How you can resist funding the government →
about the IRS and U.S. tax law/policy →
how the government deals with tax resisters →
frivolous filing penalty
B. Frivolous tax submissions. The provision increases the penalty for filing frivolous tax returns or for filing frivolous tax submissions from $500 to $5,000 and expands the penalty to apply to all taxpayers and all types of Federal taxes.
This provision applies to submissions for collection due process, installment agreements, offers-in-compromise and taxpayer assistance orders.
This provision becomes effective for all submissions and issues raised after the date on which the Secretary first prescribes the required list of frivolous positions.
Raises $30 million over ten years.
C. Increased criminal fines and penalties.
The provision increases criminal fines and prison sentences for the three most common offenses: failure to file, filing a false or fraudulent return and tax evasion.
These proposed changes are substantially similar to increased criminal penalty provisions passed by the Senate in last year’s JOBS Act.
One notable change is the creation of a new aggravated failure to file offense.
While retaining the current misdemeanor penalty for non-filers needed to address simple violations, the new provision creates an aggravated offense to address more serious noncompliant behavior (“aggravated” means failing to file for 3 or more years with an aggregate tax liability of $100,000 or more).
Raises $5 million over ten years.
In ’s last-minute tax bill, the “frivolous filing” penalty was increased from $500 to $5,000 and expanded to apply not only to “frivolous” arguments made when filing a tax return, but to arguments made at other times, such as when requesting a collection due process hearing, an application for an installment agreement, an offer-in-compromise, or a Taxpayer Assistance Order.
Mostly this is of concern to people making the various constitutionalist tax protester arguments, which the IRS pretty much universally considers to be frivolous.
However, occasionally conscientious tax resisters get caught up in this as well.
A good policy to follow if you want to avoid this penalty is to keep your arguments about why you are not paying taxes or should not be required to pay all or some portion of your taxes separate from any official interaction with the IRS concerning your tax return or their attempt to collect from you.
In other words, if you do not want to risk getting hit with a penalty, do not write a note on your 1040 form explaining why you’re not including a check and do not request a collection due process hearing to discuss the Nuremberg Principles or anything of that sort.
If you are eager to explain to anyone at the IRS why it is that you’re resisting taxes, why it should be legal to do so, or why you think it is legal to do so, make your arguments separately from any official correspondence concerning your tax returns and make your arguments general ones so that the IRS will not interpret them as legal positions you are taking regarding your particular return.
That might not be enough to satisfy them, though, so be aware of the risks if you tilt at that particular windmill.
The IRS position, of course, is that conscientious tax resistance has no legal justification.
They spelled this out most explicitly in Revenue Ruling 2005-20.
The IRS is empowered to issue $5,000 fines to people who take what they call “frivolous” positions on their tax returns or in other filings with the agency or the tax court.
Occasionally, the IRS will send a frivolous filing warning to people who merely write them a letter laying out their conscientious objection to paying taxes.
According to the War Tax Boycott site:
These letters seem to be randomly sent to some (by no means all) war tax resisters who send the IRS a letter about their refusal to pay for war.…
Sometimes the IRS has sent this letter to people who have paid their taxes in full but enclosed a letter of protest paying for war.…
The site suggests that the IRS is using these letters to try to intimidate war tax resisters and people who let the government know of their conscientious objection.
The site also quotes from the tax code to show that a frivolous filing penalty can only legally be assessed in narrow cases, and can’t just be handed out to anyone who is uppity enough to say “I wish we didn’t have to pay for war.”
My own policy, thus far, has been not to bother communicating with the IRS much beyond what they require of me.
I don’t think their machines care what I think of them, and I’ve got better uses for my time than to correspond with them about how I think about things.
But for those tax resisters who want to explain themselves to the IRS, the advice I usually give goes something like this:
Don’t phrase what you say in a way that can be considered a legal argument.
It’s okay to say that your conscience forbids you to pay taxes.
But if you go on to say that you think some Constitutional Amendment or the Nuremberg Principles or something gives you legal authorization to take that stand, the IRS may interpret this as some sort of amateur pro se legal argument, and may declare your letter to be not just an expression of opinion but a “frivolous filing.”
I should say that this is just guesswork on my part.
It’s just as likely that the IRS sends out these “frivolous filing” notices more-or-less randomly and arbitrarily, based more on who’s stuffing envelopes on any particular day than on any articulable policies.
Tax resisters resist from many motives, sometimes more than one at once. For
instance, some war tax resisters resist as a form of conscientious objection — they’re unwilling to participate in war financing. Others resist as a form of
protest — they want to resist taxes as a way of emphasizing their opposition
to the government’s policies or to call their opposition to the attention of
the powers that be through civil disobedience. Many war tax resisters share
both of these motives.
For those that have protest as a motive, simply refusing to write a check to
the IRS
when they file their returns in April often doesn’t seem enough. How will the
government distinguish their refusal to pay as a protest from someone else’s
refusal to pay for other motives? For this reason, such war tax resisters will
often include a letter of explanation along with their tax filing that
explains their motives.
But lately, the
IRS has
been interpreting these letters of explanation as part of the tax filing
itself, and has been threatening resisters with a $5,000 penalty for
“asserting a frivolous position” in their filing.
,
Mike Palecek at
Pacific Free Press shares his experience with
one of these “frivolous filing penalty” threats. The last two years, he has
accompanied “crossed-out” tax returns with letters of explanation of the
following sort:
Hello. Enclosed is my tax form for this year.
It is crossed-out because I do not wish to cooperate with the government of
George W. Bush.
President Bush has chosen to spend our tax dollars on war and killing while
cutting spending on social programs.
As a Christian, I cannot go along with this.
I must protest.
Note that the letter is not taking any legal positions whatsoever — frivolous
or not. Palecek is merely saying that he is not paying because he does
not want to cooperate with the government, and indicating how the government
has lost his support.
Is that enough to trigger a frivolous filing penalty? Or, legally, should it
simply be a failure-to-file or failure-to-pay penalty? The
IRS sent
Palecek a letter saying they considered his filing to be frivolous, and
threatening him with a $5,000 penalty if he doesn’t refile properly.
The law that covers this is
Subtitle F, chapter 68, Subchapter B, part Ⅰ, section 6702
of the U.S. Tax
Code (the fine has been raised from $500 to $5,000 and some of the wording has
changed since the version of law that’s posted at the link above). It says
that the frivolous filing penalty can be assessed on someone who “files what
purports to be a [tax] return … but which — (A) does not contain information
on which the substantial correctness of the self-assessment may be judged, or
(B) contains information that on its face indicates that the self-assessment
is substantially incorrect; and [this]… — (A) is based on a position which
[is] frivolous…, or (B) reflects a desire to delay or impede the
administration of Federal income tax laws.”
The question then is whether a letter like Palecek’s can be reasonably
interpreted as a “claim that [he] may reduce [his] federal tax
liability based on [his] objections” or whether it is best understood simply
as an explanation of his decision to disobey the law without any intention of
making legal claims as to what he believes he may or may not do
within the law.
Practically a question like this one will be answered by some level of the
government bureaucracy, and so the rules of logic and language and such are at
best an imperfect guide. I could see it going either way.
There is, however, another section of this preamble that says “The penalty may
also be applied if the purported return… reflects a desire to delay or impede
the administration of Federal tax laws” — perhaps this would apply.
Myself, I think the best policy here is to simply refrain from poking the
hornets’ nest. If you resist your taxes and you feel the need to make some
noise about it, don’t make your noise in the direction of the
IRS, but
start a blog, or send a letter-to-the-editor, or write your congressperson, or
send an email to your friends and family.
If you do get a “frivolous filing” warning letter, don’t panic — according to
the letter, if you re-file in a non-frivolous fashion within 30 days of
getting the letter, they say they’ll forget all about it.
, I related
the story of Mike Palecek, who got hit
with a “frivolous filing penalty” warning letter when he enclosed a letter of
protest with his tax return.
His story
has since been picked up by the Des Moines Register.
It turns out that the adjective “frivolous” has a long history of being
applied to uncomfortable protest statements — critics of the U.S. Declaration of Independence called its complaints “false and frivolous.”
“both daunting and encouraging and well worth the considerable reading time… captures in one indexed volume many individual acts and campaigns of conscientious objection to war and of revenue refusal to tyrannical governments… sincere voices and challenging arguments.”
“167 intelligent and intense writings on the challenging question of whether people of conscience should pay for war…
People struggling with this moral issue today will be guided by the writings in this book and may find some wonderful language to use in their own statements of conscience… a straightforward and compelling book.”
Some notes on frivolous filing warnings, new tax laws, and IRS enforcement techniques.
Notes about tax resisters Bob Williams, Mike Palecek, and David Schenck, about the trial of two Los Alamos National Laboratory protesters, and about the upcoming New England Regional Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters.
A story about long-time resister Thomas Wilson.
The state of Massachusetts suspended his dental license 21 years ago when he stopped cooperating with state tax laws because the state, in turn, was acting as a collection agency for the IRS.
Wilson kept practicing dentistry without a license, and was able to keep doing so until this year when he was forced to shut down after a competing dentist ratted him out to the state board of registration.
At 75 Tom is philosophical about closing the door on his professional life and has no regrets about his choices.
“In this present economy we’re getting a payback for what the government has been doing and what I haven’t been paying for and resisting all this time.
People ask if war tax resistance changes anything.
I can’t say that, but it’s helped me put up with what we have to put up with in this country.”
I’m fresh back from the NWTRCC national conference, which was held in Eugene, Oregon, and hosted by the enthusiastic and welcoming Eugene “Taxes for Peace Not War” group.
I’ve got a binder full of handouts and hastily-scratched notes that I took whenever I found a spare moment.
Today I’ll share some of my impressions of the gathering and of the current state of the war tax resistance movement.
Frivolity
Many of the attendees were concerned about the IRS being more aggressive in sending out notices of “frivolous filing” penalties to resisters who send letters of protest that explain their refusal to pay along with their tax returns.
One couple who were first-time resisters and had only refused to pay a token $50 last year were assessed “frivolous filing” penalties of $5,000 — each, even though they had filed a single return jointly — though they had filled out their return accurately and completely.
The IRS also insists that once they have assessed a “frivolous filing” penalty, you must pay that penalty before you can appeal it!
The law seems pretty clear that the “frivolous filing” penalty is only meant to apply if the tax return is incomplete or incorrect, but the IRS seems to be applying it haphazardly — not only to people who file complete and accurate returns but who refuse to pay some portion, but even to people who file and pay every cent but who merely inclose a letter registering their protest or disapproval!
Meanwhile, other resisters — including one who files a return every year with her social security number at the top but with none of the other required information, and with the 1040 form over-written with a protest message in red ink — have never been assessed a “frivolous filing” penalty or even received a “frivolous filing” warning letter.
The coordinating committee discusses the RFPTFA on morning
The “Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act”
For a more in-depth examination of my misgivings about the RFPTFA, see:
One item on the agenda was a request by the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund that NWTRCC formally “recommit to the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill and the efforts NCPTF is doing to get it passed in Congress.”
As I explained , I have serious misgivings about “peace tax fund” proposals in general, and think that the current incarnation of the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act in particular would do more harm than good.
However, NWTRCC had endorsed a different version of this legislation years ago, and so many people expected this new call for an endorsement to be a no-brainer.
Much debate ensued.
Robert Randall pointed out that NWTRCC’s “Statement of Purpose” includes “support of the US Peace Tax Fund Bill.”
He interpreted this as being a built-in endorsement of the latest act which would make the current debate moot.
However, no act by that name has been introduced recently — I think since — and in many important ways the current legislation does not resemble the version that NWTRCC endorsed back in the day.
I was a little worried that I would be the only one objecting to the endorsement and that this would put me outside of the general consensus of the group, but as it turns out there were many people present who expressed misgivings about peace tax fund legislation and who weren’t enthusiastic about endorsing it, and I heard more than one person express that this was a long-overdue debate.
Many of the Act’s supporters seem to have ideas of what the Act would accomplish that go way beyond the actual text of the legislation.
One said, for instance, that if the Act passed, it would effectively allow citizens to annually vote yea or nay on war or on whatever wars the government was engaged in at the time.
Some participants in the discussion were concerned that NWTRCC remain on good terms with NCPTF, in part so that we may be more influential as they recraft their strategy in the coming years.
One person said that because the Act is a long-shot to ever become law, it is best judged not by what its effects would be if it were enacted, but by what it symbolizes as a proposal that approximates the hopes of people who want legal recognition for conscientious objection to military taxation.
(Myself, I’m not sure I buy this argument, but in any case I think that the symbolism of the Act is ambiguous at best and may very well communicate a message that is, on the whole, harmful to the cause.)
The result of our discussion was that we decided to hold off on making a decision of whether or not to endorse until our meeting, at which time we will have more time to discuss the question and more time to study the points that are in debate.
A book of writings by and about Marian Franz and her work with the peace tax fund campaign is forthcoming, and will include a piece by Ruth Benn about the war tax resistance movement and its relationship with the peace tax fund campaign.
Election aftermath
There was varied reaction to the recent presidential election.
Many people were skeptical of the promise for meaningful change, and distrustful towards the Democratic party, and saw the election mostly in terms of whether it would anaesthetize progressive activists or whether it might be possible to reactivate the hopeful coalitions that helped to propel Obama into office once Hope turns to disappointment.
Others were very enthusiastic about the change and hoped that progressives and peace activists might finally be able to influence government policy.
One person went as far as to say that we’d “won” and would have to get used to being winners on the inside of the power structure instead of ignored pleaders outside of it.
Another hopefully imagined getting a group of progressive religious leaders to sit down with Obama and confront his faith with a challenge to go further than his public statements have so far suggested.
To me this all sounds like stuff of the same sort as gingerbread houses, flying carpets, and fairy godmothers, but I mention it here to show that some of the Hope bubble has infected even a skeptical group like NWTRCC.
There was much mention of “Camp Hope” — a vigil that will be held near Obama’s home in Chicago in up to inauguration day.
The goals of this vigil will be to encourage Obama to follow-through boldly on some of his more progressive campaign themes.
The demands of the vigil are meant to harmonize with, rather than to protest, the goals of the Obama campaigners, and will concentrate on actions that the new administration can take immediately via executive orders.
This is said to be partially based on a similar vigil that took place in the run-up to Jimmy Carter’s inauguration in that asked Carter to pardon Vietnam-era draft resisters and to cancel the B-1 bomber program, both of which Carter did.
A new war funding supplemental bill is expected to hit Congress in , and this will be an early test of what kind of Change we can expect from the new order, and what kind of power the current anti-war movement is capable of asserting.
The War Tax Boycott
’s war tax boycott campaign was well-received by some local war tax resistance groups, who found it a good focal point for their outreach efforts.
However, the number of people who participated in the boycott disappointed the hopes of those who initiated the campaign.
There was much discussion of whether we should continue the campaign into and if so in what fashion.
If we were to continue the campaign into — making the the climax of the campaign — this would give us little time to mount a serious outreach effort, and at the same time it would have to compete for attention with the actions of the opening months of the new Obama administration.
It might be hard to convince new resisters to join up if they’re still placing their hopes for peace with their rulers.
We eventually concluded that we would continue the campaign, but would concentrate this year on retrenching and consolidation rather than on a major outreach and publicity campaign, in preparation for a larger campaign when the inevitable Obama Disappointment sets in.
Meanwhile, local groups that find the campaign useful can continue to use it as before.
Rather than making April 15th the target date for beginning to resist, we may be better off doing what Code Pink did with its war tax resistance campaign and tell people that their resistance begins the moment they take their first affirmative step toward tax resistance, for instance by adjusting their W-4 withholding.
One person said that although she resisted taxes , she didn’t sign up for the boycott because she was only resisting a small amount and was redirecting that amount to local groups, and she had the impression that the boycott was mainly for people redirecting larger amounts to the two showcase charities highlighted by the boycott campaign.
Some people who did boycott outreach found that some folks were reluctant to sign on to the boycott for fear of the danger of being on some government list, and stressed that there should be a way for people to join the campaign anonymously.
Miscellany
Some local University of Oregon students dropped by the meeting and volunteered to create a redesigned mock-up of the nwtrcc.org web site that we could use if we’d like — a much-appreciated and spontaneous act of generosity.
NWTRCC will be trying to nurture a new regional gathering of war tax resisters — something along the lines of the New England Regional Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters that is coming up later .
To this end, it will be inviting groups that are interested in hosting such a gathering to submit proposals, and will select one of these proposals to support with some seed money and other assistance.
NWTRCC decided to commit to revitalize the War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund, which seems to have run out of steam (appeals for funds go out very infrequently, and resisters are reimbursed only after long delay).
NWTRCC coordinator Ruth Benn is preparing a series of “Readings on Money.”
These include transcripts of some of the discussion on that subject at the Fall gathering in Las Vegas, Karen Marysdaughter’s essay on “The Influence of Money on Decisions to Engage in War Tax Resistance,” George Salzman’s “Inheritance and Social Responsibility,” a debate about the ethics of accepting interest on loans and bank deposits from Juanita Nelson and Bob Irwin, and a look at the intwined structure of government spending, national debt, the war machine, the federal reserve, and the income tax from Jay Sordean.
Kathy Kelly leads a workshop on “Honesty and Empathy: Questions for Collaborators”
Kathy Kelly led us through some role-playing exercises concerning collaboration and how to confront it, and shared some stories with us from her experiences with activism and humanitarian assistance.
Her public presentation at the University after the end of the NWTRCC conference session was well-appreciated by those who attended.
Kelly is an engaging speaker who relates interesting experiences vividly and well — with a great command of accents and the ability to invoke strong and varied emotions without making the audience feel like they’ve been strapped on a roller-coaster.
One of her themes: around the world, many people are forced to make great sacrifices because of the decisions our political leaders are making.
Meanwhile, what will raise us to make the sacrifices we need to make to make things right?
To those of us to whom much has been given, much will be expected in this regard.
We need to slow down and unflinchingly reassess our priorities.
“This is what grown-ups do.”
Mike Butler volunteered to bring NWTRCC into the MySpace / Facebook universe, so keep an eye out there.
Erica Weiland removes a pillar of militarism in Susan Quinlan’s workshop
Susan Quinlan demonstrated some of the techniques she uses in youth outreach to teach about the unbalanced government budget priorities and about how to build a better society by shifting your support from the pillars that support a system of injustice to the pillars that support the scaffolding of a better system.
I remember a couple of interesting stories of how people were introduced to war tax resistance.
One couple was working with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Colombia and met some war tax resisters there and then took up war tax resistance on their return home.
Another new resister had been working for an alternative newspaper that received a grant from a war tax resisters’ tax-redirection alternative fund, and learned about war tax resistance that way.
Conference attendees review part of Steev Hise’s rough cut for Death and Taxes
Steev Hise’s war tax resistance video project continues, with a projected completion date around .
Conference attendees saw a preview of a portion of the film and seemed enthusiastic about it.
The next national meeting will be held this coming Spring (early ) somewhere in the vicinity of Washington, D.C. — details to be hashed out in the coming months.
The next national will be in Cleveland, Ohio around .
And with all that, I’m still leaving a lot out.
But for now, that’ll have to do.
I mentioned in my wrap-up of ’s NWTRCC gathering in Eugene that “One couple who were first-time resisters and had only refused to pay a token $50 last year were assessed ‘frivolous filing’ penalties of $5,000 — each, even though they had filed a single return jointly — though they had filled out their return accurately and completely.”
I’m happy to report that this couple came home from Eugene to some good news:
…for those of you who heard of the couple who got slapped with $10,000 frivolous fine ($5,000 each) it was just lifted.
Apparently the Taxpayer Advocate Office helped.
For those of you who don’t know, this was a first-time resistance of a small amount of a larger tax bill.
Honest return filed with a protest letter and partial payment.
The filers were warned they might get a fine, so they re-filed and paid the amount refused a few months later and shortly after got a letter telling them they each owed $5,000 as a frivolous penalty.
They protested and finally heard this quite unjustly applied fine was released.
Whew.
We’ll try to add more on the NWTRCC website about this frivolous business as we learn it.
It appears to be applied very inconsistently and incorrectly.
Counseling notes including news about the new policy of allowing employers to give their employees tax-free bicycle commuting reimbursements, a reminder that if you’re given a summons to appear before the IRS you should ask for reimbursement of expenses, and a note about the “socially responsible” investment business Pax World Fund getting caught investing irresponsibly.
International News — an update on the case of Siân Cwper that I mentioned .
Apparently the British revenue department is playing some strange games with the members of the Peace Tax Seven.
(For more on the Peace Tax Seven, see this report on The Shrieking Violet.)
Ideas and Actions — including a report on tax resistance for same-sex marriage rights, a report from Ed Hedemann who spoke about war tax resistance with a class of seventh-graders, and a new NWTRCC-themed scarf (perfect for fundraising at winter demonstrations).
Notes about updated literature — including the booklet War Tax Resisters and the IRS which “gives a flow-chart style version of the risks of refusing to pay for war if the IRS notices.”
A call for fundraising help particularly to help promote Steev Hise’s upcoming war tax resistance documentary
Reflections and lessons learned by Becky Pierce — “I have been a war tax resister for the past 43 years, all of my adult working life…” This includes some useful information on IRS collection tactics, for instance how they go about hunting for assets to seize as the statute of limitations closes in and they start to get desperate.
The newsletter article about frivolous filing penalties mentioned that “in after the IRS instituted the ‘frivolous’ return penalty, Karl Meyer called for a ‘cabbage patch’ response, filing a form every day for a year to defy this new policy.
He was assessed $140,000 in penalties during , and in the IRS seized his station wagon in an attempt to collect on the fines.
It was sold for $1,020. Karl continues staunchly to refuse to pay for war.”
Here’s how the Chicago Sun-Times covered that story back in :
Tax resister mails a protest return every day
Every afternoon, Karl Meyer sits at his old cedar desk under a sign that declares “Your tax dollars arm the world!” and fills out a federal tax form.
Where the form calls for a Social Security number, he prints, “Refused — not to be used for social insecurity purposes.”
Where it instructs “Add line 1 and line 2,” he prints, “Military Spending” and adds a summary of the Pentagon’s budget.
And where it instructs “If line 8 is larger than line 9, subtract line 9 from line 8,” he prints, “I refuse to pay federal income taxes that sustain military violence in Central America and all over the world.”
Meyer, a 48-year-old Chicago carpenter, mails one such protest to the IRS each day.
He never includes a check.
He is one of about 76,000 Americans who will refuse this year to pay part or all of their federal income taxes.
Some say taxes are unconstitutional.
Some don’t have the money.
And some, like Meyer, believe federal tax dollars are doing more harm than good.
“If people want us to contribute to the common good by way of paying taxes, they’ll have to find some way we can contribute without paying for the military system,” he said.
Meyer’s words are not the self-serving rhetoric of a skinflint.
His 25-year history of regular jail terms for acts of civil disobedience attests to the strength of his convictions.
In , after graduating from the University of Chicago, he was arrested and jailed 38 days for passing out anti-tax leaflets.
Months later, he joined a 4,000-mile peace march to Moscow’s Red Square.
In , he tore up his draft card and mailed the pieces to then-U.S. Attorney Edward V. Hanrahan.
And in , he served nine months in federal prison for filing false tax returns to protest U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
Since , Meyer has filed more than 54 federal tax returns — one for each day’s average earnings of $38. The Internal Revenue Service has responded by fining him $6,000 for filing “frivolous” returns.
His wife, Kathy Kelly, a high school teacher in Chicago, also refuses to pay taxes.
Instead, he said, she accepts only $8,000 of her annual $18,000 salary and tells her employer to donate the rest to charity.
Meyer, who says he has earned between $13,000 and $18,000 annually , claims the IRS has managed to collect only $168 from him .
He has quit jobs and moved bank accounts to prevent further collections.
Michael McGrail, an IRS tax specialist, could not verify this claim, but confirmed that Meyer has been fined and jailed repeatedly for tax evasion.
Athens, Ohio — When Dr. Marjorie Nelson wrote “war tax deduction” on her federal income tax return to protest military spending, the Internal Revenue Service fined the 44-year-old Quaker $500 for filing a “frivolous tax return.”
Miss Nelson still hasn’t decided what to do with her tax forms, but says she’s willing to go to prison to uphold her religious beliefs if a court orders her to pay the fine.
At least a half dozen other Ohioans face a similar choice.
“This business of laboring with the IRS is not my career.
It’s just something that happened to me — I certainly find it strange,” said Miss Nelson, a teacher at Ohio University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine since .
In figuring a refund amount Miss Nelson believed was equal to her taxes that would go to support the military, she attached a letter explaining her religious objections.
She says the $500 fine is a ploy to limit free speech on the nuclear war issue.
“It seems to me the government’s main purpose should be to collect the taxes, not to stifle a statement of conscientiousness.
I get the feeling the government is trying to chill dissent, to intimidate people so they won’t speak up over issues of conscience.”
But the government attorney handling frivolous return cases in Ohio said efficient tax collection will be threatened if people aren’t stopped from filing inaccurate returns.
“It does not require great imagination to see that if all taxpayers were free to act as the plaintiff (Miss Nelson) acted here, our self-assessment system of taxation would be seriously jeopardized,” attorney Seth Heald said in documents filed in U.S. District Court at Columbus, where Miss Nelson’s case is pending.
Heald, of the U.S. Justice Department tax division, said incorrectly figuring a refund is just as wrong as falsifying income and causes just as much work for IRS clerks.
He said Congress passed the frivolous return law specifically to apply to war tax deductors and that waiting for a court to look at each return before judging it frivolous would let people ask for refunds “because the sky is blue.”
Since the frivolous return law took effect in , people across the country have challenged the fines in court.
Cases have been decided — all against the “war tax” deductors — in California and Massachusetts, but many people will fill out tax returns before their cases are decided.
If courts rule against them and they don’t pay the fines, Miss Nelson believes they could go to jail.
In court documents, Miss Nelson said the IRS doesn’t fine people who refuse to pay taxes without explaining their objection.
She said her dispute with the government is the only way people who have taxes deducted from paychecks can oppose military funding.
The self-employed can refuse to pay taxes, but most people can only ask for refunds of taxes they have already paid.
Bruce Campbell, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer handling Miss Nelson’s case, said it’s unlikely she or anyone else would go to prison.
Where are they now, 26 years later?
Nelson is still resisting war taxes, I believe, or at least was as late as when she was interviewed for another article on war tax resisters for the Dispatch.
I think also that Seth Heald is still working the tax angle at the Justice Department, and Bruce Campbell is still filing briefs for the ACLU.
“Cabbage Patch Resistance” marks a true war-tax hero
by Stephen Brockmann
By April 15 of any year most of the people in this country who earn money
will have paid their taxes to the federal government. Some of them will
cheat, but most of them will be honest.
Many of the people who pay their taxes may do so reluctantly. They disagree
with the federal government about the way their money is spent but pay their
taxes anyway. That is the consensus on which the government’s ability to
operate is based.
Year after year a small proportion of people refuse to pay all or part of
their federal taxes. Some of these people are libertarians who radically
question the government’s right to assess taxes; others disagree with the
government on specific issues. Some of them have good arguments; some of them
don’t.
The case of one man who refused to pay his taxes this year strikes me as
particularly interesting and creative. The man’s name is Karl Meyer, and he
is part of a small but determined group of war-tax resisters who refuse to
pay their federal income tax because they do not want their money spent on
nuclear war.
A year ago the Internal Revenue Service started assessing $500 fines for what
it labels “frivolous” tax returns; in this case “frivolous” meant anything
from actually refusing to pay all or part of one’s tax to simply writing a
message of protest or using a phony name on the tax form.
It seems to me that the
IRS’
choice of “frivolous” is remarkably poor. The people against whom it is
levying $500 fines are the opposite of frivolous: They take the tax form and
their own actions with the utmost seriousness. Indeed, the
IRS
seems to be fining them because they are not frivolous.
Karl Meyer’s response to this “frivolous” fine was both clever and
thoughtful: He decided to call the government’s bluff and see how far it
would go with the frivolous $500 fine. Meyer published a statement in the
monthly peace-movement forum The Peacemaker,
announcing his intention of sending in a tax return for every day of the
year. The government might be able to collect $500 from him, but it would
have difficulty collecting 365 times that amount.
Meyer urged other people to follow his example or to come up with creative
ideas of their own. He called his project the “Cabbage Patch Resistance”
after the name of the popular doll: Like the dolls, each of his 365 tax
returns would be slightly different, each with a special anti-war message.
The government would have to test its frivolity in 365 cases.
One year later the
IRS
has called Meyer’s call of the
IRS
bluff: As of recently, Meyer had accumulated $135,000 in frivolous penalties
and interest for the income tax returns he filed
.
Meyer, who is 47 and married, has three children in high school and college.
A self-employed carpenter in Chicago, he has a long history of fighting with
the IRS.
In he spent nine months in prison for his
beliefs.
Meyer’s example has until now had only modest outward success: Six people
appear to be following it.
All this interests me because, like Meyer, I oppose this government’s
frivolous nuclear-war policy. I favor disarmament and believe that the
government is doing less than nothing to promote peace.
I believe in many of the things that Meyer believes in, and yet, unlike
Meyer, I am a conspicuously law-abiding person. I am not married, nor do I
have children, and so my failure to break the law has nothing to do with fear
for dependents. I am, quite simply, afraid for myself. Insanely, my fear of
immediate personal discomfort is more effective than the deeper fear of
ultimate nuclear destruction. In that sense, I suppose I am irresponsible and
frivolous.
Oh yes, I believe in taxes and government. I am neither an anarchist nor a
libertarian. Under normal circumstances I would have no qualms about paying
taxes, even for things that I don’t like.
Many of my friends are daring and admirable in their principled civil
disobedience, both to taxes and to weapons that taxes pay for, but I am not
a particularly courageous man.
I am not a criminal, and I am not a hero. I am a comfortable petty bourgeois
living in a time with plenty of criminals and a few heroes.
Which is why Karl Meyer makes me stop and think. A man willing to risk so
much to gain so much, and for such a good cause, is rare. Karl Meyer is my
hero.
Counseling Notes — how tax resisters can avoid getting preyed upon by “settle with the IRS for pennies on the dollar” companies; more “frivolous filing” overreach from the IRS; and increased use of IRS enforcement tactics isn’t leading to increased tax revenue
Many Thanks — to the generous donors who keep NWTRCC in business
Criminal Cases and Fear — Karl Meyer writes from the standpoint of decades of experience with war tax resistance about what factors increase the likelihood of criminal prosecution for war tax resistance. Larry Dansinger and Ruth Benn add two cents apiece.
War Tax Resisters in History — Ed Hedemann reviews some of his research into the U.S. government’s use of property seizures and criminal cases as tools against war tax resisters in the post-World War Ⅱ era
Resources — notes on the Death & Taxes DVD, the new “Thoreau and His Heirs: The History and the Legacy of Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience” study kit, and the NWTRCC fundraising scarves
NWTRCC News — a note on the upcoming national conference in Boston next month
What happened between the time when Peacemakers was leading the war tax resistance charge and , when the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee was founded?
There was another group, simply called “National War Tax Resistance,” that took the reins during the Vietnam War.
was, as the CNVA Bulletin declared, “The Year of Vietnam.”
Picketing and sit-downs across the country marked the announcement of the first US bombing of North Vietnam on .
These continued throughout the month and much effort was expended gathering signatures for a new appeal, the Declaration of Conscience, circulated by radical pacifist groups, urging civil disobedience.
The Peacemakers group in Cincinnati organized a “No Tax for War in Vietnam Committee” calling for tax resistance.
In a separate group — War Tax Resistance, coordinated by Bob Calvert — was established and at the time included some 200 local tax resistance centers across the country.
Nonpayment of war taxes, practiced by Quakers and others, disappeared as a pacifist testimony soon after the Civil War and Thoreau’s famous stand against the U.S. foray in Mexico.
It first reappeared in World War Ⅱ when a few widely scattered individuals refused to pay federal taxes on the grounds that there was no way to prevent a significant part of their money from being used for military purposes.
One resister, Ernest Bromley, was prosecuted and imprisoned for his refusal.
Many others began to inform the Internal Revenue Service that payment violated their principles.
The enactment during World War Ⅱ of a measure which required employers to withhold taxes from their employees caused particular difficulties for pacifists and led to the formation of Peacemakers in .
A Peacemaker committee promoted tax refusal and provided research, literature, action suggestions, and publicity for those in the tax resistance movement.
Although many hundreds of people were refusing to pay income taxes during , the government prosecuted and imprisoned only six: James Otsuka of Indiana, Maurice McCrackin of Ohio, Eroseanna Robinson of Illinois, Walter Gormly of Iowa, Arthur Evans of Colorado, and Neil Haworth of Connecticut.
These imprisonments and the seizure of a few cars and houses by the IRS, served to highlight the tax refusal testimony and establish it as a major nonviolent principle and tactic.
Tax resistance, like other forms of opposition to the military, increased dramatically during the Vietnam War.
In the federal government levied an additional tax on every private telephone, and in a rare moment of candor, admitted that the money would help subsidize the war in Indochina.
Peacemakers, the War Resisters League, and other nonviolent groups urged refusal of this tax and in the following years countless thousands heeded their call.
Under the leadership of Bob and Angie Calvert, War Tax Resistance was formed in as a separate organization to investigate all aspects and ramifications of conscientious tax refusal.
During the war there were over 200 local war tax resistance centers, as well as a number of “alternative life funds” which rechanneled refused tax money back into the local community for constructive purposes.
Many of these continued after the end of the war.
The tactic of claiming enough dependents so that no income tax would be withheld became more widespread as the Vietnam war continued.
Often the tax refuser would make clear the moral grounds for the protest by listing, for example, “all the Vietnamese” as dependents.
Refusing to pay for war by claiming excessive exemptions brought particularly strong response from the government.
A number of people were prosecuted and imprisoned: Jim Shea, Karl Meyer, William Himmelbauer, Mark Riley, Ellis Rece, Carole Nelson, John Leininger, and Martha Tranquilli (a 64-year-old grandmother and nurse).
The tax resistance movement continued after the war and grew to include both pacifists and non-pacifists who could no longer in conscience support the military priorities of the government.
As more and more tax money was directed toward the [Reagan era] military buildup, many activists revived interest in war tax resistance.
Protests were organized each year, and individual resisters tried a variety of means to deny the government money for war.
In , demonstrations were held in Dallas, Atlanta, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities and 24 people were arrested at IRS offices in New York City.
The following year, the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee was formed by the Center on Law and Pacifism, Conscience and Military Tax Campaign, WRL, Peacemakers and eighty local groups.
featured the largest show of war tax resistance actions in , including Ralph Dull, an Ohio farmer and tax resister , who drove a truckload of grain to the IRS office as payment for his taxes.
The IRS instituted a “frivolous returns” penalty to discourage the filing of returns with any but the requested information, and some resisters began an insurance fund, pooling their resources to pay fines and interest charges levied against fellow tax resisters.
It was e.e. cummings, I used to love this when I was an early teenager about a conscientious objector [“i sing of Olaf glad and big”].
There was one line, “there is some shit I will not eat,” that reverberated in my social conscience since probably age 12.
There comes a point when there is something out there that we have to reject ultimately, and we have to throw ourselves on the wheel to stop it — even if the wheel devours us.
The boycott of taxes is so strong, so potentially powerful, that I guess I am urging other people to go forward without fear.
We are right.
War is wrong.
We are approaching the totalitarian state.
Take from them their finances, and we take their strength.
Eliminate the nexus between corporate wealth and industry and politics.
In this era there is so much to protest against, and tax is a very salient part of that.
A note about “frivolous filing” notices.
The IRS has gotten in the habit of responding to taxpayer protests with $5,000 frivolous filing penalties — even if the protests accompany a tax return that has been filled out correctly and legally.
What’s worse is that by the IRS’s rules, in order to appeal such a fine, you have to first pay it.
Peace activists have a resource of financial support when they accrue penalties for resisting taxes, participating in civil disobedience or in nonviolent direct action.
Through the PSC, the cost of a person’s or family’s penalty can be defrayed by almost 100%.
This is possible because a community of almost one hundred people have come together and committed to help each other with their fines.
A new edition of More Than a Paycheck,
NWTRCC’s newsletter, is now on-line, and features the following:
A war tax resistance manifesto by Larry Rosenwald, and responses from Claire Schaeffer-Duffy, Karl Meyer, and Bill Glassmire.
(I’ll have more on this in a future Picket Line entry… stay tuned.)
Buyer Beware, a poem on military spending by Marge Piercy
The IRS has gotten in the habit of sending out “frivolous filing” notices to anyone who writes them a letter explaining their reasons for tax resistance (or even in response to letters from non-resisters who are just paying under protest). These notices are accompanied by a $5,000 fine — a fine that, by law, must be paid before it can be appealed. The IRS is only authorized to assess such fines in response to a tax filing that is incomplete, inaccurate, and that involves some frivolous legal stance, so it is pretty clearly overstepping its bounds here: but because a resister must pay the fine in order to appeal it, and most war tax resisters are unwilling to do so, this puts them in a bind. One resister, Steve Leeds, got such a frivolous filing notice and then, instead of paying the fine and formally appealing it, he complained to his congressional representatives about the IRS’s abuse of the law. One of his representatives then contacted the IRS, which then caved — sending Leeds an apology.
If the IRS attaches a levy to your salary, it will leave you some portion of your salary to live on while it sucks away the rest. How does it determine how much to take? Is it based on your base salary, or on what’s left over in your check after deductions for 401(k) contributions, insurance premiums, commuter checks, or what have you? Turns out the answer is the latter, but only if those deductions were already in effect at the time the levy was received by the employer.
A book review of The Green Zone by Clare Hanrahan — this book looks at the environmental impact of the U.S. military, which is exempt from laws and treaties designed to protect the environment, and, according to the author, is “the largest single polluter of any single agency or organization in the world.”
War tax resistance ideas and actions, featuring a penny poll in Oregon, a protest in Washington D.C., and the upcoming New England gathering of war tax resisters.
NWTRCC News — a behind the scenes look into operations at NWTRCC headquarters.
Boardman says that the agency is violating the First Amendment right to freedom of religion, and to the later Congressional bolstering of that right by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, by labeling her war tax resistance “frivolous” and failing to provide a taxpaying method that accommodates her sincere religious beliefs forbidding her to pay for war (Boardman is a Quaker).
At a luncheon held to mark the filing of her Claim, actor Jeffrey Viguie, playing the part of 18th Century Quaker John Woolman, addressed the attendees, and read from the “Epistle of Tender Love and Caution” in which Woolman and others promoted war tax resistance to the Society of Friends in 1755.
The Internal Revenue Code permits the IRS to slap a $5,000 “frivolous filing penalty” on anyone who files a tax return that “(A) does not contain information on which the substantial correctness of the self-assessment may be judged, or (B) contains information that on its face indicates that the self-assessment is substantially incorrect, and … (A) is based on a position which the Secretary has identified as frivolous… or (B) reflects a desire to delay or impede the administration of Federal tax laws.”
The IRS has been abusing this authority to fine people who file full and correct tax returns but who also include with their returns letters of protest indicating why they are not paying the full amount or why they feel their taxes are being misspent.
The law pretty clearly says the penalty only applies to filings that both assert a legal position the IRS considers frivolous or designed to delay or impede tax collection and accompany a tax return that is incomplete or incorrect.
But the IRS has a trick up its sleeve: in order to challenge an unlawful fine like this, according to the IRS’s own rules on the subject, you must first pay the fine.
Tax resisters who are unwilling to give money to the IRS are thereby locked out of the appeal process, and the agency can fine them whether or not they have the legal authority to do so.
The agency seems determined to continue abusing its authority in this way.
The law students who have taken on Vickie Aldrich’s case plan to pursue this angle in their defense strategy.
an early tax form, from when paperwork was fired in clay
Tax agencies live by bureaucracy and paperwork.
Many of the earliest examples of writing in the worlds’ museums are tax records.
But some mischievous tax resisters have discovered that this is a vulnerability that can be targeted.
For example, , a video blogger going by the name “StormCloudsGathering” considered the idea of “filling out thousands of random tax returns with nonexistent names and numbers… so suddenly they get flooded with a bunch of returns that don’t make sense…”:
What’s even more brilliant about [this] option is that even non-U.S. citizens — people living in other countries — could participate.
You could send in hundreds of tax returns even if you’re an Indonesian.
You know: Americans can live in Indonesia, and they’re required to file taxes… there’s no way for them to be sure, just because it’s coming from Indonesia, that it’s not a valid tax return.
They would have to do the investigation, and that costs resources.
He recommends filing in the name of particular, offensive, multinational corporations, but I think the average person would have a difficult time filing a sufficiently complex return to serve as a convincing decoy in such a case.
Another option would be to file corporate returns for nonexistent corporations, or individual returns for phantom (or dead) people.
War tax resister Ed Hedemann has already made plans for what he calls “zombie war tax resistance” — filling in years of tax returns ahead of time and putting them in pre-stamped envelopes so that his survivors can continue to file (but, of course, refuse to pay!) after he’s gone.
“Why give the government a break from having to deal with your resistance when you die?”
he asks.
Hedemann also makes a point of periodically filing Freedom of Information Act requests for any information the IRS and other government agencies have been collecting about his activities — hundreds of pages — and he’s put together a guide for other tax resisters to follow in making their own requests.
Currently in the U.S. there is an epidemic of tax fraud in which the fraudsters file for phony tax refunds in the names (and taxpayer identification numbers) of other, real people.
This often causes the tax collection bureaucracy to swing into action against the victims of the identity theft, which is both a waste of resources and a way of further alienating the population from the government and its tax bureaucracy — potentially a model that a tax resistance campaign could benefit from.
The IRS has made a big shift in recent years from processing paper income tax returns, filled out by hand, to electronic filing.
This is more efficient for the agency, as it no longer has to hire as many people to laboriously transcribe the numbers from paper returns into its computer databases.
The agency estimated that it cost about 35¢ on average for the agency to process an electronically-filed return, compared to an average of $2.87 for a paper return.
This suggests that one way to make a minor dent in the agency’s budget and efficiency is simply to file paper returns rather than file electronically (this is still a legal option for individual filers, even those who go to professional tax preparers).
But if this became a strategy of a mass-campaign it could even cripple the tax collecting bureaucracy.
George Jakabcin, IRS assistant deputy associate chief information officer for systems integration, said in that the agency “would be in a world of hurt” if even half of the people who had switched to electronic filing at that time decided to switch back.
“We no longer have the capability to process the additional 43 million returns manually.
We no longer have the facilities, we don’t have the IT infrastructure in place to support them, we don’t have the people, and some would argue that we are beginning to lose the expertise.”
The IRS has tried to crack down on people who send them paperwork just to waste their time.
They have come up with something called the “frivolous filing penalty” and can use this to ding you $5,000 each time you file any sort of paperwork with them that takes a position they consider to be “frivolous.”
They can do this immediately and on the whim of whichever bureaucrat is handling your forms, without going to court, and you are only allowed to appeal your fine before a judge if you pay it first!
War tax resister Karl Meyer wasn’t about to let the IRS think it could intimidate him with such tactics.
So in , when the “Cabbage Patch Kids” dolls (each one slightly different) had become ubiquitous, he invented when he called “cabbage patch resistance” — filing a different, blatantly “frivolous” tax return every day.
He was assessed $140,000 in penalties in alone (though the penalty was only $500 back then).
The IRS never collected the money though.
The best it could manage was to seize and sell his car, for a little over $1,000.
“Constitutionalist” and “sovereign citizen”-style tax protest groups in the U.S. are fond of harassing tax officials and other government employees with lawsuits, liens, bogus quasi-official court filings, and so forth.
In one example, Eddie Kahn’s “Guiding Light of God Ministries,” filed some 2,000 misconduct complaints against IRS agents.
A newspaper article about a subsequent legal case against the group noted that:
Some agents have said that their supervisors ordered them to back off from audits or collection efforts in the face of [such] threats, just to avoid investigations by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration.
Some paperwork tricks are more like “hacking” in that they treat the IRS as a system that processes input and produces output, and note that certain examples of pathological input can result in output unanticipated by the system designers.
For example, the IRS gave out $20 million dollars in the filing season when people figured out that if they substantially overpaid a tax return with a bad check, the IRS would cut them a hefty refund check before they noticed they’d been had.
Here are some more examples of paperwork hacks being used against the tax collecting bureaucracy:
South Carolina’s state government recently passed a law that required all organizations that “directly or indirectly advocate, advise, teach or practice the duty or necessity of controlling, seizing, or overthrowing the government of the United States, the state of South Carolina, or any political division thereof,” to register their activities with the South Carolina Secretary of State and pay a five-dollar filing fee.
A member of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left (which probably qualifies, at least in its more ambitious moments) decided to register, but with a twist:
When belligerence and inhumanity prevail, the peaceful and the humane must find honor in being categorized as the enemies of the prevailing order.
Please keep me updated as to the status of our registration.
I look forward to hearing back from you as to our official recognition as enemies of your state and its government.
… P.S. I am told that there is a processing fee in the amount of $5.00 for the registration of a subversive organization.
Our organization is in fact so dastardly that we have refused to remit the fee.
Prussian farmers in used the bureaucracy against itself.
A New York Times report noted:
[T]he big agrarians… are determined to resort to sabotage of all the tax laws…
[A correspondent in East Prussia says] “They have all filed protests and demanded that they be relieved from paying the tax until the protests are settled.
That means a delay of at least three years in collecting the taxes, and it is said that the Provincial Treasury is inclined to grant this request.
The big agrarians declared that they would do the same thing with all the tax laws.
In Berlin the people might decree what pleased them, they (the agrarians) would not pay the taxes or subscribe to the compulsory loans.
They want to sabotage the whole taxation system that they hate, and consequently they want to make so much work for the Treasury officers that the latter don’t know which way to turn.”
During the Beit Sahour tax strike against the Israeli occupation, Elias Rishmawi worked to get a suit challenging the legality of the tax accepted by Israel’s court system.
He remembers: “I had never had an illusion that the Israeli supreme court would give any justice to Palestinians.
… [T]he appeal formed the legal coverage by which I and others were able to continue resisting from one side not paying taxes, since there is a case in court and they cannot force me pay until the case is solved they cannot take any actions against us since we have this case, and we kept challenging the system through different means.… This was impossible to achieve without the legal coverage of the supreme court.
Because then, I and the others, would have been considered as inciters and then might be imprisoned for ten years.
That’s why we needed that coverage.”
An early form of resistance to Thatcher’s Poll Tax was called the “send it back” campaign.
The idea was that people would register for the tax, as required, but would accompany their registration with questions that would require further manual processing by the individual councils that were processing the tax:
Government regulations state: “…if for any reason you consider that you are not a ‘responsible person’ please let me know and return the form to me without completing it.”
Stop It wants people to take up this offer by writing to ask if they should be the “responsible person” and suggests they ask who will have access to the information supplied and why the authorities require exact dates of birth.
The implementation of the tax was dependent on an accurate register and the protest campaign could make the register “wildly inaccurate,”… Labour MP Brian Wilson, chairman of [the anti-poll tax campaign called] Stop It, said: “It is a campaign of obstruction within the law that does not lead people to incur the substantial penalties that are built into the legislation.”
The aim was to have the legislation amended or abandoned.
For this and other reasons, the councils were inundated with paperwork, for which they were unprepared.
“Councils sat under a mountain of paper.
Everything they did seemed to create more work,” wrote campaign historian Danny Burns.
He quotes from the Poll Tax Legal Group:
The paper-work involved with administering the charge is enormous — and likely to get worse.
Backlogs switch from one area of activity to another.
Indeed, local authorities cannot really do anything without generating more paper-work.
Kate Harvey, a tax resister for women’ suffrage in 1913, once wrote: “I have just received the first demand note for this year’s taxes.
I have torn it up, put it in the envelope in which it came, and re-posted it to the Tax Collector.
I suppose it is now reposing in his rubbish basket.”
The Association of Real Estate Taxpayers in Chicago during the Great Depression led tens of thousands of property owners to demand reassessments of their property, which effectively swamped the Board of Review and allowed the property owners to legally delay tax payment.
It may sound like a long shot, but have you considered trying to make friends with the tax collector?
It’s a strategy that’s so crazy it just might work!
Here are some examples of where tax resisters or their allies have tried it:
The Peacemakers were eventually successful in winning back war tax resisters Ernest and Marion Bromley’s home, which had been seized for back taxes.
In a retrospective, they claimed:
The Peacemakers were resolute that their confrontation with the government would be on their terms. Believing that the legal system is an instrument of oppression and exists to protect the state and the property of the powerful, they refused to take their case into the courts.
Instead they worked to make the truth known through personal meetings with IRS officials, through continuous leafletting, through appealing to their supporters country-wide to demand justice.… They put enormous energy into building relationships with IRS officials that would allow for honest dialogue.
And always, they challenged and responded to the bureaucracy in a highly personal manner.
Initially it appeared that IRS’ reversal had been an act of faith in the Peacemakers; that it had been touched by the group’s philosophy of truth and their consistent methods.
It wasn’t that complete a victory.
The Commissioner had been sufficiently impressed by these people to where he called for a special investigation — which verified the Peacemakers’ statement.
Dorothy Day wrote of this:
Chuck Matthei had told me the story of his interviews with the head of the Internal Revenue Service, the almost daily dialogue that went on between them, and the frank and “manly” admission, made finally by the IRS chief, that a mistake had been made, that the Peacemakers had Truth on their side.
I felt a great sense of joy and thanksgiving, a sense of hope too, that our officials in Washington D.C. could be approached in this way — with dignity and perseverance, with courtesy, with the recognition that we are all, each one of us, whether government official or radical (one who gets to the roots of things), children of God.
We do believe that we are all brothers and sisters.
We believe, too, that we can only show our love for God by our love for our brothers and sisters.
So we share our joy with you, our readers, and hope we all have a sense of renewed strength and energy to continue our opposition to all violence, to all wars.
Ernest and Marion Bromley pose in front of their home.
Quaker Thomas Watson was seized by the American army during the revolution, and condemned “to be stripped and ironed, and on the next afternoon to be publicly hanged” for refusing to take the continental currency that Congress was using to finance the war, his family was given little hope for him.
“You may go home,” one petitioner was told, “and rest assured your uncle will be hanged.”
But the wife of the prisoner had a warm friend in the landlady of the inn at Newtown; and when was woman’s kindness ever invoked for the relief of suffering, or woman’s tact required in vain?
She was advised not to apply in person for the release of her husband.
The landlady had learned Lord Sterling’s fondness for the creaturely comforts of life; and knew that wine had the effect to soften the severity of his temper.
To take advantage of this disposition, she invited him to a sumptuous dinner.
He did full justice to the delicacies of the table, and willingly partook of the generous old wine, which had been reserved for special occasions.
As the wine warmed the General’s good-nature and disposed him to kindlier feelings, she cautiously introduced the case of the condemned; pitied his condition, cold, and in irons; regarded his treatment as needlessly severe; and at length requested that his fetters might be removed and his clothes restored to him.
He could not resist this appeal of his hostess; and a note was sent to the guard in answer to her request.
The good woman continued her entreaties, and still plied the wine; when, at the proper moment, the wife was introduced.
She fell on her knees before him, burst into a flood of tears, and told him who she was, and, with all the earnestness, feeling, and eloquence of a loving wife pleading for the one she loved best on earth, begged him to spare her husband’s life.
Her entreaties were of a nature hard to be withstood.
He remained some time silent; then, raising her to her feet, he said, “Madam, you have conquered.
I must relent at the tears and supplications of so noble and so good a woman as you.
Your husband is saved.”
He immediately wrote a pardon for the prisoner, and ordered his discharge.
The happy pair now returned to their homes rejoicing.
Such friendly meetings do not always end well.
Quaker Henry Paxson found this out when he was visited by the tax collector some 300 years ago:
Paxson kindly treats [the tax collector] with best he had, and when he had filled his wem, and drank plentifully of good cider, he distrains the plates he had eaten on, and the tankard he so freely toped out of, but the wife begged the tankard, and bid him take something in lieu of it.
In , a delegation of Quakers met with the sheriff, his sub-lieutenants, a judge, magistrates, and a tax collector in their area of Pennsylvania.
They reported:
[We] had opportunity of laying before them the reasons and grounds of our refusal to comply with several requisitions, made for the support of, or that have near connection with, war; and to open our principles, and the consistency thereof with the doctrines of the Gospel, as set forth in the New Testament and pointed out by the prophets, and the inconsistency of Christians oppressing one another for conscience sake.
They generally appeared friendly, and to receive our visit kindly, some of them particularly so; and most of them acknowledged that the prophecies concerning the disuse of carnal weapons, pointed to the Gospel dispensation, and was much to be desired.
We had good satisfaction in the performance of this service, believing truth owned it, and that there is encouragement for Friends to use further endeavors of this kind.
The Rebecca Rioters could be cruel, or even deadly, to the keepers of the toll gates they were destroying.
More frequently, they would allow the keepers a few moments to collect their personal belongings and remove them from the building before they demolished it.
And on some occasions, the encounters were almost cordial:
The gate-keeper begged of them not to destroy the furniture, as it was his own; and his wife and child were in bed, but they might do as they liked with the gate and toll-house.
Rebecca went to the door, and ordered her [Rebecca’s] daughters not to touch anything but the gate and the roof of the toll-house, and not to break the ceiling for fear the rain would harm the woman and child in bed.
In their hurry, however, to unroof the house, one of them slipped between the rafters, and his foot got through the ceiling.
Rebecca expressed her sorrow at the accident, as it might cause inconvenience to the gate-keeper.
They behaved remarkably well to the gate-keeper, and frequently desired him and his wife not to be alarmed, as they would not injure them in the least; but at parting Rebecca desired him not to exact tolls at that gate any more.
There was no more persistent foe of the IRS than Vivien Kellems, but:
Miss Kellems stresses that she holds no animosity toward the officials who enforce the tax laws.
When IRS Commissioner Johnnie M. Walker took office earlier she sent him a note outlining their differences but congratulating him on his appointment.
“He sent back a nice thank you note,” she said.
During the tax resistance campaign for women’s suffrage in Britain, good relationships between the resisters and the auctioneers who were enlisted to sell off their goods for taxes allowed them to better use these auctions as rally and propaganda opportunities.
On one occasion:
…the auctioneer opened the proceedings by declaring himself a convinced Suffragist, which attitude of mind he attributed largely to a constant contact with women householders in his capacity as tax collector.
When Kate Raleigh’s property was seized by the tax collector:
Miss Raleigh naturally made use of the occasion for propaganda purposes, conversing with the tax collector for some time on the subject of Woman Suffrage, and presenting him with Suffrage literature, which he accepted.
Before taking his leave he expressed himself as, on the whole, in favour of women’s claims to enfranchisement.
The movement against Thatcher’s Poll Tax initially tried to reach out to the councils who were responsible for setting the budgets that implemented the tax, and to the labor union representing the tax collectors who would be enforcing it, to ask them not to cooperate.
However, this met with very little success.
War tax resister Robin Harper met with a tax auditor and a “frivolous tax coordinator” at an IRS office in .
He described how it went:
I quickly assured them that an accurate accounting should of course be established, but that in no way could I alter my refusal to deliver my tax dollars into the U.S. military machine.
Earlier I had described how my Conscientious Objection was rooted in our Quaker Peace Testimony and how I had performed two years of civilian alternative service with a self-help housing project during the Korean War.
With his defensive posture evaporating, Mr. Means [the “frivolous tax coordinator”] told us that his father fought in the Korean War and came home tormented by post traumatic stress disorder.
Thereafter he would have nothing more to do with guns, “because he had seen what guns can do.”
That gave my supporter, who had lived through World War Two in Germany, an opening.
Drawing a parallel with my war tax refusal, she pointed out how German income taxes funded the governmental atrocities of the Third Reich.
…
At one point, when I was describing how the International Center has been installing solar water purification units in Central American villages, Mr. Means broadened our discussion, noting that the scarcity of safe water is becoming a global problem.
In my followup letter to our interview, I sent him a copy of an eye-opening article from the Resist newsletter discussing this issue in depth.
Near the end I took the opportunity to unfurl the large chart which chronicles my war tax redirection these past forty-one years and to describe how I was first propelled into war tax protest by U.S. nuclear atmospheric bomb testing in Nevada and the Pacific.
After more than three hours (and well past normal lunchtime), the two finally closed the interview with smiles and friendly handshakes.
Mr. Means even admitted that his title of “Frivolous Tax Coordinator” was really a substitute for “Tax Protester Coordinator,” an internal administrative category which Congress had abolished in recent Taxpayer Bill of Rights legislation.
Despite their training to be suspicious (all taxpayers are trying to get away with something), IRS folk, like all human beings, can be positively affected by openness, honesty and sincerity.
Transparency can often trump suspicion.
I have learned how we all hunger for caring, person-to-person exchanges.
Look how a one hour audit stretched into more than three hours, much of which involved genuine sharing far beyond the scope of the audit!
As our discussion rose above tax details, Mr. Means, the tax protester “sheriff,” was led to cast aside some of his official person and let his personal feelings and thoughts come through.
He also became increasingly interested in discerning what makes war tax refusers tick.
I am sure he came to understand that our witness is anything but “frivolous.”
Some bits and pieces from here and there:
Peter J. Reilly, who has a blog at the Forbes website, writes about how the IRS labels conscientious objectors to military taxation “frivolous” as a way of discouraging dissent, and how war tax resister Elizabeth Boardman is challenging this in court.
Some developments in the “won’t pay” movement in Greece:
I wish I could read Greek or that mechanical translation were more sophisticated.
This page seems to be describing a tax resistance tactic that involves paying a single euro in road tax to the federal government, accompanied with a letter of protest about how road taxes & fees are being siphoned off by foreign creditors rather than being used to keep the roads in decent repair.
The government is trying to promote a new social norm in which people will be free to refuse to pay for goods and services they receive, unless they are presented with a printed receipt — this in an attempt to crack down on off-the-books transactions.
The government has signaled that it won’t prosecute people who steal from merchants in such circumstances.
The National Taxpayer Advocate (a sort of ombudsman within the IRS) issued her annual report recently.
One bit caught my eye: the Advocate estimates that U.S. taxpayers spend a combined 6,100,000,000 hours per year doing the recordkeeping and filing they have to do to be tax compliant.
Janet Novak, at Forbes, puts that in perspective:
If you file a U.S.
federal income tax return that is inaccurate or incomplete and you justify
this by taking explicit positions that the
IRS has
ruled to be legally “frivolous,” the agency can hit you with an instant $5,000
frivolous filing penalty.
So, for instance, if you were to take a “black tax credit” or “war tax
deduction” on your 1040 form, or if you were to submit a blank form along with
a letter claiming that you have a 5th Amendment right not to answer questions
about your finances, you might get hit with such a fine.
But several American war tax resisters found that they were getting fined in
this way even when they submitted complete and accurate tax returns, just
because they accompanied the returns with a letter explaining their reasons
for not paying the complete amount shown as due.
(Here is some background.)
This appeared to be overreaching on the part of the IRS, but it was difficult for war tax resisters to challenge this because the agency demands that you pay the fine before you can appeal it.
So instead of appealing, somebody contacted the Taxpayer Advocate Service about this problem, and one of the program analysts there got on the case.
I just learned that the IRS Office of Chief Counsel has issued a memorandum (POSTF‒153168‒12 — “Application of Section 6702 Penalty to Taxpayer Who Files a Return with War Complaint”) that states:
When the taxpayer timely files a correct and complete return, the section 6702 [frivolous filing] penalty should not be assessed based solely on the fact that the taxpayer enclosed a letter with the return explaining why the taxpayer is not paying the self-assessed tax due.
If a penalty has been assessed, it should be abated.
And, more explicitly:
If a taxpayer submits a document with a frivolous argument to the IRS, a penalty under section 6702(a) will apply only if the taxpayer files a purported tax return that either does not contain information on which the substantial correctness of the self-assessment may be judged or contains information that on its face indicates that the self-assessment is substantially incorrect.
I.R.C. §6702(a)(1).
As explained in legislative history, “the penalty could be imposed against any individual filing a ‘return’ showing an incorrect tax due or a reduced tax due, because of the individual’s claim of a clearly unallowable deduction, such as… a ‘war tax’ deduction under which the taxpayer reduces his taxable income or shows a reduced tax due by that individual’s estimate of the amount of his taxes going to the Defense Department budget, etc.
In contrast, the penalty will not apply if the taxpayer shows the correct tax due but refuses to pay the tax.”
S. Rep. No. 97‒494, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. 277–78, reprinted in U.S. Code Cong. & Ad. News. 781, 1024 (emphasis added).
The section 6702 penalty should not be assessed against a taxpayer who encloses with, or attaches to, an otherwise accurate and complete tax return documents articulating frivolous arguments.
Congress did not intend for the section 6702 penalty to apply in this limited circumstance.
In such circumstances, the return does not contain information insufficient to determine the substantial correctness of the self-assessment, or indicate that the self-assessment is substantially incorrect.
Instead, the attachments state the grounds upon which the taxpayer is refusing to pay the properly reported tax.
Notes about an especially aggressive IRS levy of Social Security payments, and about the agency’s retreat from its overzealous infliction of “frivolous filing” penalties on people who added messages of protest to their tax forms
A note about an Independence Day war tax protest at which IRS forms went up in flames, and about pioneering war tax resister Juanita Nelson’s 90th birthday
Some resources that would be appropriate for the upcoming “Nuclear Free Future Month”
News about the upcoming NWTRCC national gathering and the New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters
The question of how Quaker meetings and other organizations ought to respond to the tug-of-war between the IRS and their war tax resisting employees was among the major concerns of Quakers in , as can be seen in the pages of the Friends Journal.
The IRS has long been trigger-happy with its “frivolous filing” penalty.
According to the issue:
Adding “signed involuntarily under penalty of statutory punishment” to the IRS form 1040 will no longer bring a fine for a “frivolous” return.
In a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union in Montana, a district court ruled that Donna Todd of Billings, Mont., was protected by the First Amendment when she typed the above on her 1040 form.
The IRS is appealing the ruling; meanwhile, it has told its agents to refrain from imposing the frivolous-return penalty against taxpayers who editorialize on their return.
The agency didn’t seem to want to learn its lesson, and was still overapplying this penalty until very recently.
See The Picket Line for for another example of the agency being forced to back down on this issue.
A profile of Barbara Reynolds appeared in the issue, penned by her daughter, Jessica Shaver.
It focused on her war tax resistance.
Excerpts:
My mother is hardly your stereotypical tax evader.
At 70, she lives on Social Security, and her sole assets are a small apartment in downtown Long Beach, California, a beat-up Chevette (bright green), an electronic typewriter, and a six-toed cat named Marmalade.
But she has been a deliberate and most determined resister of taxes .
After years of courteous correspondence, responding to explanations of her position with repeated warnings marked “Past Due. Final Notice,” the IRS quietly closed in.
One day recently, her checking account balance was $131.14.
The next day it was zero.
She tried to make an electronic withdrawal from her savings account, which had held $799.
A message on the screen reported, “Funds not available.”
She was left with $3.06 in cash.
Only days before, Long Beach City College had voted her Senior Citizen of the Year.
At a luncheon in her honor, her efforts on behalf of Indochinese refugees were lauded, and she received a pen set inscribed “Barbara Reynolds, Woman of Peace.”
, she had dinner with Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone, the Japanese government having paid her way to Hiroshima for the 40th anniversary of the first atomic bomb used on people.
Because of her many years of service to the survivors — entirely voluntary — she was the first woman granted honorary citizenship in that city.
A few months earlier, members of the War Resisters League named her their Person of the Year.
In , she was selected as one of 14 “Wonder Women” — women more than 40 years old recognized by the Wonder Woman Foundation for outstanding contributions to society.
The foundation flew her to New York for a press conference with Bill Moyers.
Polly Bergen introduced her and presented her award for “striving for peace and equality.”
So why is a little old white-haired “woman of peace” withholding taxes from the United States government?
It is precisely as a woman of peace that she withholds taxes.
She believes her stand on taxes to be consistent with her commitment to a world without war.
She doesn’t want her taxes, in whole or in part, to go for defense.
She has been up front with the IRS about her motives.
In one of her letters, she wrote, “Having spent 18 years in Hiroshima working with victims of our atomic bombs, I can only say that never, so far as it is in my power, will any portion of my income go to the government as long as it continues to base its economy and its foreign policy upon the development, stockpiling, and deployment of nuclear weapons and missile systems.”
For her, the honorable way to avoid paying taxes is to avoid owing them.
So she studiously attempts to keep her income below the minimum taxable level and gives generously to deductible causes.
In , however, Mum had to sell the old family homestead in Ohio.
In spite of her best intentions, the house had appreciated in value, and she wasn’t eligible for the one-time capital gains exemption.
She was appalled to find that she owed the government $1,189.
She paid the money but she didn’t pay it to the IRS.
She sent $667 to the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign Escrow Account and $522 to Friends United Meeting Peace Tax Fund.
CMTC calls itself “a mechanism to accept payments in anticipation of legislative action” now pending to create a federal Peace Tax Fund.
The FUM Peace Tax Fund is for members who wish their taxes to be used for life-affirming activities.
When and if such a federal fund is created, both accounts will have all individual deposits transferred to it.
In the meantime, because of penalties, she still owes more than $400.
It will be interesting to see how the IRS claims its remaining debts.
Maybe they’ll garnishee the six-toed cat.
A postscript noted: “[Reynolds] has received notice that the IRS has placed a lien on her property for $162.79 in taxes owed for and has seized $100.83 from her checking account. ”
In the issue was a fantasy by Charles R. Sides that imagined a more “user friendly” personal computer.
Excerpt:
I chose the Home Accountant which neatly arranges my expenses and income in spreadsheet form.
After booting the program I began to record my written checks.
A major expense for the month of April is my reconciliation of the past year’s taxes and the quarterly payment for the next year.
When I entered the check number, it responded correctly and asked to whom it was paid.
I entered IRS.
Next question was the amount.
I entered.
At prompting to enter my message the Corona suddenly asked, “Do you know what portion of your taxes goes to the defense department?”
“Have you contacted your congressperson concerning the World Peace Tax Fund?”
“Have you considered withholding your taxes as a protest against the administration’s military position?”
Unable to answer in good conscience, I exited the program.
Was this “user Friendly” computer going to continue its assault on my conscience?
I hadn’t counted on that possibility.
The “War Tax Concerns Committee” of New England Yearly Meeting — Cushman Anthony, Elizabeth Boardman, Alan Eccleston, Finley Perry, and George Watson — published a statement in the same issue:
New England Yearly Meeting, through various minutes, has declared that refusal to pay all or part of one’s income tax is an appropriate way to refuse to participate in war making, for those who feel led to engage in such a witness.
A number of members of the yearly meeting who have felt so called have been offered guidance and support through the Peace and Social Concerns Committee, the Committee on Sufferings, and the NEYM War Tax Alternatives Fund.
War tax resistance is usually an individual witness rising out of the Peace Testimony.
However, if one of our members who wishes to make this witness is also an employee of the yearly meeting, some additional considerations come into play.
The question presently facing us was raised by the Personnel Committee:
Should NEYM refuse to act as the federal government’s agent in collecting — by withholding and paying over to the IRS — taxes of an employee who refuses on the basis of conscience to pay war taxes?
The problem is not new.
Action has already been taken by other organizations, including Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, London Yearly Meeting, American Friends Service Committee, and the General Conference Mennonite Church.
Each of these organizations has wrestled with it for a number of years, and after careful consideration, each refused to withhold taxes.
Nobody yet knows the full consequences of any of these decisions.
There are difficult questions involving individual conscience on both sides.
We note some of the concerns and reasoning of the Meeting for Sufferings of London Yearly Meeting in taking this step.
Some Friends saw the Society as having become a little too comfortable in its peace testimony and saw in this witness a gesture to all peace loving people.
It was noted that since Quakers are people who put principles into practice, the yearly meeting as an employer of conscientious objectors should assist them in their witness.
On the other hand, concerns were raised that should a witness be made, there would be criticism that “it was neither logical to juggle with the mathematics of tax monies, nor moral to opt out of the give and take of a democratic society.”
Another observation was that Friends “from John Woolman to draft resisters had been careful to place no one but themselves at risk,” whereas this refusal to withhold would place the yearly meeting itself at risk.
In a letter to the Board of Inland Revenue (), the clerk of the Meeting for Sufferings of London Yearly Meeting noted, “The name Meeting for Sufferings derives from when Friends met to give support to those of their members who suffered in diverse ways for conscience’s sake and that at various times the Society of Friends corporately has recognized a religious obligation to stand with individuals whose commitment of conscience may not currently be recognized by the laws of this country.”
In deciding this question for ourselves as a yearly meeting, there is a case for joining the witness as an employer by refusing to withhold income tax money or refusing to forward withheld money to the IRS; and there is a case for continuing to withhold and to forward money to the IRS as required by law.
The Case for Continuing to Withhold as Required by Law
The United States has one of the most effective tax systems in the world.
Its success rests on the voluntary compliance of U.S. citizens.
Undermining this system by noncompliance with the law does great harm to the system.
Refusing to pay withheld taxes to the government would put us in opposition to the Internal Revenue System.
Our real dispute, however, is with the Department of Defense.
Consequently, this effort misdirects our energy and our witness away from that portion of governmental power which we would choose to oppose.
Failing to pay all of the tax money would not directly reduce the war making budget.
By legal process, the IRS would almost certainly collect the money plus penalties.
Even if it did not, the military would get its full appropriation anyway and would be unaffected by the witness.
This action could well jeopardize some assets of the yearly meeting, the standing of the yearly meeting as a taxdeductible organization, and the officers of the yearly meeting.
Since some members of NEYM are not in agreement with the war tax objection position, they should not be asked to put themselves and the yearly meeting in jeopardy for a cause in which they do not believe.
The yearly meeting is supporting and should continue to support individual war tax witness actions.
If the yearly meeting does not join the witness as employer, its employees will not be placed in any worse position than Quakers employed elsewhere.
A number of members of the yearly meeting feel required by their consciences to pay all the taxes which they owe to the federal government.
A decision by the yearly meeting to refuse to pay employees’ withheld taxes would violate the consciences of these Friends.
The Case for Joining the Witness as Employer
We live in a world where there are in excess of 15 million deaths a year by starvation (41,000 a day) while $660 billion goes to military expenditures.
It is estimated that just $60 billion, or less than 10 percent of all military expenditures, would eliminate starvation on this planet.
Purchasing weapons of war not only increases the likelihood of killing, it causes thousands of deaths each day by depriving people of the sustenance needed for their survival.
As a religious organization in a country that is one of the leaders in the arms race, we have a clear responsibility to address this issue.
Joining a witness as employer gives the yearly meeting an opportunity to take concrete action as a religious body on this critical problem.
Taking this position is not a threat to the voluntary tax system, since it is an open and honest witness, and tends to encourage others to be open and honest in their dealings with the IRS.
It is the creeping tendency to be dishonest in declaring one’s financial situation that threatens to undercut our tax system.
If this witness is viewed as a threat to the voluntary tax system, there is a remedy at hand — passage of the World Peace Tax Fund Act in the U.S. Congress.
New England Yearly Meeting’s action would work towards passage of that act, which would benefit individuals in the Society of Friends, as well as our country as a whole.
Friends’ testimony on peace is one of our central experiences of truth.
The weight of this issue in our world calls us to act with clarity and resolve, regardless of risk and possible complications.
The fact that the tax may be collected does not diminish the value of this conscientious objection to war.
Taking this action as a yearly meeting gives us an opportunity to define the differences between our beliefs and those of the U.S. culture in general.
This could then strengthen the resolve in individual Friends to speak out and take action in regard to our war making society.
Other Quaker organizations have already begun this witness, and our standing with them adds our testimony to theirs.
This amplifies the message to the world of Friends regarding war and peace, and at the same time will contribute to the unification of Friends.
We urge all Friends to weigh these considerations prayerfully and to seek clarity on how the yearly meeting should respond if one of its employees requests that it support him or her by refusing to pay withheld taxes to the government.
As an example of Friends weighing such considerations, the same issue reported on a meeting of 35 people from 21 Friends organizations at the Pendle Hill center “to discuss their responsibilities when employees are conscientious objectors to the payment of war taxes.”
Excerpts:
Wallace Collett, clerk of the Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns which organized the conference, noted that this may be the first time so many Quaker organizations have come together to deal with the issue of how individual conscience flows into our corporate organizations.
In a talk formed by images of “Stones and the Builder” drawn from 1 Peter 2, Kara Cole, Administrative Secretary of Friends United Meeting, noted that Scripture shows how the lonely and isolated find themselves formed into a community which is the temple of God.
The issues for the conference revolved around choices, risk, and obedience, as they relate to appropriate use of our taxes.
Kara pointed out that when we choose Jesus, we choose to be with one who was alone in prayer, who was misunderstood, who was the living stone rejected by people.
However, we also find that we become living stones.
Not only can we find the temple in one another, we also find one another in the temple.
This image set the tone for the remainder of the conference, as participants sought ways to allow our institutions to be incarnated as communities under the influence of religious concern.
Representatives from the Friends Journal, the Friends World Committee for Consultation, Friends United Meeting, London Yearly Meeting, the American Friends Service Committee, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and other Quaker organizations and groups were able to share firsthand experience with ways Quaker employers have responded to staff members’ conscientious objection to payment of war taxes.
A panel of three lawyers presented a particularly helpful analysis of the legal situation.
These materials and some queries and advices that emerged from small group discussions will be revised and made available by the Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns.
While participants struggled with complex technical issues associated with war tax resistance, there seemed to be agreement that Quaker institutions have a corporate responsibility to assist their employees in responding as openly and honestly as possible.
Employers were admonished to develop policies to clarify the situation for the employees.
Employees and employers were urged to work together to avoid any form of tax evasion.
Employers need to develop policies so that their employees are not put in the position of having to commit fraud to gain control of income that would be subject to withholding.
Employees need to practice full disclosure of their actual tax liability and redirect refused taxes to constructive programs.
Individuals were urged to seek clearness with their faith community (monthly meeting or church) before engaging in this witness.
A letter received from Marion Franz, Executive Director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, told Friends of the importance of corporate witness on war taxes.
She finds that most Congressional staffers — who are rarely asked to consider rights of individual conscience — sit up and take notice when informed that the issue is not just of concern to some individuals, but that organizations have begun to take stands in cooperation with their employees.
Bob Hull, of the Mennonite General Conference, reported that New Call to Peacemaking has tentative plans to hold a conference on war tax concerns for Mennonite, Brethren, and Quaker employers in .
This conference, somewhat delayed, was announced in the issue:
The Challenge to church organizations from employees requesting their federal taxes not be withheld will be the topic of a conference jointly sponsored in by New Call to Peacemaking and the Quaker War Tax Concerns Committee.
A note in the back of the issue said:
Conscientious tax resisters who are forthright in their dealings with the IRS are unlikely to face a criminal penalty, according to Peter Goldberger in War Tax Concerns: Options and Consequences.
This booklet offers the layperson an overview of the IRS tax collection process for those who may be considering war tax resistance…
A second note concerned the booklet Taxes and Idolatry which concerned “the forgotten biblical witness in which taxation is seen as an affront to God.”
The issue included an article that noted in passing that at the London Yearly Meeting “[i]n recent years… two clerks were threatened with imprisonment on the issue of whether the yearly meeting should withhold for taxation purposes a part of employees’ pay.”
That issue also announced an “seminar/lobbying day” on behalf of the Peace Tax Fund, and an “National War Tax Resistance Action Conference” — which is to say, a NWTRCC gathering.
A letter from Geoff Tischbein in the issue is a good and rare example of the fourth variety of war tax resister I mentioned in my typology of the American war tax resistance movement back in .
Tischbein takes issue with the assertion in the article from the War Tax Concerns Committee of New England Yearly Meeting that their real dispute is with the Department of Defense, not the IRS.
As a war tax resister, I’ve often struggled with this question, and for myself, I do not feel that my dispute is with either.
Most immediately, my dispute is with the U.S. Congress and its refusal to grant conscientious objectors to military taxes the same right of conscience granted to conscientious objectors to military service.
The legal arguments are manifold and include, among others, free exercise of religion guaranteed by the First Amendment and international law which involves Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution and the Nuremberg principles.
Indeed, much of the thinking and correspondence of the founding fathers indicates that freedom of conscience was a principle they strongly believed in, but one they did not specifically list in the Constitution.
I suppose, if I were to follow the thread of responsibility to the spool, it would ultimately lead to the entire population of the United States that, in some macabre contortion of expediency, has put the welfare of the state above the rights of the individual, more closely a description of communism than of Western-style democracy.
Ultimately, I feel that war tax resistance is a religious issue and no governmental power has any authority in the case; it is strictly a personal concern to be resolved, individually, with God.
Thus our goal, as I see it, is to convince Congress of the religious nature of this issue.
The “Sufferings” column in that issue concerned Jerilynn C. Prior:
[Prior], a member of Vancouver (Canada) Meeting who paid into Conscience Canada’s Peace Trust Fund that portion of her Canadian federal income taxes which goes for military purposes, has had her appeal to the Tax Court of Canada rejected.
In , Revenue Canada assessed the amount of tax that Jerilynn had withheld from her income tax.
She appealed the assessment, but was denied the appeal.
The forthcoming hearing will be in Vancouver; the case will eventually go to a Federal Court of Appeal and then to the Supreme Court of Canada as a test case of the Charter of Rights provisions for freedom of conscience and religion.
Legal costs will probably exceed $100,000. Donations, payable to the Peace Tax Legal Fund, may be sent to The Society for Charter Clarification…
Prior’s case got a more in-depth look in the issue.
Excerpts:
Jerilynn Prior, a member of Vancouver (B.C.) Meeting, will be the first person to claim in court that the new Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides the right not to pay for war, and she is prepared to follow this claim through the courts to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Her first war tax resistance was in with refusal to pay the 10 percent telephone tax which was reimposed specifically to support the Vietnam war.
Throughout the time she had an income in the United States she withheld various kinds of taxes and put the money into recognized charities when there was no peace trust fund.
She became a Quaker in Cambridge (Mass.) Meeting in .…
She went to Canada in and became a Canadian citizen in .
Beginning in (which was the year the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was enacted) she consistently refused to pay the government that portion of her federal income tax which would otherwise be spent for war purposes.
She paid this money into Conscience Canada’s Peace Tax Fund.
Her decision to withhold the portion of her income tax which would otherwise be spent for war purposes and to deposit it in a Peace Tax Fund was made from a deep-felt conviction that war is wrong.
Her appeal in the tax court in against a ministerial decision that she should be assessed the amount she deducted in was pursued with the same spiritually-based conviction.
And when the tax court ruled against her, her decision to take the case through the federal court system was with the conviction that she could not honestly teach peace to her children while paying for war.
She feels that to have a strong belief and not to act on it is hypocrisy.
She insists that her action is not a political one and maintains she is not trying to change the government or the Income Tax Act.
She affirms the government of Canada and is proud to be in that country.
She does not wish to change government policy on taxation but merely wants a way in which to pay taxes and at the same time uphold her conscience and religious beliefs.
When asked if the government could assure her that none of her tax money would go to military purposes, would she pay the full amount of tax to the government, she replied, “I certainly would.”
Jerilynn has specifically asked that these legal proceedings not be referred to as “her test case,” for her action is being upheld by many others and is taken on behalf of all.…
A great deal of media attention was aroused when the decision by the tax court judge was made public.
No doubt an even greater media coverage will be given to the next court decision.
Such publicity gives to those who disagree an opportunity to voice their opinions, to hear responses, and to give the subject more thought.
When it increases public awareness of the urgent need for nonviolent solutions to disagreements, that is, in itself, an accomplishment.
We hope that the final Supreme Court decision will be affirmative and will set the stage for other equally sincere efforts in Canada, and perhaps elsewhere, toward a more peaceful world.
Prior’s Federal Court appeal was denied in and the Supreme Court declined to take up her case in .
She appealed further, to the UN Human Rights Committee, but they too refused to hear her appeal.
Another article in the issue concerned the Norway Yearly Meeting. Excerpt:
A growing feeling of guilty conscience among members led to drafting a letter to members of the government and various peace groups about the peace tax issue.
The meeting asked that ways be found to direct tax money from those who wish to humanitarian, ecological, or promoting peace instead of to the defense budget.
Leah B. Felton had a letter-to-the-editor printed in the issue that covered little new ground, and discussed war taxes (though not war tax resistance) and promoted the Peace Tax Fund as if nobody had ever heard of these things before.
It’s notable perhaps only for the opening phrase: “No doubt the overwhelming majority of Friends pay income tax…”
A few more interesting bits and pieces that flew past my eyeballs in recent weeks:
Ever wonder what all those acronyms and code numbers mean on your IRS transcripts and other correspondence?
If so, take a look at IRS Processing Codes and Information.
The cover page is marked with the delightful message “ATTENTION: OFFICIAL USE ONLY — WHEN NOT IN USE, THIS DOCUMENT MUST BE STORED IN ACCORDANCE WITH IRM 11.3.12, MANAGER’S SECURITY HANDBOOK.
Information that is of a sensitive nature is marked by the pound sign (#).”
However, it is publicly available on the IRS website, and some of it is redacted, so I don’t think there are any national security secrets within.
Someone posted scans of a “Political Art Documentation / Distribution” zine, the first issue of which was devoted to the subject of “Death and Taxes” that celebrated an art show of the same name:
“, P.A.D. presented a public art event called Death and Taxes, to protest the use of taxes for military spending and cutbacks in social services…
Twenty artists installed works in and out of doors in Manhattan and Brooklyn…
The event included posters, graffiti, stickers, overprinted 1040 forms redistributed in banks, typed dollar bills, street theatre, outdoor films, environments, and performances.”
Lots of punk rock aesthetic stuff with a war tax protest theme.
Thanos Tzimeros, founder of the fledgling Greek political party “Recreate Greece,” has issued a call for tax resistance — or “robbery resistance” as he puts it.
His perspective is a bit different from that of the largely leftish “don’t pay” movement.
Rather than opposing the austerity and public-sector shrinking that Greece has been strong-armed into accepting by international lenders, he thinks these reforms haven’t gone nearly far enough and that the problem with Greece is that it is being strangled by a political/criminal class.
If I’m parsing a Google Translate version of the Greek news article correctly, Tzimeros is encouraging people to pay their taxes into an escrow account and to refuse to turn the money over to the government until such time as it can give a satisfactory accounting of how it spends its budget.
He points to bloated and redundant government agencies as examples of taxpayer money being siphoned off to fund a class of parasitical political appointees.
Outreach notes as war tax resisters represent at the Veterans for Peace Conference in North Carolina, the Southern Movement Assembly in Georgia, and the Climate March in New York
News for resisters about IRS “frivolous filing penalty” threats, difficulties appealing the IRS’s “dummy returns,” a new income reporting loophole resisters may be able to take advantage of, and guidance about how many W-4 allowances to claim
Ideas and Actions including a variant on the traditional “penny poll,” a list of some upcoming events of note, and an invitation to give NWTRCC feedback on its website
Peter J. Reilly, at his Forbes blog, covers the case of war tax resister Elizabeth Boardman, who has been trying to get the courts to force the IRS to stop treating conscientious objection to military taxation as a legally “frivolous” argument.
A federal appeals court shot down her latest set of arguments.
Some news of interest to war tax resisters in particular:
C.J. Hinke has a book coming out: Free Radicals: War Resisters in Prison. Here’s an excerpt.
You can also follow the PrisonWarResisters blog which contains a lot of good accounts of mid-twentieth-century conscientious objection in the United States.
The entries touch on war tax resistance from time to time, mostly in passing, but include information about the tax resistance stands of Juanita & Wally Nelson, Ernest & Marion Bromley, Eroseanna Robinson, Karl Meyer, and Art Harvey.
The Spanish anti-militarist group “Tortuga” has created a comic book to explain why and how to refuse to pay war taxes.
War tax resisters have been making the tactic known hither and yon, including at a Fellowship of Reconciliation regional conference, a Fourth-of-July parade, a “People’s Budget” gathering, and the U.S. Social Forum; also, the New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters is coming up in .
Here are some excerpts from that book concerning war tax resistance as it was encountered in that community during .
A War Tax Alternatives Group (WARTAG) was meeting to acquaint people with the possibility of tax resistance and to support those already engaged in it.
It… was composed almost entirely of religiously motivated activists.
When you speak to members of an activist group which is relatively small, people continually refer you to other members of the community… If tax resistance was mentioned, people regularly told me to “get in touch with Father Bob Quirin because he knows the history of it in the city.”
Approximately two dozen people [in the local peace community] are refusing to pay what they label war taxes.
Most are simply refusing to pay the federal tax on their phone bill, since it was enacted to help defray the costs of the Vietnam War and remains committed to the military.
Each month they include a letter to this effect when they send their check to the telephone company.
A few people have taken tax resistance much further and have refused to pay about 40 percent of their income tax during the past two years and have instead placed their monies in a world peace tax fund escrow account not recognized by the government.
Steve Hodges, coordinator of the Richmond Peace Education Center, has not only resisted payment, but has transformed his stand into a vehicle of public education, granting interviews to local print and broadcast reporters about his decision.
The development of tax resistance indicates how the Richmond activists have tried to apply these ideas about civil disobedience.
Given their commitment to assuming personal responsibility, about two dozen people in the peace community have seriously considered withholding or have actually withheld a percentage of their federal income tax and placed it in a peace escrow fund as a protest against the use of tax monies to pay for nuclear weapons.
Originally, a number of those involved resisted taxes as a matter of conscience and did not intend to persuade others to join them.
Harold Houghton, a Quaker who teaches mathematics at a local high school, one year withheld 36 percent of his tax.
He justified his decision by saying, “I feel that I must live morally, I cannot kill and neither can I pretend that my money does not pay for killing.”
Despite this commitment, Harold refrained from informing many of his acquaintances of his decision.
“I don’t tell people at work, ‘Listen, this is what I’m doing, how do you respond?’
Perhaps this is related to my concern about job security, but I think that I would just be terribly uncomfortable saying, ‘Oh, by the way, I’m not paying my taxes and this is why.’
I just don’t want to confront people in that manner and I don’t want to invade their privacy.”
Harold Houghton did participate in the War Tax Alternatives Group.
For the first few years of its existence, WARTAG was basically a mutual support organization.
It brought together tax resisters and those contemplating it to share thoughts and experiences with like-minded people.
The group also organized seminars at local churches that explained to potential tax resisters the rationale for the act, the various legal and illegal mechanisms that could be used to register a protest about government spending priorities, and the penalties that were possible for war tax resistance.
By the middle of , WARTAG — under the impetus of Steve Hodges — began to move in other directions as well.
Its activities were more highly publicized within the peace community and became a form of internal education.
The group worked to increase the visibility of the issue by recruiting others to write letters of protest even if they were not actively resisting taxes themselves.
Members began to pass out literature at the post office on April 15 when citizens were filing last-minute returns.
WARTAG also sought to recruit more tax resisters by drafting a resolution and circulating a petition in which those who signed agreed to resist a level of taxes if one hundred others in the area did the same.
These efforts to widen the scope of WARTAG achieved, at most, minimal success.
Within the peace community itself, activists discussed both tax resistance and the general issue of civil disobedience.
Steve Hodges’ tax protest compelled the board of directors of the Richmond Peace Education Center to decide whether it would put a lien on his salary if the Internal Revenue Service issued this demand.
The board ultimately stated that it supported individual acts of conscience such as Steve’s, though it could not, as a tax-exempt organization, actually endorse civil disobedience.
In other forums, activists debated whether tax resistance was the best possible way of bringing the movement to public attention.
Besides the internal discussion that tax resistance generated, protesters received a measure of public attention.
Newspaper articles and television interviews permitted them to explain their rationale for their actions and to indicate their personal beliefs to a wider audience, and a few churches invited some of the resisters to discuss their perspective in Sunday-school classes or other special programs. But despite these accomplishments, tax resistance never extended much beyond its core group or caught on as a pressing issue of discussion in the wider community.
Harold Houghton… experienced the distress that can arise from trying to express one’s opposition to nuclear weapons policy and to construct a successful marriage at the same time.
While Debra Houghton supported Harold’s decision to resist taxes — a step actually taken in the year before their wedding — the couple found the combination of fear and anxiety that permeated their young marriage almost impossible to handle.
Unlike some forms of protest, a person resisting war taxes has no control over the timing of the consequences or the exact nature of the penalties.
The Internal Revenue Service might choose to ignore it for years or take immediate action to garnish the salary of the resister and impose other fines.
Interested in starting a family, the Houghtons would have been more comfortable facing a definite penalty at a specified time in the future.
Instead, the computer-generated letters sent by the IRS at irregular intervals evoked fears of a catastrophic outcome to the protest.
Harold mentioned that “when one of those bills arrives in the mail, your whole life gets blown into a nightmarish thing.”
Debra experienced similar fears, recalling dreams “in which people came at night and moved us out of our house.”
Eventually, Debra and Harold Houghton decided not to pursue this witness to its full limits.
They paid the taxes that had been withheld, plus the interest and penalties that had accrued.
Doing so, in Harold’s words, “left a very bitter taste in my mouth.
Writing the check and then mailing it seemed like an act of capitulation.”
At a minimum, it demonstrated how difficult it can sometimes be to harmonize the full complement of one’s professed moral commitments.
Undoubtedly, tax resisters in Richmond have made progress in transforming lonely statements of personal conscience into a broader public action.
They have also been attentive to developing strategies that will allow supporters of the movement to participate at a variety of levels, ranging from legal protest to civil disobedience.
Yet there are some inherent limitations to tax resistance that may never be surmounted.
One of the most critical is that the government can dampen enthusiasm for the strategy without engaging in heavy-handed public reprisals.
If tax resistance ever threatened to become more widespread, there would be no need to arrest people in the streets or drag them from their homes while the neighbors watched.
Sending a computer-generated letter from the Internal Revenue Service assessing a penalty of five hundred dollars for a frivolous deduction would adequately serve the government’s purpose.
It might no dissuade those people who were already resisting, but it would certainly discourage other people from taking a war tax deduction and, most important, it would do so without casting the U.S. government in a particularly malevolent light before the rest of the American population.*
* In fact, by
the Internal Revenue Service had decided to crack down on what was a small yet growing number of tax resisters by imposing a five-hundred-dollar fine for a frivolous deduction.
Articles in the movement journals which focused on tax resistance now spent much time addressing the question of how to respond if one received such a penalty and how groups could pressure Congress to alter the tax code so that statements of conscience would not be considered frivolous.
The outcome of these efforts is currently uncertain, but the situation does reveal the considerable discretionary power of the government in general and the Internal Revenue Service in particular.
I should also mention, however, that the IRS had occasionally resorted to heavy-handed reprisals such as the auctioning of homes, which, when publicized, probably work to the benefit of the movement.
There were several other off-hand mentions of war tax resistance throughout the book as well.
This is the thirtieth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we continue to work through the early 1980s.
War tax resisters’ hour comes round at last in Bethlehem
On the ongoing issue of tax withholding, GB agreed to submit a resolution to delegates at Bethlehem to “authorize the officers [of the conference] to test the constitutionality of [the tax withholding] requirement… by refusing to serve as tax collectors in cases where individual employees have asked that their federal income taxes not be withheld from their wages, in order that they may conscientiously refuse to pay for war.”
The church which seeks to save her security by following only “legal, legislative and judicial avenues” to salve its war tax conscience will lose her life; the church willing to lose her security in supporting non-registrants for the sake of Christ will find life.
At the triennial sessions, the conference authorized the General Board to initiate a judicial action seeking exemption for the General Conference Mennonite Church from withholding taxes from the income of its employees.
James Gingerich, Duane Heffelbower, Larry Voth, Robert Hull, and Vern Preheim were appointed as a judicial action committee to implement the resolution.
William Ball was engaged as legal counsel.
In , Ball advised the conference that the general climate in the United States, the attitude of the present government administration, and the attitude of the Supreme Court as evidenced by some recent decisions dealing with religious conviction or conscience and taxes were such that the likelihood of the General Conference accomplishing its objectives through a judicial action was virtually nil.
The committee recommended and the General Board concurred to put the judicial action on hold and to bring the matter once again to the conference for further discernment and decision.
A more detailed report and a recommendation from the General Board to the conference that we honor the requests of employees to not withhold taxes on their wages will be sent to the congregations in advance of the triennial sessions.
Throughout , while pursuing judicial action, we also continued to encourage the enactment of World Peace Tax Fund legislation.
An editorial in the edition described the upcoming decision thusly:
At a special midtriennium conference in Minneapolis in , GC delegates voted 1,218 to 134 in favor of urging their General Board to “use all legal, legislative and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector exemption from the legal requirement that the conference withhold income taxes from the wages of its employees.”
If no solution could be found within three years, the GB was to bring the matter back for further action.
At Estes Park in , a judicial test case on the issue was okayed by a vote of 1,156 to 353.
Bethlehem will bring GC delegates face to face with the fact that all three avenues, at present, look like dead ends.
As a result, the GB is proposing that the conference stop withholding taxes from salaries of employees who request such action in order to “assert the higher claim of Christ’s law of love.”
If approved, the resolution would take the conference one small but significant step into the sphere of divine obedience/civil disobedience.
It could become the most formidable — and challenging — business item for GCs, despite the fact that several other organizations have already taken the same action.
In advance of the Bethlehem gathering, the text of the proposed resolution was released in the pages of The Mennonite:
Among the resolutions for consideration by delegates at the General Conference Mennonite Church Triennial Sessions… is a formal action authorizing conference officers to stop withholding taxes from the salaries of its employees as required by U.S. law.
It also encourages Canadian Mennonites to obtain relief from the same requirement by Revenue Canada.
The conference’s General Board… will bring the "Resolution on Faithful Action Toward Tax Withholding" to Bethlehem delegates as their recommendation for resolving the moral dilemma which church officials feel they are facing.
If approved, the resolution could take the conference into divine obedience/civil disobedience.
Thus we urge our governments to sharply reduce military spending and use our resources for life-affirming purposes.
Furthermore, just as conscientious objectors have received exemption from military service, we also seek legislation exempting conscientious objectors from paying taxes for military purposes.
Thus we continue to work in the United States for passage for the World Peace Tax Fund Act and in Canada for the Peace Tax Fund, which would allow individuals to designate all of their federal taxes for peaceful purposes.
Both the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and Revenue Canada require the General Conference Mennonite Church to violate the consciences of its employees who are conscientious objectors to paying taxes for military purposes.
In the United States, we have thoroughly explored all legislative, administrative and judicial avenues for obtaining a conscientious objector exemption to these withholding requirements, as we resolved at the Minneapolis midtriennium conference.
Our explorations have convinced us there is no likelihood of relief in the near future for conscientious objectors to military taxes.
The time has come when, like Peter and the apostles, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
In Canada, equally thorough explorations of similar avenues for seeking a conscientious objection from withholding requirements have not yet been accomplished.
We commend the “Resolution on Security and Disarmament” of the Canadian Mennonite Conference in and the work of the Canadian Tax Task Force under the sponsorship of MCC Canada Peace and Social Concerns.
We encourage Canadian congregations to continue study of materials made available on the issue of military taxes.
As delegates to the triennial sessions of the General Conference Mennonite Church, we therefore:
Authorize the conference officers to test the constitutionality of the withholding requirements in the United States and to assert the higher claim of Christ’s law of love by refusing to serve as tax collectors in cases where individual employees have asked that their federal income taxes not be withheld from their wages in order that they may conscientiously refuse to pay for war preparations.
These employees will be treated similarly to the way General Conference treats ordained ministers, i.e. as self-employed persons, in that their earnings will be reported to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, but no federal income tax withheld.
We request that the Conference of Mennonites in Canada consider means to obtain relief from Revenue Canada withholding requirements as these apply to General Conference Mennonite Church employees.
We shall inform the U.S. government of this act of conscientious objection to their withholding requirements.
We shall again urge them to provide exemption from these requirements and exemption for people of peacemaking conscience from military use of their tax money.
At this moment of decision we commit ourselves to surround with our prayers the General Conference staff and government officials who will be involved in this action and all those individuals who refuse in conscience to pay taxes for war preparations, however costly their witness may be.
Jim Gingerich of Moundridge, Kan., chairperson of the conference’s judicial action committee, reported that the suit against the IRS approved at Estes Park was, in the opinion of constitutional lawyer William Ball, almost certain to fail.
Little progress was being made on the legislative or administrative fronts either.
In light of this, the General Board was recommending that the conference honor the consciences of its employees who request that their full salaries be paid to them, allowing the employees themselves to remit to the IRS what their consciences would allow.
After Robert Hull, secretary for peace and justice, had reviewed the experiences of other groups which had attempted similar actions, Duane Heffelbower of Reedley, Calif., outlined the points of the resolution in detail and spoke of their possible ramifications.
“We could scarcely devise a softer velvet glove to cast at the feet of the IRS,” he said.
“But the action does show our corporate willingness to stand beside our employees.
What will the government do?
We don’t know.”
What followed was probably the most vigorous interchange of viewpoints by GC delegates of the entire week.
Nearly two dozen speakers took their turns at the mikes before the vote was called for.
Viewpoints on the resolution ran the gamut from disassociation with it to praising God for it.
“We believe that the Bible says we ought to pay our taxes.
We want to be separated from and not have any part of this action,” said Paul Goossen, Wayland, Iowa.
“This resolution is creating an impossible situation for our government,” added John Voth of Meno, Okla. “We have emphasized that we love our enemy.
I wonder whether the government has become our enemy.
Have we adopted the same big-stick approach that we so often have criticized?”
Others, however, urged the conference to push ahead with the proposed action.
“Mennonites took a stand against slavery even though it was unpopular,” said Mark Winslow, Allentown, Pa.
“Today, the nuclear arms race is the primary social sin of our day.
We should take a stand regardless of the fact that it may be unpopular.”
Lois Barrett, Wichita, Kan., observed that “in the U.S., disobeying the law is the time-honored way of changing the law,” noting that the cause of civil rights in was advanced primarily through civil disobedience.
H.A. Fast of North Newton, Kan., prompted the only round of applause during the lengthy discussion.
“We refuse our selves in service, but we say nothing about our taxes,” Fast said.
“I have said to the government, ‘You can’t take my body to fight a war.’ I have said, ‘You can’t take my son.’ And now I am saying, ‘You can’t take my money, either.’ ”
When it was over and the ballots counted, the resolution passed by a 70 percent majority. [1,128 to 457]
One of the characteristic features of the discussion on tax withholding, as well as other debates during the week, was the sensitivity and willingness to listen with which delegates approached the microphones.
Several told of how they had come to the convention ready to vote one way, but were now moved to vote another.
Phrases such as “I want to respect your point of view…” or “I’m willing to learn more…” preceded many of the speeches.
And the tough debates of Bethlehem, during which emotions ran high and convictions deep, never seemed to overshadow the determination by participants to celebrate their common identity, their peoplehood, their unity.
After the convention, many attributed that prevailing unity to the moving of the Spirit.
Delegates at the conference were treated to a performance of The Plow and the Sword, a musical about American Mennonites during the Revolutionary War who disputed whether or not it was proper to pay taxes to the rebellious Continental Congress.
“The play’s content was powerfully pertinent to the delegates meeting at Bethlehem who discussed present-day responses to war taxes.”
Acting on the basis of a resolution adopted by General Conference delegates at Bethlehem , conference treasurer Ted W. Stuckey on issued the first paychecks on which federal income taxes were not withheld.
Seven employees of the denomination’s central offices made the request that the taxes not be withheld, so that they can remit to the IRS personally the amount of federal taxes their consciences will allow, given the U.S. government’s high rate of military spending.
Those making the request were Robert Hull, secretary for peace and justice; Lynn Keenan, Mennonite Voluntary Service associate director; Paula Diller Lehman, secretary for youth education; Fred Loganbill, assistant for peace and justice; John Sommer, overseas personnel secretary; Meribeth Sprunger, secretary for mission communications; and Elizabeth Yoder, general editor.
Several others have indicated that they may be willing to take part in the action at a later date.
Stuckey said that, beginning with the paychecks, the seven will have state and social security taxes deducted but be treated like self-employed persons as far as federal income taxes are concerned.
Under such a classification, they would be required to submit quarterly estimated tax payments to the IRS.
The seven plan to make a portion of those quarterly payments but put the balance — the amount they feel they cannot voluntarily pay because of high U.S. military spending — into a special account at General Conference central offices.
Stuckey and general secretary Vern Preheim informed Commissioner Roscoe L. Egger, Jr., at IRS headquarters in Washington by letter of the conference’s action, the motivation of employees for requesting the procedure, the reasons for the church’s granting the requests, the identities of the seven employees and the location of the account to which the IRS may initiate collection procedures.
“We’re trying to be completely open and above board with them about this matter,” he said.
Copies of the letter were also sent to IRS offices in Wichita, Kan., and Austin, Texas, as well as to state and federal legislators.
The pay period is the first opportunity for the conference to implement the “Resolution on Faithful Action Toward Tax Withholding” adopted by delegates to a churchwide convention in Bethlehem, Pa., on .
There, conferees voted 1,128 to 457 to “authorize the conference officers to test the constitutionality of the withholding requirements in the United States and to assert the higher claim of Christ’s law of love, by refusing to serve as tax collectors in cases where individual employees have asked that their federal income taxes not be withheld from their wages, in order that they may conscientiously refuse to pay for war preparations.[”]
Miscellany
A note in the edition mentioned that the Historic Peace Church Task Force on Taxes had decided to go all-in on the World Peace Tax Fund bill, promoting “dunamis groups which approach congresspersons in a spirit of compassion rather than confrontation… to obtain a dozen more co-sponsors for the WPTF bill in the coming year.”
The edition noted that “MCC U.S. Peace Section has put together a War Tax Packet, designed to equip individuals and groups with a variety of resources for study on the question of paying taxes for war.
Cost is $2.”
The edition included a profile of Cornelia “Nellie” Lehn, whose war tax resistance became the focus for much of the debate that overtook the General Conference Mennonite Church.
It summarized this as follows:
Nellie was… dealing personally with the perplexing issue of war taxes.
She liked to read Bible verses that say to pay your taxes, but began to wonder why she did not concentrate equally on those saying to love your enemies and put your sword away.
Finally she felt she could not pay that part of her taxes going to war purposes and asked the General Conference office not to withhold any of her salary for taxes.
“The time comes when you have to cut through all the complexity and be obedient,” she says, reminiscent of her stand earlier in life.
At the triennium she stated her views.
The conference continues to work on this issue even today.
I’m surprised I haven’t come across this amusing example of war tax resistance outreach before:
Mennonites in Harrisonburg, Va., gathered on to attach over $300 to about 75 helium-filled balloons.
Each balloon, in addition to a five- or ten-dollar bill, carried a note from a participant explaining why he or she had withheld the money from current income taxes.
“Because we are Christians who are trying to follow the peaceful way of Jesus, we cannot support this country’s military build-up,” said many of the notes.
“Instead, we have chosen to ‘waste’ our money in a more constructive way.”
Participants read Scripture, sang, danced, prayed, confessed their sins, and clowns passed out jelly beans as the balloons rose.
The shift of focus to “Peace Tax Fund” legislation would aggravate a decline in interest in real war tax resistance in the General Conference Mennonite Church that continues to the present day.
Clearly, some Mennonites perceived this danger, as Robert Hull wrote an article to defend the push for such a law:
An argument by some war tax resisters is that any peace tax fund is a means for conscientious objectors to salve their conscience with regard to diverting their own taxes, and that this provision then will encourage such COs to be quiet and passively accept the warmaking of governments which will continue more efficiently without their dissent.
When I have explored this argument, I almost invariably discover that the war tax resister speaking is drawing upon an analogy made with the 20th-century U.S./Canadian history of conscientious objection to military service.
The Civilian Public Service camps of World War Ⅱ by and large had this “quietistic” effect.
However, it should be noted that the provision for COs in World War Ⅱ came about because the government remembered the difficulties it had encountered with historic peace church resisters in World War Ⅰ.
Similar spokespersons on the eve of World War Ⅱ stated their convictions to “draw the line” again if acceptable provisions were not made.
But even during World War Ⅱ, the legal criteria for CO classification in the United States were broadened by the Supreme Court to include all religious objectors, then during the Vietnam War to include people holding a belief equivalent to that in a Supreme Being (Seeger, ), and later to all people morally, ethically or religiously opposed to all war (Welsh, ).
In the draft registration debate in , projections by the Selective Service of future CO claimants extended to 40 percent of all registrants.
It seems reasonable to conclude that at least one cause for this large increase in the potential CO population is a result of the public visibility of thousands of young men performing alternative service during the Vietnam War.
The recent response of the U.S. Selective Service to its own projections has been to develop plans for CO alternative service which seek to once more “contain” the CO visibility by centralizing the program under direct Selective Service administration in order to meet military mobilization priorities.
This policy is in turn quite likely to produce non-cooperators who will have registered but then find that such an alternative service program is unacceptable to their conscience.
A significant number of such non-cooperators would increase the already more than 500,000 draft-eligible young men who have not registered.
Twentieth-century CO history has lodged anomalous laws within the government structures.
That is, if these laws are interpreted by relatively tolerant regulations, the CO population may grow uncontrollably large; if the laws are interpreted by repressive regulations, the number of non-cooperators may grow uncontrollably.
Now let’s pursue this analogy with regard to peace tax legislation and war tax resistance.
I am convinced that Parliament or Congress will never enact peace tax legislation until the war tax resistance movement grows so large that such laws come to be viewed as an expedient accommodation, as Civilian Public Service was viewed on the eve of World War Ⅱ.
But several differences between the two are significant.
Bear in mind that peace tax legislation provides for the taxpayer to claim he or she is a CO and that the burden of the challenge and rebuttal lies upon the government.
Additionally, peace tax legislation’s provision for income tax forms and information materials to describe the military proportion of the federal budget in some detail will ensure that a far greater percentage of the taxpayers become aware of the peace tax alternative than the percentage of draft-age men who were made aware by the government of the CO alternative from World War Ⅱ through Vietnam.
Finally, the peace tax legislation provides for the diversion of CO taxpayers’ “military taxes” into a trust fund.
This is intended to result in a direct drain out of the general treasury available for war preparations.
Thus the peace tax legislation further raises people’s consciousness.
If peace trust funds in the United States and Canada are administered as the legislation intends, many millions of people will choose to support peacemaking alternatives to conflict rather than supporting warmaking preparations, and a “democracy of defense” may develop: those who rely on military weapons can pay for them without coercing the contributions of those who place their reliance upon other alternatives.
If the CO eligibility criteria are interpreted too restrictively, or inaccurate portrayals of the military proportion of the federal budget are published, or CO taxpayers’ funds are demonstrably rechanneled into the warmaking treasury, then increased numbers of informed citizens may respond with direct tax resistance.
The government will thus have on its hands another significant anomalous law, one by which millions of citizens can measure the government’s tendency to override their democratic rights in its clearing of the path toward war.
This then is the educational strategy behind the peace tax effort as I see it.
The legislation will reach millions of people with the message that there are alternatives to paying for the war system.
It will provide a step which millions of citizens can take, and whose aggregate pressure for peacemaking will be enormous, without overwhelming risk to the individual taxpayer.
After all, it is at least in part the risk involved in war tax refusal which keeps it an infinitesimally small protest movement in the total population.
I hope that thousands of active peacemakers will heed the call to war tax refusal and that the pressure for peace upon the warmaking tendencies of government will grow.
As it does, I believe it will prove disastrous if the peacemaking community has no legislative proposal to put forward which will secure as much of the “democracy of defense” goal as possible, and to which the government can turn as an accommodation.
The Church of the Brethren has long supported members who conscientiously object to the payment of war taxes.
Some members wish to refuse to pay taxes but are unable to because the taxes are withheld by their employers.
The delegates approved a paper that gives guidance to church institutions whose employees request, for reason of conscience, that their taxes not be withheld.
The annual conference recommended that all legal possibilities be explored first but affirmed civil disobedience for both individuals and institutions when it is a matter of conscience.
A United Methodist congregation in New Haven, Conn., backing their pastor’s right to refuse paying federal taxes for military use, has declined to turn over his salary to the Internal Revenue Service.
Carl Lundbord [sic], pastor of First and Summerfield United Methodist Church, has withheld federal income taxes in both and , telling the IRS his “obligations as a Christian and as a citizen are no longer reconcilable.
The 50 percent of my taxes that support the military I cannot pay.” IRS ordered the church to withhold the pastor’s salary until the amount was paid.
But church members voted on to reject IRS’s demand.
Our ancestors migrated to the United States so that they would not be forced to participate in European wars.
Eventually this government respected their deeply held beliefs about peacemaking and granted them the right to register as conscientious objectors.
Today we find ourselves in a technological age in which our money is more useful to the military than our bodies.
So we are being forced by law to participate financially in the preparation for war, which violates the biblical command to love our neighbors as ourselves.
When Caesar’s demands conflict with God’s, we cannot blindly obey our government.
These words from John S. and Sara L. Wengerd’s letter to the Internal Revenue Service echo the convictions of nearly 60 individuals and families who chose to contribute to Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section in lieu of paying a portion of their income taxes that would have been used for military purposes.
For some, the contribution was a symbolic amount, such as $7.77.
For others, it equaled the 36 to 54 percent of their tax dollars that would have financed military activity.
That portion is commonly referred to as a “military tax” or a “war tax.”
In another case, a couple’s taxes had already been withheld by the Internal Revenue Service, so they donated an amount equal to their military taxes, which they had already paid.
In all cases, these individuals felt that silent compliance with the tax collection process would be a violation of their consciences and religious convictions against killing and participating in war in any way.
Many noted that their dilemma of conscience could be ameliorated by passage of the World Peace Tax Fund (WPTF) Act…
Meanwhile, the federal government is attempting to crack down on various types of tax protests.
People who object to paying taxes for military purposes may face stiff penalties designed to deter those trying to evade tax collection or destroy the tax system.
The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of instituted an automatic $500 penalty for individuals filing “frivolous” tax returns.
The penalty can apply to people who take unallowable deductions, credits or exemptions or give incomplete information on their tax returns.
Those taking “war tax” deductions or credits or claiming an excessive number of exemptions to reduce their tax liability could be subject to the new fine.
Several conscientious military tax resisters have received notices from the Internal Revenue Service that the penalty has been imposed, according to the May–June issue of Center Peace, the news journal of the Center on Law and Pacifism.
Robert Hull, peace and justice secretary for the General Conference Mennonite Church, suggests that conscientious objectors to military taxation take steps to distinguish their non-payment of military taxes from secular tax protests and evasion schemes.
If taxpayers correctly compute and report the amount owed and indicate in an attached letter that they cannot with a clear conscience pay the military-related portion, their tax returns will go directly to the Internal Revenue Service Collection Division instead of to the overloaded Audit Division.
Hull suggests that this action be accompanied with letters to legislators to communicate the religious and moral grounds for such action, and to demonstrate the need for remedial legislation such as the World Peace Tax Fund.
Bill Samuel, member of the WPTF steering committee, suggests that taxpayers write a contract on the back of their check to IRS stating that deposit of the check constitutes a legally binding agreement (contract) that the money will not be used for military purposes.
Courts have held that contractual checks involving private parties are legally binding, but it is uncertain whether or not IRS would abide by the contract.
John R. Dyck
A article profiled Canadian war tax resister John R. Dyck.
Excerpts:
All his life, John R. Dyck of Rosthern, Sask., has been a law-abiding citizen.
He’s never been to court.
But he expects that to change when Revenue Canada catches up with him for non-payment of taxes.
Dyck is one of a small but growing band of Canadians who are refusing to pay the portion of their income taxes they feel is designated for the military.
Instead, they are calling for an alternative “peace tax fund” which would use their tax money for peaceful purposes.
Since that alternative does not exist and Dyck withheld 10.5 percent of his taxes for and for , he expects a court order to arrive eventually.
John R. Dyck is not a young radical defying authority.
Officially he is retired (though not willingly or inactively) and has given the better part of the past two decades to service with the Mennonite Central Committee, Mennonite Foundation and the MCC Food Bank.
A sudden stroke forced him to slow down over a year ago, but he has recovered and calls it “a real miracle.”
Now he can go on serving, and he places military tax resistance in that category.
The decision did not come easily or hastily.
“I don’t know where it (a conviction) began,” he commented during an interview at this year’s annual meeting of MCC Canada in Saskatoon.
He had come to listen to the discussion and spend time with his brother and fellow peace-seeker, Peter J.
He remembers that “Cornelia Lehn made us sit up and think” in .
John began with his tax return, filed while the Dycks were in Jordan under MCC and able to observe firsthand the effects of military exploitation.
He sent two checks to Revenue Canada, asking that the smaller one be used only for peaceful development work.
He heard nothing further and assumed that both checks flowed into government coffers.
Along with his tax return he sent only a letter of concern.
But with his return he again enclosed two checks, one for Revenue Canada and a second made out to the Peace Tax Fund.
Revenue Canada replied that such a fund did not exist (legally) and demanded payment in full.
Dyck then sent the check to the Victoria, B.C.-based Peace Tax Fund and began correspondence with government officials to explain why.
“I want to do things correctly and openly,” he says.
Now Dyck is expecting a day in court.
It is bound to come, since Revenue Canada wants his money and must obtain a court order before garnisheeing his account at the Rosthern Credit Union.
The sooner the better, he adds, since it may help establish a right of conscience that would allow other people to divert their hard-earned tax money from bombs to working for peace.
He also hopes to find a sympathetic lawyer to handle the case.
“I think a lot of people would rather not talk to me about it,” he says, summing up the reaction to his protest.
So far, any criticism has been muted, though one friend told him, “I admire you for it, but you’re wrong.”
Paula, his wife, is supportive, but most fellow members at Rosthern Mennonite Church are either uninformed or indifferent.
John R. Dyck firmly believes, “We don’t need the military.”
The threat of nuclear war hanging over the world means Christians must resist militarism with renewed vigor.
“I see this (nuclear holocaust) coming and we’re accountable.
The handwriting is on the wall.”
Dyck adds that there is a growing network of people asking about the peace tax fund, though the actual number withholding taxes is still small.
(Ernie Hildebrand, a teacher at the Swift Current (Sask.) Bible Institute, is another Mennonite who is doing so.)
“But people must think this through carefully,” Dyck concludes.
“You can’t legislate a thing like this… I’m glad the Lord led us to this position.”
As the General Conference pushed ahead with its support of war tax resisting employees, with the blessing of the majority of conferees, the U.S. “Peace Section” seemed more reluctant to take a stand, at its meeting. From the edition:
While agreeing that the church has an important role to play in saying no to preparations for [nuclear war], the members struggled with the place of military tax resistance as a method of saying no.
Several members observed that the constituency is “not of one mind on this matter,” while Darrel Brubaker of Philadelphia, Brethren in Christ representative, urged that “here is one place we need to be leaders more than representatives.”
After the matter was tabled overnight for further reflection, the group affirmed a recommendation commending the General Conference for the serious attention it has given the issue and urging churches to work more diligently at the process of prayerful discernment of their response to this issue.
The resolution also strongly encouraged constituents to initiate further action in support of the World Peace Tax Fund bill, which would provide a legal alternative to the payment of taxes for military purposes.
War tax resister Don Schrader wrote in on to insist that Mennonites can best criticize revolutionary and other violence if they are careful not to support violence with their taxes:
Until our nonviolence becomes revolutionary, revolutions will be violent.
[A]s long as well-fed U.S. pacifists pay war taxes to support the imminent nuclear terror and mass murder of our planet and the dictatorial repression of Central America, what integrity do we have in questioning or condemning those peasants’ use of violence for survival.
To be peacemakers in this perilous age, we must refuse to pay war taxes, we must renounce all materialism which breeds militarism, and we must denounce foreign policy regardless of the risks for our community standing and employment.
Over four years ago I confronted the question “How can I speak for peace and pay for war,” and I became a war tax resister.
This is the thirty-first in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we reach 1984.
The magazine helpfully summed up the current state of war tax resistance, particularly among American Christians, in its edition:
“Were you able in 1983 to find the resources to support religious, charitable and peace efforts equal to the taxes you were required to pay for the military establishment?”
The Friends Committee on National Legislation uses this question to encourage people to examine the consistency of their peace witness while filling out income tax forms.
In current military expenditures consumed 33 percent of federal appropriations, or 46 percent if the cost of past wars (interest on the national debt and veterans programs) is included, reports Delton Franz of Mennonite Central Committee Peace Section Washington Office.
During each Monthly Meeting (similar to an individual congregation) in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (similar to a conference body) was asked to examine this question:
Is the voluntary payment of war taxes consistent with the Quaker peace testimony?
When the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting convenes its annual session in , this question will be on the agenda.
Concern about “war taxes” is reaching beyond the traditional peace churches.
The United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church have adopted statements of support for members who conscientiously oppose payment of taxes for military purposes.
The United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. has initiated a churchwide study on war tax resistance.
While the religious community in the United States has moved toward greater support for conscientious objection to paying taxes for military purposes, the Internal Revenue Service has beefed up its efforts to penalize tax “protests” of all kinds.
An estimated 4,700 taxpayers were fined $500 each during for expressing their religious, moral or political views on their income tax forms.
Congress enacted this automatic $500 fine as a provision of the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of .
The Internal Revenue Service began enforcing the penalty soon after its passage by Congress.
At least 30 people, including those of Mennonite, Quaker, Catholic and other religious backgrounds, are challenging the constitutionality of this regulation in court.
Lawyers believe that the penalty violates freedom of speech and that the expression of religious convictions on income tax forms is not “frivolous.”
Courts are expected to issue summary judgments (decision made by a judge only, no jury) in a number of cases in the coming year.
Internal Revenue Service officials invited Mennonite representatives to meet with them in to discuss the application of the penalty for “frivolous” returns.
IRS officials told U.S. Peace Section staff that the penalty is a processing penalty, designed to protect the efficiency of processing millions of tax returns.
People who have filled their tax forms out correctly and have simply not paid the full amount of taxes owed are not subject to this penalty.
However, taking a “war tax” credit or deduction or writing other comments on the tax form itself can result in a penalty.
The IRS officials agreed that the World Peace Tax Fund bill would be a solution if it were enacted.
Abatement of the penalties already imposed is highly unlikely, but senators who helped formulate the legislation remain concerned about its application against Mennonites and Quakers in particular.
The Fellowship of Reconciliation group in North Manchester, Ind., has organized a Tax Resister’s Penalty Fund to ease the financial burden on conscientious tax resisters.
People can submit a request for financial assistance to cover interest and penalty charges resulting from not paying military tax.
If the request is approved, an appeal letter is sent to all people who have expressed interest in contributing to the fund.
In this way, the cost of a $500 penalty could be distributed among 200 people if each paid only $2.50.
In , 250 people were on the Tax Resister’s Penalty Fund mailing list.
In MCC U.S. Peace Section approved guidelines for a “War Tax Witness Relief Fund.”
This fund was established to provide financial assistance to people within the MCC constituency who face hardship from court cases resulting from a war tax witness.
People in financial straits because they contributed the military portion of their taxes to a charitable organization and then had to face an IRS levy, property seizure, or garnishment of wages would also be eligible for assistance.
To date, no money has been budgeted for the U.S. Peace Section War Tax Witness Relief Fund and the existence of the fund has not been publicized.
U.S. Peace Section, however, will consider aiding those who are unable to acquire assistance from their congregation or conference.
U.S. Peace Section continues to accept contributions of redirected telephone and federal income tax money to its “Taxes for Peace” fund.
Donations to this fund have supported special projects and the ongoing work of U.S. Peace Section.
“The payment of taxes in the service of our common life is a necessary and a good thing.
It is therefore unusual and inappropriate to refuse tax payment,” begins a declaration printed in several national daily newspapers in the Netherlands on and signed by 69 Amsterdam area ministers, including at least seven Mennonites.
The statement, pointing out the Dutch government’s agreement to place nuclear weapons in the Netherlands, goes on to say, “In this critical phase we consider tax objection as a necessary means of protest.
We wish tax monies no longer to be misused to continue along this dead-end road.”
The edition brought readers up to date on the story of John Dyck, a Canadian war tax resister whose story had been introduced :
Like the rest of us, John R. Dyck of Rosthern, Sask., files his tax return.
But unlike most of us, he sends Revenue Canada a check for only 90 percent of his unpaid taxes.
And he includes a letter informing the Canadian government that, for reasons of conscience, a check for the balance has been sent to the Peace Tax Fund in Victoria, B.C.
The second check represents the estimated portion of Canadian taxes designated for the military.
This is in that John and Paula Dyck quietly insisted on not having their taxes spent on bombs and guns.
They believe that Christian non-resistance means more than simply refusing to fight in a war.
It also means not paying others to arm and fight for you.
A small but growing number of Canadians are sending a portion of their taxes to be held in trust by the Peace Tax Fund.
They are hoping that the Canadian government will recognize their conscientious objection to military taxes and provide an alternative.
As a retired pensioner, Dyck must calculate the taxes he owes and forward that amount with his income tax return.
Every year he checks with Ernie Regehr at Project Ploughshares (a peace research group) on the exact percentage of Canada’s budget that goes to the Department of National Defense.
Last year it was 10.5 percent.
He subtracts the military percentage and encloses a letter informing Revenue Canada of his actions, his reasons and the number of his account at the Rosthern Credit Union.
“I tell them, ‘If you want it, take it.’ But I won’t send it myself.”
Consequences.
Last year Dyck found out the hard way what happens when the government wants to collect unpaid taxes.
He says he was prepared to accept the consequences of his actions, but not for the ruthless, impersonal way Revenue Canada operates.
One day the Credit Union manager showed him an official letter that had arrived that morning garnisheeing his account.
His personal notice of the action did not arrive until a week later.
And even though the credit union account held sufficient funds, a second bank account in Saskatoon was also garnisheed.
Then, without notice, his two pension checks stopped coming.
The government ended up with $360 more than was due and Dyck has not heard from them since.
Presumably his “credit” at Revenue Canada will be used to cover the taxes he won’t pay for .
When Dyck visited the Revenue Canada office in Saskatoon to ask why he had not received a notice about the diversion of his pension checks, he was treated rudely.
“The man used some pretty rough language.
He gave me the impression that he would walk over anyone to get the money.”
Although he can recall the money in the Peace Tax Fund trust account if he wishes, he would prefer to have that money used in a hoped-for court challenge, based on the new Canadian Charter of Rights.
“On principle, I don’t mind paying twice,” he says.
The Conscience Canada organization, an outgrowth of the Peace Tax Fund Committee, expects such a challenge to cost at least $50,000.
Dyck himself is not inclined to get involved in a court case.
He has had trouble finding a lawyer who is sympathetic.
Besides, “the court route should be taken by some organization that has enough money and can do it right.”
What is Caesar due?
John R. Dyck is not a man to get up on a soapbox and trumpet his cause.
But the word gets around.
There are Mennonites in his hometown who don’t agree with him and others who ignore him.
His pastor chooses his words carefully when talking about the subject.
“I don’t suppose he has a great deal of support in the church; people feel we should obey the government.”
Dyck is now 70 years old.
When asked why he has taken such a stand when others rest in quiet retirement, he begins to talk about a lifetime spent in church-related service, of the example of his parents, about the books he has read and the years spent overseas with Mennonite Central Committee in Paraguay, India, Korea and Jordan, where he observed the effect of Western militarism.
“They all left their mark on me.”
He is committed to a vigorous, active faith based on a personal experience of God’s salvation and presence.
John doesn’t mind if people disagree with his stand.
“I don’t have any corner on the truth.
I know what it is for me at this moment.
A person should stay true to one’s convictions.”
About his critics he adds, “People say, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
I know that.
I have no illusions that anyone in Ottawa is listening — at the moment.
It has to start small, and I want to support this movement.”
But aren’t we supposed to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s?
“Sure. But does Caesar deserve all he asks for?”
A letter to Revenue Canada from Annie Janzen of Victoria, B.C., indicated that she was joining John Dyck in his protest.
“I object on conscientious grounds to my taxes being used for war purposes…
I have sent 12.2 percent (of income tax owed to Revenue Canada) of the net federal tax payable to Conscience Canada.”
“Form 1040 is the place where the Pentagon enters all our lives and asks unthinking cooperation with the idol of nuclear destruction.
I think the teaching of Jesus tells us to render to a nuclear-armed Caesar what that Caesar deserves: tax resistance.”
These are the words of Seattle Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen (right), who two years ago decided to withhold half of his federal income tax and thereby helped launch a religious “war tax” resistance movement that is growing rapidly.
According to the Internal Revenue Service, war tax resistance has increased nearly fivefold in the last three years.
War tax resistance groups say that actual numbers are higher, that IRS tabulations miss many people, including those who simply don’t file or who don’t specify reasons for underpaying.
In the edition, Donald E. Martin wrote about “sponsoring” children from war-torn areas, and noted that doing so “helped to cut down the amount of money we spent on ourselves and the amount of taxes we paid toward paying for war.”
There were also several passing mentions of war tax resistance here and there that I didn’t think were worth excerpting here.
The heartening human rebellion against traffic ticket issuing robots continues.
In recent weeks, speed cameras have been disabled by human rebels in Canada, Italy, and France, yet more in England, Italy, France, Canada, and Belgium, and several more in France, where, in spite of the hundreds of speed cameras destroyed and the government’s warning that this would make the roads more dangerous, traffic fatalities have fallen during the rebellion.
A “men’s magazine” I’d never heard of before called MEL has published “The Case for an American Tax Strike” with the delightful subhead: “Nice oligarchy you’ve got there. Be a shame if we quit paying for it…”
The Democratic Republic of the Congo doesn’t make it into my news feed very often for other reasons, but the provinces of North and South Kivu seem to throw tax strikes every other week.
The tactic seems to be well-established there as a way for the people to regulate and check the political power of the government.
In the latest example, residents of the city of Kamituga met and decided to refuse to pay taxes until the government repairs the road that connects that city to the rest of the province.
They have been joined by Baraka and Fizi.
Latest estimates from the Cost of Wars project put the price tag of the War on Iraq to U.S. taxpayers at some $2,000,000,000,000 so far, “roughly $8,000 per U.S. taxpayer, representing 9 percent of the national debt.”
The Church of the Brethren stood firm and refused to honor an IRS levy filed against pastors Louise & Phil Rieman in , and the church’s Messenger magazine also brought news of war tax resisters from other denominations.
There were several passing references to war taxes in the early issues of Messenger, but it wasn’t until the issue that there was anything substantial.
That issue brought a brief update on Presbyterian war tax resister Maurice McCrackin (source):
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has publicly asked the forgiveness of an 81-year-old Cincinnati minister who was defrocked 26 years ago for his anti-war activism.
The Rev. Maurice F.
McCrackin, pastor of the non-denominational Community Church of Cincinnati, was deposed from the ministry by the Cincinnati Presbytery in after he refused to pay the portion of his income taxes that would have gone for military spending.
The denomination’s General Assembly in formally confessed error and endorsed an action to restore him to clergy status.
, more than $40,000 in tax-resistance fines has been covered by a network of people who contribute to a “Tax Resisters’ Penalty Fund (TRPF).[”] The fund, which aids those who refuse for conscientious reasons to pay taxes for war, issued its 11th appeal for funds in .
Founded in by Dave Leiter, then coordinator of the North Manchester Fellowship of Reconciliation, in Indiana, the TRPF provides financial and moral support to war-tax resisters, allowing those who do not directly resist war taxes to support those who do.
War-tax resisters resist funding militarism by refusing to pay all or a portion of their income taxes.
They are not tax evaders, says the TRPF committee, because they do not use withheld money for personal benefit.
Many channel the withheld taxes to organizations that work for peace and justice.
Using US federal budget figures, the committee says that 62 percent of income tax monies go to pay for current and past military expenses.
, the Internal Revenue Service has levied $500 in penalties on deductions it considers “frivolous,” including war-tax deductions.
Resisters submit requests for reimbursements of such charges to the Penalty Fund.
The TRPF does not pay the original tax burden — only penalties and interest.
Between two and four times annually, requests are evaluated and tabulated by a committee of eight people, and an appeal is sent to supporters of the fund.
The amount of the appeal is shared equally by supporters.
The 11 appeals issued have ranged from $1 to $15 per supporter.
The fund has about 570 supporters and has given more than $40,000 to more than 80 war-tax resisters, according to the committee.
The next appeal goes out .
The War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund is still in operation today and still operates much as described in the above article.
At the Annual Conference, the committee that had been set up to yet again study the war tax issue and make recommendations announced “that it was choosing not to write a new statement on the issue of conscientiously opposing paying taxes that go for military purposes.”
Instead, they recommended that Brethren go back and study the previous reports issued by previous committees, and heed the calls from previous conferences to seriously study the issue.
(source)
The Church of the Brethren stood firm against an IRS levy in , as reported in the issue:
The Internal Revenue Service has issued a tax levy on funds the General Board holds for Phil and Louise Rieman, co-pastors of the Ivester Church of the Brethren, Grundy Center, Iowa.
The action is a response to the Riemans’ tax withholding as a conscientious objection to paying taxes that are used for war.
The levy requires the General Board to take money held on their behalf from the Pastor’s Housing Fund and send it to the IRS.
If the board fails to do this, the IRS has declared its intention to levy the board’s bank accounts and take the amount plus a 50-percent penalty.
The Executive Committee voted not to send the required amount and to file a protest letter that supports the Riemans’ right to engage in tax resistance.
The committee also told the IRS that the Pastor’s Housing Fund is of such a nature that the government does not have the right to levy against it.
In , representatives from Brethren, Mennonite, and Quaker groups had come together for a three-day conference about war taxes, sponsored by a “New Call to Peacemaking.”
“People who express opposition to war need to consider conscientious objection to paying for it,” stated Chuck Boyer, General Board peace representative, after returning from a three-day discussion of war tax issues.
Thirty-six historic peace church members — Brethren, Mennonites, and Friends — including Boyer, and Julie Garber, of the Manchester Church of the Brethren, North Manchester, Ind., met to discuss issues surrounding withholding of war taxes.
Prior to that consultation, 18 leaders from the historic peace churches met to discuss how best to work together for peace.
It was the first meeting of the heads of the peace churches in more than 10 years.
The simple fact that the leaders met and got to know each other better was the highlight of the meeting, said Donald E. Miller, general secretary of the Church of the Brethren.
In addition to Miller, General Board executives Joan Deeter, Melanie May, and Roger Schrock; board chairwoman Anita Smith Buckwalter; and church historian Donald F. Durnbaugh represented the Brethren.
Both meetings were sponsored by New Call to Peacemaking, a cooperative peace church organization.
The war tax consultation focused on options and consequences for church agencies that refuse to withhold employees’ federal income taxes.
One Mennonite and two Quaker agencies already have policies of breaking the law by not withholding federal taxes of employees who oppose paying the military portion of their taxes.
The Church of the Brethren has not dealt directly with this issue, said Boyer, since no General Board employees have asked that their taxes not be withheld.
At the St. Louis Annual Conference, however, the larger issue of corporate civil disobedience will be discussed.
Of greater interest to the Brethren was lengthy discussion of the US Peace Tax Fund bill in Congress.
Consultation participants agreed to organize a group of leaders to visit Washington, D.C., to register concerns about tax withholding and to support the bill.
Boyer has begun organizing “Six-by-Six” clubs of Brethren to promote the bill.
Groups of six will visit their legislators in Washington or at local offices six times to promote the bill.…
The Peace Tax Fund bill would allow conscientious objectors to put the portion of their taxes that would support the military (presently about 53 percent) into a special fund to promote peaceful programs.
Conscientious objectors could then pay all their taxes without violating their consciences.
The issue reported on the policy the General Board of Friends United Meeting had adopted of refusing to withhold taxes from the paychecks of employees who were conscientious objectors to military taxation (source).
The issue followed by reporting on a similar action by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (of Friends), which decided “to withhold but not forward to the Internal Revenue Service the estimated military portion of its employees’ federal income taxes” (source).
The issue brought the news that the Church of the Brethren General Board’s Executive Committee “is studying whether the board can withhold the telephone excise tax as a protest against military expenditures” (source).
The issue reported that the Mennonite Church was jumping on the bandwagon too: “The General Board of the Mennonite Church has recommended that church agencies honor the requests of employees who wish to withhold payment of taxes used for military purposes” (source).
That issue also reported on the Brethren Revival Fellowship, which was trying to prod Brethren back in a more conservative direction (source).
It quoted their newsletter on the tax resistance issue:
“We believe that those who are loyal to Christ are bound by the biblical mandate to respect the government of the land in which they reside, and should pay their taxes when due.
What the government does with the money is no longer their responsibility.”
The IRS is still (improperly) threatening people with frivolous filing penalties if they send letters of protest along with their tax returns.
The new QR-codes that the IRS has started to include on past-due notices present a possible security issue for some tax resisters.
An appeals court affirmed that you cannot discharge federal tax debt in bankruptcy if you have willfully “attempted in any manner to evade or defeat” the tax.
Tax resistance is heating up in Myanmar in the wake of the military coup there.
The national legislature passed a law suspending tax collection and ordered government departments to stop collecting taxes, though the head of the central tax agency downplayed this.
There are also campaigns afoot to boycott lottery tickets, stop using sales tax stamps, and stop paying government monopoly utility bills.
Consumer pressure forced one restaurant chain to make a public statement that customers were welcome to refuse to pay sales tax in its restaurants.
You can learn more about the Extinction Rebellion U.K. project #MoneyRebellion in its latest newsletter.
Among its projects is Earth Tax Strike — a coordinated tax resistance campaign designed to pressure the government to enact more sensible environmental policies.
Here is an example of a letter the resisters will be sending to the government to explain their refusal and their demands.
The IRS continues to exceed its authority by assessing “frivolous filing penalties” against people who write them letters that protest how their tax dollars are spent — even if those letters aren’t “filings” at all, or are accompanied by filings that are accurate and complete and that don’t assert any “frivolous” positions.
This has understandably intimidated some people from petitioning their government for redress of grievances in this fashion.
Small loss though that may be, Ruth Benn urges us to not roll over too quickly: “if we want to make a statement about refusing to pay for war, hassles come with the territory and are actually the least of the risks that a resister could face.”
The U.S. government has been sending out stimulus payments as direct-deposits, as checks, or as debit cards.
It would do this even if the recipient was behind on their taxes and owed the goverment money: it did not deduct what you owed from the stimulus you received.
If the IRS couldn’t find you, though, or didn’t think you qualified for a payment, there was a backup option: you could apply for the stimulus on your tax return.
However if you did that, the IRS would treat it as any other deduction or credit, and offset it against the taxes you owed.
Which put people who had to use this backup at a disadvantage… or at least it did so until recently:
The IRS now says it will not offset such stimulus credits against federal tax debts.
The IRS, after insisting that it would stick with the April 15th tax filing deadline this year, finally threw in the towel and extended it to .
Part of what convinced them? They are still trying to finish up last year’s returns, and a growing backlog of taxpayer correspondence.
There were also some significant tax changes in the recently-signed stimulus bill (such as big changes to the child tax credit, and exemption of a large hunk of unemployment benefits from taxable income) that threw a wrench into things even as tax filing season was already officially underway.
