’s first article about war tax resisters has gone out over the wires — a little earlier than usual, I think, thanks to Deena Gudzer, of Columbia University’s journalism department.
It’s got some quotes from tax resisters Ed Hedemann, Peter Goldberger, Robin Harper, Karl Meyer, and Dennis Dalton, a dissent from an activist who doesn’t see much point in war tax resistance, and some beside-the-point boilerplate rebuttalizing from an IRS spokesman.
Bobby Smith at Buzzsaw Haircut takes a gander at the Ithica War Tax Resisters and quotes resisters Pete Meyers, Mary Loehr, Laurie Konwinski, Ruth Benn, Peter Goldberger, and Joe Donato. Excerpts:
Pete Meyers, a member of Ithaca’s War Tax Resistors, said there are many ethical and personally fulfilling benefits to resisting federal war taxes that go beyond the monetary opposition.
“Having done this for eighteen years, it’s not so much whether it’s denying the military money, but what it has done for me. And it has been profound.”
Meyers, like many war tax resistors, calculates what he owes to the government and funnels the money to philanthropic organizations.
“If I give my money directly to people who need it, I can avoid going through a big government bureaucracy,” he said.
As I noted , a judge overturned most of the convictions of the members of the Restored Israel of Yahweh who had been prosecuted for their war tax resistance and convicted in .
, they were resentenced on the remaining counts. Attorney Peter Goldberger filed a report, which I excerpt below:
Joe Donato, Inge Donato and Kevin McKee were re-sentenced… following the appellate reversal of twelve counts of employment tax evasion with which they had been charged, and the appellate ruling that Inge was also innocent of the two counts of alleged failure to file personal income tax returns for which the jury convicted her (as she had no taxable income in those years). There is more good news than bad.
Prior to resentencing, the government elected to dismiss the overturned counts, rather than conduct a retrial. Unfortunately, because the Third Circuit appeals court affirmed all three defendants’ convictions for conspiracy to defraud the United States in relation to those same employment taxes, they all ended up convicted of a felony, which in turn supported reimposition of almost the same sentences as originally. All received new prison sentences of the time they had already served following their original sentencings in — 6 months for Inge, 27 months for Joe, and 24 months for Kevin. Although, incredibly, the prosecutor… asked that they be given longer prison terms, the judge gave that thought no consideration at all. However, Judge Simandle did reimpose the same fines ($50,000 on Inge, $5,000 on Joe, and $4,000 on Kevin), all of which had already been paid by their religious society.
On the bright side, however — and most important — the judge modified the terms of all three defendants’ post-incarceration supervised release… which runs for 3 years from their respective release dates. First, even though they are all now “convicted felons,” the judge ruled they can freely associate with one another, which would normally be prohibited. Second, for the express purpose of “accommodating” their religious beliefs, the judge changed the standard requirement of “regular gainful employment” to allow Joe and Kevin to substitute charitable or community service for paid employment, so they can keep their income below the taxable level while under supervision and thus avoid a further conflict with the government. (Inge is disabled from working, so that wasn’t a problem for her.)
Most gratifying, the judge clarified and modified the original special condition that they “fully cooperate with the IRS by filing all returns and paying current and delinquent taxes” to say instead that they must file all delinquent and current returns, to the extent required by law, going back 10 years — but he dropped the specification that they have to pay, so far as the court’s conditions are concerned. That, he expressly left to the IRS and its ordinary administrative remedies. This is what we had requested, and it removed our greatest worry. The RIOY defendants have reconsidered where they draw the line, and are now willing to file, although still not to pay. (The judge actually suggested they consider paying the non-military percentage of their taxes, which he speculated would be “more than 50%.” I didn’t offer him a pie chart.)
The judge came very close to terminating Inge’s supervision entirely as of today, but in the end deferred that until the returns are filed. All three defendants gave very moving statements to the judge prior to sentencing.… All in all, it was not a bad day; we got about 85–90% of what we were hoping for. It is very unlikely there would be any further appeal.
In , the Associated Press covered the case of war tax resister Priscilla Adams:
I.R.S. Sues Quaker Group
Philadelphia, — Priscilla Adams says she does not mind paying taxes — she just does not want her money going to the military.
Because of that, Ms. Adams, a Quaker organizer, finds herself in a court battle with the Internal Revenue Service.
Ms. Adams, 50, has refused to pay at least some of her federal taxes for many years and owes the government more than $42,000 in back taxes, interest and fines. She says she would rather her money went to further peaceful causes.
“They can do things like the checkoff for the presidential election campaign; they could easily do an accommodation for a peace-tax fund,” Ms. Adams said Wednesday from her house in Willingboro, N.J.
The I.R.S. stepped up the pressure in the dispute on when it sued her employer, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, for refusing to garnishee her wages. The government wants to impose a 50 percent penalty, more than $21,000, against the society, a regional Quaker organization.
“That would be a hefty price for what we believe is right,” said Gretchen Castle, a leader with the group. “I think that there are other ways the government can do it that are more friendly, more supportive of our faith.”
The government is seeking taxes and penalties ; after that period the Quakers began to withhold taxes from Ms. Adams’s paychecks — she earns about $32,000 a year — and put them in an escrow account to which the I.R.S. has access. The Quakers say they do not want to help the tax agency collect the back taxes and penalties by garnisheeing additional wages.
Nationally, about 8,000 Americans withhold some or all of their federal income taxes because of their political beliefs, often because they oppose military spending, according to the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.
Ms. Adams is the only employee of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting who does not pay income taxes, Ms. Castle said, although a few take other actions, like refusing to pay federal telephone taxes that go to the military.
Ms. Adams sued the government on religious freedom grounds in 1996, asking the I.R.S. to set up a fund for conscientious objectors and to excuse her tax fines and penalties because her beliefs provided “reasonable cause” for nonpayment.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected her arguments, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Peter Goldberger, a lawyer who represented Ms. Adams and now represents her employer, said Quaker leaders hoped to formulate a response to the lawsuit at their meeting.
Ms. Adams, who is married and has two children, said she might quit her job if the Quakers lose the case, rather than see most of her income go to the I.R.S.’s general fund.
For now, she lends the amount in dispute to charitable causes she supports. She says she will not demand repayment unless the tax agency comes after her.
More Than a Paycheck reported last year that the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting decided to continue refusing to garnish Adams’s wages according to the Meeting’s explicit policy on such matters.
was the business meeting of the NWTRCC national gathering. The way NWTRCC is organized, most of the group decisions are made using a version of the consensus model of decision-making, in which everyone present is part of the “coordinating committee” which advises and consents on the various agenda items.
The business meeting usually has a tight agenda, and this one was no exception, but we have a good track record at setting and keeping to a good schedule.
Erica Weiland facilitates part of the business meeting
Most of the meeting was uneventful: adjustments to and ratifications of our budget, objectives for the year, and so forth. The big news for me, and for other folks in my area, is that the San Francisco bay area has “been volunteered” to host the next national gathering in .
After the business meeting, we had an informative counselors’ training session, featuring Peter Goldberger, a legal advisor for conscientious objectors and war tax resisters, who shared his insights into the legal ins-and-outs of war tax resistance counseling.
The coordinating committee of NWTRCC poses for a group photo
The third of Friends Journal’s special issues on war tax resistance came in , and the topic came up in several other issues besides.
An article by Mary Bye in the issue showed how the arguments for war tax resistance were starting to break the bounds of the tax arena and take hold elsewhere. Excerpts:
In a letter from the collection department of Philadelphia Electric Company demanded payment for a backlog of refused rate hikes. I had withheld the 13.7 percent imposed to cover the construction costs of the Salem and Limerick nuclear reactors. Why did I take this stand?
Looking back over the years for the source of my action, I could see it springing from a long-time insistence upon justice, a small but growing willingness to risk, a perennial sense of grief for suffering, and a blossoming love of the Earth. These are the qualities of the spirit which began to unfold into action during the early days of the Vietnam War. Somewhere along the line, I refused to pay the war tax portion of my federal income tax. Later the Vietnam War ground to a halt when legislation ended financial support for it. Was it just a coincidence that our war tax resistance preceded this legislation? Or did citizens modeling the denial of monies not only support the growing disaffection with the war, but also provide a clue to a way to end it? We had perhaps unwittingly slipped into an old Christian strategy of living as if the Kingdom were here now, and, behold, it manifested a brave, new world, or at least the beginning of one.
War tax resistance seemed an appropriate base upon which to build a new witness of caring for the whole Earth.…
…With crystalline clarity I selected my own utility, Philadelphia Electric, and refused the rate hike for Salem and Limerick. After 1½ years of refusal, accompanied by monthly explanations, I received a warning letter from the collection department, threatening an end of service. The initial fright yielded to a decision to continue resisting and move as swiftly as possible to establish my independence from nuclear power forever.
I faced a new, expensive, complicated simplicity: photovoltaic cells, which produce electrical current when exposed to light, and which could free me from bondage not only to nuclear generators but also fossil fuel-fired reactors. As war tax resistance led me to a lower income, so rate hike refusal was pointing the way to lower energy demands. My living standard may drop, but the quality of my life soars. Meanwhile I have discovered that Philadelphia Electric is experimenting with photovoltaics in anticipation of the coming solar age. If the price is right, I could purchase them there. After all, nuclear power is the enemy, not the electric company.
This is the vision, but it is a dream deferred or rather only partially realized. Philadelphia Electric Company and Solarex, which manufactures photovoltaic cells, want to establish a demonstration project at my home that would provide between one-fourth and one-third of the daily demand here for electricity. The stumbling block is the cost, which would possibly necessitate a 35-year pay-back period. So I am circling the photovoltaic issue in a holding pattern like a plane above an airport. I am searching for answers to hard questions: such as what is the equitable balance between the cost of photovoltaics and the wattage generated? What is a reasonable payback time? If the cost is rock bottom right now, how do we gather funds? How do we secure state and government support? Are churches and meetinghouses able to model this kind of caring for God’s creation? How do we dream this dream into reality? I would welcome your suggestions.
an ad in the issue of Friends Journal
That issue also announced a “Conference for Quaker, Mennonite, and Brethren employers, airing ways to deal with war tax resistance by employees. Sponsored by Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns and New Call to Peacemaking.”
That conference was covered in the issue in an article by Paul Schrag. Excerpts:
The question of how church organizations can help their employees follow their consciences — and how to deal with the risks involved for both employees and employers — were the issues that 36 Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers struggled with at the meeting. The church leaders, organizational representatives and lawyers affirmed their support for individual military tax resisters and for efforts to seek a legislative solution by working toward passage of the U.S. Peace Tax Fund bill in Congress. They agreed to organize a peace church leadership group to go to Washington, D.C., to support the peace tax bill and to express concerns about tax withholding. They also agreed to help each other by filing friend-of-the-court briefs if tax resisters are prosecuted and by sharing the cost of tax resistance penalties, if necessary.
People from churches that refuse to withhold federal taxes for employees who oppose paying military taxes shared their experiences with people from churches considering adopting such a policy. The General Conference Mennonite Church and two Quaker groups are in the first category. The Mennonite Church is in the second. The meeting, held at Quaker Hill Conference Center, took place in an atmosphere of excitement generated by a gathering of people from different traditions who share a vision. One conference participant said it was frustrating that many members of historic peace churches are unwilling to witness against financial participation in preparing for war, although they are opposed to physical participation in war. Some said it was disappointing that so many people are unwilling to follow their consciences until the government, through the Peace Tax Fund, might allow them to do so legally. One quoted Gandhi: “We have stooped so low that we fancy it our duty to do whatever the law requires.”
When a church or organization decides to honor employees’ requests not to withhold their federal income tax, it assumes serious risks. Theoretically, a person in a responsible position who willfully fails to withhold an employee’s taxes can be punished with a prison sentence and a $250,000 fine. An organization can be fined $500,000. But such penalties have never been imposed on legitimate religious organizations, nor are they likely to be, said two lawyers at the meeting. The usual Internal Revenue Service response to war tax resistance is to take the amount of tax owed, plus a 5 percent penalty and interest, from the employee’s bank account. However, the IRS has not taken even this action against General Conference Mennonite Church employees who are not having their taxes withheld. They pay the nonmilitary portion of their taxes themselves and deposit the 53 percent that would have gone to the military in a designated account. The IRS has not touched that account after church delegates approved the policy in . All church personnel who could be subject to penalties have agreed to accept the risk.
Friends World Committee for Consultation, which has had a nonwithholding policy , has had tax money seized, plus interest and penalties, from its resisters’ bank accounts. Friends United Meeting adopted a non withholding policy . Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends is considering such a policy.
A representative of the Church of the Brethren said he would use input from the meeting to work toward developing a denominational policy on tax resistance.
Lobbying continues for the Peace Tax Fund bill… The bill would allow people opposed to war taxes to put the portion normally given to the military in a separate fund for peaceful purposes. The rest of that person’s tax money also would be designated for nonmilitary use… Whether or not military tax resistance is effective, participants agreed that people’s moral imperative to follow their consciences must be respected. “No conscientious objector ever stopped a conflict,” said William Strong, a Quaker representative [and treasurer of the Friends Journal Board of Directors]. “But they had to explain what they did, and the vision was kept alive, and those ripples, you don’t know where they stop.”
A postscript noted: “ ‘A Manual on Military Tax Withholding for Religious Employers,’ written by Robert Hull, Linda Coffin, Peter Goldberger, and J.E. McNeil, will be available .”
from the cover to the issue of Friends Journal
The issue was the third special issue on war taxes from the Friends Journal.
It was prompted in part by the fact that the Journal itself had received IRS levies on the salary of its editor, Vinton Deming, who had been refusing to pay income tax . The Treasurer of the Journal, William D. Strong, explained what was going on in the lead editorial:
The Friends Journal Board of Managers has twice been unable to honor the levy against the wages of our editor, Vint Deming, for unpaid federal taxes. In our most recent reply to the Internal Revenue Service we stated that:
It is not possible for us as a board to separate our faith and our practice: we must live out our faith.
Our earlier letter… refers to our 300-year-old Peace Testimony. To more fully describe that part of our beliefs we enclose copies of two sections of Faith and Practice, the book of spiritual discipline of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. [“The Peace Testimony” and “The Individual and the State,” pp. 34–38, were shared.]
Our position of noncompliance to the requests of the Internal Revenue Service is not an easy one. We do not question the laws of the land lightly, but do so under the weight of a genuine religious and moral concern. We know as well that other religious groups — Mennonites, Brethren, and others — are facing this same difficult dilemma. For this reason, many of us support the proposed Peace Tax Fund bill in Congress.
The board agreed at our meeting in to make known this continuing witness, both individual and corporate, to you, our readers.
The dilemma is clearly not the Journal’s alone. Many Quaker institutions in the United States, Canada, and England have faced this challenge. Beyond the historic peace churches are Catholics, Methodists, and others who are considering the whole question of taxes and militarism. In February representatives of some 70 institutions came together at the Quaker Hill Conference Center in Richmond, Indiana, for a New Call to Peacemaking consultation on “Employers and War Taxes.” This followed a Quaker conference at Pendle Hill considering the same concern.
The Journal board has worked at and reached unity in this matter. We will continue to seek the light in the months and years ahead. For now, however, we would welcome the support and reactions of our subscribers and readers. If you’d like to share in this witness with your moral support, let us know. If you’d like to add practical support, we would welcome it, as we are establishing a Conscience Fund.
We don’t plan extensive legal undertakings at this time, but we know that there can readily be some fees and costs ahead, as well as possible penalties resulting from our refusal to honor the levies from the IRS.
We look forward to the response of our readers. We feel that we cannot host writings in the issues of the Journal on peace and justice, on our testimonies and faith and practice, without, as an employer, living them out to the best of our God-given abilities.
Another article in the special issue was an extract from J. William Frost’s Tax Court testimony in the Deming case, in which he explained the Quaker war tax resistance practice:
The peace testimony has been a basic part of Quaker religious belief . The testimony has not been static; it has evolved over time as Friends thought out the implications of what it meant to be a bringer of peace.
Some of the most creative actions of members of the Society of Friends have come from the peace testimony. For example, Friends’ primary contribution to world history is that they began and carried through the antislavery testimony. Friends became antislavery advocates in , when they realized that the only way one could obtain a black slave was to take him or her captive in war.
Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn for religious liberty. Penn believed, and so did the early settlers, that to create a Quaker colony meant there would be no militia, no war taxes and no oaths. These were conceived to be part of religious freedom, and in the early years of Pennsylvania, there was no militia, and there were no war taxes and no oaths. At first, the Pennsylvania Assembly refused to levy any taxes for the direct carrying on of war. Instead, after when the British government requested money because it was already beginning its long series of wars with France, the Crown and the Pennsylvania Assembly worked out a series of arrangements. Those arrangements provided that the Assembly (then composed primarily of Quakers) would provide money for the king’s use or the queen’s use, but the laws also stipulated that that money would not be directly used for military purposes; i.e., there would be almost a noncombat status for Quaker money. It could be used to provide foodstuffs to be used to feed the Indians, or it could purchase grain or relieve sufferings. It would not be used to provide guns and gunpowder.
This policy of no direct war taxes, no militia, and no oaths, was followed in Pennsylvania . In , a group of members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting began the debate on whether Quakers should pay taxes in time of war. At this time, some of the most devout Quakers refused to pay a war tax levied by the Pennsylvania Assembly. And finally the yearly meeting agreed that those whose consciences would not allow them to pay the taxes, should not. So the heritage of Pennsylvania was that government accommodated the religion.
The Federal Constitution allows for an affirmation, because certain religious rights are antecedent to the establishment of the government, and the government can and will accommodate itself to religious scruples of those people who are conscientious good citizens.
there was less opportunity for tax resistance because there was no direct federal taxation. The federal government was financed by tariffs, and the tariffs were used to carry out the full operations of government. (The major exception came during the Civil War, and here the main issues were military service and Quakers’ refusal to pay a substitution tax.)
The main Quaker response to World War Ⅰ was the creation of the American Friends Service Committee. This organization was designed to allow those young men who did not wish to fight (conscientious objectors) to have an opportunity for constructive service (i.e., to provide relief and reconstruction in the war zone). Friends conducted relief activities in France, and then later in Germany, Serbia, Poland, and in Russia. The War Department accommodated itself to Friends. There was no specific provision in the draft law in World War Ⅰ for conscientious objectors. The War Department allowed those Friends who wished to serve in the American Friends Service Committee to be furloughed so that they could go abroad to participate in relief activities.
A second way in which the authorities accommodated Friends at that time was in relief money raised by the Red Cross for Bonds. Much of the Red Cross effort was for military hospitals, and Friends did not wish to support that effort. Therefore in Philadelphia an agreement was worked out whereby Friends contributed money or bonds which would be earmarked for the American Friends Service Committee or for relief activity rather than for direct war activity.
There were instances in World War Ⅱ of individual Friends refusing to pay war taxes, and the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting officially protested against certain war taxes, but the main movement against war taxes has occurred . During the Cold War and particularly during Vietnam, war tax resistance has become a major theme in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, , has regularly put a discussion of war taxes on its agenda. In many ways the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting position on war taxes is like its position was on antislavery before the Civil War: before , virtually all Friends opposed slavery. , virtually all Friends oppose military taxation. The difficulty in and in is that Friends are searching for a way to make their religious witness effective. What Friends want to do is somehow change the focus of a policy which they see as destructive of what is basic to their value system.
In summary, the position of Friends is that religious freedoms preceded and are incorporated into the federal government. Pennsylvania was founded for religious freedom, and religious freedom meant no taxes for war, no militia service, and the right of affirmation. Friends think that the federal government incorporated part of that understanding in the affirmation clause in the constitution, in the first amendment, and in the religion clauses in the Pennsylvania Constitution. Friends think that the government has in good faith tried to accommodate us in our position on military service, and what Friends are wanting from the government now is a like accommodation on a subject which is the same to us as conscientious objection: the paying of taxes which will be used to create weapons to threaten and to kill.
Deming represented himself next, in an article describing his “journey toward war tax resistance.” Excerpts:
During a difficult moment [in the discussion over the Philadelpha Yearly Meeting’s response to the Vietnam War] a young Friend stood and spoke with deep emotion; and his words went straight to my heart. It didn’t matter, he said, what older Friends might say in support of him and his generation (though support was needed and appreciated, for sure); what really mattered to him was that Friends look personally at their own lives to see how they were connected to warmaking. If they were too old to be drafted (and most of us were) perhaps they could find other ways to resist the war.
About 20 years have gone by and I don’t even remember the name of the young Friend who spoke in meeting that day, but his words had a profound impact on me. As a result of his ministry I decided to begin to seek ways to resist the payment of taxes for warmaking (what another Friend, Colin Bell, would term the “drafting of our tax dollars” for the military).
I should say that there was another motivating force at work on me as well. My work for Friends in the city of Chester was bringing me into daily contact with poor and black people. I was learning firsthand about a community — a microcosm of other urban areas across the country — that suffered the debilitating effects of chronic poverty, high unemployment, deteriorating housing, inadequate health care, and inferior public schools. I was witnessing the insufficient funding of a so-called War on Poverty in Chester while millions of dollars and human lives were being expended in a war against other poor people in Southeast Asia. I knew I had to do something to end my personal complicity in helping to pay for the war and to redirect these dollars to wage a more life-affirming battle against poverty and injustice here at home.
I soon discovered that it is hard to become a tax resister; there are so many basic assumptions about money and taxes that we have learned. We are expected to do certain things in our society: when we work, we must pay taxes — this pretty much goes without question. How else will programs get funded and bills get paid? And those who don’t pay, well… there’s an institution called the IRS that takes care of such people and will make them pay!
There are so many good reasons for not resisting taxes. Some of the ones I wrestled with are these:
- I can’t get away with it. IRS will eventually get the money from me anyway and I’ll just end up paying more in the end.
- It won’t do any good. The government is too powerful and they’ll not change their policies because of my symbolic act.
- There are better ways to work for peace (i.e. writing letters to Congress, going to demonstrations, etc.)
- There will never be a substantial number who will be tax resisters — it’s simply not realistic.
Well, there’s truth in all of these statements, but I had to start anyway. Not to do so had simply become an even bigger problem for me. So I began looking at the question of taxes for war and decided to start where I could, with the telephone tax. I learned that the federal tax on my personal phone had been increased specifically to help pay for the war. In talking with others who were refusing to pay this portion of their phone bills I learned that the risk was fairly small. No one I knew about had gone to jail or suffered any severe penalties (beyond having some money taken from a bank account or such). So my wife and I began to withhold these few dollars each month and include a note to the telephone company explaining our reasons. This became an educational experience for me. I started to get used to receiving the impersonal letters from the phone company and later from IRS, and I even came to enjoy the process of writing my own letters in response — I felt good about not paying.
In I began to feel more confident. The IRS had not locked me up, or even taken any money from me, as I recall, so I gathered my courage and decided to take the next step — to resist paying a portion of my income taxes. At first I included a letter with my tax form in April and tried to claim a “war tax deduction” and request a return of some of the money withheld from my salary but with no success. The IRS computers were not impressed with my effort, and they routinely informed me that the tax code did not provide for such a claim. So I came to a decision: it would be better to have IRS asking me for the money each year rather than my asking IRS. So beginning in I began to seek ways to reduce the amount withheld from my regular paychecks. Though some tax resisters at accomplished this by claiming all the world’s children as their dependents (or all the Vietnamese children), I decided to reduce the amount withheld by claiming extra allowances (which were authorized for anticipated medical expenses, etc.) and thus reduce the amount withheld.
Beginning in , when I started to work part-time at Friends Journal, and continuing until , I claimed enough allowances on my W-4 so that no money was withheld from my pay. For several years as a single parent raising a young child, I lived very modestly, working just part-time and sharing living expenses in a communal house. During those years I actually got money back from the government when I had paid nothing. Since , however, after I remarried (and later had two more children) I started to owe money to IRS each year. So each year at tax time I would write a personal letter to the president to be sent with a copy of my tax form (not completely filled out, usually just with my name and address) explaining why I could not in good conscience pay any taxes until our nation’s priorities changed from warmaking to peacemaking. I would usually send copies of my letters as well to IRS, my representative in Congress, and friends. Occasionally I would receive thoughtful responses, once from Congressman William Gray from my district, who is one of the sponsors of Peace Tax Fund legislation in Washington.
After a few years of this, IRS began to make some ominous threats and noises, followed by the first serious efforts to collect back taxes from me. I should say that I redirected some of the unpaid taxes to peace organizations and poor people’s groups, some into an alternative tax fund, some into a credit union account to earn interest — and some was spent. On two occasions — once in , again in — I went to tax court. Each court appearance provided an opportunity to explain my witness more clearly, and to meet others in the community who were tax resisters or who wanted to be supportive.
My first day in court was in Raleigh, North Carolina, and was particularly meaningful. About 30 of my friends went with me to lend support. A local peace group baked apple pies and served small slices to people entering the courthouse next to a large “pie chart” that graphically showed the disproportionately small share of our federal taxes going to human services and the large piece to the military. A local TV station interviewed me and carried a story on the evening news. A wire service picked up on the story as well, and for several days I received phone calls from people throughout the South.
What occurred inside the courthouse was just as important. The judge was very interested in my pacifist views: At one point he ended the hearing and engaged in an extended discussion right in the courtroom of many of the peace issues I had raised. It became a sort of teach-in on the subject of militarism and peaceful resistance. Later both he and the young government attorney thanked me for what I shared and complimented me for effectively handling my own legal defense. (I had elected not to be represented by counsel.) Though the court eventually ruled against my arguments in the case — which did not surprise me — I feel that the whole experience of going to court was a positive one, as well as an educational experience for others. And though I was ordered to pay the $500 or so owed in back taxes, I never did — and no further efforts were made to collect.
IRS has been more aggressive, however, in recent years. Some funds have been seized from a bank account, an IRA was taken, and such efforts are continuing even as I write this article. Most recently IRS has levied Friends Journal for the tax years for taxes, interest, and penalties totaling about $23,000. I am grateful that the Journal’s board has declined to accept the levies on my salary… and that the board as a Quaker employer both corporately and as individual members supports my witness.
I don’t know what the future will bring, and frankly I try not to think about it too much. In the past two years I have changed my approach some. My wife and I have decided to file a joint return. Beginning this past summer the Journal started to withhold a little money from my paychecks following my decision to complete the new W-4. It seems appropriate just now that I devote my time to working on the earlier tax years and to finding ways to support others who are more actively resisting. I try to stay open as well to seeking other approaches to resistance from year to year.
What are some things that I have learned from all this? Perhaps I might share these thoughts:
- Tax resistance is a very individual thing. Each of us must find our own way and decide what works best for us.
- Resist openly and joyfully, and seek opportunities to be in the company of others along the way. When you go for an IRS audit, for instance, take some friends with you; when you go to court, make the courtroom a meeting for worship.
- Don’t see IRS agents or government officials as the enemy. Look for opportunities for friendliness, address individuals by name, be open and honest about what you intend to do. The IRS will soon recognize that a conscientious tax refuser is different from a tax evader.
- What might work one year may not the next. Be flexible and remain open to trying different approaches.
- Talking about money is hard, and it is discouraged in our society. I remember how embarrassed the grownups in my family were when one of my children once asked at the dinner table, “How much money do you have, grandpa?” Tax resistance helps us to remove some of these barriers, and this is good.
- Sometimes our children can educate us, I should say, and provide simple insights to seemingly complex problems. Just as I was challenged by a young Friend to consider tax resistance 20 years ago, an IRS agent was once set on his heels by my daughter. During a lull in a long conversation about financial figures, Evelyn (only seven at the time) asked the agent, “Why do you make my daddy pay money for killing people?” The poor man shuffled his papers, turned beet-red, cleared his throat, and ended the meeting.
There were several responses to the special issue on war tax resistance that were printed as letters-to-the-editor in the issue:
In , the Friends World Committee for Consultation held their annual meeting. They decided to retire their “Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns” and establish in its place a “Committee on Peace Concerns.”
On Brian Willson had been run over by a train while blockading the Concord, California Naval Weapons Station in protest against American wars in Central America. A few days later, while recovering from his injuries, which included a fractured skull and the amputation of both of his lower legs, he issued a statement reasserting his continued commitment to nonviolent activism, which was reprinted in part in the issue, and which included this section:
If we want peace, we can have it, but we’re going to have to pay for it… Our government can only continue its wars with the cooperation of our people, and that cooperation is with our taxes and with our bodies. Our actions and expressions are what are needed, not our whispers and quiet dinner conversation.
In the issue, Jonathan Lutz gave an overview of the situation of Quakers in Scandinavia that included this parenthetical aside: “(To my knowledge, only one Scandinavian Friend is a war-tax resister, but then, the very different political climate must be taken into account.)”
That issue also included this historical note, which it sourced to “the newsletter of Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas”:
According to a Canadian publication, For Conscience Sake, Russia was the first nation to establish legislation exempting pacifists from paying war taxes. “In , thirty British citizens were invited by Czar Alexander Ⅰ to establish a cotton mill in Tamerfors, which is now in Finland. James Finlayson, the manager, submitted a petition to the Czar signed by the employees from Britain, some of whom were members of the Society of Friends. The petition asked for freedom of conscience and religion to practice their own religion, and for exemption from military service, war, church taxes, and the taking of oaths.” The Czar agreed to free Quaker manufacturers from taxes and support of the military.
This is the closest I’ve been able to get to a citation for this claim, and as you see, it’s third-hand and doesn’t refer to an original source. I have seen references to Finlayson’s getting a charter from the Czar to set up his mill that included some tax incentives, but I haven’t gotten any closer to finding a clear and authoritative indication that the Czar explicitly honored the conscientious objection to military taxation of Quakers at this mill.
A note in the issue read:
John Stoner, executive secretary of Mennonite Central Committee, U.S. Peace Section, writes: “That little Scripture passage on rendering to God and Caesar has been misused for too long, giving people an excuse for going the wrong way on important questions of ultimate loyalty.” So John has created a lovely poster with the following words on it: “We are war tax resisters because we have discovered some doubt as to what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, and have decided to give the benefit of the doubt to God.” The posters are available for ten cents per copy (a real bargain, Friends, we can learn something from our Mennonite friends about good prices).
An excerpt from Pearl C. Ewald’s letter to the IRS was included in the issue. Excerpt: “my conscience will no longer allow me to cooperate with any plans by our government to prepare weapons for mass annihilation. I know that such weapons of war are under the condemnation of God. Therefore, I am not sending in an income tax report. I am prepared to accept the penalty for this action, and I will try to maintain a spirit of love and consideration toward you.”
illustration by Barbara Benton from the issue of Friends Journal
The issue brought an article by Eleanor Brooks Webb in which she described her family’s telephone tax resistance, and damned it with faint praise. Excerpts:
, my husband and I have refused to pay the federal tax on our phone bill. This is an unheroic and inconsistent witness to our conviction that participation in war is wrong and that paying for war preparations and for others’ participation is likewise wrong. The singular virtue of this small witness is that it is something we can do.
…The payment of federal taxes was the place where other thinking people could not evade their own complicity. We had long been convinced by such reasoning as Milton Mayer’s: “If you want peace, why pay for war?”
But nonpayment of taxes was difficult. My husband was the breadwinner, and his salary was subject to withholding; the Internal Revenue Service usually owed us money at the end of the income-tax year. Nonpayment of tax was also illegal, and we’re very law-abiding people; we try to stay within the speed limit, and we calculate our income taxes scrupulously.
When I first heard of phone tax resistance, I thought it was a foolish idea. The pennies of the phone tax were so trivial against the amount of the income tax! But discussion in Congress about the re-imposition of the phone tax made it explicit that the reason for this “nuisance” tax was the cost of war — the war in Vietnam — and the tax was all tidily calculated for us on each phone bill. The penalties for so trivial a flouting of the Internal Revenue Service would not likely be unendurable. This was something we could do!
an ad from the issue of Friends Journal
The Webbs wrote a letter to the phone company with each bill (sending a copy to the IRS) explaining their resistance. They tried to redirect the resisted taxes to the UN (but the UN turned down the donations), and then to the Friends Committee on National Legislation. The phone company responded appropriately, by “notifying the Internal Revenue Service of what we are doing and giving us credit for the unpaid tax.”
In the early years of this saga, IRS made some effort to collect the unpaid tax. We received notices of unpaid tax, and replied that we didn’t intend to pay it. We received notices of intent to collect, and several times liens were issued against my husband’s salary (for sums along the order of $4.73). We would get notices from the payroll supervisor that such a lien had been issued and they had no alternative but to pay it; and we would write back saying we were sorry they had been bothered with the matter, but we had no intention of paying the tax voluntarily, and we gave the reasons — it was another opportunity to say what our convictions were. A number of times we received notices of tax due that we couldn’t reconcile with our carefully kept records, and we would write IRS to that effect and ask for an explanation of the assessment. This often stopped them cold. At least once when we were due an income tax refund, a few dollars were deducted from it for “other unpaid taxes,” or something like that, which we assumed was derived from the unpaid phone tax. In the last few years we have heard nothing from IRS except an occasional, apparently random “notice of tax due,” which we wearily ignore.
She complained of the annoyance of all of the letter writing involved — “we have probably eight inches of file folders filled with telephone bills and carbon copies of letters.”
My husband and I aren’t consistent in our witness. We haven’t made the effort to get our MCI [long distance] service arranged so that we have control of paying the tax (instead of American Express, through which we are billed). I can’t handle any more letters!
But if this is all we have energy and grace to do, then I’m glad we’ve followed the leading this far.
The issue brought news of a new war tax resistance organization — “the Colorado War Tax Information Project” — associated with the Rocky Mountain Peace Center. This project ran an alternative fund that redirected $3,500 in war taxes to social programs . An obituary notice for Louise Benckenstein Griffiths in the same issue noted that she “refused to pay federal income tax toward American military efforts.”
There were several references to tax resistance in the Friends Journal in , but many of them referred to some other time or country or religious denomination, and those that referred to American Quakers in the here-and-now lacked much urgency or enthusiasm.
Journal editor Vinton Deming marked the passing of Colin Bell in his opening editorial in the issue, and noted:
One spring at yearly meeting he spoke very movingly in support of young Friends faced with the draft. He challenged some of us over draft age to consider that not only our young people were being drafted; our federal taxes were being conscripted for the war as well!
I visited him once at Davis House in Washington with a friend whose house was threatened with IRS seizure for unpaid war taxes. Colin was keenly interested, shared a generous amount of time from his busy schedule, and was very supportive. As we left he walked us to our car. I still hear the cheerful sound of his words (and see the twinkle in his eye) as he leaned in the car window, shook our hands, and said, “Good bye, Friends. Take care of your spirit!”
In a letter-to-the-editor in the issue, Carole Hope Depp split hairs over whether or not war tax resistance is civil disobedience — claiming that since the Constitution, the highest law in the land, protects freedom of religion, then a law that purports to force people to violate their religious scruples by paying for war must be void, and so those who resist it are not being disobedient at all.
an ad from the issue of Friends Journal
In the issue, Paul Zorn took issue with “some traditional Quaker attiudes and institutions,” including war tax resistance, as representing “an attitude that somehow Quakers are different from the bulk of society, and that much of our institutional effort should go to maintaining that difference… [and] that maintaining certain aspects of our uniqueness is more important than finding a larger consensus in society.” Excerpt:
…Philadelphia Yearly Meeting is resisting an IRS levy on salaries of two employees to recover unpaid federal taxes because those funds would be used for military purposes. The more I have talked with individuals and attended large and small groups, both in my monthly meeting and in the yearly meeting’s Representative Meeting, the more troubled I am with the policy, although I realize it has been fashioned with much care and concern for the Spirit over 15 years or more.
As I understand it, a tax refusal contest with the federal government usually ends with the government getting the money. The main result of refusing taxes is to make a public witness, and to ease a conscience that is troubled by voluntarily supporting the military. I am troubled that part of the public witness consists of breaking the law and attempting to justify it, especially when tax refusal is as likely to reduce funds for low-cost housing, etc., as it is to reduce funds for the military. Regarding voluntary support of the military, I think it is part of the irony, tragedy, or reality of modern life that despite our best efforts, institutions to which we belong act on our behalf in ways that we consider wrong, evil, or disastrous. At the present time, we cannot effectively separate ourselves from all such institutions, and we would lose some of our humanity if we did.
He suggested that Friends consider “rethinking how much corporate energy we should put into tax refusal as an aspect of our peace testimony” and instead “trying to deal directly with some of the major problems of society rather than trying to insulate ourselves from them.”
The issue also described the war tax resistance of Sharon Bienert, who wrote letters to the IRS, agitated for a legal peace tax fund, and meanwhile split her resisted taxes between a Quaker-run peace tax fund and an escrow account. That issue also mentioned that war tax resistance was “strongly supported” by the Lafayette, Indiana, Mennonite Fellowship. Fellowship member Ken Nagele redirected a military-percentage of his income taxes to a low-income loan program; Mary Ann Zoeller redirected hers to Amnesty International; other families have donated income to the church to keep their income low and resist taxes that way.
That issue also brought news of a peace tax fund legalization campaign in Australia which “would allow conscientious objectors to pay 10 percent of their income taxes into a fund to be used for nonmilitary purposes” but which had only gained the support of eight of the 76 Australian Senators thus far.
In the issue, Carolyn Stevens reviewed two books published by the Friends World Committee for Consultation’s Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns: Handbook on Military Taxes & Conscience and Fear God & Honor the Emperor which were collaborative efforts edited by Linda Coffin, Peter Goldberger, Robert Hull, and J.E. McNeil.
The first of these books concerned “the history of military tax refusal among Friends and biblical teachings on the subject[,]… personal stories of military tax resisters, one about international war tax refusal campaigns, and another that chronicles efforts to enact Peace Tax Fund legislation. The book concludes with a series of study questions and a resource list.”
The second “tackles the difficult question of how religious employers may be called to corporate witness of military tax refusal, either organizationally or in support of staff members who are conscientious objectors. There is a survey of minutes, resolutions, and guidelines adopted by church bodies, Quaker and otherwise. A chapter on legalities, co-authored by Peter Goldberger and J.E. McNeil, calmly raises and responds to difficulties, real and imagined, that employers face when supporting a witness against military taxes. Robert Hull’s chapter on discernment blends a secular management perspective with traditional religious concerns.”
Stevens was enthusiastic about the first book (a “high level of sincerity and scholarship [that] gives us wonderful assistance”), less so about the second, which she described as “awkward,” “clumsy,” and “defensive” though “rich in necessary information.”
The issue brought an update on Canadian war tax resister Jerilynn Prior’s test case in which she was trying to get conscientious objection to military taxation legalized under the freedom of conscience portion of the (relatively) new Canadian Constitution. She wasn’t having any luck in the courts. The article claimed that “[m]ore than 500 Canadians withhold the portion of their federal taxes that would otherwise go toward military expenditures. Many instead allocate the money to Conscience Canada’s Peace Tax Fund.”
The story of the nonviolent tax resistance campaign against the Israeli military occupation of Palestine in Beit Sahour got some coverage in the Journal. Editor Vinton Deming wrote an article for the issue that was hopefully subtitled: “Nonviolent strategies may help to bring an end to the Israeli occupation.” It was based on his conversations with Mubarak Awad and Nancy Nye.
Awad founded the Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence in and published a blueprint for nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation. “At first, people thought we were a bit crazy, that perhaps I had come back from my time in the U.S. with some strange notions. We started with just five people. We would sometimes go to a public place and carry a sign that said ‘Down With the Occupation,’ or, ‘Don’t Pay Taxes.’ People at first would laugh and make fun of us.”
The Center later advocated a set of tactics, including “a boycott among the Arab population of all Israeli-made products; refusal to pay taxes or to work for Israelis; insistence that all mail be addressed to people by using the Palestinian language, not Hebrew; and the initiation of many self-help projects.”
Beit Sahour was an example of where Palestinians decided to try out some of these ideas in service of the intifada. “People there,” said Mubarak, “to show their support for the uprising, decided they would refuse to pay taxes to Israeli authorities — no taxes at all. The Israelis wanted to punish them so they came and confiscated the ID cards of a number of the business men.”
So what was the community’s response? “Well,” Mubarak continues, “without your ID card you are stuck, you cannot go any place. When people in the village heard about this, they said, ‘If they are going to take the ID cards of these businessmen, we are going to turn in our ID cards too.’ And they did. So the Israelis called a curfew in the village and they said, ‘Here, please take your ID cards;’ they gave them all back!”
And the news of this incident spread to other communities? “Yes,” Mubarak says, “everybody began thinking it was a good idea to do it. You say, ‘OK, I’m not going to hurt the Israelis, but this is what I’m going to do.’ And people will get together and say, ‘Let’s do it.’ Palestinians are what I would call ‘trial and error’ in their approach. Like, if this works, well, we’ll try it and continue to do it; if it doesn’t, it’s all right, we’ll do something else!”
There was a great deal about war tax resistance in the Friends Journal in , in part because of the occupation of the Randy Kehler/Betsy Corner home which the IRS was trying to auction off, and in part because of the IRS suit against the Journal to try to force it to pay its editor’s resisted taxes, and in part because of the Peace Tax Fund bill’s first congressional hearing.
A note in the issue pointed out that politicians were playing a name game that had apparently fooled some Quakers into thinking that the telephone excise tax had been transformed into something benign:
The telephone tax continues as a source of money for military expenditure, contrary to recent confusion about its status. The tax, which was due to expire in , was extended under the Act for Better Child Care. Those who proposed the act were searching for a way to finance their new program and seized upon the telephone tax as their “new” source of money. However, the phone tax revenues continue to go into the General Fund, as always, and are not earmarked for the child care programs. More than 50 percent of the General Fund is used for military expenditure. The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee recommends that conscientious resistance to the telephone tax continue, as it can have a powerful impact if enough people are involved.
an ad for NWTRCC in the issue of Friends Journal
That issue also had a follow-up on the “Alternative Revenue Service” protest:
In , the Alternative Revenue Service reports that individuals redirected $104,740 of their federal income taxes away from the military to areas of human need. The total includes $12,898 redirected through the ARS, $38,416 redirected by Alternative Funds, and $53,426 that individuals redirected to social action and relief programs. The Alternative Revenue Service campaign is designed to educate taxpayers about how their federal income tax dollars are used. The service provides the EZ Peace Form, which participants can use in registering their opposition to military spending at the time they file their taxes. The service reports that 70,000 EZ Peace Forms were distributed nationwide last year. This year’s form is simplified, with clearer instructions.
The issue brought the news that the Peace Tax Fund promoters had finally managed to get a Congressional Committee hearing for their bill, which was scheduled for . “The hearing will be informational to determine the need for such legislation, not a preparation for floor action. The need is assessed from the testimony of both individuals and religious bodies. The hearing will support the bill by providing a permanent public record, by lending it legitimacy, by possibly attracting more serious consideration from prospective cosponsors, and by providing a record of congressional scrutiny. The hearing will be brief, not lending itself to extended exchanges. However, written testimony can be added and will become part of the official record.”
A follow-up in described the latest Peace Tax Fund bill as one that “would amend the Internal Revenue Code to permit qualified conscientious objectors to have part of their federal taxes — that part equal to the military portion of the federal budget — to be paid into a fund for peace-related projects.” It encouraged readers to submit “written testimony for the official hearing record,” to publicize and perhaps attend the hearing, to contact Congressional representatives and encourage them to attend and to support the bill, and to donate money to the cause.
The issue described how the hearing before the House Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures went — “the first actual hearing held since a Peace Tax Fund Bill was first introduced in Congress .” Excerpts:
“If we give the right to a person to withhold their body from a war as a conscientious objector, that person should be able to withhold his money as well.”
So spoke Sen. Mark Hatfield in his lead-off testimony…
…Several hundred spectators from across the country packed the hearing room. Many attended as concerned individual taxpayers. Others came as members of religious denominations and peace groups long associated with the Peace Tax Campaign. Three chartered buses, one from Lancaster, Pa., two others from Philadelphia, swelled the numbers by some 150 supporters. When the last of them filed in from a late-arriving bus to find all spectator seats occupied, Chairman Charles Rangel stopped the hearings momentarily, inviting standing-room only observers to move forward and to occupy empty seats normally reserved for officials and the press. Many did so. Veterans of peace demonstrations, several parents holding small children, young bearded men in simple dress, older couples from the peace churches created a colorful patchwork as they mixed with congressional aides, heads of foundations, and Capitol bureaucrats in business suits.
…Over 2,300 letters in support of the Peace Tax Fund Bill were bound in large volumes and set on a front table to be presented to the committee. From 50–100 such letters a day continued to arrive as of the time of the hearing.
Following the introductory testimony of Mark Hatfield, lead sponsor of the bill (S.689) in the Senate, there were also presentations by four members of Congress: Andy Jacobs (lead sponsor of the bill in the House), Nancy Pelosi, and John Conyers.…
…[A] panel of religious leaders testified. One, Thomas Gumbleton, Roman Catholic bishop from Detroit, and past president of Pax Christi, pointed out that two of the first leaders of the church, John and Peter, said that sometimes it is necessary to obey God before obeying the law. How much better it would be, Gumbleton said, for COs to be able to pay all their taxes, knowing their money would be used for life-affirming purposes.
William Davidson, retired Episcopal bishop of western Kansas, a CO in World War Ⅱ, has actively opposed war . “Having lived past draft age, I have been saddened and conflicted each year having to pay taxes to support war,” he said. The Episcopal Peace Fellowship has consistently supported war tax resistance as a religious witness.
John A. Lapp, executive secretary of Mennonite Central Committee, Akron, Pa., spoke on behalf of the three historic peace churches (Mennonites, Quakers, and Church of the Brethren). The issue of war-related taxes is one of religious freedom, Lapp said. “Many of us feel the pain of having our religious institutions serve as tax collectors for war.”
During committee questioning, Representative Jacobs asked Rabbi [Phil] Bentley [with the Jewish Peace Fellowship], “Is [passage of this bill] going to give rise to requests for similar legislation from people who don’t want their money going for a golf course?”
“This is not a political issue, but a moral issue of conscience,” responded Bentley…
Jacobs, in response, thanked the Rabbi and others of religious conscience who had testified. “I am a sponsor of this bill,” he said, “but I am not a pacifist.” He called to mind one of his favorite movies, Friendly Persuasion, and the lines spoken toward the end of the film: “It’s good to know that somebody is holding out for a better way of settling things!”
Terrill Hyde, tax legislative counsel for the Department of the Treasury, presented the Bush Administration position opposing the PTF. She mentioned “problems of complexity, confusion, and increased administrative burden,” sure to arise if the bill were passed. There would be no deterrent either, she said, to restrain taxpayers from inappropriately claiming CO status. If taxpayers were allowed to designate the uses for which their tax dollars were spent, “our entire budgetary process would be undermined.” There would likely be loss of revenue to needed federal programs.
Others, however, presented differing views. Several speakers argued that there would likely be substantial increases in revenue as a direct result of the bill. Many who currently refuse to pay a portion or all of their taxes would gladly pay. Also, large costs resulting from IRS efforts to collect from tax resisters would be avoided. Answering the criticism of how the act might increase paperwork and administrative costs, several people testified to the simple nature of the bill and of the tax filing process.
As to IRS claims that the bill raises possible legal questions, a panel of two law specialists responded. Mark Tushnet, professor of law at Georgetown University, said, “A nation that wants to protect the religious freedom of its citizens can reasonably be expected to enact legislation to enable the freedom to be expressed.” It seems perfectly appropriate, he concluded, that such legislation be enacted. “It is needed in addition to the Religious Freedom Act.”
Philadelphia, Pa., attorney and war tax specialist Peter Goldberger agreed. “Legislation of this kind has a noble history in our country,” and he quoted from a letter from then-President George Washington to Philadelphia Quakers. The nation’s laws, Washington wrote, must always be “extensively accommodated” in cases of individual conscience.
Alan Eccleston, a Quaker and an organizational development consultant from Hadley, Massachusetts, told about how, in his own tax witness, he has endured penalties, punishments, and the threat of losing his home. The IRS has a lien on his house right now. “Conscience must be taken into account. Spiritual values are real. They are not to be treated as incidental or expendable to fit the needs of the state. This is what the First Amendment is all about.”
Ruth Flower, legislative secretary of Friends Committee on National Legislation, emphasized that the Peace Tax Fund Act would not offer an escape to those who do not wish to pay their taxes, because they would have to pay the same amount either way. It would, however, provide a legal way out of violating one’s religious beliefs in order to comply with the laws of the land.
Her point was born out by Patricia Washburn, who gave perhaps the most moving testimony of the hearing. She talked about the challenge presented to each of us, and to her personally, in Micah 6:8: “…what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, to love constantly, and to walk humbly with your God?” Walking humbly requires us to acknowledge the seeds of violence in our own hearts, rather than projecting them onto someone else. “Loving constantly” can be a discouraging and difficult task, especially in today’s climate of distrust and alienation.
“I am not opposed to paying taxes, but I find no alternative form of tax payment… Thus, I see no current alternative to withholding the military portion of my taxes… I pray that my witness is done in love and that it will help to build a bridge across the chasm of violence and fear.”
After the hearing and following the press conference, [Marian] Franz [executive director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund] gave a brief workshop on lobbying for the bill. She pointed out that the testimony would now be entered in written record and could be referred to in the future. She added, “the fact that we got a hearing is absolutely amazing.” Many other pieces of legislation have not yet been so lucky, and the demand is great. “If all members of the committee had been present, they all would have been deeply moved, and we would be a lot further down the road.”
Franz encouraged people, when lobbying, to talk in terms of conscience, as defined by Pope John ⅩⅩⅢ, who said, “Deep inside, each one of us finds a law that we did not put there. It tells us to do this and shun that.” That is what puts the issue of paying taxes for war in the arena of religious decisions and touches on every individual’s right to follow their faith — whether they are housewives, bureaucrats, lawyers, teachers, or politicians.
That is why it is important to keep trying to open doors and ears and minds. Marian Franz has a suggestion for how to approach people: “Talk to aides and legislators as though you’re sharing something personally. You will often find that when you are talking about conscience, people are moved deeply.”
The issue also plugged “Good Use: Songs of Peace, Tax & Conscience” — “a tape of War Tax Resister Songs, featuring Charlie King, Luci Murphy, Geof Morgan, Lifeline, and others. It was produced by Don Walsh, who donates the royalties.”
The lead editorial (by Vinton Deming) in the issue concerned the ongoing Randy Kehler/Betsy Corner case:
Finding Affinity
Randy Kehler and his wife, Betsy Corner, have been tax resisters . They have given the tax money instead to a variety of groups doing constructive community work. the IRS has been trying to sell their house in Colrain, Mass., in an effort to collect $25,896 in back taxes — but it hasn’t been easy.
First of all, there’s been a growing tax resistance movement there in Franklin County. Bob Bady and Pat Morse, for instance, had their house seized and auctioned in . (They still live in the house, however, and the buyer hasn’t taken possession.) Shelburn Falls dentist Tom Wilson had his dental license revoked when he refused to cooperate with IRS. (He continues his practice, however; even the local sheriff remains one of his regular patients).
So when the word got out that IRS planned to auction Betsy and Randy’s house, supporters in large numbers turned up on the announced day to oppose the sale. There were lots of signed bids (such as an offer to clean the teeth of an IRS agent, others pledging to do community work or to be peace activists for life) — but no cash buyers came forward. Not a one.
So, in , IRS upped the ante. Betsy, Randy, and daughter Lillian, 12, were given an eviction notice. When Randy decided to stay, he was held in contempt and tossed in the county jail for 6 months.
This didn’t go unnoticed by friends and neighbors, however. A sign-up sheet got circulated, and volunteers committed themselves to stay in the house around the clock. There’s been a continuous presence there . Groups from as far away as Washington, D.C., have signed up to come and help out. In , members of Mount Toby (Mass.) Meeting formed such an affinity group for a week.
Meanwhile, Randy stays in jail and makes the most of his time there. He has made friends with many of the prisoners, has organized a chess tournament, and does what he can to interpret his tax witness. Allan Eccleston, member of Mount Toby Meeting, has been approved as the meeting’s official minister and visits Randy twice a week.
So what’s next? IRS has scheduled another auction, this time out of the area in Springfield, Mass. — in the hope, it seems, of attracting a buyer for the house, someone who doesn’t know about this whole chain of events. Randy will not be there to talk about it, but lots of his friends will. Even if the house is sold, the issue will be far from over. The house is part of a land trust (Randy and Betsy own the house but not the land on which it stands) — and there’s the likelihood of a continuing nonviolent presence in the house to welcome any potential new buyer.
How might Friends respond? I asked this question in of Francis Crowe, long-time head of the American Friends Service Committee office in western Massachusetts and a supporter of Randy and Betsy. She suggests:
- Form an affinity group to help sustain the presence in the house. (To be scheduled, contact Traprock Peace Center…
- Funds are also needed to support the action (checks made out to “War Tax Refusers Support Committee”…).
- Letters to the editor on the subject of taxes and militarism are always helpful.
- More sponsors are needed in Congress for the Peace Tax Fund bill.…
At a rally in support of Betsy and Randy, Juanita Nelson — who, with husband Wally, has been a tax refuser for decades and is known to many Friends — offered these words by Goethe: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has Genius, Power, and Magic in it.” Good advice as another tax season is upon us, when many of us seek to find our way on this difficult question of taxes for war.
In a later issue, David Zarembka reported in a letter-to-the-editor about how the occupation / blockade of the Kehler/Corner home was proceeding:
On , federal marshalls arrested seven members of the Flowing River Affinity Group who were occupying the Kehler/Corner home and removed the furniture into storage. At , the IRS sold the house to the highest bidder in an auction for $5,400. The seven affinity group members were released from jail later in the afternoon. So was Randy, who had served two months of his sentence.
Do not think, however, that Betsy and Randy have lost their home in an exotic cause! As soon as the federal marshalls left the house, an affinity group reoccupied it, and other groups, including one from Washington, D.C., of which I am a member, have continued to occupy the house on a 24-hour basis. Affinity groups, which occupy the home for a week each, have been organizing , but new ones are still being formed…
The “buyers,” a young couple with a two-month-old son, have visited the house several times but have not as yet forced the issue. They are consulting with their lawyers. Betsy and Randy have become members of the Colrain Neighbors Affinity Group, which will occupy the home for the week beginning . They and their twelve-year-old daughter, Lillian, will move back into their home when they can comfortably live there once again.
I would hope that this action would lead Friends to consider how their cooperation with the federal tax collection process — even those who are symbolic tax resisters or those who force the IRS to take their taxes from them — allows the present military system to thrive.
A report in that issue on the Canadian Yearly Meeting that had taken place noted that:
Canadian Yearly Meeting, in its role of employer, was asked to refuse to remit that portion of its employees’ taxes that will be used to support the military. Concern was expressed by the yearly meeting’s trustees, who would bear the legal results of such actions. Although the yearly meeting came close to supporting a minute for this action, it agreed to seek clearness with the trustees and monthly meetings and return to this issue next year.
an ad from the issue of Friends Journal
The issue was largely devoted to war tax resistance. It began with an editorial from Vinton Deming concerning his war tax resistance and the response of his employer, the Journal. Excerpt:
From the outset, I knew it wasn’t a very practical thing to do. The government was too powerful, and all the tax laws were against me. I’d just end up paying much more in the end, so why not choose a better way to work for peace? A good letter to my congressman, for instance, or a tax vigil at the federal building on Apri1 15.
But this was in . Our war in Vietnam was just over, but the Cold War continued. As the Reagan years unfolded, with still larger military expenditures and big cuts in domestic programs, I became even more clear: I must resist as fully as possible the payment of taxes for war.
The Journal board was always supportive of my witness. It refused twice to honor IRS levies on my wages. In doing so, Friends openly accepted the possibility of being taken to court one day and fined severely. The board wrote to IRS: “Our position of noncompliance to the requests of the Internal Revenue Service is not an easy one. We do not question the laws of the land lightly, but do so under the weight of a genuine religious and moral concern.”
Well, as they say, “What goes ’round comes ’round.” , Friends Journal was told by the U.S. Justice Department to pay up or we’d be taken to court.…
I am grateful for the steadfastness of the Journal’s board of managers. , it has been faithful to the Quaker peace testimony. The road has been an uncertain and confusing one at many points, but Friends have shown courage in continuing.
In my own personal war tax journey, these words by John Stoner have served to guide: “We are war tax resisters because we have discovered some doubt as to what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, and have decided to give the benefit of the doubt to God.”
Sam Legg, clerk of the Friends Journal Board of Managers, gave his take on the Deming situation and on why the Journal had decided to throw in the towel and pay the IRS’s demands. Excerpts:
… Vinton refused to pay any federal taxes. Each tax year he sent a blank 1040 along with a letter to the president explaining his opposition to war and his unwillingness as a Friend to pay for it. Since there was no Peace Tax Fund, Vinton reasoned, he would instead contribute the money to worthwhile projects and see that it was used for peaceful purposes. In , the IRS served a levy on Friends Journal for $22,714.16, Vinton’s taxes for the period, plus interest and penalties. The IRS asked Friends Journal to withhold part of Vinton’s salary each month, but the Journal Board refused, writing that “We… are in support of Vinton Deming’s conscientious witness.”
In , Friends Journal received a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice reminding us of the levy on Vinton’s salary and asking us to try to “resolve this matter short of litigation.” That is, to pay the original assessed amount plus interest and a possible 50 percent penalty on the total. We were given until to respond.
If we were to continue refusing to honor the levy, an immediate court action would follow. The U.S. Supreme Court decision, Smith vs. Oregon, as Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and the American Friends Service Committee have learned, teaches us that there is no way we could win such a case in court, nor could our assets be protected from seizure. More troubling, this seizure could make others who are not involved in our decision, undergo unwelcome investigation. Finally, a court case offers IRS the opportunity to set a legal precedent requiring the payment of the 50 percent penalty (which a sympathetic judge excused in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting case last year). We fear that the inevitable negative decision could establish that precedent and thereby restrict other individuals’ or groups’ religious freedom. And so, most reluctantly, the Friends Journal Board has agreed to negotiate with IRS and to pay the least amount IRS will accept ($31,300) as settlement of this claim.
Our painful recognition of failure is heavy upon us. We have to accept that our witness in its present form can no longer serve a useful purpose. We can hope Vinton’s action and our support will have brought the issue of tax refusal to the attention of others, thereby becoming a part of the tradition of citizen pressure that in the long run eliminates or diminishes social evils such as slavery and war.
Our protest is on record. What we will do now is support the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of … which aims to reestablish the first amendment religious rights lost in the Smith vs. Oregon decision. We also urge support for the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill… which makes the same witness, but provides money to finance peace-enhancing projects. (Needless to say, if there had been a Peace Tax Fund in , Vinton’s taxes would have been paid gladly, and there would have been no need for an IRS levy.) We ask all those who share our concerns to join in these legal approaches to the continuing effort to convince ourselves and others of the futility of armed conflict and the necessity of finding other means to resolve human disputes.
The immediate financial challenge to the Journal is a very real one. In a year in which we already face a substantial budget deficit, the payment of such a large lump sum adds an enormous burden. Vinton has engaged to repay the Journal through payroll deductions over time. We have been heartened as well, as word of our tax witness spreads, to receive gifts of support from our readers. One contributor writes: “I hope everyone at the Friends Journal can be made aware of Friends’ approval of [your] Board action. To help this happen, I encourage the Journal to go as public with the story as is consistent with respect for Vint’s privacy and the Journal’s limited resources. I am convinced that other Friends will wish to help financially when so informed.” For such words, and unexpected gifts, we are most grateful.
Readers wrote in with their feedback about the Journal’s decision, and some of their letters were printed in the issue:
Mennonite war tax resister (and, according to his author bio, “itinerant prophet and spiritual retreat leader”) John K. Stoner wrote about the call he got from an IRS employee. Excerpts:
We talked for about ten minutes, as I explained why Janet and I had said “no” to paying the full amount of our income tax. The man could not understand why anyone would invite the collection pressures of the IRS upon themselves by withholding some taxes. But by the time the conversation was over, he was a little closer to understanding that this was, for us, a matter of faith and a question of the practice of our religion.
It was a Mark 13:9 kind of experience of being called before the authorities, “before governors and kings,” because of Jesus, as a testimony to them. By the sound of Mark 13, Jesus expected this kind of thing to happen regularly to his followers. Mark 13 is a good text to remember when everybody around you is quoting Romans 13.
The Christian Peacemaker Teams organization is promoting symbolic war tax refusal as a way to make a clear witness in the matter of war taxes. Taxes for Life is a plan to have taxpayers redirect to education an amount equivalent to 1 penny for every billion dollars in the military budget. For tax year this is $3.03, which can be mailed to Christian Peacemaker Teams… Listen to your conscience when you pay your taxes. Write a letter of witness to the IRS, with copies to Congress and your local newspaper. Redirect some taxes to education through CPT.
If the IRS calls, tell them that it makes you a little bit nervous to break their law and that you do not enjoy being harassed by the collectors of blood money. Go on to say that you are far more apprehensive, however, about breaking God’s law. Tell them that you hear God’s warning rising up from the bulldozed mass graves of Iraqi conscripts, fathers and husbands, and the nightmares of their children. Explain that you are really afraid to harden you heart to the cry of the victims and that you have decided you will not take their blood upon your hands.
When Randy Kehler was thrown in prison on contempt of court charges for refusing to vacate the home that had been seized by the IRS, he prepared a statement that he hoped to read. The court denied him permission to address it. The Journal printed the statement he’d hoped to have made, which is a good thing: it would be a shame if such an articulate statement was left to sit unread in a file folder somewhere.
My refusal to give up our home is not an act of contempt or defiance of your court order. I regard it as an act of conscience and also an act of citizenship. The two go hand in hand. The first obligation of responsible citizenship, I believe, is obedience to one’s conscience. Obedience to one’s government and to its laws is very important, but it must come second. Otherwise there is no check on immoral actions by governments, which are bound to occur in any society whenever power is abused.
I want to assure you, however, that I am not someone who treats the law lightly. Even when a particular law seems at first to have no clear purpose or justification, I try to give it — that is, give those who created and approved it — the benefit of the doubt. In an ideal sense, I see law as the codification of those rules and procedures by which the members or citizens of a community, be it local or global, have agreed to live. A decent respect for one’s community requires a decent respect for its laws. At their best, such laws express the conscience of the community, causing conscience and law to coincide.
The international treaties and agreements that my wife, Betsy, and I cited in the legal documents recently submitted to, and rejected by, this court are wonderful examples of the coincidence of law and conscience. These agreements, each one signed by our government, include the United Nations Charter, which outlaws war and the use of military force as methods of resolving conflicts among nations; the Hague Regulations and Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the use or threatened use of weapons that indiscriminately kill civilians and poison the environment; and the Nuremberg Principles, which forbid individual citizens from participating in or collaborating with clearly defined “crimes against humanity,” “war crimes,” and “crimes against peace,” even when refusal to participate or collaborate means disobeying the laws of one’s government.
These international accords — which, as you know, our Constitution requires us to regard as “the Supreme Law of the Land” — are at least as much affirmation of conscience, rooted in universal moral standards, as they are statements of law. Betsy and I regret that you chose to deny our request for a trial, which would have allowed us to argue the relevance of these international laws before a jury of our peers.
Even in the absence of such laws, however, I believe that citizens would still have an affirmative obligation to follow their conscience and refuse to engage in or support immoral acts by governments. It is not true, as is commonly thought, that if large numbers of people put conscience ahead of the law and decided for themselves which acts of government were immoral, civilized society would break down into violence and chaos — that is, greater violence and chaos than there is now. In fact, the opposite would likely occur. There would likely be greater compliance with those laws that are fundamentally just and reasonable — in other words, most laws — and there would be greater public pressure to abolish or reform those laws (and policies) that are unjust or unreasonable.
There would be exceptions for the worse, of course. In the name of conscience, certain individuals would, no doubt, do some terrible things and cause much injury and death, which happens now. On balance, however, the historical record is clear: from the Spanish Inquisition and the African slave trade, to Stalin’s purges, Hitler’s Holocaust, the genocide of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and our own devastation of Vietnam and Iraq, far more killing and suffering, has resulted from people following “legal” orders and obeying the law than from people refusing to do so in obedience to conscience.
My own refusal to kill (which led me to spend nearly two years in federal prison rather than cooperate with the Vietnam draft), Betsy’s and my refusal to pay federal taxes used for killing (which caused the IRS to seize our home), and now our refusal to turn over our home in lieu of taxes, are all acts of conscience. It has not been easy for us to deliberately violate the law in these instances, and in so doing incur the anxiety and disapproval of some of our friends and family, as well as the scorn and censure of many members of the community. We are painfully aware that even though we do pay our town and state taxes, and even though we have given away to the poor and to the victims of our war-making in other countries every cent that we have withheld from the federal government, nevertheless we are still regarded by some as irresponsible and not contributing our fair share.
These are times, however, when all of us are confronted with difficult choices. Betsy and I, and many others like us, feel we must choose between knowingly and willingly paying for war and killing, and openly and nonviolently breaking the law with respect to federal taxes. Our consciences compel us to choose the latter.
For me, the issue is larger than simply the taking of another human life, or even the instance of a particular war in which many lives are lost. I have increasingly come to see the larger issue as war itself. Whereas there has always been a moral imperative to end war and refrain from killing, today the imperative is much greater. Today the logic of peace, the logic of nonviolence, is also the logic of survival.
It is impossible to dis-invent today’s nuclear, chemical, biological, and so-called conventional weapons of mass destruction. Therefore, we have no alternative but to effectively abolish war. This is the one essential adaptation the human species must make — and, I firmly believe, can make — if life as we know it is to continue.
War today is the scourge of the planet. It is tragic enough that war is daily claiming the lives of people, maiming more, leaving orphans and widows, and destroying homes, schools, and hospitals — to say nothing of the irreplaceable treasures of human civilization destroyed in Baghdad last year and in Dubrovnik over the past several months. What makes war today even more tragic, more horrible, are the incalculable economic, social, and environmental costs that go along with it. Instead of using our human and material resources to produce food, medicine, housing, schools, and other desperately needed commodities, the world’s nations, led by our own, are annually spending trillions of dollars to purchase more and more weapons of even greater destructive capability. The hundreds of millions of children, women, and men whose lives are ravaged by poverty, hunger, and homelessness — around the world and here in the States — are as much victims of our addiction to war and militarism as are those who are hit directly by the bullets and bombs.
While the awful gap between the rich minority and the poor majority of the world’s people grows wider and wider, war’s assault on the earth — the earth that sustains us all — becomes more savage and less reversible with each new armed conflict. The severe and longterm ecological damage to the Persian Gulf region that resulted from only a few weeks of war last year is just the tip of the iceberg. The cumulative impact of the many smaller, less publicized wars elsewhere around the globe is no less severe and, ultimately, no less threatening to the well-being of people everywhere, including the United States. Furthermore, here at home, where ecological damage to our own environment is proceeding at a frightening pace, the single largest polluter by far, producing more toxic and radioactive waste than any other single entity, is the U.S. military.
I am not at all suggesting that our country bears sole responsibility for the global state of affairs. But we bear a good deal of it, and therefore any steps we take to move away from war will have great influence upon other countries around the world. Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, we had the most powerful armed forces in the world, the most sophisticated weaponry, and by far the largest number of military bases outside our own borders. Since World War Ⅱ, we have used our military might to bomb, invade, or otherwise intervene in more countries around the world than any other nation. We were the first to develop the atomic bomb, and we are the only nation ever to use it. For years we have led the Soviets in atomic test explosions, and we ani continuing these tests even though Soviet testing has stopped. In addition, we have long been the world’s largest arms merchant, today supplying 40 percent of the entire overseas arms market.
We have been told that all of this is necessary for our security, but the opposite is true. This military colossus we have created has greatly undermined our security — by creating more enemies than it destroys, by wasting our precious resources and poisoning our environment, by degrading our democracy with “national security” secrecy, covert actions, and official lying, and by undercutting our highest Judeo-Christian values with the insidious doctrine of “might makes right.”
Betsy’s and my actions that have brought us to court are testament to our belief that there is another way for us to live in the world, and another way for us to resolve our conflicts with our fellow human beings. It is a way that is rooted in the best of our values: the values of generosity and justice, of human dignity and equality, of compassion and mutual respect. The seeds of this alternative way — the way of nonviolence that Dr. Martin Luther King tried to teach us — already exist within our society, and within each person. We have only to honor and nurture those seeds, individually and collectively. This is a prescription based not on wishful idealism, but on practical necessity. It is our only real hope for survival.
The transformation required cannot be accomplished without our accepting some measure of personal responsibility for the mess we are in. It would be futile to expect our government, or any other, to initiate it. In any event, we cannot afford to wait. The transformation must begin with us. Because we profess to be a self-governing people, it is all the more our responsibility.
We can exercise this responsibility by means of the choices each of us is called upon to make. For example, we can choose to speak out publicly against governmental practices and priorities that we know to be wrong. Many of us can also choose not to hand over to the federal government some part of our tax money — instead redistribute it to those in need, until such time as those in need become our government’s first priority. And each of us can choose to continue leading lives based on materialism, consumerism, and environmental exploitation, or we can find ways of living based on simplicity, sharing, and respect for the Earth. The choices we make as individuals will determine the choices we make as a nation.
This is, no doubt, a dangerous and ominous time to be alive in the world. Yet it is also a very exciting time to be alive. People all over the world, despite the opposition of their governments, are taking initiative to bring about momentous and long overdue changes. These winds of change are sweeping the planet, and they are not likely to stop at our borders.
If the people of Prague and Moscow can overthrow Soviet communism and bring about democracy and human rights; if the people of Soweto and Johannesburg can abolish South African apartheid and establish an egalitarian, multi-racial society; then, I feel sure, it is equally possible for us to dismantle U.S. militarism and replace it with attitudes and institutions of nonviolence.
It is my great hope, my silent prayer, that Betsy’s and my struggle to see that the fruits of our labor are used for nurturing and healing, rather than for killing and war, will somehow contribute to that process.
Following this, Christopher L. King had a piece promoting the Peace Tax Fund. He described it as the brainchild of David Bassett, who some twenty years before had come up with the idea of allowing taxpayers to perform “alternative service” money the way conscientiously objecting draftees could with their labor. King wrote that he was surprised to find little awareness of the bill in Quaker circles and described some of the work that he and his comrades were doing for the bill.
Those of us who meet each month and a quiet group of supporters in the surrounding communities believe in our consciences that war and militarism are wrong. We don’t believe they should be the major tools of our foreign policy. We sympathize with citizens like Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner of Colrain, Massachusetts, who have chosen to pay no taxes because they are pacifists.
We empathize with those brave souls who choose alternative lifestyles so they can keep their income below taxable levels. It often means their children must learn to sacrifice at an early age. It means stepping out of the mainstream culture.
Most of us don’t want to change our lifestyles radically or go to jail for our beliefs. Some might argue that if we are true to our faith, we have no other choice. On the other hand, there is a need to resist the fundamental tyranny that requires that we must become rebels if we wish to stand firmly for peace.
King’s article was pretty vague on the mechanics of what the Peace Tax Fund bill would actually accomplish, and it was written as if there were no reason why a conscientious objector to paying to war might not find it a satisfactory solution.
The issue included a brief review of the video Paying for Peace: War Tax Resistance in the United States, which was produced by Carol Coney. Excerpt:
Among those interviewed are Brian Willson, a war tax resister and Vietnam veteran who in was run over by a train while blocking munitions shipments at the Concord naval weapons plant in California. Also interviewed is Maurice McCrackin, a minister who was sentenced to jail for war tax resistance in ; Ernest and Marion Bromley, who have lived under the taxable income level to avoid paying taxes for military purposes; and Juanita Nelson, an early civil rights organizer who was the first woman to spend a night in jail for war tax resistance.
The issue included an op-ed from Allan Kohrman suggesting Quakers ought to be more patriotic, perhaps singing “God Bless America” during their Sunday meetings, and in particular should rethink their permissive attitude toward civil disobedience and war tax resistance. “Many Friends seem to define civil disobedience as breaking any law they feel is morally wrong. Some will not pay war taxes, testifying that God has called them to resist. I would argue that paying taxes is a basic responsibility of citizenship, a function of my almost mystical relationship to my country. God calls me to pay my taxes much as God calls others to resist them.” That’s what “an almost mystical relationship to my country” will get you, I guess.
Another note in that issue concerned two Quakers in Germany — Christa & Klausmart Voigt — who had been prosecuted for war tax resistance. “About 40 Friends from all over Germany attended the hearing, which was overseen by five judges.” Klausmart had “placed his money in an account for a peace tax initiative,” and at press time they were still awaiting the court’s decision.
There was another note about the Tax Resisters’ Penalty Fund in the issue, which described it this way: “When a request for assistance comes in, the committee that oversees the fund takes it under consideration, then notifies people who have agreed to participate of the amount each would need to contribute to cover the tax resister’s penalty and interest debt. Contributions are not used to cover the tax liability itself. The fund is administered in cooperation with the North Manchester (Ind.) Fellowship of Reconciliation.”
There was a resurgence of war tax resistance news in the Friends Journal in , including an interesting series of articles on the voluntary simplicity / low income lifestyle as a tax resistance tactic, and the beginning chapters of the tale of Quaker war tax resister Priscilla Adams.
A note in the issue plugged the “Conscience and Military Tax Campaign Escrow Account”:
Established in by the Nonviolent Action Community of Cascadia, the account allows war tax resisters to set aside refused military taxes in a secure fund. Deposits may be retrieved at any time (to replace assets seized by the IRS, for example), and interest from the account is used to promote war tax resistance and support peace and social justice activism. Depositors’ funds are reinvested in socially responsible institutions assisting low-income communities and minorities. The CMTC Escrow Account is the largest and most geographically diverse war tax redirection fund in the United States.
War tax resistance is an act of civil disobedience, and resisters potentially face fines, levies, and seizure of assets. However, the escrow account itself is a trust fund, and as such is confidential and entirely legal. Depositor records are not available to the IRS, and individual deposits are considered to be anonymous portions of a larger fund invested in fully insured institutions. Participants receive records of their transactions, annual statements, and a free subscription to NACC’s quarterly war tax resistance magazine.
(I wouldn’t rely on any of that as solid legal advice. My understanding is that the IRS sometimes treats “warehouse banks” like these as illegal operations that they can seize wholesale under the theory that they’re being operated for money laundering or tax evasion purposes.)
In a letter in the issue, William Kriebel called out Quakers on their careless or politically-correct use of of language; in particular he claimed: “There are no ‘war taxes.’ All income tax money goes into the treasury without earmarking for the military. Taxation is a legitimate power of any government. Our points of protest really are the decisions (budget-making, appropriation) to use money out of the common fund for military purposes.”
An article on the Quaker Council for European Affairs in the same issue noted in passing that “conscientious objection to war taxes” was one of the “studies for publication” that the organization had produced. Another article in that issue noted that the National Association of Evangelicals had endorsed the Peace Tax Fund bill:
“At first this was just a lonely struggle for the peace churches,” said Marian Franz, director of the campaign, “then we got the support of the mainline churches, which represent over 12 million people. Now we have support from more conservative religious organizations, who, until recently, had seemed to be unlikely allies.” Marian attributes the recently attained, broad base of support to a change in tactics from an issue of conscientious objection to an issue of religious liberties. Marian explained that “having this broad base of support means that members of Congress, even conservative members, take the issue more seriously.”
On , there was a benefit premiere showing of An Act of Conscience, a documentary on the Kehler/Corner house seizure and subsequent occupation. There was some tangential Quaker involvement in the benefit (it was sponsored by several organizations, including a regional AFSC office, and some Massachusetts Quakers took part in the occupation), and the benefit screening was covered in a note in the issue.
In the lead editorial in the issue, editor Vinton Deming paid tribute to Eleanor Webb:
Eleanor Webb, who died , was clerk of the Journal board when I was appointed editor-manager in .… It was Eleanor… who stood firmly in support of staff who resisted paying the military portion of their federal taxes.
One of the feature articles in the issue was written by David R. Bassett and told his story as “The Founder of the Peace Tax Fund Movement.” Excerpts:
marks the 25th year since the introduction of the Peace Tax Fund Bill in the U.S. Congress. I have been involved in the initiation of this legislation, a laborer in the centuries-long effort to establish on earth the type of peaceful world envisioned by Jesus and George Fox. I firmly believe that, on some significant day in the future, some nation will for the first time pass a Peace Tax Fund Bill, thereby establishing legal recognition of the right of conscientious objection to the payment of military taxes. Once this is accomplished, other nations will follow suit. I consider this goal as one of the crucial and route-determining “trail-signs” on the path to that time and place where the world will realize that ahimsa (soulforce) is the preferred way to resolve conflict and to govern communities, and where conscientious objection to war and other forms of violence will be considered the norm.
[My] orientation as a conscientious objector to war and of preventing preventable suffering impelled Miyoko and me, beginning in , to wrestle with the fact that each year we were paying (through our federal taxes) to support the Viemam War and the military system generally. In fact, some 50 percent of those tax moneys went to support U.S. military systems! One of my most graphic memories of that time was, while working many nights at Queens Hospital in Honolulu, hearing U.S. Air Force jet tankers, fully laden with jet fuel, flying over the heavily populated part of Honolulu on their way to Indochina.
Conscientious objection to payment of military taxes
In , with the Vietnam War continuing, we moved to Ann Arbor to work at the University of Michigan. We became members of the Ann Arbor Meeting and found there a number of people who were actively grappling with the issue of whether to continue to pay the military portion of federal taxes for a war that we opposed. I came to realize that any nation’s military programs are made possible the, monetary resources that, in the analysis, are extracted from the nation’s citizens by taxation. It also became clear to me that one who was conscientiously opposed to military systems must not allow his or her funds to be used for this purpose. Surveying the pervasive role of our military system not only in our foreign policies, but in its effects on our economy, our environment, and on the nation’s culture and spirit, I carne to feel that this issue was central to our times. Conscientious objection to payment of military taxes is as important to be established as was the ending of slavery and of apartheid and the establishment of women’s right to vote. At the same time, I held then, and still hold, the view that the federal government is capable of carrying out many beneficial and constructive programs and that I am willing, indeed obligated, to pay my full share of taxes to support those programs.
I came to know that it would not be enough simply to focus on reductions in military spending by influencing legislators and electing new ones (though this was obviously necessary). The challenge was to extend the right of conscientious objection to war to include not only one’s physical body, but also one’s economic resources. I knew further that there had been repeated resistance in the U.S. courts to such change and concluded that, while civil disobedience in this area (i.e., war tax resistance) would continue to be essential, the principal focus of attention should be to change the tax laws.
During the year , there was for me a struggle with my conscience, not in regard to what I believe on this issue but whether to take some action and what that action should be. Should I live below a taxable income level? move to Canada? engage in war tax resistance? take our civil disobedience actions into the judicial system? or attempt to change the federal tax laws? Miyoko and I knew that to embark on any of these actions would require great amounts of time and energy; that each course would require some changes and risks, not all of which we could anticipate at the outset; and that none were assured of “success.” I knew that to commit the time necessary to move this issue forward might conflict with my hopes of making progress in academic medicine and in research into the causes of atherosclerosis. We gradually came to the view that it seemed wisest to try to resist paying the military portion of our taxes and to begin to take steps to bring about legislative change.
It was the quiet voice of conscience that kept nagging me almost every day, as I found one or another reason not to take some action. Finally, in the , I phoned Professor Joseph Sax at the University of Michigan Law School and outlined to him the basic idea: the need to change the federal tax laws so as to have Congress grant legal recognition to the right of conscientious objection to the payment of military taxes, while enabling the taxpayer to pay the full amount of his or her tax with assurance that those tax monies would not be used for military expenditures. Professor Sax sketched out how this might be accomplished. Over a period of eight to nine months, with the assistance of Michael Hall, we began the process of drafting what became the World Peace Tax Fund Bill.
Other Ann Arbor Friends, Joe and Fran Eliot and Bob and Margaret Blood, had been considering drafting a bill. A brief written for them by Thomas Towe (a Quaker law student) proved a helpful resource. It was not hard to draw together a working committee of seven or eight people during to work on this legislation and to take the initial steps in deciding how to bring the bill to Congress, how to publicize it, and how to raise funds. We were encouraged when Ann Arbor’s Interfaith Council for Peace decided to support the legislative effort and appointed two very effective members to meet with us on a regular basis.
The World Peace Tax Fund Bill was first introduced in the U.S. Congress on , with Representative Ronald V. Dellums as the lead sponsor, with nine other cosponsors. The Peace Tax Fund office moved from Ann Arbor to the Florida Avenue Meetinghouse in Washington, D.C., in . The bill was first introduced in the Senate in , with Senator Mark Hatfield as its sponsor. In the bill was renamed the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill. A dedicated staff, led for the past 14 years by Marian Franz, has coordinated the lobbying effort. The orientation and the gifts that she brings to her work are evident in her book, Questions That Refuse To Go Away.
A sidebar noted resources available from the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, and also made note of the international conferences at which similar plans proposed in other countries are discussed.
Another sidebar gave a version of the ever-popular War Resisters League “pie chart” of federal spending, showing in particular how it looks when social insurance trust fund spending is removed.
The same issue also contains Clare Hanrahan’s article “Wholesome Poverty: A Revolutionary Adventure.” Unfortunately, in the archived PDF, some of the opening paragraph is obscured by an insert card. The article appears to begin with Hanrahan saying that she initially adopted a lower-income simple-living lifestyle in order to resist war taxes, but then came to believe that frugality and thrift and anti-consumerism and simplicity had a larger role to play in the pursuit of “a just and sustainable global community.” It continues:
When I must work for wages, I do so as an independent contractor so that I can maintain control over tax withholdings. I redirect a fair percentage of cash wages and many hours of volunteer time to support life-affirming projects at home and abroad. Self-employment suits my temperament and has enabled me to develop skills and to pursue interests I may never have had the time for in a conventional career. I’ve tried to be resilient and open to any honest labor. If I’m asked what I do for a living, each day I can provide a different answer. One day I might be gathering and saving seeds for next year’s garden or harvesting wild herbs for a winter tea; another day might be spent in household repair, community organizing, or researching and writing a grant for a nonprofit organization. I’ve learned the wisdom in giving due time each day to labor of the mind and of the body and to quiet reflection that feeds the spirit. I value my free time and open schedule far more than any accumulation of cash or property, security, or prestige. The freedom to choose how I will be with each moment is a gift and a challenge that I count as my greatest wealth.
Living on the edge, more or less, over the years I have honed the skills and nurtured an attitude of wholesome poverty. Meeting basic needs without a substantial cash flow has been least stressful when I’ve lived within a stable community where interdependence and cooperative values are practiced. But during my nomadic years I learned to trust in the kindness of strangers and the serendipity of life. I came to value the gifts of the pilgrim spirit and to recognize the importance of the itinerant wayfarer in the lives of the comfortably settled.
I’ve lived and traveled aboard small sail boats, in a tipi, in rural cabins, and in derelict inner-city housing, trading cleanup and repair for rent. I’ve made do in the back of an old school bus and afloat on a homemade houseboat on a Mississippi backwater. I’ve worked in a cooperative shelter for displaced women and children, with room and board as compensation, and I’ve battered for home and garden space by exchanging pet and plant care.
My primary transportation is the slow way. As a pedestrian, a bicyclist, and a bus rider, I keep a less frantic pace, and the more personal contact with those I encounter enriches the journey. I can borrow a car or catch a lift from a friend if necessary, and by paying my fair share of the cost, the cooperative way serves each of us.
Nutritious food is available in surprising abundance if one is willing to look to unconventional channels: I’ve participated in grassroots distribution networks of urban gleanings, intercepting the produce, grains, and other surplus foods otherwise lost. Best of all, I’ve learned to grow my own food in community gardens and backyard plots whenever I had the opportunity. As a worker-member at the local coop I claimed a significant reduction on food purchases, and by eliminating meat from my diet, the cost of my sustenance is affordable and sustainable.
Insurance against old age, disability, accident, or disease has never been an affordable option, nor one in which I place my faith. Catastrophic illness or accident or the incapacities of age could happen to anyone. Yet time and again, I’ve been sustained through economic precarity with help that comes at just the right moment. This has happened so often that I live with a trust that keeps fear at bay.
I have learned to lean into the present moment, focused on the work before me, while keeping a well-honed sense of the adventure of it all and a very real faith in the unfolding process. The inherent goodness of the universe has been made visible through the most unlikely of allies, and the travelers I’ve met along the way have been the wisest of teachers.
Peace Pilgrim, writing in her pamphlet, Steps Toward Inner Peace, recalled a visit to a city that had been her home:
In the poorer sections I am tolerated. In the wealthier sections some glances seem a bit startled, and some are disdainful. On both sides of us as we walk are displayed the things that we can buy if we are willing to stay in the orderly lines, day after day, year after year… Thousands of things are displayed — and yet the most valuable things are missing. Freedom is not displayed, nor health, nor happiness, nor peace of mind. To obtain these, my friends, you too may need to escape from the orderly lines and risk being looked upon disdainfully.
Stepping outside the tyranny of “orderly lines” and daring to risk the uncertainties of disaffiliation can make of our very lives a revolution. The way to the just and sustainable global community that we seek will open before us as we walk.
Another article in the same issue took the “voluntary simplicity” idea and ran with it. Starting with Jesus’s one-sentence summary of his teachings — love your neighbor as much as you love yourself — the authors took this to mean “taking our fair share of global resources and no more.” This starts with refusing war taxes because militarism is directly destructive of “our global neighbors.” But that’s just step one of a six-step process.
Step two would be to imagine the world’s resources shared equally, which, the authors assert, means “an annual ‘fair share’ of just over $3,000 per person.” But because the world is not using its resources in an environmentally sustainable way, step #3 is to reduce this fair share some more, to a more sustainable level: $1,800 per person per year. But since that much money would go further in a place like the United States, where it’s relatively easier to live off the cast-offs of the wealthy, level #4 “challenges us to live on even less than level three, since we have an easier time doing so in a society with a relatively affluent public infrastructure.”
We’re not done yet. Level #5 considers the non-monetary wealth most Americans enjoy because of the relatively high levels of medical care and education they have had access to. “With such advantages (and others), we ought to be able to live on less resources than folks who lack education and have chronic medical problems.” Finally, level #6 is for those who are not hampered by disabilities, encouraging them to sacrifice yet more so as to leave more for those who have to struggle harder.
Challenging? Certainly. Even the authors only seem to have made it half way to step #2, limiting their income as a couple to $12,000 a year. Some other choices they made were to “keep the majority of our savings in the form of non-interest-bearing loans” so as to avoid the sin of usury, and to “give away each year an amount equal to what we spend on ourselves.”
(A letter-to-the-editor in the issue criticized this radical simplicity, saying it smacked of “intelligent, able-bodied adults who consciously decide to let others subsidize” the benefits of society. In particular: “In reducing their income to avoid paying taxes to support the military, this couple also avoids paying taxes that support the other half of the federal budget. So, there goes their support for many of the roads they use, for medical research they might avail themselves of through that subsidized doctor, for other federally supported scientific and social research, for national parks, and so forth. The authors are obviously well educated. Their education was probably supported by local, state, and federal subsidies. One wonders if they are repaying society for the educational benefit they’ve received.”)
Another brief note in the issue reported on the results of a “penny poll” that had been “conducted by Christian Peacemaker Teams in Elkhart, Ind.” and had indicated that those polled implicitly supported huge reductions in military spending.
A letter-to-the-editor from Marjorie Schier and Suzanne Day of the “Philadelphia Yearly Meeting War Tax Concerns Support Committee” published in the issue summarized the war tax issue as they saw it:
Resisting taxes
When a draft call finds some conscientious objectors unable to participate in war, the government not only has provided them alternatives, but also has proceeded to draft others who will participate. It is individual conscience that makes the difference, not how the government allocates the recruits. Some Friends have been unable to enlist, and some cannot voluntarily send dollars in federal tax for military uses.
Interacting with the federal government through tax resistance as witness for peace is more than symbolic; it can be earnest, meaningful religious conscience in action. However, it does not change how the government allocates its resources, and efforts to witness for changed priorities are also significant. Many Friends and others work for passage of the Peace Tax Fund Bill by the U.S. Congress because it would not only provide a legal opportunity for pacifists to pay their full federal tax without supporting war, but also give the government an indication of the numbers of citizens exercising this option.
Yes, the federal tax on telephone service is refused by many pacifists (with a note of explanation accompanying the refusal and redirection of the money for constructive purposes) because that tax was specifically reinstated to support the war in Vietnam. Federal bookkeeping does not distinguish certain tax streams for specific purposes, and has not since John Woolman wrestled with this same issue. Nevertheless, many Friends are prompted to take a stand for peace via taxes and thereby find a forum for disclosing that witness with meetings, governmental representatives, families, and neighbors.
An obituary notice for Abram Bresel Goldstein in that same issue noted that “[t]hough he worked briefly for the Internal Revenue Service, Abram left that position during the Korean War to avoid aiding the collection of taxes for war.”
On , NWTRCC and the War Tax Concerns Support Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting sponsored a seminar on “Corporate Conscience and War Taxes” at the Moorestown, New Jersey, Meeting (according to a calendar listing in the issue).
The war tax resistance of Quaker Priscilla Adams became a cause célèbre that played out over in the Friends Journal starting in . I’ll break with my chronological examination of the Journal for a while to follow this thread.
The issue introduces Adams and her legal case:
Priscilla Adams, a war tax resister and member of Haddonfield (N.J.) Meeting, is challenging the IRS in court under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). Her case is the first of its kind to test conscientious war tax resistance since the passage of the RFRA in . Priscilla and her lawyer, Peter Goldberger, will challenge two points covered by the act: the government’s use of penalties against war tax resisters for their stands of conscience; and the lack of a government accommodation for conscientious objectors to paying for war (like a Peace Tax Fund). The RFRA states that in conflicts between the government and religious freedom, the government must show compelling state interest and then use the least restrictive means necessary. In this case, Priscilla is challenging the government’s lack of recognition of conscience in response to the IRS assessing her taxes and penalties. She and Peter are arguing that under RFRA, the IRS should waive penalties for religious war tax resisters as long as they recognize other forms of reasonable cause for noncompliance with the tax law. They also are stating that the RFRA requires the enactment of something like a peace tax fund for religious war tax resisters who are willing to accept a reasonable accommodation, such as earmarking tax monies for non-warlike purposes in the federal government. The case has completed its earliest procedural stages and will be heard in United States Tax Court. Though no date has been set, lawyers expect a trial date . Priscilla has participated in several clearness committees and is receiving guidance and support from Haddonfield Meeting, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s War Tax Concerns Support Committee, the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, and family and friends.
The issue gave an update:
Priscilla Adams… will appeal the court’s decision rejecting her right to refuse to pay taxes. The case went before the Philadelphia Tax Court, where Adams presented an extensive outline of Quaker history and beliefs related to war tax objections. The court’s decision states, “Religious Freedom Restoration Act of does not exempt Quaker from federal income taxes, despite taxpayer’s religious opposition to military expenditures.” , Rosa Packard of Purchase (N.Y.) Meeting and Gordon and Edith Browne of Plainfield (Vt.) Meeting also have filed complaints in federal district courts seeking to protect their conscientious acts of war tax refusal.
The issue mentioned her appeal:
Tax resister Priscilla Lippincott Adams… faced the Federal Court of Appeals on . Her case against the IRS for penalizing her for her religious objections to paying the military through taxes was dismissed in … The court had the choice of hearing oral arguments or making a decision based on the written briefs. In a positive turn, the judges heard oral arguments. Adams said her lawyer, Peter Goldberger, passionately presented her case, “just like a lawyer on T.V.” The three judges will now make a decision, a process that could take anywhere from six weeks to six months.
From there, to the Supreme Court, according to a press release that formed the basis for a Journal news brief:
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting has filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of its member, Priscilla Adams… who petitioned the high court in , following unsuccessful efforts in lower courts to obtain government accommodation for her conscientious objection to paying war taxes by allowing her to pay federal taxes without paying for military expenditures. Her employer, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, supports religious witness by not forwarding the military portion of a conscientious objector’s taxes to the IRS. A Peace Tax Fund, where tax dollars of conscientious objectors would be directed exclusively to nonmilitary programs, is one possible solution to the dilemma for adherents to nonviolence; a bill to establish a Peace Tax Fund has been introduced in every Congress .
…Lower courts addressed the issue of accommodating war tax resistance only by declaring that the government has a compelling interest in collecting taxes; the courts have not dealt with the arguments that accommodation of conscientious objection would be possible within the context of mandatory participation in taxation. The Supreme Court has not heard any case that raises these religious liberty questions under the law.
By then it was too late, though. The issue noted that Adams’s Supreme Court appeal had been turned down:
On , the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear appeals by Gordon and Edith Browne and Priscilla Lippincott Adams to lower-court rulings that allowed the Internal Revenue Service to impose late fees and interest for their conscientious refusal to pay the military portion of their federal tax. The issue in this case was not paying the tax when forced to do so by the IRS, but whether a “religious hardship” existed that should enable them to pay without any penalties and interest. The lower-court rulings reaffirmed a statement of the Supreme Court in that “The tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge [it] because tax payments were spent in a manner that violates their religious belief.” The Justice Department lawyers said that “Voluntary compliance with the tax laws is the least restrictive means of furthering the government’s compelling interest in collecting taxes.”… “We’re very disappointed that the Supreme Court will not be taking the opportunity to reinforce religious freedom and freedom of conscience,” said Marian Franz, executive director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund. “Congress seems like the most appropriate place where this human right can be protected.”
Adams wasn’t going to give up though. Whether or not the government was going to deign to make her war tax resistance legal, she was going to resist, and the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting was willing to help her. From the issue:
The United States Department of Justice, Tax Division, is suing Philadelphia Yearly Meeting for refusing to forward wages of an employee to the Internal Revenue Service. The employee, Priscilla Adams, resists paying taxes for war and the military on the basis of religious conscience. The lawsuit, filed in , is a move to attain funds from PYM as recompense for taxes owed by Priscilla Adams, plus a 50-percent penalty for not garnishing her wages as instructed by the IRS in . If the IRS succeeds, PYM would owe approximately $60,000.
On , PYM’s Interim Meeting decided to respond to the lawsuit and defend its position in court. PYM stated that to garnish Priscilla Adams’s wages would infringe upon her religious beliefs, and PYM should not “be required to act as a collection agent for the government when doing so will require it to violate key tenets of the Quaker faith.”
Thomas Jeavons, PYM general secretary, commented in the Philadelphia Inquirer, “About 50 percent of our taxes pay for weapons and warfare… We have long sought the creation of a Peace Tax Fund, a government fund for nonmilitary use, where taxes of [those who regard paying for war as a violation of religious conscience] could go. Legislation for this has been in Congress for many years. It should be passed now.”
The issue spelled out the Meeting’s legal argument:
On , Philadelphia Yearly Meeting filed its answer to a Justice Department lawsuit that asks a $20,000 penalty to be imposed on them and seeks to make them the collection agent for the government. The yearly meeting’s response makes dear its intention to stand by its essential religious principles, and publicly defend the free exercise of religion on all possible grounds, including constitutional and statutory religious freedom defenses. The IRS contends that PYM must garnish the salary of one of its employees and members who refuses — in keeping with longstanding Quaker convictions — to pay taxes that support war and preparations for war. While the IRS could easily take other courses to collect the back taxes it claims are due, instead the federal government is trying to force a church to collect these funds for it, an action that would require this Quaker organization to violate its own essential religious convictions regarding freedom of conscience. PYM has refused to do so. The answer to the suit says that the government “asks the court to assist it in violating the most fundamental religious principles of an established church… Although those principles and the yearly meeting’s reasons for its actions have been painstakingly explained to the [government]… the complaint purports to set forth the history of this matter without even mentioning PYM’s efforts at communication and conciliation. Further, the complaint labels the Yearly Meeting’s religiously mandated actions as a ‘failure’ to submit to government coercion, and brands the [Quaker] theological scruples as ‘unreasonable’ and deserving of harsh penalties.” The news release from PYM adds, “Quakers have long been known for their religious pacifism, opposition to war, and support of religious freedom and freedom of conscience. PYM regrets that being true to its faith has now brought us into conflict with the government. The Quaker organization sees itself as defending freedom of religion and freedom of conscience — and not just for itself, but for all those who desire to be both good citizens and people of faith. While PYM regrets the need to resort to legal action, it looks forward to a full airing of the issues involved in a public forum where both the sound reasons and religious principles that guide this Quaker organization’s actions may be upheld. PYM’s defense will rest on the constitutional right to freedom of religion generally, and particularly as upheld and restated in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of .”
The issue reported on how far they’d gotten with that argument:
On , A federal judge ruled that Philadelphia Yearly Meeting must comply with a levy on the wages of war tax refuser Priscilla Adams, but rejected a 50 percent penalty desired by the Internal Revenue Service. U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell agreed with the Quaker argument that complying with the levy “substantially burdens its exercise of religion,” because, as PYM General Secretary Thomas Jeavons earlier testified, the organization “considers it a sacred duty to support the conscientious actions of its individual members, especially in such historic witnesses as the Peace Testimony.” Judge Stewan Dalzell also agreed that the PYM defense “raised novel and important questions,” thus demonstrating in this instance that the previous refusal of PYM to comply was not a frivolous activity. But he disagreed that the IRS had practical alternative means to collect taxes from Priscilla Adams. The government should not be required “to engage in a time-consuming, and possibly fruitless, scavenger hunt for other assets.” In , the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had already rejected Priscilla Adams’s claim that the government could devise a means for earmarking taxes for nonmilitary expenditures, stating that there were “particularly difficult problems with administration should exceptions on religious grounds be carved out by the courts.”
That issue also noted:
Film students from Brooklyn Friends School are directing and producing a video documentary about Quaker peace activist Priscilla Adams. The students came to Friends Center in Philadelphia to interview her about how her religious beliefs led her to refuse payment of taxes in order to avoid contributing to military funding. The students also interviewed George Lakey, head of Training for Change, and Gene Hillman, adult religious education coordinator for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. This documentary film may be an entry for Bridge Film Festival, which is open to middle and upper school students at Quaker schools worldwide.
The issue noted that the film had been made — a 16-minute short titled A Need to Witness. And hey, look — it’s on-line:
Lonnie Valentine speaks on Quakers and the War Tax Concern: Unfinished Business?
Last night was the opening night of the NWTRCC national gathering at the Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana.
Earlham is a Quaker educational institution, and so there is more than usual interest in the history and current practice of war tax resistance in the Society of Friends at this gathering.
But we have war tax resisters here from a variety of backgrounds, and from all over the country… and even as far away as Kipkarren River, Kenya. They include relatively new resisters, and some legendary veterans of the movement.
The evening began with Lonnie Valentine (the Trueblood Professor of Christian Thought and Professor of Peace & Justice at Earlham), speaking on the topic of “Quakers and the War Tax Concern: Unfinished Business?”
He believes that peace-minded Quakers need to become more “militantly nonviolent” if they want to recapture the way in which their movement was once a real threat to the status quo. Radical societal change can only come about if the powers that be are undermined on multiple levels — economically, militarily, politically, and ideologically. Early Quaker tithe and tax resistance was conducted in that fashion, but now (when such things are practiced at all) they tend to be much less confrontational and much narrower in scope.
Ari Rosenberg introduces members of the local community to the NWTRCC gathering
He recapped the struggle the Society of Friends had when trying to determine the limits of war tax resistance, and how the eventual compromise (to resist explicit war taxes, but not taxes “in the mixture”) proved unsatisfying and unstable, and was challenged by John Woolman and others.
Valentine told the story of Quaker William Rotch of Rhode Island, who, after receiving some bayonets as part of a payment of a debt due him during the Revolutionary War, threw them overboard rather than risk having them requisitioned by the military. Valentine then challenged the audience to consider whether property destruction of a similar sort might be a worthy addition to their war tax resistance tactics.
What if, he asked, instead of only having a war tax resisters’ penalty fund to reimburse resisters who had penalties and interest seized by the IRS, we also had a more assertive response, in which we destroyed federal government property equal in value to any seizures it made?
Valentine believes that Quakers, not only because of the important role they have played in American war tax resistance, but also because of the ways they have also dropped the ball in that movement, have a special responsibility to lead now. He was a little less certain about how to make this happen… suggesting that maybe a campaign to try to get a lot of Quakers to resist a small, symbolic amount might be a good start.
Joanna Swanger, Director of Earlham College’s Peace and Global Studies Program, addresses Strategizing for Social Change in 21th Century America
Valentine’s talk will be the basis for an exhibit being prepared for display at Wilmington College (Ohio) entitled: “What If They Gave a War and Nobody Paid? War Tax Resistance Among American Friends” that is due to open .
After dinner, Joanna Swanger, Director of Earlham College’s Peace and Global Studies Program, gave the opening convocation on the subject of Strategizing for Social Change in 21th Century America.
Swanger’s talk concentrated on the theory of peace action. She believes that the principles of non-violent action as studied by Gene Sharp and others are not necessarily applicable to our place and time. This is in part because she believes that the U.S. government does not respond to nonviolent pressure in the way expected by this school of nonviolence theory, and also in part because the internet and corporate control of media have changed the rules of visual communication in society.
What should we do instead? Well, I’m not too sure what she recommends. It all sounded pretty abstract to me and I tuned out after a while.
is the first full day of the conference, full of workshops and then a keynote address by Peter Goldberger on the ramifications of the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision for American war tax resisters.
We have reached the end of the NWTRCC national gathering, held this time at the Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana.
The bulk of ’s portion of the conference was largely a series of workshops on subjects like:
Some of these sessions ran at the same time, and for a couple of them (the WTR101 and history of Quaker war tax resistance) I was one of the presenters, so I only was able to take notes on one of the two “economic disobedience” sessions.
In that session, Erica Weiland began by summarizing my report on the Spanish “desobediencia integral” movement and then she brought us up to date with new developments. These include the fair.coop “Earth cooperative for a fair economy” and its alternative currency, the “FairCoin,” which is somewhat Bitcoin-like but is explicitly designed to promote a certain sort of economic model. (I’ve looked at some of the FairCoin outreach material, but whether from translation difficulties or my amateur economics knowledge, I can’t quite figure out what makes it tick.)
The war tax resistance movement in the United States has made some contact with this Spanish movement and we’ve started to explore situating our work in the terminology and framework of this “comprehensive disobedience” movement, which helps to connect our work with the emerging sharing economy movement, Occupy, the modern environmentalist movement, and things of that sort.
Erica was joined by Jim Stockwell, who gave us a more historical perspective of how this sort of thinking weaves into a long thread connecting decentralism, Georgism, cooperative villages, the thought of Ralph Borsodi, and other related ideas. Erica added some insight from her research into the cooperative movement among African-Americans in the Reconstruction and post-Reconstruction periods.
Erica then introduced us to some of what the Strike Debt group have been doing lately. This group grew out of Occupy and the Rolling Jubilee project.
One of the actions associated with this group was the purchase and retirement of a large amount of medical debt. They then purchased and retired some student debt in the same way. Debts like these are packaged into groups based on how likely the debts are to be recovered. Those debts that are very unlikely to be recovered, often because the debtor is too poor to pay, can be purchased for pennies on the dollar. By retiring these debts, the project can reduce the stress of collection agency harassment on such people. They are also trying to unionize students who have debt to particularly exploitative colleges to encourage them to strike collectively for debt relief.
The Strike Debt Operations Manual was republished a while back with a new chapter on tax resistance, which was largely based on NWTRCC literature.
We brainstormed some ideas for trying to connect the U.S. war tax resistance movement with a movement for a larger grassroots economic transformation. Some ideas we tossed around included:
War tax resistance legal advisor Peter Goldberger
Yesterday, attorney Peter Goldberger, who has worked closely with the war tax resistance community for many years, brought us up to date on how the climate for pressing for the legal recognition of conscientious objection to military taxation in the courts has changed in recent years, particularly in the wake of the recent “Hobby Lobby” case.
When I read the “Hobby Lobby” ruling, I didn’t see much that seemed encouraging. There were some hopeful-sounding parts of it, like this bit from the majority opinion’s summary:
The belief of the Hahns and Greens implicates a difficult and important question of religion and moral philosophy, namely, the circumstances under which it is immoral for a person to perform an act that is innocent in itself but that has the effect of enabling or facilitating the commission of an immoral act by another. It is not for this Court to say that the religious beliefs of the plaintiffs are mistaken or unreasonable.
But the justices were careful to remind war tax resisters that we’re out of luck if we think we can use the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to assert the legal validity of our beliefs:
United States v. Lee, 455 U.S. 252, which upheld the payment of Social Security taxes despite an employer’s religious objection, is not analogous. It turned primarily on the special problems associated with a national system of taxation; and if Lee were a RFRA case, the fundamental point would still be that there is no less restrictive alternative to the categorical requirement to pay taxes.
The “Hobby Lobby” opinion itself expands on this a bit:
Lee was a free-exercise, not a RFRA, case, but if the issue in Lee were analyzed under the RFRA framework, the fundamental point would be that there simply is no less restrictive alternative to the categorical requirement to pay taxes. Because of the enormous variety of government expenditures funded by tax dollars, allowing tax-payers to withhold a portion of their tax obligations on religious ground would lead to chaos. Recognizing exemptions from the contraceptive mandate is very different…
The “Hobby Lobby” dissent goes so far as to describe the opinion as one that grants new powers of legal conscientious objection to just about everybody except tax resisters:
In a decision of startling breadth, the Court holds that commercial enterprises, including corporations, along with partnerships and sole proprietorships, can opt out of any law (saving only tax laws) they judge incompatible with their sincerely held religious beliefs.
If you hoped the dissenters might be more sympathetic to the use of the RFRA in war tax resistance cases, you won’t find much support for your hopes here. The dissenters for the most part seemed inclined to generally weaken the reach of the RFRA.
But again, this was all just my first impression, and I’m not a lawyer. Peter Goldberger is, and he’s worked in the area of conscientious objection and the free exercise clause for a long time, and he gave the “Hobby Lobby” decision a lot of thought and found some interesting angles.
For one thing, when the Supreme Court used conscientious objection to military taxation as a reductio in Lee and Hobby Lobby, it did so in cases that themselves did not concern conscientious objection to military taxation. They assumed that the government could not accommodate the beliefs of such resisters without “chaos” breaking out — that it would be too onerous for the government to accommodate such objectors. But there was nobody there to argue the objectors’ side and to present evidence that this was not necessarily true. Perhaps in a more direct case, objectors might be able to present evidence that would convince the court to revise its point of view.
The Hobby Lobby case also seems like it might usefully expand the right of conscientious objectors to military service. Previously the court had ruled that there was no constitutional right to conscientious objection, and so objectors enjoyed only those rights that Congress had chosen to grant them by statute. The language of Hobby Lobby seems to suggest that now, the government will have to prove a fairly strictly-defined compelling government interest if it wants to restrict the rights of draftees or military personnel who are or who become conscientious objectors for religious reasons.
For example, Goldberger suggests, Congress has defined legal conscientious objection to military service so that it only applies to pacifists — that is, to people who object to all war. It does not apply to religious objectors, for instance Catholics, who belong to a “just war” tradition which asks them to evaluate war by certain criteria and conscientiously object only to a subset of them. Goldberger suggests that the new RFRA standard, as elaborated in Hobby Lobby, could invalidate this and force the government to accommodate more varieties of religious conscientious objection.
Goldberger thinks this might also be a good time for a challenge from someone of the variety of war tax resisters who resists by putting the amount of the tax into an escrow account and telling the IRS that it may seize the money if it wants to, but that the resister is unwilling to pay it voluntarily. Since the IRS could accommodate the resister’s religiously-based conscientious objection, without undue difficulty for the government and without unleashing “chaos,” by simply seizing the money, perhaps the objector has a legal right not to be further penalized or subject to legal sanctions of other sorts for such a stand.
Finally, since Hobby Lobby (somewhat notoriously) decided that corporations can, under some circumstances, have some rights of their own under the RFRA, this may be a way to ask the Court to revisit a case similar to the Priscilla Adams case that it turned down on procedural grounds back in the day. Adams was a Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (a Quaker corporation) employee and a war tax resister. Her employer went to court to try to gain the right not to have to withhold taxes from her salary as this would force them to participate in violating her conscience.
Myself, I don’t see a lot of use in looking to the legal system for help, but I think this sort of thing is interesting and kind of fun to explore.
Some new audio/video slices of interweb for people interested in war tax resistance and related concerns:
Some news of interest to war tax resisters in particular:
A new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter is out, with content including:
This is the thirty-fourth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we enter the late 1980s.
The edition again announced the “Taxes for Peace” fund that had been established by the MCC Peace Section (U.S.) to coordinate war tax redirection.
In the fund would be redirecting taxes to “the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund… [which] seeks to enact the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill… to give those conscientiously opposed to war a way to pay 100 percent of their taxes, with the military percentage going to a separate fund for peace-enhancing programs.”
In about $4,000 was contributed to the U.S. Peace Section Taxes for Peace fund. Those monies helped support the Lancaster County Peacework Alternatives project. In other years peace-related projects in places such as Laos and Guatemala have received funds.
MCC U.S. Peace Section is also offering an information packet on military tax opposition that contains varying theological positions on the war tax issue, and materials about tax laws and legal concerns for the tax resister.
The issue brought this news:
The General Board of Friends United Meeting has adopted a policy of not withholding the federal withholding tax of employees who are conscientious objectors to paying taxes used for military purposes. The General Conference Mennonite Church adopted a similar policy in . On the current staff, said general secretary Steven Main, are three conscientious objectors to paying war taxes. The policy requires employees who want to participate in the witness of military tax refusal to first go through a “clearness process” with their Meeting or church community.
That issue also reprinted excerpts from the letter Ethel S. and Henry A. Fast sent to the IRS:
I was a conscientious objector to war in World War Ⅰ. So I reported this to the military camp office, informing them I could not participate in regular military training. I asked them to assign me to service in a base hospital designed for overseas patients. They respected my claim of conscience and gave me an opportunity to serve face and stomach victims of war. Later… they handed me an “honorable discharge” card. I still have this card.
Can you now extend to me, as a person of 92 years, and to my spouse, the same sensitive respect for our claims of conscience? We love our country and we respect our government. And we do not hesitate to pay taxes for orderly affairs and services of government.
But we have become deeply troubled over the vastly disproportionate part of our federal income tax being allocated to the building up of a military force and arsenal. This is entirely out of proportion to the huge debt and the staggering needs among the poor, the sick, the aged and the unemployed.
Our conscience can no longer endure this. So we have decided to withhold 37 percent of federal income tax liability (namely, the 37 percent used in the present military build-up program). We want to send this as a donation to the Commission on Home Ministries… [which reaches out] to the poor, the unemployed, the underprivileged and the many people hurt and adrift by wars…
In World War Ⅰ the government recognized my concern of conscience. Can you grant us this kind of courtesy for our older years?
Ethel S. and Henry A. Fast
The edition noted:
Six Mennonite pastors who have refused to pay some or all of their military taxes were interviewed in the issue of ACTS (Another Church Tries Something), published by the Commission on Home Ministries. Donald Kaufman of Bethel College Church, North Newton, Kan., John Gaeddert of First Church, Halstead, Kan., S. Roy Kaufman of Science Ridge Church, Sterling, Ill., Ronald Krehbiel of Salem Church, Freeman, S.D., Mark Weidner of First Church, Bluffton, Ohio, and Dorothy Nickel Friesen of Manhattan (Kan.) Fellowship told of how they decided to resist war taxes, how they involved church members in the decision and how their action has affected others.
The New Call to Peacemaking initiative and the Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns sponsored a gathering of leaders from the traditional peace churches in to discuss what to do about the dilemma of such churches withholding taxes for the government from the salaries of their employees who wanted to resist paying war taxes. Paul Schrag wrote up an article on the meeting that was reprinted in the edition of The Mennonite. Excerpts:
The question of how church organizations can help their employees follow their consciences — and how to deal with the risks involved for both employees and employers — were the issues that the 36 Mennonites, Brethren and Quakers struggled with.
The church leaders, organizational representatives and lawyers affirmed their support for individual military tax resisters and for efforts to seek a legislative solution by working toward passage of the U.S. Peace Tax Fund bill in Congress.
They agreed to organize a peace church leadership group to go to Washington sometime in the future to support the peace tax bill and to express concerns about tax withholding. They also agreed to help each other by filing friend-of-the-court briefs if tax resisters are prosecuted and by sharing the cost of tax resistance penalties.
“You may think the world will little note nor long remember what has happened here,” said Marian Franz, director of the U.S. Peace Tax Fund. “But I regard it as a historic meeting.
“The decision to end the human race does not belong to Caesar. Therefore, tax dollars that wrestle that decision out of the hands of God do not either.”
Participants in the meeting included both military tax resisters and people who would not engage in tax resistance themselves but support those who do.
People from churches that have policies of breaking the law by not withholding the federal taxes of employees who oppose paying military taxes shared their experiences with people from churches considering adopting such a policy. The General Conference Mennonite Church and two Quaker groups are in the first category. The Mennonite Church is in the second.
MC leaders, including moderator James Lapp and moderator-elect George Brunk Ⅲ, came to the meeting to explore church policy options on military tax withholding. MC general assembly delegates asked the church to develop a policy recommendation on the issue for consideration at Normal .
“This roots us in a larger movement,” Lapp said of the meeting. “It gives us ideas and handles about how other people have addressed it. We don’t have to start from ground zero.”
The MC General Board plans to formulate questions about tax withholding for congregations to discuss. It will prepare a recommendation next year based on congregations’ responses.
Robert Hull, GC secretary for peace and justice, said it was frustrating that many members of historic peace churches are not willing to witness against financial participation in preparing for war, although they are opposed to physical participation in war.
Some said it was disappointing that so many people are unwilling to follow their consciences until the government, through the Peace Tax Fund, might allow them to do so legally.
One quoted Gandhi: “We have stooped so low that we fancy it our duty to do whatever the law requires.”
“Do we want our righteousness without a price?” asked Ray Gingerich, a professor at Eastern Mennonite College, Harrisonburg, Va.
When a church or organization decides to honor employees’ requests not to withhold their federal income tax, it assumes serious risks. Any “responsible person” who willfully fails to withhold an employee’s taxes theoretically could be punished with a prison sentence and a $250,000 fine. An organization could be fined $500,000.
But such penalties have never been imposed on legitimate religious organizations, nor are they likely to be, said two lawyers at the meeting. The usual Internal Revenue Service response to war tax resistance is to take the amount of tax owed, plus a 5 percent penalty and interest, from the employee’s bank account.
The IRS has not taken even this action against the four GC employees who are not having their taxes withheld. All GC personnel who could be subject to penalties have agreed to accept the risk.
The Friends World Committee for Consultation, which has had a non-withholding policy , has had tax money seized, plus interest and penalties, from its resisters’ bank accounts. The Friends United Meeting adopted a non-withholding policy . The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends will decide in whether it should have such a policy.
Charles Boyer of the Church of the Brethren said he would use the input from the meeting to work toward helping develop a denominational policy on tax resistance.
An even more basic issue than war tax resistance arose concerning tax-withholding laws. Some compared the church’s tax-collecting role to that of the biblical publicans.
“I have a growing dis-ease that the church is a tax collector for the government, regardless of what the money is used for,” said Vern Preheim, GC general secretary.
Participants made suggestions for improvements on a draft of “A Manual on Military Tax Withholding for Religious Employers,” written by Hull, Linda Coffin of the Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns and lawyers Peter Goldberger and J.E. McNeil, who both gave legal advice at the meeting. The manual is expected to be available later this year.
That book’s availability would be announced in the edition.
Another concern I have with promotion of the Peace Tax Fund law is that in order to tempt legislators to support it, there is a tendency to defang war tax objection and make it less threatening to the government. Take for example this description of Marian Franz’s testimony before a House committee reviewing the tax code: “Franz said that the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill would alleviate a persistent burden on the IRS and permit these citizens [conscientious objectors] to pay their full share of tax without violation of religious conscience.” All we want to do is pay our taxes and not cause any trouble for the IRS — is that really the best way to speak truth to power and challenge militarism?
The edition brought this news:
The Internal Revenue Service filed two suits against a Quaker group in Pennsylvania because the organization refused to attach the wages of two employees who have withheld part of their income taxes as a conscientious protest against military spending, Religious News Service reported. The lawsuits against the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends seek $16,836 in connection with federal taxes not paid by William V. Grassie and David A. Falls. The Quakers sent a letter to the IRS saying neither Grassie nor Falls is “a tax evader but a conscientious taxpayer who is conscientiously refusing payment of the military portion of his taxes.”
This is the twenty-ninth 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 danced right up to the brink of committing to corporate war tax resistance, as other church bodies around them considered their own similar actions.
The traditionalists were increasingly restive, though. For example, in the issue, a letter to the editor from Robert L. Beiler took the traditional Romans 13 line and then went on to pointedly ask why war tax resisting Mennonites don’t seem to make any noise about taxpayer-funded abortions — and anyway the United States is a great country and we should be happy to pay taxes here.
The issue reported on how another Christian group was dealing with war tax resisters in the fold:
Quaker denomination supports staff war-tax witness
The General Board of Friends United Meeting — a Quaker denomination based in Richmond, Ind. — has adopted a policy of not withholding the federal taxes of employees who are conscientious objectors to paying taxes used for military purposes. This means the denomination is willing to violate Internal Revenue Service tax regulations in order to support the conscience of its employees.
The policy requires employees who desire to participate in the witness of military tax refusal to first participate in a “clearness process” with their local congregation. They are encouraged to compute the military percentage of their income tax, using the figures of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, and voluntarily deposit that sum in a special denominational account held for that purpose. The remainder would be submitted to the IRS.
In taking this action. Friends United Meeting is pursuing a long Quaker tradition of recognizing all outward warfare to be inconsistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ. It joins one other denomination in taking this action — the General Conference Mennonite Church. Friends United Meeting is also seeking legislative remedy through the U.S. Peace Tax Fund bill in Congress. This legislation would permit tax payers morally opposed to war to have the military part of their taxes allocated to peacemaking.
Leaders of two peace organization talk about military taxes — Julie Garber of Fellowship of Reconciliation and John Stoner of Mennnonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section.
Representatives of several “traditional peace church” denominations met to try to swap ideas about how to cope with the war tax resistance issue (Paul Schrag reporting):
Historic peace churches tackle thorny issue of tax withholding
Praying for peace while paying for war is a contradiction that historic peace churches must oppose by speaking out and taking action, representatives of those churches agreed at a consultation in Richmond, Ind. For some people, war tax resistance — refusing to pay the portion of one’s taxes that goes to the military — is a moral imperative. Their consciences will not allow them to help pay for machine guns and nuclear bombs.
The question of how church organizations can help their employees follow their consciences — and how to deal with the risks involved for both employees and employers — were the issues that nearly 40 Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers struggled with at the meeting.
The church leaders, agency representatives, and lawyers affirmed their support for individual military tax resisters and for efforts to seek a legislative solution by working toward passage of the Peace Tax Fund Bill in the U.S. Congress.
They agreed to organize a peace church leadership group to go to Washington sometime in the future to support the peace tax bill and to express concerns about tax withholding. They also agreed to help each other by filing friend-of-the-court briefs if tax resisters are prosecuted and by sharing the cost of tax resistance penalties, if necessary.
“You may think the world will little note nor long remember what has happened here,” said Marian Franz, a Mennonite who is executive director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund. “But I regard it as a historic meeting.”
People from churches that have policies of breaking the law by not withholding the federal taxes of employees who oppose paying military taxes shared their experiences with people from churches considering adopting such a policy. The General Conference Mennonite Church and two Quaker groups are in the first category. The Mennonite Church is in the second.
Mennonite Church leaders, including Executive Secretary James Lapp and Moderator-Elect George Brunk Ⅲ, came to the meeting to explore church policy options on military tax withholding. The General Assembly of the Mennonite Church asked the General Board to develop a recommendation on the issue for consideration at the next General Assembly in .
“This roots us in a larger movement,” Lapp said of the meeting. “It gives us ideas and handles about how other people have addressed it. We don’t have to start from ground zero.” General Board plans to formulate questions about tax withholding for congregations to discuss. It will prepare its recommendation based on congregations’ responses.
The meeting, held at Quaker Hill Conference Center, took place in an atmosphere of excitement generated by a gathering of people from different traditions who share a vision. In the long and lively discussions, participants challenged each other and their churches to recommit themselves to active peacemaking and prophetic witnessing on the war tax issue.
Robert Hull, peace/justice secretary for the General Conference Mennonite Church, said it was frustrating that many members of historic peace churches are not willing to witness against financial participation in preparing for war although they are opposed to physical participation in war.
When a church or organization decides to honor employees’ requests not to withhold their federal income tax, it assumes serious risks. Any “responsible person” who willfully fails to withhold an employee’s taxes theoretically could be punished with a prison sentence and a $250,000 fine. An organization could be fined $500,000.
But such penalties have never been imposed on legitimate religious organizations, nor are they likely to be, said two lawyers at the meeting. The usual Internal Revenue Service response to war tax resistance is to take the amount of tax owed, plus a 5 percent penalty and interest, from the employee’s bank account.
IRS has not taken even this action against the four GC employees who are not having their taxes withheld. They pay the nonmilitary portion of their taxes themselves and deposit the 53 percent that would have gone to the military in a designated account. IRS has not touched that account since it was established after GC delegates approved the policy in . All GC personnel who could be subject to penalties have agreed to accept the risk.
The Friends World Committee for Consultation, which has had a nonwithholding policy , has had tax money seized, plus interest and penalties, from its resisters’ bank accounts. The Friends United Meeting adopted a nonwithholding policy . The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends will decide in whether it should have such a policy. Charles Boyer of the Church of the Brethren said he would use the input from the meeting to work toward helping his denomination develop a policy on tax resistance.
Participants made suggestions for improvements on a draft of “A Manual on Military Tax Withholding for Religious Employers” written by Hull, Linda Coffin of the Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns, and lawyers Peter Goldberger and J.E. McNeil. The manual is expected to be available .
The consultation was sponsored by the Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns and New Call to Peacemaking. The latter is a cooperative peace organization of the historic peace churches. New Call to Peacemaking plans to sponsor a military tax withholding meeting for a wider range of church groups sometime in the future.
Whether or not military tax resistance “works,” participants agreed that people’s moral imperative to follow their consciences must be respected. “No conscientious objector ever stopped a conflict,” said William Strong, a Quaker representative. “But they had to explain what they did, and the vision was kept alive, and those ripples — you don’t know where they stop.
The Mennonite Church was playing catch up with their cousins the General Conference Mennonite Church when it came to deciding how to react to employees who were conscientious objectors to military taxation, but now it was their turn to begin the process. From the issue:
General Board considers issue of church agency tax withholding
As the result of a General Assembly mandate , Mennonite Church General Board has initiated a plan to consider church agency tax withholding. The General Assembly action calls for General Board to bring to the assembly a proposal for how the church should respond to questions of conscientious objection to the payment of military taxes and the institutional withholding of the military portion of employees’ income taxes.
Steps in the consideration process, as approved at the board’s meeting, began in with participation in the interdenominational Employers Tax Withholding Consultation in Richmond, Ind. Then a working document, clarifying the issues and enumerating possible responses, will be prepared for General Board study.
Board members will devote a day to the issue prior to their regular meeting. The discernment process will continue as revised copies of the working document are available for conference and congregational study .
A summary of conference responses will be included in the General Board docket in , when the board will develop a recommendation to be presented for General Assembly action in .
The issue noted that the “first major public event” of the Peace and Justice Center at Stirling Ave. Mennonite Church in Kitchener, Ont. “was a… seminar to explore alternatives to paying taxes for military purposes.”
In a letter to the editor in the issue, Jurgen Brauer wrote that after reading Tolstoy he came to feel that “it is high time that the issue of tax withholding (or redirecting) becomes the major issue of the church.”
The “Taxes for Peace” fund gave its annual update in the issue. They’d decided to donate all of the taxes redirected through the fund to the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund , and announced that they’d redirected about $4,000 to “the Lancaster County, Pa., Peacework Alternatives project.”
Poster on war tax resistance from Mennonite Central Committee. The words on the poster are by John Stoner: “We are war tax resisters because we have discovered some doubt as to what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, and have decided to give the benefit of the doubt to God.” It is available from MCC at…
The General Board of the Mennonite Church met in :
Chris Longenecker tells General Board how she decided to ask her employer — Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions — to stop withholding the military portion of her taxes from her wages. Eastern Board, like other Mennnonite Church institutions, is waiting for guidance on this issue from General Board before it honors a request like this.
Ed Metzler (left) and Jim Lapp lead the General Board discussion on war taxes.
General Board takes step in non-withholding of war taxes
In a decision that will lead to breaking the law if approved by the General Assembly , the General Board of the Mennonite Church has recommended that war taxes not be withheld from the paychecks of denominational employees who request that. The 32-member board passed the recommendation unanimously, with a few abstentions.
The action, which came during the board’s meeting in Kitchener, Ont., was a long-awaited response to several people at church agencies and schools who, because of conscience, do not want to pay the portion of their taxes — about 50 percent in the United States — that goes to the military. It was also a response to an impatient General Assembly that instructed General Board to take a stand on the issue.
“This has been an area we have been reluctant to move in,” said General Board executive secretary Jim Lapp in introducing the matter. Ed Metzler, the denomination’s peace and social concerns secretary, said the main reasons for taking the non-withholding action are to allow individual expressions of conscience and to witness against militarism. “But is this the best way to witness against militarism?” asked Tim Burkholder of Northwest Conference. Other board members wondered if the church corporately should break the law to satisfy the consciences of a few individuals.
The board members, meeting at Pioneer Park Christian Fellowship, gathered a day earlier than usual to take up the war tax matter. Metzler arranged for a variety of speakers to address the subject, including two persons who have requested non-withholding — Chris Longenecker of Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions and Carman Albrecht of Mennonite Central Committee Ontario.
John Stoner, executive secretary of Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section, delivered a ringing “call for courage” based on the book of Revelation. “It is unthinkable that John the Revelator would not see, in our time and place, the war tax demands of Western democratic militaristic capitalism as a challenge to our faithfulness to the witness of Jesus,” he said.
Bob Hull, peace/justice secretary for the General Conference Mennonite Church, explained the lengthy process that led to his denomination’s decision to honor requests for non-withholding. It included a four-year effort to explore all legal channels — legislative, judicial, administrative — for avoiding the payment of war taxes. Finally, at their convention in Bethlehem, Pa., 72 percent of the GC delegates voted to defy the law — the first denomination to do so. (Several Quaker groups have since done the same.) To date, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has not moved against the GC Church.
In the discussion that followed, several people argued that consistent conscientious objection to war should include a refusal to fight as well as to pay for fighting. Others wondered why the Mennonite Church — and other denominations — agreed so easily to a law in the U.S. (and earlier in Canada) that required them to withhold taxes from employees’ wages, thus putting the church in the role of tax collector for the government.
For a while it looked like the board members might postpone action on the issue or pass the buck to the 22 conferences of the Mennonite Church. But Moderator Ralph Lebold reminded them of their instructions from General Assembly, and Dean Swartzendruber of Iowa-Nebraska Conference urged the board to “decide here today.”
In the end, the decision was made after much deliberation and considerable rewriting of the proposed action. In addition to honoring requests for non-withholding, it includes support for the Peace Tax Fund bill in the U.S. Congress that would provide conscientious objection to war taxes and a call for “serious attention” to the question of the church as tax collector.
The recommendation will now go to the conferences for review. , General Board will take the responses from the conferences and shape a final recommendation for submission to the General Assembly. The board members agreed that the recommendation will be introduced in person to the leaders of each conference by a denominational staff person.
Gospel Herald kept readers up on the news of other denominations struggling with the same issue ():
Quakers agree to aid workers who refuse to pay “military” taxes
Philadelphia-area Quakers took a historic step recently to aid employees who were opposed to paying taxes for war purposes. The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, in its 308th annual session, agreed to withhold but not forward to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service the estimated military portion of its employees’ federal income taxes. This money will be set aside in a special fund and paid to IRS with interest when there is assurance the money will not go for military spending.
Currently the organization has 42 employees, of which an average of seven are tax resisters at any time. The decision to establish the set-aside fund for war tax resisters augments the decision to refuse cooperation with IRS levies on salaries of war tax resisters employed by the Yearly Meeting. The policies could make the group liable for sizable fines and penalties for breaking federal law. The Yearly Meeting also could incur liability for employees’ unpaid taxes.
And some Mennonite congregations were taking stands on their own (, Cindy Hines Kurfman reporting):
Indiana congregation supports its members who don’t pay “war taxes”
War-tax resistance is an important subject at Lafayette (Ind.) Mennonite Fellowship — important enough that members commit themselves to “support for those who, for reason of conscience, resist ‘war tax’ payment.”
To Ken Nagele, who began refusing to pay a portion of his taxes in , war-tax resistance originally meant not paying “the percentage associated with nuclear weapons.” He now refuses to pay for “all current and past military spending,” but still pays the portion that benefits veterans in the belief that he is “helping those scarred by killing.”
Nagele uses a Friends Committee on National Legislation document each year to determine how much he will withhold. This year the figure is 53.1 percent. The refused portion will be deposited in the Near Eastside Community Federal Credit Union of Indianapolis. This community-development credit union makes loans to low-income persons and small businesses in an economically depressed portion of the city.
Another member, Mary Ann Zoeller, is refusing to pay war taxes for the first time. “As a Christian, I knew I could not, in good conscience, support the killing of others,” she says. “Yet the existing tax laws require me to do just this, by asking me to pay taxes that finance military services. Following Christ’s teachings of love of his persecutors, even to the loss of life, I have been led to question my support of our military.” Zoeller sends the war-tax portion to Amnesty International, a human rights organization.
Alternative methods of war-tax resistance are also demonstrated by several families in the Lafayette congregation. One family, whose income is below the taxable level, has written a letter to their tax commissioner since which explains their belief that paying for war is a sin. Another couple keeps their payment to a minimum by following the example of their parents; live simply and give a large percentage of income to the church.
Another example ():
A Virginia congregation has decided to officially support its members who refuse to pay the military portion of their taxes. Community Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va., has 20 members who illegally withhold some of their tax money as an act of conscientious objection to war taxes or are seriously considering it. “The congregation’s decision grew out of the desire and concern of a few of us that our action be more than the isolated action of individual conscience,” said Orval Gingrich, one of the 20. The congregation is encouraging all its members to include letters of protest with their income tax returns and has notified Internal Revenue Service that it fully supports its members who don’t pay war taxes.
By it was time for another backlash letter to the editor. Titus Martin hit the predictable Romans 13 notes and warned readers against relying on their consciences when conscience and scripture disagree. As a compromise he suggested that readers use charitable deductions rather than civil disobedience to lower their taxes.
Even the Presbyterians were getting in on the tax resistance act, according to this news brief:
The document describes obedience to civil authority as normative for Christians but asks the denomination to set up a special fund to support Presbyterians who suffer financial losses because of a stance of resistance. The paper argues that withholding taxes to protest U.S. military policy is proper under certain circumstances. Such activists are entitled to emotional support from the church, the paper says.
The IRS went on the offensive against the Philadelphia Yearly meeting, which may have been frightening news for a Mennonite Church which was contemplating taking a similar stand ():
Employees’ tax protest prompts IRS lawsuit against Quakers
The Internal Revenue Service has filed two suits against a Quaker group in Pennsylvania because the organization has refused to attach the wages of two employees who have withheld part of their income taxes as a conscientious protest against military spending. The lawsuits against the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends seek $17,000 in connection with federal taxes that were not paid by William Grassie and David Falls. IRS said it takes such action against the employer of anyone who fails to pay taxes on the ground that salaries are property that can be levied by the government in such cases.
Finally, a note in the issue read:
A new resource is available on the war-tax issue for Mennonite Church conferences — and others — that are currently considering whether church institutions should be instructed to not withhold taxes from the wages of employees who express conscientious objection to the military portion of their taxes. Conferences are to submit their counsel to General Board in preparation for a proposal to General Assembly at Normal . The resource is a just-published book called Fear God and Honor the Emperor: A Manual on Military Tax Withholding for Religious Employers. Each purchaser of the book will be on a mailing list to receive future updates on the subject. The book is available at a special price of $11 from Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries…
Some recent links of note:
The campaign is asking local groups in the U.K. to demand that their local councils declare a climate emergency and suspend projects that are ecologically irresponsible.Our movement has only scratched the surface of what non-violent civil disobedience can achieve. While they deceive and seek to oppress us further, we can take a stand against their ecocidal leadership — by simply withholding council tax then telling the world why we’ve done it.
Catalan separatists have amplified their tax resistance campaign. For some time now the Catalan National Assembly has been promoting a campaign in which individuals, businesses, and (an increasing number of) municipalities would redirect their national taxes from Spain to the Catalan regional government. That government would forward those taxes along to Spain, so the effect of this (and its risk) was minor, but in theory if the Catalan regional government decided to pull the trigger on political independence, this would establish the groundwork for fiscal independence as well.
But now, the separatist “Council for the Republic” is trying to push things further: asking resisters to redirect €300 of their taxes from the government to the Republican Fund for Solidarity Action. That money will not be forwarded to Madrid, and so this is a more confrontational act of civil disobedience.
The group has launched the campaign with the #Proumonarquia site (“Build the Catalan Republic with your taxes”) and two videos: a how-to narrated by actor Toni Albà and an overview of tax resistance by long-time war tax resister Josep Manel Fontdevila.
The following short promo video announces the launch of Extinction Rebellion U.K.’s “Earth Tax Strike:”
In other news:
You may donate to that SBE [State Board of Equalization] member who will vote against you. This may sound counterintuitive, but the idea is that both you and the SBE member must then disclose that contribution. Any contribution of $250 or more must be disclosed. Your contribution will disqualify that SBE member from considering your case. The only exception is if the SBE member returns the contribution within 30 days from the time he or she knows, or has reason to know, of the contribution. Often, though, a contribution will not be returned.
With a five-member board, if you identify two members who will vote against your client and make contributions to them, they will likely be disqualified. Your board is now three members. If you can garner two positive votes out of the three remaining, you have won. Non-Californians may find this kind of playing field strange or even untoward. It is certainly different, and not for the untutored, but until they change the rules, that is our system.
Tax resistance news of note:
Today, some excerpts from The Catholic News Archive concerning tax resistance in .
The issue of The Catholic Worker brought an update about the Randy Kehler / Betsy Corner home seizure, sale, and occupation:
Now That April’s Here
By Brian Hynes
Randy Kehler, Betsy Corner and their 13 year-old daughter, Lillian, had not been in their Colrain, Massachusetts home for sixty weeks when I was last up for the vigil in their yard. They were evicted in , when the IRS finally seized their home as compensation for unpaid taxes. The house is currently occupied by a couple who “bought” it from the IRS. The hope is that these folks will come to see the seizure, and subsequent sale and purchase, as illegitimate. The argument of the War Tax Refusers Support Committee (WTR) is that “It is wrong to take people’s homes to force them to pay for war.”
Betsy and Randy have refused to pay their federal taxes since the ’70s. Although they file with the IRS every year, they don’t pay what they are said to owe. Instead they pay that amount to charities — some local, and some for other worthwhile endeavors.
In , the IRS started to take steps to confiscate the Kehler-Corner property, culminating in the auction of their home in . At this time, the IRS received many non-monetary bids from Randy and Betsy’s supporters but no outside bids, and ended up buying the place themselves. In a subsequent auction one monetary bid was received, just above the $5400 minimum. This was the famous bid by the current occupants, who were then given title to the house. By then, Randy had already been arrested for contempt of court and the whole family had been evicted. ( CW)
The occupation of Randy and Betsy’s home in support of their stand to resist this seizure, began immediately after the eviction. Despite its around-the-clock presence in the house, the new owners managed to move in when several people were at a war tax resistance demonstration. Since that time the support vigil has moved to the yard. Most recently a beautiful trailer, one room and a porch, built especially for the purpose, has been moved on to the property. There is one additional complexity to the situation. The house in question is on land owned by the Valley Community Land Trust. This means that the land itself was never confiscated, and therefore was never “sold” to the family now occupying the house. Furthermore, the members of the Land Trust, while certainly sympathetic to WTR, also have legitimate claims and concerns about what is happening, as the IRS transferred title to the house while disregarding the stipulations of the land lease. Pursuant to these concerns, the Land Trust has filed suit against the family who bought the house from the IRS. At the time of my last visit, lawyers were preparing for a future hearing on this problem.
The vigil has been a time to think about many issues in discussion with people of diverse backgrounds. The concern and commitment that I have seen there are noteworthy. It is daunting, in an environment of such diversity, to reach common ground for moral commitment. In Colrain, however, there is a strong consensus.
The consensus is for active nonviolence in the context of the refusal to pay for war. It has been argued that taxation is a societal responsibility but the history of carnage is too great for us to avoid the moral issues of militarism and its support through taxation, by claiming that societal responsibility gives it legitimacy. In fact, societal responsibility is exactly the point, and nonviolence is exactly the confrontation of moral issues by moral methods. (Militarism, instead, confronts moral issues by immoral methods.) The continuing use of military force by our nation is a moral issue that requires confrontation. This confrontation is the consensus in Colrain. The consensus proceeds from a long and loving tradition of nonviolent transformation of society. The question that is worked and reworked there is now to give this living tradition rebirth in the changing situation up at Colrain.
I suggest a visit to lend your strength to theirs. Please contact War Tax Refusers, c/o Traprock Peace Center, Keets Road, Deerfield, MA 03142. (413) 774‒2710, or, (413) 773‒7427.
The issue of The Catholic Worker included a book review that again told the story of Saint Hugh of Lincoln and promoted his claim to be the (unofficial) patron saint of war tax resisters. (See ♇ for a previous Catholic Worker article on that topic.)
The issue of that paper carried a statement from jailed war tax resister Bill Ramsey:
No Limits On The Promise Of God
By Bill Ramsey
As I reflect back on the path that brought me to this cell, along with the many points of decision and sharp turns of the legal process, there was one reliable trail mark — the interplay between conscience and community, between risk-taking and relationship building.
Any way I measure it, the trail to this cell is a long one, but never a lonely one. Most immediately, it began on with an action in the public waiting room of the IRS Taxpayer Information Service in St. Louis. With other members of the St. Louis Covenant Community of War Tax Resisters, I planned to pass out a federal spending piechart to the steady stream of hundreds of people with taxes on their minds and time on their hands as they waited for service. No disruption was planned, only an orderly attempt to communicate.
Within an hour, two of us were arrested after refusing an order to leave the waiting room. In , a federal judge convicted me of unlawful leafleting. I was acquitted of charges that we disrupted taxpayers and IRS employees. At the US Attorney’s insistence, a pre-sentencing investigation was conducted. It displayed my 20 years of public war tax resistance to the judge. In , he sentenced me to three years of federal probation, with a special condition that required that I file and pay all taxes due. From this point forward, this court-ordered condition and my conscience were on a collision course.
War tax resisters around the country urged me to consider the potential chilling effect that the probation condition would have if applied to other war tax resisters. They introduced me to Peter Goldberger, an attorney who specializes in First Amendment appeals, who would take my appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. The national war tax resistance network was alerted and offers of support came from around the country.
Meanwhile in St. Louis, a local support committee was formed. War tax resisters, homeless shelter workers, a survivor of the Nazi holocaust, sanctuary providers, domestic violence counselors, educators, a priest, and a community development planner all came together to provide assistance. They raised legal fees, set up an emergency response phone tree, served as a clearness committee, and planned a public challenge to my probation.
Two members wrote an op-ed piece published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch proposing that the US government, rather than myself, should be placed on probation for violating international law, refusing to pay dues to the United Nations, and trafficking in arms. It served as our indictment. This community of support convened a People’s Tribunal on . Richard Falk, Professor of International Law at Princeton, presented the case against the government. Former Secretaries of Defense and Treasury were invited to represent the government but sent letters of regret. Domestic victims of the arms race testified. One hundred thirty “jurors” placed the government on probation, listing the conditions which were presented to the St. Louis US Attorney on by a delegation from the Tribunal.
Collective Challenge
As I approached the collision of my conscience with the court-ordered condition, preparing to refuse to pay my taxes on , I was upheld by this community of support I was also inspired and grateful that they had been able to turn the questions around my probation into a collective challenge of the fundamental contradictions underlying US policy.
After a public refusal to pay my taxes on , I was summoned to a probation revocation hearing on . The national war tax resistance network was alerted and letters from around the country arrived on the judge’s desk. Locally, the support community planned an overnight vigil at my church for the night before the hearing. I invited the judge to the opening service. He did not respond. One hundred thirty people participated in the vigil which concluded an hour before the hearing with a Catholic Mass. Fifty supporters attended the hearing.
But that night, I had a decision to make. I felt that the government was using the probation revocation hearing as a way to circumvent the need for a trial in front of a jury of my peers. I would not get my day in court to publicly explain my reasons for refusing to pay war taxes. Do I remain in the church, refusing to recognize the constitutionality of the hearing? The appeal on the constitutional grounds of freedom of speech and religion had failed. Or do I answer the summons, appearing in court, but remain silent in my own defense — only making a brief statement of my motives which the court had refused to take into consideration? I was without an answer. After deliberation with members of the support community, my wife, and war tax refusers in Colrain, Massachusetts, we came to a resolution. Respond to the summons, make the statement, and direct the public eye to my refusal to pay for death, and not to a refusal to show up in court.
My statement in court cited my responsibilities to Nuremberg principles, knowing that my government used tax money to commit war-crimes in Panama, Nicaragua, and Iraq, and fearing the US military operations in Somalia and Bosnia would soon result in indiscriminate attacks on civilians. The statement also focused on my religious convictions. The resources we hold are a divine trust not to be surrendered to war-making. Looking back on US interventions during my lifetime and on testimony offered in the Bible, it is clear that when nations resort to violent force, it is usually to protect privilege, not people. No situation or person stands outside God’s transforming work in history. To kill is to assume that we have the right to place limits on the promises of God.
These are the beliefs I placed before the court. In return, I received a 30-day sentence, to be followed by another year of supervised release with the same special condition that I pay taxes. On , the order came for me to surrender to the Williamson County Jail in Marion, Illinois. My refusal to surrender brought a summons to appear in court. Again the larger community of support gathered for Mass at my church and then filled the spectators gallery in the court room. After I refused to sign a bond guaranteeing that I would surrender, I was taken into custody.
Jailed for two days in the overcrowded and violence-laden conditions of the St. Clair County Jail, I discovered another community among the young men from East St. Louis who shared my cell block. We slept toe to toe, many of us on the floor. We ate inadequate meals shoulder to shoulder. They were without resources. Many seemed to have no one on the outside who cared about them. Others were hardened by their life experiences. Bantering and talk of drugs, guns, and sex resounded through the cell block until the middle of the night.
And yet, as we offered each other a little more space, plotted to get more food into the cell block, and shared our stories and one Bible among us, I began to sense camaraderie and a community forming. In the blessed silence of the second morning, the faces of my support community on the outside merged with the faces of the young men sleeping all around me. I knew then that I could do the entire 30 days in that cell block. Several hours later, federal marshals arrived to take me to a new cell block in Williamson County.
It amazes me that anyone could believe that placing me in these county jails would somehow change my mind about paying war taxes. Somehow, confined to these jails that expose the obscured violence of the status quo in our society, I am supposed to see the light and admit that the spending priorities are “right enough,” that the system is “just enough,” and that perhaps, after all, force and violence are appropriate ways to correct human behavior and resolve conflict. The authorities wager that fear of those around me in these cell blocks and my physical separation from my primary communities will drive my conscience underground. What they don’t realize is that these jails and the people in them are just another opportunity for community and that these walls cannot separate me from the communities of support. They just don’t get it. Acts of conscience thrive on community!
A longer view of my path to this cell would include the community in Durham, North Carolina, that first challenged me to resist war taxes in . Down the path would be my colleagues over the last 17 years in the American Friends Service Committee, an organization that not only tolerates civil disobedience, but affirms employees’ acts of conscience. Add to all these the St. Louis Catholic Worker Community where I lived and worked in and the extended Worker community that remains at my side through everything. As the path continues, there are members of my inner-city parish, struggling together to understand and act on our faith. All along the path is the St. Louis Covenant Community of War Tax Resisters, linked to communities and humanitarian efforts throughout the world through alternative gifts from our resisted taxes.
And then there is the beloved community of my family, Cathy and my five children. As we traveled this summer visiting friends and relatives with the prospect of my imprisonment before us, a more refined closeness grew among us. We hold each other a little tighter these days, even over the distance that separates us for these 30 days. As I write from this cell, Cathy and our children are surrounded by acts of kindness as the broader support community assists her with the day to day chores of running our household and caring for our children. My absence seems to have become the occasion for further experiments in community.
As I look back on all of this, I am convinced that the convergence of heart and will that we call acts of conscience is a gradual slope, with many small steps. Each risk taken clears the way for the next. Everytime I raised my foot to take that next step, a community of people was there, prepared to steady my stride and to catch me if I fell. I am now certain that this journey is impossible, unless one is accompanied. In the end, it is the collective courage and transforming gifts of community that empower our individual acts of conscience.
“Step by step the longest march, can be won, can be won,
Many stones can form an arch, singly none, singly none.”
