The Catholic Worker gave an update on the case the IRS was pursuing against Gano Peacemakers, The Peacemaker magazine, the Peacemakers organization, and Ernest and Marion Bromley:
Bromleys Resist IRS
By Peggy Scherer
On , two agents of the Internal Revenue Service posted a notice of seizure on the house occupied by Marion and Ernest Bromley, two long time pacifists and advocates of refusal to pay war taxes.
The house, located near Cincinnati, Ohio, was seized to pay $24,671.31 the IRS claims is owed them.
This claim is a false one, however, even by IRS rules.
The claim is based on banking records of The Peacemaker, the newsletter of the nationwide Peacemaker movement.
Records seized were for .
All money sent to The Peacemaker was spent on printing and mailing out the paper, financing of a few projects, and for the Peacemaker Sharing Fund.
The Sharing Fund is used to support families of imprisoned war resisters.
Part of the assessment is based on Ernest Bromley’s being an employee, and therefore owing income tax.
Checks were made out to Ernest to obtain cash for postage, but he never received payment for work he did.
All work on The Peacemaker was and is done without compensation.
The first notices, which began coming in , claimed that the families who had received money from the Sharing Fund were also employees.
This claim was dropped after the IRS received letters from those families denying this charge.
Numerous letters were also sent disclaiming that The Peacemaker owed money for income tax and social security for any employees.
In spite of this, the IRS has not dropped the largest part of its claim.
To compound the injustice, they are making their collection by taking property which does not belong to The Peacemaker, which has no holdings, and no longer has a bank account.
The property being seized is owned by Gano Peacemakers, Inc., a small nonprofit corporation formed in , when Marion and Ernest moved to the community of Gano.
There, they and a few others formed a small pacifist community.
In , when Ernest became the editor of The Peacemaker, the paper was given office space in the house, and it stayed there .
All finances of the two groups were separate.
Internal Revenue Service made its audit of The Peacemaker records during the period when the IRS’ “Special Services Staff” (SSS) investigated some 3000 groups and 8000 individuals who were antiwar activists.
These investigations were kept secret until , but recently it has been discovered how a coordinated, government-wide effort was undertaken against antiwar activists and protest groups.
The SSS collected information from the Justice Department, the FBI, Army and Air Force Intelligence units, and the Secret Service.
Since it is doubtful that an audit of The Peacemaker banking records could legitimately be made for tax gathering purposes, it appears the search was for political motives.
The Bromleys follow the policy of noncooperation with the efforts of government agencies to gather information.
They are pacifists, and deplore the huge amounts of money spent on war and preparation for war.
They will not contest the case in court, but rely on personal witness and informing people of the facts.
Efforts are being made by them and many others to publicize the seizure.
Leaflets are being handed out each day at the IRS office in Cincinnati to inform potential buyers of the fraudulence of the seizure.
Anyone interested in demanding this injustice be stopped should write or telegraph the District Director, IRS, Federal Office Building, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Inform local IRS offices and the media, as well as other individuals.
This seizure is only part of the larger injustice which IRS finances.
At present, as for the past number of years, the major percentage of the U.S. budget is spent for “defense” purposes.
This country still provides the main support for the oppressive governments in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
We supply war materials to countries around the world.
The products of our labor should be directed for the good of all into positive, life-building works, not in support of war and preparation for war.
Often the argument is raised, “Render unto Caesar…” Yet to contribute willingly to the death and oppression of our fellow humans is not to follow the teachings of Christ.
When a government misuses power, then we must withdraw our support in every possible way, building with our own lives a just and equitable society.
In our world of many people and limited resources, our energy is needed to concentrate on providing food, shelter, clothing and a caring atmosphere for our fellow creatures.
This is the time of year when IRS concentrates on collecting monies used mainly for destruction.
To retain control of our own lives, to curtail the massive war-oriented economies of the United States and other nations, we must make personal witness and say no to paying war taxes.
Without financial support, the government could not carry on as it is.
Such refusal can lead to prison and harassment by the government.
Yet if many of us would refuse, and even fill the prisons, there would be no money to support their work.
Though it may be difficult, the reward of acting conscientiously, of asserting our freedom to support only what is right, is great.
For information about others who have refused to pay taxes for war, contact The Peacemaker, 1255 Paddock Hills Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45229, or War Tax Resistance or War Resisters League, both at 339 Lafayette St., N.Y., N.Y. 10012.
By Marion Bromley
In discussing the IRS seizure of the property here in Gano, a young office worker commented to others, “I don’t see why they are just bringing this up now.
If they had gone to the IRS right in the beginning, they would have straightened it out.”
The more we become involved in analyzing the way IRS proceeded against Peacemakers, the more we want to strip the IRS of this phony facade of beneficent rectitude.
Many people have advised us to fight it in the courts, and that seems to indicate a confidence in the legal system which we do not share.
That system provides protection for the state and protects the property of those who can wield power in that arena.
We have no interest in asking one branch of the powerful warmaking state to protect us against the improper activities of another branch.
If IRS is not obliged by public clamor to remove the lien against the property, they will sell it and collect $25,000 (which is not taxes “owed” by anyone) — and that would be a defeat of sorts.
But if that happens, after we have done everything we can to prevent it, we hope we can go away from here as whole people and continue our adventures elsewhere.
We would be truly defeated if any friends attempted to pay the IRS anything to regain title to the property.
We have had the support of a small but active local group.
A vigil has continued daily at the federal building in Cincinnati.
We know people responded to the Peacemaker mailing suggesting letters to IRS officials, and there have been small support vigils in other places.
We do not want to exaggerate the nature of the IRS attack on Peacemakers and on us as tax refusers.
The bulletins of Amnesty International detail every month the horrible oppression of dissenters in many places.
Many of these cruel regimes are maintained in power by U.S. money and open or covert military, police and financial assistance.
Our energies now are directed to exposing the arrogant power methods the IRS revealed in dealing with Peacemakers, and in urging the people who learn of this to take some responsibility for their own support of the government which seems to be permanently locking the people into a war system.
Just in the matter of the continuing war in Southeast Asia, we learned through a UPI story, published in Cincinnati on , of Bird and Sons Cos. of Oakland, Cal., which is getting five more C130 planes from the Pentagon to increase the supply flights from Thailand to Cambodia.
Owner William Bind told a newsman that the Air Force is using Bird Air “to get around the congressional ban on U.S. military involvement.”
The U.S. budget for the coming fiscal year, presented by Gerald Ford on , provides for an increase in military spending; and the planners announce that they expect to increase federal spending for the military on a rising level for the next five years.
The U.S. seems to be operating a "Permanent War Economy,” to use the title of Seymour Melman’s new book.
We think if enough public clamor is raised about the wholly fraudulent actions of IRS in the matter of seizure of the property of Gano Peacemakers, it might cause IRS to remove the lien — and more important, it would serve the larger purpose of educating the public about the methods of the warfare state.
Ernest Bromley Released
Charges have been dropped against Ernest Bromley, arrested on , while leafleting at the IRS Center in Cincinnati.
He fasted from food and water, and refused to co-operate with the court proceedings, even refusing legal assistance.
Despite weakness from the fast, and injuries incurred during his arrest and incarceration, Ernest Bromley will continue to resist the IRS action.
Eds. note.
The National Catholic News Service put this out over the wires on :
Priest Says He Not Filing Income Tax Return as Protest
Jersey City, N.J. (NC)—
In a letter to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) a pacifist priest with a long record of involvement in social causes has stated his intention not to file an income tax return.
Father John P. Egan of St. Boniface’s Church here informed the IRS that he would not file the required tax form as a protest over what he called the “war-making” policies of the U.S. government.
Father Egan admits the protest is symbolic because he is not subject to a tax liability and has not been required to pay a tax for the past five years, because of deductions and donations to charitable causes.
But he said that he feels it is important to subject himself to the penalties imposed for not complying with the tax law in the matter of filing a return because at the time he had torn up his draft card in a previous protest he was exempt from the draft.
The maximum penalty for failing to file an income tax form is one year in prison and a $10,000 fine.
Even as he was taking this action Father Egan learned that his conviction on a trespassing charge stemming from a Demonstration on behalf of the United Farm Workers of America (UFWA) was being reversed.
Father Egan and 15 other UFWA supporters were arrested in South Orange, N.J., for a demonstration at a supermarket there.
A municipal court verdict was upset as a result of an appeal to Essex County Superior Court.
On a hearing was to be held in Washington, D.C. in a case stemming from his arrest earlier this year during a protest inside the White House as part of an anti-war demonstration.
Father Egan’s letter to the IRS was reprinted in the Catholic Worker:
St. Boniface Church
254 First St., Jersey City, N.J. 07302
Sirs:
As , the last day for filing income tax returns, approaches, let me serve notice on the government that I do not wish to serve its disregard for humans.
For the same reason as I ripped up my draft card and registration some time ago, I now refuse to fill out any income tax form.
I choose not to give money to kill.
For years, any extra money that could have gone to this government for the purposes of war, I gave to many different humanizing efforts.
This way, I made sure there were no taxable monies available from me.
I want to say no strongly to an administration which would spend nine billion dollars more for war-making and would cut out an already allotted 2.6 billion for things ranging from cancer research to schools and hospitals.
I want to say no strongly to a government which makes the poor and the old grovel for enough bread to survive while it struggles to give oil depletion allowances to those who have robbed the earth of natural resources meant for all, not for a favored few.
Imagine wanting to give taxpayers’ money to those who have made 130 percent profit off a probably contrived energy crisis which caused suffering to millions!
Of course, the poor always have an energy crisis.
They live in fear of having heat, gas, electricity shut off because there is not the money to pay the exorbitant bills.
But it is not just that taxpayers’ dollars are used for war and for oil depletion allowances.
That would be enough for tax resistance.
I want to say no strongly, by not filling out an income tax form, because money from the people of this country is used to train police in other countries how to torture, how to repress demands for justice.
Money from this country was used to overthrow a legitimate government in Chile, with the subsequent murder of countless Chilean citizens.
Money from this country is used to support and maintain dictatorships in South Korea, in the Phillipines, in Brazil and in the Dominican Republic, and in other Latin American countries where big business gains enormous profit off the cheap labor, off the enslaved backs of millions of our brother and sister humans who live in neighboring lands.
Money from this country, from the people of this country is used to keep people who yearn for freedom in inhuman prisons.
And there is no asylum here for the economically or politically oppressed, as the dollars are spent to weed out illegal aliens in hunts that put to shame and mock the words on the Statue of Liberty: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free.”
To the laws that de-humanize, and that are anti-human, anti-life, I say no not just with a clear conscience but as a way of clearing conscience.
The law of love the only one we must keep, is violated blatantly.
Jesus says we must love our neighbor.
My neighbors in Jersey City are poor, old, Puerto Rican, black, illegal, and the way taxes are spent violates their humanity!
I say no to such violation of the people here in Downtown Jersey City and to all my neighbors with whom I share life on this planet.
Peace, Rev. John P. Egan
That issue also had updates on the Bromley/Peacemakers conflict with the IRS:
Bromleys Face Eviction for Tax Resistance
By Peggy Scherer
It was in that the Internal Revenue Service first sent notices to The Peacemaker and to Ernest and Marion Bromley, claiming approximately $25,000 in unpaid taxes.
The assessment, based on banking records of The Peacemaker, claimed that Ernest had been a paid employee.
This claim is false: Ernest never received payment for years of work on The Peacemaker.
IRS also claimed that recipients of money from The Peacemaker Sharing Fund, which supports families of imprisoned war resisters, were employees and taxes were owed on their “salaries.”
This last claim was later dropped.
The first claim has been carried through, with a second injustice.
The assessment is based on financial records of The Peacemaker; but the property that has been taken to pay the unjust assessment, a house located near Cincinnati, Ohio, belongs to Gano Peacemakers, Inc., which is a separate financial entity.
Though the house belonging to Gano Peacemakers Inc. is also the home of Ernest and Marion Bromley, and was the mailing address of The Peacemaker until recently, no money was ever exchanged between the two groups.
But the house was seized by the IRS on , and sold at auction on .
SSS Secret Flies
This case has serious implications for the Peacemaker Movement as a whole.
If IRS succeeds in this action, it can proceed to make it impossible for The Peacemaker to continue.
There are political implications for thousands of other peace groups and individuals as well.
The auditing of The Peacemaker funds in came soon after the Special Services Staff (SSS) drew up a file on The Peacemaker and Ernest Bromley, then acting editor of the paper.
A memo on this file, dated , singled out The Peacemaker and Ernest Bromley for tax refusal and encouraging others to refuse to pay war taxes.
The SSS was set up by IRS, at the request of Richard Nixon.
Its purpose was to study groups and individuals who protested against the US government, especially those who protested US involvement in Vietnam.
The SSS investigated and drew up files on 2873 organizations and 8585 individuals who were considered extremists and dissidents.
Only 99 of these files have ever been made public.
The existence of the memo on The Peacemaker was discovered by accident.
And though the SSS was supposedly disbanded on , the continued harassment of the Peacemaker movement, and the fact that the files have not been destroyed or made public, even to the people studied in the files, indicates otherwise.
The man in charge of setting up the SSS was Leon Green, then deputy assistant commissioner of IRS — and now regional commissioner of the IRS, headquartered in Cincinnati.
The continued and secret existence of these files is dangerous.
In connection with the Bromley case, a reporter and a group of Quakers requested to see all files pertaining to the case.
Although all the proper request forms were filed through official channels, this group was continuously denied access to the files.
Another reporter who wrote a newspaper article sympathetic to the Bromleys had his own accounts audited by the IRS soon after his article appeared.
Peacemaker Response
The IRS has been informed of the true facts of this case, but has continued almost without hesitation.
Since the first notice sent the Bromleys in , hundreds of letters of protest sent to IRS have resulted in one change.
IRS claims that recipients of Sharing Fund monies were employees have been dropped.
But the assessment was readjusted and fines were added to keep the amount they claimed was due them at about $25,000. The Bromleys, because of personal beliefs that to appeal through IRS appeals courts would be to recognize an unjust system, will not work through the courts.
They believe, rather, in personal witness and public disclosure of the abuse of power.
In accordance with this belief, the Bromleys and many others have written letters, leafletted the IRS building in Cincinnati daily for the last five months, and gotten newspaper articles written.
Personal conversations between individual Peacemakers and IRS officials leave no doubt that IRS has all the facts but is acting anyway.
Education of the public in the facts of this case, and the credibility that this is in fact an act of political harassment, was attested to when, on , Cincinnati’s city council voted 8 to 1 to ask two Congressional committees to probe this affair.
There is still time to respond to this case, on the part of individuals and groups.
Write to demand the reversal of the sale of the house (a step which IRS can still take until the official closing of the sale and eviction, which will take place on, or around, ).
Request that all the SSS files be destroyed, and that the IRS not be allowed to harass any other groups or individuals who disagree with the government.
Letters should be sent to:
Regional Commissioner Leon Green District Director Dwight James Federal Office Building Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
Donald Alexander, Commissioner, IRS 12th & Constitution, NW Washington, DC 20224
The Congressional Committees investigating the case are the US Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, 102 B Russell, Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510, and the Oversight Committee of the House Ways and Means Committee, 2371 Rayburn Building, Washington, DC 20515.
Those who have faith in government processes might write these committees.
The most important witness will be on , at the National Headquarters of IRS in Washington.
We are asking as many people as possible to join us then, for a general demonstration and acts of civil disobedience, in protest of IRS harassment of the Bromleys and all political dissenters.
For exact times, gathering points, and information on housing, etc., contact Kathi Milanowski, c/o Community of Creative Nonviolence, 1345 Euclid St. NW, Washington, DC 20009 (202) 667‒6407. There will be an action the same day in Cincinnati — contact John Leininger, The Peacemaker, 1255 Paddock Hills Ave., Cincinnati, Ohio 45229 about this action and for more information on the case.
Demonstration at IRS
A general demonstration, protesting IRS harassment of the Bromleys and all political dissenters, will be held at the National Headquarters of IRS, in Washington, D.C.
For exact times, gathering points, and information on housing, contact Kathi Milanowski, c/o CCNV, 1345 Euclid St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009, (202) 667‒6407.
The issue of The Catholic Worker gave an update on the national War Tax Resistance organization, which I think was nearly finished by this point:
War Tax Resistance
The War Tax Resistance national office has moved to 629 South Hill St., Los Angeles, Ca. 90014. Mandy Carter, a member of the War Resisters League, is the new coordinator of WTR.
The office provides literature on war tax resistance, and publishes the bi-monthly Tax Talk.
Jersey City — Rev. John P. Egan has again notified the Internal Revenue Service that he will not fill out a tax form this year in protest against “the diabolic ways in which the U.S. government spends so much of the money given to it by its citizenry.”
This is the second year that Father Egan has not cooperated with the income tax program even to the extent of sending in a form.
For several years before that, he paid no taxes because “I gave away whatever surplus earning might be subject to tax.”
The only response the activist priest got from his protest last year was a form letter notifying him that he had not filed an income tax form.
“I sent that one back with the notation that I had already told them I was not going to file one,” he said.
“I haven’t heard from them since then.”
In his letter , Father Egan says that “It is hard to think of a better way to celebrate the bicentennial than by tax resistance.
The first protests against the tyranny of the British government were in the form of non-payment of unjust taxes.”
Father Egan protests against the “clear policy of the present administration to keep millions unemployed, supposedly to slow down the rate of inflation,” the “development of the B-1 nuclear bomber at a cost ultimately of more than $1,000 to every average U.S. working person” and use of “food as a weapon to force people to follow the will of a particular government.”
The Catholic Worker reprinted this Peacemaker pamphlet in its issue:
No Money for War
(The following article is from a Peacemaker leaflet updated to figures.
This leaflet is contained in a more complete booklet, The Handbook for Non Payment of Taxes, published by Peacemakers, 1255 Paddock Hills Av., Cincinnati OH 45229, who also publish an outstanding newsletter of nonviolent alternatives and responses.
For more information on tax resistance, contact Mandy Carter, War Tax Resistance National Office, 629 South Hill St., Rm. 915, Los Angeles, CA 90014.
Other literature on tax resistance is available from Angie and Bob Calvert, Nonviolent Studies Institute, 912 East 31st St., Kansas City, Mo. 64109. Eds. note.)
The Peacemaker Movement’s position statement on tax nonpayment says:
“The federal income tax is not only the chief source of monetary support of the war system but it is the chief link connecting each individual’s daily labor with the tremendous buildup for war.
A breaking of this link is important both as a stoppage of war supplies and as a real, personal commitment to peace.
To break this link it is necessary for an individual to withdraw totally from the taxing of incomes federally.
This means that one does not pay taxes either directly or through the withholding system, nor turn over the taxes of workers in his/her employ.
Only after settling the withholding matter can a person be in command of his/her income and choose where the money goes.
Therefore, the Peacemaker position is one of nonpayment of federal taxes, including excise taxes such as the telephone tax.
Ways to participate in nonpayment of federal taxes are (1) Refuse to pay taxes legally owed, (2) Live on an income low enough to be nontaxable.”
Limiting Income
One person can earn up to $2350 a year before owing income tax.
A person with one dependent can earn up to $3100.
Three exemptions allow one to earn up to $3850; four, $4600; five, $5350; ten $9100.
A person over 65 years of age is allowed an extra exemption; so a married couple over 65 can earn $4600 before owing tax.
Some people would rather not put a self-limit on their income, as they feel this would be taking on a standard of living dictated by government.
Others would rather limit their income than break tax laws; some welcome an opportunity to live more simply, withdrawing further from the war economy.
A religious calling to voluntary poverty impels many more.
Those who follow this intentional low income form of nonpayment often find living collectively is more economical and usually seek part time work, short term jobs or limited self-employment.
Declining to Pay
Some people prefer to live at least a little above a no-tax level so they can add an act of open refusal to their position of nonpayment.
Others find, after totaling their yearly income, that they are inadvertently above the no-tax level; and then go ahead with an open refusal also.
Many earn more money and have larger amounts to refuse the government.
Any money legally due the government at tax deadline can be openly refused, the refuser deciding whether or not to file a tax return.
Some people prefer, when making their refusals, to write IRS or the President; others prefer to write their local papers and to hand out their own prepared leaflets.
Withholding-Free Income
People wanting to refuse war taxes are often hampered by the withholding tax, as almost everyone works for an employer who takes out tax money from each paycheck.
Unless a person corrects this situation, nonpayment of taxes cannot take place.
Either the taking-out must cease, or the employee must quit.
Withholding Form W-4E may be signed by any employee who had no tax liability for the previous year and expects to have no tax liability for the current year.
This form authorizes the employer to pay the full salary or wage without withholding taxes.
It is meant for students or others who work only part-time.
It must be signed anew in each calendar year of employment.
Some people notify their employer that they object to paying such taxes — having them withheld.
In lieu of other possibilities, one can request that each paycheck be just below the figure where withholding starts.
That figure is $39.99 weekly for one exemption, such as a husband and wife can each claim when both are employed.
The withholding Form W-4 permits two exemptions for a single person or a married person whose spouse is not also employed.
Such an employee can earn $53.99 weekly without having any taxes withheld.
A married person whose spouse is not employed, by claiming the spouse as a dependent, for example, can thus take three exemptions, and be paid $67.99 per week without withholding.
Four exemptions brings the figure to $83.99 weekly.
Six exemptions permits the withholding-free weekly wage to be $109.99; ten exemptions brings the withholding-free weekly wage to $169.99.
Concerned employers have sometimes found creative ways to make up the monetary loss to the employee.
After lowering their weekly pay in this fashion, some people have raised their hourly rate by working three or four days, instead of five; this also opens possibilities for other income.
People are legally entitled to claim as exemptions any persons who are members of the household for the entire year, who earn less than $750 a year and who receive more than half support from the wage earner — relatives need not be members of the household to qualify.
A parent may claim as dependent a child who earns above $750, provided the child is a full-time student or is under 19, and is given more than half support.
Jobs Outside Withholding
Agricultural labor, domestic service, newspaper delivery, and services performed by a minister in the exercise of his ministry are three types of work which do not come under the withholding rule.
Some people pick apples, for instance, or do caretaker-type maintenance, without withholding.
(Although exempted from withholding, such jobs are not exempted from tax, so people in these jobs have prime opportunity to refuse to pay.)
Some people find it possible to work for an employer and still not be on that employer’s payroll.
They are, instead, on the payroll of an “employment service” of their own which supplies their services along with a weekly bill, and receives paychecks made out to the employment service.
This Manpower-type employer then pays the employee the full earning with nothing withheld.
Some have felt it important to make this service a partnership — every member a partner.
There is then no legal obligation to withhold tax.
Doctors, dentists, lawyers, music teachers, tutors, therapists, counselors, and others who have a private practice do not get involved in the withholding system.
Self-employment can also be found in the arts: writing, illustrating, performing as musician, entertainer or lecturer.
People with duplicating skills have opened their own print shops, binderies, mimeograph and addressing services.
Messenger services and parcel delivery services are also in this category of personally-owned and operated businesses.
People with skills as decorators, hairdressers, barbers, bakers, woodworkers, upholsterers can open small businesses where they are self employed and/or work as partners.
House builders have found self-employment by taking on the responsibility of constructing the entire building.
In the same way, house painters, plumbers, electricians have gone out after their own jobs.
Mechanics, engineers, architects, and people with other skills have become consultants in their fields.
They have a practice, work for customers, go out on special jobs for these customers.
People with mechanical skills have opened fix-it shops, garages, paint and body shops.
Nurses have taken private cases in hospitals and homes, thus becoming their own employers.
Taxicab drivers and truck drivers who own or rent their vehicles are self-employed.
Likewise those who own or rent power machinery (tractors, mowers, tree saws).
Some have sold articles on commission and escaped the withholding system.
Some have sold insurance without withholding.
Others have established routes for fresh eggs, or some other repeatedly-purchased food items.
Alternative Funds
Any money held out of government use can, of course, be devoted to something else — notably to something which encourages life and counteracts war.
In several areas, people refusing payment of income and telephone taxes have formed alternative fund groups, pooling the money and deflecting it into constructive uses:
to reimburse members from whom the government has collected refused taxes; to give financial help to members who have become unemployed, imprisoned or otherwise dislocated because of nonpayment.
Some groups have used these funds for supporting or initiating agreed-upon peace actions, or for their community.
Some people will have to make a change in job, life style, place of living.
Some people feel that making such changes has been difficult, at least at first; and that they have made sacrifices for their beliefs.
Others find such changes relatively easy, and seem pleased with having had to make the changes.
Both those who limit their incomes to a nontaxable amount and those who refuse legally-owed taxes have found that their situations lead to conversations with neighbors, friends, strangers — to dialogue on war.
This personal interaction is felt at times to be more significant than the act itself of denying a few dollars to the war machine.
That issue also included this note:
War Tax Resistance is starting an outreach project to counter the American war budget.
To help raise funds for this project, W.T.R. is selling Edmond Wilson’s “The Cold War and the Income Tax,” for $2.95.
Order through War Tax Resistance/NYC, 339 Lafavette St., NYC 10012.
, The Catholic Worker published a letter to the editor from Chuck Quilty regarding his criminal tax case (one I hadn’t encountered before in war tax resistance literature — he’s not listed at NWTRCC’s War Tax Resisters Taken to Court list, for instance.):
Tax Case
2733 8½ Ave.
Rock Island, Ill. 61201
Dear Dorothy,
Here is the latest information on my trial () and my sentencing ().
The charge was two counts of filing false information (i.e. W-4E withholding form).
The trial lasted only one day with Judge Morgan, in effect, denying me a trial by jury.
The judge, in his instructions to the jury, told them that the only fact they had to decide was whether I had signed the W-4E, something I had already admitted.
All personal motivation and beliefs, questions of international law, and constitutional issues were considered irrelevant.
At the sentencing Judge Morgan surprised everyone by reading a prepared speech which was very complimentary, and stated that he wasn’t even going to fine me because I freely gave of my time and money to help those less fortunate than myself.
He gave me 3 years probation on each count to be served concurrently.
We have decided to appeal the decision, not because the sentence was unacceptable, but because of the issues we feel can still be raised.
One remote possibility is that the appellate court would overturn the decision.
More likely, they could rule a mistrial, and we would start over again.
The government might then drop the charges or they could try me again.
This time my personal convictions would be considered relevant and testimony to support my contentions on international and constitutional law would have to be allowed.
Both my lawyer and I were forbidden to mention these during the trial.
The points we feel can be raised by the appeal and/or another trial are:
Signing a W-4E form represents making a legal judgment as to tax liability.
People should not be made criminals for making a legal judgment.
International law. i.e. U.N. Charter, S.E.A.T.O., Geneva, Nuremburg, is binding on U.S. citizens via article six of the U.S. constitution.
The right to practice religious conviction includes tax refusal.
My lawyer has been very generous with his time and is charging me much less than he is entitled to.
Still the expenses come to slightly over $3000 for the trial and appeal.
If any groups can help a little with the expenses it would be greatly appreciated.
We expect Appellate Court decision by .
Love to all!
Chuck Quilty
A National Catholic News Service dispatch dated mentioned in passing “Dr. John Kelly, a Chicago physician who with his family moved to Ireland to protest tax supported welfare programs providing abortions.”
The Catholic Worker printed another letter-to-the-editor from the Ammon Hennacy House in Portland, Oregon, in its issue (this one signed “Mufti McNassar et al.”).
Excerpts:
After years of doing family hospitality, tax resistance and piece-work peace work we’ve finally got a kitchen going as of .
The House of Hospitality still consists mainly of Patrick, myself and our three children.
has proved somewhat of a watershed for us.
A brief but sweet reunion with Daniel Berrigan on was a gift.
And with the babies weaned and the kitchen going well, the signs seem to point to a more concerted and visible resistance on our part.
I can speak only for us now, but tax resistance seems to have grown organically out of war and draft resistance as the mandate for these times.
We said as much to Mr. Short of the IRS in a tax day statement .
In the eight years we’ve been together, Patrick and I have lived below a taxable income, refused to file (but once) and refused to pay social security.
We have not incurred a tax debt, partly as our commitment to voluntary poverty, but mostly to keep our means consistent with our ends: if you make the money, it seems to us, the IRS will get it somehow, and it’s always been our first consideration that they get as little of our money as possible.
We support ourselves mostly by manual labor — 11% of which the government claims as social security.
Even this money is not set aside for the elderly and disabled, but filtered through the general fund.
Legally to work — a natural right and an integral part of being human — one must pay into the death machine.
And so we’ve begun to say no more loudly than before.
It’s always been our belief and an essential part of any small witness that we’ve given, that two people with small children can choose to be poor, can open their home to strangers, can resist openly.
There are times when one is forced to seemingly “hide and watch" — e.g. when the actual survival of another is totally dependent on one’s body or one’s time.
And even tho’ it may seem that we’re not “doing" anything then, the sheer vulnerability of the position forces one to come face to face with fear and with the future: the nuclear family as paradigm for humankind.
The Pacific Northwest is dotted with monuments to death.
To refuse to worship at the idol of nuclear power means risking some comfort in the present to offer the world a future.
We own nothing and therefore have little to lose.
Dick and Evelyn Freeman penned this Catholic defense of war tax resistance for the Catholic Worker:
Don’t Pay War Taxes
By Dick and Evelyn Freeman
We met Stanley Vishnewski for the first time in .
He was visiting our friends in Baltimore, Willa Bickham and Brendan Walsh, at their Catholic Worker home, Viva House.
Stanley is a joyful man, and, after little persuasion, he shared with us his slide show and oral history of the Catholic Worker.
Stanley’s message, of course, was that we share a particularly Catholic social tradition of pacifism, personalism, and for some, voluntary poverty.
It has always been a struggle to affirm this tradition, especially when confronting the ikons of the day.
Sometimes we find it as much a struggle to explain our affirmations to fellow Catholics!
Faith so easily blends into national culture, and we become technicians for the American state.
The state plays its part well, beginning with the insistence that we pay income tax.
Affirming our tradition, however, we refuse to pay that tax because the government uses the money to develop and deploy murderous nuclear and conventional weapons and to pay off a national debt incurred mostly during past wars.
Ours is an act of pacifism in general, and of nuclear pacifism in particular.
It is firmly rooted in modern Catholic thought.
Today it is common knowledge that the United States spends annually more than 50% of its revenue for the military. U.S. leaders have announced as national policy, first implemented by Truman, the potential first use of nuclear weapons.
If that weren’t enough, they threaten to conduct nuclear war — somehow limited.
National leaders, particularly in the US and USSR, have had thirty years to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and they have failed on a massive scale.
Their failure can be measured in megatons.
Every tax dollar supports this madness.
You cannot just send your tax to the Department of Labor and ask them to provide someone with a minimum income.
Some people tried, during the Vietnam war, to send their money to government agencies that were not involved, other than by their silence, in that war.
But the IRS ruled that checks paid to a government agency had to be treated as if paid to the United States.
As Catholics we cannot at one moment refer to people as brothers and sisters, and at another, pay our government to prepare to burn, blast or irradiate them.
Nor can we wait until the Congress gives us legal permission, as in the World Peace Fund Act, to insure that the military does not get our tax dollars.
We must simply refuse to pay the tax.
In the light of recent events we may justly urge fellow Catholics to refuse tax payment, and to seek the full support of the bishops as representatives of the institutional Church in America.
In , the Vatican sent a plea for disarmament to the United Nations.
It condemned the arms race, even when motivated by a concern for a legitimate defense, as a danger, in terms of the potential use of nuclear weapons; as an injustice, by asserting the primacy of force and by stealing resources from the poor for use in weapons construction; as a mistake and a wrong, by instilling the fear in workers that they will have no work if they do not produce weapons; as a folly, because neither conventional nor nuclear weapons ensure a stable peace.
Pacem in Terris and Pope Paul’s statements for Peace Day (January 1) and , are as explicit and as forceful.
We would do well to reflect on them in our parish and diocesan communities.
We should not simply submerge our faith in the nation’s nuclear pastime.
Yet some will object that we need, as a prerequisite for acting, specific pastoral instruction about tax refusal.
Some will say that we must give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.
We now find ourselves as we were during the many, many years before the bishops’ statement on conscientious objection and selective conscientious objection in .
There is sufficient teaching with which to form our “correct consciences”; individually, and in our communities, we need not wait.
The government’s acts in preparation for nuclear and conventional war are clearly opposed to the moral code which has God as its source.
Because its acts are immoral, the government lacks authority to command us to pay its tax.
As Pope John taught,
Since the right to command is required by the moral order and has its source in God, it follows that, if civil authorities pass laws or command anything opposed to the moral order and consequently to the will of God, neither the laws made nor the authorization granted can be binding on the consciences of the citizens, since “God has more right to be obeyed than men.”
The National Catholic News Service covered John Egan’s tax resistance again, in a dispatch:
Priest Refuses to File Tax Return as Protest
Jersey City, N.J. (NC)— For the third consecutive year, a priest here has written to the Internal Revenue Service and declined to file a federal tax return.
Father John P. Egan of St. Boniface parish, in his most recent letter to the IRS, said he does not intend to file a return in protest against government expenditures for armaments and the support of certain foreign governments.
While Father Egan is subject to prosecution, his letters have never been answered and no action has been taken against him.
Since he retains none of his salary he would not owe any taxes.
In his letter he cited Brazil, South Korea, the Philippines and Haiti as “dictatorships supported by U.S. taxpayers’ money.”
He also charged that “hard-earned money from folks in this country encouraged the recent bloody coup in Thailand where a democratic government was overthrown.”
“People say we are at peace,” he wrote, “but such peace is an illusion that keeps us going our merry way and preserves our consciences from any healthy challenges… Nuclear priorities are a war against the poor.”
He said tax resistance is a step in the direction of eliminating weapons.
“It is a way to celebrate life by refusing to worship the death of others as security or solution.
It is a way of saying that the laying down of arms so we can embrace each other as brothers and sisters is the only true solution, the only true security.”
Father Egan has been active in anti-war groups and has campaigned for prison reform.
The following brief letter-to-the-editor appeared in the Catholic Worker:
Our Lady of Presentation 2012 Westwood Northern Blvd Cincinnati, Ohio 45225
Dear Fellow Workers,
I am a priest and a war tax resister.
I am interested in knowing if there are other priests who have refused to pay income or telephone tax in opposition to our war economy.
If you would kindly publish this letter, we may be able at least to know about one another and possibly to encourage and support one another in living this decision.
Thank you.
God bless you
Fr. Al Lauer
A National Catholic News Service dispatch from about a recent talk by Daniel Berrigan ended with a quote from Berrigan in which he said: “If we had a quiet groundswell of tax refusal around the country, they couldn’t build this stuff” [e.g. nuclear weapons].
Another dispatch, from read:
“Peace” Churches Ask Tax Resistance to Military Spending
Green Lakes, Wis. (NC)— Three hundred delegates of three historic “peace” churches have urged their members to use civil disobedience, including tax resistance, to emphasize their opposition to militarism and their support for “worldwide abolition of nuclear weapons.”
The delegates met at a “New Call to Peace-Making” that followed 26 regional meetings over the past two years.
The meeting was sponsored by the Friends (Quakers), the Mennonites and the Church of the Brethren, who have a combined membership of about 400,000 persons.
The delegates urged their church members “to seriously consider refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes as a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship.”
They said military expenditures take up about half of all federal taxes.
The delegates also opposed restoration of the draft.
They called for a meeting with President Carter to “commend and support him in his concern for peace and human rights” and to tell him of their “concerns about military spending, nuclear weapons, arms sales and related matters.”
Eileen Egan, a member of Pax Christi, a Catholic peace group, said she attended the meeting as a representative of Catholic pacifists.
She said Catholics should join the “peace” churches in their pacifism.
