Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” →
Mennonites / Amish →
Anita & E. Stanley Bohn
Some bits-and-pieces from around the web:
Susan Balzer writes about Mennonite war tax resisters for the Mennonite Weekly Review.
Some of the resisters mentioned: Tim Godshall, Willard and Mary Swartley, Ray Gingerich, Harold A. Penner, John and Janet Stoner, Albert and Mary Ellen Meyer, Don Kaufman, Titus and Linda Gehman Peachey, and Stan Bohn.
A Tax Tea Party Revolt will be the only recourse available in the wake of efforts to not provide equal treatment to all citizens under law …
This means gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people will not be filing taxes April 15th.
War tax resister NTodd Pritsky at Pax Americana takes note of the prosecution of a tax evader and wonders if this is going to be his eventual fate as well.
Pritsky is resisting both federal and state taxes (as a war tax resister, he is protesting state complicity in the military industrial complex and in the wars via the state national guard).
Fighting this battle on two fronts takes a lot of energy, and he’s not sure it’s worth it.
PeaceSigns is a publication of the U.S. Mennonite Church’s Peace & Justice Support Network. The latest issue focuses on war tax resistance, and includes:
This is the thirty-second in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we reach the middle-1980s.
A conference held in and sponsored by the Mennonite Church General Board (I think this is distinct from the General Conference Mennonite Church’s General Board, but it gets confusing) concerned “The Church’s Relationship to the Political Order.”
War tax resistance was among the topics discussed:
John and Sandy Drescher Lehman of Richmond, Va., told how they followed their conscience and decided a few years ago to withhold the part of their income taxes that they figure goes for military spending.
Now they have become employees of Mennonite Board of Missions in their role as co-directors of the Richmond Discipleship Voluntary Service program.
“What should an institution do when its employees, following their consciences, ask that we stop withholding taxes from their paychecks?” asked MBM president Paul Gingrich.
A panel of four attempted to answer the question, including Robert Hull, soldier-turned-tax-resister who is peace and justice secretary of the General Conference Mennonite Church.
He explained how his denomination, with the instruction of its members, is now breaking the law by not withholding taxes from the paychecks of seven of its employees who have requested that.
In an editorial in the edition, E. Stanley Bohn wrote that war tax resistance is an example of Christians taking their doctrine seriously and taking risks for it, and that this is useful in missionary work.
Excerpts:
While my wife, Anita, and I were in a language school in Mexico, we stayed with a family that claimed to have a faith but had no relation to any congregation.
They had a good supply of humorous imitations of TV preachers and stories of inconsistencies of church people.
They also had the feeling that churches were exploitive of people and supported the exploitive governments to the north and their manipulation of governments in Latin America.
When I explained one night at the evening meal that in my denomination people often took a different position than the government, they listened politely.
But when I explained there were Christians who took the New Testament so sincerely that they accepted fines and jail terms, they wanted to know more.
Accepting penalties for conscientious objection to war, non-registration, refusing to pay a war tax and offering sanctuary to Central American refugees caused at least the son in that family to reconsider a faith he had earlier ridiculed.
The second incident happened in Japan with a Japanese friend who had lived in our home as an MCC trainee.
Christianity is not sweeping the country in Japan.
Although the door is not closed to Christian missionaries, it may be that a large percentage of the people are closed to a Christ who has been identified with what the West did to Asians in Vietnam, their parents in World War Ⅱ and with the current pressure on Japan to violate its constitution and establish armed forces capable of international war.
Our friend had arranged for a meeting of a group of his student friends, some of them non-Christian.
He asked me to speak while he translated on the topic of peacemaking efforts of Mennonites in the United States.
Topics like draft registration, prayer vigils at missile sites or war taxes — that are controversial for us — were in his eyes exactly what was needed to make credible what the church was teaching and to open the minds of his friends to the Christian faith.
In Canada and the United States we often see the more controversial peace witness and overseas missions as opposite kinds of religious expression, having little to do with each other.
Yet in some overseas situations the unbelievers we met were more open to the gospel if it included a peace witness that was clearly international and repudiated protecting ourselves at the expense of others (not that their governments would be any more receptive to that than ours is).
From their viewpoint it is clear that such witness efforts as those of Christian war tax refusers actually aid the work of overseas missions.
This may put our triennial conference action in a different light.
At the Bethlehem conference our delegates voted that we would not accept the position in which the U.S. laws put us: that the church act as a tax collector, taking taxes for war from those who are conscientiously against war.
That stand may some day require us to pay for legal assistance.
Since our conference was not unanimous in taking this stand, it was agreed that costs should be covered by donations from those who believe this was the right path to take.
Those who contribute to such legal expenses, if and when they come, may feel they are paying a penalty for having a conscience.
However, whether the ruling is favorable or unfavorable, their dollars may help our overseas mission dollars accomplish more.
They may be helping to open some minds closed to national and tribal gods and hungry for the God of all nations who makes a difference in people’s lives.
This news comes from the edition:
About a year ago, Mennonite Central Committee established a task force to study how MCC should respond to employees’ requests that MCC not withhold federal taxes from their paychecks.
This was to enable them to keep that portion of their taxes used for military purposes.
After meeting with leaders from eight conferences, the task force reported in that none of the conference groups was in favor of honoring the employees’ requests.
Even though the General Conference honors such requests by its employees, the executive committee of its General Board did not favor MCC taking similar action.
The former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) has called for the creation of a peace army committed to withholding the 13 percent of income taxes that the British government spends on defense.
Lord MacLeod of Fuinary hopes such an army will be able to persuade the government to allow people to give an equivalent amount of their taxes to relieve world hunger instead.
Even if the government refuses to go along with the idea, he said, taxpayers should still withhold the money and give it to famine relief.
In the edition, Richard McSorley wrote about having taken “a vow of non-violence.”
The Catholic peace group Pax Christi was encouraging people to take such a formal vow annually, and was encouraging the Catholic Church to support such vows by providing a ritual context for them.
In my formulation of the vow I said, “I, before the cross of Jesus Christ, vow perpetual non-violence in fulfillment of the command of your Son, ‘Love your enemies.’ ”
It seems to me beyond doubt that I cannot love a person in the same act in which I kill that person.
The vow means I will not take part in killing anybody.
That means I will not pay taxes for weapons of death and be a part of the preparations to kill done by the military or the hangman or the abortionist.
Neither will I hold, as morally acceptable, the program of killing some to save others.
Discussion about payment of U.S. federal income taxes used for military purposes — or “war taxes” — was prompted by a request from four MCC Akron employees who asked MCC to stop forwarding the portion of their income taxes which go for military spending.
In letters last year to the executive committee, the four cited deployment of missiles in Europe, U.S. funds for war in Central America, MCC’s support of conscientious objection during the Vietnam War and the deaths of friends killed by American-made weapons as basis for the request.
A tax withholding task force reported to the board that, after discussions with eight Mennonite and Brethren in Christ conferences, “no group counseled MCC to honor the requests.”
MCC Canada indicated that payment of military taxes is not an issue among Canadians “at this time.”
The task force recommended that MCC “continue to withhold and forward taxes to the (U.S.) government.”
Possible penalties for not forwarding an employee’s tax include the amount plus interest, a $10,000 fine and/or five years imprisonment.
Board member Phil Rich, who served on the task force, emphasized that conference leaders “agonized” over the decision and observed that “none of the groups said that civil disobedience is absolutely wrong.”
Some of the leaders, he indicated, “are in favor but do not think their people will go along.”
He also noted that most conferences are open to dealing with the issue in the future.
During a lengthy discussion, board members wrestled with the issue.
Ray Brubacher, a Canadian, indicated that his church allows him to withhold the military portion of his income tax.
“I cannot,” he said, “vote against their request if I can [have taxes not withheld] myself.
I don’t want to vote against the constituency, but I cannot vote against my conscience.”
Larry Kehler of the General Conference noted that his denomination had decided in not to forward the tax of individuals who had made such a request.
As a member of that conference, he indicated that he “could not vote for the recommendation.”
Both said that their vote would be made with “much pain.”
Other board members shared their pain but agreed with MCC Canada representative Ross Nigh that “we are bound by the process.
We went to the conferences in good faith, and not one recommended that we withhold taxes.
In the interest of the wider brotherhood, we must vote for it.”
The recommendation passed with four against and two abstentions.
The board also passed recommendations that affirm the four and others who make a similar request and that encourage MCC to find ways for them to resist payment legally.
Staff were also encouraged to increase efforts to educate the churches about the relationship between militarism, hunger, development and refugees.
The task force also suggested that MCC and the conferences hold a study conference on church/state issues.
In a prepared response, Earl Martin read a statement on behalf of the four that expressed appreciation for the process and deliberation but appealed to the conferences to discuss the issue at their next annual conventions.
The four also asked MCC to help facilitate the discussion and invited the conferences to report their findings at the MCC annual meeting.
Martin also pointed out that while U.S. members of MCC’s seven constituent conferences donated $9.4 million to MCC in , they paid an estimated $159 million in military taxes.
Approximagely $880,000 was paid during the course of the meeting.
When the General Board met in , however, they backpedaled from their own participation in this decision:
[The board] passed a motion brought by CHM U.S. that GB reverse its recommendation to the Mennonite Central Committee that it continue to withhold taxes from its employees even when they request otherwise.
Staff member Robert Hull… disagreed with MCC’s decision not to stop withholding taxes of employees.
He said the General Board is partly responsible because it was contacted, along with seven other denominations when the decision was being made.
The committee continued to struggle with the issues posed by MCC employees whose request not to have income taxes withheld was rejected after long debate at the MCC annual meeting in .
It was decided at that time that, despite this decision, MCC should continue to affirm the integrity of those objecting to war taxes and establish a committee that would study and create broader awareness of the impact of militarism on refugees, hunger and development.
But the mandate of that group, which is to begin meeting in , was not clearly defined.
Executive committee chairman Elmer Neufeld said that there seems to be a “strong expectation” from some that the special committee will continue to work specifically on the tax withholding issue.
Others said the committee’s task was to struggle with congregations to find legal ways to express a Christian witness on the issue of militarism.
It was also reported that the General Conference Mennonite Church has had further discussion regarding how to counsel MCC to respond to the request from its staff on income tax withholding.
At MCC’s annual meeting it was reported that MCC representatives had met with constituent conferences and that none had counseled MCC to honor the request of staff.
In the General Conference’s General Board decided to counsel MCC “that they honor requests of their employees to not have their taxes withheld, in line with General Conference policy.”
As authorized by the triennial sessions, the conference is honoring the requests of four employees not to withhold income tax due to the U.S. Government.
Thus far, Internal Revenue Service has not taken action against the conference.
Originally, seven such employees had requested not to have taxes withheld.
This was later reduced to five.
Now it’s four.
I can’t tell whether this is from a general shrinkage of staff or from a flagging of enthusiasm for war tax resistance.
This is the thirty-eighth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we work through the rest of the early 1990s.
Taxes for Life
The edition brought news of
a symbolic, dip-your-toes-in-first sort of tax resistance being organized by
Christian Peacemaker Teams:
Taxes for Life
encourages church members to divert from their
income tax returns at least $3.03, which
represents a penny per $1 billion of the
U.S. military
budget ($303.5 billion). As a symbolic effort, the project seeks to draw
public attention to the unfulfilled student needs in poor communities for
books and educational materials. Send symbolic tax refusals to
CPT…
These will be gathered at the
CPT
conference in Richmond, Va.
. One-fourth of the total will
be donated publicly to local impoverished schools. The rest will be sent back
with conference participants for similar public donations to their local
school districts.
The edition followed this up
with a brief note about a “Taxes for Life Liturgy and Study Plan,” put out by
CPT,
“which helps encourage symbolic tax resistance to the
U.S. defense
budget”.
John K. Stoner described the program in greater detail in the
edition:
My phone rang. The voice said, “Could I speak to John or Janet Stoner?”
“I’m John Stoner.”
“I’m calling from the Internal Revenue Service about the letter you sent
indicating that you are withholding part of your income tax payment.”
He and I talked for about 10 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 by
withholding some taxes. But by the time the conversation was over he was
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, 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 quotes
Romans
13.
War tax keeps coming up and won’t go away because the cry of children abused
and traumatized by war doesn’t go away.
Every discussion about peacemaking must face the question of how taxes are
collected and spent. The taxpayer’s “age of innocence” ended a year ago when
Americans watched their tax dollars at work in Iraq. There our taxes killed
between 100,000 and 200,000 people in one month and left a nation of 17
million people strangled — its water polluted, its hospitals without
electricity, its homes dark, its classrooms cold. Malnutrition, disease and
destitution continue.
Americans, your
IRS 1040
form and mine paid the bill. Our withheld wages and enclosed checks purchased
yesterday’s nightmares and tomorrow’s psychological traumas for these
childhood victims of war. We also paid for the deaths of their fathers and
relatives by the thousands.
Jobs: Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of unemployed, homeless, sick
and impoverished people in the United States are not helped toward health and
self-sufficiency by the federal government, which says that the funds for
education, vaccinations, basic health care, public transportation and jobs are
not available.
Who is responsible for this? We are. It is impossible for us Christian
taxpayers to sidestep our share of the responsibility. But do we have any
choice in the matter? Of course we do.
God calls us to plead for the end of the destructive social institution of war
by refusing to pay for it. We are called to this as clearly as our forebears
were called to abolish slavery.
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 $1 billion in the military budget. For this is $3.03, which can be mailed to
Christian Peacemaker Teams… Listen to your conscience when you pay your taxes
this year. Write a letter of witness to the
IRS with
copies to Congress, your pastor and local newspaper. Redirect some taxes to
education through
CPT.
If the
IRS
calls, tell them that it makes you nervous to break their law and that you do
not enjoy being harassed by the collectors. Then say you are far more
apprehensive, however, about breaking God’s law. Explain that you are afraid
to harden your heart to the cry of the victims.
Then leave the outcome with God.
Miscellaneous
The edition included some
letters concerning war taxes.
Don & Eleanor Kaufman shared their letter to the
IRS
decrying government militarism and begging for a Peace Tax Fund option. And
Charlene Epp and Duncan Smith shared their letter, in which they announced
that they were holding back a symbolic $57 of their taxes in protest.
Ryan Ahlgrim
wrote a piece for the issue
opposing war tax resistance. His main reasons: 1) to the extent resisting
taxes affects agency budgets, it does so erratically and not in a way that
affects military spending in particular; 2) it flies in the face of
representative democracy, in which we agree to permit a majority of
representatives to decide how to spend our taxes; 3) the nation still needs a
military because Jesus hasn’t yet brought peace to the world.
(Stanley Bohn penned a rebuttal for the edition, and Doug Pritchard had another in the edition.)
Beyond networking and sharing strategies, every two years the conference
participants contribute to projects promoting peace. Two years ago they gave
$15,000 to the Innu people to help their fight against low-level military
flights over their hunting lands in central Labrador in Canada. This year they
plan to donate money to Peace Brigades International for their efforts to
de-escalate the conflict in Sri Lanka.
In a MCC supplement, Mike Hofkamp reflected on U.S. support for violent military action in the Philippines, and wrote:
What does “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s mean?” I find comfort in
the interpretation of Peter Rideman, an early Anabaptist. Rideman notes the
passage says “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” not render unto Caesar
whatever and however much Caesar wants. This is a simplistic interpretation
but is truth ever sophisticated? When my government supports war against
civilians… Caesar is asking too much and war tax resistance is a faithful
Christian responsibility.
And yet, I wonder if tax resistance really goes deep enough. During the
Persian Gulf war I attended a peace rally… A loud, angry, pro-war demonstrator
entered our group and shouted at us, “You hypocrites! You chant ‘no blood for
oil’ but how many of you drove cars to get here?” Truth comes from strange
places.
Does our participation in North American economic structures give the military
its reason for being? How long will it be before our government leaders again
declare war to “protect our way of life?”
Perhaps the most authentic war tax resistance is to live below a taxable
income. Doing so would require experimenting with alternative economic
structures based on community, sharing, and conservation. If not, aren’t we
living a lifestyle that at its very core demands the wars we say we oppose?
A
list of peace “commitments” in that
MCC
supplement was very cagey around the subject of war tax resistance, hinting at
it but in a deniable way:
We will strive to show by our lives that war is an unacceptable way to solve
human conflict. This calls us to refuse to support war, or to participate in
military service. When war or war preparations lead to the conscription of
ourselves, our money, or our property, we will seek alternative ways to serve
humanity and our countries in the spirit of Christ. We support ministries of
conciliation which search for peaceful resolution of conflicts. Recognizing
the subtle ways in which our loyalties and resources can be conscripted in
modern industrial states, we will strive to continually examine our complicity
in systems which treat others as enemies.
This is the forty-second in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we hit the year 2000.
She put in a plug for the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund bill, the latest in
a series of peace tax fund legislation ideas, and then discussed her own
resistance:
I first became a war tax resister when I connected paying the federal
telephone tax with paying for the Vietnam War. Unlike my male peers, I didn’t
need to fear being physically drafted to fight. However, by voluntarily paying
taxes designated for war, I risked complicity with the military.
When I ask people if their conscientious objection extends to paying for war,
I hear a variety of answers, all based on fear: “I can’t control what the
government does with my tax money. If I resist, the government will just come
and get my money anyway. It will get even more, if I have to pay penalties and
interest. Besides, it’s illegal to not pay my share of taxes. And I don’t want
to go to jail.”
Others say, “What difference can I make? It’s too much of a hassle. I don’t
want to face an audit. I [or my institution or business] may suffer if donors
or customers see us as radicals.” And the clincher: “We don’t want to do
something controversial that might affect our work for peace.”
Karen Marysdaughter, former director of the National War Tax Resistance
Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC),
asks, “Which do you fear most — what will happen to you if you refuse to pay
war taxes, or the effect that paying for war has on people who are dying?”
NWTRCC
publishes information helpful to anyone counting the costs of war tax
resistance. And
NWTRCC
members encourage and support each other at biennial meetings. Our church,
which values community and nonconformity to the world, can learn much from
NWTRCC.
A unique opportunity to do just that happens
. For the first time, an
international conference on war tax issues will be held in the United States.
Mennonite participation with the people and issues at this conference could
set the pace for our peace witness in the 21st century…
A concerted decision to practice conscientious objection to military taxation
will greatly advance our mission to bring Christ’s healing and hope to the
world.
This was accompanied by an info-box with details about the upcoming conference.
John K. and Janet Stoner shared their letter to the
IRS
in the issue in which they
announced their withholding of a token $10 from their taxes “as a witness to
God’s call to preserve human life and not to kill.” They followed this with
talk about the Nuremberg trials and the necessity of disobedience that strikes
me as broadly true, but so bold in its implications that a $10 token act of
resistance looks kind of pathetic next to it. Be that as it may…
An article on the Zacchaeus-the-tax-collector episode in the gospel according to Luke
by Marlin Jeschke, from the
edition, stood out to me because of the matter-of-fact way the article asserts
that “Jesus’ overall position concerning the Roman occupation” included
“rejecting tax resistance.”
Editor J. Lorne Peachey penned
a
middle-of-the-road some say this but others say that editorial that touched
on war tax resistance, insisting that “We must… become more intentional in our
actions,” but never quite intending anything specific himself beyond
“supporting each other in ways we believe the Spirit is leading us.”
Larry Leaman-Miller penned a letter to the editor that appeared in the
issue that (for effect?)
presented the taxpayer complicity dilemma as something new that Mennonites
ought to consider and try to come up with some sort of solution for:
Colombian Mennonite leader Ricardo Esquivia, as quoted in the
issue, said bluntly to American Christians, “Through your tax dollars you are
supporting war” (“Colombian Leader Challenges Churches”). He was referring to
the recently approved $1.3 billion of
U.S. aid to
Colombia, most of it earmarked for the Colombian military.
Esquivia’s comment raises anew questions about our Mennonite peace witness. In
preparation for a recent presentation on nonviolence, I discovered that the
United States spends roughly three times as much annually on its military
budget as Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria
combined — the countries usually pointed to as our greatest potential enemies.
Forty-seven percent of our federal budget in
will go to military needs.
We are spending almost as much defending the nation as we are on the nation we
are defending. Actually, this kind of spending has little to do with defending
and perhaps everything to do with political, corporate and military attempts
to dominate key areas of the world.
And all this occurs without any of us having to face a draft and the specter
of personal involvement. In this age of high-tech weapons, our bodies are no
longer needed; now it’s our dollars. I struggle to know how our peace theology
speaks to this changed situation.
I wonder if people in the future will ask, “How could they have paid so
passively?” Ricardo Esquivia has seen firsthand in Colombia the violent
results of some of our payments. I think we need to ponder his words
seriously.
Could we have chosen alternatives that are legal? Could we give more to
charity, making less tax obligation? Could we instead do educational
witnessing by handing out charts at the post office on April 15 showing that
almost half the national budget goes for past and present military programs?
Could we write legislators who make tax laws rather than to the
IRS,
which merely implements them? Yes. We have also done those kinds of
witnessing.
What were the consequences of diverting part of our income tax payments to
war relief and prevention agencies? Courteous ignoring.
After several months the
IRS may
send a letter ignoring what we said but helpfully suggesting that we can ease
the financial strain by paying in installments. We explain again that poverty
is not the problem but that we are trying to live as Christians. Months later
a reply tells us that if we pay by a certain date we can avoid more interest
and penalty charges. The correspondence continues with us sharing our deepest
convictions and
IRS
sending polite computer-generated notifications.
Finally, notification comes that the money owed will be taken from our bank
account. We are not surprised, since this is what has happened for more than
20 years.
Financially, the cost has been affordable. When penalties and interest are
added, we usually are charged about 20 percent more than what we diverted to
peace and relief groups. We accept this as a cost of witnessing and are glad
we can still afford to do it.
In earlier years,
IRS
correspondence contained warnings of unspecified severe penalties, but now
this happens less often. When
IRS
letters listed 800 numbers for further contact, we called, and staff listened
politely. Once we were allowed an interview. Contacts were courteous — once
with opposing arguments and once with sympathy — but usually patient listening
by people dealing with problem taxpayers.
Is this a worthwhile, valuable witness to the Jesus way? We believe it
is. People from other countries suffering from
U.S. policies are
encouraged when they hear there is this kind of Christianity in the United
States. Maybe our witness reduces resistance to Christian missionaries who are
identified with
U.S. self-interest
and militarism.
Paradoxically, these people also admire a government that allows this kind of
dissent, which is not permitted in their countries.
Christians who find themselves living in a superpower have a special
responsibility. Though this responsibility of ours seems an impossible task,
God has ways to heal the addicted. When people have stopped being
co-dependents and no longer support the habit, addicts have been helped to
recover.
This is the forty-fifth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we finish off the first decade of the new millennium.
What belongs to God and what to Caesar? It’s a riddle that has to be puzzled
over again and again by Mennonites in the context of war tax resistance. In the
edition,
Titus Peachey took a swing
at the pitch: Given all that belongs to God, he asked, “can we who follow Jesus
willingly give our tax dollars for war and killing?”
In the edition,
Scott Key
answered Everett J. Thomas’s editorial statement — “There seems to be nothing
we can do but write letters and pray that [the war in Iraq] will stop.” — with
some more practical ideas, including boycotts of and divestment from military
contractors, and war tax resistance.
Susan Miller Balzer wrote in to applaud and supplement this:
Scott Key… lists some important ways to work against war and for peace. In
mentioning war tax resistance, he expresses a common misconception that
employees cannot prevent their employers from withholding federal taxes from
their paychecks.
However, it is possible to limit or stop withholding by increasing withholding allowances on the W-4 Form (or legally writing “Exempt” on the form if you did not owe federal income taxes last year and do not expect to owe in the coming year).
See the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee’s “practical” publications on the Web site nwtrcc.org on controlling federal tax withholding and on low income or simple living for helpful information on ways to keep from paying for war.
On the same Web site, click on the War Tax Boycott, Withhold from War/Pay for Peace to find ways to participate in this national effort to defund war.
The “draft” of federal tax money to pay for present, past and future wars is a
fundamental issue that our church should address as it works to replace
suffering, destruction and injustice with healing and hope. The military draft
affected only young men. The current “economic draft” affects young men and
women who enter the military to try to get out of poverty. The draft of tax
money affects people of all ages as long as they have a taxable income.
If everyone in just one congregation refused to pay for war and redirected
their refused taxes to an underfunded social service, imagine the
opportunities for witness and change that could occur.
Don
Kaufman was back in the
letters to the editor column:
If enough of us withhold from war and pay for peace, we can stop the harm.
War-tax resistance is not a passive or unethical tax avoidance but an act of
conscience that everyone can do. The cross of Jesus as nonviolence and
compassion is our model for hope and change.
Individuals shoulder great responsibility for warfare and for peace. At times
the most effective way to take responsibility is refusal to collaborate, as
Franz
Jaggerstatter did in Hitler’s Austria in
. How can we take a stand against a
government that leads its citizens into committing murder? The task is to be
reform-minded, to live in an ethical way, and progressively to make
unthinkable the coercion of conscience by the majority who put their faith in
military or violent solutions.
Like Jeremiah, let us
unmask the illusions of power by being servants of hope among the vulnerable
and wounded.
Stanley Bohn
encouraged people to engage in at least a small symbolic act of war tax
redirection, in the edition,
claiming important benefits from the gesture that go beyond its likely
practical results:
Will this action make Congress and the Bush administration change their funding priorities?
Unlikely, even if millions took part in this effort.
After all, war fuels our economy, is useful in getting national unity and political support, and it focuses on the evil of others, allowing us to raise our self-esteem.
As Chris Hedges wrote in his book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, war provides us with purpose and a civil religion.
What happens to us: For some Christians, the motive for participating
in tax redirection may start as a protest against refugee making, the
slaughter of people as collateral damage, torture of prisoners, creating
mentally damaged veterans, ballooning war debt, ruined international
relations, and other disastrous consequences. But when we take a stand for our
Christian convictions, something else may happen.
We gain an understanding of Jesus’ way of being lumped with criminals when
choosing the community-building, caring, enemy-loving life at the heart of the
universe. We realize that Jesus did not live or teach a religion guided by
what is respectable, safe, stress-free, or that waits for a consensus. Jesus
calls us to a life that is unpredictable and vulnerable.
Tax redirection is not a criterion of who is a “real Christian” but is more
accepting life as a gift, being what we are here for, living what we see in
Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. When the
IRS
makes us pay a small percentage more than our lawful tax, we can experience
what we believe is more important than money, and the hold money has on us is
reduced.
Living this kind of trust in the Jesus way helps keep serious Christians from
attempting to be pure and withdraw from life’s realities. It keeps us engaged
in current issues and with those proposing different goals. We are engaged,
however, in the kind of peace Christians should expect when choosing an
alternative way to conquer evil.
The risk of taking a stand regardless of consequences brings an unexpected
peace. It is not a peace that makes us feel protected, free of fears, or
satisfied with ourselves. It is a peace from knowing one is on a venture of
trusting in the universe-guiding reality we see in Christ. It is an empowering
peace given us when we offer ourselves to the one who gave us this life,
trusting God for the outcome. It is an empowerment that keeps us open rather
than defensive and having to shut out the desperate cries of others. It is an
alternative to a consumer-oriented Christianity that brings an unintended
transformation that makes us vulnerable and powerful at the same time.
Possibilities after April 15: There is no telling if or how God might
use the April 15 tax-redirection event. Consequences may occur that we never
thought of, including what powers or gifts might be released in ourselves.
We should not expect the government to inform us how many participated. The
media may not be free to report it, even if it knew. If the amount we withheld
and diverted is seen by the
IRS as
worth taking action against us, we will likely receive threatening letters and
finally have those funds confiscated along with a penalty.
Yet significant tax redirection can mean some humanitarian agencies will get
more financial support, and starving people will be fed. Maybe some
legislators will hear the conscience dilemma of many taxpayers and join other
co-sponsors of
HR 1921, the
Freedom of Religion Peace Tax Fund, which would make legal the redirection of
taxes by conscientious objectors to war. And maybe a few thousand redirectors
will discover we are less bound by the expectations of others and are freer
than we thought we could be.
Most important, we may learn that choosing risky ways of living for others,
even civil disobedience, can bring spiritual healing. We won’t defund the war,
but we can be more confident of the Power that overcomes our fears and by
God’s grace enables us to be the humans God intended us to be.
One such redirection idea was announced in the edition:
“Turning toward peace.”
This Mennonite Central Committee
(U.S.) initiative
allowed Americans to “redirect[] war tax dollars to help children in
Afghanistan through
MCC’s
Global Family education sponsorship program.” Titus Peachey, director of peace
education for
MCC
(U.S.) was quoted:
According to Peachey, most who have chosen to withhold believe, “If we cannot
conscientiously participate in war with our bodies, we cannot pay for it
either. We need to give our money to causes that build up rather than destroy
the presence of God in each person,” he says.
Most inform their governments of their actions. “Given the presence of Western
military action in Afghanistan today, the opportunity to contribute to
peacemaking there is timely,” says Peachey. “Equally important is the way in
which withholding war taxes challenges our own systemic militarism.”
A joint letter from Susan Balzer, Deb & Wes Bergen, Anita & Stan Bohn, Ron Faust, Don Kaufman, H.A. Penner, Steve Ratzlaff, Mary Swartley, Willard Swartley, and Dan Leatherman appeared in the edition.
They were responding to an editorial that suggested the Mennonite Church had surrendered as a peace church and had come to be “at peace with war.”
There is a traditional, positive witness opportunity for conscientious
objectors to war of all ages. It may seem scary, but many find it almost
routine. It involves redirection of income-tax assessments used for killing
and refugee-making to ministries meeting human need.…
Our descendants and overseas Christians will wonder how Christians in a
superpower, with over 700 military bases around the world, fighting two wars
and considering a third with Iran, supporting covert wars in places such as
Colombia and Israel, could be so at peace with war.
“The church should consist of communities of loving defiance. Instead, it
consists largely of comfortable clubs of conformity,” writes Ron Sider in
Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. If we teach it is wrong, why
do we support it financially?
Shame is the negative motivation. The positive is that Jesus promised his
spirit of truth would abide in us and enable us to live differently from the
world’s ways. If we love him, we are empowered to keep his commandments
(John 14:15–17).
War tax redirection is “alternative service” for dollars we earn, service that
provides hope and new possibilities for suffering people instead of endless
war.
The issue covered
John
Stoner’s “$10.40 for Peace” campaign.
This was another attempt to get timid people to take baby steps into war tax
resistance by resisting a small, token amount of their taxes. The campaign is
still going on today but has yet to
catch fire.
The article seemed to me to exaggerate the scariness of such resistance even as
it tried to assuage the fears of potential resisters. Excerpts:
Stoner says the group hears some concern from individuals about the possible
penalties and “heavy hand of the
IRS
coming down.”
Stoner’s response is threefold. First, “As disciples of Jesus, we shouldn’t
have so much fear,” he says. Second, the past experiences of individuals who
have withheld taxes for similar reasons have been minimal. Third, the tax
withholder can decide later to pay the full amount.
“The most important thing is to make that statement that calls for democratic
conversation about how federal money is spent,” Stoner said.
Others say this movement should take more risks and that
U.S. war spending
remains too large. However, if enough people join, the risks and penalties
would increase, Stoner said.
The article noted that Shane Claiborne had signed on as an endorser and would
be speaking at an upcoming public meeting on the campaign.
This is the thirty-second in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal
of the (Old) Mennonite Church.
In I felt the tide start to recede. The war
tax resisting faction had gotten thoroughly distracted by the promise of Peace
Tax Fund legislation, and the conservative taxpaying faction went back on the
offensive in favor of paying taxes without concern.
One of the symptoms of the decay of the war tax resistance position (that I’ve
also seen exhibited elsewhere) was the plea for new resisters to refuse to pay
some tiny, safe token amount of taxes in lieu of more firmly-motivated and
whole-hearted resistance. From the issue:
Christian Peacemaker Teams
(CPT)
is asking U.S.
taxpayers to deduct $3.03 from their federal taxes, as a symbol of their
objection to the $303 billion Defense budget.
CPT
would like congregations to collect withheld money and send it to become part
of the offering at the organization’s conference in Richmond.
Va. The offering will go to
school districts such as the one in Petersburg.
Va., which cannot afford to
buy textbooks.
“The Peace Tax bill is not going to be passed anytime soon,” says [Marian]
Franz frankly. “Not enough people have said they care — and that includes
Mennonites.
“I see a bitter irony in that,” she continues, “because if there were such a
fund, pacifist Christians would say that it was God’s will that they use its
provisions. Yet these same people are doing little to make this fund a
reality.”
The issue printed this
syndicated short news item:
Peace activist Randy Kehler has been jailed and his family’s house confiscated
because of his decade-long refusal to pay
U.S. taxes.
Kehler and his wife, Betsy Corner, have withheld their federal taxes since the
late 1970s. Instead, they have sent their tax dollars to nonprofit
organizations that assist war victims and the poor.
The Internal Revenue Service laid claim to the couple’s house in Colrain,
Mass., to recoup some
$32,000 in back taxes, interest, and penalties.
Discussion by a panel of war tax resisters highlighted a Lancaster,
Pa., meeting sponsored by
the group Taxes for Life. Some 20 people attended the meeting, which also
included a showing of the video Paying for Peace.
Taxes for Life urges individuals to withhold a small, symbolic amount from the
payment of their
U.S. income taxes
and to give the money instead to a local school project. More information is
available from Taxes for Life…
The statement on “Christian Conscience and Military Taxes” says that Illinois
Conference “will seek to support our members who feel a genuine call from God
to withhold payment of military taxes.”
The statement cites examples of this support as including prayer and personal
encouragement, finances, and witness to “political and social powers.”
The resolution also calls on Illinois congregations to contribute a minimum of
$5 per household to the Peace Tax Fund campaign.
The “Taxes for Peace” tax redirection fund gave its annual report and plea for
new funds in the issue:
The U.S. Peace
Section of Mennonite Central Committee
(MCC)
is inviting contributions for the Taxes for
Peace fund. Established in , the fund gives
people who withhold war taxes a way to give their money for peaceful purposes.
This year’s contributions will go to
MCC
U.S. peace
education projects. More information is available from
MCC
U.S. Peace Section…
John K. Stoner tried to blow on the fading coals in the
issue:
The voice of the victims of war keeps rising up. The cry of children, abused and traumatized by war, will not be still.
by John K. Stoner
Last Thursday my phone rang. The voice at the other end of the line asked for
John or Janet Stoner. “I’m John Stoner,” I replied. “Hello. I am Charles Price
of the Internal Revenue Service. I am calling about the letter you sent
indicating that you are withholding part of your income tax payment.”
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. By the sound of
Mark 13,
Jesus expected this kind of thing to happen regularly to his followers.
“Why do they have to keep bringing up this business about taxes for war?”
someone asks after a congregational meeting. “Why doesn’t this war tax
question just go away?” asks another at a session on strategies to reduce the
military portion of the
U.S. budget.
The reason war keeps coming up and won’t go away is because the voice of the
victims of war keeps rising up. The cry of the children, abused and
traumatized by war, doesn’t go away.
Every discussion about peacemaking in these times must face the question of
how taxes are collected and spent.
Americans watched their tax dollars at work in Iraq. They killed between one
and two hundred thousand people in a month’s time. They left a nation of 17
million people strangled — its water polluted, its hospitals without
electricity, its homes dark, and its classrooms cold. Today malnutrition,
disease, and destitution are the continuing results of this man-made plague of
death and despair.
Since then, an international study team on the Gulf crisis found that the
mortality rate of children under five years of age was almost four times
greater then than before the Gulf War. More than 75 percent of Iraqi children
feel sad and unhappy, worry about the survival of their family. They are
haunted by the smell of gunfire, fuel from planes, fires, and burned flesh.
Taxes paid for all this. It is for those of us who are Christians, as
taxpayers, to sidestep our share of the responsibility. We can choose to “just
say no” (how simple that sounds when we prescribe it to someone else’s moral
choice and how difficult it sounds when it is ours).
Your $3.03 Taxes for Life equivalent can be sent to Christian
Peacemaker Teams…
CPT
also suggests you write a letter of witness to the
IRS with
copies to your representatives in Congress, your
pastor, and your local newspaper. Taxes for Life funds will
be used for education purposes.
I believe God is calling us to plead for the end of the
destructive social institution of war by
refusing to pay for it. We are called to this as clearly
and inescapably as our forebears were called to
abolish slavery. The question is not whether we can achieve that
goal in a year or decade. The question is whether that is our goal — and
whether the world knows that it is our goal. It was Jesus’ goal, and it should
be ours.
One way to enhance this witness is through a symbolic war tax refusal called
Taxes for Life. Sponsored by the Christian Peacemaker Team, this plan would
have taxpayers redirect an amount equivalent to one penny for every billion
dollar of the U.S.
military budget to education. For ,
this is $3.03.
If you do this, and the
IRS
calls, tell them that it makes you a little bit nervous to break their law. Go
on to say that you are far more apprehensive about breaking God’s law. Tell
them that you hear God’s warning rising up from the victims of war, and that
you have decided that you will not take their blood upon your hands. Then
leave the outcome with God.
For U.S.
Mennonites, one way we can work at it at this time of year is to take yet
another look at the tax question. As John Stoner reminds us…, it is our taxes
that keep the military going, that make possible aggression and belligerence.
Because of this, some choose not to pay a part of their taxes as a protest.
Others consider that overreaction.
But let us not make that our battle. While we do, more people starve. Let us
rather join hands to find all the ways possible to address the huge military
expenditures of our country, and of the world.
Members of a Newton, Kan.,
group heard reports on the
U.S. Peace Tax Fund
bill in a meeting. The Peace Tax
Group also discussed ideas for creating a local alternative tax fund. Carla
Morton and Stan Bohn reported on their visits to Washington,
D.C., in
connection with a Congressional hearing on the tax fund bill. In addition,
group members talked about starting a local fund for such projects as
environmental protection, mental health care for veterans, and retraining of
military workers.
The following disheartening news was carried in the
issue:
Friends Journal, a Quaker monthly published in
Philadelphia, has agreed to pay $31,343 to the
U.S. Internal
Revenue Service.
The payment covers back taxes for the magazine’s editor, who had refused to
pay them because of religious objections to their use for military purposes.
The magazine’s board had refused
IRS
demands that it pay the taxes on behalf of the editor, Vinton Deming.
However, the Justice Department warned the board that it would face legal
action unless the matter was settled, and the magazine’s lawyer advised the
board that it could not win such a case in court.
Now that the pro-taxpaying conservatives were no longer on the defensive, they
apparently no longer felt the need to promote the Peace Tax Fund legislation as
an alternative to lawlessness for Mennonites concerned about their taxes paying
for war. Now they could attack the Peace Tax Fund as being also
scripturally unsound. Or so said
Ernest E. Mummau
in a letter to the editor
that evoked the usual Romans 13 / the government is divinely ordained to bear
the sword / Christians are told to pay taxes without complaint / the Church
should stay in its own domain and shouldn’t meddle with the state line of
argument to tell Mennonites to stop trying to tell the government what to do
with their taxes.
The fourth international conference on war tax resistance and peace tax
campaigns was held in Brussels in . The Gospel Herald article,
and especially the quotes from Peace Tax Fund activist Marian Franz, tried to
spin it as though it was more or less exclusively a Peace Tax Fund promoting
event, with very little mention of actual war tax resistance:
Conference participants came with at least one thing in common, [Marian] Franz
said: “We all find it a clear violation of conscience to pay the military
portion of our taxes; we seek statutory recognition of conscience against
paying for arms as an extension of the right to refuse to bear arms.”
The conference, which draws primarily European and North American
participants, has met every two years .
The gathering allows participants “to hear stories of resistance and to
compare our progress in gaining conscientious objection
(CO)
status to payment of military taxes within our respective countries,” Franz
said.
For instance, NCPTF
hopes to convince Congress members to pass a law permitting people
conscientiously opposed to war to have the military portion of their taxes
allocated to peacemaking.
“Most countries have a similar approach to war tax resisters,” Franz noted.
“The standard response of governments, when they do respond, is to add civil
penalties and collect the unpaid taxes forcibly. Imprisonment for war tax
resistance is rare.”
Court responses to these cases are usually predictable as well. “The issue
usually raises a ‘political’ question which the courts cannot address, or the
courts decide that the constitutional guarantees of freedom of conscience or
religion do not outweigh the duty of the citizen to pay taxes,” she said.
[Franz said:] "Most European war tax resisters entered the scene in
. The presence of Cruise and Pershing
missiles woke them up. They suddenly realized that Europe had become a giant
football field on which the two superpowers could bounce their nuclear
weapons.”
This prompted another
letter to the editor,
this one from Russell J. Baer, which also used the Render-unto-Caesar / Romans
13 beef to complain about activists who have an issue with paying war taxes.
NWTRCC advertised what it billed as its “2008 War Tax Boycott and Redirection” in the Catholic Worker:
2008 War Tax Boycott and Redirection
Withhold from War! Pay for Peace!
, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee urges all who oppose this war to register and prepare for an nationwide boycott and redirection of the federal income taxes that fuel the war in Iraq.
For more information, contact:
National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee
PO Box 150553, Brooklyn, NY 11214, 1‒800‒269‒7464
There was an article promoting the Boycott in the issue of that paper:
One Way to Support Peace
by Stanley Bohn
Minor nonviolent civil disobedience is what the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) is proposing for .
As a symbolic action to defund the war, NWTRCC is urging thousands to withhold part of their income tax, even one dollar, and redirect it to humanitarian needs underfunded because of the war.
Will this action make Congress and the Administration change their funding priorities?
Very unlikely, even if millions took part in this effort.
After all, war fuels our economy, having enemies is useful in getting national unity and political support, and it focuses on the evil of others allowing us to raise our self-esteem.
As Chris Hedges wrote in his War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, war provides us with purpose and a kind of civil religion.
But, for some Christians the motive for participating in the tax redirection, though starting out as outrage, becomes something else.
The reason for participating, at first, may be a protest against refugee making, the slaughter of persons as collateral damage, torture of prisoners, creating mentally damaged veterans, ballooning war debt, ruined international relations and other disastrous consequences.
But, when one risks taking a stand for one’s Christian convictions, something can happen to us.
We gain an understanding of Jesus’ way of being lumped with criminals when choosing the community-building, caring, enemy-loving life that is at the heart of the universe.
We realize in a more immediate way that Jesus did not live or teach a religion that is guided by what is respectable, safe, stress-free or waits until there is wide consensus.
Jesus calls us to a life that is unpredictable and vulnerable.
Tax redirection is not a criterion of who is a “real Christian.”
Who determines whether this kind of civil disobedience is “Holy Obedience?”
But tax redirection seems like accepting life as a gift, to be what we are here for, and to live what we see in Jesus’ life, death and living again.
When the IRS makes us pay a small percentage more than our lawful tax we can experience what we believe is more important than money and the hold money has on us is reduced.
Living this kind of trust in the Jesus way has the benefit of keeping serious Christians from attempting to be “pure” and withdrawing from life’s realities.
It keeps us engaged in current issues and with those proposing different goals.
Engaged however, in an upsetting sort of way… which is the kind of peace that Christians should expect when choosing an alternative way to attempt to conquer evil.
The risk of taking a stand regardless of consequences brings an unexpected peace.
It is a not a peace that makes us feel protected, free of fears or satisfied with ourselves.
It is a peace that comes from knowing one is on a venture of trusting in the universe-guiding reality we see in Christ.
It is an empowering peace given us when we offer ourselves to the One Who gave us this life, trusting God for the outcome.
It is an empowerment that keeps us open rather than defensive and having to shut out the desperate cries of others.
It is an alternative to consumer-oriented Christianity that brings an unintended transformation, making us vulnerable and powerful at the same time.
There is no telling if or how God might use the tax redirection.
Consequences may occur that we never thought of, including what powers or gifts might be released in ourselves.
We should not expect the government to inform us how many participated in the war tax redirection.
The media may not report it if they knew.
If the amount we withheld and diverted is seen by the IRS as worth taking action against, we will likely receive threatening letters and finally have those funds confiscated along with a penalty.
Yet, significant tax redirection could mean some humanitarian agencies will get more financial support in and starving people will be fed.
Maybe some legislators would hear the dilemma of many taxpayers and join with other co-sponsors of HR 1921, the Freedom of Religion Peace Tax Fund, which would make redirection of taxes by conscientious objectors to war legal.
And maybe a few thousand redirectors will discover we are less bound by the expectations of others and are more free than we thought we could be.
Most important, we may learn that choosing risky ways of living for others, even nonviolent civil disobedience, can bring spiritual healing.
We won’t defund the war but we can be more confident of the power that overcomes our fears and by God’s grace be enabled to be the humans God intended us to be.
In the course of an obituary for Larry Rosebaugh in the Catholic Worker, author Karl Meyer mentioned a detail about his own tax resistance that I hadn’t seen before:
Funded by informal donations to avoid IRS collection of refused war taxes, I was working at the American Friends Service Committee that year with the goals of organizing military draft resistance and war tax refusal and organizing among Catholic laity and clergy to oppose the war in Vietnam.
That would have been around .
The Midwest Catholic Worker Faith and Resistance Retreat was held in Chicago in , with the theme: “The Cost of War: At Home and Abroad.”
A recap of the Retreat in the Catholic Worker mentioned a Federal Building civil disobedience performance:
[After Mass, t]he rest of was committed to nonviolence training and action planning… as we prepared for a nonviolent presence and action at the Federal Building in downtown Chicago.
On , over sixty Catholic Workers arrived at the Federal Building with signs announcing the Works of Mercy and denouncing the works of war.
With guitars and mandolin, we sang songs while folks handed out fruit, donuts, water, juice, coffee, clothes and war tax resistance leaflets to passersby.
Seven people staged a die-in to depict the works of war in front of the Federal Building while twelve people entered inside.
With their hands painted red to show the blood on our hands, five people stood in the windows of the lobby with shirts saying “Stop funding War.”
Others fell to the floor as we prayed around them and encouraged people to turn away from the works of war and begin practicing the Works of Mercy.
Seventeen of us were arrested and cited and released after a couple of hours.
We go to trial in .
An article in the Catholic Worker bemoaned the replacement of elected governments in Michigan cities with state-appointed “emergency managers” which meant that “[o]ver half the African American population of the state of Michigan is under non-elected governments [a]nd three quarters of the black elected officials in Michigan have been replaced by this process.” During an aside after remarking about corporate municipal tax dodgers, he wrote:
Oh, the contradictions of my life.
Here I am a lifelong, conscientious war tax resister bemoaning tax refusers (though neither conscientious nor honorable).
I’ve always paid local taxes, but now I even think, “Taxation without representation?”
That same issue featured an article by Karl Meyer on the modest future prospects he foresaw for the war tax resistance movement:
War Tax Refusal
By Karl Meyer
Is there a future for a significantly expanded scale of explicitly organized war tax refusal in the United States?
I see little prospect for this in the foreseeable future.
I have refused payment of all federal income taxes, for reasons of conscience, for fifty-four years.
I was also very instrumental in developing and writing about strategies and tactics that enabled a broad scale of telephone excise tax refusal and income tax refusal, that peaked , and again .
We tried very hard to stimulate mass war tax refusal , , and .
We did not see a significant surge in war tax refusal .
I think I understand the cultural reasons why our movement did not grow much at .
I believe that war tax refusal actions following World War Ⅱ were mostly driven by the problem of military conscription.
All young men were vulnerable to conscription , when the military draft was discontinued.
All the advocates and leaders of war tax refusal that I met in this period were either conscientious objectors or draft non-cooperators, or people in their families or circles of friends.
Before the escalation of the Vietnam War, these people organized in the relatively tiny network of the Peacemakers movement and the War Resisters League.
When war tax refusal surged and peaked , I believe it was a direct result of families, girlfriends, other friends and general supporters who wanted to take a risk and act in solidarity with young men who resisted the draft, or the thousands who submitted although feeling that the war was very wrong.
Thousands of these were dying in vain, or coming back severely injured in body and soul.
Organized war tax refusal dropped off abruptly after the Vietnam War and the draft ended, but came back again quite quickly only seven years later, as a reaction to President Reagan’s belligerent military spending escalations to confront the so-called “evil empire” Soviet Union, his neo-imperial aggressions in Central America, and the “star wars” missile defense scheme.
The generation of Vietnam War resisters sprang back into action for the few years before the Gorbachev-Reagan détente.
But now, the young men who were last subject to military conscription are at least fifty-six years old, and most of them are old enough to receive Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Meanwhile, an increasing number of other federal programs, benefits and subsidies have been tied to levels of income documented by filing income tax returns.
Those enacted include Medicare, broadened food stamp benefits, housing subsidies, Earned Income Allowance, an array of deductions and credits, federal student grant and loan programs, and, most recently, medical care insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act.
Following our vigorous resistance to the restoration of draft registration , the registration law became quite toothless, but eligibility for college loans was tied to draft registration, greatly discouraging young men and their parents from resistance to an act of registration that had minor symbolic significance.
Considering these factors, I foresee that explicit war tax refusal will be the limited province of a modest core of well-informed people of unusually scrupulous conscience, who see it as a moral imperative to refuse personal participation in paying for any war crimes of organized states.
Such was the core of war resisters in peace churches, the WRL, and Peacemakers .
People who participate regularly in a corporately organized wage and salary economy that reports to government will shy away from the potential loss of jobs and benefits associated with open war tax refusal.
We must reach young people in their high school and college years when they are refining their moral attitudes and making career choices for their future lives.
It seems to me from personal observation and experience with young people in their twenties that their main social concerns are with threats to our biological environment, corporate domination of our economies, and the economic burdens on students and workers in finding useful employment with compensation adequate to their financial needs.
Over a hundred young people, mostly recent college graduates, have lived with us for varying periods over at our Catholic Worker affiliated Nashville Greenlands intentional community.
They are not as specifically focused on the threat of wars and massive military expenditures as on factors causing social problems that concern them, unlike young people of my generation a half century ago, who focused on militarism and war as the greatest threats to our future.
So I believe we should integrate nonpayment of military taxes as one action in a broad vision for healthy alternative ways of life within the social and economic structure, in short, the classic anarcho/socialist vision of “a new society within the shell of the old.”
Such a vision includes:
simple living in cooperative communities;
self-employment or small group employment in productive enterprises that do not report income to governments;
alternatively, part time or irregular employment in reported economies;
urban agriculture, farming, and local organic food movements;
social activism, including action against war that can incorporate principled nonpayment of military taxes.
The Catholic Worker movement, with which I have been actively associated for , has thrived and grown among young people over , based on this broad vision of alternative ways of life.
I believe we should present war tax refusal in this kind of context.
We should also emphasize the practical benefits of using all of our productivity for the common good, and refusing to turn over any percentage of it to the military state.
