see what evils the pacific course has produced, in comparison with the evils actually resulting from the revolutionary war.
1st. Loss of Life. We will make a liberal estimate, and allow that one thousand persons have been executed as traitors, after deliberate trial and sentence; and that ten thousand (men, women, and children) have been slain, unresisting, by the exasperated British soldiers.
Upon this enormously exaggerated supposition we have eleven thousand lives lost.
But it is computed that a hundred thousand Americans perished during the eight years of the revolutionary war.
We have, then, a direct saving of eighty-nine thousand lives of American citizens by pacific measures.
This alone should decide the question in favor of peace.
But we have other considerations.
2d. Expense direct and indirect. Commerce, trade, and manufactures have been to a great extent suspended, and a large amount of property has been wantonly destroyed by the devastations of the enemy.
But all this would have happened to a still greater extent in war; and the non-resisting policy has saved us the enormous expense of supporting an army and navy, and of building and equipping fortifications.
The direct expense of the revolutionary war to our country is estimated, by Pitkin, at $135,000,000. The same author has stated the direct expense of our military operations since that war, to be more than $300,000,000. All this at least, $435,000,000, we should have saved by the pacific policy.
3d. The interests of morality and religion.
If a whole people have such a sense of their duty to God as to refuse to protect themselves by means which he has forbidden, they will not be likely to neglect either to recognize his hand, or implore his protection, throughout the struggle.
The Sabbath has been strictly observed, and the supplications of the nation have arisen more ardently than ever to Him who holds the hearts of kings in his hand.
The mass of the people, having their minds intently fixed on the great struggle between liberty and oppression, and anxiously watching the contest of faith, love, patience and hope, against carnal weapons, have been strongly withheld both from trifling amusements and vicious indulgences.
At the close of the struggle, therefore, the interests of religion and morality are more flourishing than at its commencement.
But, on the other hand, look at the long train of moral evils which crowd in the track of our revolutionary war.
Intemperance, which has now become so extensively the disgrace of our land, unquestionably had its origin in the daily rations of spirit served to the revolutionary army and navy.
Sabbath-breaking was abhorred by the descendants of the pious pilgrims, until war, which knows no Sabbath, broke over the appropriate employments of that day, and the reverence due to it.
Licentiousness, the proverbial inmate of every camp, and profaneness, a vice almost universal among soldiers, have fearfully increased since their toleration in the revolutionary army and navy.
Then the whole spirit and practice of war produce a slight estimation of the value of human life.
Habits of plunder destroy that regard which we naturally feel for the sacredness of private property.
The absolute and unconditional obedience demanded by military superiors, takes away the sense of individual responsibility to God.
In short, war is permitted to suspend all the rules of morality.
The loss of $400,000,000, and even the destruction of 100,000 lives, appear but trifling evils, in comparison with the enormous deprivation of moral habits and religious principles which the revolutionary war has produced in this nation.
The considerations above mentioned entirely satisfy me not only that we should have gained our independence, but that we should have been more prosperous, better and happier than we now are, had there been no revolutionary war.
So much for positive results of the non-resistance plan.
It may now be well to look at the subject in another aspect, and see what results would not have taken place, had our ancestors been magnanimous enough, honorable enough, Christian enough, to refuse to fight with Great Britain.
Having gained their independence in the mode above mentioned, most assuredly they would not have continued to hold their fellow-creatures in slavery.
Upon this point we cannot be mistaken.
Men who had been led by Christian principle to regard the rights and abstain from the destruction of their enernies, could not have deliberately pursued a system of oppression and fraud against their former fellow-sufferers.
Men who had so strongly demonstrated their belief in the doctrine, that the whole human race are alike entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, could not have systematically manufactured and used whips, chains, handcuffs and branding-irons.
They would not have kept back the hire of the laborer; they would not have taken away the key of knowledge; they would neither have denied the theory nor shrunk from the practice of immediate emancipation.
They would certainly have been, in truth as well as in pretense, a free people.
Again.
They would not have proceeded to defraud, corrupt, and exterminate the original inhabitants of this country.
They would neither have deprived the Indians of their lands, nor supplied them with liquid fire, nor broken their faith, plighted in solemn treaties, nor expended the revenues of the country in making war upon them.
How much treasure, how much blood, how many precious lives, how many immortal souls, might they have saved
Lastly.
They would not have admitted the system of violence and retaliation as a constituent part of their own government.
Having forgiven their foreign foes, they would have pursued the like Christian course towards every domestic enemy.
Having conquered by suffering in the great contest between nations, they would have trusted to the same means for overcoming all minor evils.
So far from depending on the gallows, the prison, the stocks, the whipping-post, for peace and quietness, they would utterly have rejected all such barbarous instruments, and substituted for them love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, hope, patience, meekness.
And, doing thus, they would have found the word of God a sure reliance; the whole armor of God a safe protection.
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?
When I attend the Anarchist Bookfairs in San Francisco, one of my favorite things to do is to leaf through the collections of old, yellowing, radical pamphlets and booklets.
It’s fun in its own right, if you’re a weirdo like me, but occasionally I’ll also find something worth sharing here, like a Catholic Worker booklet with an essay on tax resistance by Ammon Hennacy for instance.
Last time, I picked up a collection of writings by American revolutionary Samuel Adams that was published in by the American communist publisher International Publishers (remarkably still in business!)
Sam Adams was at the center of the radical wing of American revolutionists who were pushing tax resistance, boycotts, shunning and intimidation of tax collectors and tax compliers, and actions like the Boston Tea Party, in order to forcefully assert American independence from the taxing power of a British parliament in which Americans were not represented.
Though it is fashionable these days to assert that the Boston Tea Party wasn’t about taxes (because the tea that went overboard had actually been at least partially subsidized and exempted from levies as a way of foisting it off on the colonies), Adams astutely saw that such policies were part and parcel of the unjust taxation of America:
[B]y acts of Parliament, the colonies are prohibited from importing commodities of the growth or manufacture of Europe, except from Great Britain, saving a few articles.
This gives the advantage to Great Britain of raising the price of her commodities, and is equal to a tax.
Here is Adams speaking out against the tax on tea:
We cannot surely have forgot the accursed designs of a most detestable set of men, to destroy the Liberties of America as with one blow, by the Stamp-Act; nor the noble and successful efforts we then made to divert the impending stroke of ruin aimed at ourselves and our posterity.
The Sons of Liberty on the , a Day which ought to be for ever remembered in America, animated with a zeal for their country then upon the brink of destruction, and resolved, at once to save her, or like Samson, to perish in the ruins, exerted themselves with such distinguished vigor, as made the house of Dogon to shake from its very foundation; and the hopes of the lords of the Philistines even while their hearts were merry, and when they were anticipating the joy of plundering this continent, were at that very time buried in the pit they had digged.
The People shouted; and their shout was heard to the distant end of this Continent.
In each Colony they deliberated and resolved, and every Stampman trembled; and swore by his Maker, that he would never execute a commission which he had so infamously received
We cannot have forgot, that at the very Time when the stamp-act was repealed, another was made in which the Parliament of Great-Britain declared, that they had right and authority to make any laws whatever binding on his Majesty’s subjects in America — How far this declaration can be consistent with the freedom of his Majesty’s subjects in America, let any one judge who pleases — In consequence of such right and authority claim’d, the commons of Great Britain very soon fram’d a bill and sent it up to the Lords, wherein they pray’d his Majesty to accept of their grant of such a part as they were then pleas’d, by virtue of the right and authority inherent in them to make, of the property of his Majesty’s subjects in America by a duty upon paper, glass, painter’s colours and tea.
And altho’ these duties are in part repeal’d, there remains enough to answer the purpose of administration, which was to fix the precedent.
We remember the policy of Mr. Grenville, who would have been content for the present with a pepper corn establish’d as a revenue in America: If therefore we are voluntarily silent while the single duty on tea is continued, or do any act, however innocent, simply considered, which may be construed by the tools of administration, (some of whom appear to be fruitful in invention) as an acquiescence in the measure, we are in extreme hazard; if ever we are so distracted as to consent to it, we are undone.
Nor can we ever forget the indignity and abuse with which America in general, and this province and town in particular, have been treated, by the servants & officers of the crown, for making a manly resistance to the arbitrary measures of administration, in the representations that have been made to the men in power at home, who have always been dispos’d to believe every word as infallible truth.
For opposing a threatned Tyranny, we have been not only called, but in effect adjudged Rebels & Traitors to the best of Kings, who has sworn to maintain and defend the Rights and Liberties of his Subjects — We have been represented as inimical to our fellow subjects in Britain, because we have boldly asserted those Rights and Liberties, wherewith they, as Subjects, are made free.
— When we complain’d of this injurious treatment; when we petition’d, and remonstrated our grievances: What was the Consequence?
Still further indignity; and finally a formal invasion of this town by a fleet and army in the memorable year .
Our masters, military and civil, have since that period been frequently chang’d; and possibly some of them, from principles merely political, may of late have look’d down upon us with less sternness in their countenances than a Bernard or a …: But while there has been no essential alteration of measures, no real redress of grievances, we have no reason to think, nay we deceive ourselves if we indulge a thought that their hearts are changed.
We cannot entertain such an imagination, while the revenue, or as it is more justly stiled, the tribute is extorted from us: while our principal fortress, within the environs of the town, remains garrison’d by regular troops, and the harbour is invested by ships of war.
The most zealous advocates for the measures of administration, will not pretend to say, that these troops and these ships are sent here to protect America, or to carry into execution any one plan, form’d for the honor or advantage of Great-Britain.
It would be some alleviation, if we could be convinced that they were sent here with any other design than to insult us.
How absurd then must the addresses which have been presented to some particular gentlemen, who have made us such friendly visits, appear in the eyes of men of sense abroad!
Or, if any of them have been so far impos’d upon, as to be induc’d to believe that such addresses speak the language of the generality of the people, how ridiculous must the generality of the people appear!
On the last supposition, would not a sensible reader of those addresses, upon comparing them with the noble resolutions which this town, this province and this continent have made against slavery, and the just and warm resentment they have constantly shown against every man whatever, who had a mind sordid and base enough, for the sake of lucre, or the preservation of a commission, or from any other consideration, to submit to be made even a remote instrument in bringing and entailing it upon a free and a brave people; upon such a comparison, would he not be ready to conclude, “that we had forgot the reasons which urged us, with unexampled unanimity a few years ago — that our zeal for the public good had worn out, before the homespun cloaths which it had caused us to have made — and, that by our present conduct we condemned our own late successful example!
— Although this is altogether supposition, without any foundation in truth, yet, so our enemies wish it may be in reality, and so they intend it shall be — To prevent it, let us adhere to first principles.
Adams led those opposed to the tax on tea to declare “That whoever shall directly or indirectly countenance this attempt [to send and collect duties on East India Company tea to America], or in any wise aid or abet in unloading, receiving, or vending the tea sent or to be sent out by the East India Company while it remains subject to the payment of a duty here is an enemy to America.” and to decide “that a committee be immediately chosen to wait on those gentlemen, who it is reported are appointed by the East India Company to receive and sell said tea, and to request them from a regard to their own characters and the peace and good order of this town and province immediately to resign their appointment.”
Here’s his description of the Boston Tea Party:
Boston, .
My Dear Sir, I am now to inform you of as remarkable an event as has yet happened since the commencement of our struggle for American liberty.
The meeting of the town of Boston, an account of which I enclosed in my last, was succeeded by the arrival of the ship Falmouth, Captain Hall, with 114 chests of the East India Company’s tea, on the last.
the people met in Faneuil hall, without observing the rules prescribed by law for calling them together; and although that hall is capable of holding 1200 or 1300 men, they were soon obliged for the want of room to adjourn to the Old South meeting-house; where were assembled upon this important occasion 5000, some say 6000 men, consisting of the respectable inhabitants of this and the adjacent towns.
The business of the meeting was conducted with decency, unanimity, and spirit.
Their resolutions you will observe in an enclosed printed paper.
It naturally fell upon the correspondence for the town of Boston to see that these resolutions were carried into effect.
This committee, finding that the owner of the ship after she was unloaded of all her cargo except the tea, was by no means disposed to take the necessary steps for her sailing back to London, thought it best to call in the committees of Charlestown, Cambridge, Brookline, Roxbury, and Dorchester, all of which towns are in the neighbourhood of this, for their advice and assistance.
After a free conference and due consideration, they dispersed.
The next day, being the people met again at the Old South church, and having ascertained the owner, they compelled him to apply at the custom house for a clearance for his ship to London with the tea on board, and appointed ten gentlemen to see it performed; after which they adjourned till .
The people then met, and Mr. Rotch informed them that he had according to their injunction applied to the collector of the customs for a clearance, and received in answer from the collector that he could not consistently with his duty grant him a clearance, until the ship should be discharged of the dutiable article on board.
It must be here observed that Mr. Rotch had before made a tender of the tea to the consignees, being told by them that it was not practicable for them at that time to receive the tea, by reason of a constant guard kept upon it by armed men; but that when it might be practicable, they would receive it.
He demanded the captain’s bill of lading and the freight, both which they refused him, against which he entered a regular protest.
The people then required Mr. Rotch to protest the refusal of the collector to grant him a clearance under these circumstances, and thereupon to wait upon the governor for a permit to pass the castle in her voyage to London, and then adjourned till the afternoon.
They then met, and after waiting till sun-setting, Mr. Rotch returned, and acquainted them that the governor had refused to grant him a passport, thinking it inconsistent with the laws and his duty to the king, to do it until the ship should be qualified, notwithstanding Mr. Rotch had acquainted him with the circumstances above mentioned.
You will observe by the printed proceedings, that the people were resolved that the tea should not be landed, but sent back to London in the same bottom; and the property should be safeguarded while in port, which they punctually performed.
It cannot therefore be fairly said that the destruction of the property was in their contemplation.
It is proved that the consignees, together with the collector of the customs, and the governor of the province, prevented the safe return of the East India Company’s property (the danger of the sea only excepted) to London.
The people finding all their endeavours for this purpose thus totally frustrated, dissolved the meeting, which had consisted by common estimation of at least seven thousand men, many of whom had come from towns at the distance of twenty miles.
In less than four hours every chest of tea on board three ships which had by this time arrived, three hundred and forty-two chests, or rather the contents of them, was thrown into the sea, without the least injury to the vessels or any other property.
While I’m here in Boston, enjoying the Fall national gathering of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (and my first visit to a New England War Tax Resistance annual gathering), here are some tax resistance resolutions passed by the town of Boston on :
Whereas it appears by an Act of the British Parliament passed in the last Sessions, that the East India Company are by the said Act allowed to export their Teas into America, in such Quantities as the Lord of the Treasury shall Judge proper:
And some People with an evil intent to amuse the People, and others thro’ inattention to the true design of the Act, have so construed the same, as that the Tribute of three Pence on every Pound of Tea is not to be enacted by the detestable Task Masters there — Upon the due consideration thereof, RESOLVED, That the Sense of the Town cannot be better expressed on this Occasion, than in the words of certain Judicious Resolves lately entered into by our worthy Brethren the Citizens of Philadelphia — wherefore
RESOLVED, that the disposal of their own property is the Inherent Right of Freemen; that there can be no property in that which another can of right take from us without our consent; that the Claim of Parliament to tax America, is in other words a claim of Right to lay Contributions on us at pleasure —
2d.
That the Duty imposed by Parliament upon Tea landed in America, is a tax on the Americans, or levying Contributions on them without their consent —
3d.
That the express purpose for which the Tax is levied on the Americans, namely for the support of Government, the Administration of Justice, and the defence of His Majestys Dominions in America, has a direct tendency to render Assemblies useless, and to introduce Arbitrary Government and Slavery —
4th.
That a virtuous and steady opposition to the Ministerial Plan of governing America, is absolutely necessary to preserve even the shadow of Liberty, and is a duty which every Freeman in America owes to his Country to himself and to his Posterity —
5th.
That the Resolutions lately come by the East India Company, to send out their Teas to America Subject to the payment of Duties on its being landed here, is an open attempt to enforce the Ministerial Plan, and a violent attack upon the Liberties of America —
6th.
That is is the Duty of every American to oppose this attempt —
7th.
That whoever shall directly or indirectly countenance this attempt, or in any wise aid or abet in unloading receiving or vending the Tea sent or to be sent out by the East India Company while it remains subject to the payment of a duty here is an Enemy to America —
8th.
That a Committee be immediately chosen to wait on those Gentlemen, who it is reported are appointed by the East India Company to receive and sell said Tea, and to request them from a regard to their own characters and the peace and good order of this Town and Province immediately to resign their appointment.
It’s become fashionable in some quarters to claim that the Boston Tea Party wasn’t a tax protest at all, and that people who have since conducted tax protests using the mantle of the Boston Tea Party have misapprehended the nature of the original.
Certainly, it wasn’t just a tax protest, but clearly the tax on tea was at the forefront of the protesters’ minds.
On , the British House of Commons debated a bill concerning a certain tax on tea and other items shipped by British merchants and traders to the colonies in America.
Some of these merchants and traders had petitioned Parliament because they were being hurt by a colonial boycott of such taxed goods.
They asked Parliament to rescind the taxes so as to end the boycott.
The Prime Minister, Lord North, began by saying that while he had been in favor of reducing or eliminating taxes on the colonies, he feared that if they abolished all of the taxes, rather than leaving at least a token tea tax in place, they would be effectively conceding that Parliament lacked the right or authority to tax the colonies, which his government was not prepared to do:
Indeed, I heartily wished to repeal the whole of the law… if there had been a possibility of repealing it without giving up that just right which I shall ever wish the mother country to possess, the right of taxing the Americans.
But I am sorry, heartily sorry to say, that the colonies, so far from deserving additional instances of tenderness, did not deserve the instance then shewn, for their resolutions became more violent than ever; their associations instead of supplicating proceeded to dictate, and grew at last to such a meridian of temerity, that administration could not, for its own credit, go as far as it might incline to gratify their expectations; and I am now perfectly satisfied that was the tax now under consideration to be this moment wholly abolished, it would neither excite their gratitude, nor re-establish their tranquillity: they would set the abolition down, not to the goodness, but to the fears of the mother country, and upon a supposition that we were to be terrified into any concession, they would make fresh demands, and rise in their turbulence instead of returning to their duty.
Fatal experience, Sir, has sufficiently proved the truth of this conjecture.
We repealed the Stamp-act to comply with their desires, and what has been the consequence; has the repeal taught them obedience, has our lenity inspired them with moderation?
No, Sir, that very lenity has encouraged them to insult our authority, to dispute our rights, and to aim at independent government.
What is therefore to be done?
Shall we, while they now deny our legal power to tax them, acquiesce in the argument of illegality, and give up that power?
Shall we betray ourselves out of compliment to them, and through a wish of rendering more than justice to America, resign the controuling supremacy of England?
God forbid!
The properest time to exert our right of taxation, is, when the right is refused.
The properest time for making resistance is when we are attacked.
To temporize is to yield, and the authority of the mother country now unsupported, is, in reality, relinquished for ever.
Some debate followed, some of which was interesting, but most of it was just politicians blowing smoke.
How much foreign policy, then and now, I wonder, has been macho insecurity in disguise — we can’t do what we know to be just while those who are demanding justice are threatening us!
That would be to show weakness!
The rate which you Britons, as merchants, having the monopoly of our trade, are enabled to put upon your goods, we must pay, because we have no other shop to go to.
On these terms we have been your customers, from our first establishment to this day. — We have purchased from you many articles of supply, necessary to us, but which we have not been able as yet to supply ourselves with; — and in the last place, from an affection to, and affectation of, your modes and fashions, we have gone into a trade of luxury: thus the surplus of the profit of our lands, our labour, and our trade, hath, to the last farthing, centered in Great Britain.
Yet, not content as merchants in thus setting the highest rate upon us which you think we are able and willing to pay — you have of late, as legislators, superadded a farther rate, by a tax: this we cannot, we will not pay.
I repeat, Sir, the reasoning; we will not pay: there are certain bounds which power itself cannot pass — we see those bounds — we will not purchase those articles of supply to which you have superadded the rate of a tax.
You have treated us as the overseers of great works and manufactures treat the poor labourers which are put under their direction.
You set the price of our labour; and you set also the price of those supplies, which we must purchase by the fruits of our labour; whilst you are enabled to confine us to the purchasing them from you alone — and would you superadd a tax to all this?
If you do — we can refuse that tax, by withholding ourselves from purchasing those articles which you have thus taxed.
From various harsh measures, one part of our people have been soured — another irritated.
From various inefficient exertions of your power, we have been taught to see your weakness, and to feel our own strength — and by nothing more than by this vain attempt of taxing your own articles of trade.
The temper of our people is thus wrought up to, and prepared for, this species of opposition arising from self denial; — and in this temper we associated in resolutions, and united in conduct, not to trade with you farther than we like, and find necessary.
By recurring to ourselves, we find that we can furnish from within ourselves many articles of supply, which we used to take entirely from you.
We not only find it right, but we feel from pique the disposition to retrench in many of these articles of supply, which, if we use, we must take from you — and at the moment in which we are determined to cut off our commerce of luxury, we have raised up a spirit of labour and industry which will ever multiply our supplies; and is gone far, and is every day going further into manufactures.
As it turned out, the British stubbornness in maintaining the tea tax did not work out too well for them.
On , British soldiers fired into a group of colonists, killing five, in what became known as the Boston Massacre.
Over , the American independence movement would move in the direction of an armed rebellion.
A British customs official tarred and feathered in America
The textbook case of humiliation-attacks on tax collectors is the “tarring and feathering” practiced, in particular, by American revolutionaries.
After the revolution, the Whiskey Rebels took up the practice.
In one case:
A party of men, armed and disguised, waylaid [Robert Johnson, collector of the revenues] at a place on Pidgeon Creek, in Washington County, seized, tarred and feathered him, cut off his hair, and deprived him of his horse, obliging him to travel on foot a considerable distance in that mortifying and painful situation.
On other occasions, the rebels “docked [collectors’] horses’ tails, and in at least one instance tarred a collector and rolled him in leaves.”
One process server “was seized, whipped, tarred and feathered, and after having his money and horse taken from him, was blindfolded and tied in the woods, in which condition he remained five hours.”
A delusional man named Wilson, “manifestly disordered in his intellects, imagining himself to be a collector of the revenue, or invested with some trust in relation to it, was so unlucky as to make inquiries concerning distillers who had entered their stills, giving out that he was to travel through the United States, to ascertain and report to Congress the number of stills, etc. This man was pursued by a party in disguise, taken out of his bed, carried about five miles back to a smith’s shop, stripped of his clothes, which were afterwards burnt, and, after having been himself inhumanly burnt in several places with a heated iron, was tarred and feathered, and about daylight dismissed — naked, wounded, and otherwise in a very suffering condition.”
Violent humiliation attacks known as “carding” were also part of the Tithe War in Ireland.
According to one account:
Carding the tithe proctors (who certainly were the genuine tyrants of Ireland) was occasionally resorted to by the White Boys, and was performed in the following manner.
The tithe proctor was generally waked out of his first sleep by his door being smashed in; and the boys in white shirts desired him “never to fear,” as they only intended to card him this bout for taking a quarter instead of a tenth from every poor man in the parish.
They then turned him on his face upon the bed; and taking a lively ram cat out of a bag which they brought with them, they set the cat between the proctor’s shoulders.
The beast, being nearly as much terrified as the proctor, would endeavour to get off; but being held fast by the tail, he intrenched every claw deep in the proctor’s back, in order to keep up a firm resistance to the White Boys.
The more the tail was pulled back, the more the ram cat tried to go forward; at length, when he had, as he conceived, made his possession quite secure, main force convinced him to the contrary, and that if he kept his hold, he must lose his tail.
So, he was dragged backward to the proctor’s loins, grappling at every pull, and bringing away, here and there, strips of the proctor’s skin, to prove the pertinacity of his defence.
When the ram cat had got down to the loins, he was once more placed at the shoulders, and again carded the proctor (toties quoties) according to his sentence.
In , “An irate dry cleaner” named LaSaunders Hudson “who wouldn’t pay his taxes forced three state revenue agents to march naked out of his store”
Mabile said as the agents were removing their underwear, Hudson advised them that “this is part of the punishment we are going to give the white man for injustices done the black man.”
During the salt tax (gabelle) riots in Bordeaux in , “A few tax collectors were killed.
Their bodies were dragged through the streets and covered in heaps of salt to underline the point.”
In , Irish settlers in Canada who were refusing to pay a county tax there were confronted by a deputy sheriff who had intended to seize property for back taxes.
Instead, “they compelled him to eat the writs he had, and then gave him a limited time to get out of the township.”
In one town, in the aftermath of the French Revolution, “the moment the clerk begins to read the document, the women spring upon him, seize the tax-roll, and ‘tear it up with countless imprecations;’ the municipal council is assailed, and two hundred persons stone its members, one of whom is thrown down, has his head shaved, and is promenaded through the village in derision.”
Sometimes the humiliation attack would be performed on the tax collector in absentia or in effigy:
During the Tithe War in Ireland, resisters
audaciously dug a grave within sight of Dinefwr Castle, the family seat, and announced that [Colonel George Rice] Trevor would occupy it by .
Trevor, however, surrounded by soldiers, survived unscathed.
During the Whiskey Rebellion,
[T]he inspector of the revenue was burnt in effigy in Allegany county, at a place, and on a day, of some public election, with much display, and without interruption, in the presence of magistrates and other public officers.
Social boycott can also be a potent tactic to use against tax collectors or collaborators with the tax collection process.
Here are some examples:
Adolf Hausrath writes about how social boycott was used to discourage tax collectors in 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.
The current Greek “won’t pay” movement included a joint statement from several outraged groups that called for a social boycott of legislators who went along with the tax-and-austerity plans: “do not talk to them, do not listen, do not socialize, do not invite, do not serve them, do not put gasoline in their cars…”
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.
Sam Adams led those opposed to the tea tax to declare “That whoever shall directly or indirectly countenance this attempt [to send and collect duties on East India Company tea to America], or in any wise aid or abet in unloading, receiving, or vending the tea sent or to be sent out by the East India Company while it remains subject to the payment of a duty here is an enemy to America.” and to decide “that a committee be immediately chosen to wait on those gentlemen, who it is reported are appointed by the East India Company to receive and sell said tea, and to request them from a regard to their own characters and the peace and good order of this town and province immediately to resign their appointment.”
During the Whiskey Rebellion, the rebels passed a social boycott resolution that said 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.
Islanders living off the coast of Galway County in Ireland refused to appoint tax collectors from among their number, and “where collectors are available on the mainland owners of boats have refused to facilitate their passage to the islands,” according to a newspaper account.
“On a few occasions the Civic Guards have persuaded the owners to lend their service and their boats, or their boats alone, for the guards to cross.
In such cases the guards have met with anything but a cordial reception.”
During the Dublin water charge strike:
Through contacts in the trade union movement we were able to discover the names of all the water inspectors and imagine their surprise the night before disconnections were due to begin when each of them received a hand-delivered letter appealing to them as trade union members not to cut people’s water off.
They decided not to respond positively to our polite request so the next morning when they left home under the cover of darkness, they each discovered a car-load of activists sitting outside their homes ready to follow them wherever they might go to try to do their dirty work.
One of them didn’t like it so much that after driving around and being followed for an hour he went to the local copshop to complain about being intimidated.
During the Bardoli satyagraha, tax collectors and collaborators were vigorously shunned.
Here are some excerpts from Mahadev Desai’s The Story of Bardoli:
There were meetings in talukas contiguous to Bardoli… calling upon people in their respective parts not to cooperate with the authorities engaged in putting down the Satyagraha… by helping in the attachment of property by engaging as labourers or sending carts on hire…
…the police proceeded to hire a taxi.
The driver, whose car had been engaged by the Satyagrahis, refused to break his engagement and place his bus at the disposal of the Collector.
His licence was demanded, it was not with him, but he showed his brass badge, which he was asked to surrender.
Another taxidriver whose car had been engaged by [campaign commander] Sjt. Vallabhbhai was deprived of his licence too.
Kadod… was trying to go one better than other villages by resolving to cut off supplies of provision, etc. to the attachment officer posted in the village.
Sjt. Vallabhbhai in a long and moving speech expounded the principles of Satyagraha, and told them that their resolution was not in keeping with principles and must be canceled: “In a struggle based essentially on truth and nonviolence we must not do anything in resentment or anger.
It is a sign of weakness.
…do not refuse them the ordinary amenities of life.
They must get whatever they want at market rates.”
It would appear, that three carts were commandeered. for removing the kit and luggage belonging to the Deputy Collector from the Bardoli thana [district] to Valod.
The man to whom the carts belonged came to realise his mistake and went to the thana in company with Sjt. Ravishankar to call back his men.
One of the cartmen, as soon as he saw his master, said, they were not at all willing to go but they were helpless.
Sjt. Ravishankar pleaded with the Mamlatdar that if the men were not willing they should not be forced.
He was ordered to leave the thana which he did; and the cartman leaving the cart followed him.
The other cartmen also ultimately left leaving the carts in the thana compound.
Moderate reformist K.M. Munshi wrote to the government after visiting Bardoli:
Your japti officer has to travel miles before he can get a shave.
Your officer’s car which got stuck would have remained in the mud but for Mr. Vallabhbhai, officially styled “agitator living on Bardoli.”
Garda to whom lands worth thousands have been sold for a nominal amount does not get even a scavenger for his house.
The Collector gets no conveyance on the railway station unless one is given by Mr. Vallabhbhai’s sanction.
The threat of social boycott also played out at other points in the Indian independence struggle, with one account noting for instance that “the native police, fearing social boycott if they pressed their own kinsmen too hard, in some cases sat idly by and watched proceedings,” during the Dharasana salt raid.
When the salt march reached the sea near Danmi, where Gandhi planned to harvest sea salt in violation of the taxed monopoly:
The police and labourers [who had been hired by the government to try to destroy all the natural salt deposits in the area] are boycotted by the villagers in the neighbourhood and have to journey to a village ten miles away to procure food.
During the Edinburgh Annuity Tax resistance, social boycott was practiced against tax enforcers:
Of late months, no auctioneer would venture to the Cross to roup for stipend.
What human being has nerve enough to bear up against the scorn, hatred, and execration of his fellow-creatures, expressed in a cause he himself must feel just?
The cabman who brought the officers, seeing they were engaged in such a disagreeable duty, took his cab away, and they had some difficulty in procuring another…
During the government investigation of the Annuity Tax resistance campaign the following exchange took place:
Q: What was Mr. Whitten’s express reason for declining to act as auctioneer?
A: He was very much inconvenienced on that occasion, and he believed that his general business connection would suffer by undertaking these sales, and that he would lose the support of any customer who was of that party.
During the Fries Rebellion, social pressure made it difficult for the government to recruit collaborators:
[I]n every tavern [Jacob Eyerley] stopped at, the law was the subject of general conversation and denunciation, and great pains were taken to find the friends of government, in order to persuade them not to accept the office of assessor.
In consequence of this feeling there was great difficulty in finding suitable persons for these appointments.
When Thatcher’s poll tax was being introduced, the government tried to recruit convenience stores and newsstands to be tax collection points.
When the resistance got wind of this, they contacted the stores, letting them know they would be boycotted if they allowed themselves to be used in this way.
Several then refused to participate.
A threat of social boycott was used to deter potential buyers of property seized from Steuben County resisters of taxes meant to pay back purchasers of crooked railroad bonds:
The scene was upon the farm of William Atkins, where 200 of the solid yeomanry of the town had assembled to resist the sale… A Mr. Updyke, with broader hint, made these remarks: “I want to tell you folks that Mr. Atkins has paid all of his tax except this railroad tax; and we consider any man who will buy our property to help John Davis and Sam Alley as contemptible sharks.
We shall remember him for years, and will know where he lives.”
The tax collector finally rose and remarked that in view of the situation he would not attempt to proceed with the sale.
During a tax resistance campaign in the German countryside between the world wars:
The carters refused, even with police protection, to carry off the distrained cattle, for they knew that if they did they would never again be able to do business with the peasants.
One day three peasants even appeared in the slaughter yards at Hamburg and announced that unless the distrained cattle disappeared at once from the yard’s stalls the gentlemen in charge of the slaughterhouse could find somewhere else to buy their beasts in the future — they wouldn’t be getting any more from Schleswig-Holstein.
Today I’m going to cover another tactic in the same ballpark: the use of
smuggling to get consumer goods to market while evading a tax or a
government-enforced monopoly. Smuggling can serve a tax resistance movement in
multiple ways:
Smuggling can deprive the government of revenue.
Smuggling can raise money for resistance activities.
Smuggling can forge bonds between a variety of people in a geographically
distributed, semi-organized underground, in a way that can later be
capitalized on for resistance activity.
Here are some examples of smuggling being used in the course of tax resistance
campaigns:
In the years leading up to the American Revolution, “the restrictions on
imports from the West Indies were systematically and persistently ignored,
producing a condition of smuggling so universal and well-nigh respectable
as to raise the question whether the operations of the merchants could
properly be designated by that term.”
Indeed the economy of the American colonies relied on smuggling to such an
extent that the government’s threat to crack down on the evasion of duties
on imported molasses did more to fan the flames of revolution than any of
its other saber-rattling. Revolutionary John Adams wrote later:
I know not why we should blush to confess that molasses was an essential
ingredient in American independence. Many great events have proceeded
from much smaller causes.
The burning of
the Gaspée — a ship that the government was
using to track down smugglers — in
ratcheted up the tension between the colonists and Mother England soon
before the Revolutionary War broke out.
The U.S.
government tried to defeat the Whiskey Rebellion by purchasing as much
taxed whiskey as it could get its hands on (ostensibly as requisitions
for the Army) while at the same time trying to interrupt the black market
for untaxed whiskey by seizing what they could find of it. This didn’t
work as planned, as the rebels shifted to smuggling their goods out of
the state, “to the territory northwest of the Ohio [river],” where the tax
law did not apply.
A Colombian anarchist recently published a guide to
“Contraband as a Strategy of Tax Avoidance”
to help potential tax resisters in countries where a value-added or sales
tax is the primary funder of the national treasury.
Gandhi’s salt march and salt raids promoted the harvesting, distribution,
and sale of salt illegally produced outside of the approved government
monopoly.
As early attempts to get methodical about nonviolent resistance theory and practice, these are interesting works.
I’ll note some of what he had to say about tax resistance as a nonviolent resistance tactic here today:
Tax resistance against the Education Act of
This was the organized opposition to the English Education Act of , which extended the private school system of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches at the expense of the general taxpayer.
The interest of the matter for the purposes of the present discussion lies in the fact that it was explicitly an example of passive resistance, inasmuch as the agitators called themselves “passive resisters” and published, for a decade or more, a periodical called “Passive Resistance,” from whose pages this account is drawn.
Their method was to refuse to pay the school tax, which they held to be grossly unjust to dissenters, but to submit obediently to the penalty prescribed by the law for delinquency.
This punishment came with great regularity in the form of fines, which the passive resisters steadfastly and consistently refused to pay; whereupon their goods were distrained, or, in default of goods, the recalcitrant was cast into prison.
The magnitude of the movement is shown by the fact that within two and one half years of its inauguration the league had on file reports of seventy thousand summonses and 254 commitments to prison.
The character and social standing of the members of the movement are facts of significant interest.
According to the secretary of the organization,1 “The men and women whose goods have been sold belong to all classes and ranks.
They are clergymen and ministers, journalists and teachers, manufacturers and magistrates, members of Parliament and candidates for Parliament, farmers and gardeners, aged women and young men.”2
The movement was losing momentum in , in response, as was supposed, to a feeling on the part of some that the Liberal victory of , for which the Passive Resisters seem to have been more or less responsible, insured the repeal of the obnoxious law.
But the decline was doubtless due also to the proverbially early exhaustion which overtakes all sudden expressions of popular indignation.
The secretary admitted in that the Passive Resisters were “fewer in number compared with the hosts which at first resisted the fraudulent legislation of .”3
“Passive Resistance,” ; p. 7.
Ibid.
Ibid.; p. 4.
Tax resistance in the American Revolution
The merchants, true to the intuition of their class, were by no means revolutionary or even reckless as regards the foundations of law and order, although in this case they permitted their zeal for prosperity to encourage social forces which, in turn, eventually raised a tempest that they could not quell.
Their intention, both real and apparent, was the organization of a boycott against British trade, particularly in commodities subjected to taxation or other restrictions under the recently enacted revenue laws.
This boycott was planned with clear comprehension of the interplay of interests that obtains in human affairs, and particularly the dependence of political policies upon personal and business influences.
Consequently the colonial merchants did not aim a general broadside at the whole British Empire, but planned to reach particular interests with a well-directed blow.
More specifically, they hoped, by means of their boycott measures, to give the British mercantile and manufacturing people a motive, in the person of their own imperiled interests, for seeking the ear of Parliament with a demand for the repeal of the objectionable legislation.
The straight, or primary, boycott was the method used to impress the minds of the British trading class, which was, of course, the British government for practical purposes.
The secondary boycott, as now known, was in turn brought to bear upon Americans who failed to observe the original agreement and resorted to dealing within the limits prescribed, either as to persons or goods.
For instance, in the earlier struggle, waged against the stamp tax, communities that paid the same were made to feel the disapproval of their neighbors, as in Charleston, South Carolina, where a radical fire company agreed that ”no provision should be shipped “to that infamous Colony Georgia in particular nor any other that make use of Stamp Paper.’ ”1
During the later boycott, directed against the Townshend taxes, Rhode Island yielded to that temptation which constitutes the greatest peril for any concerted movement of this kind, namely the impulse to reap a rich harvest by seizing the opportunities deliberately left to go begging through the self-denial of one’s competitors.
This incident also discloses another weakness inherent in such organized “voluntary” efforts, which is that they are really seldom, if ever, completely voluntary.
Enthusiasts for every cause, however worthy, almost invariably make use of coercion by means of the hundred and one devices known to social pressure, and thereby incorporate the seeds of their own disintegration.
Thus a contemporary Rhode Islander wrote that they “were dragged in the first place like an ox to the slaughter, into the non-importation agreement,” and that adherence to the same “would have been acting out of character and in contradiction to the opinion of the country.”2
The resistance of the colonists was destined, however, to run the entire gamut of forms known to social opposition and constraint.
Evasion of law had long been an established business in the form of smuggling; the peaceable boycott, both primary and secondary, was now well under way; but political action, litigation, social ostracism, mob violence, and armed revolution were either already coming into play or waiting to enter the stage as the historic drama proceeded.
And this list makes no mention of those subtle methods of persuasion and “influence” which operate between friends and relatives, business and scientific associates, boon companions, and numberless other channels of daily intercourse, not to mention the more overt persuasion of pulpit, press, and platform.
And one of the most significant aspects of it all is the tendency of any one of these situations to transform itself into one or more of the other members of the series, so that one method can hardly be used without sooner or later invoking the others.
This truth is clearly exemplified in the events now before us.
For example, in the secondary boycott directed by Charleston against Georgia, as quoted above, the resolution threatened death for future offenders, with destruction of their vessels.
In Boston, especially during the earlier contest over the Stamp Tax, the disturbances were most serious.
The rioters were led by one Mackintosh, a shoemaker, endowed by nature for “government by tumult.”
Under his leadership, the mob, which was currently reported to include “fifty gentlemen actors” partly disguised in workman’s attire, not only razed the stamp office but also attacked the house of the registrar of the admiralty, and even the residence of Governor Hutchinson himself.
In all these scenes the Sons of Liberty, composed largely of workingmen, did the strong-arm work.
Meanwhile the merchants, ostensibly committed exclusively to the boycott and orderly methods, lent in private an anxious but effective moral support.
One of them testifies in a private letter of the time that they were endeavoring “to keep up the Spirit” of resistance but were “not a little pleas’d to hear that McIntosh has the Credit of the Whole Affair.”3…
“The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, ,” by Arthur Meier Schlesinger; Vol. ⅬⅩⅩⅧ, Whole Number 182, of “Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law,” edited by the faculty of political science of Columbia University.
New York, ; p. 82.
Ibid.; p. 215.
Ibid.; p. 72.
Economic pressure through the boycott and physical force in the form of violence were constantly supported by the more subtle forms of social coercion.
Thus the Boston agreement of was to be enforced by a discountenancing “in the most effectual but decent and lawful manner” of all who should fail to aid the movement.
At Philadelphia, any person failing to support the boycott was to be branded “An Enemy of the Liberties of America,” and it was the plan to publish such names in the newspapers.
The commercial resisters of Savannah likewise agreed that “every violator should be deemed ‘no Friend to his Country’ ”; while in South Carolina non-supporters were “to be treated with the utmost contempt.”
In the Boston boycotters circulated thousands of handbills throughout their own and neighboring provinces calling on the inhabitants to have no trade relations with persons whom they named as lacking in regard for the public good.
While this is apparently merely a case of the secondary boycott already described, the publicity methods connected with it are of interest just here.
Public disapproval, aside from withdrawal of patronage, was a factor held in view.
It was an effort to revive the ancient pillory upon its mental though not its physical side that prompted some of these acts — perhaps that of the Harvard College seniors who resolved never again to deal with Editor John Mein, who championed the non-boycotters.1 The town meeting went a step further, and ordered the names of seven persistent offenders inscribed on the town records in order “that posterity may know who those persons were that preferred their little private advantages to the common interest of all the colonies.”2
Boston, the scene of so many stirring activities, staged a prototype of our present-day “peaceful picketing” on a mass scale, when, during the struggle to prevent disintegration of the boycott forces, in , a procession of more than a thousand persons proceeded, in what Professor Schlesinger describes as “impressive and orderly array,” to the homes and shops of the recalcitrant merchants, among them two sons of the governor, whom they sought under the roof of the executive mansion itself.
Having made their demonstration and protest, in every place the multitude quietly dispersed.3
Ibid.; pp. 112, 130, 148, 149, 158, 172.
Ibid.; p. 173.
Ibid.; p. 176.
Francis Deak’s campaign against Austrian domination in Hungary
Deak proceeded to organize a scheme for national education and industry, and a boycott against Austrian goods was set in motion.
As relations between the two governments became more tense, “Deak admonished the people not to be betrayed into acts of violence, nor to abandon the ground of legality.
‘This is the safe ground,’ he said, ‘on which, unarmed ourselves, we can hold our own against armed force.
If suffering be necessary, suffer with dignity.’
He had given the order to the country — Passive Resistance”; “and the order was obeyed.
When the Austrian Tax Collector came to gather the taxes the people did not beat him nor even hoot him — they just declined to pay.
The Tax Collector thereupon called in the Austrian police, and the police seized the man’s goods.
Then the Hungarian auctioneer declined to auction them, and an Austrian auctioneer had to be introduced.
When he arrived he discovered that he would have to bring bidders from Austria also if the goods were to be sold.
The government found before long that it was costing more to distrain the goods than the tax itself was worth.”
Gandhi’s campaigns against anti-Indian measures in South Africa
The long struggle, which the London “Times” declared, according to Mr. Polak’s report, “must live in memory as one of the most remarkable manifestations in history of the spirit of Passive Resistance,” was drawing to its close in .
Mr. Gandhi, in connection with the discussion in Parliament and elsewhere in England, just prior to the great “March” of , above described, had accepted full responsibility for his advising the Indian community to resist the law.
His plan, which he held to be “of educational value, and, in the end to be valuable both to the Indian community and the State,” consisted, as he worded it himself, in “actively, persistently, and continuously asking those who are liable to pay the £3 tax to decline to do so and to suffer the penalties for non-payment, and what is more important, in asking those who are now serving indenture and who will, therefore, be liable to pay the £3 tax upon the completion of their indenture, to strike work until the tax is withdrawn.”1
This, as has been shown, was his plan of procedure at , when he proposed the strike of protest for .
But the new year opened with a series of conferences with the authorities, a truce was declared, and the principal points in the long dispute were finally settled by the Indian Relief Act, passed in …
“Speeches and Writings,” p.
ⅩⅬⅦ.
Gandhi’s independence campaign in India
At the close of his year of silence we find Gandhi organizing the ryots of the Kaira district in his own province in a passive resistance movement, i.e., Satyagraha, against the payment of taxes which they asserted should have been suspended because of a partial failure of their crops.
The struggle continued to , when the passive resisters were released from jail and their contention accepted.
Meanwhile the non-coöperation movement, the strangest revolution in human history, had been launched at a special session of the Indian National Congress, which met in Calcutta in .
the program was amended and strengthened in what are known as the Regular Congress Resolution, or the Nagpur Resolutions, of .
The resolution is based upon the two fundamental propositions, (1) that the British Government in India had forfeited the confidence of the country, and (2) that it should be brought to an end by the non-violent method of simply refusing to cooperate with it longer.
The program of non-cooperation was planned to culminate in “civil disobedience,” specifically in refusal to pay taxes for governmental support.
It was realized, however, that this drastic measure would subject the social order to a terrific and perilous strain.
Therefore a more or less extended period of discipline was seen to be necessary by way of preparation for the final stroke.
It will be recalled that the Non-cooperation Resolutions promised Swaraj within one year.
But as the tumult tended to increase with the passing months of , it became necessary, time and again, to postpone the most drastic measure, namely civil disobedience or refusal to pay taxes or remain in the government service, in which it was planned to culminate.
In , the All-India Congress met at Delhi, where Gandhi, according to the despatches to London of , declared it necessary to accelerate the movement by using all the measures in the non-cooperation arsenal.
“This,” he declared, “embraces the policy of civil disobedience, which means civil revolution.
Whenever it is practised it will end Government authority.
It means open defiance of the Government and its laws.
I will launch this campaign in my own district, in Gujarat, within the next fortnight.
The nation must await the result of this example, which should open the eyes of the whole world.”
The congress committee pointed out in a resolution that only a little more than a month then remained of the year within which Swaraj had been promised.
In view of this and the “exemplary self-restraint” observed by the nation in its adherence to non-violence, the committee then authorized “every province on its own responsibility to undertake civil disobedience, including non-payment of taxes,” provided they would observe Hindu-Moslem unity and all the other features of the non-cooperation program.
So much for the individual provinces, but, as for the nation as a whole, the decision was that it must await Gandhi’s signal.
And so it came about that at a meeting of the working committee of the All-India Congress on , with Gandhi presiding, a resolution was adopted postponing civil disobedience until , or pending the final result of the negotiations at the round-table conference then in progress between leaders of all parties…
During an interview with an American correspondent, in ,1 Mr Gandhi admitted that mass civil disobedience had been abandoned on the very eve of its promised inauguration, because “the country was not ready.”
“The principles of non-violence,” he explained, “had not yet made themselves felt.”
But he declared it merely a postponement, adding, “We will continue individual disobedience and boycott.”
Mr. John Clayton, in the Chicago Tribune, .
Shortly thereafter, Gandhi was jailed, and he was still in jail when Case was writing his book.
the American Revolution was portrayed as the culmination of a tax revolt in this educational cartoon short that aired frequently between Saturday morning cartoons in the United States in
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
your humble editor and his little brother in
I was a little too young to be much of an observer of the political scene, but I remember as being something of an orgy of innocent patriotism.
America was sick of being cynical and wanted to go back to being stupid — besides, the Vietnam War was mostly over, at least for most Americans, and we’d given Nixon the heave-ho — and so there were plenty of red-white-and-blue commemorations of the bicentennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The Friends Journal wasn’t quite so willing to get with the star-spangled program.
In particular, it intensified its coverage of war tax resistance during the bicentennial year.
The issue was the Friends Journal’s first special issue devoted to war tax resistance.
It starts off with a couple of inspiring quotes on the subject from A.J. Muste and David Dellinger, then opens with a piece by Jennifer S. Tiffany on how she met the challenge of deciding whether to pay or to resist.
Excerpts:
This fall was a time when I was grappling a great deal with the question of war tax resistance.
To start with, I knew and had known for a long time that I could not be clear in paying taxes to any state which would use them to pay for war-making.
Particularly, I could not contribute to the nuclear death race between this nation and the Soviet Union.
Perhaps it goes back to the civil defense tests and simulated nuclear air-raids which had terrified and confused me when I was a child.
Anyway, the imperative, the need to keep clear of war (to use Bruce Baechler’s words), had always been strong.
I had been acting on it, in small ways, for a long while-avoiding earnings beyond the taxable minimum, for example, and claiming six “peace dependents” on my W-4 form when my income did exceed this minimum.
I also corresponded with the IRS concerning my views and actions.
However, a disclarity still existed regarding full resistance, with all the possible ramifications on my life and lifestyle.
The question was, to me, was I strong enough and centered enough to maintain a taxable income level, restructure my life in such a way as to prevent eventual government levies, and go on with my resistance?
Could I face creatively the possibility of putting a good deal of energy into court cases with the eventuality of prison?
I came into meeting for worship one morning at the height of these grapplings.
As I settled in, I was astounded.
Somehow the fears and conflicting leadings within me changed.
They did not fade or diminish, but grew into context.
The spirit of the meeting, the presence of loving Friends, who loved whether or not they agreed with one another’s approach, literally overwhelmed me.
The presence of God wholly covered the gathering, and finally clearness came.
Our God, the Presence in our worship and acts of witness, is a gentle, healing, loving, empowering God, one who speaks strongly and softly from within us.
At the same moment as making demands on our lives, this Presence says, “You need not fear; if you act on this I will sustain and strengthen you throughout the whole process.
I am…” This was a moment of resolution for me.
I was no longer entangled in a negative refusal to pay taxes, but was healed and sustained and led to a positive witness.
I could go on.
It is in this context that tax resistance has its roots and life.
War tax resistance, any resistance to war and to those authorities which bring about war, is not a negative presence: every no implies a yes, and this no to killing and death can be a yes to healing and life.
Within tax resistance dwell seeds which can help a whole new order to grow — seeds which deny fear and powerlessness in the face of death; seeds which lead us to the creation of healing alternatives to structures which sustain death.
As John Woolman puts it, “to turn all we possess into the channel of universal love becomes the whole business of our lives.”
I can speak only of my moment of resolution, the clearness and joy which is liberated in my life through a tax witness.
As I see it, this issue of Friends Journal is not a coercive tool, saying “you must for these reasons refuse to pay your taxes or I will no longer judge you to be a good Friend.”
The point of this issue is not to define terms for judgment, to draw lines of inclusion and exclusion.
Our faith is an experiential one, and your experience of real clarity is as right and valid for you as mine is for me.
The point is to lay ourselves open to what speaks truthfully in us, to really open ourselves to the spirit which utterly denies war, to really grapple with the questions this raises and the demands it makes on our lives.
One of those questions has to do with tax resistance.
This is an invitation to grapple with it, and a reaching out which says there is a great company of people, past and present, who have done so.
There is a process of empowerment, growth and the birth of community among people which can take root through tax resistance.
First comes the knowledge that the authorities of death are not all-powerful, that the laws and structures which sustain any war machine are in fact quite weak.
As Marion Bromley says in her article, “What can they take away that is of real value?”
Second dawns the realization that alternatives are possible: through the flaws in the death order, we glimpse the order of life.
And, although such consequences as possible imprisonment or loss of property, and the inward struggle with fear, are largely borne alone, the vision is shared by a growing company of sisters and brothers.
Isolation is hard to feel when so many glimpse the possibility of a new order — an order beyond war.
Finally and especially, tax resistance often grows as an act of ministry, an act of obedience to the loving and healing spirit.
War tax resistance is one aspect of a community set on fire with the presence of a gentle, empowering God.
Bruce Baechler thought the question of whether Quakers should resist war taxes was a no-brainer.
He wrote in from prison (where he was doing time for draft resistance) with this defense of war tax resistance.
Excerpts:
Do Friends support war?
At one time this could be answered with a “not at all.”
These days, though, it seems to depend on how one defines support.
Friends, generally, denounce war in the strongest terms. Indeed that’s all many people know about us.
But for the most part Friends can no longer claim to renounce, or “utterly deny” war.
Friends today are not compelled to bear arms… instead of fighting with outward weapons ourselves, we are merely asked to buy the weapons through taxation, and leave the dirty work to others.
And most of us do.
Yet we cling to our traditional peace testimony, often expressed as early Friends did in the Declaration of :
We utterly deny all outward wars and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretense whatsoever; this is our testimony to the whole world.
This is strong language.
One cannot, without being hypocritical, utterly deny something and still give it material support.
But most Friends do.
There are many reasons given for paying taxes.
Most of these are quite valid, if one thinks of tax resistance as a protest.
But I see a difference between various types of protests, such as vigils and letters to Congress, and nonsupport, or remaining clear of war, as by tax resistance.
In protesting, one makes her/his views known, but leaves it up to someone else (the government) to make the decision.
Governments are not noted for their receptivity to the pacifist message, and it is unlikely they will be in the near future.
I am not deriding protest — much has been accomplished through it.
I am just saying that it is not enough.
Nonsupport, on the other hand, emphasizes individual responsibility.
To refuse to pay one’s taxes is to accept responsibility for the way they would be spent, and to refuse to allow them to be spent for immoral purposes.
Tax resistance should not mean just withholding taxes from the government.
An integral part of tax resistance is to redirect the money normally spent for taxes into life supporting channels.
In many places this is done through Alternative Funds, where the resisters in a community band together to make most effective use of the money.
Thus not only is money diverted from warmaking, but at the same time it is made available as a resource for peaceful activities.
Perhaps the biggest problem most Friends have with not paying for war is that it is illegal.
One faces the prospect of prison for it, and this alone is enough to make most people give it only superficial consideration.
Hopefully the World Peace Tax Fund, if established by Congress, will alleviate some of this problem in much the same way that the Conscientious Objector provisions in the draft laws gave a legal alternative to the army.
But in the meantime the problem remains.
Friends have often suffered for their beliefs.
Throughout our history large numbers of Friends have been imprisoned, tortured, and killed for preaching and practicing the message of the Inward Light.
Would you stay away from a Meeting for Worship if to go meant certain arrest?
Would you attend but not speak when moved, if that would be dangerous (a situation facing Korean Friends today)?
Would you join the army to avoid prison?
Kill to avoid being killed?
The question is where to draw the line.
When, to you, does the personal suffering involved in a course of action outweigh the reasons for taking that course?
Each person must decide for her/himself.
Another response to the problem of imprisonment is that if any substantial number of Friends did engage in tax resistance, the likelihood of their being imprisoned would be small, and some provision in the law would probably be made for them, thus eliminating the problem and encouraging more people to resist.
Jack Cady shared his long, meandering letter to the Director of the IRS.
Excerpts:
[O]ur first confrontation… will be the examination of my tax return.
I expect the examination is prompted by my refusal last year to pay half of my income tax.
I will refuse. to pay half of the tax again this year, although because of withholding, your agency already has most of the money.
I refuse to pay half of the tax on various grounds, some of which are moral, some of which are legal.
The refusal is prompted by the expenditure by our government of over fifty percent of tax monies on the maintenance and purchase and use of armies and weapons.
Through its agency, Internal Revenue Service, the United States Government seeks my complicity in the violation of twenty centuries of moral teaching.
The government is in further violation of the Constitution of the United States.
It is also in violation of various international treaties and agreements, and is, in fact, engaged in crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.
In requiring that I pay taxes for the support of war, planning for war, offensive weapons and the maintenance of a standing armed force sufficient to engage combat on a worldwide scale, the U.S. Government through its agent IRS is in violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees my religious freedom.
I am a member of the Port Townsend meeting for worship of the Society of Friends (Quaker).
The Quaker belief and effective detachment from war dates from the beginnings of the Society in .
The precedent of refusal to pay war taxes in America dates from when John Woolman, John Churchman, and Anthony Benezet refused to pay for the French and Indian wars.
Nonviolence and refusal to pay or endorse either side in a combat dates in U.S. history from the revolution when Quakers who refused to kill were stoned or beaten under the brand of Tory.
I claim my devout belief in God and the injunction that we may not kill as sufficient reason to refuse this tax.
I would expect that opposition to this view would also have to overcome three hundred years of Quaker nonviolence and two hundred years of U.S. acceptance of Quaker attitudes that insist on nonviolence.
[I]n asking taxes, the U.S.A. through its agent IRS seeks my complicity in crimes against peace and crimes against humanity as defined by the Nuremberg Principles.
These principles hold that citizens of a nation are guilty of crimes committed by that nation if they acquiesce to those crimes when, in fact. a moral choice is open to them.
In requiring that I pay taxes to support a war industry and armed forces capable of contending on a worldwide scale, the U.S. Government is threatening both my moral and my physical existence.
I am not being protected, because the U.S. builds atomic weapons, B-1 bombers, atomic submarines, poison gas, lasers, rocketry, napalm and all of the other expensive paraphernalia of war.
These do not protect me.
They invoke the suspicion and fear of other nations, and they provoke among other nations the building and stockpiling of similar weapons.
[T]he U.S. now gives every indication that it is, in fact, not a nation of laws but a nation of men and corporations.
This, despite the resignation from office of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.
I charge that the freedom of the citizen is largely illusory, and that the payment of taxes, the keeping of tax records, the invasion of privacy by IRS and other agencies of government, the making of rules by agencies (rules that have the force and effect of law but which are not to be challenged in courts), the maintenance of records or files on the political, religious, economic and moral statements and actions of the individual, the power to levy fines and licenses by agency rule, and the presumption by government that citizens are guilty of any agency charge and must therefore bear the burden of proof of their innocence; all of these show the citizens of the U.S. are no longer free.
I have two main intentions in this tax refusal.
The first is quite clear.
I do not intend to pay for the destruction of other human beings, nor endorse by word or deed the crimes of the United States.
The second intent is a little more nebulous but it is just as strong.
It is strong because I love my country.
In this refusal I intend that the United States will display by its action whether or not a citizen, raised to believe in U.S. principles of freedom, equality, protection under the laws; raised, in fact, under statements like, “With a proper regard for the opinions of mankind,” can indeed trust and believe in the way he has been raised.
Either the Constitution is sound or it is not.
The U.S. will either honor its national and international commitments or it will not.
The courts will either face issues or the courts will duck them.
…If the rules of IRS are bigger than the Constitution, the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Principles and the Christian teaching of two thousand years, then I believe it is time that the U.S. acknowledge this…
The next article came from Marion Bromley.
Excerpts:
Ernest and I began a tax refusers’ newsletter soon after our marriage in .
In all the time since, only a tiny proportion of Friends and other pacifists have become tax refusers, and we sometimes try to understand why.
It has been, for us, more a personal imperative than a carefully reasoned political position, though we have done what we could to expound on all aspects of refusing to allow one’s labor to be taxed for war and weaponry.
Most people, whether they are pacifists or not, seem to respect our “right” to refuse taxes when we have a chance to explain how we feel about it.
In turn we have to accept the “right” of others to continue to pay large sums in taxes, even though the U.S. budget continues to be overwhelmingly devoted to war and the war system.
Before 1800 taxes were levied largely for specific things such as bridges, schools, highways.
A levy for war was as separate as the others.
Quakers, Mennonites and a few others who had strong scruples against paying for the militia or for gunpowder refused to pay and sometimes suffered distraint of goods or imprisonment for their stand.
When all these items began to be lumped together into one, general tax, it was no longer so simple an issue.
Some, with a considerable feeling of relief, began to pay; others paid more out of frustration.
And one of the most potent testimonies against war during became lost.
Now, in , probably no reasonable person believes that the billions to be spent for weapons research, deployment of armies and nuclear weapons, nuclear submarines prowling the ocean floor, planes carrying nuclear bombs, and intercontinental ballistic missiles will be in any sense a “defense” for anyone.
Since such policies and practices will probably lead to a nuclear holocaust at some future time, maybe distant, maybe near, paying for these weapons comes close to being an evil act.
It may be that the reason most Friends do not see it in that light is that they are conscientiously committed to liberalism — to the direction the federal government began in and from which there is now no retreat.
The federal government, in order to ease suffering and to maintain control over its own populace, began to assume some social responsibility.
Possibly most Friends are in the same position as those who began paying the “mixed” taxes in .
But in the whole world has witnessed the kind of horror that a powerful military state can unleash even without resort to the ultimate weapon.
…In an individual such behavior would be deemed madness.
Would a mad individual be permitted to continue such activities because that individual was also performing some useful services?
Another aspect of liberalism that has probably influenced Friends greatly in the past fifty years is the commitment to law.
I cannot explain why most Friends think it is almost a religious principle to honor the law and the courts, while I feel it is very low on my list of loyalties.
My religious instincts are insulted when I observe a judge in the robes of a priest, high above others in the courtroom, the witnesses and observers in pews and the bailiff enforcing a hushed silence.
My view is that this holy-appearing scene is for the purpose of defending the property and the power of the people who have those commodities.
It is the same in a socialist or a capitalist state.
It is certainly an acceptable arrangement for people to agree on certain codes or laws, agreements about property.
I would not disobey laws for frivolous reasons.
But I have no qualms about disobeying laws which would force me to pay for murder and other crimes related to the war system.
Civil disobedience which requires long-term adherence, such as arranging to make one’s living without the withholding system, perhaps is considered impossibly difficult by many conscientious people.
For many Friends, commitment to a service type vocation seems to require “fitting in” with a professional life style.
The scale has not been invented which could balance service that is beneficial to others with the negative effects of supporting warmaking and possibly silencing one’s conscientious stirrings.
The only contribution I can make to such considerations is my testimony that refusing to pay income taxes has proved to be a blessing in many ways.
For one thing, it resulted in our “backing into” a simple life style, consuming less than we otherwise would.
Friends who have valued simplicity know of its blessings — the simple life is more healthful, more joyful, more blessed in every way.
A new friend we met following seizure of Gano Peacemakers’ property, our home for 25 years, wrote us after moving from Cincinnati that he supposed we were having a very sad summer at Gano this year, knowing that we would be evicted in the fall.
This notion was quite contrary to the way we felt.
We were enjoying the time here more than ever before.
The growing season seemed more productive than ever, and the surroundings more beautiful.
We were working very hard, preparing leaflets, signs and press releases, corresponding, thinking of new ways to tell everyone who would listen that the IRS claims were fraudulent and politically motivated.
We expected to be evicted but never had the feeling that we would “lose” in the struggle.
(The following paragraph, concerning the eventual IRS surrender in the Gano Peacemakers case, is largely obscured in the PDF.)
One of the pleasant feelings we have about the reversal of the sale (besides knowing that we can continue to live on these two acres) is that many people have told us they got a real lift when they heard that some “little people” had prevailed in the struggle with the IRS.
We had the feeling that our daily leafleting and constant public statements during the seven months’ campaign had, at the least, the effect of showing that people need not fear this government agency.
People do fear the IRS and that is an unworthy attitude.
What can they take away that is of real value?
Jack Powelson struck a dissenting note, listing war tax resistance among a number of popular Quaker positions that he felt to be sentimentally motivated and economically naive.
Excerpt:
Friends are concerned about paying taxes to a government that allocates a high proportion of its budget to the military.
But we also know that if enough Friends refused to pay taxes so that the government was seriously impeded in its operations, the first items to be cut would be welfare and education, and the poor would suffer.
The Journal then quoted John A. Reiber on his vision for “a cultural revolution with political implications, not a political revolution with cultural implications.”
Excerpt:
The most effective social changes are not going to come from within the system, but without it.
We must realize that the vast, impersonal and powerful institutions are not intrinsic to our survival and well-being, but, in fact, extrinsic and harmful.
What we must do to achieve a cultural (r)evolution is to, first of all, withdraw our support of our unendurable, tyrannical and inefficient institution of the government.
One way of doing this is through tax resistance.
But tax resistance, by itself, is only a part of the solution.
Money, time and energy should be channelled into alternatives to our technological mass consumption/ mass waste society, our irrelevant and oppressive educational institutions and our mass media which don’t meet our informational needs.
Craig Simpson next gave a report on war tax resistance as it was practiced internationally.
Excerpts:
During the Peace Research and Peace Activists Conference in Holland in , I met Susumu Ishitani, a member of the Japanese Conscientious Objectors to War Taxes Movement (COMIT).
The group is the first of its kind in Japanese history and was started in .
It is made up of Christian pacifists — Mennonites, FOR members and Quakers — as well as non-church pacifists.
The group apparently has been growing rather quickly.
They have meetings all over Japan, print articles in newspapers, and hold press conferences.
Their emphasis is on the refusal of the 6.5% of their taxes which goes for the so-called “Self-Defense Forces.”
They have even written a “Song of 6.5% or 6.5% for a Peaceful World” protesting war taxes and expressing the need for money to stop death and the pollution of our environment.
Susumu is a wonderful and gentle member of the group.
Outside of his job as a university professor he is active as a member of the local Friends Meeting in Minato-ku (Tokyo).
He also trains students in nonviolence and works to raise consciousness about the Japanese government’s involvement with the repressive South Korean government.
He clearly sees the importance of not sending his money to the government for destructive purposes.
COMIT was still in operation at least as late as , but I haven’t been able to find much about them on-line.
France… has a long tradition of resistance to war and the military.
The tax refusal movement began in its present state in during the first French atomic tests in the South Pacific when a number of people decided to refuse the 20% of their taxes which would go to the war department.
This money was redistributed to organizations working for peace and developing social alternatives.
Groups soon were organizing in Orleans, Paris, Mulhouse, Lyon, and Tours and by were working in cooperation with one another.
They then made a decision to broaden the movement by asking people to refuse only 3% of their income tax.
They felt this way they would be able to attract more people because of the minimum of risk.
Many of these people decided to redistribute their money to the peasant-worker struggle in Larzac.
Larzac is a plain in Southern France where a group of peasants, farmers and shepherds have been resisting the expansion of an army training base onto land where they have lived and worked for centuries.
The Larzac struggle has become extremely important in France.
It receives broad support from leftists, environmentalists, workers and antimilitarists.
The peasants, who have come to believe strongly in nonviolent struggle, have used some very creative tactics to draw attention to their plight.
For example, they drove their tractors from Southern France onto the streets of Paris.
On the way, they were met in Orleans by 113 tax refusers who gave their tax money to the peasant struggle instead of to the military.
This link between the peasant struggle against the military and the people who refused taxes solidified the movement and both benefited.…
By , 400 French people had become tax refusers and at latest count as many as 4,000 are giving their money to Larzac instead of the government.
Many farmers, workers and pacifists are involved now in the refusal of taxes to support the Larzac struggle.
Most recently in France, pacifists are discussing and organizing for 100% refusal of their taxes as their non-cooperation with the military becomes more consistent with their lifestyles.
the issue also had a list of resources interested Quakers could use to find out more about war tax resistance
There were also several letters to the editor on the subject:
Mary Bye wrote in to explain the rationale behind her tax resistance.
“I believe that my tax dollars go to support a system which perpetuates misery and suffering in large parts of the world.
Here at home we have set up a monstrous military budget while the programs for the poor, the minorities, the disadvantaged and the defenseless are being cut.
I believe that the first step to moral health is to realize the callous role of oppressor we, as a nation, play abroad and at home.
The second step is to act.”
She said tax resistance works for her because “I know of no other way to introduce this concern into the courts, and… I want to commit my money to help meet human needs neglected by the government.
I give voluntarily an amount equal to that computed by IRS regulations to help build a community of caring.”
Ross Roby wrote in to promote the World Peace Tax Fund Act.
“Essentially, this bill would provide conscientious objectors to war (male and female, young and old) an alternative to having their Federal tax payments used to finance government agencies that wage war and those that contribute to the waging of war by our government and by other governments of this world.”
He complained that the proposal hadn’t gotten much Quaker support: “Are we unable to recognize a friendly hand when it does not come in Quaker garb?
Or, has vocal pacifism fallen so irrevocably into the hands of radical resistants that a congressional bill which proposes accommodating conscientious objection to the realities of the Internal Revenue Service (and vice versa) is automatically dismissed?”
He described the mechanism of the Act this way: “It sets up a Fund for Peace to which we, conscientious objectors to war, would automatically contribute as we paid our usual federal income tax.
If the federal budget were determined, by an impartial authority, to contain sixty per cent for military purposes, then sixty cents of each dollar we pay would enhance the treasury of a fund that builds peace…”
Jim Forest wrote about his decision to stop tax withholding from his paycheck by filing a new W-4 form.
“We will be using these moneys for human needs that aren’t being adequately met in the present world: hunger, housing, resistance to militarism, various efforts for impoverished people, etc. We receive fund appeals each day which, had we the means, we would respond to, or respond to more generously.
Now we will.”
Donald Hultgren gave a report of Robin Harper’s talk about war tax resistance and charitable redirection at the Quaker Meeting in Cornwall, New York.
Harold R. Regier, the Peace and Social Concerns secretary of the General Conference Mennonite church, wrote to thank the Journal for its “encouragement in our efforts to work at war tax payment/resistance issues.”
Harold R. Regier, the last letter writer I mentioned, said that: “One of our efforts along this line was to convene a war tax conference to look particularly at the theological and heritage bases for war tax resistance.”
The Journal article that followed concerned this conference.
A note at the top of that article said that “[o]ne hundred twenty persons registered” for a Mennonite/Brethren in Christ sponsored conference to seek theological and practical discernment on war tax issues.”
That conference issued a summary statement, which the Journal reprinted.
Excerpts:
After considering the New Testament texts which speak about the Christian’s payment of taxes, most of us are agreed that we do not have a clear word on the subject of paying taxes used for war.
The New Testament statements on paying taxes (Mark 12:17, Romans 13:6–7) contain either ambiguity in meaning or qualifications on the texts that call the discerning community to decide in light of the life and teachings of Jesus.
Although those in the Anabaptist tradition were generally consistent in their historical stand against individual participation in war, they were not of one mind regarding the payment of taxes for war.
Evidence suggests that most Anabaptists did pay all of their taxes willingly; however, there is the early case of the Hutterite Anabaptists, a sizable minority in the Anabaptist movement, who refused to pay war taxes.
In the later stages of Anabaptist history there is no clear-cut precedent on the question of war taxes.
During the American Revolution most Mennonites did object to paying war taxes, yet in a joint statement with the Brethren they agreed to pay taxes in general to the colonial powers “that we may not offend them.”
The record continued to be mixed until the present day.
Only a small minority chose to demonstrate their allegiance to Christ through a tax witness.
So far most discernment on the war tax issue has been done on an individual level as opposed to a church or congregational level.
Although individuals struggling with the issue have been supported by similarly concerned brothers and sisters, wider church support has been lacking.
While recognizing the need for a growing consensus in these matters, we know that not all in the Mennonite/Brethren in Christ fellowship are agreed on an understanding of scriptural teaching and a faithful response regarding war taxes.
We are ready to acknowledge this disagreement and seek to continue discerning God’s will in this.
But as a church community, we feel we should be conscious of the convictions and struggles of our sisters and brothers and supportive of the steps they have taken and are considering.
And all that’s just from one issue!
The issue included an article by Robin Harper about the Brandywine Alternative Fund, one of “a series of experiments [that] go by various names: fund for humanity, people’s life fund, life priorities fund, war tax resistance alternative fund.”
Excerpts:
As many as forty sprang into existence in as the country’s agony over Vietnam reached a crescendo.
Though each is organized and operated a bit differently, the basic concept is to pool federal war taxes (both telephone and income) conscientiously withheld from the IRS and redistribute them, by loans or grants, to community groups working for peace, social justice, and other areas of social change.
…the Brandywine Alternative Fund serves Delaware and Chester Counties just west of Philadelphia.
Although the greater part of the Brandywine fund comes from “reallocated” federal taxes, we also encourage deposits of personal savings.
This policy has not only enlarged the fund but has also broadened participation to include persons eager to help “reorder our nation’s priorities away from the military” who don’t choose to use the particular method of principled tax resistance.
In addition, seven monthly meetings, churches and civic groups have made deposits or contributions to the alternative fund, following the precedent of London Grove Friends Meeting.
This development of religious and other community groups investing in Brandywine is, I believe, a rather new departure for the alternative fund movement and offers an opportunity for sensitizing even larger numbers of people to issues of war preparations, civilian priorities and tax accountability.
Through the growth of our alternative fund, we have begun to take our central concern to the people of the communities in which we live; we are seeking creative ways to support financially some of those groups which are addressing a range of social and economic problems largely neglected by government; and we have undertaken the task of stripping the mask off one of our most powerful institutions — the IRS — as we portray its grim role in the betrayal of our society’s and world’s ultimate security.
World Peace Tax Fund promoters tried to jump on the bicentennial bandwagon with a bizarre logo they promoted in the issue
The issue had some Revolutionary War-era history lessons.
Nonviolence theorist Gene Sharp wrote an article on “The Power of Nonviolent Action” in which he pointed out (among other things) the usefulness of tax resistance in the struggle for American independence:
During the Townshend resistance, in … for example, a London newspaper reported that because of the refusal of taxes and the refusal to import British goods, only 3,500 pounds sterling of revenue had been produced in the colonies.
The American non-importation and non-consumption campaign was estimated by the same newspaper at that point to have cost British business not a mere 3,500 pounds but 7,250,000 pounds in lost income.
Those figures may not have been accurate, but they are significant of the perceptions of the time.
The attempt to collect the tax against that kind of opposition was not worth the effort, and the futility of trying eventually became apparent.
Finally, Lyle Tatum examined the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s activity around .
Excerpts:
Although the Yearly Meeting was clear that members should not participate in military activities or pay direct war taxes, some areas were more difficult to decide.
Bills of credit, a form of negotiable instrument sanctioned by the colonies, were controversial.
The use of them stood in a similar position to the payment of taxes today.
To those Friends who were trying to get other Friends to stop using bills of credit, the Yearly Meeting minuted a bit of advice:
…we affectionately exhort those who have this religious Scruple, that they do not admit, nor indulge and Censure in their Minds against their Brethren who have not the same, carefully manifesting by the whole tenor of their Conduct, that nothing is done through Strife, or Contention, but by their Meekness, Humility and patient Suffering, that they are the Followers of the Prince of Peace.
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of met in , just a little more than two months after .
As we have seen, pressure on the peaceable testimony had been growing over the previous few years.
In the face of this, the Yearly Meeting minuted:
…we cannot consistent with our Christian peaceable Testimony… be concerned in the promoting of War or Warlike Measures of any kind, we are united in Judgment that such who make religious Profession with us, & do either openly, or by Connivance, pay any Fine, Penalty, or Tax, in lieu of their personal Services for carrying on the War under the prevailing Commotions, or do consent to, and allow their Children, Apprentices, or Servants to act therein do thereby violate our Christian Testimony, and by so doing manifest that they are not in Religious Fellowship with us…
In spite of their many hardships, Friends were holding firm.
Loyalty oaths were going strong in .
It was minuted:
…in some places Fines or Taxes are and have been imposed on those who from Conscientious Scruples, refuse or decline making such declaration of Allegiance and Abjuration, it is the united Sense and Judgment of this Meeting, that no Friend should pay any such Fine or Tax…
Some bits and pieces from here and there:
A fellow named Kenneth O’Keefe has been making waves for his nicely seditious activities for some time now.
In a recent interview he also made a case for tax resistance:
When you look at citizenship, you have to understand that citizenship is a social contract between the state and the citizen.
Under that contract you have, supposedly, rights and you also have obligations.
Now, I look at the obligations of being a U.S. citizen and I realized I cannot pay into a tax system which is basically paying up debt to the bankers, but nonetheless, we pay into a tax system which is used to produce military capability that is also ultimately used in other parts of the world, which is ultimately killing my brothers and sisters in other parts of the world.
I do not agree to contribute to a tax system that is being used to commit mass murder against people I consider to be my brothers and sisters halfway around the world.
It’s violation of my ethics as a man, of someone who believes in justice for everyone and wants a better world for everyone.
I cannot pay for the murder of my brothers and sisters — and that’s part of the contract of citizenship.
So I said, which was to me a sensible thing and a moral thing to do, “Take my name off of that contract, because I do not agree to it and ultimately I will walk away.”
I left a paradise life in Hawaii, had my own business, I was making money, lived on the beach, and did something I loved.
I had a beautiful, beautiful life and I walked from that, because I absolutely, 100 percent disagree with the actions of my birth nation and I find them so criminal that I need my name taken off that list.
I will enter into a contract again with the U.S. if indeed it carries itself with honor and will respect the US Constitution; if the U.S. Constitution is indeed made the supreme law of the United States, then I will happily come back to my nation and adhere to the contract.
It’s a difficult process.
It’s costly, you have to leave the country, you have to swear under oath, you have to hand over your passport, you have to fill up the forms — I’ve done all that.
I would argue that probably the reason why they have not honored my right of self-determination, a human right of self-determination, is because it could have set the precedent, which could spark an imaginative idea that people can look out around the world and say, “You know what?
I don’t actually agree with this contract with my nation any longer, I want to enter into a new contract.”
This is why I refer to myself as a world citizen, we’re all world citizens.
My human family is where my allegiance goes; I don’t give my allegiance to one unit, one group, one nation, one religion.
My whole human family is my brothers and sisters and ultimately I give my allegiance to them.
That’s the contract I will honor and if any other contract, inferior to that one, will try to compel me to pay for the murder of my brothers and sisters — I will not partake in that contract.
I’m living here in the U.K. and haven’t made enough money to even be taxable for the last 12 years, but I might make enough money this year to actually be taxable, and I’ll tell you what: I will not pay into the U.K. tax system and fund the murder of my brothers and sisters halfway around the world.
I simply refuse to do it, and I would argue that other people should look at the contract like that and, maybe, if we all decide to enter into a new contract like that we can end war for good.
I’ve seen a couple of summaries of tax resistance in the American colonies pass through my feed reader in recent days:
“Taxes, trade, and resistance” is part of an educational project meant to explain revolutionary-era North Carolina and is based on official government history (literally: it’s based on a report from the U.S. State Department’s “Office of the Historian”).
“American Resistance to British Taxes ” by Sanderson Beck sketches out a chronological view on the various taxes imposed on the colonies and the resistance that followed.
Resistance tactics described include:
intimidation of tax enforcement collaborators
attacks on customs-enforcing ships
attacks on tax offices
petitions and legal challenges
boycotts of British manufactures
smuggling
bribes of tax officials
attacks on tax enforcers
attacks on the homes of tax enforcers
attacks on the homes of tax collaborators
encouraging tax officials and enforcers to resign or desert
humiliation attacks on tax officers (such as hanging in effigy, mock trials)
If limiting government power by constitutional restraints doesn’t work, and if trying to influence elections to keep evil people out of office doesn’t work, what is left?
Some would argue nothing.
But, in reality the people can go on strike and refuse to finance or to fight in wars that have no legitimacy.
If the authoritarians continue to abuse power in spite of constitutional and moral limits, the only recourse left is for the people to go on strike and refuse to sanction the wars and thefts.
Deny the dictators your money and your bodies.
If enough people do this, the time will come when the dictators’ power will dissipate.
This month marks the 250th anniversary of the Stamp Act Riots that crushed Britain’s attempt to subject American colonists to a variety of taxes, that demonstrated the power of mass noncompliance, and that led the way to the American Revolution.
Jennifer Carr has penned a paper on how to improve the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act for the University of St. Thomas Law Journal.
It is… strange.
It puts some effort into tracing the history of conscientious objection to military taxation and the various legal arguments that have been put forward in its support.
And then it makes some suggestions for how to make “Peace Tax Fund” legislation more effective, suggesting that this moment of history is especially ripe for such a bill since politicians are sensitive to issues of conscience that showed themselves during and after the drafting of Obamacare.
But the paper doesn’t address the most glaring flaws of the current Peace Tax Fund legislation, and its proposals don’t really make the bill any better.
Still, there’s some satisfaction in seeing someone try to take all of this seriously and as worthy of some scholarship.
The government of India is trying to create a nationwide goods-and-services tax that would replace the patchwork of regional tax systems that cause so much inefficiency in the Indian economy. Any effort like this is going to have winners and losers.
Some of the losers are fighting back:
Conscience and Peace Tax International is trying to rise from the ashes.
After their acrimonious conference in , the dissolution and reformation of the organization, and the deaths of officers Roy Prockter and Dirk Panhuis, the group was on-the-ropes.
They recently held a new conference in North London.
The group is almost entirely focused on “peace tax” schemes, wherewith particularly conscientious citizens would be able to segregate their own tax payments into non-military parts of their nations’ budgets.
Someone’s started a tax strike petition at change.org (“Defer payment of federal income tax until Trump leaves”).
Doesn’t seem to have much momentum behind it so far…
