How you can resist funding the government → a survey of tactics of historical tax resistance campaigns → choose a small, easy, high-participation tax to resist → phone tax resistance

So what’s the deal with this phone tax resistance thing?

The phone tax is a 3% federal excise tax on your phone bill. Your bill is probably itemized in such a way that you can see exactly how much you are being charged each month for this tax.

The tax has a long history, and one that is closely-associated with war, which is one reason why war tax resisters in particular have targeted this excise tax for their protest. It was first enacted in to help finance the Spanish-American War, then was repealed after that war. It came back to life in the War Tax Revenue Act of , then died again after World War Ⅰ. It came back again and climbed to a 25% charge on long distance and a 15% charge on local calls during World War Ⅱ and the Korean War. , the tax started to wither away, but then when the Vietnam War started to hit the budget, the phone tax came back with a vengeance. In , Congress abandoned the ritual of continually extending and reënacting this “temporary” tax and made it permanent.

Unlike some taxes and fees, where the revenue collected is earmarked for a particular program, the phone tax money goes straight into the general fund just like your income tax.

The phone company is responsible for collecting this tax, but you as the phone user are responsible for paying it, and the IRS is responsible for enforcing this. I mention this technicality because it’s important in understanding the mechanics of resisting this tax.

To resist the federal phone tax, you simply look up the amount of the tax on your phone bill, deduct that amount from your payment, and (importantly) enclose a note with your check explaining what you have deducted and why. If you don’t do the last step, the phone company will just assume you’ve shorted them on your check. In fact, they’re likely to do this anyway, so prepare to have to explain yourself to somebody at the billing center at some point.

You do not owe this money to the phone company, and they should not threaten to cut off service for refusing to pay it. The law says you owe the money to the IRS, and the phone company is merely the middleman. Federal regulations are quite clear on this point:

If the person from whom the tax is required to be collected refuses to pay it…, the collecting agent is required to report to the district director the name and address of that person, the nature of the facility provided or service rendered, the amount paid [etc.] Upon receipt of this information the district director will proceed against the person to whom the facilities were provided or the services rendered to assert the amount of tax due…

That said, your long distance company is free to drop you if it doesn’t want to deal with the hassle or just doesn’t like your politics. Some phone companies, like Working Assets Long Distance and AT&T, have formal processes that they make available to their customers for opting out of the tax. Other companies would rather just pretend that this sort of thing doesn’t happen, and handle it on a more ad hoc basis. Some phone companies will even delete the line item from your bills and just report you to the IRS as a perpetual excise tax evader.

So what good does it do? It’s a practical protest, in that it actually withholds money from the government. The feds pull in about $6 billion a year from this tax. That said, the amount you pay is typically very small, so this is mostly a symbolic protest. Some people in the war tax resistance movement advocate it as a “first step” and a way to get more people interested in tax resistance. It’s pretty much risk-free these days. The IRS almost never goes after anyone for refusal to pay this tax. This, of course, could change.

Addendum: In , the US Congress voted to repeal the phone tax, but then-president Bill Clinton vetoed the bill.

David Lazarus at the San Francisco Chronicle did a nice piece on phone tax resistance today.

At the popular liberal-leaning blog Political Animal (associated with Washington Monthly), a columnist takes note of one of the recent news articles about phone tax resistance.

There’s really not much new content there, but the article has generated a healthy set of comments from people who aren’t very familiar with phone tax resistance, or with war tax resistance in general, and so it gives a good glimpse at the attitudes towards and misconceptions about war tax resistance that can be found in liberals who haven’t put much thought into the idea before.

The confusion between the federal telephone excise tax and the federal universal service fee is one that the phone tax resistance advocates should be sure to address. If people think that phone tax resisters are taking money away from a federal program to help the blind, deaf and disabled because they have a grudge with the government about the war, that won’t play well at all.

Phone tax resistance went mainstream , with Donald Luskin of Smartmoney.com calling the federal telephone excise tax “The Tax Worth Dodging”:

Want to save some money on your taxes? It turns out there’s a tax you may be able to simply stop paying. And if you don’t want to be that aggressive about it, just be patient — the tax is arguably illegal, and someday you’ll probably get a refund as part of one of the largest class-action suits in history.

He’s talking about the flat-rate long distance loophole I’ve discussed here before (most recently ). I think he’s being a little optimistic about the likelihood that the recently-filed class-action lawsuit will really make the government cough up all of that money — if the government starts to lose the game, it can always just change the rules.

The unlikely vanguard of the antitax movement is antiwar activists who see not paying the tax as one way to cut off the money that pays for the war in Iraq. They’re not too worried about being dragged off to jail for nonpayment, either. They see what they’re doing as a classic act of civil disobedience. According to the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, nonpayment is “relatively risk-free because the amounts are small.”

The Committee also says your phone company isn’t likely to cut off your service if you don’t pay the tax portion of your bill. They claim, “IRS regulations… clearly state that the phone company is supposed to collect the tax, but has no power to enforce collection… Some companies have established special billing accommodations for war tax resisters and will provide you with a form.”

Of course you don’t have to be a war protestor to want to save a few bucks on taxes every month. So maybe you should just call your phone company and tell them you’re not going to pay the excise tax anymore. Your phone company may be very happy to help.

Luskin goes on to report on the class-action lawsuit seeking $9 billion in refunds from the IRS. “The reason why the suit isn’t seeking even more,” Luskin says, ”is that there is a three-year statute of limitations on IRS refund claims. According to attorney Jim Glass, whose blog has been providing the best ongoing coverage of this story, you can stop the clock on the statute of limitations by filing a ‘protective refund claim’ for the past three years of taxes you’ve paid. Your tax preparer can help you do that easily.”

, New York’s Sen. Charles Schumer publicly called for the IRS to make refunds to all cellphone users. In a press conference , Schumer said, “The courts have now made it crystal clear that this tax is illegal, and yet the IRS continues to put it on everybody’s cellphone bill.”

Liberal Democrat Schumer isn’t normally a friend of tax cuts. But for this one, an open-and-shut IRS abuse which hits so many consumers right in the pocket book, he’s making an exception. “The IRS asks all of us not to violate the law,” Schumer said. “Well, now we’re asking them the same.”

Who knew? Liberals supporting tax cuts! War protesters hand-in-hand with big business! Apparently there’s one thing that can still unite Americans — outrage over an unfair and illegal tax. This could be the Boston Tea Party all over again.

Ted Roberts writes at the Ludwig von Mises Institute about the phone tax — “The War Tax That Never Went Away”:

We Americans are far too generous with Uncle Sam. Why do we yield to his pleas for funds so readily? He’s the spendthrift uncle who’s flat broke, but still likes to dress well and drive a Mercedes to his bankruptcy hearing. So, he drops by at suppertime, has a free meal, and hits you up for a hundred or so.

I wrote up some of my impressions of of ’s NWTRCC meeting in Las Vegas.

I took notes on-and-off through and I’ll write up those things I remember that might be of interest.

The New Pamphlet I’ve Been Working On

I was at the meeting in part to present a first draft of a new edition of NWTRCC’s “Practical War Tax Resistance” pamphlet #5 on low-income / simple-living as a war tax resistance technique. On night we distributed a few copies of this draft and over the course of I had a chance to sit down with a number of people and listen to their suggestions for improvement. (If you would like to review the document, send me email and I’ll send you a copy of the draft.) I’m aiming to have a final draft ready in , and with any luck we’ll have our new edition back from the press .

Not Much Evidence of a Tax Resistance Groundswell

Despite the growing anti-war sentiment in the country, there has been no evidence of a corresponding groundswell of interest in war tax resistance. For the most part, people reported that their local groups were treading water in terms of membership and outreach. There was more resignation than frustration expressed on this point, as most of us have become used to being, as we’d characterize it anyway, well ahead of the curve on this. Many people also expressed that they often hear about lone-wolf tax resisters who for whatever reason never feel the need to align themselves with tax resistance organizations, so that the actual number of tax resisters is hard to gauge.

Survey in Progress

, NWTRCC started conducting a survey, informally, often at rallies, protests, and other activist events, to get a feel for what makes people choose or avoid tax resistance, and to do some concept testing of a possible large-scale one-year tax resistance campaign.

Of the few hundred people who have responded to the survey thus far, 47% are not doing any tax resistance now, and of that group, 61% would “consider participating in a one-year commitment to refuse a portion of your federal income taxes and redirect your taxes to a humanitarian cause if thousands joined you publicly” on a particular date.

All this sounds pretty good, and we plan to continue the survey , but even if we find a potential for this sort of tax resistance avalanche, NWTRCC alone doesn’t really have the resources to organize and launch it. My hope is that we can package these persuasive survey results along with offers of our own specialized expertise and sell the idea of such a campaign to one of the larger national anti-war groups who could launch a campaign like this in a heartbeat if they cared to. My own feeling is that this sort of thing is exactly the sort of sustained nationwide civil disobedience campaign the peace movement has been looking for; they just don’t know it yet.

Phone Tax Resistance Going Out of Style

Phone tax resistance has been a useful way of getting potential resisters to take the first step. It’s pretty easy to do, and the risks are very low, and so many tax resisters have gotten their feet wet in this way. However the proliferation of phone companies and phone plans, and the recent abolition of the phone tax on long-distance, have muddied the waters a bit. There’s a pretty good chance that the excise tax on local service is on the way to the trash heap as well, so NWTRCC has begun to deemphasize phone tax resistance and the Hang Up On War campaign. We’re still looking for the next “gateway” resistance tactic — any ideas?

Dan Jenkins Tries to Get the Courts to Recognize COMT

Briefly mentioned was Daniel Jenkins’s court appeal in which he is asserting a right to conscientious objection to military taxation under the 1st Amendment and 9th Amendment to the Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The case strikes me as a long shot, but Jenkins seems to be putting a lot of good work into it, and his research into conscientious objection in early American law is interesting.

Better Video Offerings, and a Contest

Some folks are trying to improve NWTRCC’s multimedia educational and persuasive offerings. This is a good thing (our local tax resistance group still uses a slide show made during the Reagan administration, complete with a tape recording that goes “beep” when you’re supposed to flip to the next slide). Alas, I was in a different workshop when this was being discussed, so I didn’t learn as much about this as I could have, but the project also includes a video contest — anyone can enter by producing a short video on the topic of war tax resistance — with cash prizes for the winning entries. I’ll post more details on The Picket Line when the contest officially launches .

A New Flyer on W-4 Resistance

NWTRCC’s produced a new flyer on W-4 resistance (adjusting the withholding allowances on your W-4 form so that your employer sends less of your paycheck to the IRS) that may be helpful to folks who would like to resist their income tax but who find themselves with nothing but a refund to resist when April 15th comes around.

Tax Resisters and Student Financial Aid

A preliminary fact sheet was distributed that covers the implications for war tax resisters who are participating in student financial aid programs, or whose children are. It’s not ready for publication just yet, but looks like it will be a useful resource when the time comes.

A Report from the International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns

We also got to read Larry Rosenwald’s report back from the International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns which was held in Woltersdorf, Germany . He was struck by the differences between the tax resistance movement in the United States and its counterparts in the rest of the world (Europe in particular).

In Europe, the movement is focused more on using the law and the courts (national and international) to legalize some form of conscientious objection to military taxation, and less focused on civil disobedience and forms of extralegal conscientious objection. They find it confusing that in the United States there’s both a Peace Tax Fund campaign and an organized war tax resistance movement.

Google is starting to do for newspaper archives what it has been doing for books: putting scanned images on-line and making them text-searchable. Hooray for Google, says I.

Here are a few articles I found while browsing around today:

A couple of pieces regarding a reconstruction-era dispute over the legitimacy of the Louisiana state government (in which tax resistance played a role):

Some pieces from the tax resistance campaign for women’s suffrage:

More on the ostensibly voluntary “liberty bonds” in the United States during World War Ⅰ:

Gandhi’s campaign for Indian independence:

Miscellaneous war tax resistance articles:

Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen’s war tax resistance:

Miscellaneous other articles of note:

  • Finding Out Who ‘Really’ Spends Your Tax Money St. Petersburg Times (a conservative tax revolt group working with war tax resisters & Noam Chomsky)
  • Washington [D.C.] Official Urges Tax Refusal to Push Statehood The New York Times (“Walter E. Fauntroy, the District of Columbia’s Delegate to Congress, has urged residents here not to pay their Federal taxes until Congress makes Washington the 51st state.”
  • Israelis Yield West Bank Taxation and Health to Palestinians The New York Times

    [C]ollection will be a formidable challenge after years in which taxes were identified by Palestinians with foreign occupation.

    Tax resistance is strong in the territories. It spread during a seven-year uprising against Israeli rule, when Palestinians working in the tax department resigned. According to Israeli estimates, only 20 percent of Palestinians taxed in the West Bank met their payments in 1993, when tax revenues totalled some $90 million.

    The Palestinian Authority has already run into difficulties collecting taxes in Gaza and Jericho, and it has published appeals in recent weeks urging tax payment as a national duty. Outside of Jericho, it has no police powers in the West Bank, and the legal system there remains under Israeli control.

    “Taxes are the dowry of independence and the key to democracy,” said Atef Alawneh, director general of the Palestinian finance department, at the ceremony today in Ramallah.

    “Nonpayment of taxes under occupation was a national struggle worthy of praise,” he added. “Now it is 180 degrees different. Now delay in paying means a delay in building the Palestinian state.”

    Zuhdi Nashashibi, the finance minister in the Palestinian Authority, said he was confident Palestinians would now “hurry to pay” their taxes.

    Mr. Alawneh argued that collection by Palestinians would be more effective because it would lack the coercion of military occupation, would extend to places the Israelis were unable to reach because of security concerns, and would create new revenue sources. The tax authorities will not use force, he said, but will rely instead on friendly persuasion and public goodwill.

Remember what this sort of thing used to be like? You’d get yourself down to the library, and then you’d look through each volume of the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature or whatever, one at a time, hoping that what you were looking for was among the things the editors of that guide felt was worth indexing. Then with luck, some of what you were looking for was available in bound volumes, microfilm, or microfiche on-site (elsewise you could always try for inter-library loan, but that might take a couple of weeks). In the case of the first, you could find it on the shelves or ask the reference librarian, and then thumb through the pages, but in the case of the latter two, you’d have to haul your film over to a reader (one that wasn’t broken or occupied) and then spend five minutes or so just trying to locate the pages you were interested in. Then, if it turned out to be good, you’d have to scribble things down or drop in some coin for a barely-legible photocopy.

I like the future.

Today, it’s almost embarrassing how little attention the government pays to war tax resisters. We willfully refuse to pay, and encourage and counsel others to do so, and not only does the government not persecute us as the traitorous subversives we’re trying so hard to be, but often they never even get around to coming after us as simple tax evaders either.

It hasn’t always been this way. During the Vietnam War, the government took war tax resistance very seriously, and went to great pains to stamp it out.

Here’s a note that appeared in a publication from The Atlanta Workshop in Nonviolence:

IRS Unleashed

For some time, AWIN has refused to pay the 10% excise tax on phone calls. In this tax was initiated for the sole purpose of subsidizing the cost of the war in Vietnam. It is one of the few taxes that is ear marked specifically for the continuation of the war in Indochina. (Paying the telephone tax is the next best thing to being there yourself).

In the past, the procedure for collecting the tax has been simply to go to our bank and withdraw the amount of delinquent tax payment from our account.

It seems that a new procedure has been initiated.

On , two agents from the IRS wandered into the office looking for Denis Adelsburger. I told them that Denis wasn’t in and they flashed their ID’s and presented a bill for $5.50 in back taxes. They said they were told to stop war tax resistance — especially the refusal to pay the telephone tax — because tax resistance is “getting out of hand” and that they would shut us down if they had to. This is an indication that there are more people than we imagined involved in war tax resistance.

I explained that I couldn’t make the decision about paying the tax myself, and they would have to wait until our next meeting where we would make a collective decision and they could check later to find out what we would do. However, the agents had a different idea about handling the situation and said that if I didn’t give them the $5.50 immediately they would put a government lien on the Workshop, put a lock on the door, put an IRS seal on the lock, and auction the Workshop’s property.

I checked with a lawyer, and sure enough, the IRS has what amounts to a blank check from the government when it comes to official extortion. We weren’t prepared to go without an office for a month (it takes awhile to arrange for the auction), so I gave them the money.

They wanted to know where we bank, but I refused to tell them. They wanted to know why we were refusing to pay the tax and I gave them a leaflet on telephone tax resistance and they left.

I’m not sure who won the first round. We weren’t prepared to go without an office (an oversight we should correct) and they got the money. However, it probably cost more than $5.50 to collect the tax. At any rate, the tax collector had to do his job — collect taxes.

The Progressive, in , carried an article from Milton Mayer about tax resistance:

If You Want Mylai, Buy It

Young men are a dime a dozen. What the Army wants is a dime to buy a dozen young men with.

Either give them the dime or don’t give them the dime — but stop asking, “What can an old man do?”

April 15 is the date. April 15 is the date you turn over a quarter of your income to Behemoth, and half to three-quarters of what you turn over goes to the Army to buy a dozen young men to populate (and depopulate) Perforation Paddy. “I sent them a good boy,” said Private Meadlo’s mother after Mylai, “and they made him a murderer.”

If you want it, buy it. If you don’t, don’t. But stop asking, “What can an old man do?”

If, like me, you had a good year and made more than $625 in , the Internal Revenue Act requires you to file an income tax return. If you refuse (rather than evade) the requirement to file, you are still a felon, but you should notify Behemoth and all its minions lest you be hanged for the wrong reason. (The Act simply punishes “failure to file” and “failure to pay”.) I shouldn’t refuse to file, myself, but better men than I have taken the position that filing is more than a formality; the best of them, A.J. Muste, always filed an appropriately marked Bible instead of a return.

So, too, as the antics proceed, you will be asked (unless you have a readily attachable pay-check) where you stash your money so that Behemoth’s little boys in blue can go and get it. Here again I should comply, myself, lest Behemoth get the impression that I am playing a cat-and-mouse (or mouse-and-cat) game. But this decision, too, like whether or not to file a return, is probably a matter of temperament.

The purpose of taxation is to enable people collectively to buy what they want. Sometimes when some of them want a little something special and some of them don’t — for instance, throughways financed by tolls — those who want them pay for them and those who don’t want them don’t. But Mylai is financed by the general fund of the Treasury, on the assumption that everybody wants Mylai. Behemoth has no way of knowing that the assumption is false unless those who don’t want it refuse to buy it. A vote for Nixon (or Humphrey) or Johnson (or Goldwater) is a vote for Mylai. (“It was murder. We were shooting into houses and at people — running or standing, doing nothing.” — Sergeant Charles Hutts.)

The nation-state is not merely fallible; it is, as every Judeo-Christian (or Christeo-Judean) schoolboy knows, unholy because it divides the family of man into we and they. Only men are, or may be, holy in a world of nation-states, and they dare not perform an unholy act to preserve such an institution. Still the conscientious tax refuser is a conscientious citizen of the nation-state. He would gladly pay his taxes for the things all the people in it (including him) want. In Norway (in this respect the only even halfway civilized country in the world) the conscientious citizen may have his tax payment segregated for the support of the United Nations if he does not want to buy Mylai.

Bucking always for salvation, the conscientious citizen is nevertheless up against some serious objections to his refusal to send a dozen young men to the edge of the ditch in Mylai. The objections appear to be six in number:

Objection 1: The legal penalty of five years in stir and/or a ten-thousand-dollar fine. The U.S. Government has not yet pressed for the penalty in any case of tax refusal that I know of — partly, I suppose, because Behemoth does not know what to do about conscience, partly because the use of force, violence, and other lawful means of penalizing conscientious people always increases their number. (Better pretend they’re not there — up to a point.)

But the number is increasing anyway, and it is not unlikely that it is approaching that point. When it is confident that it has got its Haynsworth-Carswell Court, Behemoth may feel constrained some one of these days to press for the penalty. The tax refusal movement, for twenty years amorphous, is now coordinated by War Tax Resistance, whose address, I am reliably informed, is 339 Lafayette Street, New York, N.Y. 10017, and whose telephone number (212‒477‒2970) was discovered in the Manhattan telephone directory by a task force of forty FBI agents led personally by J. Edgar Hoover. Desperado Bradford Lyttle of WTR reports 181 active refusal centers across the country and estimates 15,000 refusers in .

Answer to Objection 1: There are worse things than losing five years and/or ten thousand dollars, and Mylai is one of them.

Objection 2: The loss of job or reputation. Ten years ago (even five) many tax refusers lost jobs (or failed to get them) as a consequence of the invariable FBI “inquiry.” That’s less likely (but only less likely) now. Loss of reputation, on the other hand, has never appeared to be consequential; I have never known anybody to the left of Orange County, California, who thought that a tax refuser was anything worse than crazy, and even in Orange County they hate taxes.

Answer to Objection 2: There are worse things than losing a job (though that is easier for a light-fingered clown like me to say than it is for an honest workingman).

We proceed now from the nuts-and-bolts to the nitty-gritty, as follows:

Objection 3: Tax refusal is ineffective because “they” get the money anyway (by force, violence, or other lawful means).

Answer to Objection 3: True, true; but, then, so is everything else ineffective (including two victorious world wars to save the world for democracy). To man, all things are impossible. If whatever you do is ineffective, you might as well buck for salvation and do what is right.

Objection 4: Tax refusal is illogical: If you refuse to pay half your income tax, half of what you do pay will be used for Mylai, as will more than the other half (since Behemoth, when it seizes the other half by force, violence, and other lawful means will also seize twelve per cent per annum interest on it).

Answer to Objection 4: This is true only if logic is a brance of effectiveness — and even then it is only half true. Behemoth will lose money on the deal because it will have to spend more to collect it than it gets. In one instance I know of, where the refuser took his case “on up,” it must have cost $25,000 in salaries and travel expenses of Treasury and FBI dicks, district attorneys, assistant attorneys-general, judges, and court attachés to collect and hold on to $32.27 (and the refuser took his own expenses in the case as a tax deduction). It is true, none the less, that in the end Behemoth will get all the money it wants for Mylai, by raising this tax rate if necessary.

But there is another, and more significant, logic: the logic of symbolism (not to be confused with symbolic logic). The only action a man can take against the nation-state is symbolic. He can not prevent its depredations but only repudiate them persistently in the hope of (a) salvation and (b) the sympathetic infection of his fellow-citizens. It is not logical symbolically (for instance) to bomb the ROTC building, because people sympathize with the victim of a bombing, and, besides, Behemoth has all the ROTC buildings it wants and is always eager to build new ones and add the building costs to its Gross National Product billboard. (The Army doesn’t need ROTC buildings or ROTC except as a symbol of militarism; no European army would dare ask a university to disgrace itself by letting its students be marched around the premises.) What is logical symbolically is for students to sit nonviolently in front of the ROTC building and be hauled violently away. Tax refusal is logical symbolically.

Objection 5: Tax refusal is a disavowal of representative government.

Answer to Objection 5: It is, if, and only if, by representative government is meant majoritarianism and not representation at all. If you are an American citizen and you do not want Mylai and won’t buy it, you are not represented. The Congressmen (including the Senators) who deplore Mylai all buy it, without exception. The last one who wouldn’t was Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, who voted all alone against the second go-around of the War to Make the World Safe for Democracy. The conscientious citizen who does not want Mylai and will not buy it is driven to self-government by the failure of representative government to represent him.

Objection 6: Tax refusal is anarchy, and anarchy is the worst thing that can befall society.

Answer to Objection 6: Anarchy is not the worst thing that can befall a society; it is the second worst. The worst is tyranny, and the worst tyranny is self-evidently that which requires the innocent to kill the innocent. (“I love women. I love children, too. I love people.” — Lt. William L. Calley.) He who does not want and will not buy tyranny must, like George Washington, take his chances on anarchy.

So hopelessly unholy is the nation-state that it drives the conscientious citizen to anarchy and then accuses him of driving it to anarchy when he tries to disengage himself from its tyranny. In the interesting case of the $32.27 cited above, Attorney Francis Heisler was arguing for the refuser before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and one of the judges said to him: “Counsel, is your client aware that if this Court holds in his behalf the Court itself will be laying the axe to the root of all established government?” “I think he is, your honor,” Attorney Heisler replied.

The objections considered, we proceed to the obstacles. There is only one that appears to be insuperable: withholding, the worst crime ever committed against liberty by a good man. When Beardsley Ruml thought up “pay-as-you-go,” everybody cheered except the company bosses who had to do the detestable New Deal’s detestable bookkeeping for it. (Anybody remember when the Connecticut manufacturer, Vivian Kellems, led the Old Guard attack on Social Security by refusing to make the employe deductions?) Under withholding, most of the people who don’t want to buy Mylai have already had it bought for them by April 15. They can sue to recover — some have — but nobody has made it to the Supreme Court yet. Others reduce or eliminate the withholding by claiming excess dependents (the whole population of Vietnam, for instance) in calculating their estimated tax. Again, I suppose, a matter of temperament, and mine doesn’t happen to run that cat-and-mouse way — though their cause is just, and we have indeed made the whole population of Vietnam our dependents.

A few religious organizations — not the churches, of course — have refused to withhold the tax from the pay of their employes who do not want to buy Mylai. The most respectable of them is the American Friends Service Committee, with which I confess to being associated. (Personally leading a task force of eighty FBI agents, J. Edgar Hoover discovered the association by looking in the Philadelphia telephone directory, so there is no point in my denying it.) But the AFSC has a task force of eighty Philadelphia lawyers, and one of these years a test case will go to Washington. Meanwhile, however, the conscientious citizen who waits for a test case will go on buying Mylai until the whole of Vietnam is a ditch.

A few years ago a new form of refusal got rolling, available to people trapped by withholding. This was non-payment of the telephone tax (which goes into the general Treasury), on the ground that Chairman Mills of the House Ways and Means Committee had argued its necessity for continuance of the war against Mylai. I’m uneasy about the telephone tax refusal myself; again, I suppose, a matter of temperament. There seem to me to be two visible arguments, and one invisible, against it.

First, I can not bring myself either to do or not to do anything on the bases that what a Congressman says is true. And second, it seems to me that if you are going to fight City Hall you should go for the jugular. The income tax is the jugular. The telephone tax is one of those petty excises, no more significant fiscally, and no more to be singled out, Congressman Mills to the contrary notwithstanding, than the whiskey, movie, or airplane tax.

But the invisible, base-of-the-iceberg, stem-of-the-martini-cherry argument for paying the phone tax is, I’m afraid, one of craven convenience. If Behemoth were to put me in jail for five years for income tax refusal, I’d refuse to pay my telephone tax instantly. But living where and how I do, running a little back-bedroom sweatshop out in the country, I can’t make it very well (still worse, very sick) without a telephone. Discussing telephone tax refusal with some of my anarchist friends, I have discovered that some of them were for it because they didn’t feel quite up to going to the mat on the income tax, and still others because they understood that the telephone company, like Vivian Kellems, was no more enthusiastic about collecting the Mylai tax than they were about paying it and would not jerk the phone out for non-payment of the tax.

This last seemed to me to be a misreading of history. Unlike Vivian Kellems and the American Friends Service Committee — Right and Left united across the years by the mounting terror of the Middle — the telephone company has no principle except money; and Behemoth’s agent, the Federal Communications Commission, is where the money is. In the Communist countries like Spain and Greece and, come to think of it, every other country in the world, the post office operates the telephone and telegraph systems, whose profits subsidize the carrying of the mails; in the only truly free country in the free world the money-losing branch of the communications system is communized and the money-making branches are Government-protected private monopolies.

But telephone tax refusal caught on until, according to the calculation of War Tax Resistance, there are now more than 100,000 practitioners of it. For a couple of years nobody did anything about them. But reports have begun to filter in of Government agents swarming over refusers and, more ominously, of the jerking of telephones by the company on behalf of its protector, the Government. As the reports spread it may be anticipated that there will be a falling-away of telephone tax anarchists, as, I suppose, there will be of income tax anarchists when Behemoth decides that they are getting to be too much of a nuisance and starts throwing them into the pokey.

Until that time the only obstacle (not objection) to income tax refusal, other than withholding, is the harassment it entails. The smart way to live alongside Behemoth is not to attract his attention, and whoever attracts his attention is in for it. Twenty years ago he was paying his harassers $40 a day. It must be $80 now, or $100; there is nothing niggardly about Behemoth.

He sends two kinds of harassers around. The first is a ritualistic cut-out character whom it’s a positive pleasure to be harassed by. He is the warm handclasp type, around thirty-five and running to pudge from running around in his down-payment Impala. He wants to have a little talk with you.

“Homyonum’s the name, Mr. Murgatroid, from the Internal Revenue Service.”

(Warm handclasp.)

“Sit down, Homyonum, sit down, and tell me what I can do for you.”

“To be perfectly frank, Mr. Murgatroid, I think that I may be able to do something for you.”

“Well, now, Homyonum, that is nice — I never expected the Internal Revenue Service to do something for me. Do sit down and have a nice glass tea.”

(He will, and he does.)

“Mr. Murgatroid, we of the Treasury Department are actually your agents. We are here to help you.”

“How sweet of you, Homyonum. One lump or two?” (Two.)

“Mr. Murgatroid, I want you to know that I respect your position, but I think you are ill-advised to refuse to pay your income tax.”

“Homyonum, my boy, your advice is ill. Milk? Lemon?” (Milk.)

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Murgatroid?”

“Not at all, and do let me tell you why your advice is ill. If my position is, as you say, respectable, then yours is not, since the two positions are contradictory. Do you follow me?”

“I —.”

“What I am trying to tell you, Homyonum, since you respect my position, is that you are trying to tell me that I ought not to pay my income tax and neither ought you. You do want to be respectable, don’t you?”

A little more of this standoff, a warm handclasp, and Homyonum is gone wherever such people go nights and is seen no more. He makes his report, the report spends two or three months going through channels, and then Behemoth hands one of his judges a distraint warrant to sign and sends one of his blue-boys around to attach your unattached property (money in the bank, wages coming in, shoes off your feet) in the amount in which you are delinquent in buying Mylai.

The other kind of harasser is another glass tea entirely. He is tall, sallow, dour, ulcerated: a certified public accountant who doesn’t know anything about your income tax refusal (he says), but has been sent to audit your return. “I suppose,” he says, “that your name came up on a spot check. Of course you have all your records and a receipt for each expenditure — if I may just look at them.” At the end of two weeks, at $40, $80, or $100 a day, reducing the Gross National Product by that much, he has discovered that you owe Behemoth $1.14 (or Behemoth owes you $1.14; that’s not the point of it at all) and you and your back-bedroom are a shambles.

He turns up the next year, on the dot, to do it all over again, and then you know he is lying about the spot check (and even he beginst to suspect he is). Meanwhile, he has converted you into a fox. You spend half your life (at $40, $20, or $10 a day) keeping records of your expenditures. You spend the other half of your life like the mouse you were not going to play in the cat-and-mouse game, scurrying for loopholes down which you can hurry. You end up beating your wife, cursing your children, and, of course, kicking the cat. And that, not the $1.14, is the point of it. If Behemoth can make your life unbearable, you will buy Mylai.

It is the very devil to be harassed, but what did you expect — a valentine from Mrs. Mitchell? It’s like (or even as) Give-’Em-Hell-Harry used to say: If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. You harass them, and they harass you back, and they’ve got the big battalions on their side. (You know Whom you’ve got on yours.)

And you harass them back and they harass you back. Who said ineffective? Behemoth has the whole country, the whole world, computerized to take care of everything — everything but one man who says, No, sir, instead of Yes, sir. It takes one (count ’em, one) man to obstruct the machine by introducing the human element into it. The grind-organ monkey is suddenly a monkey-wrench. I put it to you: What more can an old man do? The machine has not been built yet, and won’t be, that does not come down with the gripes while it digests a human being.

Mind you, I am not advocating income tax refusal; not I. For all I know the advocacy itself constitutes a felony, especially if it creates a clear and present danger that the Army won’t be able to buy a dozen young men with machine guns at the edge of the ditch in Mylai. Operating on a very low and cautious level, I say unto you only, Give them the dime or don’t give them the dime — but don’t ask, “What can an old man do?” If you want Mylai, buy it; if you don’t want it, don’t. That’s the free enterprise system, and do you believe in the free enterprise system or are you some kind of a Communist?

Operating on the highest level of all, under a law that even the Supreme Court (Girouard, etc.) admits is higher than the Internal Revenue Act, Jesus Christ was asked by the Pharisees whose the tribute money was, and you know what he said and you know that he said it perceiving their wickedness. (Matt. 22:18.) If you have to choose between Christ and the Pharisee who, like the Pharisee of old, occupies the highest seat in the Temple, you are in a tight spot. I’d play it safe myself: Better to do time than eternity.

A biographical note accompanying the article says that “Mr. Mayer began his own tax refusal adventures more than twenty years ago. (He is the anti-hero of the $32.27 case he cites in this article.)”

From the Victoria Advocate:

Student Loses Car For Not Paying Tax

Austin, Tex. (AP) — Arnold Cuba, who lost his car to tax men after he refused to pay a telephone charge in protest against the Indochina War, says he will try to buy the car back at a public auction.

Cuba, a University of Texas junior, said Direct Action, the antiwar group that encouraged him not to pay the tax, also is going to try to raise money to get the car back.

Cuba returned from classes last Wednesday to find his yellow Volkswagen missing and a notice from the Internal Revenue Service that his car — which he bought new for $2,400 — had been taken because he refused to pay a $2.44 telephone tax.

The bill has now grown to $5.53, and he also owes $29.50 for hauling and storage of the car and said he will be charged for other “incidental” fees by the IRS.

An IRS spokesman said the car will be sold at public austin [sic], and the $2.44 will be deducted from the amount paid for the car and the remainder given to Cuba.

If Cuba’s bid is the highest, however, he will get the car back by just paying the $2.44 and fees.

“I plan to bid what I think it is worth… if someone else bids higher, I will make a profit,” Cuba said.

Do you have Verizon as your telephone service provider? Do you want to resist the federal excise tax on phone service? Then you’ll probably be interested in Ed Agro’s write-up of how to navigate the Verizon bureaucracy so that they’ll credit your bill for the resisted tax.

Ed also turned me on to a series of articles on the Engaging Peace blog concerning moral engagement and moral disengagement:

, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer did a write-up on phone tax resistance as a form of war tax resistance:

Many refuse to pay “war tax” on phone bill

Providers go along; IRS frowns, but does little

by M.L. Lyke

For Seattle peace activist Bert Sacks, the monthly act of resistance adds up to only 59 cents. Symbolically, however, refusing to pay the “war tax” on his Qwest phone bill represents a pocketbook protest against what he sees as misuse of U.S. military power.

“I object to the U.S. government policy of using famine and epidemic as tools against civilian populations. That’s wrong,” says the retired engineer, who has fought for a decade to get economic sanctions against Iraq lifted.

Sacks is one of thousands of Americans believed to be refusing to pay the federal taxes attached to their monthly phone bills — money that helps fund military operations overseas.

Many are taking the step as a protest against the war in Iraq. And in many cases, the phone companies are helping them do it.

“We oppose the policies of ‘pre-emptive war’ and an ‘endless’ war on terrorism, which led to the Iraq war, which violate human rights and international law, and which have cost us hundreds of billions of dollars while our states and cities face unprecedented deficits, and cutbacks of vital services and programs,” reads the statement on a Web site called hanguponwar.org.

Although many activists have been withholding the phone tax since the Vietnam War, the act of disobedience is making headlines again as more Americans began to question the rationale for the Iraq war. A New York Times/CBS News Poll released this week shows that 52 percent of Americans believe that the Bush administration intentionally misled the public when its officials made the case for war.

The so-called tax resisters risk the wrath of the Internal Revenue Service. Yet that hasn’t stopped them. Sacks said he has never been contacted about it, and he is not worried he will be. “After all, I’ve refused to pay a $10,000 fine, still in court now,” he said.

Sacks was fined $10,000 for violating economic sanctions against Iraq by taking $40,000 worth of medicine to help suffering children there.

Ruth Benn, who runs the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee in New York, said it is impossible to know for sure how many people are participating in the grass-roots movement.

“Before the war started, when the peace movement was really big, there was quite a bit of interest. Now it’s picking up again,” Benn said.

She said communications received by her organization and discussions with other protest coordinators suggest that at least 10,000 people nationwide are withholding federal excise tax payments because of the war.

“This is civil disobedience, and you can be at risk,” Benn, 53, said. “But the government listens when it involves money. This is a good way to get their attention.”

As it turns out, most phone companies aren’t shedding any tears over missed federal excise tax payments. It’s not that they sympathize with protesters’ feelings about the war. They just don’t like the tax.

Qwest Communications International Inc., which provides local phone service to most of the Seattle area, thinks the excise tax is “a silly tax that should go away,” company spokeswoman Shasha Richardson said.

The Denver-based company said it adjusts customers’ bills to remove the excise tax. It then complies with IRS Publication No. 510, Richardson said.

That publication requires providers of local, toll or private communications services to impose and collect a 3 percent tax on services rendered. If customers fail to pay it, the companies must give the IRS a list of those customers’ names and addresses, the services provided, the dates and the amounts the customers owed.

Some phone companies may repeatedly insist that the money is due. Others, such as Qwest, make it easy for the protester.

“We believe this is an illegal tax, and we would support any legislation that repeals it,” said John Britton, a spokesman for AT&T.

He said AT&T will routinely eliminate federal excise taxes from customers’ monthly bills if asked to do so in writing.

“We’ll go into our system and make an adjustment,” Britton said. “But we will have to report you to the government.”

For its part, Cingular Wireless sends a letter to tax-resisting customers agreeing that the federal excise tax is “antiquated and discriminatory” and that it has “has far outlived its purpose.”

“Please be aware, however,” Cingular’s letter warns, “that as required by law, Cingular Wireless will report your non-payment, and provide your name, address, amount of tax written off to the IRS.”

Cingular, MCI and Verizon Wireless all say they adjust customers’ monthly bills to write off the federal excise tax on a regular basis.

Tax resisters such as Benn advise would-be protesters to include a note with their phone payments explaining why they are not paying the tax. The note will make clear to the phone company what’s happening and, in most cases, deter the carrier from cutting off one’s service.

The federal excise tax on phone usage dates back to . It was adopted under the War Revenue Act as a temporary levy to help fund the Spanish-American War. The war ended in . The tax was repealed in but didn’t stay gone for long. It was reintroduced during World War Ⅰ and was subsequently used to help fund the nation’s military activities during World War Ⅱ, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

The tax was given permanent status in . It raises about $6 billion a year for general federal expenditures, including military spending.

Aspects of the federal excise tax have been challenged in recent court decisions. Nevertheless, the IRS still insists that it be paid in full. Though phone companies are legally obligated to try to collect the federal excise tax, they have no enforcement power.

Because the amount of federal excise-tax money withheld per household is so small, it’s highly unusual nowadays for the IRS to go after people for not paying.

Jesse Weller, an IRS spokesman, said that failure to pay the federal excise tax on phone bills is against the law.

“There is no law that permits a person to refuse to file a federal tax return or pay a federal tax based on what the government spends on programs or policies they disagree with,” he said.

“This includes failure to pay the telephone excise tax based on moral, ethical or religious opposition to government spending for weapons programs or military operations,” he stressed.

Moreover, he insisted that the IRS is determined to identify all those who evade taxes “based on their opposition to government policies or programs.”

Weller said such people may be liable for all unpaid taxes, as well as interest and penalty fees.

Benn, at the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, said she hasn’t paid her federal excise tax since , and hasn’t heard a word in all that time from the IRS.

“It’s a pretty small thing,” she said of the amount she denies the government each month. “It won’t end the war all by itself. But perhaps it will help.”

From the Eugene Register-Guard:

Phones taxed for war

Within the last month, ABC news with Peter Jennings featured a woman concerned that the war tax imposed on telephone bills to raise money for the Spanish-American War is still in place. Originally 10 percent, it was dropped at the end of the Vietnam War, then reimposed the same day by the U.S. Congress. It was lowered by 1 percent a year for several years but has stood as a 3 percent federal excise tax for several years.

As a Quaker and pacifist, I have not paid my phone war tax for 30 years. When I pay my monthly phone bill, I always remind the phone company why I do not include the war tax so that the phone company can report that to the IRS.

The unpaid figure amounts to approximately $25 a year, which I always contribute to a recognized peace organization. To my great surprise, after ignoring this for all this time, the IRS recently sent me a bill for $7.21 for “unpaid phone taxes.” After several months a second bill arrived, this time with $1.01 added in “interest and penalty.”

I understand that phone companies hate to do this collecting for the IRS, since they get nothing for the service. According to the Oregon Community for War Tax Resistance, the tax has raised nearly $30 billion since 1966.

It is estimated that many thousands of phone users refuse to pay the 3 percent war tax on their bill. In effect, we are saying, “I cannot pay for killing.”

Constance P. Brown
Cottage Grove

This is from a series of pages on sources of federal war spending other than the federal income tax and strategies that war tax resisters can use to reduce their support of the government in these areas.

The Excise Tax on Local Telephone Service

Description

Federal taxes on telephone service were first instituted during the Spanish American War and have frequently been extended or reinstated to fund wars. For this reason, this tax has been a frequent target of war tax resisters. Today the tax only applies to local telephone calls that are billed distinctly from long-distance calls.

There are also a multitude of other taxes, fees, and charges that your phone service provider may tack on to your bill. Some of these are federal taxes, or represent the cost of government charges to the phone company that it passes on to the consumer. For an explanation of some of these charges, see: Understanding Your Telephone Bill.

Amount of the Tax

The tax is 3% of the phone bill for local service.

How Much the Government Collects

In recent years, the government was forced to refund a large amount of illegally-collected telephone excise tax (it had been collecting the tax on long-distance service without legal authorization). Because of this, it is difficult to determine from recent budget figures how much the government will collect from the legal remnant of this tax.

One estimate said that in the government expected to bring in $586 million from the federal excise tax on local telephone service.

How This Tax Is Collected

The end consumer (that is: you, if you’re the customer) is responsible for paying the tax, and the phone service provider is responsible for collecting it and passing it on to the government. If you refuse to pay the tax, the provider is also responsible for notifying the government of your refusal.

Are the Tax Receipts Earmarked?

This tax goes into the federal government’s general fund.

How Can You Resist This Tax?

These days, there are many phone plans that are effectively exempt from this federal excise tax. For example: If your phone plan does not distinguish between local and long-distance calls, but only charges you a fixed per-minute rate for all calls (or offers unlimited calling for a flat fee), you are not liable to pay this tax.

You may also choose to refuse to pay the tax: notifying the phone company of your refusal and deducting the amount of the tax from your phone bill. See How To Refuse the Phone Tax for details on how to do this.

See Also

  • Hang Up on War! — a site with much more thorough information on telephone war tax resistance

What happened between the time when Peacemakers was leading the war tax resistance charge and , when the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee was founded? There was another group, simply called “National War Tax Resistance,” that took the reins during the Vietnam War.

Here are some more excerpts from Robert Cooney’s and Helen Michalowski’s The Power of the People: Active Nonviolence in the United States about this transition period:

was, as the CNVA Bulletin declared, “The Year of Vietnam.” Picketing and sit-downs across the country marked the announcement of the first US bombing of North Vietnam on . These continued throughout the month and much effort was expended gathering signatures for a new appeal, the Declaration of Conscience, circulated by radical pacifist groups, urging civil disobedience. The Peacemakers group in Cincinnati organized a “No Tax for War in Vietnam Committee” calling for tax resistance. In a separate group — War Tax Resistance, coordinated by Bob Calvert — was established and at the time included some 200 local tax resistance centers across the country.

A No Tax for War in Vietnam Committee has issued a call for people to refuse to pay for the war in Vietnam. Those of the signers who have taxes due will refuse to pay them, or some portion of them. "Whichever method one uses," the signers said, "we are determined to withdraw as far as possible our support from the war."

From the newsletter of the Syracuse Peace Council

Nonpayment of war taxes, practiced by Quakers and others, disappeared as a pacifist testimony soon after the Civil War and Thoreau’s famous stand against the U.S. foray in Mexico. It first reappeared in World War Ⅱ when a few widely scattered individuals refused to pay federal taxes on the grounds that there was no way to prevent a significant part of their money from being used for military purposes. One resister, Ernest Bromley, was prosecuted and imprisoned for his refusal. Many others began to inform the Internal Revenue Service that payment violated their principles.

The enactment during World War Ⅱ of a measure which required employers to withhold taxes from their employees caused particular difficulties for pacifists and led to the formation of Peacemakers in . A Peacemaker committee promoted tax refusal and provided research, literature, action suggestions, and publicity for those in the tax resistance movement. Although many hundreds of people were refusing to pay income taxes during , the government prosecuted and imprisoned only six: James Otsuka of Indiana, Maurice McCrackin of Ohio, Eroseanna Robinson of Illinois, Walter Gormly of Iowa, Arthur Evans of Colorado, and Neil Haworth of Connecticut. These imprisonments and the seizure of a few cars and houses by the IRS, served to highlight the tax refusal testimony and establish it as a major nonviolent principle and tactic.

Tax resistance, like other forms of opposition to the military, increased dramatically during the Vietnam War. In the federal government levied an additional tax on every private telephone, and in a rare moment of candor, admitted that the money would help subsidize the war in Indochina. Peacemakers, the War Resisters League, and other nonviolent groups urged refusal of this tax and in the following years countless thousands heeded their call. Under the leadership of Bob and Angie Calvert, War Tax Resistance was formed in as a separate organization to investigate all aspects and ramifications of conscientious tax refusal. During the war there were over 200 local war tax resistance centers, as well as a number of “alternative life funds” which rechanneled refused tax money back into the local community for constructive purposes. Many of these continued after the end of the war.

The tactic of claiming enough dependents so that no income tax would be withheld became more widespread as the Vietnam war continued. Often the tax refuser would make clear the moral grounds for the protest by listing, for example, “all the Vietnamese” as dependents. Refusing to pay for war by claiming excessive exemptions brought particularly strong response from the government. A number of people were prosecuted and imprisoned: Jim Shea, Karl Meyer, William Himmelbauer, Mark Riley, Ellis Rece, Carole Nelson, John Leininger, and Martha Tranquilli (a 64-year-old grandmother and nurse). The tax resistance movement continued after the war and grew to include both pacifists and non-pacifists who could no longer in conscience support the military priorities of the government.

Because so much of the tax paid the Federal Government goes for killing and torture, as in Vietnam, and for the development of even more horrible war methods to use in the future, I am not going to pay taxes on 1964 income

From the newsletter of the Syracuse Peace Council

As more and more tax money was directed toward the [Reagan era] military buildup, many activists revived interest in war tax resistance. Protests were organized each year, and individual resisters tried a variety of means to deny the government money for war. In , demonstrations were held in Dallas, Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities and 24 people were arrested at IRS offices in New York City. The following year, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee was formed by the Center on Law and Pacifism, Conscience and Military Tax Campaign, WRL, Peacemakers and eighty local groups. featured the largest show of war tax resistance actions in , including Ralph Dull, an Ohio farmer and tax resister , who drove a truckload of grain to the IRS office as payment for his taxes. The IRS instituted a “frivolous returns” penalty to discourage the filing of returns with any but the requested information, and some resisters began an insurance fund, pooling their resources to pay fines and interest charges levied against fellow tax resisters.

From the Spokane Daily Chronicle on :

Washington (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service has ordered its tax collection offices to attach the paychecks of persons who refuse to pay the 10 per cent federal tax on their telephone bills as a protest against the Vietnam war.

A survey of large telephone companies indicated that about 3,000 persons have adopted this technique. The phone companies do not cut off service to the protesters but simply notify the IRS offices that the tax is unpaid.

An IRS spokesman said that the amounts are small — usually less than a dollar on each phone bill — but that collection must be made. The Washington office therefore has directed district and local collectors to attach the pay or file liens.

On , The Deseret News published a piece on the American war tax resistance movement:

Why They Won’t Pay

Millions of Americans are sitting up late these nights, agonizing over their financial records, fighting their way through a maze of federal regulations and puzzling over the inconsistencies of their own arithmetical prowess. They’re involved in the nation’s annual orgy of self-revelation: preparation of personal income tax returns.

For many, hours of hard labor will be crowned by the distasteful task of getting out the bankbook, figuring out whether to refinance the car or postpone that midwinter vacation and then writing a check to Uncle Sam for the amount still owed. But for a few, the culmination of the long agony of tax forms will be the pleasure of writing a little note to the tax collector, and sending that instead of a check.

The note will say simply that the author is not paying 10 per cent, or 23 per cent or 67 per cent, or all of his federal income tax as a protest against the Vietnam war. In a few months, after the exchange of some nasty notes, the Internal Revenue Service will almost certainly get its money, with interest — from the offender’s bank account, by seizing his paychecks or perhaps by selling his car. But even though the protester is clearly violating the law, there is almost no chance he will go to jail. Meanwhile, the nontaxpayer will have made his point: that he disagrees with government policy on Vietnam and that he is not voluntarily financing the war.

Estimates of how many protesters are not paying their taxes vary widely. A spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service in Washington said that in , only 583 persons who filed returns did not pay all or part of their taxes as a protest. This was out of a national total of 73,000,000. But other estimates are higher. Maris Cakars, the enthusiastic young Oceanside native who runs the New York-based Tax Resistance Project of the War Resisters League, said that he had on file 1,000 names of persons who said they refused to pay all or part of their federal income tax . Predictably, the government says the number of protesters has leveled off. The protesters say it is climbing.

A larger group has taken to refusing to pay its telephone tax — the 10 per cent federal excise tax added each month to each customer’s phone bill. This tax was continued in largely to pay the costs of Vietnam. According to a spokesman for American Telephone & Telegraph Co., about 5,600 telephone users nationwide refused to pay the tax on their bills in the third quarter of . This has remained constant since late , he said. However, Cakars said he believed the figure was closer to 10,000, while the IRS said there were 18,000 cases in . But the IRS spokesman added that many of these were repeaters — one customer who refused to pay for 12 months would be counted as 12 in that figure.

The most famous offender is folk singer Joan Baez. Since , she has been withholding roughly 60 per cent of her federal taxes, which she says is the portion of federal expenditures used to support past, present and future wars. This is in the form of the present defense budget, veterans’ benefits and interest on the portion of the national debt paid for past wars. The IRS has merely attached a lien on her bank account, and has recovered most of what she owes plus interest and penalties.

Other notables have also expressed interest in such protest. In , when Congress was initially considering levying a 10 per cent surtax which most believed was to support the Vietnamese war, 448 writers and editors signed a newspaper advertisement stating that they would not pay the surtax or any other war-designated increase. About a third also added that they would not pay the 23 per cent of the current taxes that they believed was financing the Vietnam war effort. When action on the surtax was postponed several months — past the filing deadline — the movement fell apart and no one kept any records of how many did not pay. Gerald Walker, an editor of The New York Times Magazine, who organized the protest, recently refused even to talk about the effort.

Willful failure to file a return or to pay taxes owed are both punishable by fines of up to $10,000 and jail terms up to a year. But both the government and those organizing tax resistance say that only a handful of tax protesters have spent any time behind bars since the end of World War Ⅱ. The longest period known was six months by a New London, Conn., man. He served his time not for refusing to pay taxes, but for contempt of court, when he defied a court order to tell where he had his bank account. Nobody is in jail for tax resistance at the present time, according to the IRS. The revenue service has little interest in locking up tax delinquents, a spokesman said recently. “In most cases, we have gotten the money,” he said. “All we want to do is to get the money that’s coming to us. After all, is IRS going to ask the Justice Department to go to a federal grand jury and get a jury trial to put a man in jail for a dollar, when all we have to do is go to his bank account? These people are making a protest, but most of them are doing it openly, so there’s no fraud or evasion. This way, they apparently feel they’ve satisfied their protest feelings, and we end up getting the money anyway — sometimes with added penalties.” Since Vietnam, he said, the most drastic step the IRS has taken was to seize a California man’s car, sell it and deduct the owed taxes. “He ended up buying his car back anyway,” the spokesman said.

The government, the protesters claim, is also anxious to avoid a confrontation that would produce a test case, a martyr and added publicity. “We’re anxious for a confrontation,” said Cakars. “It would help to add one more serious headache for the government while the war goes on.”

One New York lawyer, who has advised protesters on tax evasion and refusal, doubts that the government would dare prosecute protesters on a large scale. “Many people would be delighted to be put in jail for a cause like this who would not like to be put in jail for passing a red light,” he said. “But the government doesn’t want to raise the issue that someone is being put in jail for not paying $14. It’s the same reason they are so slow to prosecute for burning a draft card.” The lawyer added that any massive prosecution would tend to win sympathy for the protesters from many persons who are now neutral or apathetic. “If they become too repressive, it sounds too much like 1984,” the lawyer said.

So far, the protest movement has been limited mainly to longtime pacifists and professionals. Pacifists have been protesting the use of tax money for armaments for years. The movement was popularized after World War Ⅱ by the late A.J. Muste, clergyman-philosopher, who refused to pay his taxes . Cakars’ War Resisters League, which is one of the organizations promoting tax resistance to its mailing list of 10,000, has been in business advocating peace policies since World War Ⅰ.

Since the Vietnam war most of those who have joined the protest are professionals and intellectuals. Many are clustered around college towns, such as Cambridge, Mass., and Berkeley Calif. Professionals are particularly attracted, said Cakars, because they are often self-employed and therefore not subject to employers’ withholding their taxes.

One organizer who has hopes of expanding the protest to the middle class is Ted Webster, a self-employed publisher in Roxbury, Mass. Webster started the Roxbury War Tax Scholarship Fund, into which tax protesters have put $8,000. The money is kept in a savings account, and only Webster keeps records of how much belongs to each protester, thereby preventing the government from seizing the individual’s money. Interest goes to a scholarship for a poor Negro student.

Webster says he is not a pacifist but merely objects to his tax moneys being spent on the “boon-doggle and pork-barrel military-industrial complex.” He counts on the increasing discontent of the great bulk of U.S. taxpayers to add fuel to the protest, as more and more question the need for the present level of military spending. “I’m trying to convey to taxpayers generally that a good deal of their money is generally being wasted,” Webster said. “Americans don’t mind killing people, as long as it doesn’t cost us anything. But now it’s coming home to the middle class, who are being hit hard with taxes and getting a bit uptight about it.”

Reasons for tax resistance vary, but most of those interviewed said they were too old to refuse to be drafted, or felt they had been denied a pro-peace choice among the presidential candidates, or felt that, in accordance with the results of the Nuremberg was crimes trials, they did not want to contribute voluntarily to a government policy which they feel is immoral. E. Russell Stabler, a special associate professor of mathematics at Hofstra University who has not paid the balance due on his income tax , said: “I feel we are bound by a higher law. We cannot abide by the U.S. income tax law and at the same time avoid responsibility for criminal acts committed in our name and by conscription of our own funds.” He said that he willingly told the IRS where his bank account was, and that the money, plus penalties, had been seized each year. But at least his conscience is absolved. “It’s just a different view of patriotism from the standard one,” he said with a chuckle. “We used to offer to pay the money we owed into a special fund earmarked for constructive, peaceful purposes, but the government wasn’t interested.” Did Stabler, who is 62, ever fear being jailed? “I suppose anybody who does this runs a risk of going to jail eventually, but the government has been fairly generous about it,” he said.

Like most college faculty members, Stabler has not been threatened by his employer for his unorthodox views. There is talk among war protesters that others have had their jobs threatened or even lost them, for nonpayment of taxes. But this is difficult to substantiate because employer disapproval of an unorthodox employe can be subtle and may also be attributable to other “quirks” in the employe. Employers do, however, cooperate with the IRS by making protesters’ paychecks available for seizure — in fact they are required to by federal law.

One protester who has so far avoided all government attempts to collect his back taxes is Eric Weinberger, who is a paid worker for the Fifth Avenue Peace Parade Committee. His employer has refused to turn over his paychecks to the IRS although Weinberger has not paid anything for five years. He said he does not own a car or a house and has so little money that he does not even have a bank account that can be seized. He has been threatened with prosecution, he said, but no further action has been taken. He added with a note of resignation, “I suppose they’ll find some way to get it eventually. But they’ll have to take it. I’m a pacifist and I don’t intend to give them my money for the purpose of war.”

I’m a little surprised I hadn’t come across the name Maris Cakars before in my research. He was active with the War Resisters League and with the Committee for Non-Violent Action during the Vietnam War period, and both of those organizations were close to the war tax resistance movement of the time.

Of the other tax resisters mentioned in the article whose names I hadn’t come across before — E[dward?]. Russell Stabler, Gerald Walker, Ted Webster, and Eric Weinberger — I wasn’t able to find out much more. You can find some of Stabler’s work in mathematics on-line. Walker is mentioned in a couple of articles about the Writers & Editors war tax protest, and besides his work for The New York Times Magazine is also known as the author of the novel Cruising which was adapted into the Al Pacino movie of the same name. Ted Webster remains a mystery to me. I found a photo of an Eric Weinberger from serving up food to the homeless in front of the Bush/Quayle campaign headquarters in Boston in a “Food Not Bombs” action — perhaps the same Eric Weinberger, perhaps not.

From the Daytona Beach Morning Journal:

Rabbis Vote To Withhold Tax On Phones

Grossinger, N.Y. (AP) — The first major Jewish religious organization in the nation to take such action on voted to engage in a collective act of civil disobedience to protest their opposition to the war in Vietnam.

The Central Conference of American Rabbis, an organization of 1,000 Reform rabbis, approved a resolution to withhold payment of the organization’s telephone excise tax.

The special excise tax on telephone service is designated for the financial support of the war in Vietnam.

By a voice vote at their final business meeting after a four-day convention here, about 200 rabbis directed Rabbi Joseph Glaser, the executive vice president of the conference to “communicate to the federal government our reasons for taking this action.”

Rabbi Glaser said afterwards that the action would go into effect “as soon as proper legal arrangements can be made.”

The conference was the first group of rabbis to publicly denounce the war in Vietnam in . The current resolution also urged the 1,100 members to “express resistance to the devestation of Vietnam by withholding payment of the telephone excise tax.”

The resolution also called upon the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, with which the Reform rabbis are affiliated, to withhold payment of the telephone excise tax.

A wire report on showed that Quakers in New York had rediscovered war tax resistance:

New York, (AP)— Quakers in the New York area were encouraged today to refuse to pay taxes or hold jobs that contribute to the war effort in Viet Nam.

The Society of Friends office here made public a document or “testimony” approved at an annual meeting last month at Silver Bay on Lake George, N.Y..

The message was described as perhaps the “strongest message of the 20th Century by a major body within the denomination.”

In the document, Quakers were promised financial help through special committees if they changed jobs or refused to pay taxes in protest against the war.

Entitled “Message to Friends on Viet Nam,” the document said members of the society must “stand forth unequivocally and at all costs to proclaim their peace testimony.”

The 72 Friends “meetings” or congregations in New York, Northern New Jersey and Southern Connecticut were called upon to “support acts of conscience by setting up committees for sufferings…”

Such committees, the statement said, should “keep close touch with deeply exercised Friends and their families who may need spiritual and material care because of their witness.”

I haven’t had any luck finding the text of this “Message to Friends on Viet Nam” on-line. Hugh Barbour’s Quaker Crosscurrents: Three Hundred Years of Friends in the New York Yearly Meetings mentions it briefly, and also notes that:

Conscription was a major concern of the sessions as well, and the yearly meeting approved a “Letter to Friends Troubled by Conscription” for distribution to the monthly meetings. They also agreed that the yearly meeting should refuse to honor liens on the wages of employees made for collecting taxes that were not being paid for reasons of conscience. In the sessions Friends were urged to protest against taxation for war by refusing to pay the federal telephone tax, and the yearly meeting agreed to publicize its own refusal to pay this tax “imposed for the specific purpose of procuring funds for the support of the military action in Vietnam.”

That “Letter to Friends” is another document that seems to have missed the Internet bus.

The New York Yearly Meeting is still working on conscientious objection to paying for war, though the meeting’s last “minute” on the subject, in is vague and noncommittal:

The Living Spirit works in the world to give life, joy, peace and prosperity through love, integrity and compassionate justice among people. We are united in this Power. We acknowledge that paying for war violates our religious conviction. We will seek ways to witness to this religious conviction in each of our communities.

The magazine In These Times had a couple of short newsbriefs about the American war tax resistance movement in their edition:

Hungry generals

The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) estimates that from 10,000 to 20,000 citizens won’t be filing U.S. income tax this year — not because they don’t have to, but because they refuse to pay. Larry Bassett, a Long Island peace activist, has been a tax resister because, he says, “60 percent of our taxes goes to the Pentagon,” and he doesn’t want to help the Reagan administration build more nuclear bombs or aid Central American dictatorships, writes Susan Jaffe. He has refused to comply with a court order issued by Federal District Court Judge Jack Weinstein requiring Bassett to submit financial information to the IRS.

The IRS wants to know where Bassett’s savings account is. And where to find any other assets so they can take the money he owes — $1,300. If Bassett is found guilty of violating the court order, he could be sent to jail indefinitely for being in contempt of court until he agrees to cooperate or until the judge decides his imprisonment serves no purpose.

Bassett realizes that $1,300 is not a lot of money, but that’s not the point. “No general is going to bed hungry because I didn’t pay my taxes,” he says. “I’m aware of that. But it’s a political statement that the government can’t ignore. And they are obviously not ignoring it.” Instead of sending his money to the IRS, Bassett contributes an equivalent amount to peace groups and needy friends, often victims of Reagan’s budget cuts. So even if he hasn’t inconvenienced the Pentagon, Bassett says, “it makes a difference to the people I’ve helped with my tax resistance money. And it also makes a difference to me: what I’m doing makes me feel that my life is more consistent with what I believe. I’m living what I believe in as many ways as I can: this is one of them.”

Tax resistance is also his job. He is a staff member at the NWTRCC. So instead of being intimidated by the IRS and the courts, Bassett issues press releases about his case and organizes supporters to send letters to the judge and demonstrate at the courthouse. For more information on tax resistance, contact the NWTRCC at P.O. Box 2236, East Patchogue, NY 11772; (516) 654‒8227.

IRS hits jackpot

The IRS didn’t have too hard a time locating war tax resister Karl Meyer’s assets: they seized a small trailer he owns and a station wagon he leases, both parked in front of his Chicago home. Then they handed him a bill for $20,000 in penalty fines — and Meyer informed them that their figures were way too low because he had already received notices in the mail for $135,000. Meyer a 10-year tax resister and long an innovator in tax resistance circles, was being penalized for what he calls his “Cabbage Patch resistance.” Every day in he sent a return to a different IRS office somewhere in the country (see In These Times, [which had a newsbrief reading: “War tax resister Karl Meyer was recently fined $135,000 by the IRS for ‘frivolous tax returns.’ Meyer, a freelance carpenter in Chicago, sent IRS offices across the country a daily report of his income (averaging $38 a day) with a declaration of refusal to pay.”]). He included a handwritten statement of his resistance to military buildup on each and an invitation to IRS officials: “I invite each of you to resign from the collection of military taxes and to join in working for a disarmed world. If you want to talk about this, call me evenings at…”

Though Meyer’s scheme has not netted any converts among the IRS, he sees it as a way of shaking up a complacent public. Some of his earlier tax resistance innovations have taken hold across the country, including the boycott of the telephone excise tax that he helped popularize and the practice of claiming large numbers of dependents to beat the employee withholding tax.

Meyer refuses to pay a cent of the penalties he owes and may soon be summoned to court. The threat of jail doesn’t deter Meyer — he’s already spent months in jail for tax resistance and for civil disobedience. And though he misses using the trailer and the station wagon for his mobile demonstrations, his pragmatic side allows that the wagon was “only worth $75 anyway” — a lot less than the monthly upkeep has cost lately.

Here’s another look at the American war tax resistance movement of yore, this time in the form of an article from the D.C. Gazette:

On Refusing Federal Taxes

by Bill Samuel

Tax refusal is an old American way of making a protest. Religious pacifists refused taxes during the French and Indian Wars, large numbers of colonists refused unjust taxes imposed by the British prior to the Revolutionary War, and Henry David Thoreau refused to pay taxes to kill Mexicans. The practice has enjoyed a rebirth in the last few years. Sickened by the Indochina War, growing numbers of Americans began refusing federal taxes. A national organization, War Tax Resistance, was formed which spawned more than 150 local centers around the country. The movement did not go away when the Administration declared the war over. People continued to resist, protesting continued involvement in Indochina, the spending of 60% of the federal administrative budget for military-related purposes, the lack of representation for DC residents and a host of other reasons.

Hang Up On War

The government used excise taxes on telephone service to help finance World War Ⅰ, World War Ⅱ, the Korean War and the Indochina War. But it wasn’t until the Indochina War that large numbers of people began to refuse to pay the tax. It is a good target for refusal, not only because of its historical association with war but also because it is easy to refuse. It is clearly marked on the phone bill, so one just has to deduct it from the total and enclose an explanation when paying the bill. The telephone company is merely a collection agent and is forbidden, by the Federal Communications Commission from penalizing the telephone subscriber for refusing to pay it. The company merely passes the information along to the IRS, which may eventually try to collect it from your bank account. It costs the IRS far more to collect than it gets for its troubles.

Don’t Be An April Fool

The phone tax may be the easiest to refuse, but the income tax is the most important. Growing numbers of people are refusing part or all of their federal income taxes. The tax resistance movement has developed several good techniques, and IRS sometimes accepts claims made by resisters. One technique is to claim a tax credit which one may call “a war tax credit.” Another is similar and involves taking a miscellaneous deduction among your itemized deductions sometimes called “a war tax deduction.” People whose tax has not all been withheld may simply refuse payment of the remainder or a portion thereof. Some people file a blank return with nothing but their name and perhaps their address on it, relying on the Fifth Amendment to protect their right (conceded by the IRS) not to provide financial information as it would be evidence one had committed a crime (willful failure to pay tax). Some refuse to file a return at all. No matter which technique is used, the IRS has followed a practice of not prosecuting those who have openly submitted an explanation giving conscientious reasons for their actions. The IRS may assess the refuser and attempt to collect, but there is a long appeal process that can stave off collection for years.

Some people, not quite ready to refuse outright, pay their taxes but simultaneously file for a refund. They use Claim Form 843 (available from IRS) for “Refund of Taxes illegally, Erroneously, or Excessively Collected.” This form gives the taxpayer space to explain why he/she is asking for a refund.

Protect Your Salary

The chief deterrent to massive income tax refusal has been the withholding system. People never see their tax money normally. But this is not so difficult a problem to get around, since the amount of one’s withholding is based on a form (Form W-4) each employee files with his/her employer. On the W-4, the employee merely lists a total number of withholding allowances without giving any justification for them. The employer is required by law to accept this form. To prevent withholding from one’s salary completely, one merely files a new W-4 claiming a number of allowances at least equal to one’s annual salary minus $1300, divided by 750. If one then uses the “war tax deduction” method of refusal on one’s 1040, the W-4 is completely legal since one is allowed to claim withholding allowances based on one’s expectation of claiming a large amount of itemized deductions at the end of the year (the validity of the claimed deductions is irrelevant for purposes of W-4).

At the very least, you should be sure that all allowances to which you are normally entitled are claimed. In addition to allowances for yourself and any dependents, you are now also entitled to an additional Special Withholding Allowance unless you hold more than one job simultaneously or have a spouse who works. If you don’t claim it, you will be loaning the government money at no interest.

WAFFL — Food for Life

In an effort to make the positive witness of war tax resistance clearer, more than 55 alternate funds have been established around the country to put refused taxes to good use. In the DC area, the Washington Area Fund for Life (WAFFL) was established last summer. The Fund collectively makes decisions on the use of money and retains rereserves to provide mutual aid to members if needed. The Fund provides financial support to two South Vietnamese children whose fathers were killed in the war. It has also made grants to the United Farm Workers Union and the Washington Peace Center. It holds regular monthly meetings.

For more information about tax resistance and WAFFL, contact Washington War Tax Resistance, 120 Maryland Ave., NE, DC 20002; (546‒8646 or 546‒6231).

The following excerpts come from the article “Taxation Hesitation” by Clark Norton, from the Mother Jones:

At some point in the last 215 years or so, the rabble-rousers blew it. We allowed right-wing curmudgeons to seize Americans’ favorite gripe — taxes — as their own. It’s time to recapture our birthright and shout it from the rooftops: We hate taxes, too.

That does it, you say; I’m fed up. I want to resist taxes, too — as a matter of principle, of course, rather than greed — but I’m not Hewlett-Packard. How can I mount my own mini-tax revolt, with a conscience? The options range from safe, even socially sanctioned private gestures to daring clenched-fist proclamations of public defiance, with increasing elements of risk.

…you can move to the next rung of resistance: refusing to pay all or part of your taxes. One long-standing method of resisting war taxes is to simply not pay the federal excise tax on telephone service — a tax first imposed just before World War Ⅰ, restored during the Vietnam War, and then raised in 1983 from two to three percent to help finance Reagan’s military buildup. Carolyn Stevens, program coordinator of the Seattle-based National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, estimates that 100,000 Americans refuse to pay the phone tax each month. This isn’t legal but, according to veteran resisters, probably won’t even get your phone disconnected.

Another five to ten thousand, Stevens says, register their objections to military spending by withholding all or part of their federal income taxes — anywhere from the 10 percent that the War Resisters’ League estimates goes toward nuclear weapons to the over 50 percent they say funds the entire military, including the interest on past expenditures. Small “deductions” may not elicit a peep from the IRS. But if the agency does come after you, expect to pay stiff fines and interest penalties (which, ironically, will ultimately increase federal coffers). If you write some words of protest on your 1040 itself, the IRS may well slap you with a $500 fine for filing a “frivolous” return, even if you quote Camus.

If you persist in refusing to pay, the IRS may ultimately garnish your paycheck or seize your property. One piece of good news: Stevens says that only 18 war-tax resisters have gone to jail since World War Ⅱ, “and if you’re eventually prepared to pay, you can avoid it.”

Many resisters redirect the tax money they withhold from the government to one of about 80 “alternative funds” across the United States that help finance peace and human welfare projects. Several, such as the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign in Seattle, have collected and disbursed up to hundreds of thousands of dollars each. (To locate the alternative fund nearest you, contact the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee at PO Box 85810, Seattle, Washington 98145, or telephone (206) 522‒4377.) Meanwhile the Washington, D.C.-based National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund is lobbying for legislation that would allow conscientious objectors to earmark a portion of their taxes for such funds. As of the last congressional session, only 3 senators and 49 representatives favored the bill — so for the foreseeable future resisters are on their own, guided only by the limits of their conscience and their guts.

The latest issue of More Than a Paycheck, NWTRCC’s newsletter, is now on-line. Articles include:

  • Revolution, One by One — a summary of my “one man revolution” post and of some of the back-and-forth about it on the wtr-s email list.
  • Some updates on the prospects of passport restrictions for tax resisters, consequences of the laws implementing Obamacare for tax resisters, challenges in being a phone tax resister, and how non-filers can navigate the food stamp program.
  • International news about the upcoming international war tax resistance conference, and a quashed legal appeal by a German conscientious objectors’ group against mandatory military taxation.
  • Glimpses at the state of war tax redirection funds, an upcoming () New England war tax resisters’ gathering, some war tax resisters who got shout-outs in a Mennonite Women publication, and an update on the Cindy Sheehan case.
  • Organizational news including an announcement of the thirtieth anniversary of NWTRCC’s founding, a note about the national gathering coming up in Colorado Springs, and about NWTRCC’s presence at the School of the Americas Watch protests in .
  • A profile of Seth Berner, who has been resisting a token protest amount of his taxes for 20 years.

One occasional tactic of tax resistance campaigns involves choosing a particular tax or portion of a tax to resist, not because that tax or that portion is particularly offensive, but because it is easier to resist or the ramifications of resistance are less frightening. This, in theory anyway, will encourage more people to begin resisting.

Today I’ll give some examples.

Hang up on war
  • The American war tax resistance movement for a long time targeted the excise tax on telephone service — both because it was a tax that had historically been instituted and raised to help fund war spending, and because it was a small and easily-resisted tax, so that people could start resisting quickly and without having to fear terrible government reprisals. The small amounts resisted also meant that government action against any particular resister would be unlikely to be cost-effective.
  • War tax resisters in Denmark have a similar campaign of refusal to pay a small portion of their radio and TV tax (equivalent to the military spending percentage of the Danish budget). Individuals pay this tax, while income taxes are withheld automatically under a pay-as-you-earn scheme, so this is a concrete way war tax resisters can resist.
  • Gandhi’s salt march and the salt-tax resistance campaign is now recognized as momentous, but at the time, many commentators ridiculed all of the fuss being made over a piddling little tax. War tax resister Joanne Sheenan notes:

    Gandhi’s Salt March initially involved only 80 people, but the act of picking up the salt from the sea and making their own salt in defiance of British taxed salt was revolutionary. The power of the Salt March was that it became a massive campaign — there was something everyone could do. Some packaged the salt, some sold it, all could refuse to buy the taxed salt and buy the alternative.

    The British occupation government knew that this piddling little tax had big symbolic value. At one point they hired hundreds of people to destroy natural salt deposits on a beach near Damni where Gandhi planned to try to harvest salt in violation of the ban.
  • There are periodic attempts in the American war tax resistance movement to try to get people to resist at least some tiny, symbolic part of their income taxes. For instance:
    • In , the group War Tax Resistance encouraged people to withhold and redirect $10–$50 from their income taxes — a small amount because “the expense to collect the tax that is not being paid is far greater than the additional penalty imposed for the delinquent action.”
    • In , a set of anti-war groups tried to get people to withhold and redirect at least a single dollar from their taxes.
    • More recently, a “$10.40 for Peace” campaign asked people to withhold $10.40 (a sort of tribute to the IRS 1040 form used by people to file their income taxes) as “a small act of witness against war and for the rights of conscience.”
    • Most pathetically, a group of Quakers is now begging people to, if they are going to pay their taxes, at the very least “Pay Under Protest.”

The following comes from the edition of a zine from Cleveland, Ohio that went by the name The Buddhist Third Class Junkmail Oracle:

Hang Up On War!

As a result of the widening war in Vietnam, federal legislation was passed which, in , restored the 10% tax on telephone bills.

“It is clear,” said Rep. Wilbur Mills, who managed the tax legislation in the House, “that the Vietnam and only the Vietnam operation makes this bill necessary.” [Congressional Record, ]

Why pray for peace & pay for war? For further information: War Resisters League, Tax Resistance Project, 5 Beekman Street, New York 10038

Congressman Mills was always careful to refer to “our operations in Vietnam.” But those of us who know its true nature know it is not an operation but a tragic bloodbath. We know that revenue for the Vietnam war pays for:

  • napalm, mass bombings, and other attacks on civilian areas resulting in extermination of thousands of Vietnames — about 200,000 casualties in the last year and a half;
  • forcing young Americans into “kill-civilians-or-be-killed” situations. Over 14,450 G.I.s have been killed in vietnam;
  • perpetuating a military dictatorship;
  • violation of the Nurenberg precedents, the U.N. Charter, and the Geneva Accords of ;
  • indefinite continuation of war against a people who desire above all to be alive and to determine their destinly free from foreign domination.

A tax boycott demonstrates that you believe this war to be immoral and/or illegal and that you are willing to act on this belief.

We boycott the telephone tax because:

  • it is directly imposed to pay for the Vietnam war;
  • anyone with a phone can refuse to pay this tax;
  • the monthly refusal of a small amount of money creates a thorny collection problem for the Internal Revenue Service.

Over three thousand people in all parts of the country are currently refusing to pay this war tax. In virtually every case telephone companies have assured the refusers that their telephone service will not be interrupted.

A recent announcement by IRS that in the future phone tax refusers would not be granted personal hearings is an indication of what a strain we’ve put on their resources. We know that the San Francisco office of IRS even wrote to the Attorney General in Washington asking for help in coping wth this problem (Washington was unable to help). In an effort to harass phone tax refusers in the Midwest IRS has begun charging what is probably an illegal $5 fine for the privilege of taking the unpaid taxes from a bank account. Interest at the rate of 6% per year is also charged. We are encouraging phone tax refusers to respond to the elimination of the personal hearing by insisting that they have a meeting and if the request is denied, beginning legal action since the new procedure amounts to a denial of due process. Those who are fined $5 should also consider legal action. Clearly, the government’s position vis-a-vis those opposed to its policies is that in case of conflict between the smooth running of its machine and the right of individuals to exert whatever influence they can on policy, individual rights will have to be sacrificed. In America we usually do it the other way, or so we have been led to believe.

Telephone companies have for the most part been cooperative — even helpful. Some people in Maryland who couldn’t bring themselves to refusing the tax compromised by sending a letter of protest with their payment. The phone company called up and proceeded to explain how one subtracted the tax, assuming that these customers wanted to refuse the tax but didn’t quite know how.

Kennett Love

In , the Washington Monthly carried a story about war tax resisters written by Kennett Love, himself a signer of the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge.

Tax Resistance: Hell No — I Won’t Pay

“We believe that the right of conscientious objection to war belongs to all the people, not just to those of draft age,” says a pamphlet now being sent out across the country from a littered, poster-bright office on New York’s Lower East Side. It carries a radical call to the citizenry to come out against the war in Vietnam by refusing to pay taxes that finance the war.

Such tax resistance is now gathering adherents outside traditional pacifist circles. Although it is still far from a major headache to the government, Internal Revenue Service men are being assigned to locate bank accounts of resisters and to seize the sums due — plus six per cent interest. Out of the frustration of the anti-Vietnam-war segment of the population, which is growing rapidly according to the polls; out of dashed hopes raised by peace promises and peace gestures from the Nixon and Johnson Administrations alike; and out of a feeling that orthodox democratic forms of protest — elections and demonstrations — have been ignored, an increasing number of otherwise law-abiding people are following their consciences into what Gandhi called the last stage of civil disobedience by openly refusing to pay part or all of their federal taxes.

The chief targets of the tax-resistance movement are the income tax, particularly the 10 per cent war surtax imposed last year, and the 10 per cent federal excise tax on telephone service. Other federal taxes have been rejected either as too complicated to resist, such as the liquor tax, which is collected at the wholesale level before individual purchase, or as earmarked for such non-war uses as highway construction. One pacifist, imprisoned for draft refusal and therefore lacking income to refuse taxes on, gave up smoking because the cigarette tax brings the government more revenue than any other single consumer-commodity tax.

The telephone tax is the most popular one to resist, partly because it was the first to be specifically linked to the war in Vietnam and partly because the American Telephone and Telegraph Company has proven courteous in its handling of tax resisters. The telephone tax was due to be reduced to three per cent in . In approving the White House request for its extension of the 10 per cent level, Chairman Wilbur Mills (D-Ark.) of the House Ways and Means Committee said: “It is clear that the Vietnam and only the Vietnam operation makes this bill necessary.”

Resistance to the telephone tax began soon afterward. Karl Meyer of Chicago, a former Congressman’s son and a free-lance writer immersed in pacifist causes, conceived the idea and proposed it to Maris Cakars of the War Resisters League in New York. Meyer drafted a pamphlet, “Hang Up On War!,” which has become a staple among the literature distributed by the War Resisters League through the mails and at peace booths. It explains the link between the telephone tax and the war, summarizes moral and legal objections to the war, and provides practical advice for resisters of the tax, including a candid assessment of the possible risks. Of the risks, it points out that under Section 7203 of the Internal Revenue Code, which covers both the telephone and the income tax, one who “willfully fails to pay” could be imprisoned for up to one year and fined up to $10,000. It adds that the experiences of tax resisters over the past several years show that the government is not willing to press criminal charges but, instead, acts to collect the taxes (with interest) directly, when and where it can.

AT&T records indicate that telephone tax resisters were relatively unmoved by President Johnson’s famous “abdication” speech on , but that about a quarter of them resumed payment of their telephone taxes at in the belief that President-elect Nixon would end the war. A table of the telephone company statistics follows, giving the number of telephone tax refusers at the end of each quarter :

QuarterNo. of resisters to telephone tax
1,800
2,300
2,600
3,400
3,400
4,700
5,300
4,700
4,000
4,000

The figure for is not available yet, but the revived intensity of the anti-war movement, manifested in the national student moratorium on and the big demonstrations on , presage an increase.

Measured against the telephone company’s 43,459,000 residence customers, the percentage of tax resisters is minuscule. But in view of the seriousness of the act of tax resistance, the number of resisters is a source of satisfaction and encouragement to the leaders of the movement.

A spokeswoman for the telephone company told me its standing orders are to continue service to tax resisters so long as its own charges are paid. The company notifies the IRS of tax non-payments so it can do its own collecting. If a tax resister informs the local business office of the telephone company that he is deliberately omitting the tax from his payment, the office will not carry the tax charges forward to his next bill. “It would seem logical to assume that we don’t like to be a collecting agency,” she said, “but we do what we’re obliged to do.” She said that telephone tax resisters are located mainly in college communities.

Income tax resisters, although fewer than telephone tax resisters, appear to be a more stubborn breed, unmoved by political gestures and prepared to hold out until the war actually ends. An IRS spokesman in Washington gave me a statistical summary of the growth of such tax resistance. So far as he knew, it first became a public issue when Joan Baez, the singer, refused in to pay 60 per cent of her income tax in an act to dissociate herself from what she called the immoral, impractical, and stupid war in Vietnam. She refused the same proportion in and wrote the IRS: “This country has gone mad. But I will not go mad with it. I will not pay for organized murder. I will not pay for the war in Vietnam.” Joan Baez and a scattered handful of old-line pacifists, a few of whom had been refusing war taxes , were not worth keeping statistics on, so far as the IRS was concerned.

Then, in , a committee under the chairmanship of the Reverend A.J. Muste circulated a tax-refusal pledge among persons on the mailing lists of the Committee for Non-Violent Action and the War Resisters League. They obtained 370 signatures for an advertisement in The Washington Post that stated: “We believe that the ordinary channels of protest have been exhausted…” Joan Baez headed the list of signers. According to an IRS analysis, about one-quarter of the signers had no taxable income, about one-half cooperated with the IRS to the extent of telling the agent who called on them where their money could be seized, and about one-quarter put the IRS to the trouble of ferreting out their bank accounts. The number of actual resisters came to about 275.

the IRS began keeping a count of tax protesters. The number rose to 375. In there were 533 taxpayers who refused part or all of their income taxes and wrote the IRS that they were doing so in protest against the Vietnam war. there were 848 who set themselves against the law on grounds of conscientious objection to the war. The IRS spokesman told me that roughly three-quarters of the income-tax protesters live on the east and west coasts and that the same proportion held for persons refusing to pay the telephone tax.

IRS spokesmen emphasize that the number of refusers is only a tiny fraction of the total number of taxpayers. There were some 71 million returns filed in , about 73 million in , and 75 million in . But again, tax-resistance leaders find significance in the fact that the very idea of tax refusal was unthinkable to nearly all of the resisters until their consciences impelled them to it. Furthermore, although the numbers are small, the rate of increase of tax resisters is far greater than the annual increase in tax returns.

Fear of prosecution and jail is a deterrent to potential tax refusers. Many people fail to recognize the distinction between clandestine tax evasion and open tax refusal. The IRS makes the distinction, however, and has shown no inclination to prosecute persons refusing taxes because of the Vietnam war. An IRS spokesman said earlier this year: “Is IRS going to ask the Justice Department to go to a federal grand jury and get a jury trial to put a man in jail for a dollar, when all we have to do is go to his bank account?” Tax-resistance leaders believe also that the government wishes to avoid the publicity attendant on a prosecution, largely because a test case might produce a martyr and create sympathy for the movement. The few prosecutions in recent years have been for refusal to file returns or disclose information rather than for refusal to pay.

War tax refusal in this country is older than the United States itself. It began in when Mennonites and Quakers refused to pay taxes for the French and Indian wars. They refused again during the American Revolution and the Civil War. The most famous early instance was that of Henry David Thoreau, who spent a night in jail in for refusing taxes in protest against our invasion of Mexico. He explained in his essay on civil disobedience that he could not “without disgrace be associated with it” and added: “If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a bloody and violent measure, as it would to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood.”

Gandhi, who was deeply influenced by Thoreau, wrote in that “civil non-payment of taxes is indeed the last stage in non-cooperation. …I know that the withholding of payment of taxes is one of the quickest methods of overthrowing a government.” He went on to say: “I am equally sure that we have not yet evolved that degree of strength and discipline which are necessary… Are the Indian peasantry prepared to remain absolutely non-violent, and see their cattle taken away from them to die of hunger and thirst? …I would urge the greatest caution before embarking upon the dangerous adventure.” But Lord Mountbatten said with relief after India became independent: “If they had started to refuse to pay their taxes, I don’t know what we could have done.”

The idea of modern, organized tax resistance in this country against armaments and war seems to have begun with the Peacemaker Movement, which was formed by 250 pacifists who met in Chicago early in . In , the Peacemaker Movement published the first edition of a mimeographed Handbook on Non-Payment of War Taxes, which contains practical advice and case histories. The handbook has now run to three editions and nearly 10,000 copies. It points out that since the bulk of the federal budget (estimates range from 66 to 80 per cent) goes to pay for past wars, finance the Vietnam war, and prepare for future wars, “it is apparent that the major business of the federal government is war… it is useless to act as if the major business of government is civil functions or peaceful pursuits.”

In , a little more than a year after A.J. Muste’s committee published its tax protest advertisement with 370 signers, Gerald Walker of The New York Times Magazine began to organize a Writers and Editors War Tax Protest, in which all the signatories pledged themselves flatly to refuse the then-proposed 10 per cent war surtax and possibly the 23 per cent of their income taxes allocated to the war effort as well. As was the case with the Reverend Muste’s advertisement, most daily newspapers that Walker approached refused to sell space to him. The New York Times was one that refused and so, this time, was The Washington Post. The New York Post printed Walker’s advertisement in , as did The New York Review of Books and Ramparts. In all, 528 writers and editors signed the pledge. Walker told me recently that about half of them, including himself, failed to carry out the tax-refusal pledge. “Johnson’s ‘abdication’ two weeks before the tax deadline convinced me that we had won,” he said.

I was myself among the other half of the signers who did refuse part of their taxes — 23 per cent in my case, the 10 per cent surtax not having gone into effect. Since my own hesitant involvement in war tax resistance seems typical among the non-pacifists now joining the movement, I will summarize it here as the case history I know best. With my part payment of my income tax, I wrote the IRS as follows:

Enclosed please find my check for $1,862.81, which is 77 per cent of the tax required. The 23 per cent unpaid is a protest against the government’s use of that proportion of its revenue for the war in Vietnam. My conscience revolts against the gross immorality of the war… There are also questions of law. The war violates the supreme law of our land, notably the Constitution (Art. Ⅰ, Sec. 8, clause 11), the United Nations Charter (Art. 51), and the Southeast Asia Treaty (Art. Ⅳ)… Responsible jurists and philosophers soberly accuse our government of crimes against international codes on human rights and the conduct of wars and the specific statutes created ex post facto to punish the Nazis…

The prodigal waste of our national energy and treasure in destroying the land and people of Vietnam is so weakening this nation that other powers may bring us to judgment as we once brought the Nazis to account at Nuremburg… It will then be no defense to plead, like the “good Germans,” that we had to obey our government and cannot be held responsible for what it did. By paying taxes which I know my government is using to kill a small nation I commit a greater and more violent breach of laws than I do by not paying…

I was a Navy pilot in World War Ⅱ. I would not serve in this war. If I could prevent my tax dollars from serving, I would do so. Unfortunately, I have not yet learned of a practical way to keep the government altogether from extracting financial support from me for the war. In the meantime, I balk at 23 per cent in token of my dissociation from the cruel injustice and bloodshed to poor and distant strangers being done under my flag, in my name, with my money.

The IRS reply did not come until after I had refused a similar amount of taxes . It was a form postcard saying: “Dear Taxpayer: Thank you for your letter. We are looking into the matter you brought up and should have the answer to you shortly… Thank you for your cooperation.” The answer, inevitably, was a series of printed forms, progressing from a “notice of tax due” to a “Final Notice Before Seizure.” The IRS had already seized telephone taxes, which I stopped paying in , from three bank accounts, patiently tracking down the bank to which I transferred my account after each seizure. The IRS obtained the unpaid part of my tax, plus six per cent interest, in . At this writing I am awaiting implementation of the Final Notice Before Seizure of the refused portion of my taxes. Banks are required by law to surrender private assets, including the contents of safe deposit boxes, to the IRS upon demand. Most banks surrender the levied amount immediately and the depositor is informed afterward.

This whole business of deliberately defying and harassing the government, even in a moral protest, is a heavy and anxious experience. When I first considered it in I was unaware that some hundreds of other people were already doing it. I was afraid of going to jail, which, among other things, would have prevented my fulfilling a contract to complete a book. I began refusing the telephone tax after obtaining the pamphlet “Hang Up On War!” from a pacifist in Princeton in . The Writers and Editors War Tax Protest, which came to my attention , gave me a sufficient sense of safety in numbers to begin income-tax resistance.

I am still troubled over possible consequences, particularly after the conspiracy convictions in the Dr. Spock trial, and I find it innately distasteful to resist paying my share of the general tax burden. But my revulsion against the war in Vietnam prevails over anxiety and civic reservations. And the Nixon Administration seems as unwilling or as unable as the Johnson Administration to make a significant and credible effort to end the war. In the country voted for Johnson and peace and got an escalation of the war. In , between Nixon and Humphrey, there was no real opportunity to vote for peace. Demonstrations have proven equally futile as a means of affecting war policy, so much so that the President declares that he will not be swayed by them. Under these circumstances, tax resistance, distasteful as it is, seems to more and more people to offer the most effective channel of protest.

I participated in the formation of War Tax Resistance, which is working to transform tax protests from essentially individual acts into an integrated political factor. The leading figure in the organization is Bradford Lyttle, a slim, earnest, no-nonsense pacifist who led a peace march across the United States and Europe to Moscow, urging unilateral disarmament on governments along the way and exhorting citizens toward non-cooperation with military service and war production. Its “Call to War Tax Resistance,” claiming the right of conscientious objection for taxpayers as well as draft-age men, says:

The first goal… is to convince as many people as possible to refuse at least $5 of some tax owed the government. Nearly everyone can do this by refusing their federal telephone tax or part of their income tax. If hundreds of thousands refuse to pay $5, they will establish mass tax refusal. Besides having the burden of collecting the unpaid amounts, the government will be faced with the political fact of massive non-cooperation with its war-making policies.

In a separate but related action, the poet Allen Ginsberg and I have obtained the backing of the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee for a suit against the government to recover money that has been seized from us in enforcement of tax claims and also to enjoin further seizures. The main ground of our action, as it is now being prepared, is based on the historical equivalency between taxes and service (which is a kind of tax) and the claim that the right of conscientious objection is as inherent to taxpayers as it is to men liable for military service. Conscientious objectors cannot avoid service but they can earmark their service to the exclusion of warlike activity. In the same way, we claim, taxpayers should pay their full share but they should be able to earmark their taxes to the exclusion of war-like applications. In a time when weaponry has achieved the capacity to wipe out civilization, we believe, the people should be accorded a direct voice in deciding whether they shall make war. Since World War Ⅱ the decision has moved ever more into the hands of the executive despite the Constitutional stipulation that it is Congress which should declare war.

Meanwhile, until we are legally able to earmark our taxes for non-warlike applications, we feel conscience-bound to resist paying at least a part of them.

Today, some excerpts from the news archives about war tax resister Richard Catlett:

Richard Catlett

The reader’s view

Local Quakers support stand of tax resister

To the editor:

On , Richard Catlett, who is one of our church members and a war-tax resister, went to prison for failing to file federal income tax forms.

We who belong to the Columbia Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), in agreement with Richard Catlett’s war-tax resistance, condemn last year’s military budget, which was the largest in our history. Last year the United States spent $32 billion on weapons that have the sole purpose of killing people and destroying property. The United States alone has enough nuclear weapons to destroy all humans on this earth many times. The SALT talks and the SALT Ⅰ treaty, while attempting to halt the arms race, have actually increased weapon production in both the United States and U.S.S.R. Similarly, foreign military sales, the proposed neutron bomb and the building of civil-defense shelters, only increase the chances of our nation starting or participating in a nuclear war that would inevitably result in the destruction of our nation.

We strongly support disarmament as it represents the only realistic hope for the survival of our nation, as well as the majority of people on earth. It is good to have war-tax resisters and we urge others to support disarmament and war-tax resisters like Richard Catlett.

David Wixom
for Colombia Friends (Quaker) Meeting

And some background:

Local war protester leaves for jail term

By J. Russell King
Missourian staff writer

Though Richard Catlett does not like to classify himself, he is what most people would call a radical.

He has been a union organizer, a peace protestor, a civil rights activist, and a registered Socialist.

He performed alternative military service as a conscientious objector rather than go to war. And he has refused to pay federal income tax because the money is used to buy guns and soldiers. As a result, he’s gone to prison.

The Columbia [Missouri] resident is 69 years old.

Escorted by a group of fellow Quakers — members of the Religious Society of Friends — he turned himself in Friday to the U.S. Marshal’s office in Kansas City, Mo., to be taken to a federal corrections facility to serve 60 days for “willful failure to file a tax return.”

Catlett isn’t embarrassed to be going behind bars.

“I have absolutely no regrets,” Catlett said last week. “I’m unregenerate, proud of what I’ve done.”

Catlett sees his refusal to pay federal taxes as a moral issue, not a legal one.

“It’s immoral to pay someone to do what it would be immoral to do yourself,” he said.

“War is immoral, and I can’t pay taxes that will buy war.”

Catlett has consistently paid state and local taxes, though he says he disagrees with the way much of that money is spent.

“But there is a difference between not liking what the government does with your money, and letting them use it for immoral purposes,” he said.

Catlett’s pacifist beliefs go back almost as far as he does. He says his father would not let him join the Boy Scouts because of their “militaristic tendencies.”

After World War Ⅱ — during which he served with the National Park Service and in a Forest Service camp — Catlett quit paying taxes.

“It was evident that the United States was re-arming Europe, that there would be no attempt to promote peace,” he said. “We were already at war — the Cold War — with Russia.”

“It’s immoral to pay someone to do what it would be immoral to do yourself.”

Spending most of his life since the war in farming and construction work, Catlett moved to Columbia from Springfield in . Through his activity against capital punishment, he became acquainted with local Quakers, and joined the newly formed Columbia Friends Meeting shortly after his arrival.

Catlett and his sister started a health food store in , but in the Internal Revenue Service seized his share of the business for back taxes.

He worked in the store for two years after he lost his share of ownership, but now is retired.

“I have no income anymore,”

Catlett said. “That way I can comply with the terms of probation, because I won’t need to file a return anyway — the government still won’t get any of my money.”

After the 60 days of imprisonment, Catlett still will have three years of probation. He said he would have served the entire sentence as a year of prison with no probation — “I don’t like the idea of a judge trying to run my life for three years” — except for the needs of his family.

“My wife has supported my needs through this whole thing, so I must support hers,” Catlett said. “She and Richie (Catlett’s son) need my presence.”

Catlett and his wife, Carol, 30, were married in . Their son is 20 months old.

Catlett’s case has become well-known in pacifist circles; the actual jailing of war resisters who refuse to pay federal taxes is unusual. Letters from Friends meetings throughout the country poured into the U.S. District Court offices of Judge Elmo B. Hunter while Catlett’s sentence was under consideration.

The Quakers helped pay part of his heavy legal expenses.

Catlett appealed the District Court verdict to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit; its decision against him was handed down . Catlett said he could not afford an appeal to the Supreme Court, especially since the chances of the court hearing his case, a misdemeanor, were minuscule.

“Quakers have gone to jail because of their beliefs for centuries,” Catlett said. “It’s part of our tradition speaking truth to power.”

Quakers believe the taking of a human life, under any circumstance, is a violation of the laws of God. This stems from the basic principle among Friends that “There is that of God in every man” — that within all persons is contained a part of the eternal and almighty.

Though the 150,000 Friends in the United States are split into a number of groups with varying worship practices and religious beliefs, this anti-war, non-violent stance is a common thread among them.

The local Friends meeting, made up of about 30 members, is affiliated with the Illinois Yearly Meeting, a traditional “silent-meeting” body generally considered liberal theologically. Silent-meeting Quakers have no clergy.

Catlett finds it difficult to say whether anything positive has resulted from his fight against the IRS and, as he sees it, against war.

“It isn’t like an election, where you just count the votes to see who won. But the U.S. Attorney’s office was forced to face up to this issue; so was the court,” Catlett said. “And maybe because of the publicity this has received, more people will stop to think about the issue, too.”

He sees a few personal benefits as a result of the case.

“I know a lot more people now, and it’s certainly gratifying to get the kind of support I’ve received from all over the country,” Catlett said.

“I still have plenty of friends,” he said, “and I think my standing in the community as a man of integrity has been enhanced.”

When he returns to Columbia, Catlett will have many interests to occupy his time.

“I haven’t been bored a day in my life, I’ve never been without plans for the future,” he said.

Catlett said that being sentenced to federal prison has not changed his attitudes toward the government, toward the issue of war and taxes, or toward society.

“When I get out, I’ll continue to work for a more just and equitable society,” Catlett said. “I realize one individual is not going to change society next month or next year.

“But I do believe a more just and equitable society is possible — otherwise I’d check out and try some other world.”

The author of that piece accompanied it with another backgrounder:

tax resistance is historical means of protesting war

By J. Russell King
Missourian staff writer

Tax resistance as a form of protesting war in America goes back at least as far as , when Henry David Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax because he disapproved of the United States’ war with Mexico.

Thoreau spent a night in jail for that action, and it appears Richard Catlett of Columbia will spend two months in federal prison for his. But the actual imprisonment of war resisters who refuse to pay taxes has been unusual in recent years.

George Willoughby, clerk of the Committee on War Tax Concerns of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, said he knows of only two or three other cases in which tax resisters have been sent to jail.

“But the failure to file a return at all as in Catlett’s case is a different form of tax refusal from that taken by most war resisters,” Willoughby said.

The most common form of war tax resistance during the Vietnam War was the refusal to pay the 10 percent federal tax on telephone service. Time magazine in reported that more than 56,000 Americans took this action as a form of protest against the war.

Others — 1,740 in  — filed income tax returns, but withheld payment of a portion of the tax to protest military spending.

In both these cases, the IRS has usually recovered the money through seizure of the protesting taxpayer’s bank account, salary or property. Perhaps because of this, charges seldom have been filed against war tax resisters.

Willoughby said that though only a small number of Quakers are active war tax resisters — no exact figures are known — the position is one that is endorsed and respected by the Society.

“How far the individual Friend takes his witness for peace is an individual matter, but tax resistance is certainly a logical extension of the Society’s long tradition of peace concerns,” Willoughby said. He and his wife are tax resisters themselves.

“We feel, now that we are older and the government no longer seeks to use our bodies to make war, that the only effective witness is to try to keep them from using our money to make war,” Willoughby said.

Several non-Quaker organizations also have encouraged tax refusal as a form of war protest, particularly during the Vietnam years.

A proposal before Congress is the World Peace Tax Fund, which would allow taxpayers to channel that portion of their tax payments ordinarily used for military expenditures into peace-related projects.

“It’s much like conscientious objectors to military service; they still serve, but in another capacity,” Willoughby said.

The bill picks up more support in Congress each year, Willoughby said, but he does not expect its passage soon.

“In effect, it allows the taxpayer to tell the government how he wants his money spent. That’s a power the government is not likely to give up without a fight.”

Here are a handful of artifacts relating to the American war tax resistance movement circa .

First, some relics that were filed alongside a letter from Herbert Sonthoff to W. Walter Boyd (though I think this filing may be arbitrary and that the letters are not related to each other):

An Open Letter *

At this late date it is pointless to muster the evidence which shows that the war we are waging in Vietnam is wrong. By now you have decided for yourself where you stand. In all probability, if you share our feelings about it, you have expressed your objections both privately and publicly. You have witnessed the small effect these protests have had on our government.

By , every American citizen must decide whether he will make a voluntary contribution to the continuation of this war. After grave consideration, we have decided that we can no longer do so, and that we will therefore withhold all or part of the taxes due. The purpose of this letter is to call your attention to the fact that a nationwide tax refusal campaign is in progress, as stated in the accompanying announcement, and to urge you to consider refusing to contribute voluntarily to this barbaric war.

Signed:

Prof. Warren AmbroseMathematics, M.I.T.
Dr. Donnell BoardmanPhysician, Acton, Mass.
Mrs. Elizabeth BoardmanActon, Mass.
Prof. Noam ChomskyLinguistics, M.I.T.
Miss Barbara DemingWriter, Wellfleet, Mass.
Prof. John DolanPhilosophy, Chicago University
Prof. John EkAnthropology, Long Island University
Martha Bentley HallMusician, Brookline, Mass.
Dr. Thomas C. HallPhysician, Brookline, Mass.
Rev. Arthur B. JellisFirst Parish in Concord, Unitarian-Universalist, Concord, Mass.
Prof. Donald KalishPhilosophy, U.C.L.A.
Prof. Louis KampfHumanities, M.I.T.
Prof. Staughton LyndHistory, Yale University
Milton MayerWriter, Mass.
Prof. Jonathan MirskyChinese Language and Literature, Dartmouth College
Prof. Sidney MorgenbesserPhilosophy, Columbia University
Prof. Wayne A. O’NeillGraduate School of Education, Harvard University
Prof. Anatol RapoportMental Health Research Institute, University of Michigan
Prof. Franz SchurmannCenter for Chinese Studies, University of Calif., Berkeley
Dr. Albert Szent GyorgyInstitute for Muscle Research, Woods Hole, Mass.
Harold TovishSculptor, Brookline, Mass.
Prof. Howard ZinnGovernment, Boston University

* Institutions listed for informational purposes only

P.S. The No Tax for War Committee intends to make public the names of signers, hence if you wish to add your signature, early return is desirable. Contributions are needed, and checks should be made payable to the Committee.

The following page, dated , shows a mock-up of the intended public advertisement showing the signers’ names:

No Income Tax For War! Now Particularly the U.S. War in Vietnam. Statement: Because so much of the tax paid the federal government goes for poisoning of food crops, blasting of villages, napalming and killing of thousands upon thousands of people, as in Vietnam at the present time, I am not going to pay taxes on 1966 income. Name ___. Address ___. [In order to withdraw support from war, particularly the savage and expanding war in Southeast Asia– Some are refusing to pay their total tax, or some portion. ☐ Some have in advance lowered their income so as to owe none. ☐ (for our information, would you like to check which form of nonpayment you are following?) NOTE: There are laws which (although not usually applied to principled refusers) cover possible fine and jail term for non-payment of a legally-owed amount.]

The committee will publish the above statement with names of signers at tax deadline — .

Send signed statements to: NO TAX FOR WAR COMMITTEE, c/o Rev. Maurice McCrackin, 932 Dayton St., Cincinnati, Ohio 45214.

For additional copies of this form, put number you will distribute and name and address on the following lines:
No. _____ Name ____________________
Address _________________________

Signers So Far

  • Meldon and Amy Acheson
  • Michael J. Ames
  • Alfred F. Andersen
  • Ross Anderson
  • Beulah K. Arndt
  • Joan Baez
  • Richard Baker
  • Bruce & Pam Beck
  • Ruth T. Best
  • Robert & Margaret Blood
  • Karel F. Botermans
  • Marion & Ernest Bromley
  • Edwin Brooks
  • A. Dale Brothington
  • Mrs. Lydia Bruns
  • Wendal Bull
  • Mrs. Dorothy Bucknell
  • John Burslem
  • Lindley J. Burton
  • Catharine J. Cadbury
  • Maris Cakars
  • Robert and Phyllis Calese
  • William N. Calloway
  • Betty Camp
  • Daryle V. Carter
  • Jared & Susan Carter
  • Horace & Beulah Champney
  • Ken & Peggy Champney
  • Hank & Henry Chapin
  • Holly Chenery
  • Richard A. Chinn
  • Naom [sic] Chomsky
  • John & Judy Christian
  • Gordon & Mary Christiansen
  • Peter Christiansen
  • Donald F. Cole
  • John Augustine Cook
  • Helen Marr Cook
  • Jack Coolidge, Jr.
  • Allen Cooper
  • Martin J. Corbin
  • Tom & Monica Cornell
  • Dorothy J. Cunningham
  • Jean DaCosta
  • Ann & William Davidon
  • Stanley F. Davis
  • Dorothy Day
  • Dave Dellinger
  • Barbara Deming
  • Robert Dewart
  • Ruth Dodd
  • John M. Dolan
  • Orin Doty
  • Allen Duberstein
  • Ralph Dull
  • Malcolm Dundas
  • Margaret E. Dungan
  • Henry Dyer
  • Susan Eanet
  • Bob Eaton
  • Marc Paul Edelman
  • Johan & Francis Eliot
  • Jerry Engelbach
  • George J. Etu, Jr.
  • Mary C. Eubanks
  • Arthur Evans
  • Jonathan Evans
  • William E. Evans
  • Pearl Ewald
  • Franklin Farmer
  • Bertha Faust
  • Dianne M. Feeley
  • Rice A. Felder
  • Henry A. Felisone
  • Mildred Fellin
  • Glenn Fisher
  • John Forbes
  • Don & Ann Fortenberry
  • Marion C. Frenyear
  • Ruth Gage-Colby
  • Lawrence H. Geller
  • Richard Ghelli
  • Charles Gibadlo
  • Bruce Glushakow
  • Walter Gormly
  • Arthur Goulston
  • Thomas Grabell
  • Steven Green
  • Walter Grengg
  • Joseph Gribbins
  • Kenneth Gross
  • John M. Grzywacz, Jr.
  • Catherine Guertin
  • David Hartsough
  • David Hartsough
  • Arthur Harvey
  • Janet Hawksley
  • James P. Hayes, Jr.
  • R.F. Helstern
  • Ammon Hennacy
  • Norman Henry
  • Robert Hickey
  • Dick & Heide Hiler
  • William Himelhoch
  • C.J. Hinke
  • Anthony Hinrichs
  • William M. Hodsdon
  • Irwin R. Hogenauer
  • Florence Howe
  • Donald & Mary Huck
  • Philip Isely
  • Michael Itkin
  • Charles T. Jackson
  • Paul Jacobs
  • Martin & Nancy Jezer
  • F. Robert Johnson
  • Woodbridge O. Johnson
  • Ashton & Marie Jones
  • Paul Jordan
  • Paul Keiser
  • Joel C. Kent
  • Roy C. Kepler
  • Paul & Pauline Kermiet
  • Peter Kiger
  • Richard King
  • H.A. Kreinkamp
  • Arthur & Margaret Landes
  • Paul Lauter
  • Peter and Marolyn Leach
  • Gertrud & George A. Lear, Jr.
  • Alan and Elin Learnard
  • Titus Lehman
  • Richard A. Lema
  • Florence Levinsohn
  • Elliot Linzer
  • David C. Lorenz
  • Preston B. Luitweiler
  • Bradford Lyttle
  • Adriann van L. Maas
  • Ben & Sue Mann
  • Paul and Salome Mann
  • Howard E. Marston, Sr.
  • Milton and Jane Mayer
  • Martin & Helen Mayfield
  • Maurice McCrackin
  • Lilian McFarland
  • Maureen & Felix McGowan
  • Maryann McNaughton
  • Gelston McNeil
  • Guy W. Meyer
  • Karl Meyer
  • David & Catherine Miller
  • James Missey
  • Mark Morris
  • Janet Murphy
  • Thomas P. Murray
  • Rosemary Nagy
  • Wally & Juanita Nelson
  • Marilyn Neuhauser
  • Neal D. Newby, Jr.
  • Miriam Nicholas
  • Robert B. Nichols
  • David Nolan
  • Raymond S. Olds
  • Wayne A. O’Neil
  • Michael O’Quin
  • Ruth Orcutt
  • Eleanor Ostroff
  • Doug Palmer
  • Malcolm & Margaret Parker
  • Jim Peck
  • Michael E. Pettie
  • John Pettigrew
  • Lydia H. Philips
  • Dean W. Plagowski
  • Jefferson Poland
  • A.J. Porth
  • Ralph Powell
  • Charles F. Purvis
  • Jean Putnam
  • Harriet Putterman
  • Robert Reitz
  • Ben & Helen Reyes
  • Elsa G. Richmond
  • Eroseanna Robinson
  • Pat Rusk
  • Joe & Helen Ryan
  • Paul Salstrom
  • Ira J. Sandperl
  • Jerry & Rae Schwartz
  • Martin Shepard
  • Richard T. Sherman
  • Louis Silverstein
  • T.W. Simer
  • Ann B. Sims
  • Jane Beverly Smith
  • Linda Smith
  • Thomas W. Smuda
  • Bob Speck
  • Elizabeth P. Steiner
  • Lee D. Stern
  • Beverly Sterner
  • Michael Stocker
  • Charles H. Straut, Jr.
  • Stephen Suffet
  • Albert & Joyce Sunderland, Jr.
  • Mr. & Mrs. Michael R. Sutter
  • Marjorie & Robert Swann
  • Oliver & Katherine Tatum
  • Gary G. Taylor
  • Harold Tovish
  • Joe & Cele Tuchinsky
  • Lloyd & Phyllis Tyler
  • Samuel R. Tyson
  • Ingegerd Uppman
  • Margaret von Selle
  • Mrs. Evelyn Wallace
  • Wilbur & Joan Ann Wallis
  • William & Mary Webb
  • Barbara Webster
  • John K. White
  • Willson Whitman
  • Denny & Ida Wilcher
  • Huw Williams
  • George & Lillian Willoughby
  • Bob Wilson
  • Emily T. Wilson
  • Jim & Raona Wilson
  • W.W. Wittkamper
  • Sylvia Woog
  • Wilmer & Mildred Young
  • Franklin Zahn
  • Betty & Louis Zemel
  • Vicki Jo Zilinkas

Following this was a page explaining how to go about resisting:

Some Methods of Nonpayment

  1. For those owing nothing because of the Withholding Tax.

    Such persons write a letter to the Internal Revenue Service, to be filed with the tax return, stating that the writer cannot in good conscience help support the war in Vietnam, voluntarily. The writer therefore requests a return of a percentage of the money collected from his salary.

    Note: Of course, the IRS will not return the money. However, the writer has refused to pay for the war voluntarily and has put it in writing. This symbolic action is not to be belittled since anybody who does this allies himself with those who will withhold money due the IRS.
  2. For those self-employed or owing money beyond what has been withheld from salary.

    Such persons write a letter to be filed with the tax return, stating that the writer does not object to the income tax in principle, but will not, as a matter of conscience, help pay for the war in Vietnam. The writer is therefore withholding some or all of the tax due.

Note: In all cases, we recommend that copies of these letters be sent to the President and to your Senators.

Remarks:
The Internal Revenue Service has the legal power to confiscate money due it. They will get that money, one way or another. However, to obstruct the IRS from collecting money due (by not filing a return at all, for example) seems less important to us than the fact that each is refusing to pay his tax voluntarily. With this in mind, many of us are placing the taxes owed in special accounts and we will so inform the IRS in our letters.

Willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and up to a year in jail, together with the costs of prosecution. So far, the IRS has prosecuted only those who have obstructed collection (by refusing to file a return, by refusing to answer a summons, etc.). Usually, the IRS has collected the tax due plus 6% interest and possibly an added fine of 5% for “negligence”. The fact that the IRS has rarely, if at all, prosecuted tax-refusers to the full extent of the law does not mean they will not do so in the future.

Finally, an article from the edition of The Capitol East Gazette:

Tax Refusal Urged by Group

Two thousand anti-war leaflets on telephone tax refusal were distributed in Capitol East on , by members of CHOICE, a group of local residents who are withdrawing their support for the Vietnam war.

The leaflet explains that the 10% phone tax was enacted in specifically to raise money for the Vietnam war.

According to CHOICE, the phone company will not remove a person’s telephone if he refuses to pay the tax. The company asks refusers to state why they are withholding the tax and then turns the matter over to the Internal Revenue Service.

According to CHOICE, there are presently 25 known tax refusers in the Capitol Hill area.

Those desiring CHOICE’s leaflet are asked to call LI 6‒9836.

During the Vietnam War, resistance to the federal excise tax on telephone service was very popular in the anti-war movement, including the campus peace movement. Here are some newspaper articles from that period.

From The Cornell Daily Sun, :

Ithacans Spurn Tax In Protest of War

Ithacans who have been refusing to pay their federal telephone tax in protesting the Vietnam war have so far escaped tax free.

“A lot of people are doing this across the country,” said Natalie P. Kent, who suggested withholding the tax at a meeting of the recently formed Tompkins County Peace Association.

The federal tax, which is listed on the itemized bill, was originally three per cent and scheduled to be abolished. In it was raised to 10 per cent, specifically to help finance the war in Vietnam.

Protesters deduct either seven or ten percent taxes from their payments and enclose a letter to the telephone company explaining why they are not paying the full bill.

The telephone company acts only as a billing agency in collecting the federal tax. When an incomplete payment accompanied by an explanatory letter is received, the company reports it to the Internal Revenue Service, said D.J. Martin, manager of the New York Telephone Company.

Since the bills are confidential, no estimate of how many people are refusing to pay is available. The protest action is not coordinated by any organization.

Prof. Carol L. Marks, English, said that the tax withholding, like any protest, is “more for the private satisfaction of the people involved,” because the significance lies in the mind of the person who’s doing it.” [sic]

She subtracts the tax from her bill every month out of habit, and does not expect the government to take action to collect the taxes because “its not worth it.”

Information on such tax refusal is sent to regional Internal Revenue Service offices in Buffalo.

“Sooner or later they (the protesters) will be contacted to collect the tax,” said an Internal Revenue spokesman.

“Now which of you refuses to pay taxes headed for the military and which refuses to pay taxes in support of the swollen welfare bureaucracy?”

From the Watertown Daily Times, :

War Protesters Balk on Paying Telephone Taxes

Washington (UPI) — Americans looking for a cheap and safe way to protest the war in Vietnam are refusing to pay the federal excise tax on their telephone bills, the Internal Revenue service said today.

But the IRS usually collects the money after all. Last week it issued new rules aimed at speeding up the collection process by cutting out time consuming hearings on war protest cases.

So far, nobody has gone to jail over the telephone tax protests, and IRS officials doubt if they ever will because, as one spokesman explained:

“These people generally only do it once or twice and then start paying again, so the money held back is never great enough to warrant criminal action.”

The bargain-basement method of dissent has been operating around the nation for the past 15 months, according to the IRS. But the number of citizens involved is less than 4,000 once-a-month protesters.

The approach is made to order for the timid soul who wants to clear his conscience over a burning issue but doesn’t want any risk involved.

It’s cheap: The 10 per cent tax on a monthly phone bill is rarely more than a dollar or two, so there aren’t any fines or costly bail bonds to pay.

It’s safe: No getting trampled in crowds.

And best of all, the telephone service continues without interruption as long as the rest of the bill is paid.

The IRS explained that the phone tax is levied against the customer but is collected by the company. So, as long as the service charge is paid, the phone stays connected. All the company does is notify the IRS when a customer pays all but the tax on a bill.

From the Utica Daily Press, :

Must Pay Phone Tax

IRS Dials “No” on Refusal

Persons who refuse to pay the federal excise tax on telephone service during the Moratorium demonstrations could have the tax deducted from their earnings or bank account, according to the Utica office of the Internal Revenue Service. In addition: they could be fined up to $10,000 or imprisoned for up to five years or both.

The Utica Moratorium Committee plans to hand out leaflets in front of the New York Telephone Company’s office building at 270 Genesee Street. The leaflets will urge telephone customers not to pay the federal excise tax which is included in their telephone bills, the Moratorium Committee claims that the excise tax is used to further “the war machine” and says persons refusing to pay cannot be prosecuted.

A spokesman for the IRS yesterday quoted Section 6331 of the IRS Code, entitled Levy and Distraint.

“If any person liable to pay any tax neglects or refuses to pay the same within 10 days after notice and demand, it shall be lawful for the Secretary of the Treasury or his delegate to collect such tax and such further sum as should be sufficient to cover the expenses of the levy by a levy upon all property (except such property as is exempt under Section 6334) belonging to such person.”

Punishment for non-payment is covered in Section 7201 of the same code:

“Any person who willfully attempts, in any manner to evade this title or payment shall, in addition to other penalties provided by law, be guilty of a felony and upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years or both, together with the costs of prosecution.”

The Moratorium Committee decided at its meeting to picket the Internal Revenue Service in addition to passing out leaflets in front of the Telephone Company.

From The Cornell Daily Sun, :

Cornell Mobe Committee Endorses Tax Resistance

The Cornell Vietnam Mobilization Committee has stated that it “endorses tax resistance as a protest to the continuing war in Vietnam and urges people to refuse to pay the federal telephone excise tax which was levied expressly and retained to help finance the Vietnam War.”

According to the committee’s statement, “The Vietnam Moratorium Committee, The New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, Clergy and Laymen Concerned,” and several other groups “are working together with the War Tax Resistance to build the largest tax movement possible.”

The War Tax Resisters will hold workshops on tax resistance during the America is Hard to Find Weekend at 10, 11 and noon Saturday and at 11 a.m. Sunday in the Willard Straight Kimball Room, said the statement.

Father Daniel Berrigan, S.J. and 45 other members of the Cornell University staff and their wives have “declared their intention to refuse payment of the federal excise tax on their telephone bills as a gesture of protest against our government’s policy in Vietnam.”

“To refuse to pay the federal excise tax one merely deducts the amount from the telephone bill and sends a note with his bill explaining the action,” according to the Cornell Mobilization statement. The telephone company has made assurances that phone service will not be interrupted, the statement said.

The Internal Revenue Service sends a bill after three months to a person refusing to pay the tax. After one more contact, “the IRS attempts to seek out a bank account or salary check from which they can deduct the unpaid amount plus 6 per cent interest, said the committee.

One who “willfully fails to pay” the phone tax could be charged with a misdemeanor under the Internal Revenue Code.

From The Harvard Crimson, :

Tax Resisters Hold Phone Tax Protest

by Jeremy S. Bluhm

A group of about 70 young and old people joined in a quiet lunch-hour march to New England Telephone and Telegraph’s Boston offices to protest the use of phone taxes to support the war.

At the phone company, they paid their phone bills-minus the tax. The tax money, which totaled $112, was presented to Marces Muncis, a New England representative of the United Farm Workers. The Farm Workers will use the money to help support a clinic in Delanos, California.

The money was collected in a helmet which symbolized the 101 Americans who died in Southeast Asia during the past week. The marchers obtained this figure-which represents the highest toll in five-and-a-half months-from the Record American on the way to New England Tel and Tel.

The Roxbury War Tax Scholarship Fund and the Boston Tax Resistance organized the “tax march.” The Roxbury group, which is about three years old, now has about $25,500 in unpaid income and phone taxes in its accounts. The principle is held in escrow, but the interest is donated regularly to community projects. In , the Roxbury fund gave $354 to the Storefront Learning Center in Boston.

Boston Tax Resistance, a newer group, has collected about $2500 in unpaid phone taxes.

The Internal Revenue Service now collects about one-and-a-half billion dollars annually through the phone tax, which was instituted to provide funds for the war.

“It seems like a small thing when it’s tacked on your phone bill, but this [the $142] shows that it really adds up,” a woman from Boston Tax Resistance said at the phone company rally .

From The Harvard Crimson, :

Group Asks Phone-Tax Resistance

by Micrael S. Feldberg

A group of peace activists is calling on Harvard students and Faculty to risk imprisonment and fines by not paying the Federal excise tax on long distance telephone calls in protest against the Indochina war.

Calling itself TaxPax, the group is circulating a petition which urges members of the Harvard community to refuse to pay the tax, which the group calls “born in war, and regressive in effect.”

The Harvard Indochina Teach-in Committee is also endorsing the tax strike, and two Faculty members — Everett I. Mendelsohn, professor of the History of Science, and Herbert C. Kelman, Richard Clarke Cabot professor of Social Ethics — will be circulating similar petitions among the Faculty.

“This tax on phone calls raises money directly for the war,” James Henry , one of the organizers of TaxPax, said . “It was raised from three to ten per cent in at the peak of the escalation of the war, and even Mills [Congressman Wilbur B. Mills (D-Ark.), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee] has said that the money is for the war.”

TaxPax organizers estimate the tax raises $1.4 billion annually.

According to Henry, people who refuse to pay this tax are liable to a one year jail sentence as well as a $10,000 fine. In addition, they could be charged with attempting “to evade or defeat” the phone tax, which carries a penalty of five years imprisonment.

“So far,” Henry said, “the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) hasn’t prosecuted anyone over the phone tax. What they’ve been doing is levying a lien on the person’s bank account to get the money. They don’t want to put people in jail, they just want the money.”

Henry estimates that following up on tax evaders costs the IRS $400 per case, in addition to adding a lot of paperwork and confusion to the system.

A spokesman for the IRS seemed less than concerned about the proposed tax resistance.

“We respond the same way to people who evade the phone tax as to all other tax delinquents,” Edward Callanan, Public Information Officer of the Boston IRS said . “We send a bill to the person who hasn’t paid the tax, and if we don’t hear from him in another month we send another bill. If he still doesn’t pay, then we’ll take the money from his bank account or any other personal assets.”

TaxPax is following the example of the Boston War Tax Resistance League, a group which has been active for over a year collecting money that would have gone to phone taxes. The group has raised over $25,000 which has gone to community action projects.

From The Harvard Crimson, :

1150 to Withhold Phone Tax As Indochina War Protest

About 1150 Harvard and Radcliffe students have signed an agreement to withhold payment of the tax on their phone bills as a protest against the Indochina war.

TaxPax, an organization of Harvard students and faculty members, started circulating a petition to withhold the phone tax . The petition included the stipulation that the names of the signers would not be made public until 1000 people had signed it. That number was reached on .

Everett I. Mendelsohn, professor of the History of Science, and Herbert C. Kelman, Cabot Professor of Social Ethics, plan to solicit similar commitments from faculty members.

Mendelsohn is now drafting a letter which he will send to some 800 members of the Faculty urging them to withhold their phone tax.

TaxPax and similar organizations, including the Boston War Tax Resistance League, oppose the tax on long distance phone calls because its revenues finance the Vietnam war.

“The tax on phone calls makes money directly for the war,” said James S. Henry , one of the TaxPax organizers. TaxPax organizers estimate that the phone tax raises some $1.4 billion annually.

Although refusal to pay the tax can result in imprisonment and fines, the Internal Revenue Service normally gets the money by attaching the delinquent taxpayer’s bank account. Henry said that this method of tax collection is being challenged in the courts.

TaxPax will also encourage the resisters to contribute the tax money to antiwar or community groups such as day care centers. And TaxPax founders may try to get people who signed the agreement to participate in non-violent activity in Washington, D.C. this spring.

From the Daily Illini, :

Linked to Vietnam war

Phone tax boycott called

by Gary Raether
Daily Illini Staff Writer

War Tax Resistance (WTR) is calling for a boycott of the ten per cent federal telephone excise tax as a means of protesting the war in Viet Nam.

“It is clear,” said Rep. Wilbur Mills, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, “that Vietnam and only the Vietnam operation makes this bill necessary.”

War Tax Resistance sees the refusal to pay this “war tax” as means of showing the government that people are willing to break the law in their opposition to the war. It also creates “a thorny collection problem for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS),” according to WTR.

Life Funds

According to Robert Calvert of the New York headquarters “People’s Life Funds” are being created around the country for people to send the money they would normally pay in telephone excise taxes to.

Refusal to pay the telephone tax is a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for up to one year and a fine of up to $10,000.

According to Calvert, nobody has yet been arrested for open tax resistance. “The government is not willing to publicize it because it may spread.”

Service stop?

The telephone companies as a rule do not interrupt the service of a tax resister if the rest of the phone bill is paid. They merely contact the IRS and leave it up to them to collect the tax.

The IRS then contacts the resister by mail with a demand for the unpaid amount and may pay him a visit. The IRS will finally seek out a bank account of or payroll check from which to deduct the amount, plus up to six per cent interest.

From The Cornell Daily Sun, :

Cornell Mobe Sponsors Protest Against Federal Telephone Tax

By Maia Licker

In order to publicly demonstrate resistance to the Federal telephone tax that was instituted to fund the Vietnam war, the Cornell Mobe is sponsoring a demonstration at the Ithaca office of the Telephone Company and at Southside House, a local community center.

People who refuse to pay “the war tax” are urged to assemble at at the telephone company office, at 208 E. Buffalo St. The plan then calls for a march from the telephone office to Southside House, at 305 S. Plane St., where demonstrators will be asked to donate the money they withheld from their phone bills.

According to Douglas Kenyon, the money will be donated to Southside’s Early Childhood Development program, as a demonstration that “people want their money to be used for the development of children here, not the destruction of children in Vietnam.”

“This act compels the participants to examine their own depth of commitment to help to end this war.”

According to war resistance organizations in New York City, people who refuse to pay the tax could possibly be charged with a misdemeanor, under Section 7203 of the Internal Revenue Code. They could be imprisoned up to a year and fined up to $10,000.

However, experiences of people who have refused to pay the tax indicate that the government does not press criminal charges in these cases.

For example, Carl Kukkonen, a Mobe member who has not paid the tax in over a year, stated that the IRS has not threatened him with criminal charges, nor has his telephone service been cut off. Kukkonen said that he received letters from the IRS, which threatened to “seize property” if he did not pay the $4.32 plus a 13 cents interest charge they claimed he owned them. About a year after he stopped paying the tax, the IRS deducted that amount from his bank account.

From The Cornell Daily Sun, :

Demonstrators Voice Protests Of Phone Tax

“This is one way to make our point to the government in the most basic terms, and that means money,” said Prof. James Matlack, English, after a War Tax Resistance demonstration at the Ithaca telephone company office .

After meeting at the telephone company office on Buffalo Street, 13 tax resisters marched to Southside Community Center where they donated $62 that they withheld from their telephone bills.

The contribution represented the 10 per cent phone tax that was levied to help finance the Vietnam war.

The sum withheld was donated to the Southside Day Care and Child Development program, in order to demonstrate the belief that tax revenues needed for health and education programs are instead being spent on war.

“We insist that funds be spent for growth, nurture and healing, not for maiming and destruction — spent for life instead of death,” wrote Matlack in a letter to the Internal Revenue Service.

According to Section 7203 of the Internal Revenue Code, people who refuse to pay the tax could possibly be imprisoned up to one year and fined up to $10,000. The telephone company is not responsible for enforcing tax payment and will not discontinue service.

Tax resistance demonstrations similar to ’s protest are scheduled to be held once a month.

From The Cornell Daily Sun, :

Group Protests Fed Excise Tax

A group of Ithaca residents plans to gather in front of the New York Telephone Company to protest the war in Indochina.

The members of the Telephone War Refusal Group are opposed to the use of the 10 per cent Federal excise tax, which they content is used to support the war. They plan to give the tax money instead to Ithaca’s Southside Community Center.

At the Telephone Company offices, the group members plan to pay their telephone bill minus the excise tax. They will then walk over to the Community Center to donate the tax money.

The group issued a statement to the Internal Revenue Service to explain its actions.

It said, “To show our opposition to the U.S. involvement in Indochina, we are refusing to pay the Federal excise tax levied on our telephone bills to supply revenues to continue the war… Instead of supporting death, we choose to support life and growth.”

From the Columbia Missourian, :

War Protest Diverts Telephone Excise Tax To “Alternate” Causes

By Candy Louis
Missourian Staff Writer

Protesters of the Vietnam War who are refusing to pay their telephone excise tax are sadly misinformed about their efforts, Jerry West, Internal Revenue collector says. If they wanted to stop paying taxes on the war they would have to stop eating, buying sugar, and driving a car. And those who have refused to pay are sorry because of the complications involved when the Internal Revenue Service receives the case for collection.

Not so say coordinators of the Columbia War Tax Resistance. Refusing to pay the telephone tax is an easy and viable protest method because the telephone excise tax was specifically increased from 3 to 10 per percent to pay for the strain caused by the Vietnam War. The Internal Revenue Service may attach a bank account or salary check for the unpaid amount plus 6 per cent interest but the time and money involved in the collection far outweighs the money that would be involved in non-payment of the tax.

David Bray, one of the local organizers, suggests that all money ordinarily paid to the excise tax be channeled to an “alternative fund,” a program that uses tax money to finance grants to community groups sponsoring such programs as day-care centers, drug abuse programs, or doctors working with Vietnamese children injured by the war.

The movement is not purely local: it has groups in 179 centers and alternative fund programs in 23 cities. The importance of the program, Bray says, is its symbolic value. Tax funds are being used to directly benefit the people. He cites the historic tradition of American protest against taxes in the Revolutionary War, specifically the Boston Tea Party and the Stamp Act Rebellion.

Telephone company officials act only as collectors for the government, alerting them if a subscriber has refused to pay his excise tax. They cannot discontinue service as long as a customer’s service bill is paid. A case sent to a federal court in Mississippi was settled in favor of the defendant and service was restored.

Richard Randall, Columbia office manager for the General Telephone Co., says the local office forwards all refusals to pay tax to its home office in Grinnell, Iowa. From there these letters are sent to the Internal Revenue Service and followup begins.

Bray says the general policy of the telephone company has been to send out a letter saying that you have refused to pay your tax and do you want to reconsider — a type of second chance letter. After this, the refusals are forwarded.

West and Larry Schreiber of the Internal Revenue Service say that the money going for the war from excise tax wont won’t even begin to pay for the expenses involved. They point out that only 8 cents of every tax dollar represents excise tax and of that amount 37 per cent goes for the war while 63 per cent is channeled into health, education, and welfare. West says “Every time someone tells me he is refusing to pay his excise tax in protest of the war, I tell him he is taking food away from a hungry child.”

The 720 Quarterly Federal Excise Tax Return lists the following services as covered by excise tax: Toll telephone service, teletypewriter exchange service, local telephone service, transportation of persons and property by air, use of international air travel facilities, policies issued by foreign insurers, the manufacture of pistols and revolvers, truck, bus, and trailer chassis and bodies, tractors, auto chassis and bodies, parts or accessories for trucks, fishing rods and artificial lures, firearms, shells, and cartridges, sugar, diesel fuel and special motor fuels, gasoline, lubricating oil, tires, inner tubes, tread rubber, and fuel used in non-commercial aviation.

All this money goes into one pot and it is impossible to determine what money is channeled for which program, West says.

In some cases, Bray says, IRS officers have tried to auction off a subscriber’s car to get the non-paid telephone excise tax money but the publicity has caused more harm than good. Friends buy the car and then get their money back after the IRS has subtracted the amount of the unpaid bill.

Money collected by alternate programs in Boston and Philadelphia is in the $25,000 and $50,000 range. Payments are being made off the interest collected on the money. All money is channeled into a local bank and donors receive a receipt for their contributions. All participants have a say in deciding to whom the money is granted.

Locally, organizers hope to be able to make a sizable contribution to a group by , the deadline for filing ’s income tax returns. They have established offices in the Help Yourself Center, 915 East Broadway.

And, as proof of their beliefs, they quote Rep. Wilbur Mills, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, “that Vietnam and only the Vietnam operation makes this bill necessary.” (Congressional Record .)

Let’s cast ourselves back, shall we, to , by which time the American anti-war movement had really hit its stride, and war tax resistance was prominently on the agenda.

From the Niagara Falls Gazette:

Day of Reckoning

Tax Revolt: Refusing to Pay for the War

(Newsweek Feature Service)

As approaches, most taxpayers are studiously calculating how much to turn over to the Internal Revenue Service. A small but growing group of citizens, however, is just as studiously determining how much they will refuse to pay the tax collector.

In the latest, and perhaps the ultimate, form of antiwar protest, hundreds and possibly thousands of taxpayers are preparing to hold back, or have already held back, anything from a symbolic few dollars to the 10 per cent war-born Federal surtax on their whole income tax for the year.

At the very least, these irate citizens hope their actions will register as formal protests against the Vietnam war. The more optimistic among them envision the war-effort’s being actually affected, should enough people hold back on their taxes.

It all began , with an organization of New Left and pacifist opponents of the war called War Tax Resistance. WTR’s headquarters is a littered office on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The group also claims 62 resistance centers around the country, a number that has more than doubled . And it plans nationwide demonstrations at IRS offices on .

The group’s “coordinator” is Bradford Lyttle, a seasoned pacifist who led a peace march through the U.S. and Europe to Moscow a decade ago. WTR dispenses the usual paraphernalia of protest buttons, newsletters, and posters.

One poster shows a sprawl of dead children under the pronouncement “Your Tax Dollars at Work.” But mostly the propaganda treads a careful line between evangelic encouragement to defy the tax-coliector and occasional cautions that doing so could land the tax resister in a heap of trouble, perhaps jail.

The tax resisters also point to respectable historical precedents. Quakers and Mennonites refused to pay taxes for the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. And Henry David Thoreau is spiritually summoned forth from his night in jail in for refusing to pay taxes in protest against the U.S. invasion of Mexico.

“If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills,” Thoreau said, “that would not be a bloody and violent measure, as it would to pay them and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood.”

But tax resistance leaders warn that Thoreau’s imitators cannot be sure of getting off as lightly as he did.

“As we develop a broad movement of tax resistance,” cautions a Chicago-based WTR group, “we must anticipate a certain number of criminal prosecutions, and many merciless attempts to collect from tax resisters. Here is a good rule of thumb for all would-be resisters: if you can’t stand heat, don’t put your hand in the fire.”

Such warnings generally are played down in tax-resistance circles. Instead, there is a tendency to emphasize that the IRS so far has shied away from criminal action in favor of attaching salaries or seizing bank accounts.

There are, of course, other frustrations. WTR guidance on how to go about not paying taxes inevitably confronts the fact that a good many people already have — through payroll withholding taxes, and that getting tax money back is obviously a more difficult matter than not paying up to begin with.

One tax resistor from Minneapolis claims to have at least temporarily beaten the withholding system. He listed 40 million Vietnamese as dependents on his 1040 form; and the IRS, he says, has already sent him a refund.

He hopes this was one more example of the fallibility of computers, but tax resisters expect the human arithmeticians at IRS to be after the refundee soon enough. All the same, stretching the definition of dependents is one of the main tactics tax resisters are proposing.

“We must explicitly reject the standards defined by a blind bureaucracy and affirm instead definitions that spring from our own consciousness of human solidarity,” goes a bit of neo-Orwellianism from the Chicago WTR center.

The resisters are also zeroing in on other Federal taxes, most notably the 10 per cent Federal excise on telephone charges. According to telephone officials, many tax resisters have already begun subtracting the 10 per cent before paying their bills.

The telephone tax resisters evidently feel somewhat encouraged by telephone company policy: to accept the truncated payments, to continue service, and to leave the collection of the 10 per cent tax up to the IRS.

Income tax resisters have been a smaller band in recent years than telephone tax non-payers. But their numbers have been growing of late at a far greater rate.

In , when the IRS first began to keep tabs on tax protesters, some 375 were counted. In , there were 533, and , 848.

Resistance leaders feel that even if the amounts of nonpayment are small, symbolic sums, they could have significant impact by snarling the tax-collecting machinery. In a hand-lettered flier, titled, “No money, no war,” poet Allen Ginsberg asserts:

“If money talks, several hundred thousand citizens, refusing payments to our war government will short-circuit the nerve system of our electronic bureaucracy.”

The IRS has already formed a group of agents to go after conscientious non-payers, but an IRS spokesman stolidly denies that the electronics of the tax-collecting machinery can be jammed or ultimately evaded by the resisters. With the folk wisdom of civilization on his side, he says: “You can’t avoid your tax bill.”

To which WTR coordinator Lyttle, portentiously replies: “We’ll find out.”

Next, from the Daily Illini, :

War protesters plan action…

: Day to withhold taxes

by Steve Melshenker
Daily Illini Staff Writer

The government is a business proposition supported by a faith in its institutions which brings value to the dollar and the collection of dollars through taxes, which supports the government institutions.

Like any other business, the government is not pleased when its customers, the American people, do not pay their bills on time, and upset with some fail to pay at all.

However, there are those who believe the product for which they are paying is not up to company standards. That product is the Vietnam war. And so, these same people believe, if they don’t like the product, why should they pay for it?

Protest rekindled

On the war tax resistance moves en masse. All across the country protests are scheduled and various resistance groups are urging taxpayers to withhold part of all of their taxes in protest of the Vietnam war.

The war tax resistance groups do not oppose all taxes, just those going toward the war.

Various methods of resistance could be applied toward this purpose.

The method presently stressed by the resistance movement is refusing to pay at least $5 of some tax owed the government.

Or one might just refuse to pay part of his taxes, such as the additional income, the ten per cent surtax, or the telephone tax.

One might refuse to pay the percentage of his tax going toward the war. He could base his refusal on the percentage of the total national budget used for war, on the cost of the Vietnam war, or on other calculations.

Some people pay part of their tax and contribute the rest as a “peace tax” to the United Nations or some relief agency. Generally, these people contribute to organizations engaged in peaceful, constructive work.

But even though the government is not a profit making organization, it does not like to accumulate unpaid bills.

Don Werner, acting group supervisor of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) explained a six per cent interest and six per cent penalty charge accompany that part of the taxes due to the government and withheld by the taxpayer.

Werner said IRS offers “every opportunity to pay” the tax and the first step toward collection takes the form of letters to the delinquent tax payer. A bill is sent out and if it is not paid within ten days, the task of collection is turned over to a collecting officer.

Extreme measure

The most extreme measure the internal revenue office can take is to levy on all property belonging to the individual. However, certain property items are exempt from this levy, such as tools and books necessary for the person’s trade, business, or profession. A complete list can be found in the internal revenue code.

Beyond all this, IRS can recommend the U.S. Attorney’s office take legal action against the delinquent taxpayer.

Richard Makarski, chief of the tax division for the U.S. Attorney’s office, said the maximum penalty for tax evasion is five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Before any penalty is handed out, he said, the case is reviewed by the tax division of the justice department and if felony is involved a grand jury indictment is issued.

Makarski said that cases of this type were rare and “I don’t see the government taking much action against war protesters.”

He said only major cases of evasion were prosecuted.

So the war tax resistance movement is not likely to cause much damage to the war process, but in the words of one member of the Vietnam Moratorium committee, “it will show the government people are willing to do something assertive to protest the war.”

Sylvia Kushner, executive secretary of the Chicago Peace Council said the withholding of the phone tax will cause no damage to the individual and at worst the government will take the tax out of that person’s bank account.

The nationwide protest on has as its theme, Who pays for the war? Who profits from the war? And in no small way the peace guys are focusing ’s protest on the answers to those questions.

From the Harvard Crimson:

Five Members of Faculty Will Withhold War Taxes To Voice Vietnam Dissent

By Scott W. Jacobs

Five Harvard faculty members and nine M.I.T. professors — including two Nobel prize-winners — have announced their intention to withhold portions of their taxes to protest the Vietnam War.

In identical letters appearing in the Crimson and the M.I.T. Tech this week, the professors said they will refuse to pay portions of the 10 per cent surtax or the telephone tax “as a sign of our personal opposition to the continuing Vietnam War.”

Salvador E. Luria, M.I.T.’s Nobel laureate, and George Wald, Higgins Professor of Biology and a Nobel winner, each signed the letters to their colleagues. Other Harvard signers are Harvey Cox, professor of Divinity; Everett I. Mendelsohn, professor of the History of Science; Herbert C. Kelman, Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethies; and Mark Ptashne, lecturer in Biochemistry.

The signers asked other faculty members who have also decided to withhold their taxes to join them in a press release on  — the same day that tax resistance rallies are scheduled around the country.

The Boston professors are among the first groups in the country to announce a systematic plan for withholding taxes. Several individuals — most notably Joan Baez — have withheld taxes to protest the war in the past.

In most cases the government has simply appropriated bank accounts or pay checks to get the revenue, although tax resisters are liable to jail sentences.

“Dragging One’s Feet”

“All of us confidently expect the government will collect the tax before this is through,” Wald said . “We are expressing our disapproval of what our country is doing and making it more expensive to collect these taxes and do it.

“You understand that one is essentially dragging one’s feet.” he added.

“We are clearly engaging in a conscious form of civil disobedience,” Mendelsohn said. “We are judging the war. We are saying it is wrong, and we are consciously cutting ourselves off from the war in the ways that we can.

Cox, who is now on sabbatical from the Divinity School, said the purpose of the action is to involve non-draft-age people in the anti-war movement.

“We’ve been asking young people to take a lot of risks — burning draft cards, resisting the draft, marching. I think it’s time to spread the risk through the whole life cycle,” he said .

The tax withholding is aimed primarity at the telephone tax and the 10 per cent surtax which were approved as means of financing the rising cost of the war.

Harvard is forced to deduct the surtax on salaries monthly, but taxes on royalties and honorariums must be assessed privately every year by the April 15 tax deadline.

From the Cornell Daily Sun:

Call Off the War

To the Editor: The undersigned members and wives of the staff at Cornell University declare their intention to refuse payment of the Federal excise tax on their telephone bills as a gesture of protest against our government’s policy in Vietnam. This tax was specifically retained by Congress as a revenue measure to provide funds for the war.

By our action, we signify our unwillingness to pay for that brutal, immoral war, one which has brought death and destruction to the Vietnamese, their land, and their culture. We refuse to sanction further waste of lives and treasure in defense of a corrupt and totalitarian regime in Saigon. The Vietnamese must be given true self-determination. American troops must be brought home. The War Must Be Stopped.

Andreas and Genia Albrecht, David and Carol Jasnow, Douglas and Marie Archibald, Jack Kiefer, Michael and Judy Balch, Jack and Mary Lewis, Father Daniel Berrigan, S.J., David Marr, David and Eloise Blanpied, Jim and Jean Matlack, Stephen Chase, Chandler and Katrina Morse, John and Sandra Condry, Reeve Parker, Robert Connelly, George and Julie Rinehart, Fred Cooper, Walter and Jane Slatoff, Vincent and Jill De Luca, Michael and Eve Stocker, Douglas Dowd, David Stroud, Daniel and Linda Finlay, Moss and Marilyn Sweedler, Bill and Maggie Goldsmith, Winthrop and Andrea Wetherbee, Neil and Louise Hertz, Tom and Carol Hill.

From the Cornell Daily Sun:

Anti-Tax Rallies At IRS Offices Protest Vietnam

By The Associated Press

Opponents of American policy in Vietnam massed in Boston and New York , while similar protest demonstrations — some objecting to the use of tax dollars to support the war — were staged in cities and towns across the country.

Crowds in Boston Common were estimated at 60,000, in New York’s Bryant Park, 20,000, but generally turnouts were below that of previous moratoriums. Tea was dumped into the Mississippi and Cedar rivers as reenactments of the Revolutionary era’s tax defiance — the Boston Tea Party.

Demonstrators at Internal Revenue Service sites numbered 4,000 in Chicago and in New York City, and ranged down to about 700 in Washington, D.C., 200 in Boston, 150 in White Plains, N.Y., and 16 in Oklahoma City.

Violence flared during demonstrations at the Berkeley campus of the University of California; demonstrators at Pennsylvania State University seized and damaged the administration building, and a brief melee erupted between police and protesters in Detroit.

In Washington, David Dellinger of the Chicago 7 urged a youthful, largely white crowd of 2,000 near the capitol to withhold their taxes as a means of forcing change in the United States.

“I advocate overthrowing the government by force but not by violence,” he told a rally, “and tax refusal is but one of the cutting edges and forces that are available to us.”

Young demonstrators burned two American flags during an earlier rally, drawing murmurs of disapproval from the rest of the crowd.

“We are going to make sure that this is a not so silent spring.” said Sam Brown, national coordinator of the Vietnam Moratorium Committee, one of several groups sponsoring the Boston rally. The crowd on the common was about 40,000 short of the 100,000 who gathered there .

In New York City, William Kunstler, a defense lawyer in the Chicago 7 conspiracy trial, told the Bryant Park gathering: “The time has come to resist illegitimate authority by any means necessary.”

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in

1984 brought the Friends Journal’s second special issue on war taxes, at a time when even its critics acknowledged war tax resistance as a mainstream practice in the Society of Friends.

In a letter-to-the-editor in a issue of the Journal, Tim Deniger, a supporter of the World Peace Tax Fund legislation, had pointed out some of its flaws, for instance that it “does not address the problem of spending for defense versus social welfare; it is simply a bookkeeping proposition which would ease the consciences of pacifists.” (See ♇ .)

Bill Strong wrote back, and, in a letter that appeared in the issue, defended the bill against its critics. Excerpts:

[T]he World Peace Tax Fund Bill…[’]s enactment won’t lessen defense spending; Congress will still need to do that. What it will do is establish a Peace Trust Fund (like the eminently successful highway trust fund), enabling our society to make a striking (i.e., dollar-worthy) commitment to seeking peace (via, for example, funding a peace academy, U.N. peacekeeping forces, the use of mediation, negotiation, and reconciliation techniques — none of which are currently part of U.S. commitments).

As to alternative service for war tax dollars being but an “accounting illusion” or only easing the consciences of pacifists, the same applies to the now-established alternative service of C.O.s. Although men choose alternative service, our government has never lacked the bodies to pursue any conflict any place, any time; but the C.O.’s personal witness still stands for what it is, a man’s conscientious decision not to be a part of the war system.

If we could have C.O. status for men over 20 and all women, allowing them not to pay for war but to have their tax dollars go toward peacemaking, our society would make a new and totally different kind of statement to this violence-weary world.

There’s a little bit of sleight-of-hand here in comparing people who would pay their taxes into a government-run alternative fund with only those conscientious objectors who would be willing to enter government-run “alternative service” in lieu of combat roles (as opposed to the many conscientious objectors who refused to be conscripted into any service whatsoever).

But it’s also important to note that these earlier versions of the “peace tax” scheme were much more conscientious about segregating the “peace tax” payments so that they would pay for new, additional, nonviolent, peace-seeking measures. This enabled promoters to make a much stronger case in favor of the bill than today’s poor “Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund” promoters — who have to somehow defend the idea that “peace tax” payers’ dollars will somehow magically get routed just toward the non-military portions of the government’s usual budget.

Friends Journal: Our Taxes and Peace

the cover of the issue of Friends Jounal

The issue of Friends Journal was dedicated to “Our Taxes and Peace” — the second such issue devoted to the war tax issue that I found in the archives.

Vinton Deming, a war tax resister and now the Editor-Manager of the Journal, introduced the issue. Excerpts:

[W]hat can we do, many of us are asking, to stop the flow of our tax money to the Pentagon?

It feels as if the Society of Friends has come more under the weight of this concern in the past year. My yearly meeting (Philadelphia) wrestled with the question of tax resistance a year ago, and monthly meetings have been asked to consider the question further as they prepare for yearly meeting sessions this month. Within my own monthly meeting I have attended clearness meetings this year for members seeking direction and support on the issue. And I have seen a marked increase in the number of members taking tentative steps to withhold at least a portion of their taxes. Reports from abroad include London Yearly Meeting’s minute of support this past summer for its employees who seek to hold back the military portion of their taxes.

Robert F. Tatman proposed a Minute on the subject, confidently presenting a target that was well in front of what any meeting had been prepared to accept thus far. Excerpts:

[W]e are led to declare for ourselves that all participation in war and preparation for war — in any form — is contrary to the Spirit and teachings of Christ.

By this, we mean that membership in the armed forces of the United States or of any country, whether under arms or as a noncombatant; participation in, including registration under, a system of military conscription; acceptance of the privilege of alternative service as a conscientious objector; payment through taxes, both direct and indirect, for wars past, present, and future; and all other forms of participation in the war system, which now holds the world in such deep oppression, are in direct opposition to the Peace Testimony of the Religious Society of Friends.

Friends are advised to examine themselves, their finances, their possessions, and all of their associations to discover whether they are clear of such participation in war and preparation for war, and if they are not, to seek guidance and support from their monthly meetings in their efforts to attain clearness.

We accept that this search for clearness will inevitably bring us, both individually and corporately, into conflict with the laws of the United States and of other countries, and we pledge our full moral, spiritual, and financial support to any Friend or meeting in need of such support as a result of this minute.

We realize that there are many Friends who will not be in full unity with this minute at present, who will feel it is their duty as U.S. citizens to continue paying the taxes demanded of them by the federal government, and to support and counsel cooperation with military conscription. We recognize the depth of their convictions but stand in loving disagreement with them, and we pledge them, too, our full moral, spiritual, and financial support as they struggle to reach clearness on this concern laid upon us by the Lord. We are indeed loyal citizens of the United States, but first we are citizens of the Kingdom of God, and the higher law must always take precedence over the lower.

Kingdon W. Swayne went the opposite direction, feeling that Friends had gotten too carried away with war tax resistance and ought to reconsider. Excerpts:

Most of the current discussion of “war” taxes within the Society of Friends is based on the implicit assumption that those who don’t pay them are morally superior to those who do. The charge of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting to that of is to come up with a “stronger minute” on war tax concerns than the one currently on the books, clearly implying that greater “strength” in this area must be morally superior. In a discussion several months ago at Representative Meeting in Philadelphia, those who obey the law were compared to the Quaker slaveholders of , and not a dissenting voice was raised.

As a member of the substantial majority of Friends who are dutiful taxpayers, I have felt intuitively that my position has every bit as good a moral claim as the contrary view. I have sought to examine that intuition in two ways: first, to identify the moral assumptions that underlie it and, second, to identify the moral ambiguities in the tax refuser position that render it unattractive to me on moral grounds.

Swayne argued:

  1. It is important to him to be a vigorous participant in the various “circles of community” that he finds himself in, and only to be a disruptive force in those circles in the most extreme circumstances, when productive participation is no longer possible. He feels that the national circle in the United States has not reached such a stage, and so it’s better to play by the rules.
  2. Friends overemphasize “the dramatic, large-scale evils associated with the national security system” while remaining indifferent to other man-made sources of suffering, for instance “our transportation system [which] has brought more death and injury to U.S. citizens than all the wars of .”
  3. The national security establishment is just a large-scale version of such thoroughly moral defenses as “police forces and locks on houses” — they are not evil in and of themselves, though they can be used in evil ways or can become aggrandized in an evil way. But war tax resistance treats them as pure evil.

He then described the varieties of resister: the one who reduces his or her income below the tax line (the “most admirable” variety, according to Swayne), the one who tries “limiting but not eliminating federal income tax liability, and paying the required tax” (Swayne considers himself one of these, saying he “does so from prudential rather than pacifist motives” because “I think I give money away more wisely than does Uncle Sam”), and the one who refuses a symbolic “military” percentage of the federal income tax (this, he calls the “mainstream” variety).

He sees problems with this third variety:

  1. It actually means the government gets more money in the end.
  2. The calculation of the “military” percentage is flawed.
  3. “It requires one to assert unequivocally that one’s own reading of the will of God is superior to that of others, not only with respect to goals but with respect to the tactics needed to achieve those goals.”
  4. By filing legal cases contesting government actions against resisters, these resisters undermine their moral position, becoming not civilly disobedient martyrs but mere plaintiffs.
  5. Such war tax resisters incorrectly deny that their position sets a precedent for tax resisters of all sorts.
  6. Law-breaking reflects poorly on the peace movement in the court of public opinion.

But, he concluded:

As for the tax refusers, I hope other Quaker taxpayers will join me in accepting their position, despite its ambiguities, as being in the mainstream of Quaker thought, and therefore entitled to support from Quaker bodies. I will support them not out of a sense that theirs is the morally superior position, but only because they are taking a greater risk.

Following that, Franklin Zahn promoted phone tax resistance as “a simple way of continuing Friends’ tradition of witnessing for peace.” He first wrote about why resistance was important (indeed, he felt, as a regressive tax at a time of reduced social welfare spending and tax cuts for the rich, resisting this particular tax could be justified even without reference to military spending), and then explained the mechanics of how to resist and how the phone company is likely to respond.

No one has ever been jailed for refusing the telephone war tax. Although the tax is small, its refusal by thousands of Friends could be a significant force for peace. Gandhi, for instance, made good use of a very small salt tax. Being “effective,” however, need not be the main motive in refusals. A draft-aged person refuses induction not primarily to be effective but because it is immoral to support war. The same motivation can apply for tax refusers.

There was also a brief note in that issue about a new “study document” from the National Council of the Churches of Christ on “The Churches and War Tax Resistance,” but it didn’t give much indication about the content or the context in which it had been produced.

The issue brought the news that a group of “peace tax fund” promoters in Canada had incorporated and were planning to pursue a test case in the courts that they hoped would establish a right to conscientious objection to military taxation under the new Canadian Constitution.

Kingdon Swayne’s challenge to what he identified as the orthodox Quaker position in favor of war tax resistance drew some responses that were printed in the issue.

  • Roland Smith, “a rather recent tax refuser,” thought Swayne’s criticism was “helpful” but not always correct. In particular, he didn’t think that it was true that war tax resistance always would mean the government would come out ahead in the end, and he felt that the difficult (Swayne called it “arbitrary”) practice of trying to discern the military portion of your tax bill represented “not a drawback but… an opportunity for the refuser to exercise his or her conscience in deciding which percentage of which budget figure to use.” More troubling, he thought, was the threat to democracy embodied in the idea that people could conscientiously choose to support some decisions of their elected representatives and not others.
  • Irving Hollingshead denied that “self-righteousness” was behind war tax resistance. “The moral point is that war and the preparation for mass killing are wrong, and most Friends feel a moral obligation to oppose it. Tax resistance is merely one tactic consistent with this moral position.”
  • Tor J.S. Bejnar looked at Swayne’s three varieties of resister and decided that the second variety, to which Swayne (and until recently, Bejnar) belonged, “barely connects spiritual and earthly matters” and so he has decided to move into the first category, which he termed “deliberate poverty.”
  • Alan Eccleston was glad to see that Friends were “open[ing] ourselves to the question” rather than evading it. He felt that framing the issue as being about “moral superiority” was counter-productive and judgmental. And he also felt that more important than strong Minutes from Meetings about war tax resistance was “the continuous witness of those who, under a concern, constantly hold the question before us through their own loving commitment.”

    My personal experience suggests that we feel most anxious when we are in a stage of determined avoidance, when, intuitively, we sense something stirring within us for which we believe we are not ready. All of our defenses are mobilized and we shut ourselves off from that inner stirring — but at a price!

  • Scott Crom questioned the consequentialism implicit in Swayne’s critique. “[S]ometimes we are called upon to act in certain ways, or refrain from acting, regardless of the consequences. Here one does not judge the morality of a choice by its results or its impact, but by something else. This approach is the one I prefer, and I believe it has ample precedent, both in the Bible and in Quaker history. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount do not say, ‘Thou shalt accomplish such-and-such,’ but speak directly to actions and to attitudes.”
  • Ben Norris wrote that “Some Quakers are motivated especially towards striving to keep their own lives pure, simple, or consistent, and this inner spiritual state is the focus. Others note that it is quite impossible to exist outside of some sort of economic and social system… and therefore, such an action as war tax refusal is part of a vastly complex involvement in responsible citizenship, the right ordering of our economic and social systems. Both motivations may exist in the same person. But to concentrate on which person’s actions, public or private, are ‘more moral’ than someone else’s usurps a judgment not given to mortals, and trivializes both the spiritual and political motivations of rational change in our lives.”
  • Karl Meyer wrote in to promote his “cabbage patch” method of tax resistance:

    the Internal Revenue Service began using a special $500 penalty against people who make protest claims on income tax returns. This “frivolous tax return” penalty is a significant and intolerable assault on the inalienable rights of freedom of speech and religion. It seems to me both a challenge and an opportunity for mass civil disobedience by people of conscience. The only act needed is to assert the rights of conscience on an income tax form.

    As an experiment in showing the way, I have begun to file daily protest returns for each day of . My net income from my work as a carpenter in will be reported and distributed on 365 tax returns, at an average of about $38 per day. Each return will be addressed to a different employee or office of IRS. A copy of the daily return will be sent each day to a different newspaper, magazine, public officeholder, or peace organization.

    If the IRS imposes penalties for all of my returns, the total assessment may rise to more than $180,000. I have already received notice of one penalty for $500. Of course I don’t intend to pay or allow collection.

    I invite Friends to join with me in resisting war taxes and this penalty on the expression of conscience.

    This is a good project for people like me, who feel able to protect their income and assets from seizure by IRS. Some others, whose assets are more vulnerable to collection, may participate by filing protest statements on tax return forms, in the names of some of the victims of U.S. militarism worldwide.

  • G.M. Smith trotted out the argument that paying taxes is no more of a moral issue because of how the government will spend the money, than handing your wallet over to a violent mugger is because of how he might spend the loot. He suggested instead of tax resistance that people donate (in a tax-deductible way) to charity. “Thus, through contributions one could reduce his or her tax liability legally and at the same time be contributing to good in the world. It is important, however, not to make one’s contributions in a tax-supported area. There’s nothing government would like better than to dump the entire burden of social services on the private sector and have all those extra tax dollars for bombs.”
  • Robert R. Schutz questions Swayne’s casual assumption that because the national security apparatus is something like the local police apparatus writ large (and the police are something like the locks on our doors anthropomorphized and handed pistols) that there’s nothing inherently wrong with a military. Schutz agrees with the theory but denies Swayne’s conclusion. Rather: “The use of police power may be even less morally defensible than war because it is deliberate, pre-planned, cold-blooded, and because it is entirely mercenary — we hire other people to do our killing for us.”

A report on the annual Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in the same issue noted that “[m]uch of Saturday was taken up with Friends’ wrestling with war tax concerns.”

The minute which finally resulted said, in part, that “Friends are uneasy in conscience that a substantial portion of their tax dollars goes for military purposes”; that we “are ready to support a wide variety of approaches to war tax witness in accord with individual circumstances and leadings”; that “while Friends do not urge one another to undertake civil disobedience, Friends are ready to give strong support to members led to refuse payment of taxes for military purposes”; and that “most Friends strongly endorse passage of the World Peace Tax Fund legislation.” The minute concluded, “We realize that we have no single or simple answer to the dilemma of praying for peace and paying for war. We ask for Divine Guidance as we proceed in struggling with the issue of taxes levied for war-related purposes.” The issue will be considered again at the sessions.

In the issue was a letter from Donna and Jerome Gorman in which they explained how they had extended tax resistance-like techniques to a State-level battle against capital punishment. They held back a symbolic 1¢ from their electric bill to protest against the Virginia Electric and Power Company’s complicity with the state’s electrocution method of executing prisoners, and later began to also withhold 1¢ from their phone bills in a similar protest because of a state excise tax on phone service. They saw this largely as a method of getting the attention of people to whom they could then direct anti-death-penalty outreach.

We refer to this economic and tax resistance as “penny resistance.” Multiple innovations in economic and tax and other forms of resistance are most urgently needed to impede the various methods of carrying out capital punishment. We pray and we hope that many others will consider joining in this resistance.

Jeff Hunn promoted the War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund in the issue. He described it this way:

The Tax Resisters’ Penalty Fund is a sort of “mutual aid fund” for war tax resisters. Formed in , the Penalty Fund is supported by people who contribute small amounts of money periodically to help war tax resisters pay fines and interest levied by the IRS. Funds contributed are used to help pay not the resister’s original tax burden but what the IRS terms “statutory additions”: interest, penalties, and fines imposed because of war tax resistance. When each supporter contributes his or her small amount, the total becomes enough to reimburse the resister for the additional cost of his or her witness. For example, 200 supporters contributing $2.50 each could cover the aforementioned $500 “frivolous” penalty.

The Tax Resisters’ Penalty Fund has grown from 85 supporters in to 400 supporters . The larger we grow, the bigger an impact we can make and the smaller each supporter’s contribution will need to be.

Finally, in the issue, Dan Merritt reminded people that phone tax resistance was still a good option, and noted that the Claremont, California, Friends Meeting had been refusing to pay the phone tax since the Vietnam War.

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in

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.

Coordinator for War Tax Concerns Support Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Two days per week. Applications needed by March 1.

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 .”

War Taxes & Conscience

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:

  • Jim Quigley wrote in to express his “admiration for the act of courage and faith represented by the war tax resisters.”
  • Karl E. Buff wanted to “encourage Vinton Deming to continue to resist” in the hopes that “[w]ithout easy access to huge sums of money our government would surely have to curtail its war-making propensities.” He also put in a plug for the Tax Resisters Penalty Fund.
  • Eddie Boudreau suggested that someone set up a “Conscience Fund” that people could contribute to and that would help defray the legal expenses of folks like Vinton Deming.
  • Susan B. Chambers wrote in about her technique, which was to consult with a tax expert in order to get into the “zero tax bracket” and to contribute 30% of her income to charity. “I am pleased not to inconvenience my friends in taking this stand,” she wrote, in what I read as something of a rebuke to those resisters, like Deming, whose resistance becomes an agenda item for their employers (though she didn’t make this explicit).
  • Robin Greenler wrote to support the Journal’s resistance to helping the IRS collect from Deming. “The decisions are neither easier nor less important on corporate levels than they are on a personal level.”
  • Ben Richmond wrote that, for him, the question of whether a tax resister would just end up paying more in the end (with penalties and interest added to the unpaid tax) was the one he found the most difficult. “I have never found it satisfying to think that the point of the witness was simply to satisfy my personal need for moral purity.” But he looked into the early Quaker resistance to mandatory tithes for the establishment church and found that Quakers were willing to suffer having property seized worth several times the resisted tithes rather than pay voluntarily. He notes also that the Quakers eventually won that battle, which is to say there are no longer government-enforced tithes that everyone must pay to an established church. So, Richmond wrote, “I do not resist military taxes in the expectation or hope that I will succeed in keeping particular dollars from the hands of the military. But I do expect and hope that, insofar as my resistance is in obedience to the leadings of God, it will play its small part in breaking down the legitimacy of the warmaking machinery, as the early Friends broke down the legitimacy of taxation on behalf of the state church. I believe that in the end, Christ’s way is not only right but effective, and will prevail. Our sufferings are small in the overall scheme of things, so I don’t wish to be melodramatic. But, it seems to me that we cannot afford to follow Jesus for the short haul because in the short run, all that appears is the cross (which, after all is simply shorthand for suffering at the hands of a pagan empire). Yet, it is the cross which led to the resurrection.”

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!

Military Taxes & Conscience. Two new publications by the Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns. Handbook on Military Taxes and Conscience: for those seeking information, support, and understanding. Fear God and Honor the Emperor: manual for employers examining their role in tax withholding

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.”

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in

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.

“I told the I.R.S., ‘Look, you are in effect asking me to help kill a bunch of people down there I don’t know. And I’m sure if I did know them I wouldn’t want to contribute to their deaths. Forget it! The answer is no. Forever, no!’ ” ―Wally Nelson, farmer.

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?”

…[Friends Journal] editor-manager Vint Deming, associate editor Melissa Elliott, typesetter Susan Jordhamo, and board members Robert Sutton and Sam Legg joined several hundred other citizens in packing the hearing room…

The hearing was informational, to give legislators material to use in future considerations, rather than to schedule the bill for action. As such, it gave supporters a chance to formally present the case, get testimony in the written record, and show the depth and breadth of people’s interest in the bill.

The pace of this legislative process is frustratingly slow, but, for many of us, the hearing was a heartening experience. There, we heard people testify in a formal legislative setting to our most deeply held beliefs. One activist-participant said, “All my life I’ve been on the side that opposes government decisions. It was a weird experience to see all those peace movement people in the same room with legislators. I’ve never seen anything like that before, nor ever imagined it. It gave me a different vision of what might be possible.”

The Peace Tax Fund Bill has come a long way , with many technical refinements, and it has a long way to go in gathering widespread support. On we witnessed one small step in validation, acknowledgment of our beliefs, and moving the dream closer to reality. Perhaps one day we will look back, as do those who watched the process of legalizing conscientious objection, and be glad we were involved in making it legal to follow our beliefs with our money-as well as with our bodies.

“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.

Paying for Peace: War Tax Resistance In the United States. Fast paced, thought provoking, half hour video features Brian Willson, Reverend Maurice McCrackin, Ernest and Marion Bromley, Juanita Nelson. Reviews whys/hows of W.T.R.

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:

  • Duane Magill wrote to “applaud” and “sympathize” with the Journal’s stand. “As a war tax resister myself for the past quarter of a century, I have had some brushes with the IRS myself and know what it is like. I also appreciate your giving publicity to the subject. I know that not many Quakers take this position, and giving the matter this extensive coverage just might encourage more to take this stand.”
  • Yvonne Boeger wrote in on behalf of the Live Oak (Texas) Meeting to say that the meeting had recently “discussed the importance of war tax resistance as a means of witnessing to Friends’ long-standing opposition to all forms of war and violence” and that the Meeting was supportive of the Journal’s (and Deming’s) action. “We send the enclosed check as a token of our support and solidarity in Friends’ resistance to war. Thank you for the example you have set for us all.”
  • Lillian and George Willoughby wrote to express gratitude for the Journal’s “courage in standing in support of Vint Deming.” They wrote: “Most important is the example of a Quaker religious employer providing support to staff who endeavor to live according to Friends’ teachings. The Journal has run considerable risk and incurred heavy expenses. We enclose our check as a demonstration of our support. We think that many other Friends will want to help carry the financial burden of this witness.”
  • An editorial note in the letters column expressed “thanks to all those who have sent checks!” and a later editorial note (in the issue) said that they had received “$8,000 from individuals and meetings, $7,000 from a Sufferings Fund of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,” and almost $4,000 from Deming himself.

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.

Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner applaud a group of supporters outside their former home

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.

A support group prepares to occupy the house

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.”

Alan Emory, the long-time Washington D.C. correspondent for the Watertown Times, penned a dismissive article about war tax resisters for that paper’s edition.

With its quotes and paraphrases of unnamed “officials” and its furious hand waving, it reads to me as a desperate attempt by the government to throw water on a spreading brush fire by means of a cooperative and sympathetic reporter. (Emory’s parents were both in government, and, as a Washington reporter, Emory was about as antagonistic to politicians as a sportscaster is to athletes.)

Protests for Publicity?

Fewer Americans Using War As Excuse for Dodging Taxes

Washington — Fewer Americans are using the Vietnam war as an excuse for not paying all or part of their income taxes , according to the Internal Revenue service.

And most of them appear to be making the protest for publicity purposes, officials believe.

Instead, the protesters appear to be more active in using the war as a reason for not paying telephone excise taxes.

In both cases, however, the numbers are relatively insignificant.

Out of 70,000,000 income taxpayers, the IRS says only 275 declined to pay up in full because of Vietnam in and only 520 in . So far, the count shows 93.

As for the telephone tax refusals, “about 4,800” out of 50,000,000 users took this line last year, according to Internal Revenue Commissioner Sheldon Cohen.

The American Telephone & Telegraph company put the figure at 700 in and 1,800 during . The figure included 86 residents of Pennsylvania — out of 3,000,000 telephone subscribers — and 25 in New Jersey out of 2,200,000.

IRS officials say the Vietnam protest first showed up as a tax factor in . Individuals ran to newspapers and issued press releases, they said, and filed their returns with a note or letter citing the war protest.

Some groups held protest meetings in front of IRS offices and passed out flyers.

The tax collectors’ problems, however, turned out to be surprisingly small. When, after sending out the normal number of letters to the taxpayer, the IRS sent an agent to his home, he was usually greeted with “We were expecting you,” and the taxpayer then told the agent the bank in which his funds were deposited.

The government either filed a lien or, in some cases, went to the bank with the taxpayer and obtained the money right there.

The IRS found out that many of the protesting taxpayers had not received enough income to require any taxes. Others had enough withheld to cover what they owed. Some had salaries attached.

One taxpayer has consistently shrugged off IRS communications, including those showing he had refunds due.

Cohen says the war protest cases are being handled “under special procedures and we are pursuing them through to collection.”

“If any taxes are due we will collect them down to the last dollar,” he says.

Only 1,500 to 2,000 go to jail for not paying taxes in a single year, though, and very few of them belong in the war protest lists. One official said that 25 per cent of the protest petition signers are “students and hippies.”

When the phone tax problem showed up in , the phone companies agreed to make out lists for the IRS of those who would not pay the tax. Ironically, the paper work involved in making the collection is usually more costly than the money owed.

No jailings have resulted from this situation yet.

The most famous protester on taxes and the war is folk singer Joan Baez, who has been seeking a $36,528 refund on her tax payment of $60,948. Although Miss Baez regularly withholds part of her tax because of Vietnam, the IRS goes right ahead and attaches income, property and bank accounts to pay any tax left unpaid. Last week she said she will withhold her entire tax .

The singer paid $6,000 in penalties and interest for . Government officials consider that a fee for what they call “front-page advertising.” Her taxable income in was $110,000.

The first mass tax protest involving Vietnam came with the publication of a notice signed by 350-odd names, mostly writers and educators, led by Rev. A.J. Muste, a well-known pacifist leader who had not paid any income taxes  — well before Vietnam.

Other signers included pianist Anton Kuerti and former Yale Prof. Staughton Lynd, Merrel Lynd, co-author of “Middletown,” and biochemist Albert Szent-Gyorgi. In , another protest list was printed in newspapers, and this year a third, with 448 sign…

Here, alas, the reproduction of the article available on-line gives out, and if Emory’s article was syndicated elsewhere in full, I haven’t been able to find it in any of the on-line archives (an abbreviated version was picked up by The Milwaukee Journal).

Phone tax resistance was for a long time a staple of the American war tax resistance movement, and is still practiced today. But an Associated Press dispatch from tells of an American phone tax resister with a more idiosyncratic motivation:

Housewife Says Telephone is No Sin — Refuses to Pay Tax

Grosse Pointe Park, Mich. (AP) — An attractive housewife here says the telephone is neither a luxury nor a sin and shouldn’t be taxed as such by the state of Michigan.

Gloria J. Mead says she won’t pay the recent 4 percent increase in the state’s use tax on telephones. “It isn’t right,” she insists, adding, “I feel like carrying this thing all the way to the death house, if necessary.”

The penalty isn’t that bad, however. The law says anyone failing to pay is subject to a maximum fine of $5,000 or a year in jail or both. But a deputy attorney, Leon Cohan, said he doubted the mother of four will ever go to jail, although he points out that is up to the discretion of the court.

  1. “I didn’t have a state senator in Lansing when the tax was passed and wasn’t represented.” (Her senator had resigned to take a seat in Congress and the State Senate seat was vacant when the tax was passed ).
  2. “I don’t consider a telephone a luxury or a sin. If it is either, why is the telephone company called a utility and put under the Michigan Public Service Commission?”

The tax, which averages about 50 cents a month, was imposed as part of a package of so-called nuisance taxes on cigarets, beer, liquor and corporation franchise fees.

The phone company says, “It is our practice not to take enforcement action against a customer if the charges for telephone service are paid.”

But Michigan Bell reported the case to State Revenue Commissioner Clarence Lick. He says, “Our next step will be to decide whether we’re going to proceed against Mrs. Mead or hold the company liable.”

Mrs. Mead quoted her husband, Marvin, as saying, “Dear, it’s going to be expensive paying for all these things you believe in.”

She said she hopes no one thinks unkindly of her stand.

“They told me not to be apathetic about government, so I’m not.”

Gloria J. Mead enters and exits the newspaper archives on this date in 1962. I haven’t yet found any record of what became of her and her protest.

From the Frederick, Maryland News of :

Helen G. Alexander

Helen G. Alexander

Viet War Protester Refuses To Pay Tax

Mrs. Helen G. Alexander, who has refused to pay income taxes as a protest to the war in Vietnam, recently sent the following release to the News-Post, describing her encounter with a local agent of the Internal Revenue Service.

“On , Charles D. Long, recently assigned local agent for Internal Revenue Service, visited the home of Helen G. Alexander to collect the income tax he said she owes for . , Mrs. Alexander has refused to pay income tax because she says that it is used to finance the war in Southeast Asia. She also since that time has refused to pay the 10 per cent Federal Excise Tax on her telephone bill, which was specifically imposed in to finance the war, according to Rep. Wilbur Mills, who was Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee at the time. Mrs. Alexander, when employed, sends the amount of the tax to civil rights, anti-poverty, and peace organizations.

“Since Mr. Long could not collect the money, he asked for a financial statement. When told there was none, he produced a government form for that purpose, and the two proceeded to go over it together. Since Mrs. Alexander would only answer questions concerning herself, the statement turned out to be not much more than a series of no comments. Other questions involved information which she felt Mr. Long should seek out for himself, such as employment (for purposes of attaching salaries), bank accounts (from which IRS can collect), safety deposit boxes (which IRS can open), property rights, real and personal, life insurance policies, stocks and bonds, vehicles, etc.

“Mrs. Alexander feels that Mr. Long, as a Treasury agent, with investigatory powers, should seek out the above information, since that is part of his job. Mr. Long said that he wanted to collect the money with the least amount of trouble and expense to the government. Mrs. Alexander replied that she was sorry that the government had to go to a little expense to collect, but that the government was spending a great deal of money carrying on the war in Southeast Asia in her name. Also, she did not want to do Mr. Long’s job for him, because then he might be out of a job, which would be alright, since his job was collecting money for the war.

“According to Mr. Long, he has just recently been assigned to the local office. He asked Mrs. Alexander if she had ever been out of the country. Replying in the negative, she said that she did not have to go out of the country to know what is going on in Southeast Asia. Mr. Long said that he had been to Berlin, Czechoslovakia, fought in Korea, and recently returned from a year of duty in Vietnam.

“Mrs. Alexander asked if he minded if she taped their conversation. Mr. Long said he did not mind. She taped just the first half of their discussion.

“The financial statement is supposed to be signed when completed, but Mrs. Alexander did not feel that she should sign any papers without benefit of counsel. Mr. Long said he might have to come back with a summons to get the signature. Mrs. Alexander told him to feel free to do that and anything else legal which he felt he needed to do. When she asked what the paper was for, he said that it would go into her file and be used as a tool.

“Mrs. Alexander appears willing to go to jail for her war tax refusal, if need be, but insists that she can not in good conscience help finance the war against Southeast Asia, and the war crimes committed there daily. Mrs. Alexander has to date received four seizure notices, but this is the first time she has been visited by an IRS agent.

“I have been completely overt in this action. It is not tax evasion. It is simple and out-right war tax refusal. I am not trying to evade anything. It is the strongest protest that I can personally carry out against the war. I’ve tried everything else and continue to do so. I can not be an accomplice in that war or an accessory to the inhuman and barbarous war crimes committed in the name of all Americans.”

I decided to try to hunt up some more information about Helen Alexander. The edition of the News features an editorial prompted by her story and some embellished memories of Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience:

Refusing To Pay Taxes

In , Henry David Thoreau was engaged in hoeing his bean patch adjacent to the $25 cabin he had built by hand on the property facing Lake Walden of his fellow Concord, Massachusetts, philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, when he suddenly became aware of pain in one of his heels.

Removing a shoe, Thoreau discovered that a sharp nail had projected through the leather and was bruising his heel.

Unequipped at his rustic abode to cope with the emergency, Thoreau kicked off the other shoe also and placing the one with the offending nail in his pocket, dropped his hoe and started to trudge into nearby Concord to find a cobbler to repair the shoe.

En route the Concord sage had a confrontation with his friend and neighbor, the village constable, who, by coincidence, was walking out to the Thoreau cabin in the performance of his duties.

“Henry,” inquired the constable, “are you prepared to pay your $2 poll tax?”

Amicably but firmly, Concord’s now world-renowned founder of the doctrine of passive resistance to what he sincerely believed to be immoral, unjust, and unethical laws, replied in the negative.

“I have told you repeatedly, Bill,” he said, “that I will never pay a $2 tax which President James K. Polk may use to buy a musket to arm a soldier to wage an iniquitous war against Mexico merely to obtain additional territory for the slavocracy of the South to expand its damnable system.”

Reaching into his pocket with obvious reluctance the constable brought out a paper and said:

“This is a warrant for your arrest from the tax collector. I am only doing my duty. Unless you are prepared to give me the $2, the only thing I can do is put you in the lockup.”

Thoreau was unimpressed.

“You do your duty, Bill,” he replied, “and I will do mine.”

So the highly respected magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University, renowned naturalist, sympathizer with the nearby experiment in communal living which has come down into history as Brook Farm, and former boarder in the home of his collaborator and friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson, nationally known essayist and philosopher, calmly walked in his stocking feet beside the rustic village constable to Concord’s primitive one-cell town lockup.

In his celebrated essay on “Passive Resistance” [sic] which forms a chapter in his “Walden,” describing his year’s self-imposed exile in the handicrafted cabin built by hand on the shore of the pond of that name, Thoreau admits that his night in the town lockup interrupted twice when the constable brought two town drunks to share his solitude was the greatest test of his philosophy of his entire life.

But to the end of his days, Thoreau resented the fact that at dawn his many-petticoated aunt, bristling with indignation that Emerson had not come to her nephew’s relief earlier, appeared with a $2 bill, paid the tax, and the apologetic constable turned the key in the lock and released the man who by his action has done more, perhaps, to overturn organized society than any American.

It was after Mahatma Gandi read Thoreau’s essay on “Passive Resistance” that he inaugurated his similar crusade which eventually cost the British Empire the most sparkling jewel in its crown when it was forced to give freedom to India without the firing of a single shot by revolutionists.

And although President Polk — the only “strong chief executive” of the nation between Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln — by initiating a war of naked and unmasked aggression against Mexico eventually, in one of the most sordid chapters in American history, added California and New Mexico to the United States, he failed completely and miserably to achieve his goal of making possible the extension of slavery within their borders.

Now on the 125th anniversary of Henry Thoreau’s self-imposed night behind bars in defense of a moral scruple comes a reincarnation of the Concord Martyr in the person of Frederick County’s Mrs. Helen G. Alexander, militant anti-war leader and likewise a follower of “unpopular causes.”

According to a lengthy publicity release issued by Mrs. Alexander who is never a “blushing violet” insofar as availability to the press is concerned, she — like Thoreau — is “willing to go to jail” for her refusal to pay a “war tax.”

The Frederick woman recounts at length her recent confrontation at her home with an agent of the Internal Revenue Service who called upon her to inquire why she had failed to file a income tax return.

And, she adds, he was expeditiously informed in a few thousand courteous but emphatic words.

All of which — according to Mrs. Alexander — is recorded for posterity because unlike Henry David Thoreau, the Frederick woman owns a tape recorder and proceeded to preserve forever the entire dialogue.

“I have refused to file an income tax,” she told the IRS agent, “because a large part of what taxes I might pay would be used to finance the war of naked aggression in Southeast Asia.”

For the same reason, Mrs. Alexander told the IRS investigator, she has consistently refused to pay the 10 per cent federal excise tax on her telephone service, which, she alleges, was specifically levied by Congress to finance the Vietnam War.

“Instead of paying my taxes to the United States,” Mrs. Alexander informed the agent, “I voluntarily send the full amount monthly to aid the work of organizations engaged in anti-war activities and civil rights projects.”

When her interrogator produced an official government form seeking answers to such questions as where she did her banking, whether she hired a safe deposit box, and like personal matters, Mrs. Alexander reports that she definitely refused to give him any information of any character.

“I did not want to do his work for him,” she explains, “because then he would not be doing his job of collecting money to prosecute an unrighteous war.”

But the Frederick woman carefully explains that like Henry David Thoreau she is openly above board in all of her actions and has “nothing to conceal.”

“This is not tax evasion,” she carefully explains. “I am not trying to evade everything.

“It is just simple and out-right refusal to let any part of my earnings be used to wage war on a defenseless people.

“I will not be an accomplice or an accessory to the inhumane and barbarous war crimes being committed in the name of all Americans.”

One suspects that the admittedly courteous and considerate although futile visit of the IRS agent after four official letters had failed to receive any justification for the Frederick woman’s failure to file a tax return was as distasteful to her visitor as the arrest of the sage of Concord was to the rustic village constable of 125 years ago.

Similarly, he, too, was just doing his assigned duty.

But like the celebrated author of “Passive Resistance,” Mrs. Alexander is prepared and ready to go to jail for her beliefs.

And — as the IRS man told the Frederick woman as he pocketed his unfilled questionnaire and bowed himself out of her home — this is the very probable fate awaiting her if she persists in her own well publicized version of “Passive Resistance.”

Alexander responded with a letter to the editor in the issue:

Clarifies Position on Tax Non-Payment

To the Editor, Sir:

By way of clarification, I feel it necessary to supplement the News-Post editorial of , “Refusing to Pay Taxes,” with the following facts:

  1. I filed an income tax return for There is a law against not filing a return.
  2. I told IRS exactly what I had earned, the amount sent places other than to IRS, and enclosed a letter stating my position. I also filed an 843 claim form, for return of the amount of tax actually deducted . Form 843 is for reclaim of taxes “illegally, erroneously, or excessively collected.” The war against Southeast Asia is undeclared, therefore unconstitutional, therefore, illegal, and I can not recognize the authority of the government to collect and use my taxes for its perpetuation.

    Mr. Long could not have known how much money to collect if I had not filed a return. If I had wanted to be evasive, I would not have filed a return, but then it would not have been a visible protest.
  3. It was not my tape recorder. It was my son’s. It cost about $14.
  4. I publicized the IRS visit, to the extent that I could, knowing full well that it likely would lead to a more speedy prosecution by the government. In a letter to Mr. J. Monti, IRS office, Baltimore, Md., on , I stated in part, “I am obligated to see that there will be adequate publicity concerning this whole war tax refusal issue, no matter what you decide to do. I feel it is absolutely necessary that the general public be informed of the circumstances of the situation and what happens when an individual’s conscience gets in the way of the government, represented in this case, by the Internal Revenue Service.”

    The publicity was for the public’s benefit, and to my detriment. As I have stated before — the issue is important: I am not.
  5. Henry David Thoreau was never mentioned by either Mr. Long or myself, but I can think of no finer example to follow. Thoreau’s essay, “On Civil Disobedience” has been one of my greatest inspirations, also: A.J. Muste’s “Of Holy Disobedience,” which deals with conscript resistance; and Gandhi’s works, dealing with nonviolent direct action.
  6. , for my income, I find that I not only did not make enough to pay taxes, but do not even have to file a return. Nevertheless, I will file one, so that my protest will again be recorded with IRS. No money will be returned to me, because IRS did not receive any. In other words, there are employers who will not act as tax collectors for the government.
  7. Mr. Long’s visit was an unnerving experience, even though I had been expecting it for a long time. Even though he was not offensive or rude in his manner, it is unsettling to be confronted with the awesome power of the federal government. I expect that as more actions are taken by the Treasury Department, the pressure personally will be very hard to take. I hope that I will be able to “go the whole mile,” as Muste said.

Wars are fought with men and money. Wars will cease when men refuse to fight (as they are doing), and when we refuse to pay. This is the way that non-draftables can say no to the government, as many young men are saying no to the killing in Southeast Asia. It is a ludicrous situation when a country imprisons men who kill and also those who will not kill.

The edition of the News noted that a federal tax lien had been filed against her “in the amount of $245.35 and would be leveled against an estate sale.” (In the edition is a letter from Alexander disputing some of the details. She says the lien was filed on but that she was unable to get a copy of the filing.)

A Hagerstown, Maryland, Morning Herald article on the case described Alexander as “42 years old, a slender 5 feet, 3 inches tall, and the mother of a 20-year-old son.” An earlier article in the same paper () profiled her, and her tax resistance, in greater detail:

“I Think I’ve Gone the Whole Way I Can”

by Ned Bristol

Frederick — The firebrand of the anti-war movement here is a 5 foot 3 middle-aged mother who hasn’t paid her telephone tax in eight months and doesn’t intend to pay her income tax.

She is Mrs. Helen G. Alexander, a leader of the Frederick Vietnam Moratorium Committee and activist in local civil rights efforts.

Small, bespectacled, a bit nervous, she doesn’t look the part. But her intensity and forthrightness indicate her strength of purpose. She believes the war is wrong and civil rights is right. She intends to do everything she can to end the former and further the latter. It’s a matter of conscience: “I feel the United States has to change its policy and I don’t know how else to do it except… to stop cooperating with things as they are. I think I’ve gone the whole way I can.”

Mrs. Alexander lives on Reels Mills Road two and a half miles east of town. Her husband John is afraid she might end up in jail. Her 19-year-old son Wayne was classified 4-F when he registered for the draft under protest. As for her husband’s fears, she admits “he may be right.” She says he tries to discourage her, but she insists on doing what she believes in her way.

“I wish I’d stopped (paying taxes) a long time ago. I’ve put myself in a position where I can refuse to cooperate and it makes me very happy.”

Mrs. Alexander was notified in that there would be a seizure of her property within 10 days for not paying her telephone excise taxes. She wrote the telephone company that she didn’t have anything to seize except some clothes, “none of which are very new.” To date there hasn’t been a seizure.

To make it as hard as possible for the government to collect her taxes, Mrs. Alexander has made sure all her family belongings are in her husband’s name and that her employer agreed not to withhold her federal taxes from her pay checks. She doesn’t own a car or have a bank account. “It’s very important that this be handled with me as an individual,” she says.

Because she hasn’t filled out a tax form yet, she doesn’t know exactly how much tax she won’t be paying. She calculates her telephone tax withholdings at $16 to $20. The 10 per cent excise tax added to phone bills was done so to support the war, Mrs. Alexander says.

Mrs. Alexander says withholding taxes is “a personal thing more than anything else,” but adds, “If I didn’t believe these things had some effect I’d throw up my hands and quit.”

As for how much effect her withholdings and demonstrations have had, Mrs. Alexander looks at it this way: the government needs manpower and money. The young men who are demonstrating against the draft and the war are doing their part to dry up the first and adults are trying to cut the latter. She says there are 20,000 persons in the country who refuse to pay their taxes. “As long as the military get their funds they can laugh up their sleeves and go ahead with what they want to do.”

Mrs. Alexander’s relationship with the military has come full circle. For nine years she was switchboard operator at Fort Detrick in Frederick, the nation’s biological warfare center. “I was a cog in the machine. I was perpetuating a policy to which I was adamantly opposed.” She quit in . she was demonstrating outside the installation with a group of Quakers. The Quakers were on a march from Philadelphia to Washington. Mrs. Alexander joined them for their rally in the capital. It wasn’t her first demonstration there.

Mrs. Alexander first became an activist in when she joined the march on Washington, although she says she was in sympathy with the civil rights movement before then. “When I personally saw that the black people were ready to move I wanted to move with them. It was time for the white people to get involved.”

Mrs. Alexander joined the local chapter of the NAACP and its executive committee. The NAACP has accomplished “a good bit” in the last few years, she says. “Even before they had laws on the books the NAACP was trying to get businessmen to realize there was an unequal employment situation.[”] Mrs. Alexander joined many marches and was an avid follower of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “I guess nobody in Frederick walked with Dr. King more than I did.”

It was a matter of getting informed on the Vietnam War that led to Mrs. Alexander’s involvement with that movement and her disaffection with the military. She says she decided in , to withhold her federal taxes, but until couldn’t find an employer who would not automatically deduct her taxes. She is not working for the employer now and declined to say who it was. There were not many sympathizers then, Mrs. Alexander says. “I was pretty much alone until recently.”

The peace movement did not really surface in Frederick County until , Mrs. Alexander says, but now the Frederick Vietnam Moratorium Committee has a list of 120 supporters. The group sponsored demonstrations to coincide with national moratoriums and is planning local activities for . Although the group doesn’t have officers, (“Sometimes when you get organized things fold up.”), it does have leaders. One is Mrs. Alexander, although she is reluctant to admit it — not because she is afraid of being ridiculed, but because of modesty. “I guess I exert a bit of intensity on keeping it going,” she says after a bit of prodding, but later adds, “I couldn’t keep a peace movement going all by myself. Without them I’d be all alone again.”

A yet earlier () Morning Herald article put in this way:

Frederick Mom Refuses To Pay Vietnam War Tax

by David Lightman

Frederick — Mrs. Helen G. Alexander refused to financially support the Vietnam war three months ago.

By refusing to pay the 10 per cent federal excise tax on her phone bill, she has saved over $1.20 monthly while registering her protest.

No formal action has been taken against her. Carl V. Weakley, of the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. of Maryland, said he has notified the local Internal Revenue Service of Mrs. Alexander’s actions twice.

The IRS has thus far taken no action.

Weakley said his organization “can’t do anything — we’re merely tax collectors.”

Mrs. Alexander agreed that the gripe is between her and the IRS.

She said the phone company shut off her telephone service after her first refusal, but restored it after one day.

“After all, it’s really no skin off the telephone company,” she said.

Mrs. Alexander wrote C & P a letter stating her intention not to pay the 10 per cent tax.

“If you, as a public utilities manager, feel that you must act as tax collector for the war machine, then you must act according to your conscience and do whatever you deem necessary,” part of the letter state.

She said she has sent the $4.64 to civil rights, peace, and poverty organizations.

“I really don’t know how my protest will affect anyone, though,” she said.

“It’s important to me personally to do this, and many people don’t know that it can be done. Maybe it’ll help them.”

Mrs. Alexander has a son who will be 19 years old soon. His draft classification is 4-F, physically unfit for military duty.

Among the newspaper clippings I read while researching this were some back-and-forth letters to the editor about the My Lai massacre, in which Alexander’s antagonists were every bit as bull-headedly stupid and morally repulsive as today’s Dick Cheney contingent. To them, the My Lai massacre was “alleged” and the victims were “so-called” innocents and there was no reason to doubt the official story unless you were a communist sympathizer and you should be ashamed of yourself for casting blame on our good and noble troops and so forth.

In a way it was kind of reassuring to realize that we haven’t so much recently descended into the repulsive situation in which our country finds itself, as much as we have still failed to climb out of it.

A UPI dispatch from :

700 Refuse to Pay Tax on Telephones As Protest to Viet

San Francisco (UPI) — A local political group says 700 persons are refusing to pay their federal excise tax on telephone bills in protest of the Vietnam War.

Alan Barnett, an organizer of Marin Associates, says the group’s purpose is to “test the legality of the tax, not to disobey it.”

San Francisco attorney Lloyd McMurray said he is coordinating the hundreds of suits aimed at the federal government.

“We’re not asking the court to enjoin the prosecution of the war,” said McMurray. “We’re asking it to determine whether this taxing power is legal in an undeclared war.”

New Society Publishers began in to bring out a “Barbara Deming Memorial Series” of books meant to highlight women involved in nonviolent action. The first book in the series was You Can’t Kill the Spirit by Pam McAllister, which included a chapter on women tax resisters, and another separate section on the Igbo Women’s War, which was also a tax resistance campaign in part.

Here are some excerpts from this book:

Injustice, Death and Taxes: Women Say No!

The world just didn’t make sense to thirty-two-year-old Hubertine Auclert. On the one hand she was considered a French citizen expected to obey the laws of her country and to pay property taxes. On the other hand, she was denied the citizen’s right to vote simply because she was a woman. The male rulers couldn’t have it both ways, Auclert decided. She began plotting a way to unhinge the system.

On election day in , Auclert and several other tax-paying women of Paris initiated the first stage of the action. They stomped past a line of startled men and presented themselves for voter registration. They demanded that they be recognized as full citizens of France with rights as well as responsibilities. They demanded an end to the injustice of taxation without representation. The men were amazed: there was nothing wrong with the system’s inconsistencies as far as they were concerned! The women were turned away. It was time for stage two.

Taking advantage of the publicity the women had generated, Auclert called for a women’s “tax strike.” She reasoned that, since men alone had the privilege of governing the people and allotting national budgets, men alone should have the privilege of paying taxes.

“Since I have no right to control the use of my money,” she wrote, “I no longer wish to give it. I do not wish to be an accomplice, by my acquiescence, in the vast exploitation that the masculine autocracy believes is its right to exercise in regard to women. I have no rights, therefore I have no obligations. I do not vote, I do not pay.”

During the tax strike, Auclert was joined by twenty other women — eight widows and the rest, presumably, single women. When the authorities demanded payment, all but three of the women ended their participation in the strike. The remaining women continued to appeal the decision. But when law enforcement officers attempted to seize their furniture, Auclert and the others gave in. They decided they had done the best they could to call attention to the injustice.

Auclert was not the first woman to organize against the taxation of women without government representation. Mid-nineteenth-century United States saw a number of women’s rights tax resisters.

In … Lucy Stone decided to publicize the injustice of government taxation of women who, because they were denied the vote, were without representation. , Henry David Thoreau had spent a night in jail for his refusal to pay the Massachusetts poll tax, an action he had taken in opposition to the U.S. war with Mexico. Now Lucy Stone decided to use the same tactic to publicly draw attention to women’s oppression as voteless taxpayers. When she refused to pay her taxes, the government held a public auction and sold a number of her household goods.

Like Lucy Stone, [Lydia Sayer] Hasbrouck’s radicalism led her to become a tax resister, refusing to pay local taxes in protest against the denial of her right to vote. A tax collector, so the story goes, managed to steal one of Hasbrouck’s Bloomer outfits from her house and advertise it for sale, the proceeds to go toward the taxes she owed.

Abby Kelly Foster had always been an active worker and speaker for women’s rights, but, in , at the age of sixty-three, she was newly inspired. She had just heard about Julia and Abby Smith, two sisters in neighboring Connecticut, who were refusing to pay the taxes on their farm in order to protest the denial of suffrage to women. This was just the sort of nonviolent direct action that appealed to Abby. Her husband, Stephen, agreed. That year, they refused to pay their taxes on their beloved “Liberty Farm” in order to give voice to the urgency and justice of women’s suffrage.

When they refused again in , the city of Worcester, Massachusetts took action. The farm was seized and put up for auction to the highest bidder.

Letters of support for the Fosters’ tax resistance poured in from the progressive leaders of the day. Boston abolitionist Wendell Phillips wrote, “Of course I need not tell either of you at this late day how much I appreciate this last chapter in the lives full of heroic self sacrifice to conviction.” Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton sent words of encouragement. William Lloyd Garrison, a pacifist abolitionist, wrote, “I hope there is not a man in your city or county or elsewhere who will meanly seek to make that property available to his own selfish ends. Let there be no buyer at any price.”

Unfortunately, Osgood Plummer, a politically conservative neighbor, bid $100 for the farm, but he retreated when Stephen Foster chided him. Later, Plummer wrote a letter to the local newspaper explaining that he had only wanted to teach the Fosters a lesson about obeying the law.

With no other bidders, the deed to Liberty Farm reverted to the city. For the next few years, Abby and Stephen lived with the fear and uncertainty of losing the farm, but they continued their tax resistance until Stephen’s ill health became an overriding concern. In , the Fosters ended their protest and paid several thousand dollars to save the farm. The point had been made.

In , the Women’s Tax Resistance League of London published a little pamphlet entitled Why We Resist Our Taxes… “The government of this country which professes to be a representative one and to rest on the consent of the governed, is Constitutional in its relation to men, Unconstitutional in its relation to women,” wrote Margaret Kineton Parkes, author of the pamphlet. Parkes did not mean all women, however. She hastened to reassure the reader that the tax resisters were not in the least radical but only fair-minded, concerned with votes only for women householders, certainly not for all women. The League, she claimed, was about passively resisting the unconstitutional government ruling England. Because they had been granted the municipal vote, women tax resisters were more than willing to pay local “rates,” and they promised they’d have equal willingness to pay “imperial taxes” as soon as they were granted the parliamentary vote.

The London tax resisters devised a new way to reach beyond those already enlightened members of the public who attended suffrage meetings. They began making suffrage speeches at public auctions, a tactic that had unexpectedly good results. Many people were converted to the suffrage cause once they had the chance to hear the argument from the resisters themselves. The auctioneers not only permitted the women to make their speeches, but sometimes actively invited the speeches and even addressed the cause in their own words. One auctioneer who openly supported the tax-resisting suffragists ended his remarks by saying: “If I had to pay rates and taxes and had not a vote, I should consider it a great disgrace on the part of the Government, but I should consider it a far greater disgrace on my part if I did not protest against it.”

Since the granting of suffrage, women’s tax resistance has most often been undertaken to protest a government’s military spending or its involvement in a specific war — such as the U.S. war in Vietnam. For part of her life, Barbara Deming was a war tax resister. In her essay “On Revolution and Equilibrium,” she explained the rationale for this form of nonviolent noncooperation.

Words are not enough here. Gandhi’s term for nonviolent action was “satyagraha” — which can be translated as “clinging to the truth…” And one has to cling with one’s entire weight… One doesn’t just say, “I don’t believe in this war,” but refuses to put on a uniform. One doesn’t just say “The use of napalm is atrocious,” but refuses to pay for it by refusing to pay one’s taxes.

At , Juanita Nelson threw on the new white terry cloth bathrobe she’d recently ordered from the Sears-Roebuck catalog and answered her door. Two U.S. marshals informed her that they had an order for her arrest. What a way to start the day.

Juanita and her husband Wally, who was out of town that day, had not paid withholding taxes nor filed any forms for , so it was, in one sense, no big surprise that the government wanted to see her. “But even with the best intentions in the world of going to jail,” she later wrote, “I would have been startled to be awakened at 6:30 a.m. to be told that I was under arrest.”

She explained to the bright-eyed government men that she would be glad to tell the judge why she was resisting taxes if he’d care to come see her. Then she proceeded to explain why she would not willingly walk out of her door to appear in court.

I am not paying taxes because the overwhelming percentage of the budget goes for war purposes. I do not wish to participate in any phase of the collection of such taxes. I do not even want to act as if I think that anyone, including the government, has a right to punish me for an act which I consider honorable. I cannot come with you.

The government men were not moved. They called for back-up assistance while Juanita considered her situation. Should she get dressed? Would getting dressed be a way of cooperating? Quickly she called a friend on the phone to let others know what was happening to her, and just as quickly she was surrounded by seven annoyed law enforcement officers. There was a brief exchange about her still being in her bathrobe, and one uncomfortable officer asked her whether or not she believed in God. She answered in the negative. (“He did not go on to explain the connection he had evidently been going to establish between God and dressing for arrest,” Juanita later reported.) Suddenly, a gruff, no-nonsense officer said, “We’ll just take her the way she is, if that’s the way she wants it.” He slapped some handcuffs on her and lifted her off the floor. In maneuvering her into the government car, he apparently tried his best to expose the nakedness under her bathrobe while another officer tried to cover her.

As the car carried her into the heart of Philadelphia, she tried to think. “My thoughts were like buckshot,” she wrote of her experience, “so scattered they didn’t hit anything or, when they did, made little dent. The robe was a huge question mark placed starkly after some vexing problems. Why am I going to jail? Why am I going to jail in a bathrobe?” The only thing she was sure of at that moment was that, until her head cleared, she would refuse to cooperate with her jailers. When the car stopped, she was yanked from the back seat, carried into the federal court building, dragged up a flight of stairs, and thrown behind bars.

[S]everal friends stopped by to visit her. (Her phone call had been a good idea.) The first visitors were two men, tax-refusing pacifists like herself. They thought it best, for the sake of appearances, to go to court in the proper clothes. They offered to get some clothes for her, and she agreed — just in case she decided she’d feel more at ease in them.

After the men left, a woman friend stopped by. “You look like a female Gandhi in that robe!” she said. “You look, well, dignified.” Juanita grinned.

When they finally came for her, Juanita, still refusing to walk, was wheeled into the courtroom in her bathrobe. The clothes the men had brought were left behind in a brown paper bag. The judge gave her until to comply with the court order that she turn over her financial records or be subjected to a possible fine of $1000, a year in jail, or both. Juanita Nelson went home.

came and went. Many Fridays came and went. The charges were dropped and she heard nothing more. Every now and then, the Internal Revenue Service sends her a bill or tries to confiscate a car, but so far the government has met a wall of nonviolent noncooperation. They should have known when they saw Juanita in her bathrobe: nothing will make her pay for war.

Most people who take any notice of my position are appalled by my lawbreaking and not at all about the reasons for my not paying taxes. Instead of trying to make me justify my civil disobedience, why do they not question themselves and the government about a course of action which makes billions available for weapons, but cannot provide decent housing and education for a large segment of the population?

Like the ascetics of old, Eroseanna (Rose or Sis) Robinson was singularly unburdened by material possessions. She had no bank account, owned no real estate, and when the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) tried to seize her personal property, they found that all she had was an ironing board, a clock, a quilt, and some clothes.

Robinson took seriously her membership in Peacemakers (an organization founded in to promote radical, nonviolent direct action). She had been a war tax resister since the early fifties, filing no statements of income and ignoring the various notices and certified letters sent by the IRS. In , thirty-five years old, single and black, Robinson was a skilled artist and athlete; creative, too, in finding ways to live in the United States without paying for the U.S. military. She tried to keep her earnings below the taxable level and for a period managed to spend less than $3 per week for food. She also arranged to earn a withholding-free income from several different work situations. Even with the little money she made, Robinson regularly sent sums greater than the taxes she owed to groups that worked for peace and social justice.

On , federal marshals descended on Robinson at a community center in Chicago and demanded she come with them. When she refused, they carried her bodily out of the center and to the district court where she was seated on a bench before a judge. She refused to accept the services of a lawyer and asked instead that they lay aside their roles as judge and defendant and speak to each other as two people with genuine concerns. When the judge agreed, Robinson talked. “I have not filed income taxes,” she said, “because I know that a large part of the tax will be used for militarization. Much of the money is spent for atom and hydrogen bombs. These bombs have a deadly fallout that causes human destruction, as it has been proved. If I pay income tax, I am participating in that course. We have a duty to contribute constructively to life, and not destructively.”

After making this statement, she was handcuffed, put in a wheelchair because she refused to walk, and taken to jail.

The next day she was wheeled into court again, where she encountered a different judge. This judge ridiculed her and her supporters who were standing in a vigil in front of the courthouse. He accused her of having an attitude of “contumacious criminal contempt.” He committed her to jail until she would agree to file a tax return and show records of her earnings.

Not only would she not agree to file a tax return, she also would not agree to cooperate in any way with the prison system. She would not walk. She would not eat. She did agree to see one visitor one time — her friend Ernest Bromley, a radical pacifist and member of Peacemakers, who had come to see her in Cook County Jail. He wrote while she dictated a message for all her supporters on the outside:

I see the military system and jail system as one thing. I don’t want to give up my own will. I will not compromise by accepting a lawyer or by recognizing the judge as judge. I would rather that no one try to make an arrangement with the judge on my behalf. I ask nothing from the court or the jail. I do not want to pay for war. That is my main concern. Love to everyone.

On , Robinson was again wheeled into court. It was clear that she would not compromise her principles to spare her own discomfort. The judge sentenced her to jail for a year and added an extra day for “criminal contempt.”

On , she was moved to the federal prison in Alderson, West Virginia. There she continued her fast, though prison officials began to force-feed her liquids through a tube inserted into her nose. She refused to cooperate in any way with her own imprisonment nor did she try to send letters through the system of prison censorship.

Ten members of Peacemakers, including long-time activist Marjorie Swann, set up their tents just beyond the gates at Alderson and issued a press release on . They explained that they were there to show support for Robinson and that most of them intended to fast just as she was fasting. They invited anyone who wanted to talk to stop by the gate where they were camping. The pacifists propped up signs along the stretch of dusty road — “No Tax for War,” “Peace Is the Only Defense,” “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” and “Rose Won’t Pay Income Tax.”

After fasting for , Robinson was suddenly and unconditionally discharged from prison on . The judge who ordered her release said Robinson had become a burden to the prison medical facilities, adding that he felt she had been punished sufficiently. He didn’t mention the picketers camped outside.

When Robinson was released from prison late afternoon, the first thing she saw was a huge banner held high by her friends — “Bravo Rose!”

A number of women have become war tax resisters in reaction to a specific war. Mary Bacon Mason, a Massachusetts music teacher, became a war tax resister in after World War Ⅱ. She told the government she would be willing to pay double her tax if it could be used only for aid to suffering people anywhere, but would accept prison or worse rather than pay for war. The only possible defense, she said, is friendship and mutual help. Of World War Ⅱ she said:

I paid a share in that cost and I am guilty of burning people alive in Germany and Japan. I ask humanity’s forgiveness.

In , Caroline Urie of Yellow Springs, Ohio, bedridden and elderly, gained national attention and inspired many people to consider war tax resistance when she withheld 34.6 percent of her tax. She sent an equivalent amount as a donation to four peace organizations and wrote an open letter to President Truman and the IRS

Now that the atomic bomb has reduced to a final criminal absurdity the whole war system, leading quite possibly to the liquidation of human society, and has involved the United States in the shame and guilt of having been the first to exploit its criminal possibilities, I have come to the conclusion that — as a Christian, Quaker, religious and conscientious objector to the whole institution of organized war — I must henceforth refuse to contribute to it in any way I can avoid.

Eighteen years later, and in response to a new war, another woman from Yellow Springs, Ohio, Doris E. Sargent, wrote to the Peacemakers newsletter with a new war tax resistance tactic. She noted that the government had reintroduced a federal tax attached to telephone bills. The money was earmarked specifically for U.S. military expenses. Sargent proposed a radical response — that all those who demanded an end to the fighting in Vietnam ask the phone company to remove their phones in protest. If everyone who opposed the war were willing to make such an extreme sacrifice, real pressure could be put on the government. Then Sargent suggested a less extreme idea — that people keep their phones and pay their bills but refuse to pay the federal tax. Phone tax resisters could send a note with their bills each month, stating that the protest was not directed at the phone company but at the government which was using the phone tax to support war. The idea caught hold, and phone tax resistance became a popular way to protest the war in Vietnam. It is still used as a form of war tax resistance.

The war in Vietnam turned many people into war tax resisters. Pacifist folksinger Joan Baez set an example as a tax resister early in the war years by withholding 60 percent of her income tax. She was instrumental in persuading countless others to follow her example. In , she explained:

We talk about democracy and Christianity — and we try out a new fire-bomb. We talk about peace and we move thousands more men and weapons into Vietnam. This country has gone mad. But I will not go mad with it. I will not pay for organized murder. I will not pay for the war in Vietnam.

In , life-long Quaker Meg Bowman wrote a letter to the IRS to explain why she had decided once again not to pay her federal income tax.

“Do you carefully maintain our testimony against all preparations for war and against participation in war as inconsistent with the teachings of Christ?” ― Query, Discipline of Pacific Yearly Meeting, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

The above quotation is from the book that is intended to give guidance to members for daily living. The book repeatedly stresses peace and individual responsibility.

It is clear to me that I am not only responsible for my voluntary actions, but also for that which is purchased with my income. If my income is spent for something immoral or if I allow others to buy guns with money I have earned, this is as wrong and offending to “that of God in every man” as if I had used that gun, or planned that bomb strike.

When I worked a five-day week it seemed to me that one-fifth of my income went to taxes. This would be equivalent to working one full day each week for the U.S. government. It seemed I worked as follows:

Monday for food.
I felt responsible to buy wholesome, nourishing items that would provide health and energy, but not too much meat or other luxuries, the world supply of which is limited.
Tuesday for shelter.
We maintain a comfortable, simply furnished home where we may live in dignity and share with others.
Wednesday for clothing,
health needs and other essentials and for recreation, all carefully chosen.
Thursday for support of causes.
I select with care those organizations which seem to be acting in such a way that responsibility to God and my brother is well served.
Friday for death,
bombs, napalm, for My Lai and overkill. I am asked to support a government whose main business is war.

Though the above is oversimplified, the point is clear. I cannot work four days a week for life and joy and sharing, and one day for death. I cannot pay federal taxes. I believe this decision is protected by law as a First Amendment right of freedom of religion. If I am wrong it is still better to have erred on the side of peace and humanity.

Sincerely,
Meg Bowman

“The only thing of which I’m guilty is financially supporting the war in Southeast Asia against my better judgment until ,” said Martha Tranquilli when she was charged with the criminal offense of providing false information on her income tax forms.

At , Tranquilli stood on the steps of the state capitol building in Sacramento, California and addressed the 100 supporters who had gathered. After a short Unitarian service held on her behalf, the aging white woman with a long gray braid told them in her calm, soft voice that she envisioned the day when scientists and workers would join in refusing to pay war taxes or do war work.

I was very much afraid of going to prison, but I think I have overcome that fear. I plan to read, write letters, and meditate as much as possible. I’m going to try my best to make an adventure out of this thing.

One after another, friends and strangers attending the rally came up to embrace Tranquilli and offer words of encouragement. After some spirited singing, they accompanied her to the federal building where she turned herself in to the federal marshals.

Hers was a media image made to order. “63-Year-Old Tax-Resisting Grandma Goes to Jail” shouted the headlines, and the war tax resistance movement didn’t mind the national publicity Martha Tranquilli generated.

Tranquilli was opposed to the Vietnam War and all the suffering the war was inflicting on the people of Vietnam, the people of the United States, and on the earth itself. She had therefore decided to withhold the 61 percent of her income taxes (amounting to approximately $1,100) which she believed would go to pay for the war.

It was in Mound Bayou, Mississipi that Martha was tried and sentenced for tax fraud in . Like other war tax resisters, Tranquilli withheld her taxes by listing unusual dependents. Tranquilli listed seven peace organizations as dependents, including War Resisters League, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the American Friends Service Committee. (Another war tax resister in claimed 3 billion dependents, explaining to the IRS that he felt the population of the earth depended on him and on others to refuse to pay war taxes. That case went to court and the tax resister was acquitted by a court of appeals of the charge of willfully filing a false and fraudulent W-4 form.)

Tranquilli was found guilty of tax fraud, but the judge was reluctant to send her to jail and indicated he’d give her a suspended sentence if she would only apologize and promise not to do it again. When Tranquilli refused this offer she was sentenced to nine months in prison and two years probation. The Mississippi Civil Liberties Union helped her appeal the case and, while the appeal was pending, she moved to California. Both the Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear her case.

On , after making national headlines and being cheered on by supporters, Tranquilli began her stay at Terminal Island Prison in San Pedro, California. She quickly got involved in the life of the prison community…

After her release, Tranquilli wrote to a friend: “Be sure to say that I did not suffer in prison. It was a learning experience.” Tranquilli continued her tax resistance as well as her work for peace and justice until her death in .

For Mason and Urie it was the Second World War. For Baez, Bowman, and Tranquilli it was the war in Vietnam. it is the U.S.-backed war against Nicaragua that motivates many new war tax resisters. In in Brooklyn, New York, tax resister Donna Mehle wrote an open letter to the IRS which was published in the local newspaper. She cited a religious basis for her tax resistance, protesting the war against Nicaragua.

The decision to come into conflict with the laws of my country is very difficult, but it is a decision rooted in my Christian faith. As a Christian, I am called to affirm life and reject violence… My commitment to tax resistance deepened in the past year when I travelled to Nicaragua. There I saw first hand the effect of my tax dollars ($100 million in Contra Aid ). I vowed to myself and to the Nicaraguan people I met that I would not be complicit in the U.S. backed Contra war, a war which targets innocent civilians and children.

Mehle informed the IRS that she intended to redirect the money she would have owed in taxes to an alternative fund “which supports life-affirming projects in New York City.”

In , some women in the United States proposed a specifically feminist perspective on war tax resistance. In New York City, the Women’s Tax Resistance Assistance distributed a brochure which read in part:

We can’t keep working for disarmament, for women’s rights, including an end to lesbian oppression, and for racial equality while paying for a male-dominated government which impoverishes and exploits us now and threatens to eliminate the world’s future.

On , this group performed street theater on the steps of Federal Hall. Some of the women dressed up as pieces of the federal budget “pie” while others, dressed as waitresses, explained the military menu to passersby and handed out leaflets.

In Canada in , sixty-eight-year-old Edith Adamson made headlines with her tax resistance. A lifelong pacifist and the coordinator of the Peace Tax Fund Committee of Canada, Adamson was one of approximately sixty Canadians who hoped to prevent the government from using their money to make war. Not that Adamson and the others wanted to keep the money for their own use: they wanted to redirect their dollars into a peace tax fund. With the adoption of the new Charter of Rights in the Canadian Constitution, there was a guarantee of freedom of conscience. “This means,” Adamson explained for news reporters, “that the government should provide a legal alternative to war taxes for those who object to killing on religious or ethical grounds.” Since , Canadian war tax resisters — who call themselves “Peace Trusters” because they trust in peace, not war — have petitioned their government to develop a peace tax fund which would allow citizens the option of directing their money away from the military budget. They asked for a simple tax form which would allow taxpayers to check whether they want a portion of their taxes to go for warmaking or peacemaking.

In , Edith Adamson explained her involvement:

In a nuclear war, you wouldn’t have a chance to be a conscientious objector. And, being an old lady, I wouldn’t be drafted, so it seemed the peace tax fund idea was a sound way to get at the root of the problem.

I not only want to exempt myself from the killing, but I want to try to influence the government to look at this problem — and other people as well to examine their consciences. A nuclear war would involve everybody and mean total destruction and I couldn’t just hide under my little exemption and stay alive.

This peace tax would be an extension of conscientious objector status for the military. It’s more appropriate today because war now depends more on money than on personnel; it only took twelve men to drop the bomb over Hiroshima, but it took millions, perhaps billions of taxpayers’ dollars in Canada, Britain, and the United States to develop that bomb.

By there were approximately 440 Peace Trusters in Canada who were withholding a portion of their taxes and putting that money into a peace tax fund. They had agreed to waive the interest on this money in order to pay the court fees involved in taking on a test case to establish the legality of the peace tax fund. The claimant Jerilynn Prior, a physician and Quaker originally from the United States where she was also a tax resister, now lives in British Columbia. In a press release, Prior said that paying for war violates her freedom of conscience and religion.

This deep conviction rises from my commitment to work for peace. I try to live my life that way — as a mother, a physician, a teacher, a woman, a citizen of this world community. It would be hypocrisy to voluntarily allow my tax contribution to be used for war or the military or pamphlets about bomb shelters…

Each of us can work for peace in our own life, with our own resources, and in our own way. This tax appeal is the way I must work for peace.

Nigerian women used song in to ridicule, protest, and pressure a man and, by extension, the system he represented.

In , women streamed into Oloko, Nigeria from throughout Owerri Province. Word had been sent via the Ibo (Igbo) women’s network that it was time to “sit on” Okugo, the arrogant warrant chief of the Oloko Native Court. “Sitting on a man” was the figurative expression given a traditional process of punishment during which women gathered in front of a man’s home to sing songs which outlined the women’s grievances or insulted the offender. The women would dance and sing all day and all night, and sometimes, for the most serious and unrepentant offenders, give added impetus to their words by dismantling the roof of the hut until the man promised to cooperate.

On , the women prepared as their mothers and grandmothers before them had prepared for the traditional settling of grievances: they bound their heads with ferns, smeared their faces with ashes, and put on the short loincloths tradition ordained. Each woman picked up a sacred stick wreathed with young palm fronds. These sacred sticks were necessary for invoking the spirit and power of their female ancestors. Thus attired, they massed on the district office to “sit on” Okugo until he got the message.

Just days before, the women had met in the market to discuss the new taxation rumors. They remembered that , after promises to the contrary, the British had taken a census and begun collecting taxes from the men. The women were worried that taxes would soon be imposed upon them as well, especially since a district officer had ordered a new census in which they and their property would be counted. At the marketplace meeting the women had agreed to spread the alarm and act if any of them were approached for information.

And could anyone doubt their cause for alarm now? Just Warrant Chief Okugo had approached Nwanyeruwa, a married woman. He had asked to count her goats and sheep. She had spat back an insult, “Was your mother counted?” In anger, Okugo had attacked Nwanyeruwa who had immediately set in motion the women’s network. Now the women were ready to act. Nwanyeruwa’s name became the watchword, Nwanyeruwa herself the catalyst.

Carrying their sacred sticks high, thousands of women marched on the district office. They danced. They sang songs of ridicule and protest, they chanted, and they demanded Okugo’s cap of office, taking from his head the symbol of his authority over them. A British officer who witnessed the event claimed that the cap, tossed into the crowd of women, “met the same fate as a fox’s carcass thrown to a pack of hounds.”

After several days of such protest, the women secured written assurances that they were not to be taxed. They also succeeded in having Okugo arrested, tried, and convicted of physical assault and of unnecessarily worrying the population.

When the news of this victory spread through the women’s networks, thousands of other women throughout the region organized to “sit on” their local warrant chiefs. The protest spread to Aba, a major trading center along the railway. The women in Aba, like those in Oloko, dressed in their traditional ferns, ashes, and loincloths and carrying the sacred sticks to invoke the mothers, gathered to dance, sing, and demand the cap of the warrant chief.

This is the nineteenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we are up to 1972, a year in which there was an enormous amount of material about war tax resistance in the magazine.

The Mennonite

In a weekend workshop was held for “people who seriously question the morality of paying all that Caesar demands.” The General Conference Mennonite Central District Peace and Service Committee was one of the sponsors. From the edition:

Workshop questions morality of war taxes

Christian response to war taxes was discussed by about 100 participants in a workshop in Elkhart, Indiana.

The weekend was sponsored by the Elkhart Peace Fellowship, the General Conference Mennonite Central District peace and service committee, and other regional church peace and service committees.

Michael Friedmann of the Elkhart Peace Fellowship said many of the participants felt the war tax question involved a shift in life style to reduce involvement in the military-industrial complex.

Al Meyer, a research physicist at Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana, suggested to the group that one does not start by changing the laws to provide legal alternatives, to payment of war taxes, but by refusing to pay taxes. We need to give a clear witness, he said.

Mr. Meyer did not oppose payment of war taxes because he was opposed to government as such, but because he did not give his total allegiance to government. He felt it was his responsibility to refuse to pay the immoral demands of government.

“No alternative will be provided by the federal government until a significant number of citizens refuse war taxes,” he said.

Art Gish, author of The new left and Christian radicalism, said draft resistance led logically to war tax resistance.

“If I won’t give the government my warm body, I shouldn’t give it my cold cash,” he said.

On , John Howard Yoder, president of Goshen Biblical Seminary, discussed the purposes of resisting tax payments. He felt the point is to make a clear moral witness. The goal should not be absolute resistance in keeping the government from getting the money. He said he would not give his money voluntarily, but would let the Internal Revenue Service know where they could find it.

Other participants felt tax refusal could be both witness to war and part of a larger movement to shift national priorities.

Mr. Gish discussed legal and illegal tax resistance. Goshen attorney Greg Hartzler emphasized that those who break tax laws should make their religious motivations clear if they want to avoid a severe sentence.

The workshop also discussed communities which are carrying the spirit of voluntary service into a total life style and are freer to develop a clear witness on the tax question.

Another topic was the World Peace Tax Fund, which a group in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is attempting to establish through a bill which it hopes will be introduced in Congress in . The bill would enable those who can demonstrate conscientious objection to war to put that portion of their taxes which would go to war into the fund. The fund would be used for such purposes as disarmament efforts, international exchanges, and international health.

Don Kaufman asked some “Crucial Questions on war taxes” in the edition:

  1. Is there a significant difference between fighting a war as a soldier and supporting it with taxes? “…why should the pacifist refuse service in the army if he does not refuse to pay taxes?” (Richard Gregg) Why should any person, on receipt of the government’s demand for money to kill, hurry as fast as he can to comply? Why pay voluntarily?
  2. What is the biblical or Christian basis for paying or not paying war taxes? What responsibility does an individual have for wars which are fought and financed by a government to which he makes tax payments? To whom is the Christian really responsible?
  3. When faced with a “war tax” situation, what should Christians do? Should Christians “…take their obligations toward government more seriously than their church obligations”? (Milton J. Harder) Unless followers of Jesus dissent from paying war taxes, how are government leaders to know that Christians are opposed to making war on other peoples whom God has created? What are the ways whereby we can keep dear our commitment to God and his love as revealed in Jesus, the Christ?
  4. Can a Christian obedient to God as the supreme Lord of his life continue simultaneously to “Pray for peace” and “Pay for war”? “How do you interpret Christ’s answer about the coin in relation to war tax payment? (See Mark 12:17.) Must Christians pay to have persons killed? What is Caesar’s? What is God’s?” (William Keeney) At what point does a government become satanic or demonic in that it demands what is God’s?
  5. Should Christians who object to paying war taxes wait with their protest until the whole Christian community agrees to do so?
  6. For the Christian who is opposed to war taxes, is it enough to simply refuse voluntarily payment of the money requested by IRS or should he put forth serious effort to prevent the government from obtaining the money?
  7. Isn’t the question of military taxation a reflection of the most formidable problem which every person or religious group must face in our time: Nationalism?

Ted Koontz of Harvard Divinity school attended the Mennonite Graduate Fellowship’s annual winter conference and “presented an analysis of reasons for war tax refusal for use in dialog with those who believe the war in Indochina is unjust but continue to pay war taxes.” (According to an article in the edition.)

The Commission on Home Ministries met in , and tax resistance came up:

The commission asked William Snyder, executive secretary of the Mennonite Central Committee, if MCC is discussing with other religious groups continuing the pacifist position beyond current “popular” opinions, and if MCC is pressing for an alternative fund for war taxes in light of the changing nature of warfare with finances as the primary resource.

Meetings to discuss war tax resistance were scheduled at three Mennonite churches in Kansas and Pennsylvania in and , according to an announcement in the edition. One of those meetings was covered as follows in the edition:

Western District discusses tax refusal, automated war

About fifty persons shared ways of protesting the use of their taxes for war at a meeting in Buhler, Kansas, sponsored by the Western District peace and social concerns committee.

After watching the slide set, The automated air war, produced by the American Friends Service Committee, participants discussed ways they are avoiding contribution to the war: refusing the telephone tax, refusing to pay income tax, investing in corporations which do not produce war materials, voluntary service, keeping income below the taxable level, and retirement.

Money and the weapons it buys, not the bodies of draft-age men, have become the primary resource for waging war, the group agreed. But individuals differed on the best way to influence government against war.

The Internal Revenue Service will attach bank accounts or auction personal property to collect delinquent income tax or telephone tax, and some persons questioned the effectiveness of refusal to pay when the government collects the money later with interest. Or are we simply called to be faithful? some asked.

Willard Unruh said, “It’s not the money that’s important; it’s the opportunity to express my opinion. I sent copies to Senators Dole and Pearson of my letter to the IRS. They both responded.”

Jonah Reimer suggested establishing a fund in Kansas into which persons refusing federal taxes could put an equivalent amount. “It would be an excellent way to witness,” he said.

The group also discussed attempts to place before Congress a bill to establish a government fund into which conscientious objectors to war could place their tax money, which would not be used for military purposes. Such a fund, however, would not necessarily reduce the amount of money going to the military.

Some persons objected to the fund, analogous to legal alternative service for conscientious objectors, saying that such a legal alternative would give approval to the evil of the military-industrial complex.

One man said, “Mennonites want special privileges. They want to come out of the war with a clear conscience. But we should want that clear conscience for everybody.”

“An increasing number of Mennonites are asking what it means to render to Caesar what belongs to him and in particular to render to God what belongs to him,” said Wesley Mast, Philadelphia, convener for the seminars. “Since war is increasingly becoming a matter of bombs and buttons rather than people, we need to ask what form Christian obedience takes.”

The other two meetings were covered in the edition. Excerpts:

Wesley Mast, Philadelphia, said, “The degree of openness on an issue as explosive as war taxes was amazing. We wrestled together first of all with the message of the Scriptures. Would Paul, for example, admonish us today to pay taxes, as he did the Roman Christians? Would he do the same to Christians in World War Ⅱ under Hitler? We noted that the times had already changed in the early church from the ‘good’ government in Romans 13 to the ‘beastly’ government in Revelation 13.”

The seminars also discussed the nature of the present war. Mr. Mast said the seminar participants heard that since World War Ⅱ the need for foot soldiers has declined 50 percent. Present war is becoming automated. “When they no longer need our bodies, how do we declare our protest?”

Another issue concerned tax dollars. “When over half of our taxes are used for outright murder, how can we go on sinning by supporting that which God forbids?”

With regard to brotherhood, “should the few who cannot conscientiously pay for war wait until others come along? How do we discern the Spirit’s leading in this and not make decisions on an individualistic basis?”

Howard Charles, Goshen Biblical Seminary, was resource teacher on biblical passages dealing with taxes. Other input was given by Melvin Gingerich and Grant Stoltzfus on examples of tax refusal from history. Mr. Mast presented options in payment and nonpayment of taxes. Walton Hackman broke down the present use of tax dollars, 75 percent of which go for war-related purposes.

“Mennonite collegians will meet to rap about the kind of lifestyle they want to adopt,” hiply noted an article in the edition. Among the topics on the agenda: “how to avoid complicity with militarism through paying taxes.”

“Shall we pay war taxes?” asked David L. Habegger in a lengthy article in the issue:

The continuation of the war in Southeast Asia calls upon us in the United States to review again our payment of taxes that go to support the war. In , the Council of Commissions meeting in Newton, Kansas, urged churches to consider the non-payment of a portion of their taxes. One of the district conferences passed a resolution chiding the council for being unbiblical. This response should have called for a mutual study of the question and this can still be done. It is the intention of the writer that this article should be a contribution toward the continuation of dialog on this topic.

The record of Jesus’ pronouncement on the paying of taxes is recorded in all three of the Synoptic Gospels (Matt. 22:15–22; Mark 12:13–17, Luke 20:20–26). This indicates the importance of this account to the early church.

The account tells of Pharisees’ and Herodians’ coming to ask a question of Jesus. They came the day after the cleansing of the temple. Their purpose was to discredit Jesus in the eyes of the people. Jesus had shown up the leaders of the temple and they were anxious to get back at him. This question is one of several that they used. Here the cooperation between the Pharisees and Herodians is strange. The Pharisees were opposed to the occupation by the Roman authorities, while the Herodians were enriching themselves by cooperating. They united because they both wanted Jesus out of the way.

The question of paying taxes brought different answers from these two groups. The Pharisees were nationalistic and were against any foreign occupation. They saw the payment of taxes as a symbol of their subjection to a heathen foreign power. They also hated using the coins with an imprint of Caesar’s likeness as it went against their interpretation of the second commandment. The Herodians were willing to see the taxes paid for they had improved their livelihood by their cooperation.

Thus the question would appear to be a legitimate one. Who was right? They recognized that Jesus was impartial to people and that if they could appeal to his sense of justice they might get him to make a judgment. On the surface their query seemed innocent enough. But they were laying a trap for Jesus.

The question was two-pronged. Jesus could be caught if he answered either “yes” or “no.” A “yes” would have disowned the people’s nationalistic hopes and given approval to the hated tax burden. The total taxes paid amounted to as much as 35 to 40 percent of their income. A “no” to the question would have made him liable to the charge of sedition and he could be reported to the Roman authorities. So either answer was one that was looked upon as a means of hurting Jesus and either discrediting him or doing away with him. Luke says clearly that they wanted to deliver Jesus up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor (Lk. 20:20).

Mark says at the outset that the intent of the questioners was to entrap Jesus. We are also told that Jesus was aware of their hypocrisy, their seeming sincerity in asking a question with a hidden intent to trap him. On the basis of this information, to expect Jesus to reply with either a yes or a no would be to assume that Jesus was caught in their trap. The amazement of the questioners after Jesus’ reply indicates that Jesus did not give the kind of answer they expected.

Turning to the crucial issue, the Pharisees asked if it was lawful to give taxes to Caesar. The idiomatic rendering of this is “pay taxes.” Jesus replied that they should “pay back” to Caesar that which was his. Did Jesus see taxes as a return for benefits received? He probably did, but without sanctioning all that Caesar was doing. For it was Caesar who had provided for the making of the coin. But the paying back to Caesar statement does not stand alone and we cannot treat it as such. To it is added the phrase that we are to pay back to God what belongs to God. These two phrases need to be interpreted together. And there are several ways in which this can be done. What did Jesus mean?

First, some see the realm of Caesar and the realm of God as two side-by-side but separate and distinct realms, each having its own concerns and existence. The Christian lives in both realms and has a dualistic ethic. When it comes to killing, a Christian as a citizen of God’s kingdom will not kill. But as a citizen of this world he will be obedient to Caesar and take up arms. Many Christians see no inconsistency in reading the words of Jesus to mean this is the way they should live.

To some of us it is quite obvious that this is not the way Jesus taught us to live. We do not see him giving Caesar equal authority with God. Jesus warned that no man can serve two masters. So we reject the position that would say we should pay to Caesar regardless of the uses he makes of our money.

A second view is that the Kingdom of God is above the kingdoms of this world. God’s realm is holy and the worldly realm is sinful. According to this model, one would seek to live as much as possible within God’s realm. It might be necessary to be involved in the world to some extent but one would take no responsibility, such as voting or holding office. One would pay taxes to Caesar but would not see the money as purchasing any services. This has been the view of some Mennonites in the past. They asked nothing from the world and gave what was demanded except where it involved their personal lives. They let the governing authorities take full responsibility before God for the use of the taxes they paid. This position we also reject as an inadequate interpretation.

A third point of view sees the whole creation as belonging to God, with God acting in and through all men. Within the world are a number of states having separate existence but not autonomous existence for they are all under the judgment of God. What the rulers do, they are to do as ministers of God and it should always be according to God’s purposes. Their authority is a derived authority. Because the rulers of the states are not autonomous, they frequently seek to wield more power than given by God and so become demonic. Thus Caesar is not to be obeyed regardless of what he asks. We see fine examples of this in both the Old and New Testaments. When Caesar asks for more than God has set for him, the Christian must definitely refuse to grant it to him. Then the words, “We must obey God rather than men” are appropriate.

Knowing Jesus’ life of total obedience to the will of his Father, we have no doubt in saying that Jesus saw governing authorities as ruling under God. He told Pilate, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11). The Christians who received the revelation of Jesus Christ were told that those who are faithful unto death to their convictions would receive the crown of life (Rev. 2:10). It is to this third model that we look for guidance.

The words, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” does say explicitly that there is an amount that is due a government. But we also hold that it says there are limits to what Caesar should ask. Jesus was not being asked about the payment of all taxes. A variety of taxes were levied by Caesar and the one Jesus was asked about was the annual poll tax that each male above fourteen years of age had to pay with the specific coin Jesus called for.

We need to see Jesus’ words as providing a generalization rather than a universal prescription. In moving from a general statement to a particular situation, we must always move carefully. Let me illustrate: we are told a person who is a guest should eat what is set before him (Luke 10:7). However, if a person is diabetic, it would not be right for him to eat food that would be harmful to his system. While we can say that Jesus supported the payment of taxes, we cannot thereby say that he favored the payment of every particular tax that a government might levy. We can all think of programs (such as the destruction of elderly and handicapped persons) which we would not be willing to support with our taxes. If that is the case, then we need to look seriously at what our taxes are doing in making war possible.

Living under a government that says it is responsible to the concerns of its citizens, we have an opportunity to witness by bringing our concerns to the government. A first step should be to write those who represent us and make the laws for our country. Stating our position in this manner is being a faithful witness. If the tax money is being used for purposes that are utterly contrary to what we understand to be the will of God, then we ought to consider the act of refusing to pay the tax. The purpose of this action is the desire to be faithful to the will of God as we know it and to help the rulers become aware of how they are overstepping the bounds of true ministers of God.

Paul in his letter to the Romans exhorts Christians to be obedient to the authorities. But he has already stated the principle that Christians should not be conformed to this world (12:1). Or as Phillips has translated it, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its mold.” This calls for discernment on the part of the church. Can we as Christians continue to pray for peace while we pay for war?

The edition profiled two small Mennonite intentional communities in Kansas: the Fairview Mennonite House and The Bridge. The article noted:

[The Bridge] began forming at a Western District war tax workshop. David and Joanne Janzen, Randy and Janeal Krehbiel, and Steve and Wanda Schmidt were ready to stop paying taxes for war and to join into a brotherhood of shared income “to make our whole lives count for peace.”

Both intentional communities are a part of the voluntary service program of the General Conference Mennonite Church and follow the same financial pattern of self-support as the majority of other voluntary service units. All income is turned over directly to the voluntary service office in Newton, which reimburses the unit for such items as food, housing, travel, and medical expenses. Each individual receives $25 a month personal allowance.

Although critics of the intentional communities have accused them of using the voluntary service program as a tax dodge, members of the communities felt strong ties with their Anabaptist heritage and wanted to channel their resources to and through the church. But there are no apologies for not paying taxes. “We’re witnessing to the fact that the federal government is not using our money responsibly in its huge military expenditures,” said Ken [Janzen].

A member of the Love, Joy, Peace Community (Washington, D.C.) wrote a letter in response in which he wrote (in part):

The problem of war taxes is one which both Fairview House and The Bridge are addressing. It’s good to see people more concerned with “rendering to God what is his” (our whole lives), rather than being obsessed with Caesar and his temporal demands! We have long been passive, instead of active peacemakers. We pray for peace while we pay for war.

On , eight Boston Mennonites wrote in to say they’d started resisting:

Decision to withhold taxes

Dear Editor: As members of the Mennonite congregation of Boston, we are writing this letter to make public our decision to withhold a portion of our federal taxes, either income or telephone taxes. This decision came out of discussions with the entire congregation. We are doing this because our Christian consciences and our Mennonite backgrounds tell us the war in Southeast Asia is counter to the teachings of Christ. We have chosen to withhold our taxes because part of the responsibility for the war resides with those who willingly support it financially, regardless of what they believe.

Realizing this act will undoubtedly have a very small effect indeed on governmental policy, we hope it will in some way influence others into taking concrete actions which will demonstrate Christian love. Our friends and our families cannot help but react to our decision to withhold taxes.

The desired effect of our actions is not, however, the sole reason why we have chosen this form of protest. As conscientious objector status has become more automatic for Mennonites, refusal to pay war taxes has provided an additional way to demonstrate one’s Christian beliefs. Because we have only rough guesses as to the effects of our act, we accept as a matter of faith that this act will at least be a significant event in our Christian lives.

While we know the government will eventually collect our taxes, our intention to send an equal amount of money to the Mennonite Central Committee for Vietnam relief is a further Christian witness. It offers our alternative to war.

Jerry and Janet Friesen Regier,
Weldon and Rebecca Pries,
Ted and Gayle Gerber Koontz,
Dorothy and Gordon D. Kaufman.

The edition carried this news:

MCC notes increase in tax-refusal donations

An increasing number of people are sending war tax monies to Mennonite Central Committee, instead of paying them to the United States Government for military use, said Calvin Britsch, MCC assistant treasurer.

Contributions of tax money are of two kinds, Mr. Britsch said. More people are refusing to pay the federal tax levied on the use of telephones. This 10 percent tax is seen as a direct source for military expenditures. People who refuse this tax simply subtract the 10 percent from their telephone bill and send it instead to MCC.

We also receive contributions from people who refuse part of their federal income tax, Mr. Britsch said. Several people, for example, have withheld and have sent in as a contribution ten or 15 percent of their income tax in a symbolic protest against the Vietnam war and the whole United States military machine. Others who have had less than the total tax withheld send that remainder to MCC rather than to the Internal Revenue Service. We often get letters with tax refusal contributions explaining the individuals belief that, as a Christian, one cannot voluntarily, or without protest, pay money to be used for the destruction of human life.

Tax refusal contributions, unless otherwise designated, are usually applied to the MCC Peace Section budget, Mr. Britsch said.

The General Conference had asked the Commission on Home Ministries and the Commission on Overseas Mission to come up with some sort of repentance action, focused on the Vietnam War. They settled on a coordinated day of repentance, with other Mennonite and Brethren churches also joining in with a day of fasting and prayer. Included with the letter from the commissions announcing this was a confession of complicity, which said in part:

We recognize that though we cannot completely disassociate ourselves from the destruction and suffering the people of the United States are inflicting upon others, we continue to seek ways “to perform deeds worthy of (our) repentance.”…

As a church we have opposed war and worked for peace through programs of relief and service. Yet we share responsibility for the destruction in this way through our silence, through our profiting from a military economy, through our patronage of corporations with substantial defense contracts, and through our payment of the portion of telephone and IRS taxes used for war purposes. Much of this involvement is unintentional and may even be done without knowledge of the implications.

Ron Boese shared his letter to the IRS in the edition. Excerpts:

To pay income tax means to help buy the guns, airplanes, and bombs which continue daily to kill the men, women and children of Indochina. To pay this tax means to help build the nuclear weaponry which threatens the possibility of any joyful human life. To pay this tax is to help retire the mortgage of the atomic bombs which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So, instead of trusting my money to the federal government, I have directed my financial resources to organizations and individuals working for peace and justice.

Claus Felbinger, writing about the Anabaptist church in , said, “We are gladly and willingly subject to the government for the Lord’s sake, and in all just matters we will in no way oppose it. When, however, the government requires of us what is contrary to our faith and conscience — as swearing oaths and paying hangman’s dues of taxes for war — then we do not obey its command.” Living in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition, I feel that, rather than pay taxes, I must hear and respond to the cries of those who fall victim to the American war-making power.

I hope that you people working for the Internal Revenue Service will understand and accept my decision to follow conscience. I hope that you will also consider the contribution which your work of collecting war taxes makes to the suffering of our fellow human beings.

Accompanying this was a maudlin poem by another author, called “Confession” that began “I killed a man today / Or was it a woman or a child?” and went on to explain that his taxes paid someone to kill, in spite of all the other things he did to express his dislike for killing. But he was writing a letter to the IRS to tell them why he wouldn’t be paying “that part of income tax which is used for killing.”

The “Central District Reporter,” a sort of supplemental insert in the magazine, reported this from the district’s Peace and Service Committee:

Parents too have stopped being passive about peace. If son will not register, father will not pay the tax which keeps the army and any war going. All ages are learning more and more that there is no one way to give witness to convictions.

A letter to the editor from Jacob and Irene Pauls discussed their decision to redirect 64% of their federal income tax (“clearly designated for war”) from the government to the Mennonite Central Committee. They wrote: “The state has chosen an enemy, but we have no enemy. We do not accept the premise that the state can choose an enemy for us and force us to help annihilate the state’s enemy.”

From the edition:

David Janzen, standing at right, talks with two Internal Revenue Service officials, seated behind a desk to the left

War tax resistance means sale of car. David Janzen, Newton, Kansas, at right, talks with Internal Revenue Service officials in Wichita as they open and record sealed bids for Mr. Janzen’s station wagon. The automobile was confiscated in for nonpayment of $31.32 of telephone excise tax which would have been used to carry on the war in Indochina. The officials read bids for one cent to $501, but refused to read bids for “one napalmed baby” and other “units of suffering” submitted by other war tax resisters and supporters. “All we’re interested in is the money,” said the IRS officer. “We’re interested in what the money buys,” replied Mr. Janzen. The intentional community of which he is a member bought back the station wagon.

A letter to the editor from Joan Veston Enz and former acting editor Jacob J. Enz argued for the “sanctity of life” pro-life position in the abortion debate, and also mentioned war tax resistance in passing:

There are some points at which it is necessary “to make a one-sided emotional commitment to one value” (our militaristic brethren in the church feel we do this on the war question — especially when we begin to urge withholding part of our income tax).

What was billed as a “‘Lamb’s war’ camp meeting” took place in . Sixty or seventy mostly youngish people, mostly but not all Mennonites, met to discuss “a life of sacrifice and aggressive peacemaking” as part of “a nonviolent army under the direction of God.” War tax resistance was one of the topics discussed, and the verse “gonna lay down my telephone tax, down by the riverside” was spliced in to the popular spiritual during an evening sing-along.

A letter to the editor from Robert W. Guth on the subject of war taxes again told the story of the excommunication of Christian Funk for paying taxes to the Continental Congress during the American revolutionary war, and of Andrew Ziegler’s “I would as soon go to war as pay the three pounds and ten shillings” response.

Preliminary results from the first Church Member Profile survey were revealed in a article. Excerpt:

In the United states… only 11 percent were uncertain about their position, should they be subject to the draft. Seventy-one percent would choose alternative service, an option acceptable to both the government and the church’s teaching in recent history.

However, 33 percent were uncertain about refusal to pay that proportion of their income taxes designated for the military. Fifty-five percent opposed nonpayment of war taxes.

The Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section held an assembly in . Some excerpts from the coverage of the assembly in The Mennonite:

Bill Londeree, a member of Koinonia Partners, Americus, Georgia, emphasized the personal response to affluence and militarism.

The Methodist Church, he said, has $40 million in investments in the top twenty-nine defense contractors — and sends out the antiwar slide presentation, “The automated air war.” Members of the Mennonite Church paid $87 million last year in war taxes and call themselves a “peace church.”

“This is schizophrenia of the first order,” Mr. Londeree said. “The greatest need is for examination of our own lives. Jesus’ first statement to us all is a call to repentance, to metanoia. This does not mean feeling sorry, but is a command to change.”

The assembly spent much of its time in small groups discussing the presentations and related topics, such as life style, the ideology of growth, war taxes, international economic relations, economic needs of church-related institutions, strategies for social change, new value orientations, and investments.

This is the twentieth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we reach 1973.

The Paris Peace Accord is about to be signed, beginning the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. Will the growing war tax resistance movement in the General Conference Mennonite Church be able to sustain its momentum as anti-war urgency slackens?

The Mennonite

Of all the varieties of tax resistance, the pay-taxes-but-complain method seems the least likely to satisfy or impress. But some people do seem to like it. For example, a letter from Sem and Mabel Sutter to the Commissioner of the IRS, dated explained that they were paying “the two-thirds of our federal income tax which is budgeted for military purposes… under protest.” Because “the money is already in your hands in the form of withholding tax, we have no recourse but to pay it, while stating that it violates our conscience to do so.” The typical complaints about “the wholesale destruction of human life” and the opportunity costs of military spending followed, along with a patient explanation of the Mennonite point of view on “resistance to war.” Finally the letter concluded that “until such time as legislative provision is made for conscientious objection to war tax, we shall pay our tax under protest.”

The issue included a letter from Steven G. Schmidt. Similarly anguished about the Vietnam War, he suggested something a bit stronger than paying-under-protest:

I would like to suggest one further action to people who follow Christ and to people who believe in God. Income tax money is due soon. Most of that money will go to disrupt and destroy lives. Perhaps church people would serve God best by sending this money to nonmilitary agencies or to local charities or the church. I, for one, pledge my support to you — and I know others who do, too. Let me know if we can help you in any way, for it takes courage to follow conscience.

As Joshua put it (24:15), “Choose ye this day whom you will serve… as for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord.” We at our house have come to believe that putting the money that would have gone to IRS into life-giving investments is serving the Lord.

A letter from David Janzen, dated , hoped to keep the war tax resistance momentum going as the anti-war movement’s urgency was being deflated by the withdrawal of the United States from the Vietnam War:

Tax resistance

Dear [The Mennonite editor] Larry [Kehler]: I have been asked by a number of friends, “Now that the war is over in Vietnam, will you end your war tax resistance?” Since most of my friends read The Mennonite, I wanted to share my answer here, hoping it may be helpful to others.

No, I will not pay the telephone excise tax (now 9 percent); I will do my best to owe no income tax and will refuse to pay whatever I do owe.

I am glad that the United States has finally agreed to withdraw all troops from Vietnam and exchange prisoners with Hanoi, but… the war is not over and U.S. complicity in it has not ended. Our bombers in Indochina have not been brought home, rather they are raining destruction on Cambodia and Laos in in unprecedented levels. The victims of these bombs are not my enemies. Why should they suffer for the sins of their rulers, or mine?

Furthermore, the President has requested a $4.7 billion increase in the Pentagon’s budget, and this in supposed peace time. What is the purpose of all this war spending that consumes 60 cents of every income tax dollar? It is, it seems to me, getting ready to put down with massive violence, the next threat to the American empire, or worse, to win the nuclear showdown of World War Ⅲ. By contributing to this kind of terror politics, I do not demonstrate God’s nature nor bring his peace. So, for the foreseeable future, I plan to reinvest my war taxes into works of mercy.

If anyone wants information on how to refuse taxes for war, even if you are in a withholding situation, write me or War Tax Resistance, 912 E. 31st St., Kansas City, Missouri 64109.

I haven’t really looked into the question of whether Canadians are doing more good than evil by paying their taxes. C.J. Hinke of 918 Center St. South in Whitby, Ontario, is apparently the only open tax resister in Canada, and would be glad to share his reasons with inquirers.

Walton Hackman, executive secretary of the Mennonite Central Committee’s “Peace Section” noted that war tax redirection to support that Section’s work had increased:

Taxes-for-peace fund new channel for witness

During the past year the MCC Peace Section has received $4,000 in contributions made in lieu of tax payments. This was a new phenomenon. In previous years only several hundred dollars were contributed in this way. The contributions were unsolicited; they were made by individuals whose consciences would not allow them to pay taxes which were used for war purposes.

Since a substantial number of individuals from the MCC constituency are looking for an alternative way to use tax monies otherwise collected for war purposes, the Peace Section took action at its meeting to establish a taxes-for-peace fund to which such contributions could be made.

Some of the funds contributed last year were contributions made in lieu of the 10 percent (now 9 percent) telephone excise tax which, according to Wilbur Mills, chairman of the United States House ways and means committee, is a tax needed to pay for the Vietnam war. Other funds contributed in lieu of tax payments came from individuals who withheld part of their federal income tax. Contrary to what many people hoped, the end of United States military action in Vietnam does not mean a reduction in military spending. The proposed budget increase for the Pentagon next year is $4,200,000,000.

Those who have made contributions to the Peace Section in lieu of tax payments during past years are not, as some might suspect, the young activists, but include businessmen, medical doctors, teachers, farmers, and administrators representing a good cross section of the Mennonite brotherhood.

Young people, especially students who are not in earning situations of paying taxes, contributed very little in lieu of tax payments. Most of the contributions came from people over thirty.

The taxes-for-peace fund, as it is being called, is being established for persons whose conscience against war and killings will not allow them to pay the portion of their taxes that goes for war purposes. It should be clearly understood, that contributions made to this fund will not satisfy the Internal Revenue Service. It will, however, provide individuals with a receipt proving that their intentions were not to defraud, but that their withholding some portion of their tax monies was a matter of conscientious objection to war and militarism.

The monies contributed to the fund will be used for the work of the Peace Section and will be a small effort toward waging peace rather than war.

With the need for manpower in the armed forces greatly reduced and with the use of more sophisticated remote-controlled technical weapons, it is increasingly difficult to express one’s conscientious objection to war. Mennonites have traditionally withheld their bodies as a protest against war. Now few bodies are needed and many more dollars are needed for the development and maintenance of expensive war machinery.

Contributions to the taxes-for-peace fund may be one tangible way in which conscientious objectors can positively express peace through their tax dollars.

A letter by Gus Konkel, dated , shows the first sign of backlash for some time. Excerpt:

It seems to me the whole question about war taxes is a prime example of utter question begging. In the final analysis all the taxes go in and out of the same pot. Tagging a name to any particular tax doesn’t really mean anything. I don’t ever expect to live under a government that has no defense system, be it capitalist or communist. How directly I support that defense system through the tax dollar doesn’t seem to me to be of any great import one way or the other.

The edition reported:

American Telephone and Telegraph reports that 22,000 people refused to pay the telephone excise tax in protest against the Vietnam War in , up from 17,000 in and 12,000 in . The Internal Revenue Service wants AT&T to disconnect all those phones, but AT&T says tax problems are IRS’ business. Apparently IRS wants as little to do with 22,000 prosecutions as AT&T wants to do with the $200,000 a month it would cost to disconnect protesters’ phones.

The edition reported on three anonymous donors, young people from Goshen, Indiana, “with an average income of $4,000” had together donated $5,000 to a fund for financially-needy Goshen College students. “They have decided to give away their earnings,” the article reported, “rather than keep them and pay federal taxes, much of which goes for war.”

The edition gave a second example of a Mennonite organization practicing war tax resistance corporately (see ♇ for the first example):

Minneapolis congregation refuses telephone excise tax

Faith Mennonite Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has recently voted to withhold payments of the 9 percent federal excise tax on its telephone bill “in protest against the Vietnam War and U.S. militarism.”

The church council had discussed the issue in and and had recommended that the tax issue be brought up at the annual business meeting . On , the issue was debated during the Sunday school hour and voted on at the annual meeting in the afternoon.

“There was not complete consensus in our case,” said Pastor Donald Kaufman. “But a significant group feels that this is an important Christian witness.”

Congregational moderator Richard Westby drafted a letter to Northwestern Bell to be sent with each month’s phone payment. The letter reads in part:

“The Faith Church has traditionally opposed war and continues to pay for war (although tax withholding does not have a long tradition within our history.) This contradiction between profession and practice within our congregation is now being changed so that we are more consistent in our faith. We are opposed to war and do not want our tax payments to support, endorse, or pay for U.S. war efforts.

“As a church organization, we realize that we have a responsibility to our country and government for services rendered. We support our government except when it contradicts Christian morality and conscience… We feel obligated to challenge our government’s reckless and immoral military deeds. By our small action we join with many other moral people in strongly urging our government to change its priorities and reduce its dependence upon the military. Without money, modern warfare could not be fought…”

The telephone tax, formerly 10 percent, was restored by President Lyndon B. Johnson in , during the escalation of the Vietnam War. Beginning this year, it will be decreased 1 percent annually until it disappears in .

The edition carried a brief news item about the the strange AFSC lawsuit in which they were trying to have the withholding taxes they had already paid for their conscientiously-objecting employees refunded to them. (See ♇ for more about that suit.)

The edition included a tribute to Mennonite professor Benny Bargen, who had died . It touched briefly on his war tax resistance, saying: “His opposition to war had led him to request that his salary be held at a level that would not require him to pay taxes.”

This is the twenty-first in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today brings us up to 1974.

The Mennonite

brought readers the news that “The World Peace Tax Fund Act” had been introduced in Congress. This early version of the “peace tax fund” idea, according to the article, would create a federal trust fund separate from the funds in the general U.S. treasury, which would be supervised by a board of trustees (mostly appointed by the U.S. president). The fund might be used to support such things as (the language in the bill said “shall include but not be limited to”) “research and other activities designed to develop and demonstrate nonviolent methods of resolving international conflicts.” Registered conscientious objectors to military taxation would have a portion of their taxes assigned to this fund (a portion equivalent to the percent of the U.S. budget spent on military purposes in the previous year) in a way that would ostensibly give them “rights… comparable to First Amendment rights given to draftees who are conscientious objectors.”

“The bill,” the article explains with a straight face, “prohibits using the Peace Fund as a means of reducing regular appropriations for nonmilitary purposes.” In other words, if the trustees of the peace tax fund decide to grant the money to the Peace Corps, Congress is not supposed to then cut the appropriation it gave to the Peace Corps out of the general treasury. How this was supposed to be enforced is anyone’s guess.

This is the modern version of the phony “Civilian Bonds” from World War Ⅱ (see ♇ 9, 10, & 11 July 2018). It would allow “conscientious” people to avoid the risks of resistance and to get official government recognition of how conscientious they are without actually affecting one whit their complicity in what the government does with their money.

Sadly, one of the stories the archive of The Mennonite tells is how the drive to pass some sort of “peace tax fund” legislation like this came to displace actual war tax resistance — even as the proposed bills themselves became more and more watered down and got further and further from being taken seriously in Congress (the current version, doggedly introduced to each Congress by Representative John Lewis, has no cosponsors). I won’t be commenting on all of the individual mentions of these bills as they come up in this and subsequent issues of The Mennonite, as I consider it tangential to conscientious tax resistance (at best; antagonistic at worst), but there will be many such mentions, and by the end of my survey, they will outnumber mentions of real war tax resistance.

Taking off my rant hat…

The edition reprinted much of a letter from James Klassen, who was doing relief work in Vietnam, to his pastor, Ronald Krehbiel, telling about the torture of prisoners by South Vietnamese police. Editor Larry Kehler comments at the end of the letter: “The telephone company in Wichita called our house the other day to ask if we wanted to start paying our federal excise tax again ‘now that the war is over.’ We declined.”

The edition told of a triumph in the AFSC’s suit attempting to retrieve money it had withheld from the paychecks of its conscientiously objecting employees. A District Court had ordered the Internal Revenue Service to stop collecting the full taxes for those employees “because such withholding violates the free exercise of their religion as members of the Society of Friends” and to refund previously-collected amounts that represent “overpayment of taxes withheld.”

The triumph would be short-lived. (See ♇ for more about the suit and how it progressed.) When the Supreme Court voted, with one notable dissent, to reverse the district court’s decision, the news was covered in the edition.

As noted in the last episode, the Faith Mennonite Church in Minneapolis had decided to stop paying its telephone tax as a congregation. Alas, as the edition noted, the IRS successfully seized the $1.64 from the church’s bank account.

One possibly beneficial, though indirect, effect of the publicity about the peace tax fund act, I must admit, was that it seems to have inspired a Japanese Christian, Michio Ohno, to spark war tax resistance in Japan. A letter from Ohno, dated says that upon reading about the bill, he “at once wrote a letter to the editor of Asahi shimbun, the most influential daily paper in Japan, and it was printed in the issue of the paper.”

In the letter, I stated (1) I do not want to pay my income tax to be used for military purpose out of money God has entrusted me, (2) I will gladly pay the tax if nonmilitary use is secured, and (3) I proposed to have an act like the World Peace Tax Fund Act in the United States.

A few days later, Professor Masahito Ara commented favorably about my letter in his Newspapers in review on the NHK Radio. Dr. Sakakibara, who energetically writes books about Anabaptism, proposed an “alternative tax” system in the Anabaptist genealogy of conscientious objection, which is now at the press.

We are preparing to make a group looking for a possibility of having a law enabling us to pay tax whose use is restricted to nonmilitary purposes. We need your prayer and spiritual support.

But while this letter seemed to place all of the emphasis on a “peace tax fund”-style bill, the movement that Ohno started would instead focus on actual war tax resistance. Here’s an article that appeared in the edition:

Tax resistance group in Japan gains support

A war tax resistance movement is beginning in Japan.

Started by Michio Ohno, a pastor of the United Church of Christ in Japan who attended Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries in Elkhart, Indiana, in , an organization for “Conscientious Objection to Military Tax” was formed in Tokyo. About sixty people attended the first meeting, and a “general assembly” was planned at the Shinanomachi Church in Tokyo.

The objectives of the organization are (1) reduction and eventual abolition of Japan’s Self-Defense Force (Japan’s constitution prohibits a military) and (2) encouraging nonpayment of the 6.4 percent of income taxes that support the Self-Defense Force.

Mr. Ohno, who is now working with Mennonites and Brethren in the Tokyo area, started the movement out of his religious convictions. But support has now grown beyond Mennonites, the Society of Friends, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation to include other Japanese citizens who question the constitutionality of the Self-Defense Force.

At the organizational meeting, speakers included Gan Sakakibara, principal of the Tokyo English Center, on “The historical development of conscientious objection” Yasusaburo Hoshino, professor at the Tokyo University of Liberal Arts, on “How to live nonviolently; A theory of peaceful tax paying”; and Shizuo Ito, a lawyer who sued the government for having unconstitutional armed forces, on “Struggle for peace.”

Mr. Ohno called Conscientious Objection to Military Tax the first organized movement of this kind in Japan.

“The time was ripe when we started the campaign,” he said. “We consulted several scholars of the constitution, and one of the professors said he himself had wanted to start a movement like this. Somebody else may well have started a movement like this anyway, even if we did not. We should not just sit back and wait for the peace to come, but be the peacemakers.”

Mr. Ohno said one of the decisive factors in his becoming involved in conscientious tax objection in was an article in The Mennonite last year on the proposed World Peace Tax Fund legislation in the United States.

The Mennonite General Conference met for its triennial sessions in , and 1,300 delegates passed several resolutions. One was:

War taxes

Be it resolved that we educate ourselves more fully regarding the pervasive militarism of our society and express ourselves more strongly, advocating a reordering of priorities toward peacemaking;

  • That we encourage congregations to study the World Peace Tax Fund Act (U.S.), considering the possibility of supporting it;
  • That we… ask all General Conference members to question prayerfully whether they want to pay war taxes voluntarily;
  • That the General Conference offices seriously work at the possibility of providing each employee with the option of following his/her conscience in the payment of war taxes; and
  • That the Commission on Home Ministries give greater priority to this issue, including the creation of a special fund to be used for education, for assistance to those conscientiously refusing payment of war taxes, and for legal expenses, and that each person committed to war tax resistance pledge a regular contribution to this fund.

(Compare this to a resolution passed by the Central District Conference which endorsed the World Peace Tax Fund Act and asked its member churches to help get it passed but said nothing about war tax resistance or support for resisters.)

I took these brief excerpts from a later report on the triennial sessions:

“The struggles within the church, both individually and as a people, to relate to war taxes, amnesty, and serious economic questioning spoke of life to me. I came away grateful to be part of this people.” ―Dorsy Hill

World poverty and hunger, western affluence, the meaning in the twentieth century of the Bible’s teaching on the Year of Jubilee, life-style, ordination, amnesty, war taxes, mission expansion, church planting, and international relations were among the issues raised.

The meeting [a panel discussion that advocated simple living on ] ended with tears, prayers, and other verbal responses after Ladon Sheats’ plea for Mennonites to turn away from wealth and the payment of war taxes.

The service was punctuated by an unscheduled dramatic presentation, initiated by Ladon Sheats.

Three persons wearing signs saying, “Fear,” “Security,” and “Tradition,” came to the front of the gymnasium during one of the first hymns and told a “third world” person, “We cannot help you.” They remained at the front until almost the end of the service, when they left saying, “Our forefathers said no but we don’t. We pay over $4 billion in war taxes. We can’t help you. Please forgive us. May God help you.”

A letter from Arnold Claasen, dated complained that not enough time was given to discuss the various resolutions at the triennial. “Specifically with reference to ‘war tax’ resolution, there was considerable discussion, and the chair found it necessary to terminate the discussion, with good reason.” In his own case, while he did not care to see so much of his taxes go to the military, and he would not serve in the military, he felt that this did not relieve him from the responsibility to pay his taxes. He recommended instead that Mennonites rededicate themselves to charitable giving, in part as a legal war tax resistance technique.

Generosity and charity and self-sacrifice — “Jubilee living” — were also the theme of a letter from John Swarr dated . Excerpt:

Once again war is brought to mind, now in its new form of refusing food to the hungry or assistance to the poor and struggling peoples. But the U.S. Government continues to send money and give military training and materials to many repressive governments, and we continue to pay the taxes it uses to finance this evil, in Brazil, Chile, South Korea, South Vietnam, and on and on. Stop! Jubilee living proclaims Jesus is Lord! Neither Caesar nor Uncle Sam is lord, so we must resist this evil and channel money to the General Conference War Tax Alternative Fund instead. I enclose some refused tax money for the fund and trust you will see that it gets to the right place.

The Commission on Home Ministries of the General Conference Mennonite Church, having been given a mandate at the triennial, established a “war tax alternative fund.” Here’s how the edition described it:

The fund, to be outside the budget, will be used for education about war tax resistance, assistance to those who are resisting taxes, and legal expenses of individuals or agencies involved in tax resistance.

The commission’s peace and social concerns committee took action in to establish the fund and to invite persons who have a commitment to war tax resistance to contribute to the fund on a regular basis.

In addition, persons who have resisted war taxes or who are concerned about the issue are encouraged to share their experiences with the commission or to request resources on the war tax issue, according to Harold Regier, CHM peace and social concerns secretary.

Peter Ediger, a member of the peace and social concerns committee and pastor of the Arvada (Colorado) Mennonite Church, will coordinate work on the war tax issue and possibly edit a war tax newsletter to keep concerned people in touch with each other.

That same edition carried this news:

U.S. sues diocese in war tax protest

The Justice Department has brought suit against the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania to collect $1,006 in federal income taxes withheld by David M. Gracie.

Mr. Gracie, rector of the Free Church of St. John in Kensington, a working-class neighborhood in Philadelphia, withheld 50 percent of his income tax for the past five years because of the continuing American involvement in Vietnam. He claims that “another 50,000 will die this year courtesy of the United States of America.”

In response to the suit, the diocesan council let stand its recent decision “that each of our employees has the right to exercise his conscience in respect to the withholding of payment of taxes as a means of protest” and that the legal council of the diocese will contest the government move to collect money from the diocese.

From Fellowship magazine.

This is the twenty-sixth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today I’m going to try to cover 1979.

The Mennonite

Preparing for the Minneapolis Conference

In , there was a special general session of the Mennonite General Conference especially to discuss war tax resistance, and in particular, to decide whether the Conference would support its tax-resisting employees by refusing to withhold taxes from their paychecks.

In our last episode, the heat was rising, with opinion pieces and study guides and letters to the editor addressing the issue. Now, with the session approaching and the decision imminent, things really began to boil.

The issue hosted a long letter to the editor from Albert H. Epp (dated ) in which he accused The Mennonite and the Commission on Home Ministries of putting their thumbs on the scale in favor of war tax resistance. Excerpts:

Some of us… are part of the “silent majority” that feels inundated by the tax-resistance mail arriving almost daily.

The Kauffman-Harder profile () stated, “A member of our churches ought not to pay the proportion of his income taxes that goes for military purposes.” Only 15 percent of our denomination agreed; and no more than 8 percent among the Mennonite Brethren and Brethren in Christ. Even fewer actually withheld tax. Eighty-five percent disagreed!

Now Minneapolis looms ahead. Many of us feel we are being swept helplessly downstream toward an ill-advised showdown. I was one of the 453 delegates at Bluffton () who voted “no” on resolution 11. But it carried. There seems to be a wide gap between delegate-action at conference and constituency-opinion at home. How did “the few” persuade “the many” to agree to a February session that will cost about $100,000?

We are witnessing one of the strongest attempts at shaping conference-opinion in 20 years, and possibly our entire history. Long-held views on civil responsibility are being challenged by brethren who are crusading for tax resistance and civil disobedience. Neither Scripture nor history are normative in the ways they used to be. “We have something new,” we are told, “in the present nuclear threat.”

Behind this ideological shift stands our Commission on Home Ministries. Three years ago CHM began publishing a war-tax newsletter, God and Caesar. In the fifth issue they report on a two-day war tax conference they conducted at Kitchener, Ontario. “The evidence suggests that most Anabaptists did pay all their taxes willingly…,” the report avers; but CHM leaders pledged themselves “to raise consciousness about war tax and militarism issues…” Highly significant is the fact that two scholars. Miller and Swartley, emerged at that session as men willing to say that the Scripture does not give us a clear command to pay taxes used for military purposes.

It is my impression that Mennonite stalwarts of recent decades, H.S. Bender, Guy F. Hershberger, Erland Waltner, and John C. Wenger, to name just a few, all taught the full-paying of taxes on scriptural grounds. Their general view agreed with Paul, who taught the paying of taxes in Romans 13 and was fully aware that Rome had crucified Christ, had subjugated many nations, and was now ruled by the despot Nero.

H.S. Bender, writing on “Taxation” in , claims that “few if any Mennonites” were presently refusing to pay the portion of income tax calculated to go for military purposes, which he estimated to be about two-thirds of the total.

Guy F. Hershberger, in his classic on nonresistance, discusses the answer of Jesus in Matthew 22: “…the situation here is almost precisely like that in Romans 13. Jesus’ questioners were not men who would be interested in service in the Roman army. If anything, they would be interested in a military rebellion against the Roman authority. There Jesus says, ‘Give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s.’ That is, do not rebel against him, not even to the extent of refusing to pay the tax.”

The current tax-resistance movement requires a major shift in biblical interpretation. This is something new.

It appears to me that today’s tax-resisters are hard put to proof-text their views. Swartley admitted to Kitchener () “…there is no New Testament text which either explicitly or clearly implicitly tells us not to pay taxes.” Yet some go from text to text progressively untying the knots of normal interpretation. But the knot of Romans 13. will not easily yield. Donald Kaufman (What Belongs to Caesar, page 48) chides Oscar Cullmann for “his lack of moral discernment” when he insists that disciples of Jesus pay tax, no matter to what government. John Howard Yoder, well-known for his personal tax-withholding procedure, nevertheless, in his oft-reprinted masterpiece The Politics of Jesus (page 211), approvingly quotes C.E.B. Cranfield, “taxes and revenue, perhaps honor, are due to Caesar, but fear is due to God.” In sketching the limits of subordination, Yoder stops short of using Romans 13 for tax resistance. Not so Larry Kehler in The Rule of the Lamb. Using his stature as editor-writer, Kehler seems to infer that Paul supports our tax resistance. The truth of the matter is that for every scholar who teaches tax resistance from Romans 13, there might be 50 competent professors who teach otherwise. A tax protest based on Romans 13 is an exegesis not easy to defend.

The method of promoting the new idea also deserves comment. Basic to good human relations is the concept that issues are best discussed without the injection of personalities. When Cornelia Lehn’s speech at the Bluffton conference was programmed into the civil-disobedience debate by conference officials, it almost gave the appearance of being a psychological pressure tactic to sway votes. After all, who can speak against womanhood? Who can deny that Nellie’s stand is courageous? But someone has to venture the tough question “Is it fair to ask thousands of Mennonites to approve civil disobedience because of one person’s convictions?”

Is it possible that CHM has moved ahead too quickly on this issue — even out of earshot? Take their suggestion that the General Board no longer honor tax-withholding laws for some employees (The Mennonite, 2 November 1976, page 648). On the constituents turned back Resolution 12 (yes — 336, no — 1,190) on this issue. Bluffton delegates later gave the mandate for a midtriennium conference, but even this decision process was interlaced with CHM influence. The delegates, caught in the euphoria of the moment, unable to confer with churches at home, approved the surprise resolution. Most surprising of all, Larry Kehler, as recent as , wrote, “I have not yet been able to discover any tax resisters in Canada…” Little wonder CHM’s promotion is so voluminous.

When churches in the Midwest ask CHM for a clarification of issues, men are readily available to give excellent thought-out defenses for tax resistance and civil disobedience. But no one seems willing and/ or permitted to present the traditional biblical-Anabaptist stance and say, “That’s my view.” So we, the silent majority, feel like people with no representation. While we collect thousands of dollars for conference coffers, no one pleads our case — the case of the majority.

Any protest, it seems to me, needs keen discernment. Picketing a tax office, withholding income tax, or balking at withholding laws may all be misdirected efforts. The Internal Revenue Service is only a collecting agency. Do we punish the newspaper boy, refusing to pay when we dislike an editorial? No, we phone the editor. Why not spend our energy on the decision makers?

A hope seems to flicker in some minds that a domino reaction, “me too, me too,” will bring out an avalanche of Mennonite tax resisters. Then, some aver, a frustrated government might negotiate. However, worse things may accrue. Attorney J. Elwin Kraybill says that evading tax is a felony (26 USC 7201) and can result in a fine (maximum $10,000) and/or prison (maximum 5 years). At the least most Mennonites would be subjected to the harassment of an annual audit. At the worst they could be accused of spawning anarchy — a trend already evidenced in teachers’ strikes and police strikes.

I wonder if tax resistance won’t trap us in a blind alley — in a stance too negative. Why curse the darkness? Let’s plant a light. In past decades our conscientious objector position was transformed by creative service in refugee camps, mental hospitals, and mission schools. Today we again need positive solutions. Could Mennonite Central Committee possibly establish a research center with departments like peace, pollution, and world hunger? When our scholars really tackle these complex problems, our governments will knock at our door. In retrospect, I was proud when President John F. Kennedy turned to MCC for advice on the Peace Corps.

I am a Mennonite, both by birth and by choice. I deeply appreciate our Anabaptist theology. As a pastor I can affirm with my parish CHM’s conviction of (1) the limited nature of Caesar’s power; and (2) the lethal character of its weaponry. However, we do not feel it biblical or Anabaptist to rob government of its right to taxation, or even some national defense. Where government abuses this right we wish to exhaust every legal channel of protest before we engage in illegal maneuvers.

In my congregation one brother is reducing his income; another has enclosed a protest letter with his tax return. Many of us have increased contributions to reduce taxable income. But not one, to my knowledge, is refusing to pay taxes. As one brother put it, “Can we be harsh on Uncle Sam while our financial stewardship level is so low in Mennonite circles?”

A final word. I tested this letter with my Board of Deacons. All seven present, to the man, encouraged me to send it. Editor, thanks for letting us speak.

Richard K. MacMaster addressed the history of war tax resistance among American Mennonites in an article that appeared in the issue:

I read with great interest your articles about the forthcoming discussion of war taxes at Minneapolis.

I’ve had a great concern to write some few lines on one small aspect of this large question, but generally put it off as a nit-picking historical footnote. Observing that “historical perspective” will play a role in the consultation , I thought I should take time to clarify what might possibly lead to misunderstanding.

Mennonite conscience about taxes

A number of recent discussions on the war tax issue have stated that Mennonites and Brethren paid their taxes in obedience to the biblical injunction of “taxes to whom taxes are due.” The reader might reasonably conclude that, unlike Friends, neither Brethren nor Mennonites were troubled in conscience about payment of taxes levied for any purpose. The point would be too insignificant to raise in even some nitpicking scholarly review, if it did not have consequences for our understanding of our own heritage in regard to a current issue of great importance.

In Peter Brock published his monumental Pacifism in the United States from the Colonial Era to the First World War. The scope of his subject precluded his searching into every manuscript collection that might bear some relation to it, and he relied heavily on printed sources. The limited number of published works on Mennonite history is reflected in his footnotes and bibliography. Walter Klaassen leaned heavily on Brock for his interpretation of the American scene, since his own scholarly work has been in the European Anabaptist sources. There is a danger in this process that, in spite of passing through the hands of two very distinguished modern scholars, the material is no better than the sources available to Mennonite historians 50 or 75 years ago.

The danger of allowing this recycled history to determine our understanding of our own heritage is compounded by the fact that Brock made assumptions that went beyond his somewhat limited sources in describing the position held by Mennonites on key issues, notably on the payment of taxes. The first mention of any Mennonite attitude on this question involved Mennonite settlers in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in . Brock noted that they “were able to obtain exemption by the payment of militia fines, against which — unlike the Quakers — they had no deep-seated scruples of conscience,” but that they petitioned in (sic) for relief from militia fines, “not because of any fundamental objection to this alternative to service (for was it not merely rendering Caesar his due?), but on account of their poverty as frontiersmen eking out a bare subsistence.” He cited as his only source Harry A. Brunk’s History of Mennonites in Virginia, but Brunk does not make any of the statements I have quoted; he is quite clear in his statement that conscience was involved.

Virginia Mennonites petitioned the authorities in Williamsburg for relief from militia fines in and again in . No copy of these petitions is known to be extant and we know of the contents only from the brief minutes entered in the Journal of the House of Burgesses. Since the Virginia lawmakers exempted Quakers from payment of militia fines for the first time in , it is not surprising that Mennonites sought the same privilege, which was granted them by the House of Burgesses in .

Their motives in petitioning for exemption were explained in a Mennonite petition of , which asked that the earlier privilege be restored. Militia bills passed during the Revolutionary War had taken it away and enrolled conscientious objectors in the militia, once again making them subject to fines. This petition, signed by 73 “members of the Menonist Church in behalf of themselves and their religious Brethren,” declared that their forefathers had come “to America to Seek Religious Liberty; this they have enjoyed, except by the Infliction of penalties for not bearing Arms which for some time lay heavy on them. But on a representation, and their situation being made known to the Honorable the Legislature, they were indulged with an exemption from said penalties until some few years past, when by a revisal of the Militia Law they were again enrolled and are now subject to the penalties aforesaid.” (The original petition is in the Virginia State Library.)

This petition and one offered the previous year by Rockingham County Mennonites and Brethren did not succeed in changing the law, and the payment of fines was the subject of occasional petitions from all three of the peace churches. What is significant about the Virginia petition is its statement that payment of militia fines violated the liberty of conscience that Mennonites otherwise enjoyed and that this was true under the king as well as during and after the Revolution. It would appear to me impossible to square this contemporary Mennonite document with the interpretation that Mennonites paid militia fines as merely rendering Caesar his due!

The conscientious objection to payment of a fine or equivalent to militia duty in Virginia on the eve of the Revolution might help us in understanding the position of Pennsylvania Mennonites. There was no compulsory militia law in Pennsylvania prior to , so no question of fines or other equivalent would have arisen as early as it did in Virginia.

In Pennsylvania authorities requested voluntary contributions from those who scrupled against bearing arms and the Continental Congress itself made a similar appeal. Records of the county committees entrusted with collecting this money suggest that it had a mixed reception. Objections were heard very early, however, against levying contributions from conscientious objectors on a purely voluntary basis. In the Pennsylvania Assembly debated imposing a set amount as a special tax on non-associators. They read petitions from the Quakers and from the Mennonites and some members of the Church of the Brethren. The meaning of these petitions seems perfectly clear. A well-known military historian understood them to mean that “not a few Quakers and Mennonites joined to oppose not only the Association but any tax levied in lieu thereof.” (Arthur J. Alexander, “Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, ⅬⅩⅨ, , page 16.) This would follow logically from the position taken by Virginia Mennonites, who were closely related to the Pennsylvania congregations.

When a Militia Law was enacted in in Pennsylvania, no provision was made for the exemption of conscientious objectors, and a special tax was imposed on them in lieu of military service. It was this tax that was under discussion among Franconia Mennonites when a majority of the preachers opposed Christian Funk’s contention that it ought to be paid. I am well aware that Pennsylvania Mennonites felt uneasy with the new revolutionary regime and declined sending a formal petition to the legislature in since it would involve addressing them as “the representatives of the freemen of Pennsylvania.” Hostility to the new government may well have colored the attitude of Funk’s opponents, but it does not explain why they opposed payment of this particular tax and not of all taxes levied by the new state. There is no hint in any official document, newspaper, letter, or other contemporary source that any Mennonite in Pennsylvania refused payment of any other tax. Surely there would be some notice taken by someone of tax resistance, particularly if it were on the quasi-political ground that the new government had no legitimate authority. On the other hand, reluctance to pay a tax levied in lieu of military service would square with the Virginia documents, the obvious sense of the petition, and the minutes of the Church of the Brethren annual meetings that refer to persons with conscientious objection against paying for substitutes and paying the tax (singular).

I do not know that this leads us very far on our present quest. But it is sufficient, I hope, to indicate that Mennonites have expressed “deep-seated scruples of conscience” and “fundamental objection to this alternative to military service.”

The edition included this op-ed from Harold R. Regier:

Reflections before Minneapolis

The sovereign Lord and the sovereign nation will be in tension at Minneapolis when the General Conference, in official session, will be “In Search of Christian Civil Responsibility.”

Will we be ready at Minneapolis to decide issues related to paying those taxes required of the state used for death-threatening militarism and weapons building? Much depends on how adequately congregations study and discuss The Rule of the Sword and The Rule of the Lamb prior to Minneapolis. Much depends on adequate congregational representation. And much depends on an openness to hear each other and the leading of God’s Spirit.

What are specific questions we must answer at Minneapolis?

  1. What is the biblical teaching on civil responsibility and civil disobedience? Are Christians ever called to civil disobedience?
  2. If civil disobedience may at times be a Christian response to government, what conditions or principles guide that response? Is the payment of taxes used for war purposes one such condition?
  3. If “war tax” resistance is a Christian response to a government’s militarism and to the nuclear arms race, to what extent and in what ways should that response be encouraged and initiated? Is conscientious objection to paying for war in today’s context equivalent to conscientious objection to physical participation in war in the past?
  4. Should General Conference and other Mennonite institutions honor employees’ requests that the portion of taxes used for military purposes not be withheld from their paychecks? Should Mennonite employers even go beyond this and refuse to be “war tax” collectors for the state for any of its employees?

Is the bottom line for the Minneapolis conference the question of tax withholding? Not necessarily. Other options for faithfulness and witness may be discovered. Our search for Christian civil responsibility must be open-ended rather than locked into the consideration of only one kind of action. However, the withholding question is a very important one on which we are committed to making a clear decision.

The withholding question is significant, but not because this is the only alternative for the employee. There are other ways to have less tax withheld. Possibilities include refiling a tax form to include allowances for expected (“war tax”) deductions, forming an alternative employing agency, or contributing up to 50 percent of salary to charitable causes. The withholding issue’s greatest significance lies with the questions of corporate responsibility and the issue of church as an agent of the state.

I would suggest five reasons for the conference to consider honoring requests from persons asking that their taxes not be withheld. (1) Honoring these requests would eliminate the discrimination between ordained and nonordained employees. In the U.S., ordained employees are considered “self-employed” by the tax department and are exempt from withholding regulations. Nonordained persons have to follow a more difficult procedure to enable resistance. Currently at least four ordained employees of the General Conference offices are not voluntarily paying the military portion of their taxes. (2) Honoring nonwithholding requests would represent a corporate peace witness rather than leaving such witness and action solely to the individual. (3) A corporate conference voice and action would make a much stronger witness for peace and justice than lone voices here and there. (4) Nonwithholding would be one appropriate way to initiate a test of the constitutionality of requiring church agencies to collect taxes for the state. (5) This corporate action builds on our Anabaptist theology of peace and takes seriously the way our financial resources contribute to warmaking.

My hope for Minneapolis is that the General Conference Mennonite Church will act to do something together about our nations’ militarism. This could be corporate action regarding withholding “war taxes.” This could be a commitment to a large-scale symbolic resistance to “war tax” payment (e.g. “each” Mennonite withholding $10 and explaining why). As a conference we could send a strong message to our governments regarding militarism and the taxation which supports it. We could issue a “war tax” statement to be shared with the larger church (other denominations) as well as to our governments. We could make a stronger effort to promote the World Peace Tax Fund Act in the U.S. and instigate other alternatives in Canada.

These are only suggestions. Delegates need to think of other options.

Minneapolis will be a failure if we conclude that “everyone do what is right in their own eyes.” Minneapolis will be a success if we take some large or small step toward corporate responsibility and action.

Andrew R. Shelly also chimed in with his perspective in that issue.

He began by noting the paucity of charity by American Mennonites is devoted to “the crucial urgency of tragic situations in the Third World” compared to how much is spent domestically. “It appears our dedication somehow is absorbed in our words which seem to psychologically liberate us to expand lavishly on the home front.”

While I respect individual conviction, I am cool toward the effectiveness or the witness of withholding taxes. (In recent months I have been going over old magazines and clipping articles related to war taxes. There has been a rash of articles on this subject every 6–10 years in the past decades.)

In , the U.S. federal budget increased 48 percent for defense, space, and foreign affairs (probably not even keeping up with inflation). The human-resources part of the budget jumped 378 percent during the same decade. Not all these programs are effective, yet they represent an attempt to cope with areas of great need.

When we criticize government expenditures, let us remember that we Mennonites have been increasing our budgets in North American institutional and church developments rather than for that part of the “one in Christ” where poverty is indescribably great.

In short: “Until we have done what we ought we should not say too much to other segments of society.”

Furthermore, Shelly felt that there was an overemphasis on war as a source of violence. Alcohol, reckless driving, and abortion, were also examples of violence that deserved at least as much attention.

Finally, the way to peace, he felt, was not through civil disobedience or protest or peace witnessing, but simply through spreading the gospel and getting more people to adopt Christian values. For example: “during the massacre in Uganda almost all Christians refused to shoulder guns.” So Mennonites should stop arguing about taxes and rededicate themselves to missionary work.

Kenneth G. Bauman penned an op-ed for the edition, from the point of view of “some of us”.

Bauman thought the Bible offered little or no support for war tax resistance. Jesus did not counsel it, even when pitched a softball. Paul explicitly said Christians should pay their taxes to Rome and the Roman Empire wasn’t exactly peaceful. Those examples of civil disobedience found in the Bible never touch on war taxes or on conscientious objection to government spending. Mennonites, he felt, shouldn’t just skip over this on the way to making their own independent moral judgments about war taxes.

Bauman also challenged the view articulated in Richard K. MacMaster’s essay that war tax resistance had strong footing in historical Mennonite practice:

A good historical development of this issue is found in Walter Klaassen’s pamphlet Mennonites and War Taxes. A summary is found on pages 40–41 in The Rule of the Lamb. The only groups that refused taxation were the Hutterites and the Franconia Conference in Pennsylvania during the Revolutionary War. The issue was probably not “war taxes” but rather who was the legitimate government, the British or the United States? Recent Mennonite scholars hold the traditional view. Check the writings of Guy Hershberger in War, Peace, and Nonresistance (page 369), Harold S. Bender’s “Taxation” in The Mennonite Encyclopedia, and Robert Kreider’s “Anabaptists and the State” in The Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision. Kreider states, “The Anabaptists agreed unanimously that the Christian owes obedience to the civil authorities insofar as the prior claims of God are not violated in those duties. The Christian gives this obedience freely and not grudgingly. He pays taxes, tithes, interest, and customs as required by the magistracy. No evidence can be found to substantiate the frequently made accusation that the Anabaptists refused to pay these obligations” (page 190).

The new threat of nuclear war, Bauman thought, was not a reason to rethink this established wisdom. After all, the murder of one person and the obliteration of millions are both terrible sins: “Is the biblical teaching on the sacredness of life on a sliding scale or is even one person’s life sacred?”

Some of us respect the individual conscience as we want our conscience to be respected, but we are not convinced that those who believe in withholding taxes have seriously considered all the options. Several alternatives are (1) filing suit against the government to recover taxes, (2) setting up a subsidiary corporation, and (3) greater efforts toward a World Peace Tax Fund. We are grieved that in this hour when we need a united witness against militarism, with selective service a real possibility (which will also include women), we are divided. We object to our peace position being questioned because we do not see withholding taxes as being biblical or Anabaptist-Mennonite.

Some of us are waiting for open dialogue on the tax issue. The other side has not been formally presented in the General Board, nor was it given adequate representation at the Consultation on Civil Responsibility at Elkhart, nor has it been given a fair presentation in The Mennonite. We question whether the midtriennium conference will change the situation.

Marie J. Janzen, in a letter to the editor, wrote that she thought Bauman was “attempt[ing] to find a letter of the law that would justify us not to refuse taxes.”

It is true, for instance, that Peter was referring to the Jewish leaders and not to the state when he said we must obey God rather than men, but the principle would be the same in either case, wouldn’t it?

It seems to me that the Christian gospel speaks to the needs of each age, and different things need to be done in different ages. There would have been no need to warn early Christians to drive carefully lest someone’s life might be taken in an accident. But today there certainly is. When Jesus said to his disciples that they would do greater things than he had done, didn’t he imply that there would be a need for greater things in later ages than there was in the time of the early church? The common person at that time had no rights, no influence on government. In a democracy we Christians have responsibilities the early Christians did not have. I don’t have to pay income tax; I don’t know whether I would have the courage to refuse if I did. But I certainly admire the ones who do refuse to pay taxes for conscience’ sake.

…Of course, there may be other alternatives which are more effective than the refusal to pay taxes. For instance, as my sister suggested, if we would deluge the government with letters and with telephone calls and insist that this arms race must stop — or at least that they give us the right to have a peace tax — that might do more good.

On the other hand, David A. Somner wrote in to praise what he called Bauman’s “clear, biblical, historically accurate” statement.

A letter from Gary Martin, written on but not published until , thought that the war tax issue was overshadowing the fact that Mennonites had lost their way and were neglecting some of the foundations of their faith and practice. This was followed by a letter from Don Kaufman, in which he related an anecdote from a repentant soldier and thought it “could be instructive for us too as we wrestle with the implications of the Christian gospel concerning war taxes.”

A letter from David C. Janzen, dated , published in the edition, said that “[b]ased on our congregational meeting on the issue, it would appear that the [war tax] protesters are a small but very vocal minority.” He thought the conference was a waste of time trying to relitigate an issue that had been decided by Jesus way back when.

A letter from Eugene Klassen, dated but also not published until , also took the line that the Bible was black-and-white about taxpaying: “Romans 13 clearly tells us to pay taxes to whom taxes are due. Yet we allow the use of our conference time, money, and publications to debate both sides of the issue.”

An advertisement in the edition announced the publication of Donald Kaufman’s The Tax Dilemma: Praying for Peace, Paying for War.

The Conference and its Aftermath

Drumroll please. The conference was held, and all of these years of kicking the can down the road and avoiding a decision came to an end as a general assembly of the Mennonite General Conference, after lengthy study and debate, concluded:

Moved that we request the General Board of our conference to engage in a serious and vigorous search to use all legal, legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector exemption from the legal requirements that the General Conference withhold income taxes from the wages of its employees. If no relief can be found within a three-year period, they shall again bring the question to the attention of the conference.

So… the can kicked another three years further down the road. Well, what were you expecting?

The edition put it this way:

We found some things

Seven hundred persons came to the bitter cold and deep snow of Minneapolis, , “in search of Christian civil responsibility.”

…Would our General Conference grant an employee’s request to no longer withhold from her salary that portion of the income tax which goes toward military expenditures?

Many predicted a collision course. Minneapolis would be a showdown.

The drama has happened. And the unexpected far outdid the expected.

only a few hundred people had registered. Polarized positions surfaced in many congregations. There was talk of maneuvering, boycott, and schism.

The annual Council of Commissions met at Minneapolis on to do the usual review and projection of GC program and budget. Hardly a session went by without reference of concern about the midtriennium.

By it became obvious that God’s Spirit was again among us in unusual ways.

In faith, space had been reserved for 500 people. Over 700 came.

We found the issue is not “yes-no” “either-or” regarding war taxes. It includes our lifestyle. Do we live in ways that share Christ’s salvation, love, and justice to all. This is not just for a few brave radicals. Each of us needs to choose again and again to let our light shine.

We found the issue is not Cornelia Lehn and civil disobedience. It is obedience to Jesus in today’s world.

We found the issue is of deep concern to our youth. About 100 persons present were under 25. And they spoke up. Their generation most directly faces the nuclear shadow. If we want to leave them a heritage of peace we must address our faith to this global threat.

The main resolution (above) passed 1,218 to 134.

The following issue expanded on that first draft of history. It included the details that delegates from 176 churches were represented at the midtriennium, that the 700 attendees included “almost 500 delegates and more than 200 visitors” who at one point broke up into “78 small groups”, and further noted:

Following the… conference the General Board set up a six-person task force to implement the decision of the delegates. The persons for this committee have been appointed and upon acceptance their names will be released.

A later article named them as Delton Franz, Duane Heffelbower, Bob Hull, Heinz Janzen, Ernie Regehr, and Ben Sprunger, and noted that “[t]he task force had its first meeting in Columbus, Ohio.” Later Stanley Perisho, Chuck Boyer, Winifred Beachy, Janet Reedy, and Gordon Zook were added to the list.

Though the conference officially started , most people arrived in time to watch a group from the Mennonite Collegiate Institute in Gretna, Manitoba, present The Blowing and the Bending, a musical drama highlighting the themes of wartime intolerance for conscientious objectors and Mennonite struggles with the war spirit.

Some of the themes played out in the small groups and by the symposium were the following:

  • the gospel is first, pacifism is secondary.
  • it is important to be legal.
  • it is better to be faithful.
  • a witness for peace has to have the integrity of an appropriate lifestyle.
  • the government is more willing to accept conscientious objectors than the church.
  • there are other social and political issues which need to be spoken to.
  • a corporate witness is/is not the route to go.
  • militarism today is a qualitatively different problem than anything civilization has had to face before.
  • the response to militarism is a theological and faith issue.

When one delegate called for a show of hands to indicate who had done some protest against nuclear proliferation and militarism about 20 percent of the assembly said they had.

Though most of the delegates who spoke during the afternoon plenary session admitted they were troubled by worldwide military expenditures over one billion dollars daily, they nevertheless said the church as a corporate body should not engage in illegal activities in its witness against war preparations. Instead speakers urged alternatives.

A sentiment often expressed, however, was that the church, while avoiding illegal actions, should actively support its members who engage in civil disobedience on the basis of conscience.

Roy Vogt, economics professor from Winnipeg, Manitoba, berated the assembly for loading the responsibility for witness upon isolated individuals. “It is morally reprehensible,” he said, “to give only moral support. We must provide financial and legal support for those prophets who have arisen from our middle-class ranks.”

In contrast to the social activists at the conference Dan Dalke, pastor from Bluffton, Ohio, castigated the social activists for making pacifism a religion. “We will never create a Utopia,” he said. “Jesus didn’t come to clean up social issues. Our job is to evangelize the world. A peace witness is secondary.”

Some of the statements were personal. A businessman confessed that while he could easily withhold paying military taxes on the basis of conscience, he was frightened. “I am scared of being different, of being embarrassed, of being alienated from my community. Unless I get support from the Mennonite church I will keep on paying taxes.”

Alvin Beachy of Newton, Kansas, said the church seemed to be shifting from a quest to being faithful to the gospel to being legal before the government.

By the small groups were into serious wrestling with these open-ended statements: (1) The biblical teaching on obedience to God and its relation to civil responsibility is… (2) Civil disobedience may be a faithful Christian response when… (3) With respect to whether the General Conference should withhold the taxes of employees who would rather practice war-tax refusal, we urge that… (4) With respect to the threat of militarism in North America, we feel that the General Conference as a Christian body should now…

By the groups were supposed to have their consensus ready for the findings committee. Many of the statements came later in the evening, and the findings committee of six began to sift through the material. They spent a good part of the night at it, got up again , had it typed (three pages, single spaced), and by 800 copies were being distributed.

Action on the floor did not, however, center on the findings committee statement. Immediately after the Bible lecture a ballot was distributed to the delegates. It asked for a “yes” or “no” vote on this question: “Shall the General Conference Mennonite Church refuse to withhold from salaries and refuse to remit to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service a portion of the federal tax due in those cases in which this is requested by employees on the grounds of conscience, even though such action on the part of the conference is against the law?”

There was a flurry of action on why the midtriennium conference organizers had brought this question to the assembly so early in the day. Conference president Elmer Neufeld replied that the intention was to bring the question to the delegates in a clear and forthright manner. The General Board executive committee had decided to present the main question of the midtriennium in ballot form as a way of helping the decision-making process. After some discussion on the procedure Kenneth Bauman of Berne, Indiana, moved the ballot. It was seconded and discussion began.

Shortly after the midmorning break David Habegger of Wichita, Kansas, brought in a substitute motion. It stated: “Moved that we request, the General Board of our conference to engage in a serious and vigorous search to use all legal, legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving conscientious objection exemption from the U.S. legal requirement that the conference withhold income taxes from the wages of its employees. If no relief can be found within a three-year period they shall proceed to a constitutional test of the First Amendment by whatever means appear most appropriate at the time, including the option of honoring employees’ requests that their tax not be withheld.”

This sparked a miniprocedural debate. Was a substitute motion the same as an amendment? Checking their judgment against Robert’s Rules of Order, the three-man procedural committee said it was. There was some objection to the ruling.

It was a key ruling. From the tenor of discussion, and from the statements which 75 churches brought to the midtriennium, it was apparent that most GC congregations were not willing to vote “yes” on the first motion. If the first motion had come to a vote the decision would likely have been against those in favor of not paying war taxes.

Hence the substitute motion was debated first. In short order it was also amended by Herman Andres of Newton, Kansas. The amendment carried by a vote of 906-to-458. The amendment changed the second sentence to read: “If no relief can be found within the three-year period they shall again bring the question to the conference.” The vote was taken just prior to the break.

Gordon Kaufman, professor at Harvard Divinity School in Boston, probably made the key speech of the morning, thereby paving the way for delegates to be sympathetic to the substitute motion.

Kaufman said he was puzzled by all the concern about legality. He commented, “The early church was illegal. The Anabaptists were illegal. Illegality is not a Christian question. We talk as if we are concerned about a massive illegality. We are not asked to sign pledge cards. The question is are we willing to test the law that asks the church to collect taxes? We need to test the law of separation of church and state, and freedom of religion. In this country it is a matter of civil responsibility to test the law.”

After a rushed noon break — “Here they come,” said one restaurateur — the final session of two hours began. A vote was taken on the substitute motion and it passed by a plurality of nine-to-one, 1,218-to-134 votes.

A miracle had happened. It was essentially a consensus. Longtime peace advocate Henry Fast of Newton, Kansas, called it “an historic moment.”

At this point people made editorial comments about the findings statement. As a summary of what people at the conference thought it attempted to cover the spectrum of conviction. Most comments were affirmative and on a voice vote the conference adopted it. It noted that the world is “caught in a tragic system of threat and counter-threat, violence and counterviolence.”

“We want to be obedient citizens, but even more we want to be obedient to Jesus Christ… We are convinced that citizens of Christ’s kingdom must choose ways to speak and act against this suicidal race to universal destruction.”

During the afternoon session various people made capsule comments and appeals.

One of the appeals was to take an offering to assist those who are resisting the payment of war taxes.…

The offering realized $3,030.

The magazine helpfully tallied the delegates by district. Curiously, I thought, the Eastern District was the most well-represented, with 81% of their votes represented by either delegates or proxies. I saw some evidence in our last episode that the Eastern District might be particularly conservative on this issue. The least well-represented of the United States districts was the Pacific, with only 46% of its voters represented. Canada turned up to a greater extent than some had worried, with 57% of voters from the Conference of Mennonites in Canada voting.

The edition gave a summary of the report of the findings committee. Excerpts:

What we found in Minneapolis

Never in our history have so many engaged their energies so extensively in preparation for a conference decision.

We want to be obedient citizens, but even more we want to be obedient to Jesus Christ. In this quest we are aware that the Bible and our people’s experience do not give us fully explicit answers on the tax issue. At this moment, therefore, these are our best discernments.

As Christians we must speak and act. We hope that Mennonites will support sons and daughters in their leadings to witness for Christ — even in such acts as refusing to pay taxes destined for war. This means prayerful, moral, and financial support. Our tradition has been to be a quiet people. We yearn to act and to witness in sensitive ways which exhaust every acceptable legal process available to the constituency.

We encourage the General Board to work at developing alternative possibilities for the handling of tax withholding and to work in collaboration with other church bodies and institutions in seeking to extricate itself from the role of being a tax-collecting agency.

It is easy to call governments and conference offices to faithfulness. Perhaps the most urgent call proceeding from this conference is a call to each other — to individual church members, to families, and to congregations — a call to renewed faithfulness. What are we prepared to do in revising our style of life as affluent witnessing against the powers of darkness in this world? How does my life vocation fulfill the claims of Christ for this age?

We yearn for unity in our churches. We want to proceed together in our pilgrimage of obedience but don’t want to tarry long in fear and indecision. We want to affirm those individuals whose consciences are sensitive on issues not fully shared by all.

Reactions continued to reverberate through the letters-to-the-editor column and op-eds:

  • Mary Gerber, on told the Mennonites who weren’t resisting taxes that they were in the right and shouldn’t feel guilty about it.

    [S]everal of the church statements and many individuals expressed a feeling of guilt that they were not following in the steps of those “prophets” who were refusing to pay a portion of their tax. In order to compensate for their personal unwillingness to break the law they enthusiastically offered to provide moral and financial support for those who did.

    …[P]aying someone else to perform what is also my moral duty is blatant hypocrisy.

    If we… honestly wish to follow Christ in all, we will respond as he did in similar circumstances. We will love and correct that brother, not aid and abet him.

  • Ralph A. Ewert, on , suggested that people (in the U.S. anyway) who did not want to pay a percentage of their income taxes should figure out how much they would have to donate to charity in order to reduce their taxable income enough to eliminate that much tax and then donate away.
  • Mark Penner, on related the temple tax and render-unto-Caesar episodes from the Bible as slam-dunk reasons to oppose tax resistance, as though nobody had thought of that before.
  • Jack L. Mace, on found that the Bible suggested a possible new if counterintuitive technique of tax witness:

    While I would like to stop warring uses of my taxes by refusing to pay, and giving instead to peaceful purposes, I know the IRS will collect the money — in spades — and my witness will be just to the collectors and their supervisors. The government will not prosecute such tax resistance, because that would draw too much public attention.

    I want to witness to the policy enactment levels of government. My study of the issue brought me to the words of Jesus in Matthew 5: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist one who is evil, but if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if anyone would sue you and take your coat, let him have your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.”

    These words speak of positive responses to negative problems, and of a method to make a tax witness virtually impossible to be ignored by even the most recalcitrant legislator; a “second mile theology of witness.” Taking these words seriously led me to decide that with a letter of protest to the IRS I will pay my full taxes. Then I will send an amount hopefully equal to the “war taxes” to my senators and/or representative in a check made out to the government along with a letter of witness.

    I will try to find a way to give the money so that disposition on the congressional floors might be expected — if that be possible — but even if the legislators send the check back they have had to come to grips with its existence and its accompanying witness. The returned check would then call for another letter containing the check, which again could not be ignored.

    The letter will contain a brief statement of my conscientious objection to killing and its implications to the use of my tax dollars for war. Then it will turn to the disposition of the check. Explaining respectfully that since they are acting against my will as a provider for the military machine with my tax dollars, I will ask as diligent action on my behalf for the use of the money enclosed for the proliferation of peace. The money is to be used by the government within the framework of not doing violence to my conscience. I will list some uses of the money which would violate my conscience, and why — being careful not to suggest specific uses I would desire. The whole idea is to get legislators to dialogue with their conscience on this issue.

    I will actually split the check, sending at least two letters. Our new Kansas senator, Nancy Kassebaum, needs to be made aware of our faith early on. On the other hand, Robert Dole is one of the most recalcitrant senators at the point of military spending. He had the temerity to come to our Mid-Kansas MCC relief sale in his campaign last year and speak on the “need” for increased military spending. It may even be advantageous for my congressman, Dan Glickman, to receive a letter with part of the money. He is a Democrat, and with Dole and Kassebaum being Republicans he might just act as political conscience to the others. In each case of a split check, all recipients will be told that there are others and the total amount of the checks written.

    After sharing this idea on the conference floor, there was sufficient informal response between sessions that I decided to share more in this letter and to invite anyone else who wishes to join me in this effort. It would be desirable to make a coordinated effort so that the letters arrive within a relatively short time for the greatest impact. It might even be good to split up the amount into quarterly payments to be sent at strategic times throughout the congressional year.

    If you are interested in dialogue on this idea or if you plan to try it with me, I would appreciate hearing from you and receiving your input.

  • Stanley E. Kaufman, on expressed his disappointment at the timidity of the “too-reluctant” Minneapolis resolution. He urged The Mennonite to publish frequent updates on the work of the task force searching for a “legal alternative” along with suggestions for how people could help that work, and that people who do independent outreach to officials keep The Mennonite informed of their actions. He also said that while the institutional church dithers, “each of us individuals [should] consider stronger forms of witness”.

    Direct tax resistance should not be forgotten for three years but should be actively debated in our congregations and experimented with in our lives. One of the biggest barriers to this is not knowing who and how many others are currently engaged in tax resistance. I am refusing to pay voluntarily my telephone tax (being a student, I have no income), but I’m finding even this relatively simple stance rather difficult because I feel I’m standing alone. I suggest that The Mennonite could provide a forum — perhaps through a special column — in which all those resisting taxes could find each other and communicate experiences they’ve had, arguments they’ve encountered, statements of the bases of their actions, etc.

    In our efforts to be faithful to God in this matter — to attempt to change U.S. military policy through tax witness — we need to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” We need to refine our strategies, improve our communication, and support each other’s involvements.

  • Fred Suter, in the edition, wrote:

    It appeared that our over-politeness got in our way to deal effectively with the issue at hand. It appeared as though the issue at hand was put on the back burner to simmer to give us Mennonites more time. More time for what? It will give a few people more time to pursue other legal alternatives to the specific tax issue. It will also give many of us grass-roots people in the church more time to remain silent and not be directly faced with a Mennonite stand on the issue. It is those long, noncommitted silent periods which trouble me… A firm and committed voice by the Mennonite people needs to be heard in our world now.

  • Gaynette Friesen, on , wrote that though “we still have nearly 2½ years to resolve ourselves, hopefully as a unified body, to the question of war taxes,” that’s no reason to slack off.

The edition gave another update on the activities of the “task force”:

Task force concentrates on legislative route

Two meetings of the task force on taxes have been held. The task force has been expanded to include representation from the Church of the Brethren, the Friends, and the Mennonite Church. This group of 11 is expected by the participating churches to establish the legal, legislative, and administrative agenda of a corporate discipleship response to military taxes.

The Minneapolis resolution mandated the task force to seek “all legal, legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector exemption” for the GCMC from the withholding of federal income taxes from its employees. (About 46 percent of U.S. federal taxes are used for the military.)

At their second meeting () the task force members rejected administrative avenues. Within the scope of U.S. Internal Revenue Service or Revenue Canada regulations this would involve extending ordination, commissioning, or licensing status to all employees of church institutions. It was a consensus of the task force that this would be an administrative loophole. It would not develop a conscientious objector position in response to military taxes.

However, both the judicial and legislative options will be pursued simultaneously. Plans for the legislative option are the more developed.

For the legislative route to work, says Delton Franz, director of the Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section office in Washington, D.C., the problem of conscience and taxes will have to be defined carefully. Currently a paper focusing on the reasons the General Conference has a major problem of conscience with collecting taxes from its employees is being drafted. After it has been reviewed and okayed it will be sent along with cover letters by leaders of the historic peace churches to congresspersons representing major constituency concentrations and those on key subcommittees. Later on church members will also be asked to write letters. It is important, says Franz, to define the problem of conscience in such a way that it will motivate congresspersons to work vigorously for the bill.

Another follow-up to these initiatives will be a visit to Washington of the most influential peace church leaders to solicit support from selected members of Congress and to obtain a sponsor for an exemption bill.

In preparation for the next meeting of the task force in November law firms are being contacted for advice on optimum judicial procedures should the task force decide to initiate a case as plaintiff. However, there is doubt that a judicial process would be productive.

There is a possibility that a parallel task force will emerge in Canada. Ernie Regehr, director of Project Ploughshares, Waterloo, Ontario, notes the necessity of defining the question of militarism in Canadian terms for Canadians. Regehr is attempting to gather a Canadian task force.

This mirrored a growing enthusiasm for the Peace Tax Fund legislation in many organizations and congregations of the General Conference. This would ultimately allow Mennonites to pass their well-worn buck all the way to Washington, D.C., and let Congress take the blame for further delays.

New Call to Peacemaking

The New Call to Peacemaking initiative continued in .

  • Tax resistance was on the agenda at the follow-up meeting for churches in the central United States in .

  • Bruce Chrisman

    In , a hundred participants, mostly Mennonites, but also Quakers, Brethren “plus several Catholics and a Presbyterian” came to the fourth Mid-America New Call to Peacemaking. “Conscription of Youth and Wealth” was the theme, and tax resistance was again high on the agenda:

    In the workshop on conscription of wealth Bob Hull, secretary for peace and social concerns of the General Conference, suggested some alternatives to paying war taxes. Others offered their own suggestions. It was decided that resisting war taxes is a complicated affair and that each person should decide according to their conscience. Several expressed the desire to pay taxes for education, welfare, and other social services, and wished there was an alternative such as the World Peace Tax Fund. [Richard] McSorley, who has had contacts on Capitol Hill, responded by saying that until there is a large grass-roots movement of tax resistance the WPTF doesn’t stand a chance.

    The latter half of the workshop included sharing by Bruce Chrisman, Carbondale, Illinois, who is involved in a federal criminal case, one of two in the U.S. involving tax resistance. His case is significant because it will provide a precedent either for or against tax refusal on the basis of conscience and religious convictions.

    In Chrisman received draft counseling from James Dunn, pastor of the Champaign-Urbana (Illinois) Mennonite Church. He made a covenant with God to only pay taxes for humanitarian purposes. Since that time he has paid no federal income taxes. It wasn’t until this year, however, that the government prosecuted him, charging that he willfully failed to disclose his gross income in . “Willful” is the key term, because Chrisman claims he conscientiously chose not to disclose his income. He feels the government has purposely waited to build its case.

    “The government wants to establish a precedent in order to prosecute other tax resisters.” But Chrisman is confident. “We’re going to win and establish a precedent the other way,” he said. He believes he has a strong case. Part of that strength comes from his affiliation with the General Conference Mennonite Church. He read from a statement from the triennium which opposes war taxes and supports those who resist paying them. “That’s a beautiful statement!” he exclaimed, explaining that it has important legal implications for his case.

    In a moving conclusion to his talk Chrisman said that when he first appeared in court this year he was “scared to death.” “Today,” he said, “I have no fear in me. God has given me an inner peace. I know I’m doing what he wants me to do.” No one disagreed.

    • Chrisman would lose his court case. On he was convicted of failure to file (he filed, but the government contended the information on the filing was not sufficient to make it legal).

      During the pretrial hearings Judge J. Waldo Ackerman allowed Robert Hull, secretary for peace and social concerns of the General Conference, and Peter Ediger, director of Mennonite Voluntary Service, to testify about Mennonite witness against war and conscription of persons and money for war purposes. But the testimony was disallowed at the trial.

    • Chrisman would ultimately be sentenced to pay the taxes and court costs, to do a year of Mennonite Voluntary Service, and to probation. He spun this as a victory of sorts:

      “I’m amazed… I feel very good about the sentence. The alternative service is probably the first sentence of its kind for a tax case. I think it reflects the testimony in the trial and its influence on the judge.”

      Chrisman’s attorney filed an appeal of the conviction, which was heard in , with the Mennonite General Conference filing an amicus curiae in Chrisman’s behalf.

Miscellany

  • A letter to the editor from Jacob T. Friesen described how he withheld a symbolic $13 from his income taxes “to gain attention and create opportunity to ‘dialogue for peace.’ ”
  • The issue covered a tax dispute between the Canadian government and some Hutterite colonies. The colonies refused to pay on the grounds that they were churches; the government disagreed and went after them for “about $37 million in back income taxes and interest”
  • The issue told of the Manitoba Alliance Against Abortion, whose bank accounts had been frozen by the Canadian tax agency to pay for the taxes the organization’s president, Joe Borowski, had been refusing to pay for several years. The organization disputed that the funds belonged to the organization’s president and could thereby be seized, saying that the funds were meant for a legal battle against legal abortion. A letter-writing campaign by supporters of the group was credited for pressuring the government to abandon the seizure.
  • Chris Dueck, in the edition, called Mennonites out for complaining about Caesar’s war taxes while hoarding Caesar’s currency. “For us to refuse payment of taxes is to say ‘we want to keep the money we get through your military-economic policies, but we don’t want any of the guilt.’ The war tax issue is shedding guilt without shedding the selfish heart.”
  • On , members of the St. Louis Mennonite Voluntary Service unit announced their refusal to pay the telephone excise tax and its redirection to the MCC.
  • Robert V. Peters hoped that “seeking ways to resist the military machine (e.g. war tax resistance)” would be on the agenda at the Mennonite World Conference, in the edition.
  • In the edition, Gordon Houser looked into the New Creation Fellowship intentional community — which “was born out of the concern of a small group of people about the sad state of our society [and] a common involvement in simple living, war tax resistance, and prison reform.”
  • In , twenty people “from the General Conference Mennonite Church, the Mennonite Church, the Conservative Conference, and the Beachy Amish” met “to air trends within the Mennonite church and to share concerns.” Among those concerns, as expressed in a jointly-framed statement:

    According to the direct command to pay taxes (Romans 13:6,7) and according to the specific word of Christ on the payment of taxes to “Caesar” (Matthew 22:15–22) we believe we are under obligation to pay taxes levied by the law. We regard taxation as the power of the state to collect monies needed for its budget and not as voluntary contributions by citizens.

  • The Minneapolis conference was given credit for encouraging peace-minded clergy to come together and discuss the arms race and peace advocacy.
  • William Stringfellow addressed the Church of the Brethren Symposium and suggested that the contemporary urban church should renounce its tax-exempt status. “since present tax privileges curtail the church’s freedom to speak out on important matters and keep it from engaging in tax resistance.”
  • The South Seattle Mennonite Church issued a letter of support for war tax resisters, saying in part:

    [G]ood citizenship does not imply that we should obey our government without regard for Christian conscience. Rather, good citizenship leads us to work as a church and human community towards the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth… We believe that Christ’s strength is in his weakness and that the present aggressive stance of the world’s military powers runs counter to our call to be peacemakers.

  • In the issue, Ferd Wiens attacked “what may be called a ‘peace” cult” of Mennonite flagellants who, in his view, had turned the doctrine of nonresistance on its head to make it a doctrine of civil disobedience — calling out promoters of war tax resistance in particular.
    • Walter Regier agreed, writing that “[e]mphasis on world peace through demonstrations and nonpayment of taxes simply brings confusion into our ranks” and distracts from “more important issues that we face in our day… like abortion, homosexuality, and divorce”.
  • The U.S. branch of Pax Christi (a Catholic peace movement) invited some of their Mennonite counterparts to their annual convention in .

    Mennonites Bob Hull and Don Kaufman of Newton, Kansas, led a workshop on tax resistance and the World Peace Tax Fund Act. Interest in this was strong. About 40 persons, including some tax resisters, participated. Hull is peace and social concerns director for the General Conference; Kaufman is author of The Tax Dilemma: Praying for Peace, Paying for War.

    In a private meeting with Sister Mary Evelyn Jegen, executive secretary of Pax Christi USA, and Gordon Zahn, a Catholic conscientious objector in World War Ⅱ, Hull, Kaufman, and William Keeney explained the General Conference resolution on war taxes. Keeney, North Newton, Kansas, is director of the Consortium on Peace Research, Education, and Development.

    Although Pax Christi USA, supports the World Peace Tax Fund it has not responded to its members who engage in war tax withholding and are requesting official support from Pax Christi.

  • Albert H. Epp felt that civil disobedience and other sorts of confrontation with government “can ensnare a people in activities that make them obnoxious to the general citizenry. It is ‘good’ deeds that earn respect and give us a right to speak.” For this reason “It seems improper for Christians to start at the point of urging illegal tax-resistance rather than first declaring a church-wide month of prayer for a national crisis.”

    In my congregation we took a poll on ideal ways to influence government. We prefer to exhaust all legal means to achieve peace before we engage in illegal maneuvers. Only 5 percent approved of refusing to pay one’s tax as a protest. But in terms of practical, positive solutions, we found that 65 percent approved the World Peace Tax Fund alternative; 85 percent approved writing the President and Congress; 85 percent approved using the ballot box to elect responsive leaders; and 89 percent approved increased giving to decrease taxes.

    • But David Graber responded that in his opinion “the demand to lay down our tax dollars is a similar call to idolatry” as those that prompted the civil disobedience of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. “Thank God for Christians today who refuse to cooperate with our government’s demands in Jesus’ name. Where is Epp’s recognition of their witness?”
    • And Mark S. Lawson added that the blessings of government that Epp felt we should all be humbly grateful for weren’t all that. For example: “My country forces me to cut my income below the taxable level so I can obey both the laws of God and man. Religious liberty is only for those who support the killing in wars financed by their tax money.” He seconded the idea that only through “widespread tax refusal” could pacifists pressure Congress into creating an alternative for conscientious taxpayers.
    • C.B. Friesen was more appreciative of Epp’s take. He trotted out the usual Render Unto Caesar ⇒ Romans 13 ⇒ 1 Peter 2 biblical justification for submission to civil government and said that those who counsel war tax resistance “mostly benefit their egos” in service of their “own philosophies and pet theories”.
  • The Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section (U.S.) met at . They “formally supported the passage of the World Peace Tax Fund bill” but “decided against sponsoring a vigorous campaign to promote Mennonite participation in a war tax resistance campaign. Section members felt such a resolution would not reflect the will of their constituent bodies.” So they instead adopted the kick-the-can routine, passing “a resolution that the section ‘is prepared to consider at its meeting a decision to promote participation in a war tax resistance campaign.’ ” There seemed to be some acknowledgment of flaws in the Peace Tax Fund bill:

    The section said in resolution “that it is conscience that the WPTF legislation might not in itself force a significant reduction in military spending, but it recognizes that it would provide funds for peacemaking efforts and would be a witness against military spending.”

This is the fourteenth 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.

“Gospel Herald” logo, circa 1972

War tax resistance really picked up steam in the Mennonite Church in , as the coverage in Gospel Herald shows.

In a “workshop on war taxes” was held “at the Hively Mennonite Church, Elkhart, Ind. Resource persons are Al Meyer, John Howard Yoder, David Habegger, Art Gise, and Carl Landes…” Gospel Herald’s report on the conference noted:

Christian response to war taxes was discussed by about 100 participants in a workshop in Elkhart, Ind.

The weekend was sponsored by the Elkhart Peace Fellowship, the General Conference Mennonite Central District Peace and Service Committee, and other regional church peace and service committees.

Michael Friedmann of the Elkhart Peace Fellowship said many of the participants felt the war tax question involved a shift in life-style to reduce involvement in the military-industrial complex.

Al Meyer, a research physicist at Goshen College, Goshen, Ind., suggested to the group that one does not start by changing the laws to provide legal alternatives to payment of war taxes, but by refusing to pay taxes. We need to give a clear witness, he said.

Meyer did not oppose payment of war taxes because he was opposed to government as such, but because he did not give his total allegiance to government. He felt it was his responsibility to refuse to pay the immoral demands of government.

“No alternative will be provided by the federal government until a significant number of citizens refuse war taxes,” he said.

Another conference was announced in the issue:

“Jesus and the 1040 Form" Seminar

The annual tax collection time is at hand. How do you respond to the 1040 and other tax forms? An increasing number of Mennonites are asking what it means to render to Caesar what belongs to him and in particular to render to God what belongs to Him.

Two seminars are planned to study this question: , Akron Mennonite Church; Bally Mennonite Church.

The purpose will be (1) to learn what the Bible says for and against paying taxes, (2) to share with and support each other as the Spirit leads, and (3) to examine what choices are available in nonpayment of taxes used for war purposes. The schedule allows for considerable discussion time. Howard Charles, Goshen Biblical Seminary, will be the resource person.…

War Tax Meeting Set

A meeting for people who are disturbed by American policy in Southeast Asia and who question payment of war taxes is planned for at Hebron Mennonite Church, Buhler, Kan. The meeting, sponsored by the Western District Peace and Social Concerns Committee of the General Mennonite Church, will be a time to exchange ideas and tell of actions already taken.

Afterwards, Gospel Herald reported:

Two seminars on taxes, “Jesus and the 1040 Form” seminars, were held at the Akron Mennonite Church and the Bally Mennonite Church, respectively. Approximately 70 persons participated. Howard Charles, Goshen Biblical Seminary, was the resource teacher on biblical passages dealing with taxes. Other input was given by Melvin Gingerich and Grant Stoltzfus on examples of tax refusal from history. Wesley Mast presented options in payment and nonpayment of taxes. Walton Hackman gave a breakdown of the present use of tax dollars, 75 percent of which go toward war-related purposes.

War taxes also would come up at another Mennonite forum, as announced in the issue:

On the Swiss Farm at Bluffton College, Bluffton, Ohio, Mennonite collegians will meet. , to “rap” about the kind of life-style they want to adopt. Intentional communities, ways to avoid American materialism and consumerism, how to avoid complicity with militarism through paying taxes that support past, present, and future wars, and the role of women will be ingredients in the discussions of the conference.

War tax resistance had arrived in Switzerland, according to a short article in the issue:

Rudolf Gnaegi, Swiss defense minister, has announced that 32 Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy will be prosecuted if they persist in their refusal to perform military service or to pay “defense taxes.”

In Switzerland, all males over 20 — including the clergy — are subject to military service and annual retraining service periods. Conscientious objection is not recognized. Those who refuse to serve in the military are liable to prison terms.

The 32 clergymen, all from French-speaking cantons, announced in a joint letter to the Defense Ministry that they would not report for military service nor pay taxes earmarked for defense because they felt the Army served only “economic and financial interests.”

The letter charged further that whenever the Army was used in the country, it was used “against workers, peasants, and young people.”

Mr. Gnaegi, chief of the Military Department, told newsmen it was “incredible” that “in a free and evolving society like Switzerland’s,” clergymen should refuse completely “to share the difficult task of national defense.”

A “Mennonite Church Council on Faith, Life, and Strategy” was held in . War taxes hit the agenda:

A second issue brought to the Council was that of payment of war taxes. After extensive discussion, the Council agreed to ask Walton Hackman, secretary-elect of MCC Peace Section, to serve as resource person in further discussion of the issue in the meeting of the Council. Meanwhile, Council members will take their homework seriously by continued study in preparation for carrying the question to the church.

In “What Belongs to Caesar” (), Robert E. Dickinson explained how he had come around to the war tax resistance position:

Although I was a conscientious objector to war in the Second World War, I have justified the paying of war taxes to myself with the quote from Jesus, “Render unto Caesar…” As violence has escalated in our world I have become increasingly uneasy with this concept. With the reading of What Belongs to Caesar? a discussion on the Christians’ response to the payment of war taxes by Donald D. Kaufman, I realized that Christ’s statement was not to be taken too literally but needed to be placed in context.

It has become increasingly clear to me that my own reasons for paying war taxes was one of protecting property and job, neither of which are ultimate Christian values. The now well-documented illegality of the war as substantiated by the publication of the Pentagon Papers and the fact that the individual citizen is to be held responsible for his acts as established in the Nuremberg Trials are further factors in my decision. As an architect I do not wish to emulate the German architect, Albert Speer, who sold his soul to the state for professional advancement.

It seems to me that Christians who refuse to serve in the military but at the same time pay for war put themselves in the unenviable position of paying someone else to fight their wars for them. With God’s leading I will do my best not to do this.

On issue, Marvin & Rachel Miller wrote to President Nixon, explaining that they were going to pay all of their taxes, but would be “donating an amount equal as nearly as possible to our war taxes into an alternate fund.”

Meanwhile, other Mennonites were refusing to pay their war taxes while redirecting them to alternative funds. The telephone excise tax was a popular target for anti-war activists. This account comes from the edition:

An increasing number of people are sending war tax monies to Mennonite Central Committee, instead of paying them to the United States Government for military use, said Calvin Britsch, MCC assistant treasurer. Contributions of tax money are of two kinds, Britsch said. More people are refusing to pay the federal tax levied on the use of telephones. This 10 percent tax is seen as a direct source for military expenditures. People who refuse this tax simply subtract the 10 percent from their telephone bill and send it instead to MCC.

Ron Meyer tried to relax the hold that the traditional Render-unto-Caesar interpretation had on many Mennonites, in his article “Reflections on Paying War Taxes.” This was also the first mention I found in Gospel Herald of peace-tax-fund legislation:

[Render-unto-Caesar summary omitted] When He answers, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s,” he doesn’t make a solid commitment one way or the other.

Instead, Jesus makes it apparent that His follower should decide what of his belongs to the government and what to God. He does not tell the Christian that his tax money should be given without thought to the government, an interpretation that seems to be quite prevalent today.

In contrast to this interpretation, some American Christians now are questioning the morality of voluntarily paying taxes which support the U.S. government’s military policies.

The income tax is the main source of revenue for warfare: 60 to 75 percent of it is used for military purposes. The 800-member Goshen College Mennonite Church determined that the amount of money its members “gave” for military purposes through the income tax was almost twice as much as church giving in that congregation. Though Christ’s work cannot be measured by dollars alone, the thought of paying twice as much for war as for the church and its mission of peace is disturbing.

It is almost impossible not to support the war in Vietnam, however indirectly, if one lives in U.S. today. Even a small purchase may be supporting a company which has been awarded government contracts for war materials. If one does refuse to pay war taxes, the government will take the amount from his bank account or personal possessions. The question then arises, “Why resist the tax if you end up supporting the war effort anyway?”

Tax resisters answer this by saying that one’s intention must be more than just trying to “keep his hands clean.” The real purpose of war tax resistance is to provide a witness against the war and the ways in which tax money is being used for military purposes.

There are various approaches to war tax resistance for one who decides upon this type of peace witness. Many tax resisters refuse to pay the 10 percent telephone tax that is to be used expressly for war. The telephone company usually regards this as a matter between the government and the individual (if notified of the reason for the refusal) and will not cut off phone service. IRS may take the money from a bank account or send men to the home. Telephone tax resisters have found that talking to IRS men gives them an excellent chance to witness.

Because of the tax-withholding policy of most employers, nonpayment of income taxes is more difficult. In this case, if there is any extra tax due each year, the resister may refuse to pay this as a token gesture. Letters of protest sent in with tax forms are also indicative of the taxpayer’s stance for peace.

Some resisters earn less than the taxable income level for their number of dependents. This level starts at $1724.99 per year for no dependents. Those resisting in this way pay no income tax at all.

If one is self-employed, it is a relatively simple matter not to pay the 60 to 75 percent of the income tax used for war. The tax resister simply deducts this percentage from the amount he must give. This is not to say that the government won’t take the amount eventually from the individual’s personal property.

An alternative to the war tax system, presently under discussion by various groups, is the World Peace Tax Fund. This proposal, drawn up by a group of University of Michigan law students, suggests that an individual’s tax money that would go for war purposes could be channeled into a world peace fund if he so wished. This is similar to the Selective Service Conscientious Objector provision in which an alternative to compulsory military service is provided. If this proposal is put through Congress, it will provide a peace witness that is within the law. Its inherent danger is that people may become less bothered by the killing if they aren’t paying for it.

Total noncooperation with the Internal Revenue Service, similar to noncooperation with the Selective Service, is not extensive, since IRS is set up for peaceful purposes as well as channeling money for war.

The consequences of war tax resistance have not proven severe so far, yet the decision is weighty, since legally one could be fined and imprisoned for tax evasion.

Most Christian tax resisters hold that if one decides to take this stand, he must remember that his real object cannot be to “keep his hands clean.” He must be led by a desire to witness for peace and against violence and war. Even a simple refusal to pay a telephone tax may influence someone to follow Christ’s way of peace.

There are many Christians who are sincerely opposed to resisting the government in the ways that have been discussed here. And there are many also who feel that by paying war taxes, they are giving to Caesar what is God’s. Whatever a believer’s decision about the war tax issue, it should be carefully and prayerfully considered with the way of Christ firmly in mind.

The Gospel Herald editor, “D.” (John M. Drescher) endorsed this in a editorial: “When approximately 70 percent of the tax dollar is going to war, a foremost frontier of faith may well be the kind of witness we bear in refusing to finance killing.”

He followed this up with a second editorial in the issue — “Taxes for War”:

Approximately 70 percent of income taxes go to pay for war and all of the 10 percent telephone tax goes to pay for war. What is the responsibility of those who believe that war is contrary to the Spirit and teaching of Christ? Should we not seek an alternative in paying taxes when the government’s primary need is for our money, just as hard as we sought an alternative service when the government needed our bodies?

Those who understand what is happening in the automated war and have a concern for life are asking questions like the above with growing seriousness.

Some simply dismiss the whole question by saying, “Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and to God the things which are God’s.” Could this be a cop out? Might Christ not be laying upon us the obligation to decide what is Caesar’s and what is God’s? Or was He saying that we will need to decide whether we are Caesar’s person or God’s person? Isn’t it strange that, over the years, many of those who used this Scripture to say that we should pay our taxes without question, did not render unto God even what was required under the Old Testament? As a church we are even today much more obedient in rendering to Caesar what he demands than to God what is His.

Look at it this way. Suppose Caesar should demand a 10 percent telephone tax to wipe out Jews or Indians or blacks in the United States. What would be our reaction? Would we willingly and without question render it to Caesar? How would that be different than demanding a 10 percent tax to wipe out Vietnamese? What would we say if it were levied to bomb Lancaster, Goshen, or Hesston? Or to bring it closer. Suppose Caesar would level a 10 percent tax to pay for the extermination of Mennonites. Would we encourage everyone to “render unto Caesar what he asks for”? Would such a 10 percent tax be any different than paying a 10 percent tax for killing Vietnamese? If so, what is the difference?

Since Caesar receives all his rights from God, does not he forfeit these rights when he violates them? What is our duty to use money to restrain injustice and to advance right?

For additional study help and discussion, order and study the paperback, What Belongs to Caesar, by Donald D. Kaufman, Herald Press. As a church, we are at the point where we must somehow come to grips with what we will do about giving our money to support war.

Dealing with a problem of this proportion will be costly. It may demand a different life-style, the loss of property and institutions. We can be assured, however, that the way of obedience, even though it leads through the wilderness and death, is the way of Christ. Out of death we believe there is always a resurrection. And how our world needs resurrection life!

Don Blosser’s declaration of war tax resistance can be found in the issue:

Sixteen years ago, the country told me I had to join the army. I told them I was a Christian and I could not do it. Now, the country tells me I must give it money so it can pay other people to fight and kill. Once again, I must say I cannot, because I am a Christian. A very large portion of the taxes we pay, as well as a number of special taxes, go directly to help fight the war. I have told the government that because Jesus said I should not kill, I cannot pay these, and that instead I give that amount to the church to use in helping people our country makes homeless.

At least one speaker brought up war tax resistance at “Mission ” ():

One speaker took the open mike to make a statement on the war in Vietnam. He felt that the government is not leveling with us. Therefore, we should find some way to disengage ourselves as a people — perhaps through nonpayment of certain taxes.

The issue brought news of how war tax resistance was spreading among Unitarian Universalists:

Refuse Payment of “Phone Tax”

Resolutions urging Unitarian Universalists to refuse payment of the telephone excise tax, and calling for strong gun control laws were approved by delegates to the 11th annual Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly.

Action on the controversial issues was taken by 678 delegates, the smallest number of delegates in the history of the Association.

Stating that the telephone excise tax “was levied specifically by Congress in to finance the war in Vietnam,” the resolution calls on “all Unitarian Universalists to refuse payment of the telephone excise tax” and urges the UU Association “to refuse such payments also.”

Legal counsel for the 375,000-member Association told delegates that refusal to pay the tax is considered a criminal offense carrying a one-year jail sentence or $10,000 fine or both.

Some feedback from Gospel Herald readers followed:

Art Smoker,

I want to commend your courage in writing the editorial, “Taxes for War” ( issue). Your words seem clearly to be in the spirit of Jesus. Asking the question, “Suppose Caesar would level a 10 percent tax to pay for the extermination of Mennonites. Would we encourage everyone to ‘render unto Caesar what he asks for’?” brings the argument for nonpayment of war taxes home with blunt but true force.

We are personally searching for the Christian way with regard to the payment of our taxes. Your editorial shed additional light to our pilgrimage.

John Swarr,

Thanks for your two editorials recently (“We Merely Pay to Kill” and “Taxes for War”). They, along with Maynard Shirk’s “Plea from Saigon” and Don Blosser’s "But, Daddy,” point out our silent complicity in financing the destruction, rather than Jesus’ call to love, of our Vietnamese neighbors. Our silence indicates the complacent neglect of our individual responsibility as Christians and our corporate responsibility as the church to be God’s reconciling community in this world.

We cannot be silent or complacent in our militarized society and still name Jesus our Lord! Paul said, "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). It appears that our renewal has not yet occurred. Our churches have not become God’s liberated zones. As an ex-VS-er I recently learned that MCC paid about $1,500 in federal telephone tax during alone, a tax that "Vietnam and only the Vietnam operation makes this bill (federal phone tax) necessary,” according to Rep. Wilbur Mills of the House Ways and Means Committee (Congressional Record of ).

Our other church agencies and our churches are no different from MCC in this respect. As John A. Lapp wrote in the MCC Peace Section Newsletter, , “Each institution has wittingly or unwittingly developed its program not simply because this is what the Lord or the brotherhood wants us to do but also because this is what IRS allows us to do” (italics mine). Yes, Brother Drescher, we do not have to worry about rendering to Caesar his due, for he collects by force. But God only receives voluntary service, which we continually cut short because of submission to government or some other reason. Our fruits indicate what kind of trees we Mennonites are — comfortable, quiet, complacent.

As Jesus’ disciples we must say no to paying for others or machines to destroy our neighbors, just as the Mennonite Church has said no to participating actively in such destruction, as Jesus said no to Peter fighting enemies with a sword. As we say no individually we must encourage our churches and agencies to also say no to war taxes as corporate bodies, even if it costs something such as the tax exemption privilege, or property, or social status. Being “renewed of mind” in witnessing to Jesus’ way of reconciling love for all people. For as disciples we can value nothing more.

Alvin Hooley,

In the name of Christianity, let’s keep balanced on this idea of withholding “war taxes.”

Every person that works in any industry or food production, helps to produce commodities that are used by the army. So why not talk about laying off from work so many days or withholding so many head of cattle? Even if we did that the army would still get its share of what did go on the market. And if we hold back part of our taxes, the army will get what it needs out of what we do pay.

In the days when Paul lived, Rome was just as corrupt as America has been, and still Paul says in Romans 13 that we should pay to “all their dues.”

Alcohol is a much worse killer than war is, why not start doing something about it?

Paul R. Metzler,

Remembering Paul was living under one of the most cruel and bloody governments of all time and he knew that much of the tax money went to pay the Roman army, which not only put wicked people to death but many, many Christians as well, yet admonished the Roman Christians, “Pay your tax” without any strings attached. In the editorial, “Taxes for War,” () you quote, “Render to Caesar…” and you say, “Might Christ not be laying upon us the obligation to decide what is Caesar’s and what is God’s?” You are not suggesting that each of us should decide for himself how much tax he ought to pay and what he wants his tax money used for, are you? That is getting pretty far out it seems to me.

I think Paul is telling us in Romans 13 that the government as ordered by God is responsible, (1) to provide for our needs, v. 3, (2) to protect us, v. 4, and we in turn shall pay the government the taxes that are laid upon us, with no strings attached as to how they should use our money. The government is not accountable to us but to God and He will hold them responsible for their actions. Romans 12:19.

Marlene K. Kropf,

May I express appreciation for the good articles in the issue of Gospel Herald which dealt with our response to war. I was especially glad for the editorial, “Taxes for War,” and for the “Testimony on Taxes.” My husband and I have been part of a group in our congregation which studied Donald D. Kaufman’s book, What Belongs to Caesar? and as a result we and others have been seeking to live an altered life-style which will proclaim our commitment to Christ’s way of love. We too have felt that the way of obedience may be costly. Reading such testimonies in the Gospel Herald gives us courage to continue to learn what discipleship in this area means.

Lester Troyer,
Covered the usual Romans 13 / 1 Peter 2 argument against war tax resistance, while bemoaning the lack of church giving.
Steven W. Mason,

I am glad to hear that you are concerned about war taxes. I’m sure that a lot of people share this same concern. However, I must say that your concern is probably little more than the academic cloak worn by the average “pious Christian." Why do I say this? There is a very simple answer to the problem of war taxes for the person who is truly concerned. I’m not talking about the “Oh, isn’t that a shame” set. I’m talking about those who see the sadness and weep. Those who lock themselves in their rooms and beat on their mattresses in anguish. The answer is simply don’t earn enough money to have to pay taxes. It is the only legal recourse we have at the present time.

Some say they cannot live on that amount of money, and I say hogwash! Who is your God? Did He tell you that you need a six-room house? Did He tell you that you need a new car, a television, or an air conditioner? Did He even tell you that you need electricity, running water, or a living-room rug? My God didn’t. My God said, “Love Me more than you love anything in this world. Love your neighbor more than you love yourself.

Remember the rich man who would not give up his riches to follow Christ. I say that every one of us is rich, and anyone who cannot part with his riches cannot love the Lord, for we cannot serve two gods.

We can continue with our present stewardship (pittance that it is) and still not have to pay taxes. I am not suggesting that we quit working, but I am suggesting that we refuse salaries which cause us to have to pay taxes. A married couple can now earn $2,300 and be exempt from taxes. A family with children, even more.

I don’t expect very many people to take this seriously, for God only opens the eyes of a few However, I want to express my love to those of you who will think I am a little crazy.

John M. Ebby,
Responding to Steven W. Mason’s letter:

After reading D.D. Kauffman’s book What Belongs to Caesar?, listening to and reading testimonies from tax protesters, and thinking about the subject, I had arrived at about the same conclusions that Bro. Mason presents. I suppose it is to my discredit that I am unwilling to act on these conclusions as he apparently has done.

It has been said that the entire science of economics is summarized in the statement, “There is no such thing as free lunch.” And I would like to suggest that our tax liabilities represent that which we owe unto Caesar in return for the material blessings and luxuries that we enjoy under Caesar’s system. Remember that the Pharisees, who were admonished to "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” had confessed their involvement in the Roman economic system by their possession of Caesar’s coinage.

As Bro. Mason has so ably pointed out, it is within our power to arrange our affairs in such a way that Caesar is also willing to reduce our tax liability if we are willing to give the money unto God. Unfortunately, it costs us 100 cents to give a dollar unto God through the church, and only 20 cents if we elect to pay the tax and keep the dollar for ourselves.

The issue brought news that the Central Conference of American Rabbis had decided to resist the phone tax corporately:

Rabbis Refuse Phone “War” Tax

In protest against the war in Vietnam, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) has instructed its executive vice-president to withhold payment of the federal telephone excise tax which, it said, supports the Vietnam war.

The CCAR said it is the first Jewish organization to approve this act of civil disobedience in protest of the Vietnam war. The action was taken after consultation with lawyers.

At the same time, the Reform rabbis urged in a resolution the movement’s sister institutions — the Hebrew Union College — Jewish Institute of Religion and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations — to follow a similar course of action.

Individual members of the conference were called upon “as an act of personal moral responsibility” to withhold the telephone tax. The CCAR has protested the Vietnam war .

A report on the “Lamb’s War” camp meeting noted that a war tax resistance break-out group had formed.

A pseudonymous “Letter to My Home Church” reprinted in the issue mentioned how uncomfortable the churchgoer was with the casual taxpaying and patriotism encountered in the (also pseudonymous) congregation:

I have heard comments from you people like “I’m glad to pay my taxes for the privilege of living in a ‘free’ country.”

Oh yes, Cherrydale has certainly become patriotic. We pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to IRS each year knowing that 60 percent goes to pay for killing. The killers rest at ease knowing that they have allowed us an alternative. We can be conscientious objectors.

There were objections to the “peace tax fund” legislation idea almost from the very beginning, as Richard Malishchak’s “Some Thoughts on Peace Taxes” () shows. He makes a good effort at rebutting those objections, but it’s interesting to note how few of his defenses still apply to the pathetically watered-down Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act that promoters are pushing today:

Should it be legal to pay for peace?

Some Thoughts on Peace Taxes

by Richard Malishchak
From The Reporter for Conscience Sake

The World Peace Tax Fund Act, which was introduced several months ago in the House of Representatives, has spawned controversy, strangely enough, among the very people and groups who are most in sympathy with the desired goals of the Act.

The Tax Fund Act would permit taxpayers to claim status as Conscientious Objectors to taxation for military purposes. Small segments of the peace movement which have no interest in tax resistance/objection have naturally been cool to the proposed legislation. But doubts have been raised even in the tax resistance movement. The national War Tax Resistance office is deciding this month whether to throw their support behind the Tax Fund Act, and local WTR groups have been encouraging reader responses in their newsletters.

Being a human creation, the World Peace Tax Fund Act is flawed. Some of the doubts expressed about the Act do have merit. Yes, there is the danger that individuals would use a Conscientious Objector tax provision simply to soothe their own consciences, while taxes for military expenditures are collected from other people and the killing continues. But has war tax resistance done any better on this point? The tax resistance movement has yet to demonstrate that resistance alone is an effective tool. The money is frequently collected anyway from the resister and used in the general fund, and the resister is liable to become an unwilling war-taxpayer. Nor is a large-scale prison witness, large enough to effect a change in national consciousness by itself, a realistic possibility.

As important as acts of individual witness are, the military budget remains monstrous. Ironically the military budget is likely to increase in the coming fiscal year (see the July Tax Talk from WTR, 339 Lafayette St., New York 10012).

It may also be true that legal channels for tax objection would siphon off some potential resisters into the “system.” But would this number be significant in relation to the new objectors who would otherwise shy away from “illegitimate” protest?

Furthermore, if the government is still getting the money to buy death and suffering, what is the difference whether an individual protester is called a “resister” or an “objector”? There is naturally a palpable personal difference between the witness of the objector and that of the resister. But the World Peace Tax Fund Act is no threat at all to those who would continue to choose resistance. Those who resist war taxation, like those who resist the draft, are in the vanguard of the peace movement and so must be especially careful to avoid the snare of moral elitism, a “more-resistant-than-thou” attitude that may obscure the common goal.

In the case of taxes, the common goal would seem to be to spend more on life and less on death. And in addition to its overall importance, the Tax Fund Act contains two especially significant provisions toward this end.

First of all, the bill would provide for positive peace expenditures: the objector’s allotted “peace taxes” would not go into the general fund but into the World Peace Tax Fund and from there into designated peaceful activities.

Second, the Secretary of the Treasury would be obligated to inform every taxpayer, on the tax return instruction booklet, of the existence of the Peace Tax Fund and the qualifications for participation. This provision could be momentous. Combined with a vigorous tax counseling network, which is already beginning, it could become an effective consciousness-raising instrument.

In recent years, for example, the percentage of Conscientious Objectors recognized by the Selective Service System has been between one and two percent of the total number of registrants. The vast majority of these men became Conscientious Objectors or recognized they were Conscientious Objectors after being confronted with an actual choice between morally opposite courses of action. Most taxpayers, however, write their annual check to IRS or claim their refund with a minimum of decision-making.

If informed every year by the government in the official IRS publication that paying war taxes is not an inevitability, would one or two out of every 100 taxpayers choose to pay for peace instead? If yes, the impact would be far beyond what tax resistance alone can achieve.

Admittedly a hopeful answer to this question assumes a basic “good will” on the part of most Americans, and that lack of information is the best ally of the war makers. Yet how many of today’s draft Conscientious Objectors knew that they were Conscientious Objectors before they registered for the draft or before they became “draft-eligible”? Not even a local draft board would deny a Conscientious Objector claim on the grounds that the registrant was not born a Conscientious Objector. In the words of Joan Baez’ new album, which she dedicates in part to war tax refusal, more and more people must be encouraged to “come from the shadows.” This is exactly what a Conscientious Objector tax provision would do. (A recent Detroit poll, incidentally, showed support for the war tax refusal of Jane Hart, wife of the Michigan Senator, by 55 percent of the survey sample.)

If the Tax Fund Act does not cut the military budget directly, it would at least be likely to help produce an awareness of government expenditures that will cause people to think about, and consciously choose, to buy either peace or war, rather than passively “permitting” the government to buy war on their behalf. This public awareness of where their dollars are going is, in turn, bound to be reflected in the actions of voter-conscious legislators. If the people truly want peace, it will be easier for them to have it.

The World Peace Tax Fund Act is an important piece of legislation. It will need all the help it can get, first to be taken seriously by “old guard” Congressmen, and later to be pushed through the wall of opposition that will form. Draft resisters, military Conscientious Objectors, draft Conscientious Objectors, and tax resisters must begin to form the wedge of support behind this bill. No one else will.

In “Thankful for What, When You Have All You Need?” (), Atlee Beechy wrote, “We may not be able to do too much about our governments’ (U.S. and Canada) priorities but we should be able to make a frontal attack on our priorities as Christians. Is it my responsibility that my tax dollars go for military purposes?”

Finally, a report on the MCC Peace Assembly noted that there was a break-out group to discuss war tax resistance. And “Stan Hostetter publicly declared his objection to war taxes and presented a check to the MCC Peace Section in lieu of tax payments which would be used for war.”

This is the thirty-first 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.

“Gospel Herald” logo, circa 1991

General Board Follies

So if you remember from our last episode, the board of the Mennonite Church was dragging its feet about supporting employees who did not want war taxes withheld from their paychecks. Then the whole Church, in its General Assembly, forced their hand by voting to honor the requests of such employees.

But apparently the board still saw that as advisory and not binding, because they kept right on dragging their feet:

General Board tables military tax question

After several years of study and discussion, the Mennonite Church General Board brought the military tax question to a vote — and tabled it. Normal attenders will recall that a majority of General Assembly delegates voted to “support” the efforts of church board employees who do not wish their taxes deducted so that they can deal with the government in regard to military taxes.

The issue came back to the General Board as such issues will and it was given extended attention at the spring meeting which convened at Kalona (Iowa) Mennonite Church, . An early straw vote strongly favored going ahead, but when decision time came, a majority voted to table the motion.

As presented, the motion called for agreeing “in principle” to honor requests of employees who ask that their income tax not be withheld. However, such approval was intended to be reviewed in the session of the board after a congregational study process which is now being initiated. No taxes were to be withheld prior to .

Motion to table, it was suggested, was related to the pending congregational study process. The board was concerned not to prejudice the case before the study process. Also there was concern that the possible consequences of such withholding be better understood. What action might the government take toward board officers?

Moderator George Brunk Ⅲ and Executive Secretary James Lapp indicated that they were not unhappy about the motion to postpone action. “Some of us thought ‘in principle’ could be helpful in the study process,” said Brunk. “The board position has been in the direction of the proposed motion,” he continued. “But there are different ways to capture this.”

Yet another Military Tax Consultation was held to allow for more jaw-exercise and to cover for the delay:

Mennonite Church General Board is holding a Military Tax Consultation in response to actions taken by General Assembly at Normal . It will be held at Goshen College. Mennonite Church conferences are invited to send teams of persons to the event. Since General Assembly called for “continued study of issues raised by taxation for military purposes,” General Board is currently preparing a study guide for use by congregations. It is being prepared under the direction of Robert Hull and will be ready in time for the consultation. The most controversial — and potentially illegal — action taken by General Assembly was its permission to denominational agencies and schools to honor the request of employees who don’t want taxes withheld from their paychecks so they can refuse to pay the portion (about half) that goes to the military. More information about the consultation is available from General Board…

Ray Gingerich gesticulates as he speaks with three other seated conferees

Ray Gingerich talks about tax resistance during the small-group discussion time.

Daniel Hertzler reported on the consultation:

Wilma Gingerich and Leanna Rhodes face each other in conversation

Wilma Gingerich (left) and Leanna Rhodes share their experiences in refusing to pay the military portion of their taxes.

War tax resisters tell their stories at General Board consultation

Some 30 people met at Goshen College, , for a “Consultation on Military Tax Withholding.” The military tax question has been on Mennonite Church agenda , General Board executive secretary James Lapp told the group. But now it has become focused on the issue of “tax withholding” by church agencies for people who wish to deal with the Internal Revenue Service on their own.

Avowed purpose of the consultation was to introduce a study guide, “As Conscience and the Church Shall Lead,” being prepared for use in congregations. To this end Marlene Kropf of Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries led the group in an educational experience.

In the beginning, and alternatively throughout, there was story telling. Military-tax resisters told how they got into it. All referred to a variety of spiritual influences and life-changing experiences. Seven persons told personal stories. Among them was Dan Hunsberger of Hesston College, who worked one summer for a contractor without taxes withheld and got a tax bill for $1,700. “I considered this use of money wrong, not only from a peace standpoint, but also bad business.”

David Weaver, a teacher at Central Christian High School, grew up in a family that eschewed political involvement. But in he went on a student tour to the Middle East and spent some time on the West Bank of the Jordan River, the home of persecuted Palestinians. Then, in , he wrote a paper on the issue of war taxes and in the same year he went to Nicaragua with Witness for Peace. “I saw the Nicaraguan people and looked into their eyes,” he said. That year he decided to withhold 55 percent of his income taxes.

“At the beginning I felt very heavy about this. In November when they came and took money from my account, it was like a burden was lifted. What really can they do to harm me? We’re in the world for a short life. There are little things we can do. This doesn’t mean my hands are clean. But it is a small action.”

Ray and Wilma Gingerich from Harrisonburg, Va., gave a joint report which recounted a decades-long, growing concern over the issue of war taxes. When they first became aware of the issue, they had no income taxes to pay. But by they finally had enough income to be taxed and began to withhold 50 to 59 percent. “Our son Andre refused to register under Carter,” they said. “We saw some relation between this and middle-aged people not paying for war. We cannot continue to pay taxes while applauding our young who resist the draft.”

Ray expressed concern that Mennonite Church leaders have not been more forthright about the issue. “We need to try to draw our leaders into the discussion. Leaders generally get their authority from the people, not from the poor or the Bible. In some respects, tax resisters must lead the leaders.”

Among the leaders present was Paul Gingrich, president of Mennonite Board of Missions. He acknowledged that MBM first faced this issue , when John and Sandra Drescher-Lehman asked that their taxes not be withheld. The MBM board of directors is divided. Some threaten to resign either way.

But Gingrich concludes that some corporate action needs to be taken as an object lesson, a parable so that younger Mennonites may learn firsthand about resisting militarism. “We have a generation that only hears the stories of those resisting World Wars Ⅰ and Ⅱ and the Korean conflict,” he said. “The institution can become a symbol. In the action is a tremendous teaching moment.”

He continued, “In every generation we need to discover the issue on which we will not compromise. For what will we be ready to die? Is this the place to stand? Is this the way to stand? If an institution takes such an action, it may be that the institution will not survive. But maybe that is not the most important thing.”

No clear-cut answer to Gingrich came out of the consultation. But from small-group settings a cautious consensus emerged. Most groups encouraged church agencies to respect the consciences of persons who do not wish their taxes deducted by the agency, even though such honoring would involve the agency in illegal action.

Several groups pointed out, however, that there are ways for persons to gain access to enough tax money to make a symbolic protest without implicating their agency in illegal action. It was urged that they explore these first.

James Lapp, who called the consultation, and Marlene Kropf, director of the educational experience, both expressed satisfaction with the session. “We need to recognize that there is a complex set of issues here,” said Lapp. “Our goal is to help people to see that there is more than one way to be faithful.”

All this dithering prompted a letter to the editor from Dannie Otto ():

Although I have not been involved in the issue, I believe the issue of military tax deductions of church employees has been around for at least a decade. I am concerned about the continued reluctance of General Board to implement the will of General Assembly to support church board employees who as a matter of conscience do not wish to have their taxes deducted.

As reported in “General Board Tables Military Tax Question”… the eagerness with which the board embraces broad “visions” while avoiding concrete actions is striking. Whatever the possible actions of the government toward board officers if tax withholding is stopped, it would surely be mild in contrast to the price paid by Mennonite leaders during World War Ⅰ who refused to financially support the war effort. “A Pastor Pays a Price for Peace” in the same issue of Gospel Herald is an illustration. [See ♇ 1 September 2018]

Discussion of visions is fine, but no vision is more catching than one demonstrated through faithful action. My sympathies are with the General Board employees who have patiently gone through the lengthy process required to have their concerns embraced by General Assembly, only to have the issue kicked back into a “study process” by General Board.

The board’s apparent relief at being able to postpone action on this issue should be juxtaposed with Moderator George Brunk Ⅲ’s concern stated in his “state of the Mennonite Church” address that “We are not facing conflict as a people of God. The question of our faithfulness calls for eternal vigilance.”

Daniel Hertzler tried to put the whole thing in context with a editorial:

Why is it so hard to get to the bottom of the war tax question?

The issue of paying military taxes has been knocking about in the Mennonite Church for close to a generation. At the “Consultation on Military Tax Withholding” (Goshen College, ) it was reported that John Howard Yoder was writing about this already in .

Perhaps these writings were not published. The earliest material on this subject which I could find in the Gospel Herald was “Dare We Pay Taxes for War?” by John Drescher (). I found this editorial with help from Swartley and Dyck’s Annotated Bibliography of Mennonite Writings on War and Peace: (Herald Press, ). This book has 16 pages on the topic “War Tax Resistance,” so the subject has clearly been one of concern among us. Some of the references go back into , but not in the Gospel Herald.

Drescher’s editorial indicates that concern about the issue arose during Mennonite General Conference and that “delegates asked for direction on the matter of paying taxes designated for war purposes.” A resolution was passed calling for “a fresh study of the biblical teaching”! Has anything changed among us in 23 years?

At the Goshen consultation I listened to Willard Swartley declaim on Romans 13:1–7, and I suddenly got a clue as to why this issue keeps grinding on with no resolution in sight. “Pay all of them their dues,” writes Paul, regarding the authorities, “taxes to whom taxes are due…”

So there it is. If Paul wrote to the Romans that they should pay their taxes, why do modern Mennonites sit around debating whether they may pay the military part of their taxes? We are known as people of the Bible. Isn’t the Bible plain enough?

Not so fast. At Goshen, Willard Swartley presented a 12-point outline entitled “Method for Bible Study.” The first three points were entitled “Observation: What does the Bible say?” The second five he captioned “Meaning: What is the text saying?’ The final four he called “Significance: What says the text?” Beyond these I think the most important thing he said was that Romans 13:1–7 should be interpreted as part of a longer unit in the letter (certainly a basic Bible study principle) and that probably there was a local controversy in Rome over the payment of specific taxes. Paul’s counsel to the Romans was to pay these specific taxes and was not intended as a general principle, regarding all taxes in all times and all places.

Willard pointed out that the New Testament has a number of normative texts on this subject. He mentioned the following: Colossians 2:15; Ephesians 1:19–23; 3:10; 1 Peter 3:22; 1 Corinthians 15:24–26; Romans 8:35–39; Ephesians 6:12–20. Romans 13, he said, should be interpreted in dialogue with this longer stream of texts. In the end, said Willard, there is “ambiguity in the biblical tradition over the place of authorities: respect for their responsibility for order versus awareness that they represent evil.” In other words, by simply paying taxes without thinking, we may be selling out.

Two others at Goshen discussed the issue from a theoretical standpoint: ethics professor J.R. Burkholder and Pastor John F. Murray. Murray proposed that the answer to the war tax problem is to be found in generous giving to the church. Since in the U.S. one can contribute up to 50 percent of one’s income, or $50,000, he proposed that reducing our income through contributions is a more effective response than tax resistance. Further, he pointed out, anyone who saves money and puts it in the bank is supporting the military just as much as the person who pays taxes. “When we give only 5 percent of our income as a denomination, we are not faithful.”

Burkholder stressed the reality of ambiguities. “We will have to learn to live with pluralism in the Mennonite Church,” he asserted. “We do not have the same position on war taxes.”

Clearly we do not. And as James Rhodes responded to Burkholder, “There is danger in an emphasis on ambiguity of diluting our basic foundation of biblical obedience.”

So it is important that we not give up just because we come with different perspectives on the issue. It is urgent that those with different points of view listen to each other under God and under the Scriptures. We have no other place to go.

Readers responded:

Robert V. Peters ()

In response to your editorial, “Why is it so Hard to Get to the Bottom of the War-Tax Question?”… and the news article piece on the war-tax consultation in the same issue, let me note the following: Why is it that the Mennonite Church can so easily reach clarity that homosexuality is a sin and ban any dialogue whatsoever with gay members of our community but yet find the war-tax issue “contains a complex set of issues” and that it is “filled with ambiguities”?

Why must we accept pluralism and ambiguity on this issue when we can so easily reach apparent consensus on the gay question? Is this not rather self-serving and hypocritical, for on the one hand our church fathers tell us we must accept differing biblical interpretations, pluralism, and ambiguity on war taxes but somehow the gay issue is crystal clear!

It seems to me that there is no ambiguity, for as you note, Romans 13 is not intended as a general principle that we must pay all taxes to government. Further the whole text seems to make clear that we must clarify our loyalties and choose whom we serve, God or Caesar. Further it seems clear that if we follow the way of peace, we can have no part in allowing our money to pay for killing and war. If there is room for ambiguity I think it is more apparent on the gay question. On war taxes it seems clear.

Perhaps our leaders wish to keep it plural, for only a minority can support our historic peace witness these days, while they know that pluralism is unacceptable for the gay question given the majority in our community who are convinced that homosexuality is sin. Wake up, leaders, and be fair! You can’t have it both ways. Either we seek clear standards and follow them or we become Unitarians or Quakers, where everything is ambiguous.

Robert J. Schultz ()
Schultz started off with the typical Render-unto-Caesar / after all Rome was a militaristic government / Jesus never complained about paying taxes line. Then he finished off with the “silent majority” gambit:

I urge all of those conservative Mennonites who usually remain silent to “send the General Board a message” — mainly, not to be tempted into politicking with the liberal pacifist elements, and to remain within the boundaries of biblical nonresistance. If there are those who want to withhold taxes, let them do it without having the actions of the General Board as a shield.

John M. Eby ()

“Why Is It So Hard to Get to the Bottom of the War Tax Question?”… Maybe because there is no bottom — only a bottomless chasm between two irreconcilable views.

In my own imagination I see the story told in Matthew 22 in modem “dress.” The Pharisee digs through the pockets of his custom-tailored suit. From a jumble of temple contribution receipts and credit cards (Pharisee-controlled banks) he produces a $50 bill.

“Whose portrait is on that bill?”

“General and President Ulysses S. Grant.”

“If you deal in portraits of deceased generals and presidents, you owe a commission to those who occupy their offices today. But don’t forget that you owe even more to God.”

Again, we know that Caesar does not divide his tax collections between two baskets labeled “war” and “peace.” It all goes into one basket, and then is divided out as Caesar wishes. And so, if 50 percent (or whatever) goes for “war,” then 50 percent of anything that an individual deposits into the basket goes for “war.” The persons who pay 50 percent of their taxes are in fact paying half of their “war” tax and half of their “peace” tax.

I admire those who for conscience’ sake voluntarily live at the “poverty” line so that they do not owe the tax that they object to paying. They have adjusted their lifestyle to put their (lack of) money where their “mouth” is. I’m not willing to do that — a character flaw, perhaps, but one that I seem to share with many others. Is it wrong to want to share in at least part of the standard USA lifestyle without paying for Caesar’s expenses in maintaining conditions that promote this lifestyle?

Do we want a “free lunch”? And, of course, Caesar’s money can do God’s work, or so we are told by those responsible for keeping church agencies and institutions in the black. Those who have the spirit of generosity also need something to be generous with. And Caesar pays a part of the gift.

If we deal in portraits of deceased generals and presidents, what do we owe to those who occupy their offices today?

Richard E. Martin ()

Over a number of years I have read articles, pro and con, on the war-tax issue. Your editorial on the same subject has rekindled my interest. A large percentage of the arguments have been of a theological or theoretical nature. However, I have not seen the following point of view mentioned.

Many of us in the Mennonite Church are no longer independent farmers and/or businessmen or self-employed.

(At age 48 I have witnessed this transition.) Therefore, we have little or no control over the deductions from our pay checks. No company, business, or public institution that I know of would seriously consider a request not to withhold a certain percent of taxes due. Some firms that are operated by Christians may grant us their understanding and be sympathetic in attitude, but simply are not willing to get into the legal and business ramifications of a tax fight with the federal government.

Consequently, the war-tax issue, while perhaps valid, is to many simply a moot point lingering in a gray mist on the edge of our consciousness. Could this be why the General Assembly vote on the General Board war-tax recommendation went 142 for and 100 against?

For me, if the federal government would institute a special, separate, extra-budget war tax (as done in the American Revolution, for example), that is a horse of a different color. I would try to resist in some way as my ancestors collectively did in Lancaster County, Pa., in the Revolutionary times. Having written my Indiana senators and representative on the war-tax issue, I see no change in federal tax regulations to be soon in coming.

The issue announced that if “continued study” was the order of the day, the Mennonite Church General Board was equipped:

Study guide on military tax withholding from Mennonite Publishing House. Prepared at the request of Mennonite Church General Board, it is designed to facilitate discussion of the General Assembly request for “continued study of issues raised by taxation for military purposes.” It is entitled As Conscience and the Church Shall Lead. A response form is provided so that Sunday school classes, small groups, and individuals may provide feedback.

The Mennonite Church General Board met in and tried to pretend that the General Assembly hadn’t voted to go ahead with corporate tax resistance:

Question was also raised about the Normal decision regarding war taxes. Board members noted a lack of clarity on what the decision meant. Slightly more than half the delegates had agreed that churchwide agencies need not withhold the military portion of taxes for employees who request this. Moderator George Brunk Ⅲ noted the decision is valid but that it can be reconsidered following a churchwide study on war taxes currently underway.

They also issued a “Statement to our Mennonite churches on the Persian Gulf situation” that included this:

[T]he Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church General Boards take the following action:

That the General Boards express deep concern about and opposition to the military buildup and the growing threat of war in the Persian Gulf, reaffirm their biblical understanding that the will of God is for humankind to live in peace and harmony and that war and militarism are counter to God’s intentions, and call our congregations to the following:

To confess our own complicity and selfishness in utilizing more than our share of the world’s supply of oil and other resources and for our limited concern for long-standing injustices in the Middle East, and also to confess and reexamine our complicity in paying for the military buildup through our taxes.

The Mennonite Church General Board met again in and continued to put off making a firm decision in response to the mandate given them by the General Assembly:

They focused on the question of withholding war taxes for their employees. delegates to Mennonite General Assembly had authorized churchwide boards to honor requests of employees not to withhold the military portion of their income taxes; final decision was up to each board. Though it had been previously discussed in several meetings, General Board had made no decision on the issue.

Nor did it come easy this time. Board members raised questions about their financial liability. They acknowledged the burden of leadership: other churchwide boards were awaiting the General Board decision for help with their own.

In the end General Board agreed “to honor the request of an employee who for conscience’ sake requests that the military portion of his or her federal income tax not be withheld.” But they hedged. They made the action subject “to development of acceptable policies for implementation approved by the board.”

Miscellany

There was also plenty of content around this time that wasn’t directly prompted by the Mennonite Church board’s inaction.

For example, there was a series of letters-to-the-editor debating war tax resistance. Here are a pair of them, side-by-side:

Why I willingly pay my taxes

While paying taxes may be an economic burden to some, may be a question of conscience to others, and may be an accounting nightmare for many more, I willingly pay my taxes. Why?

  1. It is a matter of submission.

    “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.” ―Romans 13:1–2

    I am called to not only submit to God and to submit to my church leaders but also to submit to my civil authorities. The only time that I can refuse to obey the governing authority is when God’s law requires me to do otherwise.

  2. It is a matter of conscience.

    “You must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.” ―Romans 13:5–7

    For me the payment of taxes is not so much an attempt to avoid penalties, court orders, or imprisonment but it is a matter of Christian conscience.

  3. It is a matter of integrity.

    “ ‘Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?’ But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, ‘Why do you test Me, you hypocrites? Show Me the tax money.’ So they brought Him a denarius. And He said to them, ‘Whose image and inscription is this?’ They said to Him, ‘Caesar’s.’ And He said to them, ‘Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ ” ―Matthew 22:17–21

    I consider firstfruits tithing to be an important dimension of Christian living. However, should I render unto God the things that are God’s by tithing through my local church but fail to render to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar by paying my taxes, only one part of Jesus’ instruction would be fulfilled. To be a person of integrity requires me to both practice firstfruits tithing and to pay my taxes.

  4. It is a matter of honesty.

    “You shall not steal.” ―Exodus 20:15

    To steal is to take that which belongs to someone. The Israelites were told by the prophet Malachi that they had robbed God. The problem was not a pilfering of the temple storehouse, but rather a withholding of tithes and offerings. To keep back a portion of tax dollars that the Internal Revenue Service determines are due to my government would, in my opinion, be a form of stealing. To be a person of honesty requires me to pay my taxes in full.

  5. It is a matter of credibility.

    “Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men — as free, yet not using your liberty as a cloak for vice, but as servants of God.” ―1 Peter 2:13–16

    Admittedly, I have concern about some aspects of the federal budget. Reports of mismanagement, fraud, and excessive deficit spending are certainly not consistent with my understanding of fiscal responsibility. However, should I withhold a portion of my taxes as a means of protest when the Scripture specifically calls for the payment of such would be to lose my credibility and Christian witness. To have credibility in a world of many critics of the gospel, I must be careful to “do good” — in this case, to pay my taxes in full.

―Robert D. Wengerd, Coshocton, Ohio

In response to “Why I Willingly Pay My Taxes”…, I feel I must prayerfully challenge the author’s unquestioning willingness to pay all taxes while he in no way addresses the tax issue as it pertains to the military budget. In fact, the author’s own reasons for paying taxes are some of the same reasons I can no longer pay the portion of tax that finances the war machine.

The first point being a matter of submission, the author concludes that the only time he can refuse to obey the governing authority is when God’s law requires him to do otherwise. The law of God is that we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and love our neighbor as ourselves. How can I love my neighbor if I willingly pay for his murder? Hitler was able to do as much evil as he did because so many Christians submitted to human authority rather than God’s authority.

Second, it is a matter of conscience. I willingly and conscientiously give taxes, customs, fear, and honor to whom they are due (Rom. 14:5–7), but only as I can do so with a clear conscience before God. To willingly contribute to a system of oppression and murder under any nation’s flag is in conflict with what God calls me to do.

Third, it is a matter of integrity. To say that our firstfruits tithing goes to God and our taxes go to Caesar is to miss the point of what Jesus says in Matthew 22:17–21. Such an understanding puts God and Caesar on equal footing as though each is due equal allegiance. To be a person of integrity, I must offer all I have to God first, including my awareness of how my tax dollars are spent. I cannot with integrity refuse to bodily take part in killing another human made in God’s image, but be willing to pay someone else to do so.

Fourth, it is a matter of honesty. I don’t believe that refusing to pay for war is stealing from the government. Indeed, we pay for war by stealing from the poor. We have the choice to either help bring hope of a better life to our neighbors with needed services, housing, and education or take part in their oppression by buying weapons to protect us from them when they tire of watching their children starve to death.

Fifth, it is a matter of credibility. The author pays all taxes because he wishes not to lose his credibility and Christian witness. Of what and to whom are we witnesses? Are we credible witnesses to Jesus’ presence in our hearts to our brothers and sisters in Central America, such as the priests and church workers in El Salvador who were murdered by death squads trained and armed by our tax dollars? I might be willing to pay all my taxes if Congress passes the Peace Tax Fund bill which would allow those who are conscientious objectors to have their taxes used for nonmilitary purposes. But until that opportunity is available, I will no longer pay war taxes, but instead will put that money to use where it will nurture life and not poison it.

―Karl R. Yoder, Americus, Ga.

Adam R. Martin and Ervin Miller also chimed in, largely agreeing with Wengerd.

The “Taxes for Peace” fund gave its annual update in the issue:

MCC invites contributions to Taxes for Peace Fund

Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section is inviting contributions for the Taxes for Peace Fund. The fund, established in , gives people who want to withhold war taxes a way to contribute their money toward peaceful purposes. While contributing to this fund is a symbolic action and not a legal alternative to paying the tax, many people have found it a meaningful way to demonstrate their commitment to peace.

Last year, $5,750 in Taxes for Peace money was divided between the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund and Christian Peacemaker Teams. This year’s contributions will be divided the same way.

The National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund seeks to enact the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill, which would give those conscientiously opposed to war a way to pay 100 percent of their taxes by designating the military percentage to a separate fund for peace-enhancing programs. Christian Peacemaker Teams is an initiative of North American Mennonite and related churches to develop and support more assertive peacemaking.

MCC constituents have contributed more than $75,000 to the Taxes for Peace Fund. Among other projects, the money has funded reconstruction efforts in Indochina, aided victims of violence in Guatemala, and supported the MCC U.S. Peace Section.

The following excerpt is from one of several dozen letters sent to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in by contributors to the Taxes for Peace Fund: “We will sleep better tonight than if we would be helping to keep the murder machine going for the United States. And hopefully, all the people of the world will sleep better when we can all stop financing their death threats and death squads.” (John and Sandra Drescher-Lehman, Richmond, Va.)

Checks for the Taxes for Peace Fund should be made payable to “MCC, Taxes for Peace.”…

An information packet on military-tax opposition is available for $3 from MCC U.S. Peace Section. It contains varying theological positions on the war-tax issue and materials about tax laws and legal concerns for the tax resister. Updated materials are available for those who purchased earlier editions of the packet.

The issue announced a “Standing Up for Peace” contest in which young people (ages 15–23) “are urged to interview someone who has refused to fight in war, pay war taxes, or build weapons and then write an essay or song, produce a video, or create a work of art.” The MCC (U.S.) Peace Section was one of the sponsors.

One Mennonite congregation decided to take the lead and begin resisting the telephone excise tax as a group ():

St. Louis (Mo.) Mennonite Fellowship has decided to stop paying its telephone tax as a form of protest against military spending. Federal phone tax revenues, first collected in , contribute directly to the U.S. Armed Forces. “Though the biblical basis for such action has been debated, we wish to respect the convictions of our members and Anabaptist forebears and foremostly to be disciplined followers of Jesus Christ,” said Scott Neufeld, who coordinates the congregation’s peace witness. The congregation will send its tax money instead to Mennonite Central Committee.

Five European Mennonite theologians are proposing changes in a World Council of Churches statement that is being discussed at WCC’s Convocation on Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation in Seoul, South Korea, . One of them, Andrea Lange of West Germany, took the proposed revisions to Seoul as a representative of the Dutch Mennonite Church and the North German Mennonite Church, both of which are WCC members. The Seoul statement grows out of an extended “conciliar” process by WCC member churches. The Mennonite revisions call for the rejection of force and support for conscientious objectors to military service and those who refuse to pay war taxes. The revision also calls for the full use of women’s gifts in the church — and to “admit them to all church offices.”

The issue included an article on Mennonite martyrs of the World War Ⅰ period who were persecuted for refusing to buy war bonds (see ♇ 1 September 2018 for that article).

The Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries board of directors met in , and took their cue from the Mennonite Church board by putting things off for another time:

The issue of military tax withholding for MBCM employees was discussed at length. However, no action was taken. Since no MBCM employees are currently requesting that the military portion of their taxes not be withheld, the board agreed to wait for such a request before responding to the military tax withholding question.

In J. Lorne Peachey took over from Daniel Hertzler as editor. We haven’t heard from Peachey yet so I don’t know if he took any position in the war tax resistance debates that might influence his editorial positions.

A letter to the editor from John F. Murray used the war tax resistance issue as a rhetorical hook in the course of trying to prompt readers into tithing more to the Church.

Another letter, from Jim Leuba, in the issue, gave taxpaying Christians a pointed edge:

In reference to your suggestion in your editorial that we spend a day praying for “Peace in the Persian Gulf”…, I feel the following is an appropriate prayer:

“Lord, today I am praying for peace in the Persian Gulf. I pray our armies do not use the weapons I helped pay for with my tax dollars. Never mind. Lord, that I could live at an income level that did not require paying war taxes. And, Lord, a war will only increase the price of oil. I am so addicted to oil that I can’t imagine life without it. Never mind. Lord, that I use at least 10 times more fossil energy than 75 percent of the earth’s human population. Protect me. Lord; I am a North American Christian.”

The following syndicated news brief appeared in the issue:

Quaker group must garnish wages of tax-resisting employees

A Philadelphia Quaker organization must garnish the wages of its employees who fail to pay income tax for religious reasons, a federal judge in Philadelphia ruled. But Judge Norma Shapiro also said the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends cannot be penalized for failing to honor the levies imposed by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. The case involved the refusal of three Friends employees to pay the full amount of their taxes because part of it would go to the military, and that would violate their religious antiwar beliefs.

In her decision, Shapiro cited the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year in Employment v. Smith, the controversial Oregon peyote case. In denying unemployment benefits to two residents, the high court ruled that since ingestion of peyote was a crime in Oregon, “the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion proscribes (or prescribes).”

Eastern Canada Conference of Mennonites was struggling with the same issue of tax resisting employees that had troubled the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church (Ron Rempel reporting, ):

Canadian conference responds to military tax objectors

Waterloo, Ont. (Mennonite Reporter) — Two Ontario Mennonite leaders have declared their conscientious objection to the payment of military taxes. However, their employers have not yet decided whether or how to cooperate with the request to redirect military taxes for peaceful purposes.

Fred Martin, the student and young adult minister for Eastern Canada Conference, first raised the issue in . Jean-Jacques Goulet, pastor of Wilmot Mennonite Church, took a similar stand the week that the Persian Gulf War started. His church is waiting to see how the conference will resolve the matter.

, at its fall delegate meeting, the conference gave notice of a recommendation that will be dealt with at the annual meeting . That recommendation called on the conference to support Martin not forwarding to Revenue Canada the portion of his income tax used for military purposes.

Since the meeting, the executive board of the conference has looked more closely at how to proceed if the recommendation is accepted. The board has prepared an alternative resolution, calling on the conference: (1) to “withhold no income tax from the salary of any conference employee who requests this on the basis of conscience”; (2) to inform Revenue Canada and members of Parliament of the decision; (3) to ask the government to introduce legislation recognizing conscientious objection to payment of military taxes and to provide peaceful alternatives for use of these tax dollars; and (4) to support other church boards, agencies, and congregations that may adopt similar policies.

“As far as we know, no one in Canada has gone this route,” commented Sam Steiner, secretary of the conference. Others who have asked for the cooperation of employers in not paying military taxes have become “contract employees,” or “self-employed contractors.”

Eastern Canada Conference, however, is proposing to treat military tax objectors as full employees, and to continue all regular benefits and deductions, except for income tax deductions. It would be left to the employee to remit income taxes to Revenue Canada after redirecting the military portion.

This procedure has been used by the General Conference Mennonite Church after that denomination decided in to support military tax objectors. The Mennonite Church has made a similar commitment in principle, but has not yet decided on a procedure to use.

According to Steiner, the conference would technically be Hable for breaking tax laws by deciding not to collect income taxes for the government.

Reporter Ron Rempel followed up on that report with this:

Eastern Canada Conference rejects proposal on military tax deductions

Baden, Ont. (Mennonite Reporter) — After a vigorous debate, delegates to the annual meeting of Eastern Canada Conference, , defeated a proposal calling on the conference not to deduct income tax from employees who want to redirect the military portion for peaceful purposes. They also tabled an alternative resolution.

The conference executive board developed its proposal in response to a request from its student and young adult minister, Fred Martin. He indicated in that he objected on the basis of conscience to paying military taxes. He asked the conference — which is required by law to deduct all income taxes and remit them to Revenue Canada — to help him find a way to express his conscience.

In the recent Gulf War, “my body was not being conscripted, but my money was,” commented Martin in a brief presentation before delegates. “How can I pray for peace but pay for war?”

In introducing the proposal, conference secretary Sam Steiner said the executive board had not been unanimous. Some abstained from voting; others were against the proposal. He also said the proposed action could make the conference legally liable for breaking the Income Tax Act.

The legal question dominated the discussion by delegates. For example. Ken Musselman said military tax objectors should use other options, like increasing charitable donations or cutting back their overall income to reduce taxes. A number of delegates said that individuals who want to redirect military taxes should assume the legal liability themselves — for example, as contract employees — rather than expect conference to bear it. Others supported the proposal. They cited historical precedents such as World War Ⅰ conscientious objectors choosing jail rather than the military uniform.

A number who lined up at the open mikes said they liked the second part of the executive board’s proposal — to seek legislation recognizing conscientious objections to payment of military taxes — but objected to the first part — asking conference to defy current income tax laws.

The delegates then faced two choices: either table the executive board’s proposal or look at an alternative resolution.

The alternative, presented by Margot Fieguth, began with the second part of the original proposal: an attempt to work through legislative and legal avenues to secure recognition of conscientious objection to payment of military taxes and to provide peaceful alternatives. This resolution also suggested that conference offer Fred Martin a contract position, so that he, rather than conference, would be responsible to make income tax payments.

Delegates decided not to table the original proposal. But before they started debating the alternative, there were voices calling for a vote on the executive board’s proposal.

“I would like to hear the truth of where the conference stands on this issue,” said Jean-Jacques Goulet, pastor of Wilmot (Ont.) Mennonite Church. During the Gulf War he had declared himself a conscientious objector to military taxes. And his congregation was waiting to see how conference would respond to Fred Martin.

In a ballot vote, the executive board’s proposal was defeated 159-48. It was late in the evening. The alternative resolution was on the floor. But someone proposed that it be tabled till the next session of conference. The motion carried.

The “Taxes for Peace” war tax redirection fund gave its annual report in the issue:

Taxes for peace.

The Peace Section of Mennonite Central Committee U.S. is inviting contributions for the “Taxes for Peace” fund. Established in , it gives people who want to withhold war taxes a way to contribute their money to peaceful purposes. Donations last year totaled $3,700, and they were sent to the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund and to Christian Peacemaker Teams. More information is available from MCC U.S. Peace Section…

Nathan Zook Barge was quoted in a article as saying: “Can we say that we are pacifist when we are still paying taxes in support of war? Unless we are actively stopping that kind of support, I don’t think we are being heard as pacifists in Central America.”

Another General Assembly was held , and I’m sure the board of directors were on tenterhooks hoping that the Assembly would let them off the hook about implementing the decision they’d made at the previous General Assembly to begin refusing to withhold war taxes from the salaries of objecting employees.

Unfortunately, I see nothing in the Gospel Herald coverage that indicates that issue was addressed at all. Instead, there was a lot of talk about encouraging Mennonites to contribute more to the Peace Tax Fund lobbying effort.

Delegates did look to themselves in reconsidering a statement on the Peace Tax Fund. The statement had called on individual Mennonites to contribute to this fund. Noting that less than one percent had done so, this time delegates took action to urge conferences and congregations to put the Peace Tax Fund in their budgets.

The Peace Tax Fund would allow conscientious objectors to pay their taxes by diverting the military portion to a special trust fund. Efforts are currently underway to have the Fund be considered by lawmakers in the U.S.; a comparable campaign is also being considered in Canada.

Weldon and Marg Nisly of Cincinnati told how they are refusing to pay the portion of their taxes that goes to the military. The Internal Revenue Service has frozen their bank accounts and life for them has become more inconvenient, but Nisleys said this is one way for them to “say no to the military monster.” Their call for 100,000 other Mennonites to join them was met with applause.

Peace tax fund.

In Mennonite General Assembly went on record to encourage individuals to contribute to a peace tax fund campaign. Less than one percent of us did. So in Oregon delegates made their action stronger: they are now “urging” district conferences and local congregations to put the peace tax fund into their annual budgets.

So your congregation will need to make a decision about that “urging” some time in the next two years. Will you give expression to your belief in peace by supporting a congregational budget item to contribute to a peace tax fund? The contribution will be used to help sponsor legislation in both Washington and Ottawa to legitimatize a peace tax fund as an option for persons opposed to having their tax money used for military purposes.

The issue profiled “Seniors for Peace” and included this detail:

Some Seniors for Peace withhold the military portion of their income taxes and contribute it to a peace fund. Many actively support lobbying for legislation for a peace tax fund to provide alternative service for tax dollars.

And finally, a letter to the editor from Tim Nafziger urged Mennonites not to stop, satisfied by redirecting their taxes to a peace tax fund. “The Mennonite Church is called to do more than be morally pure,” he wrote.

After a flurry of interest in war tax resistance in the early 1960s, things simmered down a bit just as the focus of the tax resistance movement shifted from conscientious objection against nuclear-era militarism to protesting against the U.S. war in Vietnam.

Church of the Brethren: Messenger

A letter from Mary Blocher Smeltzer and Ralph E. Smeltzer to the Director of the IRS, announcing their tax resistance, took up a page in the issue of the Messenger (source):

We are filing our Income Tax Return with our District Director of Internal Revenue, but we are refusing to pay the $21.83 balance of the tax due, for reasons of conscience.

During the years it has been our practice to accompany our return with a statement protesting and strongly opposing the use of any of our tax money for military purposes, for war, and for preparation for war, and requesting that it be used only for the peaceful nonmilitary activities of our government.

Last year we also refused to pay the balance of the tax due, for reasons of conscience.

We are both Christian pacifists. One of us is a minister employed by the General Brotherhood Board of the Church of the Brethren. The other is a public school teacher.

We enthusiastically approve and support the constructive services and peaceful programs of our government. But we conscientiously object to war and preparation for war by reason of our religious training and belief. We especially oppose our country’s present program of producing and stockpiling nuclear, chemical, biological, and other weapons of mass destruction which are now capable of destroying the human race. We equally oppose similar programs by all other nations.

We would like to designate all of our income tax for the purposes of disarmament and preparation for disarmament, for increasing the constructive services and peaceful programs of our government, and for increasing the constructive and peaceful programs of the United Nations. But the Internal Revenue Code makes no provision for such designations. We are urging our legislators to work for such provisions and amendments in the code.

Most of our income tax has been withheld by our employers and forwarded to you. We have had no control over this action by our employers who in turn must follow this procedure by law.

However, as individuals we retain the choice as to whether we will pay the balance of the tax called for by the government, or whether we will not. We have decided to protest the use of our income tax for military purposes by refusing to forward the balance of our tax called for.

We recognize that the United States government may impose penalties upon us for not paying this portion of our income tax. We are prepared to accept the consequences of our Christian conscientious objection to the payment of our tax, at least seventy-five percent of which now goes for military purposes.

We do not desire to receive any personal privilege or gain from this refusal to pay the balance of our tax. We are contributing an equivalent amount to the Brethren Service Commission… for its program of peace and relief at home and abroad. A receipt for this contribution is enclosed.

The issue brought this news:

Taxes and conscience

A roster of 360 persons, among them professors, scientists, writers, doctors, clergymen, and entertainers, made public their refusal to pay voluntary part or all of their federal income taxes.

As critics of U.S. policy in Vietnam, the signers declared that American forces there are “clearly being used in violation of the U.S. Constitution, international law, and the United Nations Charter.”

Their statement, published in newspapers this spring, deplored “the spectacle of the United States with its jet bombers, helicopters, fragmentation and napalm bombs, and disabling gas, carrying on an endless war against the hungry, scantily armed Vietnamese guerrillas and civilians” and compared such action to Italian atrocities in Ethiopia and Russia’s intervention in Hungary. It further drew parallels between “the indifference of Americans to the crimes being committed in their names, by their brothers and with their tax money” and the indifference of most Germans to the slaughter of Jews.

Two of the signers, Ralph and Mary Smeltzer, Elgin, Ill., have refused to pay voluntarily the unwithheld portion of their federal income tax for four years, opposing the use of tax moneys for military purposes. The outcome has been the government’s attaching the balance in wages.

“While only the unwithheld portion of the tax is all we have control over, we protest the sixty percent of every tax dollar used for military purposes,” said Mr. Smeltzer, who is Brotherhood director of peace and social education. “At the same time we voice approval and support for the constructive and peaceful programs of the government.

“If enough people express themselves a change in the law may be made allowing people to designate how their income tax will be used.” Mr. Smeltzer added, “or the program and policy of military expenditures may be reduced.

“Whether our actions do any good or not, we have to do what we conscientiously feel.”

This open letter from Russell F. Helstern appeared in the issue:

“I Confess I Am Deeply Troubled”

It’s tax time again! Tax paying is a privilege and a responsibility of every American citizen. To my knowledge I have never voted against a bond issue or a tax levy, nor have I ever been delinquent in the payment of my taxes. Good government and the needed community services can be secured and maintained only through the willingness of citizens to assume this civic responsibility.

Right now my desk is cluttered with income tax forms, family ledgers and accounts, scribbling paper, and a box of aspirins within easy reach. The aspirins are not alone for eyestrain and headache from long hours of juggling elusive figures but serve more as an opiate for a troubled conscience. As a Christian and a responsible world citizen I am genuinely disturbed as I sit here ready to write my income tax check.

For many years I have met the dilemma of conscience by sending with each income tax return and check a letter of protest for paying that portion of my tax that would be used for military purposes and requesting that it be allocated to humanitarian and legitimate constructive areas of service but at the same time knowing it would all go into the same till.

With poised pen ready to write the check, I become suddenly aware that last year’s income tax check helped to purchase the bombs that fell on Hanoi, tearing huge, gaping craters in residential areas quite remote from military targets, as Harrison Salisbury of the New York Times has informed us by photos and news dispatches. It was my income tax check of last year that helped purchase napalm bombs that were dropped indiscriminately on areas of South Vietnam, inflicting unimaginable suffering and death on innocent and helpless women and children who, by the remotest stretch of imagination, could not be held responsible for any part of this conflict.

It was my income tax check of last year and the year before that helped pay the cost of the defoliation of the Vietnamese rice fields and croplands, accentuating the problem of hunger and starvation in a world much of which is already locked in a grim race with death from mass starvation.

The pen is still poised and I am deeply troubled. I stand before almighty God, who holds me individually responsible for the use I make of the resources he has placed at my disposal. (The Nurenberg war criminal trials taught us that!) I am not absolved of guilt for crimes committed at my country’s insistence. And so as a Christian and one who tries to be a responsible world citizen I confess I am deeply disturbed.

I’m not sure what’s going on here. After years of frequent coverage of war tax resistance inside and outside the church, now the magazine retreats to reprinting some timid hand-wringing about being “deeply disturbed” about paying taxes for war crimes without even alluding to resistance as an option.

War tax resistance came up at the Annual Conference in as the Church voted to issue “A Call for Peace in Vietnam” (source):

One specific step urged for congregations proved to be the subject of some debate. It was a proposal that congregations should oppose legislation which would increase taxes designed specifically to support the war. One delegate was eager to have this sentence eliminated from the statement, but his amendment failed. Another delegate proposed that a sentence be added that would urge members to consider seriously whether they should continue to pay income taxes that might be used for the support of the war. This amendment also failed to gain support.

In a later issue, remarks of a Catholic observer of the Brethren conference were summarized this way: “[he] summed up the Brethren statement on Vietnam and recounted a plea by a Midwest minister urging members to consider whether they should pay income tax in light of its heavy use for war purposes. ‘The assembly listened politely to the young man and then defeated his amendment.’ ” (source)

The issue included a “Special Report” on phone tax resistance as an option for people who wanted to resist a “war tax”:

“The act is small but the meaning is large. It clearly says that this war is not our war.”

The Campaign to Hang Up on War

In its “Call for Peace in Vietnam” (see [above]) Annual Conference in urged congregations to oppose legislation which would increase taxes designed specifically to support the war in Vietnam.

One such tax already enacted (though not mentioned in the Annual Conference statement) is the ten percent federal excise tax on telephone charges. The tax, which once had been reduced to three percent and was due to be dropped entirely in , was reinstated in . Rep. Wilbur D. Mills (D., Ark.), who managed the tax legislation in the House, is quoted in the Congressional Record () as saying: “It is clear that the Vietnam and only the Vietnam operation makes this bill necessary.”

War protest: In protest to the Vietnam “operation” — particularly the mass bombings, napalming, support of the Ky government, and other aspects of U.S. military involvement — a group of several hundred persons have begun boycotting the telephone tax on the grounds that it is singularly a war tax. The refusal is treated by phone companies as a matter between the individual and the government, and phone service has not been interrupted. In fact, according to some sources, the telephone company has rather welcomed the protests, for it has long opposed the excise tax, though for a different reason.

At Staten Island, New York, the telephone company reportedly reminded a tax-refusing customer that she had neglected to withhold the tax in one payment, and it credited her account with the amount of the tax.

Sponsor: Promoted by the Committee for Non-Violent Action (5 Beekman Street, Room 1033, New York, N.Y. 10038), the campaign of telephone tax refusal has been dubbed, “Hang Up on War!” According to CNVA staff member Valerie Herres in New York, some 800 persons have made known their refusal to CNVA. Colleague Karl Meyer in Chicago says the actual number of telephone tax protesters likely exceeds 2,000, including members of at least two Church of the Brethren congregations.

In withholding the excise tax from payments, individuals are urged always to include a note explaining the omission. The CNVA asks also that protesters inform them of their stand.

In , after the Chicago Daily News carried a front-page story on the campaign, the district director of Internal Revenue within two weeks sent to the withholding parties first notices of direct assessment. However, for most of the recipients no actual collection was yet made several months later.

The CNVA makes clear to tax refusers that in the severest application of the law, under the criminal penalties act, one who “willfully fails to pay” the phone tax could possibly be charged with a misdemeanor, under Section 7203 of the Internal Revenue Code, and be imprisoned up to a year and fined up to $10,000. It is also possible that one could be charged with attempt to “evade or defeat” the phone tax, under a section carrying a stiffer penalty.

On the record: Testimony of Internal Revenue Service officials on the matter before the House Subcommittee Hearings on Appropriations for the Departments of Treasury Post Office, and Executive (as quoted in Peacemaker magazine ) went as follows:

Mr. Robison (congressman).
That is income tax. Unpaid excise taxes will be pretty small per individual, however, unless it accumulates over a period of years.
Mr. Cohen (IRS director).
If necessary we collect small amounts, and we have. I think it will be less convenient for them than it will for us.
Mr. Bacon (assistant director).
We have about eighty-five cases pending in Illinois and above thirty-five in Ohio. It is a nuisance situation because the tax is small.
Mr. Cohen.
But we do not intend to sit by. People cannot pick and choose which laws of the United States they will obey and those which they will not.
Mr. Robison.
I agree wholeheartedly, but I want to know what your policy is.
Mr. Cohen.
We intend to vigorously follow up any of these cases and collect the tax. We may let several months accumulate and do it all at once.

Exaggeration? In reflecting on the above testimony, Karl Meyer of the Chicago Workshop in Nonviolence commented to Messenger:

“This exaggerates somewhat the vigor of their determination. I have been refusing for over a year (and income taxes for seven years), and they have yet to collect a cent from me. To my knowledge they have thus far collected from only two or three of the Illinois refusers, and in those cases only the initial couple months of unpaid tax. In two cases the taxes were taken from bank accounts after unsuccessful visits from IRS agents. In one case a bank charged a fee of $10 for handling this transaction, and in the other case a bank charged $5. In a third case the tax was collected by attachment against a paycheck. Agents have visited several other refusers and have sometimes made threats of serious action, but in the three cases cited the serious action turned out to be no more than collection by seizure.”

Toward what end? What is the point of refusal? Mr. Meyer put it this way:

“The future will be different only if we change our lives. The act is small, but the meaning is large: This war is not our war, and we are willing to struggle to be on the side of life.”

From some Brethren involved in the telephone tax “hang up” came the explanation that it is one direct means, small yet tangible, of dissenting to the United States’ action in Vietnam. “It probably will not change government policy,” one member said, “but it does something to me. It lays my witness on the line.”

In light of the vote by Annual Conference delegates against amending “A Call to Peace” to express support for income tax refusal as a means of peace action, many Brethren likely would be reticent to join in telephone tax refusal.

Still, even the prospect of income tax dissent is up for study by the Brethren Service Commission. Prompted by a request last fall from the Pacific Southwest Conference board, a five-member committee has been named to explore federal income tax alternatives.

In the meantime, for those who choose, telephone tax refusal appears as a modest but viable means of voicing concern over the Vietnam war.

In response, Ethel Weddle wrote in to the issue to say that she didn’t have any reluctance in paying her taxes in spite of her disapproval of the government’s military policy. Civil disobedience is too dangerous, she thought, as it opens the door to all manner of lawbreaking: “giving those people with less than Christian ideals the go-go sign to disobey, rob, destroy, and kill” (source).

Horner M. Eby replied to this in the issue (source). Excerpt:

Ethel Weddle makes some cogent points in her letter… Withholding federal telephone excise tax is a rather picayune gesture. I am doing it. The Internal Revenue Service is not long-suffering. The IRS man has visited our home twice and has levied against our checking account both times, so that we are never more than eight months in arrears on this tiny tax.

If I really meant business, I should reduce my income enough to eliminate my income tax, which is a hundred times greater. Then, of course, I could not give to the church an amount comparable to my income tax, nor to the FOR, the AESC, the ACLU, SNCC, SCLC, SOS, the Chicago Area Draft Resisters, and the DuPage Draft Resisters.

In the debate over the proper response by Christians to government demands that they pay for war spilled over into the more conservative branches of American Brethren.

Church of the Brethren: Messenger

In the General Board of the Church of the Brethren met. Among the items on the agenda was an invitation for them to stop paying the phone tax as an institution (source):

In still another action, a review of the federal excise tax on telephone service, the General Board by a 2 to 1 ratio voted down a motion that would have discontinued the voluntary payment of the tax. Proponents of the motion alleged that the tax was instituted by the government to help cover costs of the Vietnam war.

Dorothy and Paul Brumbaugh shared their letter to President Nixon in the issue (source):

Preparing our income tax form and realizing that about sixty-six percent of our tax will go for purposes of war, past, present, and future, force us to examine our values.

For the past two years we have refused voluntary payment of our U.S. income tax. We wish this year to reaffirm our previous stance and to emphasize even more emphatically (1) our abhorrence of mass murders in Vietnam and other places in the world in the name of freedom; (2) our opposition to the widespread fear generated by promotion of the ABM system; and (3) our disappointment in the neglect of hunger, housing, and education.

We also wish to affirm that governmental authority is within the will and plan of God. We regret that our government refuses to accept the God-given authority and chooses instead the authority of power and the “almighty” dollar.

We urge you to help our government to place more emphasis on humanizing efforts and much less on the dehumanization of the war effort. We desire that our funds be used for human development. It is possible to choose not to participate in the Social Security program, a program helpful to many persons. Why not also the opportunity of choice in supporting the military?

The issue featured Ralph Dull, a member of the Church of the Brethren and also a long-shot peace candidate for Congress (source). The article noted:

For the last eleven years, the Dulls [Ralph & Joy] have refused to pay the percentage of their income tax that would be allocated to military spending, an amount of one half to two thirds of a tax figure. The government has attached his bank account for that amount plus interest.

Brethren Missionary Herald

The Brethren Missionary Herald reported on the Annual Conference of the National Fellowship of Brethren Churches (source). This is a more conservative group than those organized under the Church of the Brethren, and this is reflected in what its Selective Service Committee had to say about paying war taxes. That said, the statement was sincerely searching about Brethren economic entanglement with war:

The presence of the military establishment in American life embraces much more than the problem of whether our sons accept military duty or claim conscientious objection. The believer should realistically recognize the extent to which the military has invaded the whole of our lives and the probability that it will assume in the future an even more critical influence. Let us carefully consider several grim realities and possibilities.

To begin with, our American system of taxation is so structured that every adult member of our society, from the oldest retiree to the youngest wage earner makes his contribution to the local, state or national government. Huge chunks of these taxes are earmarked for the military. Whether we like it or not we are involuntary contributors to the support of the military and are therefore participants. Indeed, as law abiding citizens we believe we have an obligation to support our rulers (Romans 13). Thus we are involved.

Furthermore, we must think fairly and logically about the very financial structure of our country and thus face a very disturbing reality. Our economy is based upon the foundation of the investment of capital. Each of us has been taught to save our money, to bank it, to invest it wisely. Central in our economy is the building loan deposit, the government bond, the insurance policy, stocks and bonds and even the lowly savings account. These monies, trustfully placed by us in the hands of financial experts, are reinvested for our benefit. The returns are then paid to our accounts. It is common knowledge that tremendous amounts of investors’ money are spent to develop defense businesses. Again we are involved.

Again, let us be reminded that a large segment of America’s work force supports the military. The day is long gone when we can say that a few munitions makers supply the powder and ball for the military or that the Philadelphia Quartermaster Depot has purchased a supply of clothing and food for the soldiers. Government contracts are eagerly sought by nearly every industry. The sophisticated weaponry, communications systems and transportation systems consume material far removed from the conventional concept of war items. The huge maw of the military gulps down huge quantities of goods of every description. Thus from the farm, the mine, the forest, the ocean and from every type of manufacturing and assembly plants unnumbered items flow into the channels marked military. How does one know whether or not he has been a part of this nationwide effort?

In , war tax resisters in the Church of the Brethren were eager to find precedent for their beliefs and actions in the history of the Brethren as they pressured the church to dip its toes into corporate resistance by divesting itself of U.S. government bonds.

Church of the Brethren: Messenger

In the issue, the Messenger reproduced an excerpt from the script of a play by Gary Rowe that dramatized a dilemma for Brethren conscientious objectors during the American Civil War (source). While, as far as I could determine, in historical fact Brethren typically paid the commutation tax to avoid service without complaint, in the play this became a contested issue. Excerpts:

Thomas:
The great house of this nation is torn apart into two hostile camps. I fear that tonight I will divide the house of my own father. For that, I pray forgiveness. I cannot stand with my brother [who joined the military]. Nor can I accept the offer my father made to me today, the offer to pay the tax to exempt me from service in the army.
William:
(Jumping up) Then let us pay it!
Thomas:
Thank you, but I cannot permit that either.
Jacob:
You are aware, Brother Thomas, that our brotherhood has recommended that each church help its members who are drafted to pay the tax?
Thomas:
I know that, too. But I want to stand before you now, not with you but in front of you, to bear witness to my own faith. I hope that some of you may find it in your hearts to stand with me.
William:
But Sister Wolfe does have a point, Thomas. Wouldn’t it be easier to pay the tax and avoid this danger?
Thomas:
Yes. It would be easier. But would it be true to our faith?
Jacob:
Our churches have declared that our members may pay the tax in order to avoid military service.
Thomas:
But is that why our fathers came to this country? They came to get away from coercion. They came to a land where they could obey their conscience, without being punished by the state! Now… are we to bear arms in violation of our covenant as a people of God? The answer must be no. But are we also to pay taxes levied on us to avoid that service, taxes that burden us for holding fast to God’s Word? Does the state have the right to punish us, in any way, for our faith? To tell us we can believe what we like as long as we pay for others to violate those beliefs?
Adam:
(His head still lowered) Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God—
Thomas:
(Retorting) Shall I give my life, my blood, to serve Caesar, or shall I lay it down for God? (Pause) This matter involves more for us than the simplicity of giving up a coin in our pocket!

Brethren peace activists were eager to find or imagine precedents for their stand in Brethren history. Later the same year, T. Wayne Rieman would write (source):

The early Brethren were conscientious objectors to the coercive practices of the state and church: compelling people to join or leave the church of Christ, baptizing children before they understood its meanings, forcing people to take oaths, conscripting for the military, and levying war taxes.

To all of these the Brethren answer was: No! The overruling of the conscience is wrong — always wrong.

The Brethren… supported government, paid taxes without opposition (except war taxes)…

But the older Brethren practices I have noticed around war taxes (though I’ve only been looking at the U.S., and only back as far as the mid-19th century) were much more ambiguous than this, and if anything, promoted paying taxes willingly whether they were called war taxes or not.

“An Open Letter to IRS” from “S.K. and M.K.” appeared in the issue. Excerpt:

Please be informed that as a matter of conscience we cannot pay that portion of our income tax which has not been withheld. We would hold ourselves unjust if, after having seen how this war has been both reflection and cause of the unwholeness of Americans; having seen almost daily the evidence of the vast destructiveness of the war in terms of human life and the ecology of Indochina; having recognized the militaristic use of a large percentage of public monies — a use which makes war more not less inevitable; after having been taught by Anabaptist Brethren heritage that all war is evil and madness and contrary to God and man; and after having tasted of the life-giving spirit whose joy is love and forgiveness, we would indeed be unjust hypocrites if, after all this, we supported with our taxes what we hold with all our heart, mind, and soul to be an abomination in the sight of God and an offense against man.

War tax resistance and the long-ignored issue of war bonds came up at the Annual Conference that year. The Messenger reported (source):

Attempts to force the Board to sell all U.S. bonds and to refuse to pay the telephone tax which is used for war purposes, were unsuccessful.

A later letter-writer gave some details about how this came about, expressing frustration that Brethren activists were not putting forth their efforts in a way that was calculated for success (source):

Many of us learned with some surprise that among the holdings of the General Board there are war bonds. We would have been eager to support a motion instructing the Board to dispose of these bonds at its earliest convenience. But we did not get that motion. Instead we were offered a motion by the Brethren Action Movement that we do not accept the report of the Board until they first dispose of such bonds. Very few of us are willing to use our approval for last year’s work as a weapon to hold over the heads of the Board until they do our will on a new item.

A later National Youth Conference, however, tried to keep the item on the agenda (source):

[T]he conference voted to “affirm anew our faith and allegiance in the Lord Jesus Christ and in so doing oppose war and the support of war in all forms. Consistent with this faith… we commend the General Board to immediately dispose of, at any cost, all U.S. government bonds under its jurisdiction and control… We call upon the church to have the courage to be Brethren.”

The Church of the Brethren decided to divest from U.S. government bonds, and considered engaging in corporate phone tax refusal as well, and in the debate began to spill over into more conservative branches of American Brethren.

Church of the Brethren: Messenger

Chuch Investment in U.S. Bonds

In , the Church of the Brethren General Board met, and among the items on the agenda was Church investments in the war industry and in U.S. government bonds. The Messenger covered this in its edition (source). Excerpt:

Government bond ownership by the church, like the war that bonds are said to support, may be winding down, but not winding up — as some persons are urging. Replying to the National Youth Conference resolution calling on the church to dispose of all government bonds, the General Board rejected a proposed reply from its investment committee and asked the Administrative Council to bring further options in March for handling fiscal operations without the use of bonds. Board members also called for the investment committee to consider selling any stocks held with the dozen top corporations supplying war materials.

The rejected proposal would have put the board on record as reconfirming its opposition to war, not purchasing additional bonds as long as the national budget is so heavily military oriented, permitting the sale of bonds held as cash needs arise, and opposing immediate liquidation of the remaining bonds held.

Board views ranged from those who sought to dispose of the $617,933 in bonds held by the church “as a witness to the nation” for peace, to those who saw the bonds supporting many good things of government. Other arguments against disposal included the cash liquidity on short notice of the bonds, the loss that would be suffered in the sale of the bonds, and the fact that $259,880 of the total is pledged for a Bethany Seminary loan.

One staff member challenged the assumption that the bonds are a means of financing the war, but rather lend stability to the government. Another indicated that the cash put into a savings account could be invested by the bank in bonds anyway, and that the church owed a fiscal responsibility to donors of the money in not risking a financial loss in any premature sale of the bonds.

“The government bonds in the investment portfolio are not considered war bonds,” noted the board’s investment committee, “but are issues which were put out from time to time for general government operations, including programs that we enthusiastically support.”

Many of the bonds held by the Brethren were purchased in the 1950s, and no further purchases have been made since 1965. During the past fiscal year the church sold half a million dollars in government bonds.

Likely to come before the Cincinnati Conference next year is a query from Southern Ohio that the church investigate payment of the telephone tax and the holding of U.S. government securities which are believed to support war.

The issue brought more details about where these queries were coming from (source). Excerpt:

Southern Ohio district is bringing a query to the Conference asking for a study of the payment of the telephone tax and the holding of U.S. government securities by the church’s national offices.

Likewise, the Pacific Southwest Conference, at the initiation of some youth and the Lynnhaven, Phoenix, and Glendale, Ariz., congregations, has requested Annual Conference to “consider the moral question of holding United States Savings Bonds when we as a church are trying to divorce ourselves as far as possible from the military-industrial complex.”

The General Board gave in to the pressure, as reported in the issue (source). Excerpt:

The Church of the Brethren General Board will sell its stock holdings in corporations directly producing defense or weapons-related products and its governmental securities that are believed to channel funds into military appropriations.

Meeting at Elgin, Ill., in , the board also tightened its investment guidelines, declaring that words and acts should be brought together “so that the clearest possible witness can be given to the inclusive reconciling love of Christ.” The statement recognized, however, that “at any given moment the commitment can be one of direction only — it cannot be one of absolute achievement.”

The implication is that mergers and company reorganizations sometimes bring into the firm products or ideals inconsistent with the Brethren stance.

Based on market prices the divestment of stocks represents four percent of the general investment portfolio and 6.5 percent of the pension fund portfolio. US Treasury bonds being sold amount to $248,813. The board declined, however, to sell the $274,894 in bonds pledged for a loan to Bethany Theological Seminary. They will be sold only as they are released from escrow.

Board treasurer Robert Greiner estimated a loss of $18,300 instead of an $18,000 gain that would have been realized if the bonds had been held until maturity. Any possible loss on the stock investments being sold and reinvested was not known.

Last year’s National Youth Conference in a resolution urged the board to sell its US Treasury bonds. And in the National Council of Churches’ Corporate Information Center, in which the Brethren participate, divulged the stock-holdings of ten denominations in the top 60 firms in military sales. The Church of the Brethren had investments in nine such companies, totaling $329,258 in cost value prices. The church’s pension fund also held $613,303 of common stocks in 13 corporations appearing in the list.

The revised guidelines now declare that the board will not knowingly invest in corporations producing defense or weapons-related products; in companies which fail to practice fair and equal employment opportunities; nor in banks or firms which transact business with governments having apartheid policies. Similarly prohibited are investments in the tobacco and alcoholic beverage industries and companies making excessive profit.

More positively, the guidelines stipulate the board will invest in companies working to improve the environment, in government agencies that are clearly non-military, and in such industries as food, housing, clothing, utilities, education, and medical supplies.

When the board discovers that it has holdings in a company that does not meet the religious, racial, or social ideals of the church’s official statements, the investment committee may approach the company or speak at stockholders’ meetings. Failing to effect a change in company policy, the stocks are to be sold.

Producing the sharpest disagreement was the question as to whether government bonds contribute to the Vietnam war effort or simply toward regular government operations. Still, a strong majority of the board believed that the bonds directly supported the war effort and should be divested.

Such action, some contended, bespeaks a “disengagement from the US government” and fails to recognize that a large part of the federal budget goes toward programs of which Brethren could heartily approve.

On the other hand, a couple speakers noted that even in such nonmilitary programs as agriculture and economic development, government policy can be repressive and manipulative and divergent from Brethren ideals.

Moderator Dale W. Brown of Lombard, Ill., said that the church needs to confess its credibility gap. “I’m calling for an acknowledgment that we haven’t done our best.”

Among a few board members disassociating themselves from the majority action was Jesse H. Ziegler of Dayton, Ohio. He described the sale of the government bonds as a “divisive act that finally will drive the Church of the Brethren to the point of increasingly making people ask what we’re about.” He pleaded for the board to take healing and compromising action that would leave room for various views among the membership.

The board’s officers were instructed to estimate any loss of principal or income that may accrue from the divestment of Treasury obligations and issue an appeal for interested members to make special contributions so that the ongoing ministry of the church or the equity of the pension funds will not be curtailed. The guidelines are also commended to other church agencies and to individuals.

Despite the eight hours over two days of sometimes intense debate, David B. Rittenhouse of Dunmore, W. Va., expressed the feeling of most board members in saying that he voted for divestment of the stocks and bonds not with enthusiasm, but out of genuine humility, struggle, and soul-searching.

The discussion of the issue at the General Conference was covered in the issue (source):

Investments: What is Caesar’s, what is due to God?

⋮

the General Board voted (not unanimously) to divest itself of government bonds and stocks in corporations involved in defense-related contracts. The action resulted in some loss of income and brought severe criticism from many individuals and from some congregations.

Conference delegates, however, voted to approve the Board’s investment guidelines which state that the Board will not knowingly purchase securities in corporations or industries that are “direct producers of defense or weapons-related products; involved in tobacco and alcoholic beverage produce: involved in unfair employment practices; or involved in excessive profits.”

In reporting to the Conference the Board indicated that it had decided to sell all US Treasury bonds or notes except for those pledged to secure a loan for Bethany Theological Seminary. Disposing of these prior to their maturity resulted in a loss of more than $20,000. The church’s holding of US Government bonds was questioned at its last Annual Conference and forcefully opposed by the national conference of Brethren youth. In commending the Cincinnati conference for its support of the Board’s action, the Rev. Wendell Flory, a delegate from Staunton, Virginia, noted the persistence of youth in their opposition to war and urged them to help make up the financial loss resulting from following the new investment policies.

War Tax Resistance

In addition to the bond investments issue, ordinary war tax resistance was also a topic of discussion.

The inaugural issue of included a profile of Church of the Brethren moderator Dale W. Brown (source) that noted: “He refuses to pay his telephone tax because it was levied specifically for war.”

The issue noted (source): “The La Verne, Calif., church board voted to support the Southern California Telephone War Tax Suite, involving the withholding of the ten-percent federal excise tax.”

The Annual Conference debate over whether the Church of the Brethren should resist the phone tax corporately was covered in the issue (source):

Telephone tax: Delegates decline to counsel tax refusal

…[D]elegates in are not quite ready yet to counsel tax refusal for their Board and its offices. They were made aware that a growing number of individual Brethren as well as some Brethren institutions have been refusing to pay the telephone excise tax, which they say is specifically designated as a “war tax” helping support the Vietnam war.

The Conference agreed to appoint a committee of five to study “the problem of the Christian’s response to taxation for war.” But they voted down a proposal directing the General Board to withhold payment of the tax on the telephone service to its Elgin, Ill., headquarters. Board officers said that the tax, which amounts to about $130 a month, currently is paid under protest.

Earlier conference statements on the payment of war taxes, while deploring the use of tax monies for war purposes and recognizing the right of tax refusal, noted several optional choices and left the decision up to individuals.

General Board member Leon Neher, Quinter, Kan., said in the floor debate that he regarded refusal to pay war taxes as being compatible with a positive attitude toward government. He said “resistance comes because of our love for our nation.”

Other delegates noted that a study was needed so that members could be aware of the legal implications as well as the moral implications of tax refusal.

(The members selected “[t]o study a response to taxation for war” were Dene E. Denlinger, Galen Detwiler, Vemard Eller, James F. Meyer, and Robert B. Myers.)

The issue brought this news: “In Illinois the York Center congregation has voted to ‘instruct the church treasurer not to pay the federal excise tax on the church telephone as an act of conscience against the Indo-China war, and that the Internal Revenue Service be informed of the decision.’ Pastor Dean Miller noted, ‘We felt we’ve tried all [other] channels open to us.’ ” (source)

The Etownian

All this while I’ve been scanning through issues of the Elizabethtown College student newspaper, The Etownian to see if there has been any mention of tax resistance there. Finally, in the issue, there’s a mention of “A Tent (‘Freedom’) City” that was being erected on campus and hosting teach-ins (source). The first one on the agenda: a 45-minute discussion of “tax resistance.”

A later report (source) said that a rainstorm had cut into attendance, but that the teach-ins had gone on:

Ted Landon started the morning by speaking on the background of resistance and its meaning for the individual who practices it. Bob Blatt enlarged on this as it related to tax resistance. He pointed out that 61% of the nation’s yearly budget is spent for military matters, and that all other pressing bills must be paid from the remaining 39%.

The Brethren Evangelist

The stodgy Brethren Evangelist was forced to take note when the General Board of the Church of the Brethren decided to divest from military industries and U.S. government bonds, though they merely reprinted a wire service dispatch about it (source):

Brethren Will Drop Defense Investments

Elgin, Ill. (EP)— All holdings in corporations directly involved in defense or weapons-related industries will be dropped by the General Board of the Church of the Brethren.

The vote, not unanimous, was seen as an attempt by the denomination to bring its investment practices into line with its peace pronouncements.

The church officials also voted to sell $248,813 in U.S. Treasury bonds and not to purchase new governmental securities that might channel funds into military appropriations.

The board of 25 members also voted to withhold investments from companies failing to practice fair and equal employment opportunities, and from banks or firms which transact business with governments having apartheid policies.

Bible Monitor

Even the Bible Monitor finally added its voice to the debate. It included an article on “The Christian’s Relation to the Nation” in the issue that touched on the war tax resistance issue:

The Christian also obediently pays his taxes (Romans 13:6,7; Luke 20:25). One pacifist used his “fist” against the government by calling upon Christians to withhold some of their taxes (war taxes) by saying that when Christ said, we are to “render… unto Ceasar the things which be Ceasar’s,” He did not say how much.

May we remember that Christ did tell us how much to pay to the state when He said that we should render that which bears his image. Therefore, when the nation asks for it, we give it to them and it is never our responsibility to tell the government how it may use its money. If I owe a person some money, I have no right to refuse to pay it on the grounds that he will not use it properly. Nor can I refuse it unless he promises to use it the way I say he should.

While we find it our duty to pay Ceasar his required tax, it would be contrary to the principle of the Scripture to voluntarily or otherwise invest in war bonds, thereby becoming an investor in the war program. No non-resistant person would want to make a profit on the war.

In , a Church of the Brethren committee formed to study the war tax resistance issue released its report, which went nowhere near far enough for those promoting resistance. One called it a “slap in the face of the tax refusers, but perhaps we needed it.”

Church of the Brethren: Messenger

The issue of the Messenger printed a letter from John & Sandy Zinn, wrote to who “commend the General Board for selling their government bonds and stock in ‘war corporations’ ” and enclosed a check “to help offset the financial loss incurred by this decision,” encouraging others to do the same (source). “If all individuals and churches refused to let their money be spent for war, it would certainly become more difficult to wage war.”

The issue briefly noted that “[t]he Worthington church, Reading, Minn., in joined congregations withholding the excise tax on their telephone bill, in opposition to the Vietnam war” (source).

The issue introduced readers to the Clark family (source): “Mike and Lois decided to enter totally into volunteer ministry. One factor was their opposition to US participation in the war in Southeast Asia. Lois told the congregation last summer: ‘We lacked the courage to defy our government by withholding taxes. So, we decided to live on a subsistence income. We then will not have to contribute taxes supporting the Vietnam War.’ ”

The issue reported on a “Cost of Discipleship” group formed in the Southern Ohio District whose work “has included investigation of war-tax resistance” (source). “In personal responses, some members of the group have withheld the percentage of the income tax which goes for war purposes. Others have refused to pay the federal excise tax on the telephone and sent a like amount of money as a ‘second-mile’ gift to an Alternative Fund.”

Later in that issue, Bob Gross described reluctance to resist war taxes as a symptom of a lack of faith (source). Excerpts:

Although we claim to believe in the power of the Spirit, it seems we more often choose to base our lives on worldly power. We say we love our enemies, yet many of us follow the government’s call to war, many of us work for or invest in companies which produce weapons, and most of us willingly pay the taxes which make war possible. We pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” while we surround ourselves with new cars, carpets, and color televisions. We call God our protector, yet we live behind locked doors and life insurance.

We have our excuses, of course, but Jesus strikes down every one of them. We say that we have a “right” to whatever possessions and comforts we can afford, but Jesus would instruct us as he did the rich young man: “Sell your possessions and give to the poor… and come follow me” (Matt. 19:21). We say that if we quit our job at General Electric because GE is a major war contractor, it will mean a loss of salary and position. Or we cry that we can’t live on an income below taxable levels, because we need more money than that. Jesus said, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow and reap and store in barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. You are worth more than the birds!” (Matt. 6:26), and “I tell you this: a rich man will find it hard to enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:23).

The expression of our faith must not be confined to our spare time. We are called to love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength. Halfway is not enough. This means we must quit our jobs if they contribute to war or to the destruction of God’s world, we must refuse payment of taxes for war purposes if we believe that human life is sacred, and we must cease laying up treasures on earth. When we refuse to answer to worldly power, we can then turn our energies to the bringing in of the kingdom. We can then “be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.”

Charles Beyer penned an essay “On taxes for war purposes” for that issue as well. Excerpt:

In the Church of the Brethren General Board adopted a statement entitled Taxes for War Purposes. In it our denomination urged us to consider whether or not we can conscientiously pay taxes to support war and military purposes.… To remind us of the statement, portions are quoted here:

The church recognizes and encourages freedom of conscience regarding war and the payment of taxes for war purposes. Although it recommends alternative service instead of military service* it recognizes that not all members will hold the belief which the church recommends. The same may be said regarding the payment of taxes for war purposes. Although the church opposes the use of federal taxes for war purposes and military expenditures, it recognizes that not all members will hold this belief and that, even among those who do, there will be different expressions of that belief.

Present Alternatives. Four positions on the payment of federal taxes for war purposes are evident:

  1. Paying of taxes
  2. Paying the taxes but expressing a protest to the government
  3. Voluntarily limiting one’s income or use of services to such a low level that they are not subject to federal taxation
  4. Refusing to pay all or part of the taxes as a witness and a protest…

* In , the Church of the Brethren Statement on War was amended so that both alternative service and nonviolent noncooperation are commended to persons facing the draft.

On behalf of the World Ministries Commission, I would like to know how Brethren have responded to the Statement on Taxes for War Purposes. I would appreciate your taking time to return the following questionnaire, using the space provided here to share interpretation of actions and feelings. The results of this survey will be shared with all who respond.

I (we) have taken the following stance regarding the payment of federal income and telephone taxes.

  1. Payment of taxes.
  2. Payment of taxes under protest.
  3. Voluntarily limiting income so as not to be subject to federal taxation.
  4. Nonpayment of all or part of the taxes.

Signed ⸺
Address ⸺

Return to: World Ministries Commission, Church of the Brethren General Board, 1451 Dundee Avenue, Elgin, Illinois 60120

I wonder what happened to the results from the similar survey the Messenger featured, more prominently, in a issue.

The issue gave a preview of what would be discussed at the Annual Conference (source), including:

Telephone Tax and US Government Securities. Introduced by the Southern Ohio Board of Administration, the query as it now stands focuses on “the problem of the Christian’s response to taxation for war.” In the report [see ♇ 17 May 2020] the five-member committee examines “a proper balance” between two callings — one of obeying God’s law rather than humans’ law, the other of participating responsibly in the common life of the world. In terms of precedents both from the New Testament and Brethren history, the statement concludes the weight is on the side of the Christian’s paying and not withholding taxes.

Two recommendations are that concerned Brethren express their dissent or testimonies through recognized means and that active support be directed to the World Peace Tax Fund Act and similar legislative efforts. A warning is sounded that the church would be diverted in its task of deepening biblical and theological understanding of the Christian peace position if it were to become focused on one particular form of protest.

In the issue, William G. Willoughby recapped the tax resistance debate from the Annual Conference (source):

My wife and I have had a continuing discussion over the question of nonpayment of the telephone excise tax. I argued that such refusal would be a symbolic protest to the government against the Indochina conflict, while she argued that the government would eventually get the money anyway, and I would do better to put my efforts elsewhere.

So it was with considerable interest that I anticipated the report of the Conference committee on “The Christian’s Response to Taxation for War.” This item of business turned out to be the most prolonged of the entire Conference, which indicates something of the struggle of conscience that many Brethren have been going through in paying heavy taxes for past, present, and future wars.

The committee report, with all its supplementary materials, showed its members had studied carefully the biblical teachings on taxation and had examined carefully the practices of the Brethren on payment of taxes. Their conclusion was that there is no biblical counsel that taxes be withheld, but there is “some calling for the payment of taxes even to a sinful, militaristic government.” The committee recognized, however, that some Brethren arrive at a different conclusion, feeling led of God to make protest by means of tax refusal.

At the preliminary hearing on , with more than a hundred people present, it was evident that the majority there were dissatisfied with the committee’s report. The spirit of the discussion was honest, open, considerate, and good-natured, but beneath the surface many “tax refusers” felt somewhat betrayed. They, too, had searched the scriptures and had examined Brethren history, and now — when they were subject to harassment and possible indictment by a vindictive government — the committee was raising questions about the biblical basis of their position.

When the committee report was made to the Conference business session, the committee capably defended its paper. A valiant effort to recommit the paper for further study by an expanded committee which would include two tax refusers was narrowly defeated.

In the lengthy and at times impassioned debate, the issues were sharpened. Did the Brethren always support voluntary payment of all taxes to a war-making government? Was the committee too literalistic and legalistic in its interpretation of the biblical teaching? Did it take into account the total context of New Testament teaching against war? Is it morally right to refuse to be conscripted to drop bombs but allow one’s money to be conscripted to pay for the bombs?

Immediate past moderator Dale Brown thought that the committee’s report was a “slap in the face of the tax refusers, but perhaps we needed it.”

James Beard of Indiana contended that “the scriptures teach that we should pay our taxes and we should obey them.”

Harley Utz of Ohio argued that an act against the law and our government is an act against God.

Ben Simmons of Indiana believed that that issue is not “pro or con tax refusal, but our desire for Caesar’s property.”

Art Gish of Pennsylvania maintained that the church should give moral support to those who conscientiously refuse to pay a portion of their taxes.

When the debate was all over, and the report adopted by the Conference, I was left with many lingering questions: What is the teaching of the Bible on this issue? What should I do? Should the church discourage people from refusing to pay taxes? Perhaps Vernard Eller, Dale Brown, and others will write some books or at least articles that will be of real help to us in the years to come. The issue has not been laid to rest!

Doris Cline Egge added her thoughts on the debate (source). Excerpt:

What is our witness? Is it to withhold the telephone tax, all taxes? I heard people sincerely upholding what they considered the biblical position on several sides of that issue. I found developing a disturbing position for myself that perhaps a more faithful position might be the one James Myer, member of the committee, reiterated from the paper. That position would be that discipleship should lead me to renounce that income that rises above the taxable floor, so in effect wage earners keep income so low they are not required to pay taxes. For how can I faithfully tell my government, “You can do this and this with my money, and I’ll withhold funds from any expenditure I don’t like,” without encouraging people to do the same thing with the local church budget? Dale Brown made a good point that a negative position against taxes for war purposes must not allow us to lose perspective in a positive emphasis — a vital peace witness. Perhaps there is another position that would say, “If I can contrive to arrange my income so that I pay no taxes at all, I have relinquished any rights to influence government spending because I have no stake in it.” I must admit that, for me, God has not yet written the last word.

In , two Brethren-linked groups started war tax resisters’ penalty funds, and the Annual Conference considered two queries on whether or how Brethren churches should refuse to pay the excise tax on their phone bills.

Church of the Brethren: Messenger

The issue brought this heartening news (source):

No one in the crowd offered bids for the Subaru station wagon, which was being auctioned by the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS had seized it from Stephen and Phyllis Senesi as partial payment of taxes that the couple has refused to pay. As conscientious objectors to paying taxes that fund the US military, the Senesis have withheld about $6,500 over the past five years. Several area peace groups had organized the nonviolent protest at the auction. When the IRS agent called for bids on the car, the crowd responded first with silence, and then with “We choose life over death.” Phyllis Senesi is a member of Skyridge Church of the Brethren, Kalamazoo, Mich.

A letter-writer in the issue tried to turn the tables on the tax resisters, saying their refusal to pay “could mean one less defensive hour by a protective policeman. This failure to defend could result in the undefended death of some person. The person who machinated the tax resistance is an indirect killer; category, murder.” (source)

A news brief an that issue (source) read:

The Midland (Mich.) congregation has voted to withhold the federal excise tax on its telephone bill, saying, “We do not believe that paying for war is loving.” The money withheld will be used to buy peace literature for their library. Since the congregation wants its action to be done publicly and submissively, the witness commission will enclose letters with the monthly payment.

And another on the same page:

Chuck Boyer, peace consultant for the denomination, is compiling a list of people willing to be contacted when someone faces grave financial need because of faithful witness to Christ. Such instances include Brethren who suffer loss because of conscientious objection to payment of war taxes. To join the list, write to Chuck Boyer…

Ford Secrist wrote in to the issue with his “War Tax Dilemma”:

My conscience of recent months has given anguish and now distress, because I do not want to pay the military part of my federal income taxes. I am now a redirector of my war taxes to peace.

My dilemma is that I am treated as a criminal with a lien. I am not a tax dodger or evader. I wish to pay all my taxes for peace. My correct amount has been reported.

The World Peace Tax Fund bill… is one way out of this dilemma. Its goal is a law permitting people morally opposed to war to have the military part of their taxes allocated for peacemaking.…

That issue also brought this news (source):

Two Brethren-related peace organizations have begun tax resister’s penalty funds to support those who conscientiously choose to withhold war taxes. In both cases, the fund reimburses those who have been fined by the Internal Revenue Service, and supporters of the fund share the total cost. The two groups are the North Manchester, Ind., chapter of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Iowa Peace Network. For more information, write…

That issue also brought a preview of coming attractions at the upcoming Annual Conference (source):

The Michigan query points out the use of the federal telephone excise tax to pay for past and present military expenditures and states that Michigan District will withhold the tax, redirecting the amount to a peace tax fund. In commending this witness to Annual Conference for study and prayerful consideration, the district is asking for affirmation of the action.

The General Board query asks for the appointment of a committee to study and recommend how Brethren should respond to the dilemma of paying taxes for war.

Walter Fitzsimons wrote an opinion piece for the issue that talked all around the issue of war tax resistance, seemed to conclude that such resistance was futile because it would not stop the march of militarism, then took an about-face and said that even if that is true it could be a worthwhile action of persuasion, but then ended on a write-your-congressman note without taking a stand either way (source).

Several people walking along a sidewalk, some with banners, some with balloons, one hoisting a large bag on his shoulders, one pushing a shopping cart, some holding banners

“Church of the Brethren student Mike Yoder (right), of Morgantown, W. Va., helps carry a ‘Bread not Bombs’ banner in a tax-time peace witness. The event was ‘an act of faith,’ said one participant. ‘I am trying to bring evangelism and social action together.’ ”

The issue covered a tax day protest:

Peace group pays taxes with truckload of food

For some Christians, paying the percentage of federal income taxes that goes toward the military is a dilemma. This year, a Harrisonburg, Va., group called Christians for Peace gathered at the regional office of the Internal Revenue Service in Staunton to register their concern. They brought a truckload of food, bought with the money withheld from their tax payments.

“We seek to follow Jesus’ call to be peacemakers by directing our resources away from the instruments of death and toward life,” explained Wendell Ressler, one of the organizers of the event. “We cannot reconcile Jesus’ call to love our enemies with our government’s call to help pay for our enemies’ destruction.” In a short statement to onlookers, he said, “We gladly pay taxes which are used to enrich the lives of others, but it is immoral for our government to play Russian roulette with the future of our planet.”

IRS officials were cordial, but explained that they could not accept the food. The bags of groceries — including more than 1,000 pounds of canned goods — were presented to the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank.

Another article on the same page noted that a Portland, Oregon “Peace” congregation had “voted to withhold the federal excise tax on its telephone bill as a way ‘to say no to militarism and yes to life-affirming programs.’ The money will be sent to the Brethren World Peace Academy…”

The pastor of that Peace Church, Rick Ukena, and his wife Twyla Wallace were profiled in the issue (source). Excerpt:

Just before Rick left the pastorate of Peace Church of the Brethren in Portland, Ore., he and his wife, Twyla Wallace, discussed with me their refusal to pay war taxes. “Refusing to pay that portion of our taxes that goes for military purposes is merely an extension of the decision I made in [to become a conscientious objector],” Rick says. “Paying taxes for war is no different from providing bodies for military purposes.”

Rick likens their present witness to that of past Brethren: “Historically, the Church of the Brethren youth have been conscientious objectors to military service. Military tax resistance is an equally important statement for peace.”

, Rick and Twyla have redirected a portion of their federal taxes as an effort to lift up their opposition to current priorities of the federal budget. With the filing of their returns, they sent that portion to Health Help, a low-income health clinic in Portland. “Nevertheless,” says Rick, “the IRS, during that time, has seized over $1,000 from our checking account for non-payment of taxes.” A lien was also threatened against the Portland congregation, since the IRS ordered the church to pay Rick and Twyla’s taxes. In a specially called members’ meeting, the IRS demand was turned down by a unanimous vote.

“We were joyed with the support that we received from the congregation as it was placed in a position of choosing between compliance with human laws aimed at destroying life and a higher order that commands us to love one another, even our enemies,” Rick says.

As mentioned above, there were two items concerning war tax resistance on the Annual Conference agenda in . The issue tells us how they fared (source):

The delegates established a committee to study and recommend how the Brethren should respond to the dilemma of paying taxes for war. Brought by the General Board, the query on taxation for war said that “our government continues to put its faith in weapons that can destroy all human life on our planet.” The query also pointed out that expenses for present and past military efforts currently total about one-half of all federal expenditures.

The concern of the related query, a Michigan District resolution on telephone tax redirection, was adopted by the delegates, and the issue of telephone tax withholding was assigned to the war tax committee. Michigan District voted in to withhold federal excise taxes on district telephone bills, and to inform the Internal Revenue Service of the action.

It’s hard to believe that at this point there was much more for yet another a committee to say on the issue, so many similar committees had been formed and had issued reports in recent years. This committee would consist of Philip W. Rieman, Arlene E. May, Violet Cox, Richard O. Buckwalter, and Gary Flory.

The Catholic News Archive has a pretty good catalog of issues of the Catholic Worker. Today I’ll present transcriptions of some of the material on tax resistance from the span.

These include several essays by Ammon Hennacy (these formed the raw material out of which he composed his autobiography, so if you have read that, you’ll see some familiar phrases and stories), as well as other writings by and about conscientious tax resisters, including long works by Ernest Bromley, Eroseanna Robinnson, and Karl Meyer. The articles fill in some interesting details about the evolution of the American war tax resistance movement during this period.

First, Ammon Hennacy, in the edition:

Picketing

“How are you going to get people to put up the sword? My son died in Korea. I know you didn’t kill him. God bless you,” said an elderly woman as I was picketing the post office in Phoenix, , in response to Truman’s “emergency” declaration. The woman had seen my big sign which read:

“Put up thy Sword.
He that taketh the Sword
Shall Perish
by the Sword”

Jesus’ words.

On the reverse of this sign was a picture of a pot colored green with a sign on it—Capitalist. Opposite was a red kettle—Communist. Underneath was the caption: “The Pot Calls the Kettle Black.” I carried my old tax refusal sign as a sandwich in front. It read:

75%
of your Income Tax
Goes for War.
I have refused
to pay Income Taxes
for Seven years.

The reverse sign hanging on my back read:

Reject War.
Use Gandhi’s
Weapon of
Non Violent
DIRECT ACTION.

I attended mass at St. Mary’s before picketing and prayed for wisdom during my day which I feared would be more disturbing than my previous marches. In another church that morning a CW priest said mass for the success of my witness for peace. I had notified the City Manager and the tax man that I would picket against the war emergency. Ginny Anderson, whose C.O. husband Rik varityped my leaflet and made the above signs, stood on one corner to hand me extra literature and be my “lookout” for trouble. Byron Bryant, Catholic anarchist, home on Christmas vacation from his duties as professor of English at a western university, stood on the other corner. There was an unusual amount of people going and coming. Ne one advised me to go back to Russia or called me a Communist. As is usual in picketing most people were afraid to be seen taking a leaflet. If one person took a leaflet all others in line took it and if the first one refused so did all the others. Negroes and Mexicans and Indians always took the leaflet and many times a Catholic Worker. My leaflet read as follows:

What’s All The Shooting About?

It’s about men who put money ahead of God. It’s about young men on both sides misled into dying and killing each other. It’s about rationing, inefficiency, dictatorship, inflation, and politicians stealing a little more than usual.

War is what happens when one nation prepares to defend itself against another nation that prepares to defend itself. World War Ⅰ and World War Ⅱ did not end war nor make the world safe for democracy.

Neither will this one.

There just isn’t any sense to war! What can we do about it? If the politicians think one person is important enough to become a soldier, a munition maker, a bond buyer, or an income tax payer, then one person is important enough to

REFUSE to become a soldier,
REFUSE to make munitions,
REFUSE to buy bonds, and to
REFUSE to pay income taxes.

War does not protect you—it will destroy you!

You cannot overcome Communism with bullets. It can be overcome by each person doing what he knows in his heart to be right. The way of Jesus, of St. Francis, of Tolstoy, and of Gandhi teaches us to love our enemy, to establish justice, to abolish exploitation, and to rely upon God rather than on politicians and governments.

If you are a Christian, why not follow Christ? You might as well die for what you believe in as for what you don’t believe in. If you must fight, fight war itself. Don’t be a traitor to humanity!

Wars will cease when men refuse to fight.

(No “Johnny come lately" to the peace movement, I served 2½ years in prison for opposing World War I, 8½ months of it in solitary confinement in Atlanta Penitentiary. And since more than three-fourths of one’s income tax goes for war purposes, I have refused to pay my income tax for more than seven years. Nor did I register for the draft in either world war. I am a Christian Anarchist, a follower of Tolstoy, Thoreau, and Gandhi, and invite your serious consideration of their examples.)

“Extra, extra, all anarchists to be shot at sunrise,” shouted the good-natured news man stationed in front of the post office as I passed by. The one who had led the fight against me in August and later became my friend had left town. When a later edition told of a bank robbery in Tucson he shouted as I passed: [“Extra, extra, Gandhi robs a bank.” (missing from this article, but included in a later reprint —♇)]

A woman looked at my sign and asked if I did not know that Jesus told Peter to sell his clothes and buy a sword. I answered: “yes, but when Peter showed him the sword which he had Jesus answered ‘that is enough,’ and when Peter used this sword to cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest Jesus did not say to cut off the other ear but said ‘put up thy sword. He that taketh the sword shall perish by the sword’.” As the woman walked on she shouted back: “Jesus called for a sword so he could perform a miracle. He never said ‘put up thy sword.’ You better read your Bible.”

Somewhat different was a teen age boy who pointed to an ad of the Marines and said that meant more to him than my sign or my leaflet which he had just read. I told him that if he believed that way—and he was to leave next month—that he should do what he thought was right. He refused to take a CW although he was a Catholic and went to St. Mary’s. I hoped that he would return safely and could then confer with the priest as to the possibilities of being a pacifist Catholic. It was not his fault that he had never heard the pacifist message before. We parted in a friendly spirit.

One gruff fellow asked, “What have you got there?” I answered, “It’s either very good or very bad; depends on how you look at it; better read it and see.” He smiled and went his way reading the leaflet.

A Catholic anarchist woman walked with me for a bit and was going to come after 3 p.m. and take Ginny’s place. While Byron and I went for lunch the Catholic banker whose bank had been robbed spoke to Ginny. Although the CW says “Starve the Bankers and Feed the Poor” he reads the paper and has visited me before on the picket line. Another Catholic anarchist woman came and missed us because of the following incident.

The Cops

We had only brought along 500 leaflets and now at 3 p.m. they were nearly all distributed. Many had stopped with kind words and no one had openly insulted us. Two good natured policemen came up in a squad car and said they were having too many complaints about my picketing. They read my signs and leaflet. I told them that what I was doing was clearly subversive and that the FBI and the tax man had priority over them in my case and they ought to confer with them. One cop did so while the other asked me questions. Meanwhile people crowded around and watched my signs. I saw my tax man as he came near, and an FBI man. The police wanted to know what had been done when I had been arrested for picketing before. I told them that I had been released and had picketed 7 more days without being bothered. They conferred with headquarters and suggested that Ginny and I accompany them to the police station. Here we waited about an hour while detectives and police looked over the signs and leaflet and asked questions. I offered a CW to one police captain but he refused it saying that no Catholic paper could support such unpatriotic actions as mine. I asked him if he knew Father Dunne and he said he did. I advised him to call him up and see what he said about myself and the CW. (Later Fr. Dunne told me that the man had called him.)

Byron had phoned a Catholic attorney, friend of the CW, who spoke to Chief Clair. The latter told us we could go but I had better not picket for I might cause a riot and then charges of disorderly conduct, loitering, or other charges would be proferred against me. I told him that I had been able so far to handle individuals and crowds. He shrugged his shoulders inferring that I would be on my own. I said that I had been on my own all my life and another half hour (it was now 4:30) was not much to worry about. Before I left I told him that I would picket again on . He replied, “That is another day.”

We went back and gave away our few remaining leaflets. Postal employees looked out of the windows and saw that the police had not stopped us. (One of the calls had come from an ultra-patriotic postal employee, although another employee to whom I had offered a leaflet early in the morning had refused it and about 2 p.m. had asked for one, and after reading it praised me for my stand.)

Ammon Hennacy, in the edition:

Life at Hard Labor

“I don’t wear a label; I’m for all good causes,” replied the young ex-conscientious objector who, passing through Phoenix, had called the local paper to find my address, and had found me this evening as I was caretaker of Jersey cows at the sale of purebreds at the State Fair grounds. Many write to me or come to visit me who are drawn by different phases of my philosophy, so to save time I try to find out if their bias is Catholic Worker, I.W.W., pacifist, anarchist, vegetarian, life on the land, or tax refusal. This slogan of not wearing a label is fine, I told my new friend, for a young person in search of the truth, but at his age of 31 he ought to begin to have ideas that led to some definite belief and action. I admitted that for the average person of bourgeois tendencies to look at the Republican and Democratic parties and to think that wearing their labels was meaningless was a sign of progress. Like the housewife in the days when women did the baking at home who put the initials “T.M.” on the top crust of one pie, meaning “Tis Mince”; and the initials “T.M.” on another pie crust, meaning “Taint Mince,” labels surely do not have any meaning.

The thought behind my friend’s no label attitude seemed to be a desire to approach as many people as possible, on the street, in buses, at dances, etc., and to make friends and influence people by not scaring them with such words as pacifist or anarchist, but to rattle half-truths and half criticisms as a build up for “all good causes” and as a monkey wrench toward the status quo. This is a mass approach; mine has been to get the individual in this mass, if possible, to think. I remember forty years ago when well meaning friends told me that to use the word “Socialist” was defeating my purpose, and that some word such as “Progressive" that did not have such ill omen should be used. My reply then was that whatever word was used to designate a belief that word would always have a bad meaning to those who were being denounced. Today the word Socialist only means collaboration with war and has lost all its class conscious meaning. Even many timid anarchists whom I know prefer the word “Libertarian” for fear they will be called bomb throwers. I go on the principle of never being on the defensive, so when I am called a bomb throwing anarchist I tell the accuser that the government is the biggest bomb thrower with its A and H bombs.

I told my young friend that he could always get a crowd to applaud mild criticism of war and for the lowering of taxes and raising of wages, but that this same crowd would really follow the blazing torch of super demagogues who spoke of “the great native intelligence of the common man,” and who never meant to catch the bird but were adept in the case of putting salt on its tail. I pointed out that spiritual power was the strongest force in the world and that beside it all the two penny political victories did not mean a thing. Too many of us dissipate our energies by being “for all good causes” and never develop or use this spiritual power. And then we wonder why we become tired radicals and why warmongers rule the world. We refuse to use our strongest weapon, but at the ballot box where we are invariably outnumbered a million to one, we choose our weakest weapon.

As I was helping a farmer polish the horns of his cows he said he had heard that I was an educated man and implied wonderment as to my being a day laborer. I explained my plan of working at day work on farms in order that no withholding tax for war should be taken from my pay. He wanted to know more about these ideas and for the next hour he heard the words anarchism and pacifism undiluted by “all good causes” and departed with the current CW and my promise to mail him future copies. In contrast another farmer wanted me to go back to Russia if I didn’t like this country.

The cows for sale were listed in a catalogue with pedigrees and a record of their production of butter fat. The manager of the sale was discussing with one farmer about certain unregistered and non pedigreed cows which are called “grades,” and many times these cows give more and richer milk than the purebred stock. But there is no guarantee that a heifer from such a cow will be a good producer; more than likely a throwback of scrub stock.

Culls

In Albuquerque I worked for two men who specialized in extra fancy chickens. At one place I gathered eggs each hour from a trap nest, and marked the number of the chicken, taken from a leg band, on the egg she had just laid, and also in the record book. Those who did not produce a great number of eggs were thus culled out. “Why feed the culls?” my boss said. Each day a dozen or more hens would die of “blow-outs”; which meant that the very efficient egg producing machine had overstepped itself. The mediocre hens lived longer and did not blow-out. At a dairy in Albuquerque where I worked, my job was to go to any of the eight corrals and in the mud and manure drive the next string of cows to the barn to be milked. Nearly every night a calf would be born in this wet and cold discomfort and my job was to carry it to a warm stall after the milking was done. Very few of these calves, coming from cows that were “grades,” died. Later I worked for a multi-millionaire who had highly priced purebreds. My job was to keep a fire in a stove in the barn at night and to feed these calves egg with specially prepared milk. Yet the death rate among these purebreds made my boss groan. Tuberculosis and Bangs Disease (premature birth of calves) seems also to be more prevalent among the inbred purebreds. Super efficient bankers jump out of windows when red ink instead of black ink records their business schemes. Efficient assembly line workers go berserk and often a supposedly steady bus driver leaves his route and drives right on to Florida to escape his treadmill of efficiency. At its best our system is efficient only in turning out quantity and at its worst it is trying to bomb us to death. Very expensive garden tools these days are held together only by the paint on the handle and are of very inferior design and workmanship.

When I was a social worker in Milwaukee in the thirties we were often derided by well to do Republicans for “coddling the culls” when we helped the poor. And from time to time I have heard radicals who were especially scientific and eugenic minded look upon the ideals of Jesus and Gandhi as perpetuating the life of the unfit and the misfit. Although I helped in the formation of the CW House of Hospitality in Milwaukee in I will admit that my interest in the CW was limited then to its pacifist and anarchist slant and that I felt this coddling of the bums was not so important. Since, however, my study of Tolstoy and acquaintance with Peter and Dorothy, and my ten years as an actual laborer, rather than a radical theorist with a good job, I have come to view this whole matter in different light. The conversation about grades and purebreds that night and my meeting with the young rattle-brain who was “for all good causes” helped me to clarify my ideas along this line.

In this age of the assembly line, of super-markets and super advertising schemes; and of Service Clubs to put a little holy oil of goodness on this theft, the illusion persists that this is a scientific and efficient age. Yes, we produce, but for what? If somehow we do have bums, poor housing, ill-health, new diseases, and poverty these can only be attended to by Community Funds, Heart, Cancer, and Give a Dime Campaigns; pensions and social security payments by the state. Charity Incorporated has no room for Houses of Hospitality where there is no record of aid given or even the name of the recipient. “They won’t work if you keep on feeding them! They sell the clothing you give them around the corner for booze!” say the well fed parasites who also neither work nor help the poor except perhaps in a very dim and distant contribution to a fund, much of which goes for overhead. The idea of these professional do-gooders is to “give coals and treacle” to the poor, as Shaw said, and to keep them out of sight in order that the rich may not be reminded of the filth and degradation which is the foundation of their wealth. Good social workers are told not to “become emotionally involved” with their clients. Again, the mechanistic approach.

The CW breaks through all this sham. Instead of living in fine apartments to which we can repair after witnessing the other side of the tracks, we who accept Lady Poverty have given up worldly goods, insurance, and much of our privacy. This cull in the breadline; this drunk or prostitute; this maladjusted and perhaps lazy man—all of these may not be improved a bit by our help. Ours is not a success story; the Way of the Cross was also a failure. He at least might have led a rebellion against the Roman State instead of dying on the Cross and forgiving His enemies.

Where are we to look for those who are going to bear the Cross today? It is true that St. Francis, Tolstoy, Malatesta, Kropotkin and Gandhi left their inheritance and choosing voluntary poverty were able to accomplish much. We also print the word and deliver the lecture to the purebreds. We make no mistake in thinking that because a man is ragged that he is holy, for if he is avaricious he is as much a slave to money as is the rich man. (My banker friend Brophy jokingly told me that he would have to write a defense of the rich for the CW. I told him that he would end up contradicting himself and that the best defense of the rich could be obtained by giving a couple of drinks to a poor man on the street.) The Old Pioneer [Lin Orme, Jr.] tells of stopping at a stand in the desert recently and being charged 15¢ for a soft drink. “This is 300% profit for you” he told the proprietor. “I’m not in business for my health” said this greedy and seedy defender of the capitalist system. The Old Pioneer also tells of 25¢ being charged for one common needle in the old days when everything coming into Phoenix had to be hauled from Maricopa Wells station beyond South Mountain. “The freight is what costs” was the alibi of the greedy merchant. Neither do we consider the product of the purebreds. Tommy Manville, the dear old DAR ladies, the useless royalty of Europe, and our own inbred Duponts and intellectuals who have nearly without exception prostituted their talents toward the making of bombs. There is some hope that among the bums we may find a John the Baptist to carry on the work when we have gone, but there is little hope from politicians whose integrity has already been purchased and from the super educated to whom a doctors degree, a deep freeze and a television set mean more than fighting for a lost cause.

How will we then come to a sensible way of life? Without war work we would have a terrible depression. Hardly a person but whom will gladly earn this blood money! Hardly a person but whom will pay taxes for more bombs! The rich will not give up their riches and the poor will not give up their pensions; (the young will not help the aged; preparing to “keep up with the Jones’.”) The froth at the top has little right to scorn the scum at the bottom; meanwhile we who do the work of the world support them both. The Old Pioneer remarked recently that Jefferson’s plan of not having great wealth inherited was the right idea. This reminds me of the old Russian proverb: “Do not lay up your money for your son, for if he is any good he can make his own money; and if he is not any good he will lose it.” So in our writing, our picketing, our speaking, our help to the poor in Houses of Hospitality, we must need show our sincerity by our voluntary poverty. No one would think of bribing us for by our lives we have established the fact that we need nothing. We need not fritter our time by building up “all good causes,” which accept the tyranny of the state. When they are ready for it the rich, the bourgeois intellectual, the bum, and even the politician may have an awakening of conscience because of the uncompromising seeds of Christian Anarchism which we are sowing. To all of these we make our appeal and from all it is not impossible to gain a few adherents for that time “when each shall give according to his ability and receive according to his need.” For what does all our bookkeeping mean but a denial of this ideal?

Johnny Olson came back from a sojourn in Texas. In a splurge of affluence he bought five mouse traps and set them around our house. He caught the whole population which consisted of three mice. While I as a pacifist vegetarian would not cause the death of Brother Mouse yet as an anarchist I have no right to deny Johnny the right to catch them… The old mules, belonging to a neighbor, which I have used for plowing the garden these five years are now muleburger. They were not killed in time for the new government regulation which allows equine meat in weiners.

My friend Joe Craigmyle, nonregistrant, and one-cylinder vegetarian and anarchist, runs a fruit stand and at times I have helped him pick oranges and grapefruit in groves where he has purchased the crop. Even in the month of May when the new fruit is on the trees the last year’s crop is still sweet and juicy. As with apples the fewer fruit on the tree the larger. There is not generally time to thin out the fruit but many drop off before maturity. An orange or grapefruit may look fine but if it is light in weight it is pithy and is discarded right there at the tree. The load is graded as to size when we return to the stand. Coming home from work the other night in Joe’s truck we were discussing the idea of responsibility and of my reference in a recent CW article to the woman who called on every one else to remove the dead cat from the road. I remarked that I had seen a dead cat on the lateral that Sunday morning but being in a hurry to catch a bus did not practice my anarchist idea of responsibility in removing it. However, in the evening upon my return it was still there despite hundreds of cars and dozens of people on the road that day, so I took care of it. Just then we both saw to the right of us a two-by-four with four spikes sticking up. I said that this would soon give someone some trouble. By that time we were a quarter of a mile beyond it. “I’ll back up and you can throw it in the ditch,” said Joe. In my mind, then, Joe, who has not been much of a man of action, rose from a one-cylinder to a two-cylinder anarchist.

Molokons

Recently I went to the federal court as a young Molokon who lives a few miles down the lateral had been out on $5,000 bail for refusing to report to the army. Dozens of other young Molokons in the vicinity had been given CO status. Whether the draft board lost his CO questionnaire or thought they ought to get hardboiled I do not know. I had phoned a local lawyer who had handled Craigmyle’s refusal to register case and he promised to come to court but did not do so. His excuse being that he couldn’t do anything about it. Judge Ling set as date for a trial and the Molokon will get a lawyer from Los Angeles. The Old Pioneer tells of in when he went to the court commissioner with about fifteen Molokons who had refused to register. Two of them worked for him and he arranged for bail. They asked him if they could sing and pray. The Old Pioneer doubted if they could but asked the commissioner about it. “Hell no, this is a court,” was the answer. “You’d better let them sing and pray and not look foolish for they’re going to do it whether you give permission or not,” said the Old Pioneer to the commissioner. So they sang and prayed. Now they register and do not sing or pray in court.

, I received a notice I owe $2.15 interest and penalty on my $192 tax bill for and unless paid within ten days my property and wages will be attached. This is an old run-a-round and I am not worrying. I ate the first Irish potatoes this year from our garden. The persimmon tree which the Old Pioneer’s daughter-in-law gave me last winter now bears fruit. Watermelon, eggplant, tomatoes, squash, peppers and onions are doing fine. I am irrigating and soon will come irrigating maize.

An excerpt from “Poverty is to Care and Not to Care” by Dorothy Day, from the issue:

Our whole modern economy is based on preparation for war and that is one of the great modern arguments for poverty. If the comfort one has gained has resulted in the death of thousands in Korea and other parts of the world, then that comfort will be have to be atoned for. The argument now is that there is no civilian population, that all are involved in the war (misnamed defense) effort. If you work in a textile mill making cloth, or in a factory making dungarees or blankets, it is still tied up with war. If one raises food or irrigates to raise food, one may be feeding troops or liberating others to serve as troops. If you ride a bus you are paying taxes. Whatever you buy is taxed so you are supporting the state in the war which is “the health of the state.”

The argument may go this way, but we still can choose what seems to us the most honorable occupations, which have to do with human needs. We can choose the kind of work most necessary to do, and if possible where there is no withholding tax for war. Ammon Hennacy in working by the day, at hard farm labor, has not paid income tax for years. One can so cut down one’s standard of living that no income tax is required; families with many children pay no income tax. One can protest in many ways this contribution to the atom and hydrogen bomb. If one owns property the government then can take a lien on it. If one has money in the bank, the government can confiscate it. So truly such protest as this calls for the most profound poverty and a voluntary doing without property.

All this is by way of saying that poverty is no longer voluntary, no longer a counsel, but something which is laid upon us by necessity.

Ammon Hennacy, in the issue:

Hiroshima Fast

“I got a letter from one of my sons in Korea this morning. My three other boys will go to jail before they go to another foolish war. God bless you for your sign about war; that’s just what it is: murder,” said a woman to me as I was on my 8-day picketing and fasting. She referred to my sign:

DRAW THE LINE AT MURDER
REFUSE TO GO TO WAR.

In contrast a man went by with his wife and said: “Drop dead!”

“Can’t do it, Mister,” I replied.

Rik had done a beautiful job on my leaflet, printed in the CW, on blue paper. I was nearly out of CW’s containing my tax statement so did not give out any unless people asked for them.

Now for the first time in my fasting I went to Mass and Communion each morning. I had worked until after dark for several nights in order to finish work that I had planned, and up until . I had eaten my last full meal and only toast bread until I commenced my fast at . I had written the following note, enclosing my blue leaflet, to 165 of the clergy in and around Phoenix. And as usual I had notified the police, the FBI, and the tax man, of my picketing, telling them that what I was doing was clearly subversive, but no worse than it ever was. “Please pray for the success of my fasting and picketing in this the 10th year of my open refusal to pay income taxes for war, if you can in conscience do so. My attitude may appear too radical but I feel that something as radical as the Sermon on the Mount is needed in this wicked world. I too believe in a personal religion but if in matters of social concern I act just as unbelievers act, then I am a fraud. If you have time stop and say hello to me as I fast and picket in front of the old YMCA.”

I had sent my leaflet air mail to the Mayor of Hiroshima and to Manalil Gandhi in Phoenix, South Africa. I received but one answer which was from a leading Methodist minister, who did not agree with my ideas but who praised my stand. I knew beforehand of the approval of the half dozen priests who appreciated the CW. As usual the Associated Press sent a favorable factual message on the wire about my activities and the local radios reported it each day, one announcer even reading my entire leaflet. But the local dailies, per their policy, refused to “dignify” themselves by mentioning my name.

I started the fast weighing 142 pounds. The scales also poured forth a slip with the dubious information that read, “Don’t always follow the line of least resistance.” I lost 2 pounds and which was exceptionally hot I lost 5 pounds. I slept that night for 14 hours and awoke refreshed.

One friend who was an usher in a Catholic Church and also a veteran, had always been cordial to the CW, but he felt that the plan of the American Legion to take the profit out of war and make the big shots who make war go to war was a better method than my tax refusal and picketing. I told him that I was winning my battle against the government each day and while this was only a step forward, his way was no more than conversation about it. I said that this method stood as much a chance of succeeding as a butcher putting vegetarian signs in his window. That those who make money and fame out of war would never stop. It was up to us to refuse to take part in war.

Fasting

Now on I was weak but never a bit hungry. Several people on park benches nearby told me of a young man who had gone on a 62 day fast. They said he ate his lunch at the park. That day I introduced myself to him and found he had suffered from arthritis, stomach ulcers and chronic nightmare. He went to my friend Dr. Shelton in San Antonio and after 40 days of nothing but water to drink, all of the accumulated toxic poisons had been washed out of his body and he commenced to get stronger. He was entirely cured at the end of 62 days. Of the 25,000 people taking fasts there in 30 years only one person had endured a longer fast; that being 68 days. A priest in Phoenix had taken a 30 day fast there and had been cured. My friend had lost 57 pounds but had gained it all back again. I visited with him each noon and envied his vegetarian diet of pears and grapes. He had been raised a Catholic but believed in no religion at present. He was interested in my ideas and felt he would never go to war but he did not feel that it was his job to propagandize about it.

Other friends I met told me of a man in Phoenix whom I knew who had been given up by the doctors because of tuberculosis of the kidneys. He had read in some book that in ancient Egypt those with such trouble had laid in the hot sands. Egypt was too far away so he came to Arizona and for 6 months literally lived in the sand. He was entirely cured. He is a strict vegetarian these past 20 years and in good health.

The Mormon wife of a friend of mine told me of her grandfather who in the old days had several wives. At the age of 86 he discovered that he had diabetes. He fasted 68 days at home and cured himself and lived 9 more years in good health. But Mormons are used to disciplining themselves so his fast was not as difficult for him as it would be for the regular flabby American.

My other sign read: “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” HIROSHIMA WAS A-BOMBED , JUST 8 YEARS AGO . As penance I am Fasting IN MEMORIAM.

This was enclosed with a black border. The six story Veteran’s Bureau was across the street and many men in uniform went by. One soldier asked me what kind of lies I was peddling. I told him I was peddling no lies, but the right side of a very important question; that he had better read it and see what it was all about. He read it as he walked along. Another soldier did the same. Generally soldiers refuse to take the leaflet or tear it up.

Near quitting time on a young fellow whose appearance marked him as of the nervous intellectual type, and not a rowdy, stopped and asked me if this was my sign that I was carrying. I told him that it was. He said that I had better call the police for he was going to take the sign and tear it up and dance on it for no Communist could carry such a sign in his town. I told him that I was not a Communist; that I was a Catholic and an anarchist. He replied that he was a Catholic. I asked him what parish he belonged to and it was mine also. I inquired if he had been at mass the last Sunday and if he noticed me selling CW’s in front of the church. He had been to last mass and had not noticed me. I told him that if he had looked closer he would have noticed a candle burning before the Blessed Mother for the success of my intention in this picketing and fasting. He didn’t believe it. I asked his name and he told me but would not give me his address. I said I did not believe in the police and if he got any pleasure out of tearing signs he could do so. He took them and tore them off the standard and danced on them there on the sidewalk. He refused to take a copy of my leaflet or of the CW, muttering “Communist, Communist.” I advised him to see our parish priest and get straight on the matter of the CW. He promised to do so. I then called the priest and told him of what had just happened. He did not remember the name of my patriotic friend.

I wanted to see the AP man on another matter so went to the newspaper office. Here I saw my friend with my signs telling a reporter about the Communist he had found. I recognized the reporter from pictures I had seen of him but I had never met him. The reporter said that I was not a Communist for they all knew of my picketing activities for years. The patriotic Catholic said he was a veteran from Korea and repeated that no one could carry such signs in his town. The reporter said he was a veteran of two wars and he had fought for just such things as the freedom of Hennacy to carry his signs and picket; that if the young man did not like my signs he could do as the pickets in front of the White House in the Rosenberg case did: get other signs and picket the pickets. The reporter also said that I was standing up for the freedom which was true Americanism, and although he disagreed with my ideas, that the patriotic young man was acting like a Communist or a Fascist in denying me freedom. He picked up the signs saying, “Here Hennacy take your signs; they are yours, not his.” The young man said he would take them away from me. I replied that I was too tired carrying them anyway and would simply give out my leaflets the next day as Rik was away and I had no cardboard to make new signs. The young man said he would come down next day and tear up any signs that I had. The reporter told him that he was breaking the law and he was lucky he opposed such a person as Hennacy who would not take him to court. I left him still arguing with the reporter. The AP carried this story and it was reported over the radio. Some of the newspaper men wanted me to prefer charges against my assailant to make a more exciting story. I refused to do so, explaining my Gandhian principle of non-violent resistance to evil and that as an anarchist I could take no recourse to law under any circumstances. The next day the young man did not show up. I phoned my priest and he had not come around to ask about the CW.

To Maryfarm

All during my picketing the employees of the tax office, including the three Catholic tax men whose job it had been to get my tax money, were cordial. There was not a mean look from anyone in that office. This was the first time this had happened. Several friends came and walked around the line with me. Only about a dozen people tore up my leaflet. Many stopped and cordially approved of my picketing. About half a dozen grunted disapproval. There was not as much traffic as there had been other years at the postoffice. I had not met the new head of the tax office so as I finished my fast I introduced myself to Col. Wood and expressed my appreciation of the cordial attitude of his coworkers toward my picketing. He asked me the difference between a Communist and an Anarchist and seemed to understand my explanation.

Ginny and her boys came up and broke the fast with me around as we all drank juices at the juice bar. I left for New York on the bus. I had bought more fruit than I could eat but I nibbled at it on the way. In Prescott, I phoned the former head of the tax bureau in Phoenix and talked to his wife, Mrs. Stuart, Democratic National Committeewoman. They own the Prescott “Courier.” She was pleasant as usual and told me that they had a story on my fast that day. Soon I was with Platt and Barbara Cline in Flagstaff and now I could eat mashed potatoes and other soft food. Platt made a recording of my experiences. He had a fine Third Mesa basket which I took to New York for Dorothy. I spent with Hopi friends in Winslow and by I was visiting with Msgr. Garcia in Albuquerque and my good friend Rev. Soker of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church there. Reagans had moved to Arkansas and the letter I had sent to Al and Catherine Reser must have gone astray or they had moved, for I couldn’t find them. By I was in Sante Fe welcomed by Peter and Florence van Dresser. They had a meeting for me . I did not have time to go to El Rito to see their Organic House heated by solar heat and with windmill for power. I will stop there on my way back when I visit my daughter Carmen. Carmen is with her sister Sharon for a retreat at Mt. Shasta. I visited the nearby Trappist monastery and spoke to two monks who are CW fans and had lunch with the nursing sisters where I had spoken last year.

As I left I was pleased to see a good factual writeup on the front page of the daily New Mexican. This paper goes to nearby Los Alamos, so perhaps for the first time those who make the bomb could learn of opposition to it. A social worker told me that there were more maladjusted children from the homes of Los Alamos workers than from any other strata of people from the state. The gloom of this blood money thus defiles the next generation. A few days with my family in Cleveland and I arrived at Maryfarm, with Father Casey. I understood more this year than last and read some Catholic literature that I should have read long ago. It is too soon to evaluate the effect of this spiritual retreat upon me. Just now I am at Dave Dellinger’s at Glen Gardner, N.J., proof-reading my autobiography.

Some excerpts from an Ammon Hennacy article in the edition:

…Wally Nelson came to take me to Sharonville to spend the night with tax-refusers Ernest and Marion Bromley. We disagree on my frankness to the authorities but we have the same aim.

The afternoon and night was most pleasant as I became acquainted with Fred Schulder, age 79, who had written in the anarchist paper Liberty in before I was born. He is not religious in the accepted sense, but takes the CW. His son Horace Champney took me to Brookville to an area meeting of Peacemakers where Ralph Templin, Clay Marks, and others whom I knew held forth in a discussion about tax refusal and the picketing which they would do in Cincinnati .

Some excerpts from an Ammon Hennacy article in the edition:

Max Sandin, old time tax refuser, and one of we seven veterans of jails in World War Ⅰ who also refused to register in World War Ⅱ renewed old time memories with me.

Jim Ward had asked me in Chicago what live meant to me now that I was a Catholic and I had listed the seven things which seemed to me now in the most important, and I talked this over with Father Casey. Here they are: (1) Voluntary poverty. (2) The Sermon on the Mount. (3) Pacifism, with its absolutist meaning as evidenced in tax refusal. (4) The Mass. (5) To Work and not be a parasite. (6) Anarchism. (7) Vegetarianism, which includes no tobacco, alcohol or medicine. This is for myself and not meant for others. Each has to go at his own speed and in his own way.

We drove to Grasston to see old man Paul Marquardt and found him reading his Bible. He told us of the time when his children had been sent home from school with a card telling the family to save fat for the war. Marquardt immediately withdrew the children from the school saying that each morning he prayed “give us this day our daily bread,” and he was not going to save bread or fat or anything for a war. He told also of the priest in nearby Pine City, who, in instructing his confirmation class said, “Have faith like the Marquardts.” To have this honor in your home town is indeed an honor.

From the edition:

Individual Income Tax: War’s Chief Supporter.

Of the income of the Federal Government 48% comes from individual income taxes which we pay; 30% comes from corporation taxes; 15% comes from excise taxes; and 7% other sources

By Ernest Bromley

The Administration’s proposed budget, recently announced, asks for a billion dollar increase for “new weapons of unprecedented strategic and tactical importance” in order to give this nation “the greatest military power in its peacetime history.” Diagrams of the proposed income and expenditures emphasize two things: (1) The chief source of federal revenue is the individual income tax, (2) The chief national expenditure is military (including bomb stockpiling and new terror weapons). Both things have been true for these eighteen years, but one is always struck anew with each announcement of them.

So minute a portion of the tax money is being spent for any socially acceptable activity that it seems to be only an illusion to consider that one’s Federal taxes go to anything constructive. (Actually, the only way one can support the better enterprises is to bypass the Internal Revenue Bureau completely and find ways to contribute to these causes directly.)

The war build-up touches the individual much more directly and intimately at the income tax point than it does anywhere else. Almost two-thirds of every tax dollar goes to build H-Bombs, Guided Missiles, Germ Warfare, Conscript Armies, etc.—thirty-five times as much as for schools, roads, and health combined. (Can there be any doubt about what the Federal government’s major activity has come to be?) It is almost unthinkable that more people (especially more pacifists) have not declined to bolster this monstrous drive to destruction; that they have not at this major point stopped the flow of their funds through the book-keeping which takes most of what they pay and channels it into what they abhor; that they have not by-passed the present tax set-up and given their valuable, held-back funds to something worthy of support. Will we wake up too late?

The first, and major, encumbrance to keeping one’s tax money and using it for something decent is the withholding set-up. Trying to be a tax refuser in a withholding job is a good deal like being a pacifist in the army. In each case you have already placed yourself well within the system; and in each case the very first step is to take yourself out of the system. The real, creative possibilities on these fronts begin to open up only after this step of separation has been taken. The fact that such separations are difficult to carry out makes them no less imperative. Because the withholding situation presents problems, is there no advice that can be given to the average working person about the business of non-cooperating with income tax payments? I would advise: Stop paying income taxes (whether you file a form to this effect or not).

For some people this will, of course, mean that they will have to leave their present jobs and take employment that is not affected by withholding. Here we sometimes tend to lose sight of the fact that there is probably no type of socially useful work (individual or organizational) being done under the withholding tax set-up which cannot also be done outside it. And, too, this raises the important question of what social usefulness really is. Can “socially useful” firms or organizations remain socially useful to any real degree when their one rigid requirement is that the first portion of a worker’s earnings be set aside for war? Can a “socially useful” person remain socially useful in his job to any real degree when, in order to do with one hand the work of building a better society, he has first to do with the other hand the work of destroying it (like a church constructing a brothel)? Conscientious workers in such employment may reason after a while, as some have, that the effect of this operation is that they are working in a munitions factory part of the time.

Men go to prison rather than join the armed forces and support conscription. Should not the people with these principles (especially the people not subject to any draft) face the imperative of sacrificing a little economic security (or convenience), especially when not facing it means continuing to pay substantial sums of money for terrifying weapons and conscript armies?

Ernest Bromley lives in Sharonville, Ohio, with his wife, Marian and family. He keeps his earnings below the amount where any tax has to be paid. Around he refused, when a Methodist minister in North Carolina, to purchase an automobile tag (not a license), for his car and did three months in jail. His wife worked for the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the leading pacifist group in this country, and quit her job rather than pay the withholding tax for war which this and all other peace organizations take from their employees. He has been head of the tax refusal committee of Peacemakers. He supplements his income by an apiary in his garden. I have visited there several times and respect the effort which he and his wife are making to live up to their ideals. They live a few miles from the Grail farm at Loveland, Ohio. The Jehovah Witnesses and the Catholic Worker are two groups where all work for their keep and no salaries—and no taxes—are paid. This basis of voluntary poverty could be approximated by others if they wished to make the necessary adjustment between faith and works and try to live in community.—A.H.

Excerpts from an article by Ammon Hennacy in the issue:

For the first time when the withholding tax began I have not earned enough money to owe the tax man anything. I only made $310 lecturing and as my Autobiography is not copyrighted and I want no royalties from it, the sales go to pay for the printing and whatever is left over will go to the CW. There is no status [sic] of limitations on income taxes so I owe for 12 years. I told the tax man that I would not be foolish enough to tell him where I was going to lecture so he could be there and get the money. There is practically nothing that I have to buy as all of us here at the CW work for our keep. However, if I was to purchase anything in a store and give the cashier a $5 bill for a dollar purchase the tax man, if he were present, could garnishee the change from the cashier right then without any legal proceeding.

In this idea of tax refusal there are ways by which pacifists have to act according to their web of circumstances. Some, like Ernest Bromley, limit their earnings to the amount they are allowed because of dependents and have no tax to pay. Others like Rev. George Hauser, because of being ordained in the clergy, do not have a withholding tax taken from their pay, but at the end of the year make a statement of their earnings. Then the amount of tax is taken by garnishee from the pay with added penalties. There are others who have an income from securities and do not work for wages and who keep their money in a bank where the tax man comes and gets it.

There are millions of people who dislike paying taxes and who may write a letter to the government about it, but they pay. There are others like Governor Lee of Utah who put a certain amount of the tax due which comes from income other than wages in a bank and dare the tax man to sue to get it. But the government always will evade a moral issue, so it is likely that the Governor’s money will be taken the same as others who keep money in banks.

I plan to picket the tax man here in New York City for , and then fast and picket in penance for the bomb we dropped at Hiroshima . The T men have interrogated me and what they want to do about my tax arrears is up to them. With more H bomb tests scheduled for the spring by politicians and militarists it is increasingly the responsibility of the individual pacifist to think and to act about being a part of this terrible destruction planned by those who will soon be asking for votes because they have “kept us out of war.”

An excerpt from an Ammon Hennacy article in the issue:

The coming atomic tests now scheduled for and the air raid drill for are a challenge to all Christians. We intend to demonstrate against this “pinch of incense on the altar to Caesar.” This with our non payment of income taxes for war and a refusal to be a part of the war system is positive evidence that we are trying to understand and practice the Sermon on the Mount.

The argument that the idealist hears from the opportunist is that we are not practical. I submit that our program of the one-man-revolution is the most practical of all. Others who believe in bullets and ballots must gain a majority before they can begin to practice their beliefs and thus postpone indefinitely anything but conversation about their views. We do not need to wait upon others for we have seceded about 90% from this exploitative system and are already practicing our ideals.

An editorial from Dorothy Day reflected on the hydrogen bomb test among other things, and included this note:

Those who can take such stringent courses as tax refusal can give their services rather than be put on payrolls and beg their way to supply their daily needs if they can find agencies willing to work with them on these terms. Or they can embrace voluntary poverty and manual labor as a life of penance and mortification.

The harvest is great and the laborers are few. No fear of unemployment in this field.

An unsigned book review in the issue included this:

These publications [Thomas Merton’s The Silent Life and Basic Principles of Monastic Spirituality] will be of special interest to novices in the religious life or those contemplating such a move but laymen who read them should keep in mind that while there is much contained in them from which any Christian can benefit still the “techniques” of attaining union with God proper to the monk are not always the same for those “in the world.” Anyone who has lived under the Benedictine rule, and all the monastic orders of the Western world have felt the impact of Benedict’s spirit and legislation, knows the position of the concept of obedience in his thought. It is just about the most important single element and no one can be a good monk unless he is willing to give up his own will and like Jesus become “obedient unto death,” and the whole monastic observance is organized to serve this end. But the layman, living as he does most often in a society where “the prince of this world” and his spirit prevail, has the duty to cultivate, rather, the virtue of rebellion in order to be obedient to God. It is in rebellion too that we can imitate St. Benedict who fled the corrupt Roman society of his day, whose only concern was “to please God alone.” The monastic life is a judgement on the life of the “world” and in its light the “world” stands condemned. In this way the monk practices the virtue of rebellion. For those in the “world” there must be rebellion also if they are not to be counted “of it.” They must rebel against materialism by embracing voluntary poverty and giving all they possess over and above the absolute necessities to those who have not the necessities, they must rebel against war and its causes by conscientious objection and tax refusal, they must combat that selfish middle class individualism and fear of giving of self by embracing community in one form or another. Rebellion is the first step in any attempt at conforming to Christ; it begins at baptism when the neophyte formally renounces Satan—et omnibus operibus ejus.

More from Ammon Hennacy, in the issue:

Richard Fichter, whose article appears in this issue, had been dismissed from the Methodist ministry in Pennsylvania because of his energetic anti-war and tax refusal stand. I had never met him but he had bought several of my books and distributed the CW and had attended various picketing demonstrations. He and his wife have three small children and live on a farm with twenty cows to attend to. All radicals have to make the decision when to follow Caesar and when to follow Christ. 75,000 followers of Gandhi went to prison and someone besides the British government took care of their families. Many bourgeois minded pacifists thought it was wrong for a CO to go to CPS camp or prison and leave a family behind. Richard wrote to many papers about the evils of atomic war and little attention was paid to his views. So he came to New York City and in the midst of a nation wide broadcast on television he jumped to the stage and shouted his message. He thought that this would gain attention and the papers would print his views in full. Instead he was locked up in Bellevue for mental observation. I visited him there and met his wife and brother and two Methodist ministers who were his friends. Later his brother and Parents came to visit us at the CW from their home in Ohio. When the government comes to a pacifist and says you must register for the draft, pay taxes for war, sign a loyalty oath, or when a Congressional Committee wants you to tell on others, then if you do not follow the best you know and refuse absolutely, you are following less than you know and will live to regret your timidity. But to leave farm and family to try to tell your message to those who do not want to hear it is not wise and does not make a witness with the dignity which no doubt inspired Richard in the lives of Thoreau and Gandhi. A radical who has faith knows like Thoreau that “one on the side of God is a majority.” And when his neighbors think he is queer and out of step he can reply like Thoreau that he “is listening to a different drummer.” He is not frustrated if all are against him. He does not need the applause of the multitude for he will be content when “two or three are gathered together.”

Ammon Hennacy, in the issue:

Tax Refusal

Leland Olds of Yellow Springs, Ohio has refused to pay income taxes and as a result his house worth $9,000 has been sold by the government for the less than $200 taxes due. He can regain the property within a year by paying the tax with interest. This action, together with the sale of a car belonging to Walter Gormly and of Arthur Emery of Iowa, are the only cases I know of where the government has taken property of tax refusers. At times they have garnisheed wages and taken money from bank accounts. They got $5 from a farmer I was working for in Arizona who paid it out of his own pocket rather than take it from my wage, and the tax man also took my picketing sign saying he would sell it to the highest bidder. I never heard of anyone buying it. I still owe taxes for 12 years and will picket the tax office here on unless I am in jail on the air raid drill. Then I would fast in jail.

Karl Meyer, in the issue:

Stepping Up the Agitation

Dear Bob or Dorothy or whoever is holding things down there while we are all out making angry and urgent faces at the giants of the impersonalist order.

I was very encouraged to receive the issue and to read your letter to the California legislature, even as I was preparing to step up the agitation in support [of] Rose Robinson and tax refusal.

On I began to hand out a new leaflet outside the Federal Building which has been the focus of our protest. After outlining developments in the case. I wrote, “There are some of us who believe, as she does, that it is wrong to pay taxes for war. We have refused as she refused, to cooperate with the Internal Revenue Service in the collection of taxes. And, beyond this, we encourage everyone to do the same. If she deserves to be in prison we deserve to be there too. Therefore I ask from the judge, the United States Attorney’s office, the Internal Revenue Service and all taxpayers and supporters of military preparations, a share in the judgment against her. We have said very simply that your preparations for nuclear war, and therefore your war taxation, are criminal beyond any measure of crime that man has known before. And you have said that our dissent from the idea and action of military preparedness is criminal. The question of which is right is urgent for the future of all men. We have shown a readiness to ratify the truth of our conviction at the risk of imprisonment and hardship. The integrity of justice asks either that Rose Robinson be released, or that all who share her stand be imprisoned with her. That is why I ask the officials and the people for a decision in my case consistent with their decision in hers. How can one person be imprisoned for taking a stand, while others who take the same stand and, what is more, advocate and promote it in the marketplace are left free? I ask the officials and the people involved to release Rose Robinson, but if they will not do that, I ask them to prosecute me for refusing to cooperate with Internal Revenue Service and for advocating that all people do the same.”

The third person who came out and took this leaflet was Judge Robson. I had already mailed him a copy with a covering letter in which I said, “…By presenting this nuclear issue as an issue of imprisonment and freedom, we approach by an analogy the core of what it really is: that is, an issue of life and death for all of us… I hope therefore that you will not regard this leaflet distribution and this request for a share in the judgment against Rose Robinson as something impertinent, but as an attempt to enunciate forcefully the terms of a public discussion of a crucial issue, as well as to bear witness to a very strong conviction that it is wrong to participate in modern war in any way.”

We encouraged Rose by our vigil, visits and letters. In court she thanked us for that. I feel responsible to every one man insurrection to make it a two-man insurrection, so that it may become a three-man insurrection and finally a revolution of enough men.

It is at the critical moment when we recognize our responsibility to one another that we realize our responsibility to mankind and to God. That is what Jesus told us. We see war coming on, bearing down on us, a visible monument to an immensity of sin. Our voices have not reflected the horror we have seen. Our voices have not challenged the supremacy of crime in the actions of men. We were glad enough if a government preparing for World War Ⅲ, was yet benevolent in this decade until war comes, glad enough if our protest could be free from suffering. We are still accomplices because we have whispered at the moment when we should have shouted. We ought to throw up the challenge of Tolstoi and Thoreau, to keep all just men in jail or give up war and slavery.

Here we are making faces at the giants of the impersonalist order, but what we do not forget is that a face turned in urgent desperation to them is a face turned in hope to God. Our work is primarily a prayer.

Early last week two men were standing on the step of the Federal Building watching me as I passed my leaflets and commenting to each other. I recognized one of them. It was deputy U.S. Marshal Wheeler, the man who put the chains on me last summer at Mead, Nebraska. I stepped up to him and said, “Hello. Mr. Wheeler. Will you take a leaflet?” “Yes, Karl,” he said, “I’ll take that. I see that you are still here passing them out.” And so I was, and I realized that the children of this world are too wise to be consistent. Last summer he put me in chains for standing on a grass covered knoll near a missile base. Last month they gave Rose Robinson twelve long months and a long day. Who can say what they will do tomorrow when I walk up the steps and into the building and have a try at handing the leaflet to taxpayers lined up outside the Federal Internal Revenue office.

In Christ,
Karl Meyer
Chicago Catholic Worker

An announcement in the issue:

Prayer, Fasting, and Tax Refusal

Ammon Hennacy will picket the office of Internal Revenue at Varick and West Houston Streets in New York City and will fast at this time as a penance for our dropping the bomb at Hiroshima, , and for our continued atomic activities. He has openly refused to pay income taxes during 12 years while working in the fields in the Southwest, or while lecturing, as 83% of the income tax goes for war. He will picket from 9 to 5 on weekdays. Readers in New York are invited to keep him company, and anyone sympathetic can help by praying and fasting according to his capacity.

The same issue also included an article from Eroseanna Robinson, borrowed from The Peacemaker:

Rose Robinson Tells of Her Arrest and Prison Experiences

It was , and I got off the city bus in a hurry because I was late for work. My arms were straining with the packages I’d bought downtown. They were things for the Play Club mostly, and food. I hadn’t had any lunch, except a couple of cashews and some fudge nibbled at on the bus. I was quick-stepping toward Bethlehem Community Center compelled by two nagging realizations. I was late and I was hungry. I had a conference with my supervisor set for two o’clock. It was already ten after. Well, I’d just have to talk and eat at the same time. I stopped, late as I was, at the corner store and bought some buttermilk. Actually, I already had an abundance of food — vegetable soup, swiss cheese sandwich and what not. But for a change, I had a little extra money and for the rest of that year, certainly, I was going to be earning a little more than usual. For the first time in my seven years of tax refusal, I wouldn’t have to budget so closely. Eating was as good a way as any to celebrate. I was vexed with myself to be so busy. First the conference. Then group preparation. Then the Play Club children’s time. I’d have to do a lot of phoning after that for the parents meeting that night. I took the hall steps quickly when I got inside the building and rushed into the front office, I said “Hi” to the secretary. She had a peculiar look on her face. My supervisor and the girl workers were also in the office. I spoke to them but everybody kept looking at me strangely and nobody said anything. “What’s wrong with all of you?” I asked. “I’m not that late. It’s only 2:15.” Then the secretary said, “Rose, there’s somebody to see you.” She was nodding across the hall toward the library. Somebody to see me. I didn’t want to see anybody with all I had to do. I wanted to put down my arm-racking bundles and have my conference and eat. The fact is that I never had that conference and I didn’t eat for 115 days because a short, stocky, authoritative man in a grey uniform came toward me out of the library. Behind him was a man I knew. He’d come to my home several times and to Bethlehem Center only a week before. He was Mr. D.L. Turner, deputy collector for the Internal Revenue Service. The first man said, “Erozee-yanna Robinson?” and I said correctly “Eroseanna,” and he snapped his right hand open sidewise showing his badge. “I have a warrant for your arrest," he said. “Come with me.” For eight months the government, through its agents, had hammered link upon link several visits by the deputy collector, registered letters, a subpoena, a certified court order, telephone calls, throughout, to my home and work, a call to my sister, Adrienne, at her work, a visit to my job — until at last, they had reached the handcuff-end of the chain, putting my wrists into them so tightly that they cut, and lugging my body, in deliberately ungainly fashion, away to jail.

My body was lugged and dragged around many times after that because I refused to walk to jail or trial or any place authorized by the courts. And throughout the whole of my incarceration, the practices upon which government power pivots came into sharp focus. One is the coercion of the individual to unquestioningly submit to authority imposed by the government, the other is the deliberate misrepresentation of any individual who might take exception to such authority. This whole pattern is disguised as the democratic process’ and, in recent years, has frequently been labeled ‘freedom’ and ‘truth’. Actually, respect for the right of the individual to examine policies of government — which certainly affect us all — is a myth. And taking exception to policy, as in my own case — even though that exception be a denouncement of violence, waste, psychological intimidation, misrepresentation of truth, and preparation for wholesale destruction — can constitute a felony.

When the individual is willing to be fodder for such an organ, it is partly out of desire for reward but largely to escape punishment. And submission to such authority is no guarantee of either. So, when the deputy marshal told me he was there to arrest me, I told him that was his affair and was of no concern to me, and started up the 2nd floor stairs to my office.

I recognized that I was going to be forcibly involved and I was alert to a point of high tension. But still, I knew I was faced with a choice of being arrested or of arresting myself. I knew then that my arrest was to be his affair, since he had not the conscience to do otherwise, and later, that or the ten or so others who answered his telephone call for help when I refused to go with him voluntarily. I wasn’t going to contribute my body for incarceration anymore than I would contribute federal income taxes for militarization. This would be giving sanction to the government’s inflicting punishment upon the individual. But just as militarization is evil, so too is the punitive institution.

The government has prepared a glossy brochure about Women’s Federal Prison at Alderson, West Virginia. They call their penal process ‘rehabilitation’! This is a calculated misuse of the term. They proceed due south of rehabilitation. Such downgrading of human beings — infantile treatment of the women, the frequent apathy toward the physical ailments of inmates, the absurd restrictions — is anything but preparation for constructive living. This was equally true of the Cook County Jail.

This maltreatment of prisoners would be bad enough if done out of ignorance. But attempts at concealment of the facts by all levels of government personnel, with restraint of information and with lies, reveals the hypocritical state of such authority.

I’ve learned, since my release from Alderson, that a number of lies in regard to me and treatment of me were given to the Press by the wardens of both the County Jail and the prison and by the U.S. marshal. I will recount some in a later issue, but let me state a few of these now and set the facts in order:

Rose was arrested and taken to the Clerk’s office of the county jail.

I wasn’t taken to any office, but was carried upstairs and dumped on a bed in the incorrigible cell of the “Hole.” The Hole is usually reserved for narcotics addicts who are breaking the habit. It was overheated because addicts in that condition are always cold. They vomited all day and all night and in between they talked in the lewdest profanity. The Hole is a four part unit — 1 larger room about 9′×12′ and 3 tiny cells, removed from the outer door, about 4′×8′. The grey speckled floors were stone, the clay colored walls, iron. The larger section had four iron beds with mattresses and bedding. A bed in each of the little cells took up half the width. There’s a seatless toilet in each. The two outer ones had windows that opened (but that were kept closed because the addicts complained of being cold). Only one of these boasted a sink. Two cell doors remained open usually, while the one in which I was put was locked. In that cell, the window was nearly opaque with dirt and with heavy screening, and iron bars were on the outside. It could not be opened. Under it, going full blast always, was a radiator. The only way I could get relief from the heat, and a breath of cool air, was by lying flat on the floor on my stomach and inhaling of the stream that flowed under the hall door from several feet away. The iron bed had a wafer-thin mattress on it and was so short that my head and feet stuck out simultaneously beyond its borders. I was given a clean sheet and a blanket. To get some sleep at night, I tilted the bed up on one end out of the way and put the mattress on the floor. I slept fitfully with my head resting on stone, under the toilet. Whenever a toilet in an adjacent cell was flushed, the substance would back up into the others. This kept me jumping up throughout the night, reflushing the one over my head. The radiator boiled away, where my feet were, all night long. I didn’t wash for 3½ days because I was told I couldn’t use the facilities without begging. Frequently the matron put food for me on the floor.

Rose proceeded to take off her clothes and to remain thus in the cell.

I was forcibly undressed by two matrons after refusing to give up my own clothes. Then I was manually searched all over and forced into a striped cotton dress that was ripped in two places. All my clothes — even shoes — were taken from me. The next morning I was told repeatedly that I would be left in jail to rot unless I got dressed and walked out to go to court. I refused. About an hour later, without explanation, my clothes were given back to me. Another hour passed, and when I refused to walk out, I was dragged from the cell, up the steps, into a wheelchair and hauled off to court. When I returned, the nurse had trouble removing my clothes by herself, so she didn’t bother to take any more than my skirt. I fashioned another by doubling a sheet and wrapping it around my middle. I refused to put on the striped dress she’d provided. On the fifth day, after I’d been dragged from my prayers and put in isolation cell of the so-called hospital (a dingy white-painted dormitory), the nurse, who proved to be sympathetic and courteous, offered me a nightgown which I accepted. I wore this to bed and whenever I washed my own clothes.

Rose took exercises unclad.

Silly. I always wore the above-mentioned.

Rose, therefore, had to jump into bed when the warden and a reporter from the Daily News came to interview her. She told her story, said the reporter, who “quoted” her in the News.

How reluctant I’ll be to believe anything printed in the daily papers from now on. No reporter was ever admitted to quarters where I was confined. And such quotes are out-and-out lies. Moreover, I neither saw nor talked to the warden until the last day when, under his supervision, I was dragged from the cell and carted to the U.S. hospital.

Rose left the cell to go downstairs and see a boyfriend, but she wouldn’t go to see her parents.

During my incarceration I walked out of the immediate confines 3 times — once at Alderson when I helped carry a sick inmate to the hospital car, once to my release and one other time, at the Cook County Jail. And I went to talk to Rev. Ernest Bromley, editor of The Peacemaker. At first I hesitated. And then I decided that too few people knew my views on tax refusal and the like, so this was to me a fine chance to express these views through the newspaper. I then resumed my plan to see no one unless they were admitted to the area where I was confined. My mother was admitted and I welcomed her.

The other inmates were sneaking Rose candy bars during her fast. The warden, head matron, priest and others had proof.

This’s the first time in my experience that fantasy has become proof. I ate nothing throughout my whole time in jail and nobody crammed anything down my throat. After my removal to the U.S. hospital I ate nothing. I drank no water the first 3½ days of jail, very little — spasmodically — in-between, and none the last 9 days before force-feeding. I did not wish to crave things that could be withheld from me, because emotional control meant freedom.

Rose enjoyed being fed through a tube in her nose. She didn’t struggle.

At Alderson, I didn’t struggle. I gave voice protest and continued whatever I was doing. In the beginning at the U.S. hospital in Chicago, I had struggled, nonviolently against four men and two women. It took them 20 minutes to turn me over and stretch me out and another 20 minutes to get me tied, hand and foot to the bed, in a straitjacket. I couldn’t do much moving in that state, but they further secured me with a restraining blanket made of bulky canvas. Then they tightened a rope across my chest. It was in the mid-eighties in that room and no air was stirring. I had trouble breathing. I was miserable. But they had an easy time force-feeding me. By the next morning I was aching all over. One of the doctors came in and asked me how I felt. I felt terrible, I said. Would I struggle if he let me out? I’d thought about that overnight. How easy it was for them to force food into me—how uncomfortable it was for me. Besides this, I was 37 lbs. below normal weight and very weak. If I could keep them from having power over me, struggle I would. But I knew I couldn’t keep up even the kind of effort I’d made the night before, and neither did I have the control yet to remain lying in one position for a long period of time. So, I told the doctor, no. Did I want to be untied? Yes. So, he walked away and left me like that for several hours more. I stayed, thus restricted, for nearly 24 hours. The night before, when they inserted the tube, the other doctor had jammed it into my nose, letting it stop at my throat. I tried desperately to get my breath but I kept choking. I could see the doctor’s face, looking like a great wax mask—with expensive eyes—magnified enormously. He watched me as though I were a specimen under glass. I gagged three times and he watched me. “Alright now, breathe,” he said this steadily, “through your mouth”. Of course I did, and, in one movement, he jammed the tube down to my stomach. Blood bubbled from my nose and mouth. It continued for hours, after that. My nose and throat were inflamed and sore for 4 days. My nose remained sore and ran constantly, and I sneezed again and again throughout 12 days of force-feeding. The doctor at Anderson was considerate and gentle in this. He used a smaller tube and put it down by degrees. There was very little irritation. My nose did run for weeks though, and always when I talked. I sneezed, because the tube was left there all the time. I plugged up the nostril with cotton to keep the thing from wriggling. I slept with it and otherwise lived with it for 76 days and nights. That made a total of 88 days of force-feeding.

Rose was being well-fed, gaining much weight, and was getting 3000 calories per day.

For nine days at Alderson, I was force-fed 2 pints of water with 5% sugar and 2 pints of a mixture of egg, molasses, sugar, salt, water, evaporated milk and orange juice. After that the mixture was doubled and the sugar-water eliminated. When I was removed to solitary confinement, the mixture was cut 25%. Then it was cut a second time. I was carried to solitary 25 lbs. underweight. Taking measurement of myself revealed I hadn’t gained a pound. Limited exercise wore me out. To keep from losing, frequently I’d spend long hours in bed. Hospital aides (inmates) told me the mixture contained very little protein and an abnormally high amount of molasses, salt and orange juice. Long before they told me this I’d started drinking lots of water because I was feeling irritation from the acidity. I was drinking as much as 15 glasses of water each day. Sometimes I felt a little feverish and my face would swell. That was when the prison staff would compliment me on how nice and fat I was getting. Only when friends came to the prison, asking after my welfare, did the aides tell me the protein had been increased noticeably but that the molasses and salt and orange juice remained high. Again, before they told me this, I’d already noticed my measurements were increasing normally. When I was released, I was 10 lbs. underweight.

Rose liked the feeding.

I was forced-fed in a ragged pattern. The aides and nurses came any time between sun-up and 9:30 at night. I overcame feelings of weakness usually through prayer, and sometimes, as I said before, by just climbing into bed. Food was left as an enticement throughout most of my confinement. An aide who felt sorry for me told the head nurse I wasn’t getting enough nourishment. “That’s impossible.” said the nurse. After that they left a glassful of the stuff on the dresser. Often I was spattered with the stuff, whenever the tube came off the syringe. So, too, were walls, ceiling, floor, draperies bed, bedding — everything in the cell. And usually it was left where it landed. I made a practice of going on with whatever I was doing. At first, the nurses carried or sat me into position for force-feeding. Sometimes the aides would lurk, pitcher and syringe in hand, waiting for me to halt so that they could pour the stuff down easily. After I was moved to solitary, the aides were ultimately told to walk away if I didn’t sit down right away, so sometimes my stomach was left empty. One day I accidentally got a hole in the tube. The doctor refused to let the aides cut it, and he decided that neither did he have the time to leave the hospital to change it. I wasn’t fed for 25 hours.

Rose was given considerable freedom of movement.

When this was said, I was in solitary confinement in the maximum security cottage, one of only two with bars on the windows and with locked outer doors. I remained there for 27 straight days in full confinement. The last 31 days, the cell door was opened from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M.

And so the lies went and there are more — most skillful — all paid for with federal income tax. Lies. The Official order of the prison day, and at Alderson, the green grass grew all around. For the grounds were lovely to look at — lovely its trees, its broad lawns and gay spring flowers, lovely the birds singing outside the cottages where wires crawled through the walls like snakes, so that every word that every inmate spoke day or night was listened to and taken down on a tape recorder. There weren’t any secrets. Next time, I’ll tell about the alleged psychiatric and medical examinations at Alderson and about the marshal’s predictions about what the inmates would do to me when they found out I wouldn’t work. Also, I’ll tell about a time of weakness. One morning, for a moment, I was in a turmoil. Daily discipline, including prayer exercises, helped me to regain strength.

More from Karl Meyer, in the issue (excerpts):

I have had a small house of hospitality, five rooms where I have lived with nine or ten people who were sick, poor, orphans, old, travelers or needy of other kinds.

I have sought some way to work for the support of my responsibilities to this house and not pay federal income taxes for the support of militarism.

In I quit my job where taxes were withheld and resolved not to pay withholding tax anymore and went to jail for 54 days in solidarity with tax refuser Eroseanna Robinson, who had just been imprisoned here in Chicago.

After my release I began a search for work without taxes. I experimented with self-employment in odd jobs and in tutoring. I tried to persuade employers to pay for my work in the form of a direct donation to St. Stephens House, without withholding tax. I received an opinion from a lawyer that Internal Revenue Service had ruled that this type of arrangement with a charitable organization was legal for hospitals, so I applied at a number of hospitals, but was turned down. I looked for part time work paid for in cash. Nothing worked, particularly me.

Being under the firm impression that only one’s relatives could be claimed as dependents for the purpose of withholding exemptions, I complained bitterly to my pacifist brethren that, in fact, I had nine dependents but was unable to claim them for non-tax purposes. Not one of these experts on tax resistance set me straight.

On , after five months of frustration, I checked on the Internal Revenue Service definition of dependents. This is how it reads: “To qualify as your dependent… a person (a) must receive more than one-half of his support from you for the year, and (b) must-have less than $600 gross income during the year… and (c) must not be claimed as an exemption by such person[’]s husband or wife, and (and) must be a citizen or resident of the United States… and (e) must (1) have your home as his principal residence and be a member of your household for the entire year, or (2) be related to you…”

I counted four people in my household, in addition to myself, whom I could claim for dependency exemptions. I discovered that all along I might have been earning $3000 per year without a cent of withholding tax. I could have kicked myself all the way down Clark St.

We need more small houses of hospitality “to shelter the homeless at a personal sacrifice” instead of delivering them to the City and the State to be supported by taxes, on the street or in the jails. We believe that housing the unemployed, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, caring for the sick and the aged and, last of all, visiting the prisoners are parts of a total Gospel of Peace. If we do these things, we can also starve the tax collector, by feeding the poor. We can build “a new society in the shell of the old,” a City of God, and swing wide its gates to let the King, and his ambassadors, enter in triumph.

Not all of the poor who come to our door come in the embassy of God. Several nights ago one of the men came with two drop-cloths and a gallon of turpentine “from the job” and asked permission to leave them here and stay the night himself, and I, in all innocence, agreed to this. The next morning, two painters arrived, with a policeman, demanding the drop-cloths, which had been stolen from them and traced to our house. I turned over the drop-cloths, but the policeman also demanded that I turn over the thief. When I declined to do this, he said that he would take me to the station and book me for possession of stolen property. The painters agreed to sign a complaint against me, because, they said, not only had the cloths been stolen, but also, some paint had been spilt and now they would have to pay for it out of their own pockets. However, perhaps if I would reimburse them for the spilt paint, they would find it in their hearts to forget about the complaint. How much paint was lost, asked the policeman? Ten dollars worth. Now, half a gallon of paint may have been spilt, but how could anyone have spilt ten dollars worth? Still I had to take their word for it or they would surely have taken me to the station and signed the complaint, so in the end I paid and they went away satisfied with their take, all of which goes to prove the old moral: one good theft deserves another, or no use taking a fall over spilt paint. After the danger had passed, I found the thief under a bed in the farthest corner of the back room. He said he was sorry. And I said he sure as hell should be. And after a little of that he left.

I did reap an unexpected reward for my ordeal however, for that morning the most shiftless character in the house, out of an excess of sympathy and generosity, offered to press my trousers for me.

I might also say that some of the “rich” even come to our door as ambassadors of God. There is one man who comes from time to time and leaves things that we need (clothing, furnishings or household items) inside the door. He just opens the door, puts them inside and goes away. For almost two years he has been doing this. He used to come perhaps once a month, but recently he has taken to coming much more frequently. For a long time we knew nothing about him because we never saw him come, but several times recently, when the door was locked, he knocked and handed in his gifts when the door was opened and then left very quickly. I have always respected his anonymity, because I remember from my childhood the story of the shoemaker and the elves: the elves used to come at night and make shoes for the shoemaker, but one night he tried to catch them at their work and they disappeared and never returned again. (After the story I told above, let me hasten to say that there is always a ticket with the things that this man brings so that I know they are not stolen.)

During the voter registration period, one man from the neighborhood came in and asked, “Is this a registration office?” And I looked at the crucifix on the wall and the picture of Ammon Hennacy and said, “No, it isn’t.” The Democratic precinct worker for our building came in to see if we were registered, and she told me that I am going to vote under the name of Geoffrey Thornton, because he is registered but she can’t find him anywhere in the building. She needs votes but this is one she won’t get. Three young Catholic workers have said they may join me in the work here soon. If they do, we will be well staffed to carry out the Green Revolution program I outlined in my last letter.

The next article concerns Laurence Hislam, a war tax resister who is new to me. It comes from the issue:

Catholic Pacifist Jailed in England Father of Five Refuses Civil Defense Tax

By Robert Steed

My friend Laurie Hislam, who resembles Ammon Hennacy in many ways, was recently sentenced to a term in jail far refusing to pay his Civil Defense rates. He served two months last year for taking part in the civil disobedience campaigns of the Committee of 100 which protested the British involvement in the nuclear arms race.

I was in court with Laurie in when he first appeared on this charge. When he put on bis best suit, cranked up his car (a huge, old London taxi), which finally had to be pushed down a hill to get it started, and drove to town where other friends were waiting in court I was expecting fireworks but the magistrate put a damper on the proceedings and said he would allow no speechmaking. He said a note would be made of the tax refusal, and went on to the next hearing. Laurie said the court would probably send someone around to the house and want to take away a table or a few chairs and auction them off for the amount owed (the former owner having the privilege of bidding for them too) and debated whether any kind of resistance should be offered and if so what kind. When I left a few days later nothing had happened and a month after that when we met at the Spode House PAX Conference it was still the same. And now more than a year later I have heard in a letter from Laurie’s wife, Winifred, that he is serving time for the offense.

Lest I give the impression that Laurie became a radical in middle-age I should also say that he declined to serve in World War Ⅱ and instead of showing up for his physical went off on a tour of England and Scotland selling anarchist literature for Freedom Press. When he got back to London after a year on the road the police picked him up but the army doctors found something wrong with one of his feet and rejected him.

In the intervening years he has become a Catholic, gotten married and moved to the Cottswolds in the west of England near Gloucester where he and his wife built their house with their own hands and are raising five beautiful daughters. The whole family is vegetarian. Here is the text of Laurie’s leaflet explaining his position which was distributed in the Stroud area:

Why I Am In Jail

I have just commenced serving a term of imprisonment imposed by the Stroud (Glos.) Magistrates, and I believe it is important that it should be clearly understood by the members of the community on whose behalf the Magistrates have officially acted, why this has happened.

For the past two years I have refused to pay the portion of the Local Rate (roughly 1 penny in the pound) allocated to “Civil Defense.” My reasons are as follows:

  1. There is not even any pretense of preparation to protect the people of Stroud in the event of war.
  2. According to Government spokesmen, there is no known means of protecting the population against nuclear attack.
  3. Even if “Civil Defense” could be effective (which I do not believe possible) I would still feel bound to refuse to pay for it, since “Civil Defense” is an essential part of the preparation for a war in which millions of innocent people would be brutally killed or maimed.
  4. I believe that those who support “Civil Defense” have been deceived by the Government into believing that they are helping to save life and assist the injured, whereas in fact by their acceptance of the need for “Civil Defense,” they have given their tacit agreement (in certain circumstances) to the waging of nuclear war and its unimaginably terrible suffering.
  5. Worst of all is the hypocrisy attached to “Western” propaganda, which says, in effect, the Russians are the atheistic barbarians and we are good people trying to protect Christianity and democracy, whereas, in fact we and the U.S.A. are prepared to collaborate with the Russians in the ultimate blasphemy of destroying the whole of creation.

A so-called policy of which this is the logical result can never be justified, and I appeal to everyone who reads this statement to seriously consider his or her position. Examine your conscience and ask yourself the question: Am I willing to lend my support, either actively or (as the majority, unfortunately do) by my silence, to the preparation for nuclear war? (Remembering that “Civil Defense" is part of the insidious mental conditioning for war-acceptance.)

If we give our silent agreement to Lord Home’s recent boast of our ability to annihilate all Russia’s cities (even in revenge) we have committed murder in our hearts. You can no longer remain silent and still hope to retain your integrity. I may be forcibly silenced for a time, but I ask you to speak out fearlessly against the crime which is being prepared by the world’s leaders. Above all—speak out for the children and babies of the world who rely upon you for protection. You cannot give protection by preparing for war — a war in which there can be no defense — only revengeful slaughter on both sides.

Laurence Hislam,
Brownshill,
Stroud, Glos.

This next comes from the issue:

Tax Refusal

Handbook on Nonpayment of War Taxes; published by the Peacemakers’ Movement; 35 cents; 52 pages; available from the Peacemakers (1208 Sylvan Ave., Cincinnati 41, Ohio)

Reviewed by James Forest.

For all those who have ever felt a deeply responsive chord struck upon reading or re-reading the story of 10 just men saving the city, this book on conscientious tax-refusal should be meaningful.

The book is divided into a number of sections: there is a good collection of fairly brief quotations by a wide range of tax-refusers, a chapter on the philosophy and history of this particular form of conscientious objection, considerable material concerning the inherent legalities/illegalities, descriptions of the basic forms of refusal (surprising variety) and, most important, a substantial collection of “personal experience” sketches. The reader might find it useful to see a tightened version of the major contents:

Philosophy

Nonviolence begins with personal disarmament: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hate, let me sow love.” It is not a partial disarmament. At least that isn’t the goal. It is a serious and concerted effort to shred the rhinoceros hide which makes us either witting or unwitting enemies to other men. (I recently had the opportunity to hear a young woman describe the effect her first long term contact and participation in a nonviolent project — in this case the Walk to Cuba — had on her. She spoke of the sensation of peeling off layer upon layer of dead skin, of feeling the wind for the first time.) What is it the pacifist says? I refuse to be your enemy. I refuse to be your enemy so much that I will fight for you, fight with you, fight with love to see justice done — even at personal risk. The Great Commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” I cannot be free until you are free. I cannot be comfortable or safe or satisfied until these things are common property.

It is not necessary to quote here statistics offered in the book on where taxes go. We all know. A good deal of it goes to the arms race in all its continuing facets. I don’t think it would make much difference if it were only a little. There is nothing more moral in contributing a nickel to a child’s death than in giving a dollar for the cause. But the plain fact is that more than half that money goes for that purpose, and we do give it.

Said one woman, Miriam Nicholas, deciding this was one contribution she would be unable to make, “…the government expects me to help pay for weapons that could destroy all life on this earth.” “This I must not give,” said Wendal Bull, finishing a similar statement. “You may be imprisoned, but that is sometimes more honorable,” Ross Anderson stated. “If I can’t stop other people’s killing.” Milton Mayer decided, “I must stop my own.”

What Is the Law?

The legal aspects of tax refusal are complicated and inevitably vary from case to case. It is, of course, a punishable offense to refuse all or part of one’s taxes. It is also an offense not to submit the required documentation. Any noncooperation with the Internal Revenue Service is illegal. The penalty can be as high as a $10,000 and a year in jail plus the cost of prosecution.

In practice, for reasons which one can easily understand, no such sentence is ever meted out. In fact few tax-refusers ever find themselves in front of a judge at all. It is interesting to draw some quick statistics from the 41 cases detailed in the handbook (there is some slight overlapping): Four lost their jobs (two were Protestant ministers). Six were jailed, average sentence served being about three months. (Those jailed, it should be noted, refused any alternatives: put no money in the bank so that it couldn’t be seized, held no volatile property in their own names, etc.) Nine had property or funds seized. (The government, when it desires to seize anything, prefers funds; attempts to garnish salaries or draw from cheeking and savings accounts are most common. As a last resort it may seize property for public auction, such as a house.) 29 received no punishment and had no property or funds seized. That is not to say there was no intimidation, that the going was easy. It wasn’t. But the simple truth is, or at least has been, that there are still relatively few tax collectors, district attorneys or judges who wish to play a modern version of Pilate’s role. We can be glad there remain many (perhaps even a growing number) who do not feel justice is served by stale coercion of conscience.

Forms of Refusal

There are, and this I didn’t realize, several distinct forms of tax-refusal, each with its own sub-variations. The first and probably most well known is absolute nonpayment.

Absolute Refusal

To practice absolute nonpayment it is necessary either to earn an income too low to be taxable (Citizens and residents, under 65, can figure as nontaxable any income which is below the number of members in the family times $600. Thus a family of three would be tax exempt if it made less than $1,800 in the course of a year), or, if is is impossible or philosophically repugnant, to earn a taxable income where one is not subjected to withholding tax, such as by having one’s own business or forming one with others of similar concern. Ammon Hennacy, though he owes $1,300 in back taxes, is for the present in the first group, earning less than a taxable income. Karl Meyer was in the latter group until he discovered he could count all the members of St. Stephen’s house of hospitality as dependents (as long as they had lived in the hospice from the beginning of the year and received half or more of their subsistence from him). Persons interested in both tax refusal and running a small house of hospitality might find this an ideal solution.

Partial Refusal

For persons who are having taxes withheld from their incomes there is the opportunity of refusing to pay the balance due, or part of it.

Others, whether they have taxes withheld from their earnings or not, sometimes choose to pay only the percentage which they feel is used for peaceful purposes — 30% to 40%. UNESCO seems to be one of the frequent recipients of the balance.

A third form of partial refusal includes persons such as Franklin Zahn, who annually withholds a “token ten dollars.” These believe that the minimum one can do is to refuse a symbolic sum. “Ten dollars is large enough to be noticed,” Zahn says, “but small enough to avoid excessive penalty.” The “token ten,” he suggests, could be given to some constructive project and the IRS so notified.

(The book also relates Zahn’s refusal, beginning in , to pay that portion of his telephone bill which was a federal tax, at the time 49¢ monthly. He explained this action to the telephone company, saying “My refusal to pay this tax is part of a larger rejection of all participation in defense activities.” Before long his telephone was removed. His resultant letter of explanation to friends, an apology, is a document worth reading: “Three times I have refused the monthly telephone war tax of 49¢ (15%) and now [garbled text omitted ―♇] is no more, as of . I regret much of the inconvenience of this fails on you, and offer my apologies to you and others who thus suffer from my act of conscience. When irked, please consider: 1. Somewhere in the world there may be one less bullet killing a human being. 2. The $3.74 saved monthly will be used for CARE parcels. 3. If it actually is the narrow choice I feel it to be, you would prefer me to be connected with my highest conscience than with a mere gadget.”)

Conclusion

Finishing the handbook, I am reminded of a brief epigram of James Baldwin contained in The Fire Next Time. “To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.” How we admire action and commitment! St. Francis strikes off to the Holy Land with his nonviolent “Army of Love,” an army, as Clement of Alexandria would call it, “which sheds no blood.” And we applaud this, one of the few moments of sanctity which occurred during all the Crusades, one of the few a Christian can recall with pride. St. Maximillian refuses to serve in the military and shortly dies under the executioner’s axe. The Cure d’Area, as a young man, changes his name and flees to the mountains rather than be conscripted. Before death he recalls this, saying be never felt his conscience burdened by it. And on and on. Thank God the list is endless. No editorializing is needed on lives like these. Somehow they change the question. It is no longer Should I be a tax-refuser? It becomes How can I be anything else?

It is fitting to end this discussion with a quotation the book provides from Milton Mayer:

“The power to stop war is not in my hands, and never will be. The only power that is in my hands is to stop killing my fellowmen. A thousand, or two thousand, or fifty thousand people refusing to go on killing via the tax method may save the old way of life; fewer than that were required to save Sodom. But if a new way of life is the condition of the revolution to which we are called, then we must find it in our hearts, and when we do that we will stop killing our fellowmen and, best of all, stop justifying our doing it. If I can’t stop other people’s killing, I must still stop my own.”

Another book review from the issue:

The Cold War and the Income Tax

The Cold War and the Income Tax, by Edmond Wilson; Farrar, Straus and Company; 1968; 118 pp.; $2.95.

Reviewed by James Forest.

Edmund Wilson’s most recent book is a small volume which carries the subtitle “A Protest.” Indeed it is that: a forceful, plain-spoken broadside at the cold war and the related income tax, and though it is not without blemish, it ought to provide at least an awakening for a great many.

What Mr. Wilson has done is to tell a simple, and at times homely, tale that began with carelessness (or more likely unadmitted and ingrained Yankee independence) and concluded with a monumental decision, at least for our timid age: a modified refusal to pay income taxes.

Much of the book is devoted to a detailed account of the original carelessness, fascinating in the sense that a common experience of almost everyone is seen in the sharp relief of Mr. Wilson’s prose — the utterly frustrating encounters with the rule-book bureaucrats, who seem always the same whether it is a hospital clinic or the army or a tax office that houses their working hours, or no matter what their ideology may be.

In Mr. Wilson’s case, his long encounter was precipitated by almost, dedicated indifference to taxes.

Until taxes were no problem to him, as they were automatically withheld by his various employers. But after that year he began to devote himself to fulltime independent writing, and of course there was no withholding. Six years went by, no taxes were paid, no returns filed, and though he tells us he occasionally thought about the eventual necessity of paying up, he was unaware of the astounding severity the law applies for even minor neglect. When at last he spoke to a lawyer friend, saying he might need some assistance in preparing his returns, the lawyer was flabbergasted and immediately urged Mr. Wilson to establish citizenship outside the United States before it was too late. But even the author of To the Finland Station can be naive, and he couldn’t believe it would be more convenient to change countries than negotiate a debt. He insisted on settlement, gave the lawyer a check and told him to begin his work. “You’re a brave man,” his lawyer told him.

The Years That Followed

It would be of little value to outline the years that followed , when the arduous work began. He must often have wished he had followed his friend’s advice and tucked himself away in a friendlier economy, where if he were paying taxes, at least it wouldn’t be for war. It took Mr. Wilson five years and two lawyers to settle the case.

At some unspecified point, Mr. Wilson’s instinctual annoyance emerged into a time of probing the meaning of his experience, the inadequacies of the collection system and, most important, the uses the money was being put to. His discoveries are carefully outlined—translating the noble sounding verbiage of the Administration’s Budget in Brief (which says in part, “The Federal Government’s final responsibility is to help safeguard the peace and security of the free world. This is our largest category of expenditures… Expenditures devoted to national security… space programs… and the continuing cost of past wars amount to 79% of the administrative budget…”), translating this into the facts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of napalm and phosphorus bombs, of disease, warfare. The latter two are of particular interest, because, (despite protest demonstrations at Ft. Detrick, Md., the U.S. research-development center for chemical and biological weapons) there is little popularisation of these methods of warfare, though it is admitted that napalm bombs are being used in Vietnam — as they have been widely used elsewhere — and there is evidence that disease weapons are also being employed. For instance, water supplies in South Vietnam have been poisoned in areas where both civilians and Vietcong rebels use the same well, killing some Vletcong, but also many non-combatants who were merely thirsty.

About napalm: It is, Mr. Wilson writes, “a kind of jelly saturated with gasoline, which is ignited by the bursting of the bomb. Its great advantage is that it sticks to whatever it touches… Its effect on human beings has been described by a BBC correspondent in Korea: ‘In front of us a curious figure was standing a little crouched, legs straddled, arms held out from his sides. He had no eyes, and the whole of his body, nearly all of which was visible through tatters of burned rags, was covered with a hard black crust speckled with yellow pus. A Korean woman by his side began to speak, and the interpreter said: “He has to stand, sir, cannot sit or lie.” He had to stand because he was no longer covered with skin…’ ” The BBC correspondent goes on to explain, however, that he would rather be killed by napalm than phosphorus or flame throwers.

Toward Inspired Derangement

The material on disease warfare (often termed bacteriological, biological or chemical) is on much the same level, though not so grossly horrifying, as we do not see it translated into eye witness accounts. Involved is the same degradation of any value system. For as one military man, Admiral Mahan, puts it, every advance in the use of lethal weapons, beginning with firearms, has been denounced as cruel. He goes on to point out that shells with asphyxiating gases could produce “decisive results.” Says Philip Noel-Baker, in his book The Arms Race, “All the leading governments have them now.” And in the Chief Chemical Officer of the United States Army announced that even “mental derangement might be deliberately inspired” by this form of weaponry.

As Mr. Wilson observes, “Human life since Stalin and the Nazis has been something that few people in the East or West any longer care much about.” Or as Robert Pickus, Turn Toward Peace executive, observed: “We support policies that would make Genghis Kahn vomit, and yet we turn out for Church every Sunday.”

Of course the question is, what can we do about all this? To Catholic Worker readers this is no new question, as we have been fighting this a long time.

Mr. Wilson outlines the general steps of tax refusal (see detailed article on this subject in the September 1963 Catholic Worker [Forest’s review, see above]) and describes the course of two more well known refusers, Dr. A.J. Muste of the Committee for Nonviolent Action and Liberation magazine, and the Rev. Maurice McCrackin, active in the civil rights effort and the Peacemaker movement.

He goes on to describe his personal response, which is to keep his income below taxable levels. (It is a fact, though it is not mentioned in this work, that Mr. Wilson has assigned all royalties of this book to use in the peace movement.) He has decided not to go to jail, however, and will move to another country before allowing this to occur. But he is determined to withdraw his support:

“When the stakes in games become so serious — when everybody’s life is at stake — they ought not to be played at all, and the taxpayers should not support them.”

The following article, from the issue, announces the formation of the “War Tax Protest Committee,” a group I hadn’t heard of before. I’m guessing it was an early, regional form of the group “National War Tax Resistance,” which came together in .

Tax Refusal

The War Tax Protest Committee was formed to bring together West Coast conscientious objectors to income taxes for war and war preparations. The aim of the committee is to heighten public awareness of uses to which tax monies are put and to suggest alternatives to the submissive payment of such taxes. A range of activities around the tax deadline is being planned, including an all-day picket of IRS regional headquarters in San Francisco, a press conference, and a public meeting.

Founders of the War Tax Protest Committee include Ammon Hennacy, Roy Kepler, Mark Morris, Britt Peter, Ira Sandperl, Barton Stone, Sam Tyson, and Ida and Denny Wilcher.

The War Tax Protest Committee welcomes all persons involved in war tax protest — from total refusers to those who include a letter of protest with their return.

Creation of this new committee took place at the Committee for Nonviolent Action-West weekend seminar on Conscientious Objection to Income Taxes for War Preparations at Forest Farm in Marin County, . The new committee, however, will have no organisational tie with CNVA-West, which is furnishing it with office space.

c/o CNVA-West P.O. Box 5983, San Francisco 1, Calif.

The issue reprinted a letter from Joan Baez announcing her income tax resistance:

Tax Protest

Joan Baez, American folksinger, has refused to pay that 60% of her income tax which goes for military expenditures. She sent the following letter to the Internal Revenue Service explaining her action:

Dear Friends:

What I have to say is this:

I do not believe in the weapons of war.

Weapons and Wars have murdered, burned, distorted, crippled, and caused endless varieties of pain to men, women, and children for too long.

Our modern weapons can reduce a man to a piece of dust in a split second, can make a woman’s hair fall out or cause her baby to be born a monster. They can kill the part of a turtle’s brain that tells him where he is going, so instead of trudging to the ocean he trudges confusedly towards the desert, slowly, blinking his poor eyes, until he finally scorches to death and turns into a shell and some bones.

I am not going to volunteer the 60% of my year’s income tax that goes to armaments. There are two reasons for my action.

One is enough. It is enough to say that no man has the right to take another man’s life. Now we plan and build weapons that can take thousands of lives in one second, millions of lives in a day, billions in a week.

No one has a right to do that.

It is madness.

It is wrong.

My other reason is that modern war is impractical and stupid. We spend billions of dollars a year on weapons which scientists, politicians, military men, and even the President all agree must never be used. That is impractical. The expression “National Security” has no meaning. It refers to our Defense System, which I call our Offense System, and which is a farce. It continues expanding and heaping up, one horrible kill machine upon another, until for some reason or another a button will be pushed and our world, or a good portion of it, will be blown to pieces. That is not security. That is stupidity.

People are starving to death in some places of the world. They look to this country with all its wealth and all its power. They look at our National budget. They are supposed to respect us. They do not respect us. They despise us. That is impractical and stupid.

Maybe the line should have been drawn when the bow and arrow were invented, maybe at the gun, the cannon, maybe. Because now it is all wrong, all impractical, and all stupid. So all I can do is draw my own line now. I am no longer supporting my portion of the arms race.

Sincerely Yours,
Joan C. Baez

Karl Meyer was back for the edition:

War Escalates, Tax Refusal Called For

“The future will be different, if we make the present different.” ―Peter Maurin

By Karl Meyer

I have been refusing to pay Federal income tax, or to file tax returns, . Finally, on , after several visits, an Internal Revenue Service agent sent me returns for the years 1962, 1963 and 1965, which he had prepared and filed without my cooperation or consent, claiming a total of $1,099.12 in back taxes and penalties for those years. we have shared the greater part of our personal income with people who have no income, through the house of hospitality, and I have claimed an appropriate number of exemptions on the withholding tax slips which one must file with one’s employers in order to hold a job, but I.R.S. did not recognize these exemptions, because I refused to file a return or to substantiate a claim to such exemptions in their conversations with me.

My resistance to Federal taxes is not based on legalities, but on moral opposition to militarism, and I will maintain it in spite of legalities and without taking refuge in them. I will never pay the tax that is claimed, even if I must become a pilgrim from job to job in order to avoid the attachment of my wages. (A national list of income-tax refusers is being collected for publication, by the No Tax for War Committee, c/o Rev. Maurice McCrackin. 932 Dayton St., Cincinnati, Ohio 45214. Last year’s list included the names of Dorothy Day, Martin Corbin and Ammon Hennacy among a list of two hundred.)

But I am not writing about this because I expect a mass addition of Catholic Worker readers to the list of income-tax refusers (it is not that easy to resist so thoroughly the demand of the state). I mention it as background to a more modest effort that we have also been promoting. we have been advocating a first step toward denying to the government funds to carry on the war against the Vietnamese people, refusal to pay the 10% excise tax on telephone service. This tax had been reduced to 3% as of and was scheduled to expire altogether, but it was restored in . The rationale for our campaign to refuse the tax is based on the words of Congressman Wilbur Mills, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and administration floor leader for the legislation which restored the tax, who stated directly at the outset of debate on the measure, “The bill, H.R. 12752, is intended first and foremost to provide additional revenues to help finance the expenditures required to sustain our operation in Vietnam!” (Congressional Record, .) Further along he declared, “I believe it is clear that it is the Vietnam, and only the Vietnam, operation, which makes this bill necessary,” and a third time, “I have stated, and I state it again, that it is the extraordinary expenses attributable to our operation in Vietnam that are responsible for the Ways and Means Committee reporting this bill.”

The Chicago Workshop in Nonviolence, Peacemakers, the Committee for Nonviolent Action, The War Resisters League, and other groups supporting the campaign have already collected several hundred names of people who are refusing the tax, but not yet in the numbers for which I had hoped. It is not that any danger is involved in the act. In no case has telephone service been terminated, because, under the regulations, the ultimate responsibility for collecting the tax lies with the I.R.S., not with the telephone companies, which are only required to bill for it. And the I.R.S. so far has done practically nothing to collect from any of the phone-tax refusers. This is understandable when you realize that the amounts of money are so very small, that it took I.R.S. six years to get around to trying to collect over a thousand dollars from a publicly acknowledged income-tax refuser like myself, and that they have never succeeded in collecting from Ammon Hennacy or numerous other tax refusers.

For the individual, the telephone tax by itself seems an insignificant amount of money, though the Johnson administration is counting on it, together with a 1% automobile excise tax increase, to raise $1.2 billion in , which would pay for about twenty days of killing in Vietnam at current rates of spending. For the individual, telephone-tax refusal is a small step, but for many it is a significant step, because for the first time they are acknowledging in action that if they had the free choice they would refuse to contribute to the activities of the federal Government, because its military activities outweigh its positive tax-supported programs. And if they admit that they are involuntary participants in such a great evil, they must face the issue of struggling in the society for the freedom to do what they believe is right, even by going outside of the law. But in going outside of the law they are taking back for themselves a basic responsibility for the order of society, which they had hitherto reposed in the state and the law. They are facing the issue of ultimate personal responsibility for society and the needs of others as we have faced it in the houses of hospitality and the Catholic Worker movement.

These are some of the implications of civil disobedience; of recognizing that the majority of citizens organized in the state, have failed man so badly, that we must struggle to build a whole new way of life that will be able to be human. I remember how often Ammon Hennacy has spoken of the people who were “pacifists between wars,” which he says is like being “vegetarians between meals,” and now it is possible to speak of those who oppose the war but pay their phone tax at “pacifists between telephone calls,” because with each ten-cent telephone call another penny joins the stream of Federal revenue that flows inexorably to Vietnam. It is true, friends, that with a first small step like phone-tax refusal, we are trying to coax people down the primrose path to the one-man revolution. The future will be different only if we change our lives. The act is small, but the meaning is large: this war is not our war, and we are willing to struggle to be on the side of life.

In the edition, Karl Meyer explained in-depth how to stop income tax withholding by claiming excessive dependents and how tax redirection could be used to nourish alternative institutions. (This would not be good advice to follow today, as the IRS has new punitive tools at its disposal.)

Through Effective Tax Resistance:

A Fund for Mankind

By Karl Meyer

Let us speak of a clearcut solution to two prevailing ethical concerns which are shared by many stable, wage-earning citizens who are in the peace movement today. On the one hand, we see a perverse system of national priorities which devotes most of our federal tax contributions to militaristic purposes which we abhor. We want our money to be used positively to fulfill social needs. On the other hand, we see young men of draft age resisting war and conscription concretely by refusing to participate, and suffering the consequences: imprisonment or exile. We wish to support them and to align ourselves with them in a real way.

Let me affirm that it would be very practicable for us to get together in our own resistance movement to prevent the conscription of our money by the military and to create a Fund for Mankind to support the things we believe in and provide mutual aid in the difficulties that might come as a consequence of our resistance.

The Vietnam War may draw towards a conclusion in the months to come, yet we have already been warned by spokesmen of the government, if not by the history of the last twenty-five years, not to expect huge amounts of money to be freed for the solution of domestic problems. There are plenty of military boondoggles waiting in the wings, promising that military expenditures will command the stage for many years to come. We should either seize our destiny in our own hands or stop crying about our involuntary complicity in the militarization of society.

I promise to show how we can stop paying for militarism and instead pay into an alternative fund and use it according to our own moral and political judgments.

At the outset, we must directly contradict the widespread notion that refusal to pay federal income tax is merely a form of personal witness and a purification of conscience, which because of inherent obstacles cannot emerge as a general action of resistance to the Vietnam War, militarism, and imperialism. Instead, let us affirm that tax resistance can be the most promising basis for a movement of constructive social action, as well as resistance to the evils of war and the wastefulness of the arms race.

Right away we come to the heart of the issue, because people say, “Our taxes are withheld at the source and paid by our employers without our consent.” This is the fallacy which must be resolutely laid to rest. Your consent is given whenever you fill out and sign a new W-4 Employees Withholding Exemption Certificate. The proper use of this form and of the early income-tax return are the keys to effective tactics of widespread tax resistance.

Let me therefore outline these tactics for Everyman in nine easy steps:

  1. Obtain a new W-4 form from your employer. On lines 4 and 5 claim as many extra dependents as is necessary to prevent the withholding of any tax (ten or twenty or five hundred thousand or thirty-five million if you wish). Sign the statement, “I certify that the number of withholding exemptions claimed on this certificate does not exceed the number to which I am entitled.” (Entitled by whom? We cannot have a moral revolution as long as we supinely acknowledge that we are entitled to do only what can be drained by the Internal Revenue Code and Regulations. We must explicitly reject the standards and definitions specified by a blind bureaucracy and instead affirm definitions that spring from our own consciousness of human solidarity. We must affirm that our obligation to the victims of United States militarism entitles us to claim as many exemptions as may be necessary to prevent the payment of taxes in our name.) Submit the new form to your employer. He is not responsible under law for the legality or accuracy of our claim, nor is he authorized to alter your claim. He is advised, but not required by law, to report to the Internal Revenue Service if he believes that your claim exceeds the number of dependents to which you are entitled.1 It is only if you fill out no W-4 form that he may withhold the taxes without your consent.2

  2. Write a letter to the I.R.S. stating that five hundred thousand American soldiers are depending on you to bring them home, or that thirty-five million Vietnamese are depending on you to stop supporting the war, that consequently you cannot accept the narrow definitions of human interdependence specified by I.R.S. regulations, that you therefore affirm your right to claim enough exemptions to forestall the collection of war taxes, and you have recently filed a new W-4 form with your employer in accord with this affirmation. This will put you on record as an open and principled tax resister, and may provide you with some defense in case of prosecution for making a fraudulent claim, since fraud implies an element of concealment, deception, and bad faith.3 But in writing to them, I would advise you not to name your employer, since this would only facilitate possible attempts by the I.R.S. to harass or intimidate you or your employer.

    Taking these first two steps should forestall the withholding of any tax from your wages.

  3. On April 15th (fifteen and a half months after the beginning of your no-tax year) you are required by law to file an income-tax return. File and complete an honest return, but don’t do it the way they want it. On line 3B of form 1040 U.S. Individual Income Tax Return, enter the same number of dependents previously claimed on your W-4 form (if thirty-five million, enter that number on line 3B). Attach a schedule stating the moral grounds of your claim: the universal interdependency of man. For line 11C, multiply the total number of exemptions claimed by six hundred dollars. Fill out the rest of the form, showing no tax owed, and send it in.

  4. Wait a few more taxless months while the I.R.S. gets around to figuring out your form, disallowing your numerous exemptions, and sending you a “proposed adjustment” of your income tax liability. You have another taxless month to request a District Conference to discuss the “proposed adjustment.”4

  5. If agreement is not reached at the District Conference, you may appeal to the Appellate Division of the Regional Commissioner’s Office.4

    All steps up to this point can be easily taken without the aid of an attorney and without much cost or inconvenience to yourself.

  6. If agreement cannot be reached with the Appellate Division, a statutory notice of deficiency will be sent to you; you will then have ninety days to appeal to the Tax Court of the United States, but if the I.R.S. believes that assessment and collection of the tax deficiency will be jeopardized by delay, it may proceed to assess and collect the tax in the meantime, pending your appeal to the Tax Court and decision by it, and any further appeals to the United States Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, if you choose to pursue such appeals. So a number of time-consuming bureaucratic steps must be gone through before the I.R.S. can make its final assessment of the tax due and begin the process of attempting to collect. The whole process must be repeated for each taxable year. I do not see how the I.R.S. can reach the collection stage in less than two years from the date when you first began to frustrate the withholding of taxes.

    Even if you chicken out and pay up at that point, you will have cost them more than it was worth and made them wait at least two years to get their money. But above all, you will have expressed concrete convictions clearly and registered effective short-term resistance against any particular war or Defense Department program that happens to be the primary current target of the resistance movement. If you want to go beyond this and keep struggling, as I have done, there are further effective steps to prevent the collection of the assessments by wage attachment or seizure of assets:

  7. Take your cash out of banks you have used in the past. If you have so much money that you have to be afraid of keeping it in the mattress, you should probably start thinking of what that money says about your aspirations towards human brotherhood. In the meantime, you could distribute it into several banks you have not used before and be careful not to write checks in payment of bills whose payment could easily be traced by the I.R.S. (such as telephone and utility bills). I have used an account in this way for several years, but I could do without it easily enough.

  8. If you are not strongly tied to your current place of employment, you can switch jobs as soon as the I.R.S. arrives to collect from your wages by levy and take a few simple precautions to make it a little difficult for the I.R.S. to discover your new place of employment. They are so bogged down and incompetent that it doesn’t take much to throw them off the trail for several years. I changed jobs in , and they haven’t found out my new job yet, though they have tried through numerous visits, phone calls, notes left under the door, and other perfunctory attempts.

  9. In preparation for the eventual confrontation, you can begin early to have real property which you use, such as houses and automobiles, owned and registered in the names of persons who will not be liable for payment of income taxes.

These and similar steps have worked for me and for a number of other individuals around the country for many, many years. I have used this method of tax resistance, or variations, of it, for the last ten years. In that time, I have paid no federal income tax of any significance. I have devoted the greater part of my total income to sharing with other people through Catholic Worker Houses of Hospitality. The I.R.S. is many years and hundreds of dollars behind in its attempts to collect from me, and has indeed collected nothing from me so far, though it has prepared returns for the years 1962, 1963, and 1965, and is trying to collect over eleven hundred dollars from me.

Here is the strength of tax resistance. If you don’t play by their rules, the cost of collecting will in many cases exceed the successful collections. The process of assessing and collecting taxes in the face of intelligent resistance is an immensely complicated bureaucratic operation, which frequently gets bogged down for incredible periods of time. The due process of law involved in the arrest and conviction of an induction refuser under Selective Service law is child’s play when compared to the due process involved in the collection of taxes from the intelligent tax refuser. So we have an effective tool at hand for resisting the demands of war and the arms race, if we will only seize the courage to act.

Positive Side

Now we turn to the constructive side of this action. If we pool all of the tax money that we did not pay in locally administered funds, we can create a model for a future in which men can regain direct control of their common institutions and effectively deny their consent to governmental programs they believe to be evil.

In each community or region we can set up a common fund. Each contributor will have one vote, as in a cooperative. The members will meet from time to time to set priorities and guidelines for administering the fund and to elect a committee to administer it according to their guidelines.

Part of the fund can be held as a reserve, which can be invested in low-interest loans to socially useful projects. In case of needs these loans can be liquidated in order to compensate members of the fund, up to the amount of their contribution, for personal losses and needs resulting from successful tax collections by the I.R.S. The reserve funds can also be used to provide legal defense for members who might be prosecuted under the tax laws, and to provide aid for the families of those who might be convicted and imprisoned or suffer other needs as a result of conscientious tax refusal. Thus through mutual aid the members of the fund will be protected from personal hardships arising from their stand, and together they can develop a most valuable sense of community and solidarity, that could immeasurably strengthen the whole peace movement.

Assuming that successful collections by the I.R.S. would always lag far behind the ongoing contributions to the fund, the greater part of receipts could be disbursed in the form of direct grants for ail kinds of socially useful organizations and projects. Assuming that the federal-income-tax contributions of most people in the movement probably far exceed their voluntary political, organizational, and charitable contributions, we could expect that the tax alternative funds could become one of the most substantial sources of money for the projects and purposes in which we most strongly believe. But beyond that we could hope that our experience in mutual aid through these cooperative funds would bear fruit in the development of ashrams and communities for closer economic and social cooperation; for it is when our constructive action and our resistance to evil become for real that we will see the need and value of mutual aid and begin to create cooperative alternatives within the competitive society in which we live.

If we ignore or neglect the great potential of tax resistance joined to constructive action, we must be deaf to history and blind to experience.

Deaf to history. Do we not know that tax resistance has been one of the greatest sources and strategies of revolutionary movements throughout history? Has not history shown that taxation is a process requiring the general consent and cooperation of the populace? Has it not been shown that when numbers of people reject a government by withdrawing their consent from the elaborate bureaucratic process of taxation, that government is in deep trouble? Did not the French Revolution begin with tax resistance? Was not the Estates General called into session by the King because he found it impossible to raise sufficient revenue for the operation of his government? Was not tax resistance the slogan and rallying cry of the American Revolution: “Taxation without representation is tyranny!”? Does not the Boston Tea Party, an act of resistance to taxation, stand in our historical tradition as a model for the actions of the Baltimore Four, the Catonsville Nine, the Boston Two, the Milwaukee Fourteen, the D.C. Nine, and the Chicago Fifteen? Did not Thoreau fashion the cornerstone of American resistance theory out of his own experience as a tax resister? Was not Gandhi’s largest and most significant campaign of civil disobedience, the Salt March, based on the strategy of tax resistance?

Blind to experience. Can we not see what the I.R.S. knows full well: that even where the public gives general consent to the process of taxation it is always and everywhere a grudging and tentative consent, a resentful and querulous consent, a fragile consent that must always be nursed and safeguarded by positive public relations? Why has the I.R.S. trodden so lightly in prosecuting principled tax refusers, usually concentrating instead on ineffectual attempts at collection? Is it not because there exists among the public at large a greater reservoir of grievance, a potential of sympathy for tax resisters, and, what is more, a vast subliminal potential for tax resistance and evasion, that only needs to be aroused by news of widespread tax resistance?

Let us learn from the experience of the draft-resistance movement and the telephone-tax-refusal campaign, a few years ago, many people regarded draft refusal as a personal witness of the solitary conscience. Today it has taken on the dimensions of a social movement. It is, however, restricted by the narrow age and sex range of those who are subject to conscription, and even more restricted by the narrowness of the draft as a single focus of action.

In the telephone-tax-refusal campaign we measured the potential dimensions of a tax-resistance movement. In , we started the campaign for nonpayment of the ten-per-cent federal telephone excise tax, which had just been restored by Congress explicitly to help in meeting the rising costs of the Vietnam War. The issue of WIN magazine quotes from a Wall Street Journal story reporting that eighteen thousand people refused to pay their telephone tax last year. This resistance tactic caught on quickly and spread rapidly with little organizational effort, because it was a direct and simple action which any telephone subscriber could easily carry out. But after flaring up briefly, interest in this tactic gradually subsided, though thousands no doubt continue to refuse to pay the tax. Enthusiasm for the action could not be maintained, because it was not resistance for real. It was, rather, the first token of a spirit of resistance, which at the time could find no practical channel for deeper development.

When we can combine real war tax resistance with the tremendous constructive potential of a Fund for Humanity, we will have raised a banner to which all honest and courageous men of conscience can repair.

Note: I want to acknowledge the contributions of Brad Lyttle, Sidney Lens, and several young members of the draft-resistance movement whose names are unknown to me. Recent discussions with them helped greatly in stimulating and formulating the ideas for the article, which has also been distributed in mimeographed form by the founders of the Chicago Area Alternative Fund (C.A.A.F), 1209 West Farwell, Chicago, Illinois 60626. (Tel: 764-3620). We have begun. Join us!

Notes and References

  1. Internal Revenue Regulations, Paragraph 31.3401 (e)-1 (b) — “The employer is not required to ascertain whether or not the number of withholding exemptions claimed is greater than the number of withholding exemptions to which the employee is entitled. If, however, the employer has reason to believe that the number of withholding exemptions claimed by the employee is greater than the number to which such employee is entitled, the district director should be so advised.”

  2. Internal Revenue Regulations, Paragraph 31.3401 (e)-1 (a) — “…If no such certificate is in effect, the number of withholding exemptions claimed shall be considered to be zero…”

  3. Internal Revenue Code, Section 7201. ATTEMPT TO EVADE OR DEFEAT TAX. “Any person who willfully attempts to evade or defeat any tax imposed by this title or the payment thereof shall, in addition to other penalties provided by law, be guilty of felony and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $10,000, or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both, together with the costs of prosecution.”

    Internal Revenue Code, Section 7205. FRAUDULENT WITHHOLDING EXEMPTION CERTIFICATE OR FAILURE TO SUPPLY INFORMATION: “Any individual required to supply information to his employer under section 3402 who willfully supplies false or fraudulent information, or who willfully falls to supply information thereunder which would require an increase in the tax to be withheld under section 3402, shall, in lieu of any other penalty provided by law (except the penalty provided by section 6682), upon conviction thereof, be fined not more than $500, or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.” (Section 3402 is the section which provides for withholding of income taxes.)

  4. INSTRUCTIONS — Unagreed Income, Estate, or Gift Tax Cases — U.S. Treasury Department — Internal Revenue Service — Publication No. 5 (Rev. 8-64)

  5. Internal Revenue Code, Section 6861. Jeopardy Assessments of Income, Estate, and Gift Taxes.

Meyer had a followup in the issue:

Clarification On Tax Withholding

By Karl Meyer
December 12, 1969

Dear Mike and Allen:

I was pleased to receive your inquiry about our “Fund for Mankind, Through Effective Tax Resistance” (Catholic Worker, ). Yours is one of dozens of serious inquiries from all over the country, and the fourth so far from the Minneapolis area alone. Jim Dunn (19 Sidney Place S.E., Minneapolis, Minnesota) has already started an alternative fund and has reprinted my article as a leaflet. Dennis Richter (Hope House, 2603 14th Ave. South) has begun by claiming forty million exemptions on his W-4 Withholding Exemption Certificate. This has tremendous educational value, but we don’t know yet the effective results of this experiment. One person in Chicago tried this mass approach and it did not work. He claimed three and a half billion dependents, the entire population of Spaceship Earth. His employers, on the advice of their tax attorneys, rejected his W-4 form, on the grounds that it was not correctly filled out because it would be impossible under the rules to have that number of legally qualified exemptions — a trenchant argument we must confess. They also pointed out that their payroll computer program could not handle that number of exemptions. Two digits, or a maximum of 99, would be all the computer could handle. This leaves him nowhere, since his only recourse would be to appeal to the Internal Revenue Service or the courts for support of his right to claim three and a half billion, and it is obvious enough that he would get no support from that quarter.

Does my article give the impression that I advocate claiming such great numbers of exemptions as a practical step, or that I myself have used this approach and succeeded? If it does, that impression should be corrected before it leads us down the blind alley of ineffectual protest. I myself have always claimed the minimum number of exemptions necessary to prevent the withholding of tax (between six and twelve in my case) and the same modest approach is used by all those I know of who are successfully using the exemption method of tax resistance at present. The idea of claiming hundreds of thousands, millions or billions of dependents makes for a beautiful protest and a glorious expression of fraternal solidarity. I introduced this idea in my article, and I certainly hope that a certain number of bold souls like Dennis will experiment with it; but I proposed it with tongue in cheek, and I would be the first to predict that it will not work in very many cases. Most employers, on their own initiative or on the advice of I.R.S., will probably reject such a W-4, and those that don’t may fire you. It would be a fine educational protest, but if the idea is protest, that could also be expressed by picketing the personnel office during your lunch hour to ask them to stop withholding taxes.

If the purpose is actually to prevent the withholding of tax, the most practical way to proceed is to claim the minimum number of exemptions necessary to achieve that objective! This number can be found by dividing your weekly salary by $13.50, or dividing your projected annual salary by $700, or by consulting the tables and rules in Circular E, Employers Tax Guide, available to the public at your local office of I.R.S.

The minimum number of exemptions necessary for most people will be between six and twenty. If your employer should question the number you claim, you may wish to save him the embarrassment of being implicated in your action by simply stating, “This is the number of exemptions to which I believe I am entitled.” Since you are the person responsible for the number which you claim, it is not necessarily incumbent on you to offer your employer a more elaborate explanation. In our group, some people have explained to their employers the entire basis of their claim; others have filed the new W-4 with their employer without further explanation; some have written to I.R.S., or other officials of government, stating the entire basis of their claim; others have taken the action without informing the state directly. These choices must be made on the basis of personal inclinations and circumstances of employment.

You ask about the chances of prosecution for tax evasion or fraud. No principled tax refuser has been indicted or prosecuted for violation of tax laws within my memory or knowledge. A few have been imprisoned briefly for contempt of court for refusing to reveal information about their income and assets. The I.R.S. has concentrated exclusively on attempts at assessment and collection, rather than prosecution. With the rapid development of this campaign, I predict that this policy will be changed. If pressed to do so, I could name a man whom I believe to be a prime candidate for aggressive prosecution. But it would be impossible for me to predict what pattern of criminal prosecution may emerge as this campaign grows and develops. I do predict that many people in this movement will eventually be subjects of intensive efforts by I.R.S. to assess and collect income taxes that they have not paid. Ten years ago I popularized the aphorism: “If you can’t do time, don’t commit crime,” which was taught me by Marshal Raab as he drove me to the penitentiary. Today I am in a position to coin a new variation of this maxim for our time: “If you can’t stand heat, don’t put your hand in the fire.”

If people want to start out easy and test the temperature before they go all the way they might begin by not paying the ten-percent federal excise tax on telephone service or they might try claiming just one extra withholding tax exemption. Most important of course is to band together in small local alternative-fund groups for mutual aid and the sharing of experiences.

Over the years I have developed quite a tolerance for heat of all kinds so I was not dismayed on when Agent Roy Suzuki of the I.R.S. telephoned at my place of employment, which he had at long last discovered, and very graciously demanded payment of $46.60 in taxes, penalties, and interest for , a small part of a bill for more than a thousand dollars, going back to that I.R.S. has been unsuccessfully trying to collect for a long time. After I stated that I would not pay he came over immediately and served my employers with a levy against my wages which they reluctantly honored by deducting $48.60 from wages due to me. These events inspired the composition of the following ballad, which is currently leading the hit parade of the tax-resistance movement:

Some Enchanted Taxmen

Some enchanted evening
You may meet a stranger,
You may see him come to you
Across the crowded room,
Then pull put his badge
And ask for your wage;
If you don’t go along,
He will not argue long.
He will be a taxman,
He will be insistent,
He will bring a levy
To place against your wage,
And when he is done
He’ll go back to his boss,
And give a report like this:

Suzuki:— Who would believe it,
Who would say it’s so?
I found him at Follett’s,
I collected dough.

His boss:— Oh, Suzuki,
How did you know? Now that you’ve found him,
Never let him go!

Suzuki:— Forty-six dollars,
All for the war,
I’ll go back again soon,
I will grab some more.

His boss:— Oh, Suzuki,
Try going slow,
Don’t scare him off too fast,
Don’t let him go.

Suzuki:— l have worked so patiently,
I have tried so long,
My, but that man’s
Conscience is strong.

Boss:— Don’t get sentimental,
Remember he’s your foe,
Now that you’ve found him,
Never let him go.

Suzuki:— I’ll go back tomorrow,
Shortly after dawn,
I’ll levy on his wage again;
But he will be gone.

Boss:— Buck up, Suzuki,
Don’t let it get you down,
We have lots of agents,
Snooping round the town.

Suzuki:— They will never nail him,
They’ll never collect,
Why should we waste our time,
Breaking our necks?

Boss:— The war must go on you know
And we must be paid,
The arms race must be financed
And profits be made.

Suzuki:— We will never make it
With guys like that Meyer;
Why not quit and go to work;
Our proceeds would be higher.

Boss:— Roy, that’s not the spirit
Of I.R.S., you know;
Once you have found one.
Never let him go!

A few days later I quit my job, and since then I have been earning part of our livelihood by part-time and irregular labor, while spending most of my time on the important work of developing the tax-resistance campaign. I have to thank Roy Suzuki for having given me the incentive and the opportunity to do this. To coordinate a countrywide campaign for tax resistance and to provide literature and counseling we have established a center called War Tax Resistance/Midwest (1339 North Mohawk St., Chicago, Illinois 60610) which is sponsored by the Nonviolent Training and Action Center, the Chicago Area Draft Registers and the Chicago Catholic Worker. We will have a basic leaflet based on my article in the CW, as well as reprints of the article itself. For a single copy of each, send us a stamped, self-addressed envelope. For quantities the price will be a dollar for fifty, or two dollars for a hundred, plus a dollar for each additional hundred in one shipment. We hope that people will send a few extra dollars to help with the organizing costs and that new tax resisters and alternative funds will earmark a small percentage of their tax savings to contribute to the organizing work.

The issue reported on the death of Ammon Hennacy on . Ernest Bromley added a tribute, which included this summary of his tax resistance activity:

I, like so many others, knew Ammon by reputation long before I met him in person. He was one of the pacifist tax refusers during World War Two, at a time when I could count them on the fingers of one hand. He was in Arizona during those years, working as a day laborer in the fields. To the few of us who made up the Tax Refusal Committee of Peacemakers, which began in , he is memorable, not only because the number was still very small but mainly because he was simple, direct and dramatic. He saw that the government got none of his tax at the source (through withholding), he refused the total amount of income tax, he took steps so that the tax man could not garnishee money from his employer, and he went straight to the tax man and to the people with the message that he would not pay for the weapons or the soldiers. He was basic, cryptic, humorous. When the tax collector asked him if he thought he could change the world to his point of view, he answered, “Of course not. but I’m damn sure it won’t change me.” Then, referring to his contest with the government, he said, “Every day I win and every day the government loses.”

He once told a tax man, “Peter could return to his nets, but Matthew could not return to his tax collecting.” It was in World War One, while doing time in Atlanta Penitentiary for opposing the war, that he read the Bible and became a Christian. He was also turning from socialism to anarchism. It was not however, until the early 1950’s that he joined a church. Soon he wrote his first book. The Autobiography of a Catholic Anarchist. Later he revised this book, calling it in the new form The Book of Ammon. While in Arizona he wrote a column in the Catholic Worker, entitled “Life at Hard Labor.” He managed by doing day labor in the fields and irrigation ditches, to contribute financially to the education of his two daughters by his first marriage.

After moving to New York in he became one of the associate editors of the Catholic Worker with Dorothy Day. In he moved to Salt Lake City and began a "House of Hospitality.” Borrowing the language of Robert Frost in one of his poems “Build Soil — A Political Pastoral,” Ammon spoke early and often of the “one-man revolution — the only revolution that is coming.” He felt that the only way to change society is for each to become a radical and responsible person. He detested dependence on government, state, institutions. He wished to live as the early Christians did. He did not join organizations or participate much in conferences or committees. Most of the actions he took were solitary ones.

After leaving Arizona he travelled several weeks of each year, going to homes of friends. Innumerable opportunities opened up to him to talk to small groups of people. Many young idealists got their inspiration from a first contact with Ammon Hennacy. He was always quick in tongue and caustic in comment. He could state his views briefly. Once when asked why he refused to pay Federal taxes, he said “Jesus wouldn’t make atom bombs. Why should I pay for them?”

And Karl Meyer wrote, in part:

[I]n thirteen years, I spent only a few hours in his company; so I know nothing of him that is not amply recorded in the Book of Ammon and his columns. The only original thing that I can tell is what he has written in my spirit.

In closing I want to remind you that Ammon wouldn’t pay taxes that go for war. In his last letter to me () he wrote, “I think your idea of claiming a million dependents is o.k. for a joke between you and the tax man, but to consider it for a group of people is not being a bit realistic. Hardly half a dozen in this country would have nerve enough to do it for fear of losing their jobs.”

That was the main fault Ammon had: he never had faith that other people would be radicals, would change their lives and live the revolution. But I remember a pipsqueak boy of twenty once, who didn’t want to lose his job, who wanted to take bail and get a lawyer and a long continuance. And one summer day that boy went down to Chrystie Street, and that was the day that he met Hennacy.

That’s why I have faith that a lot of people are not going to go on paying taxes for another five years of national murder; and anyone who really wants to stop can send me a couple of stamps for our leaflet entitled “Common Sense for Every Concerned Taxpayer — You Can Stop Paying War Taxes Now,” or send a dollar for fifty copies.

Here are some excerpts from The Catholic News Archive concerning tax resistance, from sources other than Catholic Worker, from the span:

First, a typed news dispatch from “M. Massiani,” Paris Correspondent for the National Catholic Welfare Council (U.S.) News Service, dated :

Priests and People of Vendee, France, Protest Tax on Christian Schools and Refusal of State Aid

Paris, . — A delegation of 20,000 citizens from various parts of the Department of Vendee, one of the most Catholic regions of France, appeared in the town of La Roche-sur-Yon, where a number of priests were on trial for refusing to pay a tax exacted on entertainments and theatrical productions given to aid in supporting the free Christian schools of the Department.

A large group of priests and directors of Christian schools purposely decided to refuse payment of this tax and made public announcement of the decision in order to protest what is regarded by the people of the Vendee as a highly inequitable situation; the state taxing the people to support unneeded public schools, refusing to grant a subsidy to aid in maintaining the Christian schools, and at the same time taxing entertainments held to raise money for support of the Christian schools.

It is pointed out that in Vendee public schools are practically empty. The Christian schools, on the other hand, are educating the vast majority of the children of the region, saving the state more than 200 million francs in school taxes annually. Yet whenever Catholics hold a festival to raise funds for support of their schools, the state intervenes to collect part of the receipts.

It is hoped that in refusing to pay this tax, public attention will be called to the injustice and the need of a state subsidy to help support the Christian schools, such as is granted in other countries, including Belgium and Holland.

Bishop Antoine Cazaux of Lucon, who went to La Roche-sur-Yon to testify in behalf of the defendants, stated that his priests are neither rebels nor evaders, and that the court, in order to judge equitably, should take into consideration the unjust situation that exists with regard to education. Many thousands of people were in the streets outside the courtroom.

Decisions were rendered in only two of the cases, the defendants being acquitted on procedural grounds. The other cases were postponed. The action of the court caused anti-religious groups and newspapers, particularly in Paris, to demand that new suits be instituted and that the law be applied with severity.

In the Diocese of Lucon, two-thirds of the children attend the 461 primary religious schools. In six large districts, 13,757 children out of 15,183 are enrolled at the Christian schools. In two other districts, the number of pupils in the public schools is only three per cent of the total. In 41 settlements in the Department, with a population of 40,000, there are no public schools.

A National Catholic Reporter editorial (signed by editor Robert C. Hoyt) in the issue recommended that men refuse military service, concluding that in Vietnam, “we are killing people and destroying a culture without adequate justification, without a rationale that meets the minimum requirements of morality. That imposes obligations on all of us. We believe that anyone who despairs of a political solution has a right and duty to search for more effective ways, including civil disobedience and tax refusal. We have a responsibility to the rest of the world, to history, to God that nobody else can bear.”

In its issue, that paper published a lengthy article on the war tax resistance movement:

Protesters turn to taxes to fight against the war

By Gary MacEoin

Special to the National Catholic Reporter, NEW YORK— Protesters against the Vietnam war are turning to the withholding of taxes as a way of fighting against the war.

A national campaign against the payment of taxes used for the war is being organized and its goal is to involve “tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of people in conscientious tax refusal.”

The campaign is spearheaded by the War Tax Resistance, an organization founded which draws support from a broad spectrum of pacifist groups. Its headquarters is in New York and it has offices in Philadelphia and Chicago.

Resistance spokesmen say they hope to have “at least a phone, an address and a contact person” in each of the principal 50 to 100 cities in the nation by . Groups organized around such regional centers are to focus their tax resistance efforts on demonstrations on and .

“We picked the date more or less arbitrarily,” said Bradford Lyttle, clean-shaven and soft-spoken coordinator of War Tax Resistance. “That’s about the time that thousands of accountants all over the country hang out signs offering to help prepare tax returns. We want to provide an option for those who want not to pay.”

The choice of is more obvious, he said. “It is both the final day for filing tax returns and the start of the Spring offensive of the demonstrations against the war in Vietnam.”

Lyttle, 42, works out of an office in Lower Manhattan (339 Lafayette Street). It is also the home of the New York GI Coffeehouse, the Jewish Peace Fellowship, the Catholic Peace Fellowship, the War Resisters League, Win magazine (hippie-pacifist), and Liberation magazine (David Dellinger’s voice). Between them, they occupy the two top floors of a three-story cold-water walk-up not far from the Catholic Worker.

Organized resistance to paying war taxes is not new, dating from , Lyttle said. The War Tax Resistance is trying to give the idea broader appeal by modifying the totally pacifist position that its forerunners had adopted.

Lyttle, who himself is a pacifist, said the new approach was developed by a New York teacher, Norma Becker, who recruited a group of sponsors which included Joan Baez, Noam Chomsky, Tom Cornell, Dorothy Day, Dave Dellinger, Allen Ginsberg, Stewart and Charlotte Meacham, Grace Paley and Dr. Benjamin Spock.

“The result,” says Bradford Lyttle, “was a new emphasis. Instead of stressing the total pacifist tradition as the others had done, we decided to concentrate on two more immediate and obvious reasons: the horrors of the war in Vietnam, and the misuse of the taxpayers’ money by the government to the extent that it was neglecting national priorities.

“And instead of calling on sympathizers to pay no taxes whatever, we appealed to them to make a token withholding, if only $5, without of course ceasing to urge those who had the moral courage to go further.”

War Tax Resisters chose as their prime targets the 10 per cent surtax and the 10 per cent federal excise tax on telephone service — two taxes more clearly linked to Vietnam than any others.

Both War Tax Resistance and other organizations distribute literature explaining the various ways — some legal, some doubtful, some illegal — for nonpayment of federal taxes. The first War Tax Resistance leaflet was prepared for the antiwar demonstration in Washington, D.C., , and 10,000 copies were handed out there.

“The act of war tax resistance creates a confrontation between the government and the conscience of the citizens,” this pamphlet states. “We believe that the right of conscientious objection to war belongs to all people, not just to those of draft age… Do whatever makes sense to your conscience. But do it.”

Among the ways to avoid paying taxes, the first is to earn an income so low as not to be taxable. This means for the single person under 65, an earned income of less than $900 annually. Yet a considerable number of pacifists choose this method.

Another form of protest is to refuse to pay the percentage of the tax that goes for war. More than two-thirds of the federal budget pays for wars, past, present and future. This is the amount some withhold. Others refuse to pay the proportion of the federal budget (23 per cent) directly allocated to Vietnam, while others hold back a token amount.

According to Internal Revenue Service figures, 73 million Americans paid their income taxes in full , while 1,025 refused to pay all or part in protest against the Vietnam war. The 1,025 protesters was an increase from 592 .

IRS counted 10,511 cases of refusal to pay the telephone tax in , down from 14,396 in . Several factors combine to make the telephone tax the attractive target it has become.

For one thing, the American Telephone and Telegraph Co. has handled the situation with kid gloves. So long as the protester makes it clear to the company with each payment that the amount withheld is the tax portion, it will not cut off a phone. Printed forms are made available by the resistance groups to facilitate this notification. What the telephone company does is simply to report to IRS the fact of nonpayment and the amount.

IRS also is anxious to keep the situation as cool as possible, but it wants at the same time to maintain whatever pressure is necessary to dissuade the hesitant from joining the movement. Back in 1967, the first step was to send the defaulter a “notice of preliminary assessment” which enabled him to demand a hearing. Because of the number of cases involved and the small amount in each, the IRS quickly eliminated this step and moved immediately to Form 17-A or some other “notice of final assessment.” This notice contains a threat to seize property to collect a debt.

Ralph Di Gia of War Resisters League is one who has been through this process several times.

Early in , for example, the IRS computer at Andover, Mass., sent him Form 17 demanding payment of $2.25 owed as telephone tax. Next a New York agent wrote him, then called on him in his New York office. After checking with Di Gia’s landlord and the building superintendent to establish his political views, the agent tried to place a lien on his salary at the War Resisters League, but the League refused to cooperate.

After another confrontation with Di Gia, which merely established that it was “the principle,” not the $2.25, that was at issue on both sides, the agent located Di Gia’s bank account and collected the $2.25 plus 6 per cent interest. Under the IRS code, it can take money from a bank account without a court order in payment of taxes due by the account holder.

Apparently the discovered account was then fed into the computer, because another section of IRS moved quickly to seize the entire balance in payment of income tax. And as of , the IRS located a savings account recently opened by Di Gia in another bank and collected yet another telephone tax bill. But Di Gia insists that he doesn’t mind.

“The issue isn’t withholding money from the government,” he says. “They’re going to get it ultimately. But I made a few collection agents think about what their job’s about, and now IRS is going to have to realize that there are people who aren’t afraid to resist. They got the tax, but they had to come and get it, like when the agents had to go to the fields in France for collection.”

Unpaid taxes, whether telephone or income, can result not only in seizure from a bank account but also a lien on salary or the attachment and sale by auction of some property, usually an automobile.

In addition, some banks make a service charge — as high as $10, reportedly each time a lien is placed on an account, and the resisters suspect that IRS is pressuring banks to do this as a deterrent. Such a fee every month would make telephone tax refusal impractical for most people. But actually, the load on the IRS is such that it usually moves against any given individual only at much longer intervals.

Everyone who refuses to pay any taxes he owes is actually exposing himself to heavy penalties, and the resistance literature spells out this danger very openly. Simple “willful failure to pay” is punishable by fine up to $10,000 and a year in jail, plus the cost of prosecution. Similar or greater penalties are available for a variety of related offenses.

Although the offense of counseling or urging others not to pay taxes would seem greater than the simple act of withholding, the law on this point is somewhat ambiguous and apparently has never been tested in the courts.

There are few, if any, cases of conscientious tax refusers being jailed for not paying taxes or filing returns. Most of the small number of cases on record have resulted from related non-cooperation with the courts, such as ignoring a court order to disclose financial records.

In addition, it would appear that prosecutions have been initiated by local collectors who did not first check with headquarters. Current IRS policy on this issue apparently stops short of court action.

The most distinguished American to go to jail for refusal to pay taxes was Henry David Thoreau, the essayist, poet and naturalist. He spent only one night in confinement, because a neighbor paid the tax, but the experience inspired his essay on Civil Disobedience, espousing the doctrine of passive resistance. It deeply influenced Gandhi and has become the bible of the resistance movement. One passage is found to be particularly relevant by today’s resisters:

“When… a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is the fact that the Country to overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army.” The reference is to the Mexican War of .

About half a dozen have been jailed in the past 20 years. Juanita Nelson was arrested in Philadelphia in , threatened with a year in jail and $1,000 fine if she did not disclose certain financial information, but in fact was held only some hours.

Maurice McCrackin, arrested in Cincinnati in , was given a mental test, imprisoned “indefinitely” on a contempt charge, then sentenced to six months and a $250 fine. James Otsuka got 90 days and a $140 fine in Indianapolis, in . Eroseanna Robinson, sentenced to a year and a day in Chicago in , was released unconditionally after 93 days. Walter Gormley got 7 days in Cedar Rapids in .

And in the first such imprisonment in several years, Neil Haworth of New London, Conn., got 60 days in for refusal to produce records. He had served six months in for “committing civil disobedience at a missile site” near Omaha. And in , he was a crew member of Everyman Ⅲ, a boat which sailed to Leningrad to protest the Russian nuclear tests.

Those who have refused to pay federal taxes and have got away with it include the Catholic Worker settlement houses and the settlement house of the New England Committee for Non-Violent Action. “We pay local taxes,” says Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker, “and we let the IRS people examine our records, but we pay them nothing.” The New England group says that IRS has spent thousands of dollars going through their bills and receipts, without collecting a penny.

War Tax Resistance is now urging citizens “to sue the government to refund all your taxes on the grounds that the taxes have been used for illegal and immoral purposes.” The main value of such suits to date has been the publicity.

Professor Donald Kalish, chairman of the philosophy department at UCLA, filed a suit to recover his telephone tax but it was dismissed by the District Court. He appealed, and the appellate court has agreed to hear his appeal.

The most important case to date is that of Walter C. Pietsch, of Rego Park, N.Y., a 33-year-old administrative employee in a hospital. Last year, he instituted “a class action” for an injunction to enjoin IRS from collecting the 10 per cent surtax and all other taxes used to propagate the war, and also for a declaration that the Vietnam war was unconstitutional. A class action, if successful, would provide the same remedy for all taxpayers.

Pietsch, who served in Korea, “is not against all wars, just this one.” The surtax he withheld was $190.84. “The amount is insignificant,” he said, “It’s the principle I’m fighting for.” After a preliminary hearing in the Brooklyn federal district court on , written arguments were submitted on , and on the case was dismissed on a motion by the defendants. An appeal was filed immediately.

Although the Vietnam war is the direct issue on which tax resisters are concentrating, many of them insist that the campaign has escalated into something much bigger — the war mentality behind much of United States foreign policy. “Maybe it’s a hang-up,” says Ted Webster, administrator of the Roxbury War Tax Scholarship fund, “but I personally have a great feeling of urgency, it seems the logic behind bombing North Vietnam can be so easily applied to China. The influence of the Pentagon on policy, and the political expediency of yielding to it seems so obvious, I see the need to rapidly escalate resistance, or there will be a greatly expanded war — maybe with China — within one to three years.”

Another National Catholic Reporter article, from the issue, asked “In the name of God, how did Milwaukeeans get so radical?” A section of it covered tax resisters:

One area in which a number of community members are discussing is tax resistance. Some say they have claimed as many exemptions as were needed to keep from paying any federal taxes used to finance the war.

[Richard W.] Zipfel, who is defense committee chairman for the Chicago 15, Feit and Father Robert W. Dundon, a Jesuit, have sent a letter to the Wisconsin Telephone Co. stating they are refusing to pay the federal telephone tax on their phone bills because “we can no longer tolerate our nation spending more than $75 billion on the military while our cities die.”

The letter, dated , added that “even if the present war ended, our policies would quickly create another Vietnam.”

Their resistance gesture is significant, they said, because the tax was argued through Congress as a specifically Vietnam war tax. They have reserved a reply from the utility saying their letter was being forwarded to the government.

“I do believe in the legitimacy of the magistrates,” [Michael] Cullen said. “In paying property taxes, I believe in the state.

“I’ll render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but when Caesar decides to take what is God’s, or if Caesar decides to look like God or act like God, I won’t render to Caesar.

“You only render to what is legitimate and what is human, and what is for the common good. War destroys humans.”

Milwaukee’s Casa Maria Catholic Worker House still looks to be something like a hotbed of war tax resistance, at least relative to the current national lull. Lincoln Rice of Casa Maria is the current NWTRCC coordinator. I recognize the names of war tax resisters Roberta Thurstin and Don Timmerman among their volunteers as well.

From the Pittsburgh Catholic, :

Five say they won’t pay taxes

Five local clergymen handed in their income tax forms at the Federal Bldg. downtown on with the announcement they were withholding a portion in protest to the Vietnam War.

Joining them in the protest at the Internal Revenue Office there were several dozen local lay members of War Tax Resistance, an organization whose members carried out withholding actions in a number of cities , the last day for filing income tax returns. It is headquartered locally at 3601 Blvd. of the Allies.

The clergymen issued a statement denouncing the Vietnam war as immoral and stating other means of protest had been futile. “Now we must do more than talk. The time is now that we must act,” they said.

They included three priests active in civil rights causes here: Fr. Donald C. Fisher of St. Francis de Sales, McKees Rocks; Fr. Donald W. McIlvane, St. Richard’s, Hill District; and Fr. John O’Malley of St. Joseph’s, Manchester. Also taking part was Fr. Bernard Survil of St. Hedwig in Smock, Greensburg Diocese.

Protestant clergy included Rev. Oscar L. Arnall, a Lutheran, Rev. Thomas Whitcroft, an Episcopalian, and Rev. William S. Richard, a Presbyterian, signed the statement but weren’t present.

The clergymen announced they were withholding 25 per cent of their income tax, the proportion of the national tax that is estimated goes for the Vietnam war, they said. Some said they would pay the money into local community action programs suffering because of the amounts given to the Vietnam war.

“We are conscious of our obligation to pay taxes, but we are equally conscious of our obligation before God to refuse to cooperate with evil,” the clergymen said.

The National Catholic Reporter, in its issue, printed the following letter from Robert Calvert of War Tax Resistance:

Tax resisters suggest: “Stop paying for it”

To The Editors:

Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos… young people by the hundreds of thousands are rebelling in disgust and anger against the squandering of lives and resources in an immoral and illegal war. They are risking their freedom, careers and often their lives to protest and resist what they see to be wrong.

We, as participants in war tax resistance, are resolved to confront our own complicity in war, waste and callousness. We resolve to end to the extent possible our cooperation in a federal tax program geared to death more than life.

For every dollar which the administration expects to spend in , 64.8 per cent will go for wars — past, present and future. Of this amount, 48.4 per cent will go for current military expenditures, including Vietnam. (The administration has not revealed the exact costs of the Indochina war.) Another 17 per cent will go to health, education and welfare; 18.2 per cent for other expenditures.

The deadline for paying income taxes is close, . Many who read this letter will owe the federal government money. Don’t pay. War tax resistance is being supported by numerous civil rights, anti-poverty and peace organizations in our call to help end the war by widespread tax refusal. Widespread tax refusal does more than force the government to spend much money to try to collect unpaid taxes. It confronts the government with the political fact of massive non-cooperation with its war-making policies.

We need to dramatize war tax resistance and to expand it from an act of individual conscience to a nationwide demonstration of collective civil disobedience.

On , the People’s Coalition for Peace and Justice — which includes such groups as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Welfare Rights organization, the American Friends Service committee and the Fellowship of Resistance — is calling for a nationwide “Tribute in Action to Martin Luther King.” The theme is “Freedom from Hunger, War and Oppression”; the event will be observed by hunger marches, fasts, teachins, demonstrations and religious services.

War tax resisters will relate to these events in a real way. We are asking people to refuse to pay $10 to $50 or more of their federal income taxes, and to publicly turn this money over to a local community group on . We will thus take our tax money out of the hands of the government and put it into the hands of the people. If we work hard thousands of dollars can be rechanneled to the people. We can not wait for the government to change priorities. We must change them ourselves.

Find out what actions are being planned in your city or region and build a demonstration dramatizing the transfer of funds to useful community programs. A possible action: Rally at the IRS office where people put their tax money into a container of some sort. The money is then carried to the main event and is turned over to the designated local community group.

There also will be actions at Internal Revenue Service offices across the country on . We will publicly submit our 1040 forms to the IRS with all or part of our taxes deducted. This is a simple action and serves as an extension of the observance.

If no action appears to be under way in your community, contact the nearest war tax resistance center or the People’s Coalition office (1029 Vermont avenue, Washington, D.C.). Information about the WTR center nearest you, and about other forms of tax resistance, may be obtained from War Tax Resistance, 339 Lafayette street, New York, N.Y. 10012; telephone (212) 477‒2970.

Thousands are already engaged in these acts of peaceful, conscientious civil disobedience. If you engage in any of the above acts of civil disobedience we strongly urge you to write a letter to the IRS setting forth the reasons for the steps you have taken. Keep a copy.

Although there is a penalty for openly refusing to pay federal taxes (Section 7203 of the Internal Revenue Code — a fine of up to $10,000 and up to a year in jail, plus the costs of prosecutions) no war tax resisters have been prosecuted under this law. The only war tax resisters arrested have been those who have filed “fraudulent” W-4 forms, refused to file any income tax form, refused to present financial statements to the courts when ordered to do so. There have been prosecutions and convictions based on Section 7203 but none for openly refusing to pay for conscientious reasons, as far as we know.

We invite all Americans to join us in some form of war tax refusal. We must now take a stand by refusing to support the governments destructive policies with our bodies, our skills and our money.

Robert Calvert
New York, N.Y.

Editor’s note: The writer is a member of the Working Committee of WTR. Among sponsors of the organization are Dorothy Day, Joan Baez, David Dellinger, Arthur and Cathy Melville, the Rev. Richard J. Neuhaus, Rabbi Michael A. Robinson, Noam Chomsky, Peter Seeger and Theodore Roszak.

An op-ed from Eugene C. Bianchi, in the National Catholic Reporter:

“Maybe next year…”

To resist or not to resist

Two TV tableaus recently jarred me into fresh appreciation of how my tax money fosters the insanity of Vietnam.

In one film, helicopter gunships swooped down on a truck convoy; thousands of rounds of computer-directed cannon fire pierced the night. There goes at least one year’s withholding tax, I thought. But the commentator saw this military exercise as a demonstration of admirable killing efficiency. It was so orderly and precise; nothing out of place, except perhaps some Vietnamese flesh and bone.

The second scene showed men carefully loading bombs into B52s. The calm reporter noted how effectively these marvels of American know-how worked. The big bombs tore open huge craters and sent waves of damaging concussion. The antipersonnel bombs spewed thousands of body-ripping nails. As I viewed the distant puffs of smoke, I mused about how many income tax returns it took to accomplish such a feat.

It’s appalling how resigned we are to this insane use of our financial resources. Yet my and your tax money is closely related to the terrible statistic from the Kennedy subcommittee about 325,000 Indochinese, civilian deaths in recent years. Many more are maimed and driven from their homes. When I drop that IRS envelope through the red and blue bomb bay of the mail box, I wonder how many sad faces I’ve put behind the fences of relocation camps, how many children I’ve separated from parents. If Mr. Nixon is a prime candidate for war crimes according to the Nuremberg principles, we have all in some degree had our hands on the tax trigger.

Yet my courage rarely equals my insights. I also tell myself that some tax money goes for good causes. But the spirit of Ammon Hennacy, that holy maverick against war, won’t let me be content with such dodges. The whole Catholic Worker crowd stares up at me from their penny paper. I finally summon up the mouselike courage of refusing to pay the telephone war tax. At least that will cost the government more in time and bother than they’ll eventually get from me.

Maybe next year around income tax time, I’ll be brave enough to risk other concrete gestures. The words of Thoreau won’t go away: “If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bill this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure as it would be to pay them and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood.”

War tax resistance, though only a small act before the mighty state, could have broad effects if it became more widespread. It has the educational effect of conviction in action. Such tax resistance is illegal; but the war, by an ever-growing consensus, is enormously more illegal and immoral. Even token refusal to pay war taxes confronts the government with a concrete statement about its brutal policies. Tax resistance also awakens conscience to active non-complicity, to a new level of sensibility. For the situation is overwhelmingly clear: Tax money can be as killing as the weaponry it buys.

Since some risk is involved in tax resistance, it is worth reading a brochure or two about it. These can be easily obtained from a number of peace action groups, such as the War Tax Resistance (339 Lafayette St., New York 10012; or War Resisters League-West, 833 Haight St., San Francisco 94117). A Catholic group, Ammon’s Tax Associates (Box 1744, Indianapolis, Ind. 46204) is striving to awaken church institutions to their responsibilities for supporting conscientious tax resisters, as an extension of the church’s respect for conscientious objectors.

Perhaps the American church will end its complicity of silence with the warmakers when enough of us try to stop our own complicity in war taxes.

Today, some excerpts from The Catholic News Archive concerning tax resistance in . First, from the Catholic Worker:

“Peacemaker” Refuses Taxes

By Ernest Bromley et al.

The federal government’s Internal Revenue Service on began proceedings against Gano Peacemakers, Inc. and against Ernest and Marion Bromley for taxes and penalties amounting to over $30,000, for . The address for both is 10206 Sylvan Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio. The locality is on the map as Gano.

As many people are aware, Gano Peacemakers, Inc. is a nonprofit corporation established by the Bromleys and others soon after they went to Gano as a community in . It has held property, but has never operated a program, had any income from work or contributions, or had a treasury. In , the mailing address of the Movement of Peacemakers, together with its organ, The Peacemaker, was brought to Gano, as Ernest Bromley had accepted responsibility for circulation and editing. The Peacemaker files were brought from Yellow Springs, the financial records were brought from the former business address in Cleveland, and the sharing fund from Oberlin. As is well known by all volunteers who have kept the records and everyone close to the Peacemaker Movement, The Peacemaker finances have continued entirely apart from the finances of the people at the house in Gano.

False Information

IRS arrived at this figure through the assertion that the Peacemaker Movement and its organ, The Peacemaker, housed at that address, are synonymous with Gano Peacemakers, Inc., which holds title to the house where the Bromleys live. The erroneous claim, expressed in notations and figures on numerous IRS forms, is that the finances of the Peacemaker Movement are one and the same as the corporation holding title to the property. Figures on these forms claim that all subscriptions to The Peacemaker and contributions to the Movement are income to Gano Peacemakers, Inc. These IRS tables and figures, received at the house in Gano, go so far as to assert that all recipients of checks from The Peacemaker bank account are employees of Gano Peacemakers, Inc., and assessments are listed for FUTA, FICA and payroll income tax which they claim Peacemakers should have withheld from all those receiving checks. People said to be employees are named in the documents; most are the families of imprisoned war objectors who received monthly checks for their period of need. Apparently, IRS took these from copies of canceled checks kept by the Farmers and Citizens Bank, Trotwood, Ohio.

Whether IRS has made this move with the calculated intention of disrupting and diminishing the Peacemaker Movement and The Peacemaker is, of course, not known. It should be stated that the Bromleys and others who refuse taxes for war have consistently refused to give IRS any information—partly because they wanted to make collection as difficult as possible, even though the amount might be very small—and partly because they wanted to offer total noncooperation with the machinery of a racist and murdering government apparatus. Having gathered information which is totally-false as the basis for a claim, IRS should not be permitted to proceed in ignorance of the total misrepresentation they have made with regard to activities at Gano.

If IRS does proceed on the basis it has claimed, no assets called Peacemaker will be immune to its seizure at any time, be it a checking account where subscriptions are deposited or funds contributed for aid to imprisoned war objectors’ families. Anything considered to be the Movement’s can be grabbed. If that should happen, Peacemaker would find other ways to continue to communicate with each other and meet their obligations to families of imprisoned war objectors.

Claim Against the Bromleys

Ernest and Marion Bromley’s nonpayment of taxes for war antedates the founding of Peacemakers. They have for many years made public their stand against paying taxes for war, and have refused to give IRS any information. It is rather ironic that after making the house at Gano available without charge for The Peacemaker editing and circulation work, they are now being accused of receiving income from the operation of the Peacemaker Movement.

What Response to Make?

It is not likely that either individual refusers or any persons acting for Peacemakers will begin to fill out tax forms, open its mailing lists to IRS, show names of contributors and do any of the things people do who are merely looking for a better deal from IRS. Even if such cooperation were acceptable to Peacemakers, it is no guarantee that IRS would accept the explanations. And one thing quite repugnant to Peacemakers is the thought of applying to IRS for a right to continue.

There is the possibility that IRS is proceeding without knowledge of how far-fetched their claims are. Those who know the principles on which Peacemaker finances are handled may wish to write to the IRS accountant who signed the papers. He is Samuel T. Lay, IRS, P.O. Box 476, Cincinnati, OH, 45201.

Such a communication would be for the purpose of informing the IRS that their claims against the Peacemaker Movement are erroneous. It would be particularly helpful if those knowing how the sharing fund operates would inform the IRS that those receiving checks are not employees either of Peacemakers or Gano Peacemakers, Inc.; that they have not performed any services for Peacemakers; and that they may have never had any other connection with Peacemakers than receiving financial aid during a resister’s prison sentence.

There is no true basis for a collection in the material IRS has assembled. It may be that they will acknowledge this fact if they receive information from those who know how incorrect their assumptions are. If letters go to IRS, it would be helpful if copies are sent to The Peacemaker.

Chuck Matthei reports that the Peacemakers’ winter continuation meeting in Indianapolis discussed mounting an educational campaign about tax refusal in the Cincinnati area. They also foresee a non-violent, direct action response to the war-tax machine if an eviction or auction takes place. Chuck stressed that the action would involve a no bail/no fine commitment from participants.

Although the Peacemakers wish to make refusal to support war, not concern to protect property, the issue in their tax case, they are collecting pledges of assistance for the Bromleys, should the need arise.

For more information, or to participate, contact:

The Peacemaker
10208 Sylvan Av.
Cincinnati, Ohio 45241

The National Catholic Reporter reported in its issue:

American Telephone and Telegraph reports that 22,000 people refused to pay the telephone excise tax in protest against the Vietnam war in , up from 17,000 and 12,000 in . The Internal Revenue Service wants AT&T to disconnect all those phones, but AT&T says tax problems are IRS’ business. Apparently, IRS wants as little to do with 22,000 prosecutions as AT&T wants to do with the $200,000 a month It would cost to disconnect protesters’ phones.

The issue of that paper, toward the end of a larger article about peace movement retooling toward the tail end of the Vietnam War, noted:

Bob Calvert of War Tax Resistance said his organization will continue to urge tax resistance in protest against the large amount of the federal budget — more than half — which goes into the military.

He said local tax resistance centers are preparing reports describing the amount of federal taxes taken out of each state, the amount returned through revenue sharing, the real needs of the state and the amount of money from the state which goes into the military.

Mike DeGregory penned an argument for war tax resistance for the issue of Catholic Worker:

Render to God: The Imperative to Resist

By Mike DeGregory

“There are two things I’ve got to do in this world — die and pay taxes.” This sentiment presents a serious theological problem for the modern world: equating the demands of the nation state with those of God. Given the violence and militarism of our times, the problem becomes a question of idolatry. As such, the payment of taxes must be examined with all its implications.

God and State

Since biblical times there has existed a tension between allegiance to God and allegiance to the state. Periodically, acts of resistance were made as a witness affirming God as the source of life in opposition to the state. Recently this tension has been manifested in this country when hundreds of thousands of Americans, motivated by belief in a higher authority, refused allegiance to the state. Draft resistance to the Vietnam war was widespread, and the war tax resistance movement reached a high point.

Now, however, that the ceasefire accords have been signed and American troops will be withdrawn from Vietnam, many consider war tax refusal an inappropriate anachronism. Such a view is a misunderstanding of the nature of war and tax resistance. Mr. Nixon has repeatedly said, “Peace, peace with honor,” but there is no peace.

The Vietnam war continues with intense fighting. It is the Vietnamese people who suffer. Over 200,000 refugees have been created since the ceasefire began, while American planes daily bomb Cambodia, and frequently bomb Laos.

Outside Indochina, a similar “peace” prevails. America continues to arm other smaller nations for fratricidal wars, most recently in a $2 billion agreement with Iran. And America’s nuclear overkill continues to increase, as does the military budget. This is peace only in an Orwellian sense.

William James has described the true nature of this “peace” in his The Moral Equivalent of War:

“Peace” in military mouths is a synonym for “war expected”… Every up-to-date dictionary should say that “peace” and “war” mean the same thing, now in posse, now in actu. It may even be reasonably said that the intensely sharp competitive preparation for war by the nations is the real war, permanent, unceasing; and that the battles are only a sort of public verification of the mastery gained during the “peace” interval.

No Mere Protest

The existence of perpetual war makes war tax resistance relevant and necessary. Tax resistance is not just another form of protest. It is a refusal to participate in something, namely war. It involves a change of worldviews, a conversion. It demands a commitment to a new way of living. It can be a truly religious response, stemming from moral obligation rather than expediency. In this moral sense, it is for everyone, not just the courageous few. For in modern society, how we use our money and how we relate to money determines what kind of lives we lead and the kind of persons we are.

For many Christians, this decision of how to relate to the issue of taxes is easily answered: pay them, for Christ said, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

The spirit of the Gospel is peace and nonviolence. A biblical response to the “Render to Caesar” passage does not mean blind obedience to the state. Rather, it suggests the responsibility to judge the “things” of Caesar in light of the “things” of God. The essential part of the passage is the latter clause: “Render to God the things that are God’s.” Jesus intended no equality between God and Caesar. Therefore, before rendering to Caesar one must judge if the things of Caesar are compatible with the things of God. More specifically, today we must ask: is the payment of an income tax of which more than 50% finances the works of war, compatible with the things of God who desires from us the works of mercy? We are faced with the moral imperative of examining war and our role in it as taxpayers. In conscience we must decide whether to pay or not.

The New C.O.

In the modern process of violence, our technological society increasingly replaces men with machines. The “big business” of modem war relies more and more on citizens’ money than on their bodies. In light of this, it becomes essential that tax resisters be seen as the new conscientious objectors to war, withholding their financial as well as their bodily resources.

In the past, draft resistance has been seen as the refusal to place the pinch of incense on the altar of a false god. Tax resistance deals more fundamentally with this same idolatry. For tax money is the very gold of which the false idols of war are made. War tax resistance is an alternative to this idolatry.

Some will object that war tax resistance, even with its corresponding alternate life funds, is ineffective. This is perhaps correct, but as I see it, irrelevant. Too often actions are undertaken simply for effect. The words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer sum up the effectiveness of war tax resistance: “One asks, what is to come? Another, what is right? And that is the difference between the slave and the free man.”

“When it becomes the ‘sacred duty’ of a man to commit sin, one no longer knows how he should live,” said Reinhold Schneider. “There remains nothing else for him to do but bear individual witness alone. And where such witness is, there is the Kingdom of God.” In this is the effectiveness of war tax resistance.

One of the best (and shortest) rationales for war tax resistance is Peter Maurin’s statement, “The future will be different if we make the present different.” If we continue to pay for war and the instruments of war, will we ever have peace?

(Ed. Note: For more information about tax resistance, write War Tax Resistance, 912 E. 31st St., Kansas City, Mo. 64109.)

The National Catholic News Service included this among its dispatches on :

Five Anti-War Priests Refuse to Pay Part of Income Tax

Pittsburgh (NC)— Five priests of the Pittsburgh diocese have filed income tax returns but deducted 20 percent from their taxes which they contend would go to support a “totally immoral war” in Southeast Asia.

“The bombing in Cambodia going on right now is without any foundation in law — let alone morality,” said Father Jack O’Malley, spokesman for the group.

“The Thieu government in South Vietnam holds five of our brother priests as political prisoners because they have dared to speak out against the immoral actions of their government. It is our taxes which is keeping Thieu in power,” Father O’Malley said.

The five priests waited until the deadline day of to file their tax returns at the Internal Revenue Service office here at .

Father O’Malley said the priests recognize that wrong is also being done by the North Vietnamese government. “But that country is not our ally,” he said.

“It is a privilege and duty to pay taxes,” the priest said. “It is likewise a duty to resist evil in conscience. When that evil is done by one’s own government, the duty is no less.”

During Holy Week the five priests prayed for an end to the bombing in Cambodia and an end to fighting and violence by all parties in Southeast Asia.

The other priests taking part in the tax resistance were: Fathers Mark Glasgow, Patrick Fenton, Warren Metzler and Donald McIlvane.

A letter-to-the-editor in the Catholic Worker, signed by “Ammon Hennacy House” (Grand Rapids, Michigan), included this paragraph:

At this writing we have just ended a week-end tax resistance conference with about twenty-five people from around the state. We have been promoting tax and draft resistance as part of our nonviolence workshop group Life Force. With the beginnings of a tax resisters’ fund we are seeking an alternative to the violence and exploitation of banking. Also, we are exploring possibilities of an insurance fund. With four active children, we feel the need to be providing them with assurance of medical care in emergencies.

The National Catholic News Service included this among its dispatches on :

War Resister Gets Tax Refund

Altamont, N.Y. (NC)— Mark Brockley of St. Lucy’s Parish here received a refund check from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for $250.50 for , which was the total amount IRS had withheld from Mark’s wages for .

The unusual aspect of Brockley’s case is that he received the refund after claiming his infant niece as a dependent on his 1040 form, knowing that she would not qualify as his dependent under the IRS definition.

Brockley explained in a letter to IRS officials that his niece, who was born the day of the Vietnam cease-fire, “represents all children, whether they be Mexican-American babies born in a migrant farm worker’s tent or Cambodian youths huddled in a village under American attack, who depend on each of us to create a livable world for them to grow up in and inherit.”

An IRS official said that if an audit showed that Brockley had claimed a dependent to which he was not entitled, any tax owed would be subject to normal IRS collection procedures.

Brockley is among a small but growing number of people who resist payment of federal taxes because of conscientious objection to government policies, especially to the large portion of the budget which supports the military.

He is 22 and single and describes himself as having been “gung ho for the war” (in Indo-China) until about his junior year in high school when his feelings began to change. His feelings continued to grow until he was arrested in for protesting the mining of North Vietnamese harbors.

After a demonstration in support for the Berrigans during their trial for conspiracy, Brockley learned about the war tax resistance. He then took steps to prevent the withholding of taxes from his wages, which is illegal.

“But since the government already had taken over $200 of my money for the year,” he said, “I thought in conscience I should get it back.”

To emphasize that his action was not meant to evade or defraud IRS, Brockley sent the letter explaining his irregular 1040 form. He stated in part, “I intend that the government you represent shall not receive one penny more of my tax money while it continues policies to which I cannot in conscience lend my support.”

Brockley reconciled his duties as a citizen and his tax actions by noting that “people forget that Jesus did not simply answer, yes, when they asked him if you should pay Caesar’s tax. It is well established that when you see a clash between Caesar’s law and the Gospel, the Christian’s allegiance is owed to the Gospel.”

The refunded money, Brockley said, is being donated to the Life Giving Fund. This fund is used to support “groups we consider alternatives to the government’s priorities,” he added. “None of us is interested in tax evasion for personal gain. We’ve given out over $1000 so far.

“Someday maybe I could get some land and be as self-sufficient as possible — so I could keep my income below the taxable level,” he said. “That way I could follow my conscience without having to break the law.”

Mike Cullen, who had come to the United States from Ireland twelve years before, and had founded the Casa Maria Catholic Worker hospitality house in Milwaukee, was deported in . Press reports (e.g. National Catholic Reporter, ) noted that the judge in the deportation case had “listed the cause of deportation as burning of draft files, interfering with administration of the selective service law, counseling others on conscientious objection, tax resistance, and burning his own draft card.”

Today, some excerpts from The Catholic News Archive concerning tax resistance in .

The issue of The Catholic Worker summarized the state of the art of war tax resistance at that time:

Resisting War Taxes:

On Telephones

The federal excise tax on telephone service has been associated with war spending throughout its history. It was first imposed by the War Tax Revenue Act of . Repealed in , the Act was then reimposed in . During World War Ⅱ, long distance calls were taxed 25%, local service 15%.

In , the tax was reduced to 10% on all phone service, and then further reduced in to 3%, with elimination planned for . Before this could happen though, the Vietnam War required that the revenue continue. With military spending continuing at a high level after the Vietnam War, the tax was still retained, and in raised from 1% to 3%. Currently, the federal government collects nearly two billion dollars a year through the telephone tax.

The tax is itemized on every phone bill (both for local service, and for all long distance companies). To refuse this tax, one can simply deduct the amount of the tax, and pay the balance. One should include a note each month explaining that one is not paying the tax in protest against military spending. If this is not done, the tax will continue to appear on future bills as balance due. “Telephone tax resistance" cards to enclose with your bill, explaining the protest, are available from several groups, and simplify the notification procedure.

No telephone company can legally disconnect one’s service for nonpayment of the excise tax. If it does, it can be fined by the Federal Communications Commission. A telephone company, once notified, should credit your account to eliminate the unpaid amount of the tax, and notify the IRS of your resistance. The IRS may then send a routine computer notice asking for tax payment, but this rarely happens, since the amounts are small. If the IRS takes action to collect the tax, many options are afforded the resister. A war tax resistance counselor can help explore these options, and their consequences.

For information, contact the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, P.O. Box 2236, East Patchogue, NY 11772, (516) 654‒8227.

On Income

The primary way the United States pays for its wars and war preparations is by taxing income. And, as long as there has been federal income tax, there has been resistance.

In , this meant resisting the payment of 63% of the income tax assessed, since that was the percentage of the federal budget devoted to military spending.

Various options are available, with different consequences following from each, for those wishing to resist these war taxes. If one wishes to file tax forms as usual, one can simply include payment for less than is assessed; a “military credit" can be taken on the 1040 form; or a “military deduction” can be taken on Schedule A for miscellaneous deductions, all leading either to the non-payment of a token amount, or the amount which would go to the military, or all income tax (since any portion of what is paid then goes to the military).

Others may elect to either file a blank 1040 return, or no return at all.

Finally, a number of people close the Catholic Worker throughout the years have decided to resist war taxes by living under the taxable income. While this is by no means easy these days, it has the benefit of incurring no penalty from the IRS, and of bringing one closer to the poor through the voluntary poverty which Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day long practiced and recommended.

Before attempting any form of federal tax resistance, one should become familiar with the various options available, and their consequences, including the different ways to avoid tax withholdings, which are a major impediment to resistance.

The War Resisters League, 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012, (212) 228‒0450, has just published a completely revised edition of its Guide to War Tax Resistance, which remains the best resource book available. It is $8, plus $1 for postage and handling.

The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, P.O. Box 2236, East Patchogue, NY 11772, (516) 654‒8227, has a variety of resources available, including a selection of booklets and a slide show on tax resistance, and can help make referrals to counselors and lawyers.

An article reflecting on direct action and on the Luddite movement, by Katharine Temple, in the issue of The Catholic Worker included this section on tax resistance:

Then there is tax resistance. This route may not seem as dramatic as smashing the looms that spell unemployment; still, it does strike, nonviolently, the life-line sustaining the corporate-military mechanism. (Certainly, the State takes it seriously. Consider the lengths they go to collect meager amounts from people who openly withhold money to protest military spending.) Refusing to pay the piper may be the most direct and non-confused way to say “No!” to the forces that enslave.

Ways to Resist

Most of us don’t stop to think how many ways tax resistance can be practiced. At one end of the spectrum is the public and outright refusal to pay, a stance that limits employment possibilities and risks heavy fines or jail. At the other end is the decision, equally fraught with hardship, to live below the taxable limit. In between, lie other, less extreme options, such as a partial withholding, working within a lower tax bracket, avoidance of the telephone tax collected for military debts, exchanges of labor without money transactions, rationing (or even giving up!) highly taxed goods, etc. Given that more than half the federal government budget goes to military expenses and hardware, every tax avoided through pure means is a moral and political statement of the highest order.

These decisions are not to be taken lightly, for the consequences can bear a heavy price. Any wise builder, we are told, will “first sit down and count the cost whether he has enough to complete it” (Luke 14:28). Presumably, it is not the best idea to act only in confused, midnight encounters nor to make costly gestures frivolously.

At the same time, if we dismiss tax refusal out of hand, just as when the Luddites have been dismissed, the concern is not always about violence, nor the cost, but the futility. Isn’t it all doomed to failure? The die is cast, so that neither demonstrations nor symbolic action nor direct refusals will make the slightest difference. This is what stops us from even the smallest actions. The assessment of failure, though, is always a later one, and we shouldn’t give in to historical determinism. “Our only criterion of judgment should not be whether a man’s actions are justified in the light of subsequent evolution.” (E.P. Thompson) Furthermore, as Christians, we must hold to belief in the economy of good, that no good action, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, is lost in God’s plan.

The issue of The Catholic Worker announced a war tax resister’s penalty fund:

Tax Resister’s Penalty Fund: A Little Help from Their Friends

By the time this issue of the paper reaches you, , may have come and gone, and so it may be too late to urge again income tax refusal. It is not too late, however, to take some other steps. For example, a project has been set up to provide financial and moral support for war tax resisters and to provide a way for those who are not yet able to take that path to support those who have. Basically, the Tax Resister’s Penalty Fund (TRPF) seeks to reimburse those who suffer financial loss when the IRS levies penalties and charges (over and above the original tax money demanded) against resisters. The TRPF is sponsored by the North Manchester Fellowship of Reconciliation, which evaluates each request for assistance and requires documentation showing that the penalty has already been collected by the IRS as a result of one’s refusal to pay military taxes. The fund was established in and, in , reimbursed nineteen war tax resisters for a total of $8,976.76. As the number of requests increases, it is important that the number of contributors keeps pace. You can help by joining, sending a donation of any amount, and also by spreading the word. War tax resisters are taking a brave stand, and they need a little help from their friends. For further information, please write to: TRPF, North Manchester Fellowship of Reconciliation, P.O. Box 25, North Manchester, IN 46962.