I did an interview with the BBC.
I don’t like the BBC and I usually have distasteful experiences, but it has such a huge audience, I try to swallow my distaste and just do the interviews.
Seamus, the host, didn’t disappoint me — he was just like all the rest — combative and sensationalist.
At one point he asked me something like this:
“Cindy, given the fact that the Military Industrial Complex is so large and powerful, what kind of impact do you think not paying your taxes has on it?”
Well, at least I can read the latest act of horror committed by my country or its adjuncts and think to myself, “at least I didn’t fund that.”
How can one say he/she is against war and other atrocities, yet pay for them?
And Seamus was right, withholding my money and using it for good rather than evil doesn’t seem to be slowing down the war machine even a little bit, but what if conscientious war tax resistance were a movement and not a statement by just a few?
After that interview with Seamus and the meeting at the Peace House in war-torn, but healing Belfast, I received an email from one of my attorneys who is helping me with my tax issues telling me that my hearing before a magistrate to try and force me to comply will probably be on in Sacramento.
At the meeting at the Peace House, a gentleman asked me if I would go to prison rather than pay my taxes.
I don’t want to go to prison in the U.S.A. — that’s one of the last things in the world I want to do.
I don’t think that it will come to that, but my answer to the gentleman was, “Yes.”
This is one of the multitude of reasons why:
The other day, I saw a video report from the BBC, not some left wing anti-Semitic, radical news source, that told about an Israeli soldier that lined three sisters ages four to eight up against the side of their home in Gaza and shot them — killing two and crippling the four year old.
By conservative estimates, the U.S. gives Israel ten million per day for military aid.
Would I rather go to prison than fund the murder of these young girls and millions more?
That’s not a hard choice for me.
In Belfast, the British troops finally left, forced out by a combination of non-violent protest and armed struggle.
Tax resistance is one of the most non-violent forms of resistance that I can think of: One that can make a profound difference.
I hope we can Occupy Peace and grow the tax resistance movement to really and non-violently make a difference.
We must ask ourselves if funding the execution of babies is something that our moral center is comfortable with.
War tax resister Vickie Aldrich
reports that she’s getting some help from students at the University of
New Mexico law school in her fight against an
IRS
“frivolous filing” penalty:
They will argue it not in terms of my position on war taxes or the
IRS
regulations but in terms of “case law” and in relation to how the penalty
was applied. I’ll know more as time goes by. I was surprised at how much I
was relieved at this news. I was a bit disappointed that they suspect it
will take more than one semester. I fantasized that it was like a western
movie scene when the cavalry would come riding in to the rescue, the
IRS
would look up from their desks and drop everything and run shouting “look
look it’s New Mexico law students!,” “we give up.” Evidently, this is not
the case, we are not at the end, just beginning a new chapter.
New war tax resister Chris Gaunt explains what led her to take her stand, in Iowa’s Your Weekly Paper.
Counseling notes including information on the availability of low-income legal clinics to tax resisters, new estimates of the size of the underground economy and of the number of non-income-tax-paying households, and the IRS’s use of “ghost returns” when they battle non-filers.
International news from the Conscience Canada group of war tax resisters.
Ideas & Actions including a radio show sponsorship by a local war tax resistance group, an anti-census action in Britain, and Elizabeth Boardman’s evocation of John Woolman.
Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, was at Mount Holyoke college recently to address the more recent Wikileaks action and the government retaliation against accused whistleblower Bradley Manning. According to one account:
While in the area, Ellsberg said he planned to visit with Randy Kehler, an old friend and tax resister whose refusal to pay taxes led to a much-publicized confrontation with federal authorities that forced Kehler and his wife, Betsy Corner, from their Colrain home.
Ellsberg said he first heard Kehler speak at an anti-war, draft resisters event in when Kehler talked about being willing to go prison rather than go to war.
“He made a very strong impression on me,” Ellsberg said.
So strong, he said, that he got up and left.
“I went by myself to a men’s room at the back of the auditorium, just by myself, and sat there on the floor and cried.”
It was that moment, Ellsberg said, that he realized he would have to act on his own already strong feelings about the waste and folly of Vietnam.
Without Kehler’s example, he said, “I wouldn’t have copied the Pentagon Papers.”
War tax resisters Jack Herbert and S. Brian Willson appeared recently on the Veterans For Peace Forum:
PeaceSigns is a publication of the U.S. Mennonite Church’s Peace & Justice Support Network. The latest issue focuses on war tax resistance, and includes:
This is the thirty-second in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we reach the middle-1980s.
A conference held in and sponsored by the Mennonite Church General Board (I think this is distinct from the General Conference Mennonite Church’s General Board, but it gets confusing) concerned “The Church’s Relationship to the Political Order.”
War tax resistance was among the topics discussed:
John and Sandy Drescher Lehman of Richmond, Va., told how they followed their conscience and decided a few years ago to withhold the part of their income taxes that they figure goes for military spending.
Now they have become employees of Mennonite Board of Missions in their role as co-directors of the Richmond Discipleship Voluntary Service program.
“What should an institution do when its employees, following their consciences, ask that we stop withholding taxes from their paychecks?” asked MBM president Paul Gingrich.
A panel of four attempted to answer the question, including Robert Hull, soldier-turned-tax-resister who is peace and justice secretary of the General Conference Mennonite Church.
He explained how his denomination, with the instruction of its members, is now breaking the law by not withholding taxes from the paychecks of seven of its employees who have requested that.
In an editorial in the edition, E. Stanley Bohn wrote that war tax resistance is an example of Christians taking their doctrine seriously and taking risks for it, and that this is useful in missionary work.
Excerpts:
While my wife, Anita, and I were in a language school in Mexico, we stayed with a family that claimed to have a faith but had no relation to any congregation.
They had a good supply of humorous imitations of TV preachers and stories of inconsistencies of church people.
They also had the feeling that churches were exploitive of people and supported the exploitive governments to the north and their manipulation of governments in Latin America.
When I explained one night at the evening meal that in my denomination people often took a different position than the government, they listened politely.
But when I explained there were Christians who took the New Testament so sincerely that they accepted fines and jail terms, they wanted to know more.
Accepting penalties for conscientious objection to war, non-registration, refusing to pay a war tax and offering sanctuary to Central American refugees caused at least the son in that family to reconsider a faith he had earlier ridiculed.
The second incident happened in Japan with a Japanese friend who had lived in our home as an MCC trainee.
Christianity is not sweeping the country in Japan.
Although the door is not closed to Christian missionaries, it may be that a large percentage of the people are closed to a Christ who has been identified with what the West did to Asians in Vietnam, their parents in World War Ⅱ and with the current pressure on Japan to violate its constitution and establish armed forces capable of international war.
Our friend had arranged for a meeting of a group of his student friends, some of them non-Christian.
He asked me to speak while he translated on the topic of peacemaking efforts of Mennonites in the United States.
Topics like draft registration, prayer vigils at missile sites or war taxes — that are controversial for us — were in his eyes exactly what was needed to make credible what the church was teaching and to open the minds of his friends to the Christian faith.
In Canada and the United States we often see the more controversial peace witness and overseas missions as opposite kinds of religious expression, having little to do with each other.
Yet in some overseas situations the unbelievers we met were more open to the gospel if it included a peace witness that was clearly international and repudiated protecting ourselves at the expense of others (not that their governments would be any more receptive to that than ours is).
From their viewpoint it is clear that such witness efforts as those of Christian war tax refusers actually aid the work of overseas missions.
This may put our triennial conference action in a different light.
At the Bethlehem conference our delegates voted that we would not accept the position in which the U.S. laws put us: that the church act as a tax collector, taking taxes for war from those who are conscientiously against war.
That stand may some day require us to pay for legal assistance.
Since our conference was not unanimous in taking this stand, it was agreed that costs should be covered by donations from those who believe this was the right path to take.
Those who contribute to such legal expenses, if and when they come, may feel they are paying a penalty for having a conscience.
However, whether the ruling is favorable or unfavorable, their dollars may help our overseas mission dollars accomplish more.
They may be helping to open some minds closed to national and tribal gods and hungry for the God of all nations who makes a difference in people’s lives.
This news comes from the edition:
About a year ago, Mennonite Central Committee established a task force to study how MCC should respond to employees’ requests that MCC not withhold federal taxes from their paychecks.
This was to enable them to keep that portion of their taxes used for military purposes.
After meeting with leaders from eight conferences, the task force reported in that none of the conference groups was in favor of honoring the employees’ requests.
Even though the General Conference honors such requests by its employees, the executive committee of its General Board did not favor MCC taking similar action.
The former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) has called for the creation of a peace army committed to withholding the 13 percent of income taxes that the British government spends on defense.
Lord MacLeod of Fuinary hopes such an army will be able to persuade the government to allow people to give an equivalent amount of their taxes to relieve world hunger instead.
Even if the government refuses to go along with the idea, he said, taxpayers should still withhold the money and give it to famine relief.
In the edition, Richard McSorley wrote about having taken “a vow of non-violence.”
The Catholic peace group Pax Christi was encouraging people to take such a formal vow annually, and was encouraging the Catholic Church to support such vows by providing a ritual context for them.
In my formulation of the vow I said, “I, before the cross of Jesus Christ, vow perpetual non-violence in fulfillment of the command of your Son, ‘Love your enemies.’ ”
It seems to me beyond doubt that I cannot love a person in the same act in which I kill that person.
The vow means I will not take part in killing anybody.
That means I will not pay taxes for weapons of death and be a part of the preparations to kill done by the military or the hangman or the abortionist.
Neither will I hold, as morally acceptable, the program of killing some to save others.
Discussion about payment of U.S. federal income taxes used for military purposes — or “war taxes” — was prompted by a request from four MCC Akron employees who asked MCC to stop forwarding the portion of their income taxes which go for military spending.
In letters last year to the executive committee, the four cited deployment of missiles in Europe, U.S. funds for war in Central America, MCC’s support of conscientious objection during the Vietnam War and the deaths of friends killed by American-made weapons as basis for the request.
A tax withholding task force reported to the board that, after discussions with eight Mennonite and Brethren in Christ conferences, “no group counseled MCC to honor the requests.”
MCC Canada indicated that payment of military taxes is not an issue among Canadians “at this time.”
The task force recommended that MCC “continue to withhold and forward taxes to the (U.S.) government.”
Possible penalties for not forwarding an employee’s tax include the amount plus interest, a $10,000 fine and/or five years imprisonment.
Board member Phil Rich, who served on the task force, emphasized that conference leaders “agonized” over the decision and observed that “none of the groups said that civil disobedience is absolutely wrong.”
Some of the leaders, he indicated, “are in favor but do not think their people will go along.”
He also noted that most conferences are open to dealing with the issue in the future.
During a lengthy discussion, board members wrestled with the issue.
Ray Brubacher, a Canadian, indicated that his church allows him to withhold the military portion of his income tax.
“I cannot,” he said, “vote against their request if I can [have taxes not withheld] myself.
I don’t want to vote against the constituency, but I cannot vote against my conscience.”
Larry Kehler of the General Conference noted that his denomination had decided in not to forward the tax of individuals who had made such a request.
As a member of that conference, he indicated that he “could not vote for the recommendation.”
Both said that their vote would be made with “much pain.”
Other board members shared their pain but agreed with MCC Canada representative Ross Nigh that “we are bound by the process.
We went to the conferences in good faith, and not one recommended that we withhold taxes.
In the interest of the wider brotherhood, we must vote for it.”
The recommendation passed with four against and two abstentions.
The board also passed recommendations that affirm the four and others who make a similar request and that encourage MCC to find ways for them to resist payment legally.
Staff were also encouraged to increase efforts to educate the churches about the relationship between militarism, hunger, development and refugees.
The task force also suggested that MCC and the conferences hold a study conference on church/state issues.
In a prepared response, Earl Martin read a statement on behalf of the four that expressed appreciation for the process and deliberation but appealed to the conferences to discuss the issue at their next annual conventions.
The four also asked MCC to help facilitate the discussion and invited the conferences to report their findings at the MCC annual meeting.
Martin also pointed out that while U.S. members of MCC’s seven constituent conferences donated $9.4 million to MCC in , they paid an estimated $159 million in military taxes.
Approximagely $880,000 was paid during the course of the meeting.
When the General Board met in , however, they backpedaled from their own participation in this decision:
[The board] passed a motion brought by CHM U.S. that GB reverse its recommendation to the Mennonite Central Committee that it continue to withhold taxes from its employees even when they request otherwise.
Staff member Robert Hull… disagreed with MCC’s decision not to stop withholding taxes of employees.
He said the General Board is partly responsible because it was contacted, along with seven other denominations when the decision was being made.
The committee continued to struggle with the issues posed by MCC employees whose request not to have income taxes withheld was rejected after long debate at the MCC annual meeting in .
It was decided at that time that, despite this decision, MCC should continue to affirm the integrity of those objecting to war taxes and establish a committee that would study and create broader awareness of the impact of militarism on refugees, hunger and development.
But the mandate of that group, which is to begin meeting in , was not clearly defined.
Executive committee chairman Elmer Neufeld said that there seems to be a “strong expectation” from some that the special committee will continue to work specifically on the tax withholding issue.
Others said the committee’s task was to struggle with congregations to find legal ways to express a Christian witness on the issue of militarism.
It was also reported that the General Conference Mennonite Church has had further discussion regarding how to counsel MCC to respond to the request from its staff on income tax withholding.
At MCC’s annual meeting it was reported that MCC representatives had met with constituent conferences and that none had counseled MCC to honor the request of staff.
In the General Conference’s General Board decided to counsel MCC “that they honor requests of their employees to not have their taxes withheld, in line with General Conference policy.”
As authorized by the triennial sessions, the conference is honoring the requests of four employees not to withhold income tax due to the U.S. Government.
Thus far, Internal Revenue Service has not taken action against the conference.
Originally, seven such employees had requested not to have taxes withheld.
This was later reduced to five.
Now it’s four.
I can’t tell whether this is from a general shrinkage of staff or from a flagging of enthusiasm for war tax resistance.
This is the thirty-ninth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we hit 1994.
War tax resistance mentions have slowed to a trickle. It’s hard to be certain
whether this reflects a waning of interest in Mennonite circles generally, or
just a change in editorial focus, but in any case the contrast is stark
between the passion and the quantity of discussion about war tax resistance
just and as we hit
.
Almost all of the war tax resistance material was crammed into a single tax
day issue that year.
Four Mennonites follow their consciences by telling the Canadian and
U.S. governments
they cannot pay for war with their taxes.
Larry Penner
When the Persian Gulf War broke out in , Ed
Olfert protested. “I needed to have a little bit of voice to say that this is
stupid and has to end,” he says. “This is my tax money at work, killing women
and children.”
Ed had considered tax resistance before. He decided to withhold about 9
percent of his tax payment, a percentage that Conscience Canada, a tax
resisters’ group, suggests to represent the amount of taxes that goes to the
military.
Along with withholding, Ed sent letters to government and Revenue Canada
officials voicing his protest. But in the end the effort brought mostly
frustration.
As a self-employed farmer, the amount he withheld was minimal, under $100.
When Revenue Canada officials contacted him, they didn’t know about his
protest. “I wondered if the letters I sent even arrived,” Ed says.
“There was a fear of what I was doing.” ―Ed Olfert
At his church, Superb Mennonite Church in
Kerrobert,
Sask., Ed found
little sympathy. “There was a fear of what I was
doing,” he says. “There was a drawing away, as if people
wondered, ‘Is this what the Mennonite church is moving
toward, that we all have to do this?’ ”
Actually, Mennonite tax resisters are few
and scattered. More support legislative change
that would allow people of conscience to
designate their tax dollars for
nonmilitary ends. Such legislation has
been proposed in both Canada and the United States.
Those who do resist paying taxes find the need to resist more imperative as
technology moves warfare farther from conscription and closer to the
pocketbook. While the draft in the United States has remained inactive
, 28 percent of the
federal budget went to
current military efforts and another 18.7 percent to payments on past military
efforts, according to the Friends Committee on National Legislation. And
although Canada has not conscripted its citizens since World War Ⅱ,
Conscience Canada reports that $12 billion, or 7.5 percent of the federal
budget, went to military spending in
. The Persian
Gulf War proved that with modern technology, full-scale war can be fought
without conscription, but not without dollars.
“Our constitution guarantees freedom of conscience, but if we’re not allowed
to exercise our conscience, it doesn’t mean much.” ―Menno Klassen
Hypocritical: For resister Menno Klassen of
Winnipeg, resisting warfare through his taxes
has become more imperative as he has grown older.
Excused from war as a conscientious
objector to World War Ⅱ, Menno says it would be
hypocritical now to pay to send someone in his
place. “Our constitution guarantees
freedom of conscience, but if we’re not allowed to
exercise our conscience, it doesn’t mean much,” he says.
Like Ed, Menno has received mixed reactions from his
congregation, Fort Garry Mennonite Fellowship in Winnipeg.
“I must admit I don’t receive much support from the church, even though my
church is one of the more tolerant in Winnipeg,” he says. “People [in the
church] are busy with family and inward looking. It’s a family affair.”
In Ontario, Jane Pritchard has found some support. Like Ed, her conscience
condemned the Gulf War, “the first war fought by my country since I became
politically aware.”
“Once I’d done it I didn’t see how I could convince myself to pay before.”
―Jane Pritchard
A physician, Jane faced a higher tax payment. She withheld just
over $1,000. For her the act was a liberation. “Once I’d
done it I didn’t see how I could convince myself to pay
before.” Jane has found support for her decision in
her Bible study group at Toronto United Mennonite Church.
When Revenue Canada called Jane in, she expected the worst.
She was not disappointed.
She was shown into a stark room with nothing but two chairs, a desk, a light and a computer terminal.
“It was like something out of [the book] 1984,” she says.
The Revenue Canada representative kept saying she owed this portion of her taxes.
He didn’t ask why she didn’t pay but said Revenue Canada had to do something.
He did not say what.
Sympathy: At some point partway through the interview, Jane realized
her interviewer was more nervous than she was. When he did not respond to her
questions of what Revenue Canada would do, she suggested possibilities.
“Garnishee my wages?” He nodded yes. “From where?” He did not know. “Raid my
bank account?” Again he nodded. She left feeling sympathy for her inquisitor,
a sympathetic young man caught in a system.
Don Kaufman of Newton, Kan.,
knows that many Internal Revenue Service officers are sympathetic people
caught in a system. He has resisted military tax for 36 years. He recalls one
IRS
representative who said he hoped the government would make it possible for tax
resisters to resist without breaking the law.
“If there were a provision for conscience in giving money for war as there
is in giving body to war, tax resisters wouldn’t have to feel guilty for
following their conscience.” ―Don Kaufman
Partly because
IRS
officials are bound by regulations, Don’s
protest has shifted its emphasis over the years.
“Initially I wrote more to the
IRS,
now I write more to Congress. The
IRS
is just carrying out Congress’ orders,” Don says. “If
there were a provision for conscience in giving money
for war as there is in giving body to war, tax resisters
wouldn’t have to feel guilty for following their
conscience.”
In his many years of resistance, Don has seen interest
in tax resistance wax and wane. But, he says, it has never died
out. The history of war tax resistance in North America dates to the first
settlers from Europe, many of whom left their home country in part to avoid
paying taxes for war. But when the personal income tax was introduced in both
the United States and Canada, funds raised went to pay for war.
Don believes a change will come. “It may be like women’s suffrage, it may take
60 to 80 years before there is a change, but if people keep working and don’t
give up too easily, there will be a change,” he says.
Until the law changes, Don will continue to resist. “It’s enough of a threat
to who I am as a person that I don’t want to give it up. If I quit, I become
schizophrenic at that point — I’m not being honest with who I am. I want my
life to be integrated.”
A sidebar concerned two other Mennonite tax resisters:
Waiting for the tax collector
Pat and Earl Hostetter Martin have been resisting taxes since they returned
from Mennonite Central Committee work in Vietnam in
. As students in Palo Alto,
Calif., they began by
withholding 10 percent of their telephone tax, a sum that totaled about $10
after three years.
For this, Internal Revenue Service representatives drove down from San
Francisco twice and questioned their landlord while Pat and Earl were at work.
Then they received a notice threatening a lien on their property and ordering
an appearance at the
IRS
office. But before the appearance, the
IRS
found the Martins’ bank account and took the money.
“Honest to our conscience”: Earl and Pat Hostetter Martin with their son
Hans
In the Martins went to Akron,
Pa., to serve as
co-secretaries for East Asia for
MCC.
They withheld about 30 percent of their taxes, a figure
representing the amount of tax money going for
current military expenditures.
“After being in Vietnam and having seen a lot of
friends who had suffered because of
U.S. weapons,
we decided we couldn’t pay,” Pat says.
The couple has resisted paying taxes ever since.
At first the
IRS
froze their personal checking account for a couple of
weeks to collect. Pat called it an odd blessing. “You get caught
with checks out and you have to go back to stores and explain. But that also
gave us an opportunity to explain why we are tax resisters.”
the couple began moving its bank
account frequently to keep the
IRS from
finding the money. They now owe between $2,000 and $3,000.
When the
IRS
tried to garnishee the couple’s wages at
MCC,
MCC’s
response was to ask the
IRS to
reconsider, to try to find the money some other way.
MCC,
like most Mennonite organizations, does withhold income tax from employees’
paychecks for the government. The General Conference Mennonite Church is the
only major Mennonite organization that will grant employees’ requests to not
have federal taxes withheld from their paychecks so that employees may resist
taxes.
Last year the Martins were in Vietnam . While they were gone the
IRS
attached a lien to all their property: house, car, real estate. Anything they
own could now be sold to pay the debt.
The couple is part of a Lancaster group of resisters called “Taxes for Life.”
The group meets monthly to support each other. “Anyone who chooses tax
resistance should have a support group because it can be scary,” says Pat. “We
agree to stand behind each other and keep ourselves honest to our conscience.”
In recent years I have joined with Don Kaufman and 20 others in the Newton,
Kan., area to form a support
group concerned with the military use of our taxes. Our refused tax dollars
and contributions build up a “Heartland Peace Tax Fund,” which in
granted $750 to local human needs
agencies and $150 to the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund in Washington.
In St. Louis, Bill Ramsey
(staffer for the regional American Friends Service Committee office) spent 30
days in jail in for his prophetic witness.
As a condition of probation, he was ordered by the federal judge to pay his
military taxes, due
. Bill has done as ordered, sending
personal checks to seven life-affirming agencies and asking them to certify to
the court that he has done so. It is unlikely that the federal judge will
agree that Bill Ramsey has paid his taxes in this way. Bill is preparing
himself spiritually for more prison time. But his point is made: We Americans
and Canadians are robbing from the human needs so evident in our societies to
build and sell weapons.
The witness of some among us to this truth goes on. Whether they continue to
stand alone depends upon whether more of us come to incarnate the peacemaking
of Jesus Christ in our own witness.
The edition had
a
brief follow-up that noted the Heartland Peace Tax Fund’s grants for
.
This is the forty-fourth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we reach the mid-2000s and the start of the war on Iraq.
Once again Caesar asks for more money to provide more weapons — this time to
launch a war in Iraq. Even the Pope and nearly all the major Christian
denominations in the United States, not just those in the historic peace
church tradition, have said this is not a just war. We know 25 to 35 percent
of our tax money will go to support the machines of war that have taken the
lives of our friends. In the current hi-tech war-making, Caesar covets our
dollars more than our bodies.
We agonize in our consciences. If a man were to run into our house and demand
we give him a knife because he wants to go kill our neighbor, would we give it
to him? Of course not.
Is it different if it is Caesar who asks for that knife? What shall we give
Caesar? Anything Caesar asks for? Or only what belongs to Caesar? What does
belong to Caesar? We try to seek the mind of a compassionate Christ in this
dilemma. Within our souls we feel we cannot willfully put that knife into the
hands of those who will bring harm and death to friends — known and
unknown — around the world.
Once again we fill out our 1040 Tax Form correctly, but again we write a
letter to the Internal Revenue Service — and government officials — to explain
why we cannot pay some or all the military percentage of our income tax. We
explain that we direct our monies instead to our church’s relief and
development programs. Such efforts, we believe, build sustainable, peaceful
lives for people around the world and probably do more to engender good will
and security for Americans than any war. Under biblical principles and under
the principles of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals after World War Ⅱ we know
we cannot hide behind the inhumane orders of an official or even a government.
Each of us is ultimately responsible to God and our fellow human beings for
our actions.
The IRS
sends us notices of “unpaid taxes.” Eventually they may freeze our wages or
bank account in order to seize the money. (Under the “aiding and abetting”
considerations, it feels different to us whether the man seizes the knife from
our kitchen or we give it to him without protest.) Sometimes the
IRS has
not followed through. We especially salute our friends who live under the
taxable income level as a way of affirming life and walking lightly on the
earth.
When our international friends hear there are Christians who withhold even a
token amount of the “military tax” as a cry for peace, many of
them — including friends of other faiths — have expressed appreciation that
Christians here are ready to witness in this way for a God of peace.
The April issue of Mennonite Central Committee’s A Common
Place reported that ,
MCC
has given more than $4.5 million to Afghanistan relief. According to War
Resister’s League, the United States spent $46 million in one hour of the war
on Iraq — more than 10 times the amount
MCC
gave to rehabilitate Afghanistan. If for no other reason than Christian
stewardship, we should refuse to pay the 47 percent of federal income, estate
or gift taxes that fund the current and past military budget. Redirect them
instead to do what Jesus asked of us: Care for the enemy, teach our children,
heal the sick, lend to the needy without interest.
I urge all who work and pray for peace to support the passage of the Religious
Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act, a bill that would provide that the federal tax
payments of conscientious objectors to war be used only for nonmilitary
purposes. Until that bill is passed, I urge you to use all legal and ethical
ways to lower your taxable income and to consider redirecting the military
percentage of the tax money you owe. The Mennonite Church needs to become more
proactive, prophetic and pastoral as we address the consequences of the draft
of war taxes.
The
MCC
awarded Zachary Kurtz
top honors in a “Peace Oratorical Contest” for his speech on war tax
resistance, according to the edition.
The edition noted the ongoing
court battle between the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Quakers) and the
IRS.
“The Internal Revenue Service is threatening
PYM
with a penalty of more than $20,000 for refusing to garnish the wages of
employee and war-tax-resister Priscilla Adams.
PYM
has decided to challenge the
IRS on
all possible grounds, including constitutional and statutory religious
freedom…”
Timothy Godshall’s article on death & taxes
appeared in the edition. It
pointed out the grotesquely enormous
U.S. military
budget, and the sacrifices conscientious objectors are forced to make to
reduce their complicity with it, and used this as a launching pad to plug the
Peace Tax Fund bill.
Rex
J. Rempel and Lenae K. Nofziger wrote in to the
issue to say that because
“[r]oughly 53 percent of our current income taxes” will be spent “on soldiers,
weapons, and debt from prior wars” they had decided they would be “withholding
$53 from our payment due. Obviously this is a symbolic amount, but it is a step
toward fully following God’s call for us.”
After World War Ⅱ, a Jewish rabbi in Germany said what shocked him most was
not the terror of the Nazis but the silence of the good people in Germany.
Today what disturbs me more than the horrendous atrocities of presidents Bush,
Clinton and the
U.S. Empire for
many decades is how most
U.S. peace
activists, progressives, Quakers, Mennonites and members of Amnesty
International pay
U.S. federal income
tax for these atrocities: to rob, terrorize, blind, cripple, paralyze, make
homeless and murder our sisters and brothers worldwide. We get what we pay
for.
Nothing in life is more important than refusing to pay federal income tax for
war — no matter who is president. The best way to refuse to pay federal income
tax for war, with no fines and no threats from the
IRS,
is to live simply under the taxable level. The federal income taxable level
for for a single person who is under 65 and
not blind is $7,950. I lived on
$3,390 — less than half the federal income taxable level.
I have no right to pay tax to do to other people what I do not want them to do
to me. I have paid no federal income tax for 25 years. I pledge now, at age
58, to live simply, to own no car and to pay no federal income tax for war for
the rest of my life. This is nonviolent revolution.
There was a brief write-up
about the 10th International Conference on War Tax
Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns that happened in
, in the
edition.
H.A. Penner
wrote in to the edition to
explain his symbolic withholding formula:
To express my conscientious objection to war, I am withholding from my current
federal income tax payment an amount equal to one dime for every billion
dollars in the
U.S. military
budget. I am donating that amount — $78.30 — to the National Campaign for a
Peace Tax Fund to be used in the pursuit of peace.
For a time the Bixlers withheld the
U.S. telephone tax
but found that this decision resulted only in confused correspondence. Now
their deductions are sufficiently large to cut payment of federal taxes. “When
charitable donations go up,” says Sam, “taxes go down.” One time the
IRS
asked them to show receipts.
This is the thirtieth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal of
the (Old) Mennonite Church.
In the Mennonite Church General Assembly
would hold a long-overdue vote on whether or not to support war tax resistance
as an institution. You’ll have to scroll down to see how that turned out.
A Japanese court has ruled against 22 military tax resisters, including
Mennonite pastor Michio Ohno. The ruling by the Tokyo District Court came
recently after nearly eight years of litigation. The case had its origin after
the bank accounts of Ohno and another person were attached by the government
because they didn’t pay their taxes. For reasons of conscience, the 22 object
to paying the portion of their taxes that is used for military purposes. The
negative ruling does not discourage them, however. “We believe it is this type
of lawsuit which, repeated a thousand times, will open the way to legalize
conscientious objection to military taxation in Japan,” said Ohno.
A “Taxes for Peace” fund is again being set up by Mennonite Central Committee
U.S. Peace Section.
It is for people who withhold war taxes to give money for a peaceful purpose.
It is a symbolic action and not a legal alternative to paying the tax.
’s fund will be divided between National
Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund and Christian Peacemaker Teams. More information
about the fund is available from
MCC
U.S. Peace Section…
As the general assembly loomed, a series of letters to the editor concerning
war tax resistance hit the Gospel Herald pages in
:
Krabill felt that war tax resisters were twisting themselves in knots trying to explain away scriptural passages that on their clear facial reading counseled taxpaying.
Peachey explained why she thought war tax resistance was worth taking seriously (this is the same commentary as appeared in The Mennonite and that I excerpted here).
Nafziger thought that Krabill wasn’t discerning the clear obvious meaning of the bible so much as offering a distorted version of it in order to justify paying war taxes.
Do Mennonites need more time to study the tax withholding issue or more
courage? Will the Mennonite Church be known as a “historic peace church” 50
years from now? These and other questions came to mind as I read “General
Board Makes Cautious Preparation for Normal
”…
General Assembly actions in recent years have repeatedly affirmed tax
resistance, based on Christian conscience, as a valid part of our peace
witness. We see these actions not as liberal trends but rather a needed
return to New Testament teachings: to the life, nonviolent teachings, and
spirit of Jesus and to Anabaptist understandings of church and state
separation, roles, and loyalties.
Today military technologies are more important than personnel and therefore
the drafting of our dollars for war and preparation for war is a crucial
matter. The central issue in the earlier General Board recommendation, in my
perspective, was not tax resistance per se but whether the Mennonite Church
is ready to respect and support the consciences of those who request that
their taxes for military purposes not be withheld.
Recently, a young man named Jose was returning to his house in the
Philippines. Government soldiers, who later claimed Jose was out after
curfew, shot this defenseless youth, leaving him with a serious leg injury.
They refused him treatment for enough days that gangrene claimed his lower
leg. When we finally met Jose in the hospital, the lad needed to find blood
for his leg amputation.
Weekly, in our work with Mennonite Central Committee, we hear stories of
global brothers and sisters who are being maimed or killed with weapons of
war, many of them supplied by the American government. Therefore, when we
are faced with the turning over of our income to the Internal Revenue
Service for supplying these coffers of war, it feels to us that to do so
willingly would be the equivalent of signing the death warrant for innocent
friends.
We do not expect that everyone in the Mennonite Church will share these deep
convictions of ours. We believe that many Mennonites have wrestled with this
issue in honesty and prayer and have come to different conclusions from our
own.
Still, we are very saddened when we learn in Gospel
Herald that Mennonite Church General Board chose to back away from
recommending to General Assembly that the convictions of church
institutional employees who object to paying military taxes shall be honored
by their employers. The action leaves us feeling lonely.
What is the church telling us? Are our convictions out of place in our
church? Are we considered stubborn people who refuse to see the truth that
the church identifies? Is the church asking us to give up these deeply held
convictions? We don’t know. We sincerely value the counsel of the church
community. And yet somehow we can’t seem to shut off our (misguided?)
consciences on this matter.
Linda Peachey in “Agonizing Over War Taxes”… makes a good argument for
withholding war taxes. However, there is another angle from which to view
the issue of not paying war taxes. The primary Scripture cited in the debate
is Matthew 22:15–22 (and parallels). If we would apply a little historical
and political exegesis to this passage, we would have to ask ourselves how
we could apply Jesus’ response to ourselves.
For instance, we are not a nation or a people held captive under a foreign
ruler, such as Palestine was during the time of the Roman Empire. Also, we
are not presently ruled by a monarch; we realistically have no “caesar” over
us. If there is a caesar, so to speak, then we are caesar.
In the United States, our constitution begins by naming our caesar, “We the
people,” and Abraham Lincoln elaborated that phrase from our preamble by
claiming that our government essentially is and must remain a “government of
the people, by the people, for the people.”
In our form of democracy, we have no absolute authority set over us. What we
do have is public servants set under us. We, as responsible citizens, are
the authority of this nation. If our nation blunders and falls, the blame is
on us, not merely on those whom we have elected.
Those of us who withhold a portion of our tax are trying to re-orient our
national priorities. While what we do is considered to be illegal, we are
breaking a law of the people (willing to take responsibility for our
actions), but we are not breaking a law against caesar. What we are
trying to do is give to our government (ourselves) what it needs to function
as a force for order, a system for providing for the needs of all, and as a
body of law to carry out justice. (See Jacob Hutter’s and Menno Simons’
writings in Plots and Excuses and Foundations,
respectively.)
We do not all agree on the question of nonpayment of taxes for military
purposes… But shouldn’t we all be asking whether an agency of our church
should withhold taxes for employees who have a conscience against payment of
the military portion? Should a peace church agency side with the state
against the conscience of its own members? And is that consistent when the
church is on record supporting the conscientious action of its members in
nonpayment? It would seem appropriate for us to arrive at a plan whereby the
request of employees be respected and taxes for military purposes not be
withheld by church agencies.
We’ve known since childhood the stories of God’s people in the Old and New
Testaments who said to government and religious authorities, “I can’t do
that,” or “You can’t do that,” or “We can’t do that,” and then took the
awful consequences. Will we rouse from our easy “Christianity” and recognize
when the time has come for us to say such words — to obey God rather than
man and take the consequences?
As for the recommendation on military tax withholding, the board concluded
after consulting the district conferences that the recommendation had to be
rewritten. The sequence of events was as follows.
At Purdue , General Board was asked by General
Assembly to consult the church on the question of the conscientious objection
to the payment of military taxes, particularly the withholding of such taxes
by church institutions for persons who objected to paying them.
In , General Board approved a
statement for presentation to General Assembly at Normal
which included the recommendation that the
convictions of church institutional employees who object to paying military
taxes shall be honored by their employers.
During , district
conferences were contacted by General Board to seek their counsel on the
proposed statement. Responses were mixed. Three conferences supported the
proposal for presentation to General Assembly. Four conferences did not
support it. Eight supported the statement with modifications or cautions.
Executive Secretary James Lapp reported to the board that “I perceive in
general there is no broad consensus of support for the proposed stance of the
General Board.”
Accordingly the board saw it as necessary to prepare a drastically revised
proposal. Gone from this proposal was any reference to illegal action such as
a church institution refusing to collect military taxes from those
conscientiously opposed to paying them. Instead the statement which is to
appear in the “workbook” prepared for General Assembly delegates calls for
“study of the church/state issues raised by the collection of taxes by church
agencies” and for support of the Peace Tax Fund options being called for in
both the U.S. and
Canada.
Military taxes for church employees is a particularly difficult subject. This
issue has been knocking around for several years already. As I reported on
, the General Board at its last
meeting passed a much less decisive proposal than expected. This revision was
made after consultations with district conferences. If anyone wishes to press
for the church to take a radical position on this issue, it will be necessary
to make that point clear since the General Board received mixed signals in
consultations with the conferences.
The General Board had a last chance to tangle with the issue
:
The Mennonite Church General Board held a
prior to Normal
. No major issues were resolved in this brief
meeting. Much of the activity involved receiving reports and doing final work
on statements to be presented to General Assembly.
Among the reports being prepared for the assembly was one related to the
payment of war taxes. This followed an action of Purdue
which had called for the board to study this
issue and report to Normal . There had been a
change of stance after consultation with the district conferences.
In , the board had drafted a
proposal which included a recommendation to respect the consciences of
employees of church organizations who do not wish to have the military portion
of their income tax deducted from their paychecks. By
this proposal was withdrawn and the
emphasis was rather on study of the issue and support of the Peace Tax Fund.
On , the board made final revisions
on this statement for presentation to Normal .
And then the General Assembly met and pushed back against the Board’s
reluctance:
The conference delegations caucused several times during the debate about
war-tax resistance. Here Dave Miller makes a point to his fellow delegates
from Indiana-Michigan Conference.
Merger with a sister denomination and illegal support for war-tax resisters
became a distinct possibility following two crucial secret-ballot votes by the
Mennonite Church General Assembly delegates during Normal
. The merger vote was decisive — 86
percent — and there were no surprises. But the tax vote was close — 59
percent — and was the result of an unexpected turnaround on the General
Assembly floor.
Ruth Brunk Stoltzfus of Virginia Conference calls for more courage instead of
more study on the matter of tax-withholding.
The war-tax issue proved to be a much thornier and more complex matter. It all
started about 10 years ago when employees of Mennonite Church
agencies and schools began requesting that taxes not be
withheld from their paychecks so they could refuse to pay the
portion of their federal income taxes (about half) that is used by the
U.S.
government for military purposes. The
employees said they are conscientious objectors
to military taxes in the same way their fathers and
grandfathers were conscientious objectors to
military service in times of conscription.
The agencies and schools would break the law if they honored their employees’
request. Caught between their employees’ consciences and the government’s
requirements, the agencies and schools appealed to General Board for help.
What followed was years of study and discussion.
Finally, in , General Board members
voted to recommend to General Assembly that church agencies and schools be
permitted to honor the requests of employees who want to resist war taxes. The
General Board action then went to district conferences for their response. The
response was mixed and generally cautious, so General Board watered down the
recommendation at its meeting. By
the time of its meeting the day before the start of Normal
, however, General Board put some teeth back
into the document, but it was still a weakened form of the original version.
When General Assembly took up the issue, several delegates jumped up to scold
General Board for its indecisiveness. “General Board has backed off on this
issue, and that makes me sad and angry,” said Bob Hartzler of Allegheny
Conference. “General Board must exercise leadership on this and not just
gather consensus.” He then asked that the original recommendation be restored.
After more debate and two time-outs for district conference caucuses, the
delegates agreed to vote separately on the three sections of the revised
recommendation and then on the “heart” of the original version, as requested
by Hartzler. The three sections were approved by unanimous or near-unanimous
hand votes.
The revised document calls for (1) further study of the war-tax issue, (2)
financial and other support for the peace-tax fund options being proposed in
the U.S. Congress
and the Canadian Parliament, and (3) moral and financial support for war-tax
resisters.
Action on the heart of the original version, giving agencies and schools
permission to not withhold taxes when requested, was tabled until later in the
week. When the issue came up again,
GC general
secretary Vern Preheim was present to report on his denomination’s experience
since it took a similar action in . Though
the U.S. Internal
Revenue Service contacted the
GC leaders
early on to confirm the action and warn them about the consequences, to date
IRS
has not moved against the
GC Church.
The district conferences then caucused, and when debate resumed, many of the
speakers reported on the general feelings of their conference delegations. “We
stand in a long line of saints who have faced decisions like this, starting
with the women who illegally hid baby Moses,” said Weldon Nisly of Ohio
Conference. Del Glick of Indiana-Michigan Conference reported that several
people in his delegation had changed their minds and were now prepared to vote
yes. “We want to take a stand,” he said. “It will probably take more courage
to face our congregations than to face the government!” Brent Foster then
announced the support of Afro-American Mennonite Association.
Ron Schertz, a lawyer who is a board member of Mennonite Board of Missions,
offered one of the few opposing comments. He warned that approval of the
document would get in the way of
MBM’s
main mission and jeopardize its tax-exempt status.
When the votes were counted, the resurrected war-tax recommendation passed
142-100. Moderator-Elect George Brunk Ⅲ commented that the vote is not a
decisive mandate for General Board but that it does represent “some momentum
on this question.” He said General Board “will have to move with due caution”
and that “we’ll have to see if a greater sense of consensus emerges in the
coming biennium.”
Robert Hartzler of Allegheny Conference introduces an amendment that put
teeth back into the war-tax recommendation.
Special-interest activities abounded. Vigorous
discussion marked a session entitled “Should the
Church Be Caesar’s Tax Collector?”
This was followed by the General
Board meeting, at which the probably somewhat shocked Board would
have to determine how (or whether) to put the Assembly’s
mandate into practice. It seemed to reach the conclusion that since
it could not identify any employees who were currently
requesting the Church to stop withholding war taxes from
their salaries, they could safely
kick the can down the road a few years further:
Another major agenda item for General Board was follow-up work on the military
tax action by General Assembly at Normal . After years of study and debate, the General Assembly delegates
voted to permit denominational agencies and schools to honor — illegally — the
request of employees who, for conscience’ sake, don’t want taxes withheld from
their paychecks. This is so they can refuse to pay the portion that is used
for the military.
The General Assembly vote was close (59 percent) and no employees are
currently requesting non-withholding, so the General Board members agreed to
proceed with caution. But they also agreed that regardless of what the
agencies and schools do and regardless of whether General Board itself has
employees who request non-withholding, they would take a clear stand on
military taxes and submit another recommendation to the next General Assembly
sessions in .
Meanwhile, General Board will plan a major consultation on military taxes for
and prepare a study guide to be
ready by then. Conferences and congregations will then be encouraged to study
the issue and report to General Board.
