Francine Wall of Nashua, left, and Ruth McKay of Hudson, right, members of the
Nashua-Hudson War Tax Resistance Support Group, are protesting war by
distributing leaflets in front of the Nashua Internal Revenue Service office
.
McKay said she plans to hold out 35 percent of her income tax payment this
year because that portion of the federal budget is spent on war efforts.
Hudson woman to hold back on income tax as war protest
by Jon Sherwood
Ruth McKay of Hudson expects to hear from the
IRS
.
She figures the
U.S. government
spends one-third of her taxes on nuclear armament and preparation for war.
So, she said, she will deduct that amount from her tax payment because she
is opposed to war on the grounds that it violates God’s wishes.
McKay adds she’ll write a letter to the Internal Revenue Service to explain
her refusal to pay. That way, she said, she won’t be prosecuted for tax fraud.
McKay, of 17 Barretts Hill Road, belongs to the eight-member Nashua-Hudson
War Tax Resistance Support Group. The aim of the one-year-old group, she
said, is to promote world peace by showing governments military spending will
not be tolerated.
McKay and Francine Wall, of 7-E Hartford Lane, Nashua, have been pacing in
front of the
IRS’
Main Street office to publicize their fight.
They speak with passersby and dispense information pamphlets. On
and
, they plan to hold vigils at
Monument Park on Library Hill, with the theme “Christ is Betrayed by Nuclear
Weapons.”
Kiki Soris, public affairs officer for the
IRS in
Portsmouth, explained the procedure when a tax payment falls short of
expectations.
She said the
IRS
sends a notice to inform the taxpayer more money is owed. If there is no word
from the taxpayer, the tax collection agency sends up to four more notices,
each more serious than the last.
Soris said the fifth notice warns that, if no explanation is received,
enforcement action will be taken. That means seizing a personal bank account,
attaching wages, or attaching Social Security checks.
If no word is received after the fifth notice, she continued, the agency will
take action to get the money. Soris said the
IRS is
also allowed to put a lien on a home, or confiscate and sell a taxpayer’s
personal property and put the proceeds toward the tax bill. Also, Soris said,
interest and penalties are charged on late tax payments.
But McKay knows the procedure and said she nevertheless plans to hold back
her 35 percent as a symbol of civil disobedience, so the government will get
the message. She said she expects to be charged the interest and penalties
fees.
McKay said some Quakers in the state also hold back tax money from the
government as a protest. But, she said, a lot of those persons make so little
money annually they fall below the minimum tax guidelines. McKay said she
isn’t willing to go that far just yet.
Tax money withheld from the Internal Revenue Service by some members of the
Nashua Area War-Tax Resistance Support Group has been deposited in a local
bank account, members say.
Ruth McKay of 17 Barrett’s Hill Road, Hudson, said she withheld 32.9 percent
of the tax she owed — $800 — because statisticians say that portion of the
federal budget is spent on war and war preparation.
Francine Wall of 7-E Hartford Lane said she and her husband, Thomas, have not
yet donated any money to the cause. They declared a 32.9 percent peace credit
on their tax return and expected to have received the money by now.
Mrs. Wall said the expected procedure is for the
IRS to
mail them the credit after their return is fed through a computer. The Walls
would donate that to the fund. When the
IRS
hand-processes the return, Mrs. Wall said, the accountant will notice they
are not eligible for the credit and will send a letter requesting the money
in return.
She said they will then try to keep the government from getting the money
back.
The pacifist group decided at a potluck supper at the Hudson Community Church
this past week it would keep the withheld dollars in escrow, to be given to
the government when policies change and when the money will be used for
purposes other than war.
The group decided that until those policy changes do occur, interest from the
account will be contributed quarterly to peace work or hunger relief projects.
Mrs. McKay said, “I expect they (the
IRS)
are going to get the money because they can attach my pay — I work the second
shift at Centronics.” Other
IRS
methods of retrieving back taxes include putting a lien on a resister’s home
or attaching a spouse’s earnings or assets.
She said she expects the
IRS to
charge interest for the time the money is withheld, and may even assess her a
fine, “but I’m willing to pay the price.”
During the meeting, group members shared war-tax refusal letters they had
written to the
IRS on
, and other correspondence they
have had with the federal agency. The group is committed to peaceful
resistance of military preparation and war. The group’s purpose is to educate
and support persons who witness for war-tax resistance.
As for the escrow account, Mrs. McKay said “Any tax refuser in this part of
the state will be welcomed with open arms,” if they would like to donate
withheld money.
She said the government cannot attach the money because the account is under
an organization name, but it would be returned to the resister when the
government finds another method of getting its due.
In the meantime, she said, the group would use the interest to foster
peaceful causes.
Mrs. McKay said she got involved with war-tax resistance when she was
teaching high school-age Sunday school classes during the Vietnam era. She
said, “One of the boys in my class pushed his Sunday school books across the
table and asked me what he should believe. Whether the government was right
or the church was right.
“He said he could be drafted to go to war, but the church told him not to
fight. He was using the knowledge we gave him the way it was supposed to be
used.”
It occurred to Mrs. McKay that “when you put obedience to God first, you run
into worldly problems. But it has always been that way. Jesus had that
problem.”
“It’s really simple,” she said. “If you believe in God, it is easy to make
the decision. But it is hard to live it out.”
The group meets quarterly.
The next meeting is a picnic .
For information, interested persons may contact Mrs. McKay or the Walls.
By , the fund had accumulated enough interest to make a small donation to the Center for Law and Pacifism.
The article that reported on the donation also mentioned that McKay was planning to try to present a case for her war tax resistance in Tax Court.
That apparently was not successful, as by , the IRS was levying her social security checks for back taxes.
Another way people can assist and show solidarity with tax resisters is by coming to their assistance if their property is seized.
Here are some examples:
Practical support
The War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund was established in .
It helps war tax resisters who have had penalties and interest added to their tax bills and seized by the IRS by reimbursing them for a large portion of these additional charges.
The more people we could recruit to shoulder the penalties and interest of resisters, the lighter the burden for everyone.
With the modest help we could provide, conscientious resisters were able to keep on keeping on.
The penalty fund had the added benefit of making us all tax resisters, not just those who withheld all or a portion of their income taxes.
The base list of supporters has been as high as 800 people sharing the weight.
In nearly every appeal, at least 200 people respond, usually more.
In all we’ve paid out about $250,000 to help resisters stay in the struggle.
The story of the seizure of the Kehler/Corner home was the subject of the documentary An Act of Conscience.
When the home of war tax resisters Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner was seized for back taxes, supporters came from near and far to maintain a 24-hour occupation of the home:
[David] Dellinger and others have come from as far away as California to the Colrain [Massachusetts] house…
Mr. Kehler and Ms. Corner continued to live in the house until they were arrested by Federal marshals last December.
Since then, friends and supporters of the couple have arrived to occupy the almost empty house in week-long shifts marked by the Thursday “changing of the guard” ceremony.
Because the house was sold in a Government auction in , all who go inside risk arrest for trespassing.…
For Bonney Simons of St. Johnsbury, Vt., sleeping on a bedroll in the house is her first official act of civil disobedience.
At 72 years of age, she said, it is time to “put your body where your mouth is.”
Suffragist tax resister Dora Montefiore barricaded her home and kept the tax collector from seizing her property for several weeks in , in what came to be known as the “Siege of Montefiore.”
She noted:
The tradespeople of the neighbourhood were absolutely loyal to us besieged women, delivering their milk and bread, etc., over the rather high garden wall which divided the small front gardens of Upper Mall from the terraced roadway fronting the river.
The weekly wash arrived in the same way and the postman day by day delivered very encouraging budgets of correspondence, so that practically we suffered very little inconvenience…
A woman sympathiser in the neighbourhood brought during the course of the [first] morning, a pot of home-made marmalade, as the story had got abroad that we had no provisions and had difficulty in obtaining food.
This was never the case as I am a good housekeeper and have always kept a store cupboard, but we accepted with thanks the pot of marmalade because the intentions of the giver were so excellent.
Examples like this also proved to be vivid anecdotes that the press could use when describing the siege and the support from sympathizers.
When the U.S. government seized Amish tax resister Valentine Byler’s horses and their harnesses while he was in the field preparing for spring planting, sympathetic neighbors allowed him to borrow their horses so he could continue his work.
Other sympathizers throughout the country who heard about the case sent Byler money — more than enough to buy a new team.
An auctioneer who was dragooned into helping the government sell some of the livestock of a man who had been resisting taxes meant to pay for sectarian education in , donated the fee he had earned for conducting the auction to the resister.
During the water charge strike in Dublin, “local campaign groups successfully resisted attempts to disconnect water and in the couple of instances where water was cut off, campaigners re-connected it within hours.
The first round was won hands down by the campaign and it was back to the drawing board for the councils.”
Similar monkeywrenching is being practiced today in Greece, where activists promptly reconnect utilities of people who have been disconnected for failure to pay the increased taxes attached to their utility bills.
During the Annuity Tax resistance in Edinburgh, people sympathetic to the resisters would bid on and return furniture and other items that had been seized and sold by the tax collectors.
The Rebecca Rioters, on the other hand, were characteristically more direct in their resistance:
Warrants of distress were issued… and the constables proceeded to execute them…
The constables then went towards Talog; but when on their way there they heard the sound of a horn, and immediately between two and three hundred persons assembled together, with their faces blackened, some dressed in women’s caps, and others with their coats turned so as to be completely disguised — armed with scythes, crowbars and all manner of destructive weapons which they could lay their hands on.
After cheering the constables, they defied them to do their duty.
The latter had no alternative but to return to town without executing their warrants.
The women were seen running in all directions to alarm their neighbours; and some hundreds were concealed behind the hedges, intending to appear if their services were required.
The entire district seemed to be aroused, and awaiting the arrival of the constables, who were going to levy on the goods of John Harris of Talog Mill for the amount of the fine and costs imposed upon him by the magistrates.
There could not have been less than two hundred persons assembled to resist the execution of process, and vast numbers were flocking from all quarters, in response to the blowing of a horn, the signal of the Rebeccaites to repair thither.
Various mounted messengers were scouring the country and sounding the trumpet of alarm.…
At Maesgwenllian near Kidwelly, several bailiffs were put in possession for arrears of rent to the amount of £150, but about , Rebecca and a great number of her followers made their appearance on the premises, and after driving the bailiffs off, took away the whole of the goods distrained on.
As soon as daylight appeared, the bailiffs returned, but found no traces of Rebecca, nor of the goods which had been taken away.
A group in Olive Hill, Kentucky in followed the Rebecca model, to an extent, “in a raid… by a band of between 800 and 900 men, who forced Levi White, Collector of Taxes, to give up a stock of goods which had been seized.
The goods were then taken back to the store of Levi Oppenheimer, where the official had seized them.”
Last year in Oaxaca, the PRI said that the would “defend up to the point of injunctions those citizens who suffer from liens imposed as well as judgments in order to prevent the impounding of vehicles, considering it unconstitutional that the police will impound them to stop the driver and remove the unit if the striker does not pay the corresponding [vehicle] tax.”
The IRS auctioned off a portion of Ralph Shinaberry’s property in after he refused to pay a fine for growing more wheat on his farm than his government-assigned quota.
“I don’t believe the Government can tell me how much I can grow,” he said, explaining his resistance.
The winning bidder, Herbert Jessup, told a reporter:
“I have no intention of taking possession of the property.”
When war tax resister Cosmas Raimondi’s car was seized by the IRS in , a handful of families in his parish offered to permanently loan him their car so he could still get around, and many others loaned him their cars temporarily.
“I’ve not had to ask one person,” he said.
In Beit Sahour, when the Israeli occupation authorities seized furniture and appliances from resisters, relatives and others would loan them spares, or camping furniture to use as replacements.
“In Bedfordshire in community pressure persuaded a minister to return goods seized from a Quaker for non-payment of tithes.”
Moral support
When Dora Montefiore was first formulating her “siege” strategy with fellow-activists Theresa Billington and Annie Kenney, they agreed to organize daily demonstrations outside of her home while she was defending it.
Montefiore remembered:
The feeling in the neighbourhood towards my act of passive resistance was so excellent and the publicity being given by the Press in the evening papers was so valuable that we decided to make the Hammersmith “Fort” for the time being the centre of the W.S.P.U. activities, and daily demonstrations were arranged for and eventually carried out. …
The roadway was… ideal for the holding of a meeting, as no blocking of traffic could take place, and day in, day out the principles for which suffragists were standing we expounded to many who before had never even heard of the words Woman Suffrage.
At the evening demonstrations rows of lamps were hung along the top of the wall and against the house, the members of the W.S.P.U. speaking from the steps of the house, while I spoke from one of the upstairs windows.
…shoals of letters came to me, a few sadly vulgar and revolting, but the majority helpful and encouraging.
Some Lancashire lads who had heard me speaking in the Midlands wrote and said that if I wanted help they would come with their clogs but that was never the sort of support I needed, and though I thanked them, I declined the help as nicely as I could. …
The working women from the East End came, time and again, to demonstrate in front of my barricaded house…
When the IRS seized and auctioned off the home and farm of Art Harvey and Elizabeth Gravalos in , other war tax resisters and supporters were by their sides:
“I might have cried if I were alone,” Gravalos admitted.
But she was far from alone.
About 75 supporters gathered outside the building and spoke of their solidarity with Elizabeth and Arthur.
About 35 supporters turned up for the second auction, this time held at the IRS office in Lewiston, Maine.
Demonstrators read excerpts from letters to IRS officials and to President Clinton urging them to call off the auction.
In , the IRS levied 78-year-old war tax resister Ruth McKay’s social security checks to recoup the taxes she had been refusing to pay over the previous 20 years.
To show their support of her stand, 40 activists from New Hampshire Peace Action joined her for a vigil at the federal courthouse in Concord, New Hampshire.
When war tax resister Maria Smith’s wages were garnisheed by the IRS in , fifty supporters held a special church service in her honor.
“One of the Valod Vanias,” whose land was seized by the government during the Bardoli satyagraha, “who thus lost all his valuable property, celebrated the event by inviting friends and soldiers of Satyagraha to a party.”
On the other hand, some campaigns have taken the position that sacrifices for the cause are their own reward — that martyrdom is a blessing and that it would be foolish for such resisters to seek or accept recompense.
Nathaniel Morgan was speaking with someone curious about the Quaker stand on war and war taxes, and had this to say:
I told him then that I and my father had refused to pay the income tax on account of war, and had refused it on its first coming out, and withstood it 16 years, except when peace was declared, and that our goods were sold by auction to pay it.
This seemed to excite his curiosity, and made a stand to hear further, on the steps above the engine, going down to the river; asking me if we got anything by that, meaning, was anything refunded by the Society for such suffering.
I immediately replied: “Yes, peace of mind, which was worth all.”
