Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” →
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Linda Coffin
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
There was lots about war tax resistance in the Friends Journal in , including an active debate about the worth of the World Peace Tax Fund legislation.
In the issue Jill Penberthy shared how a “committee on clearness” organized by the Middlebury (Vermont) Friends Meeting helped her decide how to use an anticipated IRS levy as an outreach opportunity.
Excerpts:
…I struggled to figure out how to respond to an Internal Revenue Service computer’s $1,800 bill for taxes, penalties, and interest on my account withheld as a war tax protest.
I also remembered a tai chi class in which we were taught to yield with the aggressor, using his or her energy and our own creativity to change the process.
I was puzzled about how to use these concepts with the IRS.
The computer was not listening to my numerous letters explaining my position as a war tax resister.
I was unable to contact anyone within the IRS with whom I could share my witness.
I brought my quandary to Middlebury Friends Meeting in Vermont and asked for a committee on clearness.
We gathered at my home and in the silence were moved to initiate a Peace Witness Fund under the care of the meeting that would be transferred to a local bank for seizure by the IRS.
The process became one of grace among us and within the Middlebury community.
The committee asked to share the penalty and commitment to peace represented by the withheld taxes.
Quaker history bears witness to conscientious objection through tax resistance.
We struggled to move beyond resistance to “yielding and overcoming,” and this we did with the guidance of the Spirit.
Letters of purpose were sent to Friends and sympathetic supporters requesting acknowledgment of the commitment to peace and offering a share in the assessed penalty.
They were asked to send copies of the purpose to elected officials and the IRS, and to join us on the Green in the center of Middlebury for singing and dancing before depositing the Peace Witness Fund in the bank.
We announced the peace gathering in the local papers — “Everyone is welcome.”
At the gathering we distributed leaflets explaining our concern about the present military escalation and preparation for nuclear war.
Babies and siblings, parents and grandparents, and retired military men all joined hands on the Green in a dance of peace, recognizing the Light within each of us.
“We are all one planet, all one people on earth,” sang a myriad of voices.
During the silence that followed, a professor from France said, “There are people you don’t even know about who are supporting you.
Let that be your strength.”
Another witness said, “This isn’t happening in my home state.
I’ll take it home with me.”…
…Our group proceeded up the hill and into the local bank where tellers and customers witnessed our Peace Fund deposit.
A brief note in the same issue said that “[s]ignatures of war tax resisters are being collected by the War Tax Resistance National Ad Campaign for placement in newspaper ads in ” and gave an address for the campaign.
A second brief announcement read:
A Peace Tax Fund has been established by Friends United Meeting.
The FUM general board established an escrow account this past fall into which war tax resisters who belong to FUM may deposit taxes withheld from the government.
Should the IRS take action against the depositor, the money may be withdrawn later.
Income generated from the fund will be used to finance FUM peace and justice programs. For more information…
The issue brought news that the Palo Alto (California) Meeting had endorsed phone tax resistance: “In keeping with our Peace Testimony,” a minute from the Meeting read, “Friends are encouraged to refuse payment of taxes which would otherwise be used primarily for killing and war preparation.”
The Meeting suggested redirecting resisted taxes to an alternative fund set up by the Pacific Yearly Meeting in .
At the Friends World Committee for Consultation meeting in , the group formed a new committee: “Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns.”
According to a Journal article on the meeting:
Sponsorship of the FCWTC followed two broad-based consultations the FWCC initiated in on questions of conscience raised by the use of Friends’ taxes for war and war preparations.
Drawing upon decades of experience with conscientious objection to conscription, representatives of all Quaker organizations formed the FCWTC to prepare a series of papers for discussion and to organize regional conferences and a conference for Quaker employers on the complex issues involved.
A later issue mentioned Wallace T. Collett as the new Committee’s clerk and Linda Coffin as “staff.”
It reported:
The FCWTC initially is focusing on three areas of work.
The first will be publication of educational materials, with the hope of reaching a broader understanding among Friends of the concern about war taxes.
The pamphlets will cover such topics as the biblical guidance for war tax refusal; Quaker history and recent Quaker statements on war tax concerns; recent experiences of individual Friends; positions of other churches and Christian denominations on the payment of war taxes; legal issues, IRS codes, and alternatives for those with war tax concerns; spiritual and rational bases for war tax concerns; possible legislative remedies for conscientious objectors; and a general annotated bibliography.
The second area is consultative services to Quaker employers who are involved in the issue through the actions of their employees and through their own role in the collection of taxes.
A conference for Quaker employers is being planned for or .
The third area is facilitating consultation and study throughout the Society of Friends through a series of regional conferences.
The first of these conferences, “Paying for War; Paying for Peace,” was held in Washington D.C., , under FWCC auspices.
The FCWTC also hopes to develop informal ties with other groups working on the issue of conscience and war taxes, including both those of other denominations and those outside the United States.
Barbara Harrison mentioned in a letter-to-the-editor in the issue that as her husband has an income that “meets most of our needs (wants, though, are beyond us), and as I wish to limit the amount of money we pay in taxes that goes for military expenses, I avoid most paid employment” and that this has freed up her time to volunteer to help at a local elementary school.
The issue brought an update on Karl Meyer’s “cabbage patch resistance” technique:
The Internal Revenue Service seized a trailer and a station wagon from Karl Meyer of Chicago during the night of .
Early two IRS officers came to his door and served him with a levy for $20,160 in frivolous tax return penalties and a “Notice of Seizure” for the vehicles they had already removed.
In , Karl Meyer, a long-time peace activist and pacifist, filed a daily protest tax return to the IRS — 365 in all.
On the day after the seizure, about 30 supporters joined him in a protest demonstration at the Chicago IRS office.
Meanwhile, he has been taking public transportation to his work as a carpenter.
The same issue also mentioned a sort of round-about form of tax resistance being pursued by Lucy & Sheldon Clark and Dorothy & Edward Snyder, Quakers from Baltimore, who were filing a lawsuit against the government for the return of that portion of their taxes that they believed had been spent on illegal acts of military aggression in Central America.
The issue noted that the suit was dismissed.
That issue also mentioned a seminar on war tax resistance would be among those offered at “The Rise of Christian Conscience, a national conference of Christian nonviolence and civil disobedience sponsored by Sojourners Peace Ministry.”
It also noted a quarterly newsletter from a General Conference Mennonite Church-associated group called “God and Caesar” concerning conscientious objection to military taxes.
The Lake Erie Yearly Meeting in approved a minute that “suggested that Friends General Conference set up a fund for Friends who wish to withhold the military portion of their taxes.”
an ad from the issue of Friends Journal
In a weekend retreat was planned in Voluntown, Connecticut to discuss “the Philosophy of War Tax Resistance”.
Bob Bady appears to have been an (the?) organizer.
The issue noted that NWTRCC had published some brochures on topics like “Your Taxes Pay for the War in Central America,” “Your Taxes Pay for the Nuclear Arms Race,” and “Your Telephone Tax Pays for War” as well as “a Telephone War Tax Resistance Poster Kit.”
The issue noted that the IRS had seized an alternative fund from a Meeting to collect a tax debt:
Four IRS agents seized Craig MacDonald’s pickup truck on in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., in lieu of his federal income taxes.
Craig MacDonald, a member of Purchase (N.Y.) Meeting, attends Cornwall (N.Y.) Meeting, where he is clerk of the Peace Committee.
The IRS had ordered Craig to pay $1,440.85, which includes interest and penalty charges.
The original amount of taxes owed, $1,159.90, was put into the Stamford-Greenwich Friends Meeting Peace Tax Fund.
The IRS seized this money in addition to the truck.
The IRS explained in a letter that it did not know about the account until after seizure of the truck.
Neither truck nor money has been returned to Craig.
To pay the additional IRS charges, Cornwall Meeting has set up a fund for suffering for Craig.
The same issue noted that the Quaker Council for European Affairs had published a second edition of its pamphlet, Paying for Peace containing “facts for Friends concerned about conscientious objection to military taxation,” and that Conscience Canada had published a booklet called The First Freedom: Freedom of Conscience and Religion in Canada to promote the Maple Leaf State’s version of the peace tax fund proposal.
The “Peace Tax Fund” Debate
In the issue was an article by Christopher Hodgkin entitled “Second Thoughts on the World Peace Tax Fund.”
Excerpts:
The World Peace Tax Fund ranks almost as a motherhood-and-apple pie issue for Friends.… [It] now offers a legal basis for conscientious objection to taxation along with the chance to support a national, tax-supported peace fund.
Indeed, a multitude of pacifist organizations have endorsed the fund, including such Friends organizations as the American Friends Service Committee, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Friends United Meeting, Friends General Conference, and various monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings.
Such heavyweight support is impressive.
It is also, however, a nagging cause for concern.
Quakers have historically, and with good reason, been religious “contrarians.”
Often the proposals with the widest support need the closest scrutiny.
Truth most often comes on tiptoe and alone.
Is there something in this well-regarded and well-supported measure that needs to be more carefully examined?
[Proponents argue that] Conscientious objection to conscription of the body is recognized; why shouldn’t conscientious objection to conscription of the dollar be recognized equally?
Unfortunately, they are not parallel for two principal reasons.
First, one’s person and one’s dollars are not the same thing.
One’s person is a creation of God; one’s dollars are a creation of the state.
Jesus dealt with the different responsibilities for the two quite succinctly; I do not need to add to his teaching.
Second, military conscription and taxation have completely different scopes.
The draft is a single-purpose instrument.
It conscripts U.S. men for military duty.
It has no other dimension.
It is relatively simple to say that one accepts or rejects military service, and therefore accepts or rejects conscription.…
The income tax, on the other hand, is a multipurpose vehicle that supports the entire range of programs and activities of our government.…
Assume for a moment that our government conscripted people, as it conscripts dollars, to perform the complete range of government activities.
Does anyone doubt that the equivalent of C.O. status would be granted to, say, Catholics to exempt them from performing Medicare abortions?
If we conscripted people to teach the theory of evolution as truth in our schools, does anyone doubt that fundamentalist Christians would become conscientious objectors to that service?
If we conscripted people to perform death sentence executions, would all citizens perform such duty, or would some seek exemption?
Conscientious objection to war is the only conscientious objection currently sanctioned by our government not because there is something special about war resisters but because military service is the only bodily conscription now sanctioned by the government.
He later extends this point into the familiar slippery-slope argument in which if conscientious objectors to military taxes are granted a legal exemption from paying such taxes, the government would be acting inconsistently if it did not offer similar exemptions to people who have conscientious objections to other aspects of government spending.
[The promoters’ statement that war taxes mean “conscientious objectors must either violate their beliefs or violate the law”] is, of course, not true.
A number of individuals who object to paying taxes for war arrange their incomes and live so that they are not subject to taxation and therefore pay no taxes for war.
No law is violated.
What this argument really says is that conscientious objectors who are unwilling to undergo economic discomfort in support of their beliefs must either violate their beliefs or violate the law.
These objectors would not be likely to impress those early (and not so early) Friends who over the years have suffered a great deal more than economic discomfort in their commitment to Truth.
The simple fact is that any person who objects to paying taxes for war can legally avoid paying them.
What they may not be able to do is avoid paying taxes for war without making some sacrifices.
It is not the exercise of conscience that is at stake, but convenience.
Are Friends ready to endorse a major change in national policy and in the principles of shared representative government to support those whose principles may be less important to them than their comfort?
Those who would ask for the crown without the cross?
Perhaps the greatest irony in this issue is that the bill diverts attention from the real issue of peacemaking.
The World Peace Tax Fund bill is a special interest bill for a special interest minority.
If we truly believe in the need for a national peace effort — and I believe that many individuals who are not conscientious objectors recognize the urgent need for serious new approaches to peacemaking — we should be supporting legislation to add a serious commitment to peacemaking to the budget, legislation supported by all taxpayers, not just conscientious objectors.
Many U.S. citizens not yet ready to reject all defense spending are desperately afraid of nuclear war and would strongly support an active national peacemaking program.
But the World Peace Tax Fund allows no role to such individuals.
It demands that its supporters renounce all military spending at whatever level as a condition for participating in a tax-supported peace effort.
This exclusionary approach reduces the funds and personal commitments that could be available to a nationally supported peace program.
The World Peace Tax Fund claims to protect conscientious objectors to war from having their dollars conscripted for military purposes.
But that right already exists.
This proposal does not create the right; it makes its exercise painless.
The World Peace Tax Fund seeks special privileges for one religious minority that will inevitably lead to special privileges for a multitude of other religious minorities, quite possibly doing serious damage to programs that the fund’s supporters consider most important.
The World Peace Tax Fund seeks to provide taxpayer support for a national peacemaking effort, but ironically the approach taken may actually reduce the funds that could be made available if such an effort were undertaken as a normal part of our national budget.
As you might expect, this led to some debate in subsequent issues:
Brandt Chamberlain thought that Hodgkin’s slippery slope didn’t have anything very frightening at the end of it: “Laws permitting the diversion of tax dollars from programs felt to be morally objectionable could meet the demands of individual conscience while increasing our democratic influence on setting government priorities.”
He also is skeptical that resisting taxes by lowering income is such a great idea, as “economic disengagement in this manner could limit us in our efforts to help define and meet the material needs of our society.”
Wallace T. Collett wrote in to say that he is on the whole supportive of the federal income tax system as “the most equitable way to raise the funds needed for necessary government services,” and regrets that an overwhelming conscientious imperative forces him to noncooperate with it.
“But… we cannot separate the collection process from the use of the funds that are collected… military policies that lead toward the death of all life on earth.”
He hoped that once “a million” Americans either refused to pay war taxes or chose to pay into the World Peace Tax Fund, “then the dominance of the military on our nation’s policies will be overcome and our country and the world will be set on a new course.”
Robert Hull, then chairperson of the National Campaign for a World Peace Tax Fund, also wrote in.
He disagreed with Hodgkin’s scriptural interpretation of money as being a creature of the State, and therefore the State’s to do with as it will.
Conscripting a person’s money is tantamount to conscripting the time they took to earn that money.
When such large proportions of the exchange value of one’s labor (i.e., money) is confiscated through the federal treasury for military purposes, I believe there is a strong case for speaking of “military conscription.”
And if “military conscription” is operating, then conscientious objection is appropriate.
In our technological age, the young few have at times been conscripted for military duty; the many older are continually being conscripted through their labor.
Hull also had no fear of Hodgkin’s slippery slope.
…Hodgkin’s fear [is] that if we are allowed to divert our taxes away from military expenditures, the floodgates will open to every group with a conscientious dissent.
So be it!
Let each of them go to Congress and make their case, as we are doing.
We trust our representatives to sort out the true grievance of conscience from the false greed of opportunism.
Alan Eccleston defended the World Peace Tax Fund bill this way (excerpts):
…[A]t either a symbolic or substantial level, we can refuse voluntary compliance with a tax system that has God’s priorities turned upside down.
The institutional wheels of government start grinding and, in time, the IRS will collect the money withheld plus interest and penalties.
What has been accomplished?
Is this just an act of self-righteousness?
Has the world changed?
Yes, it has changed!
I know this experientially.
Praying for peace is powerful in itself.
When the prayer is made manifest in one’s daily life its power multiplies.
There are many ways for the manifestation to be expressed, and each of us must listen to our inner guide for direction.
Those of us who, through love, are led to say no to war taxes announce we trust God, not armaments, for our security.
In addition to creating a new ethical choice for most of the adult population, the World Peace Tax Fund bill establishes a separate trust fund that will disburse over one billion dollars a year for programs of health, education, and welfare.
I know of no other peace initiative that has this potential.
James B. Eblin wrote that the option of lowering his income below the tax line was not available to him as “I am morally and legally obliged to support my children.”
He therefore sees the World Peace Tax Fund as his only possible relief.
Lissa Field also criticized Hodgkin’s stark distinction between conscription of bodies and taxation of earnings.
“[W]e are responsible for both… as my taxes pay for the destruction of other humans and that of God within them, I am responsible for responding on the level of God’s rules, not Caesar’s.” She also, as someone who had faced a $5,000 fine for her resistance, found “particularly tedious” Hodgkin’s casting of tax resisters as unwilling to sacrifice.
Joe Marinello also thought that since income is the fruit of his labor, his person is very much wrapped up in his income, and so Hodgkin’s distinction does not hold.
“My labor (directly represented by my earned income) is the fruit of my being in this world.
I will not let my actions, my labors, be used to create weapons of mass destruction.
Nor will I allow my labor to be used by others to kill our neighbors.”
And he reminded Hodgkin of the sorts of sacrifices above-the-line resisters have to make so “that the government does not steal my labor.
I am self-employed, have no savings accounts, no property in my name, and I give away most of my income.
I have no desire to go to jail, but I will go to jail before I willingly pay any war taxes.”
Linda Coffin prefers the World Peace Tax Fund to living below a taxable income because the latter “would be shirking our responsibility to support the life-affirming programs of our government.
I could not take that option because it would mean ceasing my support for public schools, federal programs for the poor, health assistance programs, U.S. contributions to the United Nations and international aid agencies, and so on.”
In contrast, “The Peace Tax Fund bill… uniquely demonstrates the depth and sincerity of our concern for the moral use of our tax dollars.”
Ira Byock felt that conscientious objection wasn’t really what the World Peace Tax Fund was about.
“The real value of the Peace Tax Fund — like so much of what we do in peace work — lies in its symbolism, in its potential for heightening general public awareness of the percentage of our tax money spent on the military.
We bear witness to the morally objectionable so that others may pause to notice.”
That said, “the issue of conscience remains real.
To write one’s elected representatives, contribute to peace campaigns and organizations, take part in public peace activities, and then send in money for guns, subs, missiles, and bombs is inconsistent.”
And this is true even for people not willing to live below the tax line.
Anne Friend agreed with Hodgkin in his opposition to the World Peace Tax Fund.
Weirdly, though she was most persuaded by Hodgkin’s argument “that having a witness made easy dilutes its power and will probably deflect it from its ultimate goal,” she didn’t see this as a call for her to make a difficult witness instead, but rather to wait and meanwhile do nothing: “I am not yet ready to refuse the military portion of my income taxes.
But when that becomes an option [?], I expect the action required of me will be noncooperation, even if special status is available.”
Historical Notes
Margaret Hope Bacon penned an article on “Effective Peacemaking” in the issue that discussed the history of war tax resistance in the Society of Friends:
[T]he Quaker testimony against paying war taxes began with a few individuals who felt an opening and a “stop in my mind.”
Theirs was an even more difficult path than that of C.O.s, for the Society itself was not always behind them.
Friends have always refused to pay purely military tithes, but when the taxes are “in the mixture,” that is, war taxes and civilian taxes mixed together, or when the tax is not publicly stated as being for war, they have urged members to pay.
In , London Yearly Meeting disciplined a woman member who was advocating that Friends refuse to pay a new tax that she thought was clearly for war purposes.
She was told that for the past 1600 years Christians have always paid their taxes.
In this case the individual was trying to respond to the dictates of conscience (religion) while the group was concerned to prevent further persecution (politics).
This uneasy balance continued for years, until today, at last, monthly and yearly meetings are beginning to give more support to tax objectors, and some believe we will eventually have legal provision for the conscientious objection for our tax dollars as well as ourselves — a political result of a religious impulse.
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
The third of Friends Journal’s special issues on war tax resistance came in , and the topic came up in several other issues besides.
An article by Mary Bye in the issue showed how the arguments for war tax resistance were starting to break the bounds of the tax arena and take hold elsewhere.
Excerpts:
In a letter from the collection department of Philadelphia Electric Company demanded payment for a backlog of refused rate hikes.
I had withheld the 13.7 percent imposed to cover the construction costs of the Salem and Limerick nuclear reactors.
Why did I take this stand?
Looking back over the years for the source of my action, I could see it springing from a long-time insistence upon justice, a small but growing willingness to risk, a perennial sense of grief for suffering, and a blossoming love of the Earth.
These are the qualities of the spirit which began to unfold into action during the early days of the Vietnam War.
Somewhere along the line, I refused to pay the war tax portion of my federal income tax.
Later the Vietnam War ground to a halt when legislation ended financial support for it.
Was it just a coincidence that our war tax resistance preceded this legislation?
Or did citizens modeling the denial of monies not only support the growing disaffection with the war, but also provide a clue to a way to end it?
We had perhaps unwittingly slipped into an old Christian strategy of living as if the Kingdom were here now, and, behold, it manifested a brave, new world, or at least the beginning of one.
War tax resistance seemed an appropriate base upon which to build a new witness of caring for the whole Earth.…
…With crystalline clarity I selected my own utility, Philadelphia Electric, and refused the rate hike for Salem and Limerick.
After 1½ years of refusal, accompanied by monthly explanations, I received a warning letter from the collection department, threatening an end of service.
The initial fright yielded to a decision to continue resisting and move as swiftly as possible to establish my independence from nuclear power forever.
I faced a new, expensive, complicated simplicity: photovoltaic cells, which produce electrical current when exposed to light, and which could free me from bondage not only to nuclear generators but also fossil fuel-fired reactors.
As war tax resistance led me to a lower income, so rate hike refusal was pointing the way to lower energy demands.
My living standard may drop, but the quality of my life soars.
Meanwhile I have discovered that Philadelphia Electric is experimenting with photovoltaics in anticipation of the coming solar age.
If the price is right, I could purchase them there.
After all, nuclear power is the enemy, not the electric company.
This is the vision, but it is a dream deferred or rather only partially realized.
Philadelphia Electric Company and Solarex, which manufactures photovoltaic cells, want to establish a demonstration project at my home that would provide between one-fourth and one-third of the daily demand here for electricity.
The stumbling block is the cost, which would possibly necessitate a 35-year pay-back period.
So I am circling the photovoltaic issue in a holding pattern like a plane above an airport.
I am searching for answers to hard questions: such as what is the equitable balance between the cost of photovoltaics and the wattage generated?
What is a reasonable payback time?
If the cost is rock bottom right now, how do we gather funds?
How do we secure state and government support?
Are churches and meetinghouses able to model this kind of caring for God’s creation?
How do we dream this dream into reality?
I would welcome your suggestions.
an ad in the issue of Friends Journal
That issue also announced a “Conference for Quaker, Mennonite, and Brethren employers, airing ways to deal with war tax resistance by employees.
Sponsored by Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns and New Call to Peacemaking.”
That conference was covered in the issue in an article by Paul Schrag.
Excerpts:
The question of how church organizations can help their employees follow their consciences — and how to deal with the risks involved for both employees and employers — were the issues that 36 Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers struggled with at the meeting.
The church leaders, organizational representatives and lawyers affirmed their support for individual military tax resisters and for efforts to seek a legislative solution by working toward passage of the U.S. Peace Tax Fund bill in Congress.
They agreed to organize a peace church leadership group to go to Washington, D.C., to support the peace tax bill and to express concerns about tax withholding.
They also agreed to help each other by filing friend-of-the-court briefs if tax resisters are prosecuted and by sharing the cost of tax resistance penalties, if necessary.
People from churches that refuse to withhold federal taxes for employees who oppose paying military taxes shared their experiences with people from churches considering adopting such a policy.
The General Conference Mennonite Church and two Quaker groups are in the first category.
The Mennonite Church is in the second.
The meeting, held at Quaker Hill Conference Center, took place in an atmosphere of excitement generated by a gathering of people from different traditions who share a vision.
One conference participant said it was frustrating that many members of historic peace churches are unwilling to witness against financial participation in preparing for war, although they are opposed to physical participation in war.
Some said it was disappointing that so many people are unwilling to follow their consciences until the government, through the Peace Tax Fund, might allow them to do so legally.
One quoted Gandhi: “We have stooped so low that we fancy it our duty to do whatever the law requires.”
When a church or organization decides to honor employees’ requests not to withhold their federal income tax, it assumes serious risks.
Theoretically, a person in a responsible position who willfully fails to withhold an employee’s taxes can be punished with a prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.
An organization can be fined $500,000.
But such penalties have never been imposed on legitimate religious organizations, nor are they likely to be, said two lawyers at the meeting.
The usual Internal Revenue Service response to war tax resistance is to take the amount of tax owed, plus a 5 percent penalty and interest, from the employee’s bank account.
However, the IRS has not taken even this action against General Conference Mennonite Church employees who are not having their taxes withheld.
They pay the nonmilitary portion of their taxes themselves and deposit the 53 percent that would have gone to the military in a designated account.
The IRS has not touched that account after church delegates approved the policy in .
All church personnel who could be subject to penalties have agreed to accept the risk.
Friends World Committee for Consultation, which has had a nonwithholding policy , has had tax money seized, plus interest and penalties, from its resisters’ bank accounts.
Friends United Meeting adopted a non withholding policy .
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends is considering such a policy.
A representative of the Church of the Brethren said he would use input from the meeting to work toward developing a denominational policy on tax resistance.
Lobbying continues for the Peace Tax Fund bill…
The bill would allow people opposed to war taxes to put the portion normally given to the military in a separate fund for peaceful purposes.
The rest of that person’s tax money also would be designated for nonmilitary use…
Whether or not military tax resistance is effective, participants agreed that people’s moral imperative to follow their consciences must be respected.
“No conscientious objector ever stopped a conflict,” said William Strong, a Quaker representative [and treasurer of the Friends Journal Board of Directors].
“But they had to explain what they did, and the vision was kept alive, and those ripples, you don’t know where they stop.”
A postscript noted: “ ‘A Manual on Military Tax Withholding for Religious Employers,’ written by Robert Hull, Linda Coffin, Peter Goldberger, and J.E. McNeil, will be available .”
from the cover to the issue of Friends Journal
The issue was the third special issue on war taxes from the Friends Journal.
It was prompted in part by the fact that the Journal itself had received IRS levies on the salary of its editor, Vinton Deming, who had been refusing to pay income tax .
The Treasurer of the Journal, William D. Strong, explained what was going on in the lead editorial:
The Friends Journal Board of Managers has twice been unable to honor the levy against the wages of our editor, Vint Deming, for unpaid federal taxes.
In our most recent reply to the Internal Revenue Service we stated that:
It is not possible for us as a board to separate our faith and our practice: we must live out our faith.
Our earlier letter… refers to our 300-year-old Peace Testimony.
To more fully describe that part of our beliefs we enclose copies of two sections of Faith and Practice, the book of spiritual discipline of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
[“The Peace Testimony” and “The Individual and the State,” pp. 34–38, were shared.]
Our position of noncompliance to the requests of the Internal Revenue Service is not an easy one.
We do not question the laws of the land lightly, but do so under the weight of a genuine religious and moral concern.
We know as well that other religious groups — Mennonites, Brethren, and others — are facing this same difficult dilemma.
For this reason, many of us support the proposed Peace Tax Fund bill in Congress.
The board agreed at our meeting in to make known this continuing witness, both individual and corporate, to you, our readers.
The dilemma is clearly not the Journal’s alone.
Many Quaker institutions in the United States, Canada, and England have faced this challenge.
Beyond the historic peace churches are Catholics, Methodists, and others who are considering the whole question of taxes and militarism.
In February representatives of some 70 institutions came together at the Quaker Hill Conference Center in Richmond, Indiana, for a New Call to Peacemaking consultation on “Employers and War Taxes.”
This followed a Quaker conference at Pendle Hill considering the same concern.
The Journal board has worked at and reached unity in this matter.
We will continue to seek the light in the months and years ahead.
For now, however, we would welcome the support and reactions of our subscribers and readers.
If you’d like to share in this witness with your moral support, let us know.
If you’d like to add practical support, we would welcome it, as we are establishing a Conscience Fund.
We don’t plan extensive legal undertakings at this time, but we know that there can readily be some fees and costs ahead, as well as possible penalties resulting from our refusal to honor the levies from the IRS.
We look forward to the response of our readers. We feel that we cannot host writings in the issues of the Journal on peace and justice, on our testimonies and faith and practice, without, as an employer, living them out to the best of our God-given abilities.
Another article in the special issue was an extract from J. William Frost’s Tax Court testimony in the Deming case, in which he explained the Quaker war tax resistance practice:
The peace testimony has been a basic part of Quaker religious belief .
The testimony has not been static; it has evolved over time as Friends thought out the implications of what it meant to be a bringer of peace.
Some of the most creative actions of members of the Society of Friends have come from the peace testimony.
For example, Friends’ primary contribution to world history is that they began and carried through the antislavery testimony.
Friends became antislavery advocates in , when they realized that the only way one could obtain a black slave was to take him or her captive in war.
Pennsylvania was founded by William Penn for religious liberty.
Penn believed, and so did the early settlers, that to create a Quaker colony meant there would be no militia, no war taxes and no oaths.
These were conceived to be part of religious freedom, and in the early years of Pennsylvania, there was no militia, and there were no war taxes and no oaths.
At first, the Pennsylvania Assembly refused to levy any taxes for the direct carrying on of war.
Instead, after when the British government requested money because it was already beginning its long series of wars with France, the Crown and the Pennsylvania Assembly worked out a series of arrangements.
Those arrangements provided that the Assembly (then composed primarily of Quakers) would provide money for the king’s use or the queen’s use, but the laws also stipulated that that money would not be directly used for military purposes; i.e., there would be almost a noncombat status for Quaker money.
It could be used to provide foodstuffs to be used to feed the Indians, or it could purchase grain or relieve sufferings.
It would not be used to provide guns and gunpowder.
This policy of no direct war taxes, no militia, and no oaths, was followed in Pennsylvania .
In , a group of members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting began the debate on whether Quakers should pay taxes in time of war.
At this time, some of the most devout Quakers refused to pay a war tax levied by the Pennsylvania Assembly.
And finally the yearly meeting agreed that those whose consciences would not allow them to pay the taxes, should not.
So the heritage of Pennsylvania was that government accommodated the religion.
The Federal Constitution allows for an affirmation, because certain religious rights are antecedent to the establishment of the government, and the government can and will accommodate itself to religious scruples of those people who are conscientious good citizens.
there was less opportunity for tax resistance because there was no direct federal taxation.
The federal government was financed by tariffs, and the tariffs were used to carry out the full operations of government.
(The major exception came during the Civil War, and here the main issues were military service and Quakers’ refusal to pay a substitution tax.)
The main Quaker response to World War Ⅰ was the creation of the American Friends Service Committee.
This organization was designed to allow those young men who did not wish to fight (conscientious objectors) to have an opportunity for constructive service (i.e., to provide relief and reconstruction in the war zone).
Friends conducted relief activities in France, and then later in Germany, Serbia, Poland, and in Russia.
The War Department accommodated itself to Friends.
There was no specific provision in the draft law in World War Ⅰ for conscientious objectors.
The War Department allowed those Friends who wished to serve in the American Friends Service Committee to be furloughed so that they could go abroad to participate in relief activities.
A second way in which the authorities accommodated Friends at that time was in relief money raised by the Red Cross for Bonds.
Much of the Red Cross effort was for military hospitals, and Friends did not wish to support that effort.
Therefore in Philadelphia an agreement was worked out whereby Friends contributed money or bonds which would be earmarked for the American Friends Service Committee or for relief activity rather than for direct war activity.
There were instances in World War Ⅱ of individual Friends refusing to pay war taxes, and the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting officially protested against certain war taxes, but the main movement against war taxes has occurred .
During the Cold War and particularly during Vietnam, war tax resistance has become a major theme in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, , has regularly put a discussion of war taxes on its agenda.
In many ways the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting position on war taxes is like its position was on antislavery before the Civil War: before , virtually all Friends opposed slavery.
, virtually all Friends oppose military taxation.
The difficulty in and in is that Friends are searching for a way to make their religious witness effective.
What Friends want to do is somehow change the focus of a policy which they see as destructive of what is basic to their value system.
In summary, the position of Friends is that religious freedoms preceded and are incorporated into the federal government.
Pennsylvania was founded for religious freedom, and religious freedom meant no taxes for war, no militia service, and the right of affirmation.
Friends think that the federal government incorporated part of that understanding in the affirmation clause in the constitution, in the first amendment, and in the religion clauses in the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Friends think that the government has in good faith tried to accommodate us in our position on military service, and what Friends are wanting from the government now is a like accommodation on a subject which is the same to us as conscientious objection: the paying of taxes which will be used to create weapons to threaten and to kill.
Deming represented himself next, in an article describing his “journey toward war tax resistance.”
Excerpts:
During a difficult moment [in the discussion over the Philadelpha Yearly Meeting’s response to the Vietnam War] a young Friend stood and spoke with deep emotion; and his words went straight to my heart.
It didn’t matter, he said, what older Friends might say in support of him and his generation (though support was needed and appreciated, for sure); what really mattered to him was that Friends look personally at their own lives to see how they were connected to warmaking.
If they were too old to be drafted (and most of us were) perhaps they could find other ways to resist the war.
About 20 years have gone by and I don’t even remember the name of the young Friend who spoke in meeting that day, but his words had a profound impact on me.
As a result of his ministry I decided to begin to seek ways to resist the payment of taxes for warmaking (what another Friend, Colin Bell, would term the “drafting of our tax dollars” for the military).
I should say that there was another motivating force at work on me as well.
My work for Friends in the city of Chester was bringing me into daily contact with poor and black people.
I was learning firsthand about a community — a microcosm of other urban areas across the country — that suffered the debilitating effects of chronic poverty, high unemployment, deteriorating housing, inadequate health care, and inferior public schools.
I was witnessing the insufficient funding of a so-called War on Poverty in Chester while millions of dollars and human lives were being expended in a war against other poor people in Southeast Asia.
I knew I had to do something to end my personal complicity in helping to pay for the war and to redirect these dollars to wage a more life-affirming battle against poverty and injustice here at home.
I soon discovered that it is hard to become a tax resister; there are so many basic assumptions about money and taxes that we have learned.
We are expected to do certain things in our society: when we work, we must pay taxes — this pretty much goes without question.
How else will programs get funded and bills get paid?
And those who don’t pay, well… there’s an institution called the IRS that takes care of such people and will make them pay!
There are so many good reasons for not resisting taxes.
Some of the ones I wrestled with are these:
I can’t get away with it.
IRS will eventually get the money from me anyway and I’ll just end up paying more in the end.
It won’t do any good.
The government is too powerful and they’ll not change their policies because of my symbolic act.
There are better ways to work for peace (i.e. writing letters to Congress, going to demonstrations, etc.)
There will never be a substantial number who will be tax resisters — it’s simply not realistic.
Well, there’s truth in all of these statements, but I had to start anyway.
Not to do so had simply become an even bigger problem for me.
So I began looking at the question of taxes for war and decided to start where I could, with the telephone tax.
I learned that the federal tax on my personal phone had been increased specifically to help pay for the war.
In talking with others who were refusing to pay this portion of their phone bills I learned that the risk was fairly small.
No one I knew about had gone to jail or suffered any severe penalties (beyond having some money taken from a bank account or such).
So my wife and I began to withhold these few dollars each month and include a note to the telephone company explaining our reasons.
This became an educational experience for me.
I started to get used to receiving the impersonal letters from the phone company and later from IRS, and I even came to enjoy the process of writing my own letters in response — I felt good about not paying.
In I began to feel more confident.
The IRS had not locked me up, or even taken any money from me, as I recall, so I gathered my courage and decided to take the next step — to resist paying a portion of my income taxes.
At first I included a letter with my tax form in April and tried to claim a “war tax deduction” and request a return of some of the money withheld from my salary but with no success.
The IRS computers were not impressed with my effort, and they routinely informed me that the tax code did not provide for such a claim.
So I came to a decision: it would be better to have IRS asking me for the money each year rather than my asking IRS.
So beginning in I began to seek ways to reduce the amount withheld from my regular paychecks.
Though some tax resisters at accomplished this by claiming all the world’s children as their dependents (or all the Vietnamese children), I decided to reduce the amount withheld by claiming extra allowances (which were authorized for anticipated medical expenses, etc.) and thus reduce the amount withheld.
Beginning in , when I started to work part-time at Friends Journal, and continuing until , I claimed enough allowances on my W-4 so that no money was withheld from my pay.
For several years as a single parent raising a young child, I lived very modestly, working just part-time and sharing living expenses in a communal house.
During those years I actually got money back from the government when I had paid nothing.
Since , however, after I remarried (and later had two more children) I started to owe money to IRS each year.
So each year at tax time I would write a personal letter to the president to be sent with a copy of my tax form (not completely filled out, usually just with my name and address) explaining why I could not in good conscience pay any taxes until our nation’s priorities changed from warmaking to peacemaking.
I would usually send copies of my letters as well to IRS, my representative in Congress, and friends.
Occasionally I would receive thoughtful responses, once from Congressman William Gray from my district, who is one of the sponsors of Peace Tax Fund legislation in Washington.
After a few years of this, IRS began to make some ominous threats and noises, followed by the first serious efforts to collect back taxes from me.
I should say that I redirected some of the unpaid taxes to peace organizations and poor people’s groups, some into an alternative tax fund, some into a credit union account to earn interest — and some was spent.
On two occasions — once in , again in — I went to tax court.
Each court appearance provided an opportunity to explain my witness more clearly, and to meet others in the community who were tax resisters or who wanted to be supportive.
My first day in court was in Raleigh, North Carolina, and was particularly meaningful.
About 30 of my friends went with me to lend support.
A local peace group baked apple pies and served small slices to people entering the courthouse next to a large “pie chart” that graphically showed the disproportionately small share of our federal taxes going to human services and the large piece to the military.
A local TV station interviewed me and carried a story on the evening news.
A wire service picked up on the story as well, and for several days I received phone calls from people throughout the South.
What occurred inside the courthouse was just as important.
The judge was very interested in my pacifist views:
At one point he ended the hearing and engaged in an extended discussion right in the courtroom of many of the peace issues I had raised.
It became a sort of teach-in on the subject of militarism and peaceful resistance.
Later both he and the young government attorney thanked me for what I shared and complimented me for effectively handling my own legal defense.
(I had elected not to be represented by counsel.)
Though the court eventually ruled against my arguments in the case — which did not surprise me — I feel that the whole experience of going to court was a positive one, as well as an educational experience for others.
And though I was ordered to pay the $500 or so owed in back taxes, I never did — and no further efforts were made to collect.
IRS has been more aggressive, however, in recent years.
Some funds have been seized from a bank account, an IRA was taken, and such efforts are continuing even as I write this article.
Most recently IRS has levied Friends Journal for the tax years for taxes, interest, and penalties totaling about $23,000.
I am grateful that the Journal’s board has declined to accept the levies on my salary… and that the board as a Quaker employer both corporately and as individual members supports my witness.
I don’t know what the future will bring, and frankly I try not to think about it too much.
In the past two years I have changed my approach some.
My wife and I have decided to file a joint return.
Beginning this past summer the Journal started to withhold a little money from my paychecks following my decision to complete the new W-4.
It seems appropriate just now that I devote my time to working on the earlier tax years and to finding ways to support others who are more actively resisting.
I try to stay open as well to seeking other approaches to resistance from year to year.
What are some things that I have learned from all this?
Perhaps I might share these thoughts:
Tax resistance is a very individual thing.
Each of us must find our own way and decide what works best for us.
Resist openly and joyfully, and seek opportunities to be in the company of others along the way.
When you go for an IRS audit, for instance, take some friends with you; when you go to court, make the courtroom a meeting for worship.
Don’t see IRS agents or government officials as the enemy.
Look for opportunities for friendliness, address individuals by name, be open and honest about what you intend to do.
The IRS will soon recognize that a conscientious tax refuser is different from a tax evader.
What might work one year may not the next.
Be flexible and remain open to trying different approaches.
Talking about money is hard, and it is discouraged in our society.
I remember how embarrassed the grownups in my family were when one of my children once asked at the dinner table, “How much money do you have, grandpa?”
Tax resistance helps us to remove some of these barriers, and this is good.
Sometimes our children can educate us, I should say, and provide simple insights to seemingly complex problems.
Just as I was challenged by a young Friend to consider tax resistance 20 years ago, an IRS agent was once set on his heels by my daughter.
During a lull in a long conversation about financial figures, Evelyn (only seven at the time) asked the agent, “Why do you make my daddy pay money for killing people?”
The poor man shuffled his papers, turned beet-red, cleared his throat, and ended the meeting.
There were several responses to the special issue on war tax resistance that were printed as letters-to-the-editor in the issue:
Jim Quigley wrote in to express his “admiration for the act of courage and faith represented by the war tax resisters.”
Karl E. Buff wanted to “encourage Vinton Deming to continue to resist” in the hopes that “[w]ithout easy access to huge sums of money our government would surely have to curtail its war-making propensities.”
He also put in a plug for the Tax Resisters Penalty Fund.
Eddie Boudreau suggested that someone set up a “Conscience Fund” that people could contribute to and that would help defray the legal expenses of folks like Vinton Deming.
Susan B. Chambers wrote in about her technique, which was to consult with a tax expert in order to get into the “zero tax bracket” and to contribute 30% of her income to charity.
“I am pleased not to inconvenience my friends in taking this stand,” she wrote, in what I read as something of a rebuke to those resisters, like Deming, whose resistance becomes an agenda item for their employers (though she didn’t make this explicit).
Robin Greenler wrote to support the Journal’s resistance to helping the IRS collect from Deming.
“The decisions are neither easier nor less important on corporate levels than they are on a personal level.”
Ben Richmond wrote that, for him, the question of whether a tax resister would just end up paying more in the end (with penalties and interest added to the unpaid tax) was the one he found the most difficult.
“I have never found it satisfying to think that the point of the witness was simply to satisfy my personal need for moral purity.”
But he looked into the early Quaker resistance to mandatory tithes for the establishment church and found that Quakers were willing to suffer having property seized worth several times the resisted tithes rather than pay voluntarily.
He notes also that the Quakers eventually won that battle, which is to say there are no longer government-enforced tithes that everyone must pay to an established church.
So, Richmond wrote, “I do not resist military taxes in the expectation or hope that I will succeed in keeping particular dollars from the hands of the military.
But I do expect and hope that, insofar as my resistance is in obedience to the leadings of God, it will play its small part in breaking down the legitimacy of the warmaking machinery, as the early Friends broke down the legitimacy of taxation on behalf of the state church.
I believe that in the end, Christ’s way is not only right but effective, and will prevail.
Our sufferings are small in the overall scheme of things, so I don’t wish to be melodramatic.
But, it seems to me that we cannot afford to follow Jesus for the short haul because in the short run, all that appears is the cross (which, after all is simply shorthand for suffering at the hands of a pagan empire).
Yet, it is the cross which led to the resurrection.”
In , the Friends World Committee for Consultation held their annual meeting.
They decided to retire their “Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns” and establish in its place a “Committee on Peace Concerns.”
On Brian Willson had been run over by a train while blockading the Concord, California Naval Weapons Station in protest against American wars in Central America.
A few days later, while recovering from his injuries, which included a fractured skull and the amputation of both of his lower legs, he issued a statement reasserting his continued commitment to nonviolent activism, which was reprinted in part in the issue, and which included this section:
If we want peace, we can have it, but we’re going to have to pay for it…
Our government can only continue its wars with the cooperation of our people, and that cooperation is with our taxes and with our bodies.
Our actions and expressions are what are needed, not our whispers and quiet dinner conversation.
In the issue, Jonathan Lutz gave an overview of the situation of Quakers in Scandinavia that included this parenthetical aside:
“(To my knowledge, only one Scandinavian Friend is a war-tax resister, but then, the very different political climate must be taken into account.)”
That issue also included this historical note, which it sourced to “the newsletter of Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas”:
According to a Canadian publication, For Conscience Sake, Russia was the first nation to establish legislation exempting pacifists from paying war taxes.
“In , thirty British citizens were invited by Czar Alexander Ⅰ to establish a cotton mill in Tamerfors, which is now in Finland.
James Finlayson, the manager, submitted a petition to the Czar signed by the employees from Britain, some of whom were members of the Society of Friends.
The petition asked for freedom of conscience and religion to practice their own religion, and for exemption from military service, war, church taxes, and the taking of oaths.”
The Czar agreed to free Quaker manufacturers from taxes and support of the military.
This is the closest I’ve been able to get to a citation for this claim, and as you see, it’s third-hand and doesn’t refer to an original source.
I have seen references to Finlayson’s getting a charter from the Czar to set up his mill that included some tax incentives, but I haven’t gotten any closer to finding a clear and authoritative indication that the Czar explicitly honored the conscientious objection to military taxation of Quakers at this mill.
A note in the issue read:
John Stoner, executive secretary of Mennonite Central Committee, U.S. Peace Section, writes:
“That little Scripture passage on rendering to God and Caesar has been misused for too long, giving people an excuse for going the wrong way on important questions of ultimate loyalty.”
So John has created a lovely poster with the following words on it:
“We are war tax resisters because we have discovered some doubt as to what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, and have decided to give the benefit of the doubt to God.”
The posters are available for ten cents per copy (a real bargain, Friends, we can learn something from our Mennonite friends about good prices).
An excerpt from Pearl C. Ewald’s letter to the IRS was included in the issue.
Excerpt: “my conscience will no longer allow me to cooperate with any plans by our government to prepare weapons for mass annihilation.
I know that such weapons of war are under the condemnation of God.
Therefore, I am not sending in an income tax report.
I am prepared to accept the penalty for this action, and I will try to maintain a spirit of love and consideration toward you.”
illustration by Barbara Benton from the issue of Friends Journal
The issue brought an article by Eleanor Brooks Webb in which she described her family’s telephone tax resistance, and damned it with faint praise.
Excerpts:
, my husband and I have refused to pay the federal tax on our phone bill.
This is an unheroic and inconsistent witness to our conviction that participation in war is wrong and that paying for war preparations and for others’ participation is likewise wrong.
The singular virtue of this small witness is that it is something we can do.
…The payment of federal taxes was the place where other thinking people could not evade their own complicity.
We had long been convinced by such reasoning as Milton Mayer’s:
“If you want peace, why pay for war?”
But nonpayment of taxes was difficult.
My husband was the breadwinner, and his salary was subject to withholding; the Internal Revenue Service usually owed us money at the end of the income-tax year.
Nonpayment of tax was also illegal, and we’re very law-abiding people; we try to stay within the speed limit, and we calculate our income taxes scrupulously.
When I first heard of phone tax resistance, I thought it was a foolish idea.
The pennies of the phone tax were so trivial against the amount of the income tax!
But discussion in Congress about the re-imposition of the phone tax made it explicit that the reason for this “nuisance” tax was the cost of war — the war in Vietnam — and the tax was all tidily calculated for us on each phone bill.
The penalties for so trivial a flouting of the Internal Revenue Service would not likely be unendurable.
This was something we could do!
an ad from the issue of Friends Journal
The Webbs wrote a letter to the phone company with each bill (sending a copy to the IRS) explaining their resistance.
They tried to redirect the resisted taxes to the UN (but the UN turned down the donations), and then to the Friends Committee on National Legislation.
The phone company responded appropriately, by “notifying the Internal Revenue Service of what we are doing and giving us credit for the unpaid tax.”
In the early years of this saga, IRS made some effort to collect the unpaid tax.
We received notices of unpaid tax, and replied that we didn’t intend to pay it.
We received notices of intent to collect, and several times liens were issued against my husband’s salary (for sums along the order of $4.73).
We would get notices from the payroll supervisor that such a lien had been issued and they had no alternative but to pay it; and we would write back saying we were sorry they had been bothered with the matter, but we had no intention of paying the tax voluntarily, and we gave the reasons — it was another opportunity to say what our convictions were.
A number of times we received notices of tax due that we couldn’t reconcile with our carefully kept records, and we would write IRS to that effect and ask for an explanation of the assessment.
This often stopped them cold.
At least once when we were due an income tax refund, a few dollars were deducted from it for “other unpaid taxes,” or something like that, which we assumed was derived from the unpaid phone tax.
In the last few years we have heard nothing from IRS except an occasional, apparently random “notice of tax due,” which we wearily ignore.
She complained of the annoyance of all of the letter writing involved — “we have probably eight inches of file folders filled with telephone bills and carbon copies of letters.”
My husband and I aren’t consistent in our witness.
We haven’t made the effort to get our MCI [long distance] service arranged so that we have control of paying the tax (instead of American Express, through which we are billed).
I can’t handle any more letters!
But if this is all we have energy and grace to do, then I’m glad we’ve followed the leading this far.
The issue brought news of a new war tax resistance organization — “the Colorado War Tax Information Project” — associated with the Rocky Mountain Peace Center.
This project ran an alternative fund that redirected $3,500 in war taxes to social programs .
An obituary notice for Louise Benckenstein Griffiths in the same issue noted that she “refused to pay federal income tax toward American military efforts.”
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
There were several references to tax resistance in the Friends Journal in , but many of them referred to some other time or country or religious denomination, and those that referred to American Quakers in the here-and-now lacked much urgency or enthusiasm.
Journal editor Vinton Deming marked the passing of Colin Bell in his opening editorial in the issue, and noted:
One spring at yearly meeting he spoke very movingly in support of young Friends faced with the draft.
He challenged some of us over draft age to consider that not only our young people were being drafted; our federal taxes were being conscripted for the war as well!
I visited him once at Davis House in Washington with a friend whose house was threatened with IRS seizure for unpaid war taxes.
Colin was keenly interested, shared a generous amount of time from his busy schedule, and was very supportive.
As we left he walked us to our car.
I still hear the cheerful sound of his words (and see the twinkle in his eye) as he leaned in the car window, shook our hands, and said, “Good bye, Friends.
Take care of your spirit!”
In a letter-to-the-editor in the issue, Carole Hope Depp split hairs over whether or not war tax resistance is civil disobedience — claiming that since the Constitution, the highest law in the land, protects freedom of religion, then a law that purports to force people to violate their religious scruples by paying for war must be void, and so those who resist it are not being disobedient at all.
an ad from the issue of Friends Journal
In the issue, Paul Zorn took issue with “some traditional Quaker attiudes and institutions,” including war tax resistance, as representing “an attitude that somehow Quakers are different from the bulk of society, and that much of our institutional effort should go to maintaining that difference… [and] that maintaining certain aspects of our uniqueness is more important than finding a larger consensus in society.”
Excerpt:
…Philadelphia Yearly Meeting is resisting an IRS levy on salaries of two employees to recover unpaid federal taxes because those funds would be used for military purposes.
The more I have talked with individuals and attended large and small groups, both in my monthly meeting and in the yearly meeting’s Representative Meeting, the more troubled I am with the policy, although I realize it has been fashioned with much care and concern for the Spirit over 15 years or more.
As I understand it, a tax refusal contest with the federal government usually ends with the government getting the money.
The main result of refusing taxes is to make a public witness, and to ease a conscience that is troubled by voluntarily supporting the military.
I am troubled that part of the public witness consists of breaking the law and attempting to justify it, especially when tax refusal is as likely to reduce funds for low-cost housing, etc., as it is to reduce funds for the military.
Regarding voluntary support of the military, I think it is part of the irony, tragedy, or reality of modern life that despite our best efforts, institutions to which we belong act on our behalf in ways that we consider wrong, evil, or disastrous.
At the present time, we cannot effectively separate ourselves from all such institutions, and we would lose some of our humanity if we did.
He suggested that Friends consider “rethinking how much corporate energy we should put into tax refusal as an aspect of our peace testimony” and instead “trying to deal directly with some of the major problems of society rather than trying to insulate ourselves from them.”
The issue also described the war tax resistance of Sharon Bienert, who wrote letters to the IRS, agitated for a legal peace tax fund, and meanwhile split her resisted taxes between a Quaker-run peace tax fund and an escrow account.
That issue also mentioned that war tax resistance was “strongly supported” by the Lafayette, Indiana, Mennonite Fellowship.
Fellowship member Ken Nagele redirected a military-percentage of his income taxes to a low-income loan program; Mary Ann Zoeller redirected hers to Amnesty International; other families have donated income to the church to keep their income low and resist taxes that way.
That issue also brought news of a peace tax fund legalization campaign in Australia which “would allow conscientious objectors to pay 10 percent of their income taxes into a fund to be used for nonmilitary purposes” but which had only gained the support of eight of the 76 Australian Senators thus far.
In the issue, Carolyn Stevens reviewed two books published by the Friends World Committee for Consultation’s Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns: Handbook on Military Taxes & Conscience and Fear God & Honor the Emperor which were collaborative efforts edited by Linda Coffin, Peter Goldberger, Robert Hull, and J.E. McNeil.
The first of these books concerned “the history of military tax refusal among Friends and biblical teachings on the subject[,]… personal stories of military tax resisters, one about international war tax refusal campaigns, and another that chronicles efforts to enact Peace Tax Fund legislation.
The book concludes with a series of study questions and a resource list.”
The second “tackles the difficult question of how religious employers may be called to corporate witness of military tax refusal, either organizationally or in support of staff members who are conscientious objectors.
There is a survey of minutes, resolutions, and guidelines adopted by church bodies, Quaker and otherwise.
A chapter on legalities, co-authored by Peter Goldberger and J.E. McNeil, calmly raises and responds to difficulties, real and imagined, that employers face when supporting a witness against military taxes.
Robert Hull’s chapter on discernment blends a secular management perspective with traditional religious concerns.”
Stevens was enthusiastic about the first book (a “high level of sincerity and scholarship [that] gives us wonderful assistance”), less so about the second, which she described as “awkward,” “clumsy,” and “defensive” though “rich in necessary information.”
The issue brought an update on Canadian war tax resister Jerilynn Prior’s test case in which she was trying to get conscientious objection to military taxation legalized under the freedom of conscience portion of the (relatively) new Canadian Constitution.
She wasn’t having any luck in the courts.
The article claimed that “[m]ore than 500 Canadians withhold the portion of their federal taxes that would otherwise go toward military expenditures.
Many instead allocate the money to Conscience Canada’s Peace Tax Fund.”
Beit Sahour
The story of the nonviolent tax resistance campaign against the Israeli military occupation of Palestine in Beit Sahour got some coverage in the Journal.
Editor Vinton Deming wrote an article for the issue that was hopefully subtitled: “Nonviolent strategies may help to bring an end to the Israeli occupation.”
It was based on his conversations with Mubarak Awad and Nancy Nye.
Awad founded the Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence in and published a blueprint for nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation.
“At first, people thought we were a bit crazy, that perhaps I had come back from my time in the U.S. with some strange notions.
We started with just five people.
We would sometimes go to a public place and carry a sign that said ‘Down With the Occupation,’ or, ‘Don’t Pay Taxes.’
People at first would laugh and make fun of us.”
The Center later advocated a set of tactics, including “a boycott among the Arab population of all Israeli-made products; refusal to pay taxes or to work for Israelis; insistence that all mail be addressed to people by using the Palestinian language, not Hebrew; and the initiation of many self-help projects.”
Beit Sahour was an example of where Palestinians decided to try out some of these ideas in service of the intifada.
“People there,” said Mubarak, “to show their support for the uprising, decided they would refuse to pay taxes to Israeli authorities — no taxes at all.
The Israelis wanted to punish them so they came and confiscated the ID cards of a number of the business men.”
So what was the community’s response?
“Well,” Mubarak continues, “without your ID card you are stuck, you cannot go any place.
When people in the village heard about this, they said, ‘If they are going to take the ID cards of these businessmen, we are going to turn in our ID cards too.’
And they did.
So the Israelis called a curfew in the village and they said, ‘Here, please take your ID cards;’ they gave them all back!”
And the news of this incident spread to other communities?
“Yes,” Mubarak says, “everybody began thinking it was a good idea to do it.
You say, ‘OK, I’m not going to hurt the Israelis, but this is what I’m going to do.’
And people will get together and say, ‘Let’s do it.’
Palestinians are what I would call ‘trial and error’ in their approach.
Like, if this works, well, we’ll try it and continue to do it; if it doesn’t, it’s all right, we’ll do something else!”
Here are a few more items concerning tax resistance that I found in back issues
from of Friends
Bulletin, the journal of the Pacific Yearly Meeting of Quakers.
The issue included an announcement
from the Orange County Monthly Meeting of
the launch of “The Conscience and Military Tax Resolution.”
This sort of thing is frequently proposed in modern war tax resistance circles,
but has yet to show much success. In this incarnation people who “are not ready
to resist now” could sign on to the resolution to “show that you are at least
ready to begin when 100,000 others agree to do so.” Once that target was
reached, signers of the Resolution would begin to refuse to pay at least a
certain percentage of their taxes. The goal of this was to pressure the
government into passing “the World Peace Tax Fund Bill or similar legislation
which would provide a legal alternative for taxpayers morally opposed to war.”
The issue had several items on
war tax resistance, beginning with this statement and commentary:
We express our love for God and all the peoples of this earth. A vital act of
this love is to refuse cooperation with registration for the draft and
payment of our tax money for war. We testify against rendering unto Caesar
that which is God’s. We, the individuals who serve on the Pacific Yearly
Meeting Peace Committee, join with those Friends who refuse to cooperate with
war taxes and registration. As a result of this call, we have chosen to
protest war taxes, some refusing at least a “Token Ten” dollars.
Friend — what canst thou say?
Lonnie Valentine
Betsy Eberhart
Gladis Innerst
Mike Turner
Ellen Lyon
Duane Magill
Franklin Zahn
Ed Flowers
Bonnie Wells
The above statement, written by the Pacific Yearly Meeting Peace Committee and
others came with labor over several minutes on conscription and peace from
monthly meetings as well as Friends General Conference
minute, Philadelphia Yearly
Meeting’s statement, and Sarasota Monthly Meeting’s Statement of Peace. The
intent was a minute of action in which our Peace Testimony would be not just
words but applied to our lives in .
Two suggestions came out of a subsequent threshing session: 1) that the
statement be made available for others to sign and 2) that the Peace Committee
be available to labor with monthly meetings on this statement.
All monthly meetings have previously received Franklin Zahn’s “War Taxes–Minus
a Token Ten” of which develops the
idea and makes suggestions on alternative uses of the token ten dollars. In
essence, withholding $10.00 in objection to the federal government’s use of
our tax money for war is similar to withholding the
U.S. Tax from
telephone bills which was done during the Vietnam War.
I am raising the question within monthly meetings and among Peace Committee
members whether
PYM Peace
Committee should sponsor a weekend conference at Quaker Center. Your
suggestions and/or responses would be appreciated.
Also, I hope that monthly meetings, meanwhile, are taking advantage of Lonnie
Valentine’s availability to provide workshops on War Tax Objection.
In peace and love,
Ellen Lyon, Clerk
PYM Peace
Committee
How can we who are above the draft age support Friends faced with
registration? In Our Peace Testimony it says:
Our witness to the way of peace requires that we refuse military service of
any kind, and challenges us to consider whether we can in any way submit to
that involuntary servitude which is conscription. Friends should work to
abolish state conscription — whether for military or other purposes — and
should refuse personally to cooperate with the draft.
Since many of us do not have this opportunity to refuse to register for the
draft, we must look to those other ways in which we can refuse cooperation
with the draft.
One way is refusing registration of our money for war through the taxation
system. When we willingly submit a tax form, we are supporting registration
for the draft; when we willingly pay taxes of which over half is used for war,
we are supporting registration for the draft. When we do these things, we are
withdrawing support from Friends who are refusing to register for the draft.
Therefore, one unequivocal way we who are above draft age can support Friends
resisting the draft is to resist payment of those taxes which, in part, go for
registration and conscription.
If we recognize our “involvement in militarism through the payment of taxes
used for military purposes” but do not act to end such involvement, then are
we not hypocritical to tell Friends faced with registration to refuse military
service? If draft age Friends take the Peace Testimony to heart and refuse to
cooperate with the draft, then is it not time that we who are no longer of
that age refuse to cooperate with the drafting of our money for war?
Perhaps our Peace Testimony states what we believe too rigidly when it calls
on Friends to refuse cooperation with the draft. Perhaps, however, the
testimony does not state what we believe with regard to the payment of war
taxes strongly enough. If we agree that we should refuse cooperation with the
draft, then it is time we should refuse cooperation with war taxes.
That issue also included this on-point notice from one Quarterly Meeting:
In these times of draft registration and military buildup, many persons may be
led to actions in harmony with the Quaker Peace Testimony. College Park
Quarterly Meeting supports those who feel spiritually led, for reasons of
conscience, to perform such actions, including non-registration for the draft
and war tax refusal.
A letter to the editor from Walter Klein
in that issue suggested that Quakers, instead of resisting war taxes, should
pay twice their normal tax, but pay the extra amount for a non-military
purpose, perhaps one chosen as a group. “It would be legal, it would be a
statement of conscience, wars and armament would continue; but the message
might be loud and clear and perhaps more effective.” He suggested the program
be called “ ‘The Better Use of Government’ Fund or
‘BUG’ Fund
for short.”
Lonnie Valentine reminded Quakers of their historical tradition of war tax
resistance in the issue:
A.J. Muste once remarked that “The two decisive powers of the government
with respect to war are the power to conscript and the power to tax.” Now it
can be claimed that the government’s ability to wage war depends decisively
upon its power to tax. After all, our nuclear age began beneath one airplane,
twelve men, and millions of drafted tax dollars.
As early as American Friends recognized the
connection between taxes and war. In an epistle to Pennsylvania Friends, John
Woolman, John Churchman, and others wrote:
As we cannot be concerned with wars and fighting, so neither ought we to
contribute thereto… though some part of the money be raised… is said to be
for such benevolent purposes, as supporting our friendship with our Indian
neighbors, and relieving the distresses of our fellow-subjects… we could most
cheerfully contribute to those purposes, if they were not so mixed, that we
cannot in the manner proposed, show our hearty concurrence therewith, without
at the same time assenting to… practices, which we apprehend contrary to the
testimony which the Lord hath given us to bear…
Indeed, the Friends’ clear apprehension of the connection of money and war was
reflected in the Constitutional debates (about whether to include a
conscientious objector amendment) with regard to the conscription of men and
money. Roger Sherman of Connecticut remarked that “It is well know that those
who are religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, are equally scrupulous of
getting substitutes or paying an equivalent. Many of them would rather die
then do either one or the other.” How much are we now ready to do for our
scruples about conscription?
If we were all to be subject to the military draft in the next war, we would
not pay a fee to hire someone in our place. However, we seem to have forgotten
that with the payment of taxes we are hiring substitutes. We are paying to
have someone go in our place. In being unable to say “No!” to the payment of
taxes used to register and conscript others, we nullify our ability to say
“No!” in other ways. After all, the government cares little if we leaflet post
offices, learn draft counseling, or even advocate draft resistance as long as
we continue to pay our taxes. Simply put, when we pay our taxes, we enable the
government to conscript.
If other Friends are concerned enough about conscription to contemplate saying
“No!” to the drafting of our tax dollars, please write me at 27122 Cipres,
Mission Viejo, CA
92692 to let me know [sic] about the many ways we can protest and
resist paying war taxes. Also, please feel free to ask those Friendly
questions about justifying suffering for such a witness!
Joshua Evans reflected my feelings long ago when he said: “I found it best for
me to refuse paying demands on my estate which went to paying the expenses of
war, and although my part might appear at best a drop in the ocean, yet the
ocean, I considered, was made of many drops.” Are there other Friends who are
willing to be drops in this ocean?
[Lonnie Valentine has travelled in the ministry among Friends in Pacific
Yearly Meeting this past year under the auspices of the Fund for Concerns to
share with Friends his concerns about paying taxes for war.]
A letter from Harold Waterhouse
in the same issue warned Quakers against making their war tax resistance “an
act so private in nature that sometimes its sole impact falls on some harassed
IRS clerk
[and, a]s an act of witness… is chiefly between us and God.” While such an act
“relieves our conscience… if it reduces our drive for peace to the point that
we fail to act in more effective ways, then war-tax-withholding, on balance, is
counter-productive.”
A letter from David & Janet Hartsough to the
IRS,
reprinted in the issue, explained why
the Hartsoughs were refusing outright to pay $10.40 of their federal taxes
(redirecting that to the Oakland Catholic Worker “to feed the hungry and house
the homeless”), and paying the remaining $747.60 but in the form of a check
made out to the Department of Health and Human Services instead of to the
U.S. Treasury, in
the hopes of thereby keeping the money out of the hands of the Defense
Department.
A letter from Elinor Gene Hoffman to the
IRS,
reprinted in the issue, explained why
she was withholding 33⅓% of her taxes (“approximately the amount we are
spending for future wars and present armaments”), redirecting them “to
organizations I believe are dedicated to peace and to furthering life on this
planet,” and declaring this on her tax return as a “Quaker Peace Witness” tax
credit. She wrote, in part:
Please observe that by withholding only one-third of my taxes, I demonstrate
my willingness to pay for past wars and veterans’ benefits. I believe we
should honor past debts and that veterans of all wars should receive our
cherishing care.…
I take this stand in full recognition of the many benefits we all derive from
our representative form of government and the freedoms it enables me to enjoy.
But I firmly believe nothing good my government has done or will do can endure
if we do not halt our military pollution of the planet.
A reprinted letter from DeAnne Butterfield and John Huyler,
Jr. of Boulder Meeting to
the IRS
explained why they were withholding 39% of their taxes and declaring a
credit in a similar manner to Hoffman’s action explained above. Excerpt:
We hope most fervently that legal options (such as the proposed World
Peace Tax Fund) may be available in the future and would gladly pay into
such a fund. Until then we see war tax refusal as the only avenue which
allows us to follow our religious principles.
We welcome your scrutiny of this return. You will find that we have been
forthright and complete to the best of our ability. Furthermore, we hope
that this commitment on our parts can be a useful catalyst for dialogue.
We will welcome you our your agents into our home in hopes that,
together, in a spirit of mutual concern and respect, we may discover
better ways to bring about an end to all wars.
A note appended to this letter added: “Through the efforts of DeAnne
Butterfield, John Huyler, and others, Boulder Meeting adopted a one-year
trial program of reducing war taxes and diverting them to peaceful uses
through hiring a part-time Peace Secretary who will help stimulate activity
in the Meeting and in the community.” (See
♇ 7 June 2018 for more information
about this.)
A reprinted letter from Gerald Morsello of Eugene Meeting to the
IRS
explained his tax refusal, which involved redirecting “a portion of my
Federal Income Tax” to “the Oregon Urban Rural Credit Union for use by
people most affected by recent Federal domestic budget cuts.” He said he
was doing this although he would prefer “to be able to place the money I
owe the Federal government in a legally recognized alternative, such as the
World Peace Tax Fund.”
An letter from Constance Jolly of the Berkeley Meeting to the
IRS,
excerpted from the newsletter of the National Council for a World Peace Tax
Fund, explained her redirection of 35% of her taxes to “an organization
that works for peaceful reconciliation, for human rights, and for
disarmament.” Excerpt:
I am not one who breaks the law lightly, but for me the law that commands
its citizens to do evil is less binding than the higher law that commands
that “Thou shalt not kill.”
An announcement for an upcoming conference on “A Religious Response to
Growing Militarism” sponsored by College Park Quarterly Meeting said that
it “will be a nurturing and supportive gathering for those Friends and
others who are facing issues related to draft and tax resistance,
[etc.]”
A note read:
The 1981 Tax Resistance issue of Newsletter is
available (40¢ each) from 331 17th
Ave.
E., Seattle
WA 94112. Contents
include information about forms of tax resistance or refusal, possible
penalties, resources for decision-making, a national listing of
counselors, Centers, and Alternative Funds.
Those contents sound like the sort of stuff
NWTRCC
puts out nowadays. But
NWTRCC
wasn’t founded until , so I don’t know
who was putting out such a newsletter in
.
An article concerning statements by Episcopalian and Catholic bishops on
nuclear weapons included this section:
[I]n Archbishop Raymond G.
Hunthausen of Seattle proposed that “a sizable number of people in the
state” undertake a taxpayers revolt to protest the buildup in nuclear
arms. He argued that refusing to pay fifty per cent of income taxes “in
resistance to nuclear murder and suicide” would be “a definite step
toward total disarmament… Our paralyzed political process needs that
catalyst of nonviolent action based on faith. We have to refuse to give
incense — in our day tax dollars — to our nuclear idol.”
Brief summaries of the activities of various meetings included such notices
as these:
“Conscience and Military Tax Campaign [and] Consequences of Tax Refusal”
were among topics on the agenda of University Meeting’s “study
hour.”
“Eugene friends held a threshing session on tax resistance: ‘No consensus
was sought, and the Meeting was clearly divided on this difficult
issue.’ ”
“Conscription of Taxes” was discussed by the Phoenix Meeting in the
context of “discussions growing out of the New Call to Peacemaking
statement.”
The Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns is well on the way to working itself
out of a job. The committee was established early in
to accomplish three tasks: (1) to publish a
guidebook on war tax concerns; (2) to encourage consultation on war tax issues
throughout the Society of Friends; and (3) to develop queries and advices for
Quaker employers.
The proposed guidebook has become a series of pamphlets and a bibliography.
Three of the pamphlets, the ones on Quaker history and recent statements of
Friends, on the Biblical basis for conscientious objection to war taxes, and
on the spiritual and rational bases for war tax concerns, should be in print
by , along with the bibliography.
In mid-continent and mid- there will be
a conference for employers. Invitations will be sent to schools and religious
organizations operated by all the groups participating in the New Call to
Peacemaking. About 100 people are expected to gather and explore the positions
that can be adopted vis à vis the Internal Revenue Service
and the range of possible solutions to problems which may arise.
Two regional conferences, “Money and Conscience” and “Paying for War/Paying
for Peace,” were held in . Both were very
successful. Several more are planned for .
FCWTC
will provide resource material and assistance with program planning for
conferences wherever there are Friends who recognize the importance of war tax
issues and are willing to do the basic planning and arrangements. I hope this
means some of us.
Each of us on the committee represents a different Friends organization. Most
of us refuse to pay some or all of the taxes that pay for war. However, the
committee is concerned with “concerns,” not just resistance. We believe that
all Friends should go as far as they can, but not all are called to go in the
same direction. What aspect of this explosive issue do you most want to learn
more about, discuss with other Friends, make the subject of a conference? If
you can’t give time, can you give money? The basic program of the committee is
to prepare resource materials, distribute them where they are needed, help
people with similar problems and concerns to get in touch with each other and
then to lay the committee down, probably about .
I will try to get to any meeting in Southern California (maybe further) and
hope to get to Intermountain Yearly Meeting in
(Anne Friend, 836
N. Beaudry, № 5, Los
Angeles, CA 90012).
Lon Fendall at the Center for Peace Learning, Newberg,
OR 97132, is willing to
visit some meetings in North Pacific Yearly Meeting, as way opens, and/or to
help plan a conference. Linda Coffin is the staff at FCWTC,
P.O. Box 6441,
Washington,
D.C. 20009.
Any of us would like to hear from you.
If April 15 is getting to you more every year, think about what you can do
about it. And while you’re thinking about it, do something to get others
thinking about it, too.
This is the thirty-fourth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we enter the late 1980s.
The edition again announced the “Taxes for Peace” fund that had been established by the MCC Peace Section (U.S.) to coordinate war tax redirection.
In the fund would be redirecting taxes to “the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund… [which] seeks to enact the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill… to give those conscientiously opposed to war a way to pay 100 percent of their taxes, with the military percentage going to a separate fund for peace-enhancing programs.”
In about $4,000 was contributed to the U.S. Peace Section Taxes for Peace fund.
Those monies helped support the Lancaster County Peacework Alternatives project.
In other years peace-related projects in places such as Laos and Guatemala have received funds.
MCC U.S. Peace Section is also offering an information packet on military tax opposition that contains varying theological positions on the war tax issue, and materials about tax laws and legal concerns for the tax resister.
The General Board of Friends United Meeting has adopted a policy of not withholding the federal withholding tax of employees who are conscientious objectors to paying taxes used for military purposes.
The General Conference Mennonite Church adopted a similar policy in .
On the current staff, said general secretary Steven Main, are three conscientious objectors to paying war taxes.
The policy requires employees who want to participate in the witness of military tax refusal to first go through a “clearness process” with their Meeting or church community.
I was a conscientious objector to war in World War Ⅰ.
So I reported this to the military camp office, informing them I could not participate in regular military training.
I asked them to assign me to service in a base hospital designed for overseas patients.
They respected my claim of conscience and gave me an opportunity to serve face and stomach victims of war.
Later… they handed me an “honorable discharge” card.
I still have this card.
Can you now extend to me, as a person of 92 years, and to my spouse, the same sensitive respect for our claims of conscience?
We love our country and we respect our government.
And we do not hesitate to pay taxes for orderly affairs and services of government.
But we have become deeply troubled over the vastly disproportionate part of our federal income tax being allocated to the building up of a military force and arsenal.
This is entirely out of proportion to the huge debt and the staggering needs among the poor, the sick, the aged and the unemployed.
Our conscience can no longer endure this.
So we have decided to withhold 37 percent of federal income tax liability (namely, the 37 percent used in the present military build-up program).
We want to send this as a donation to the Commission on Home Ministries… [which reaches out] to the poor, the unemployed, the underprivileged and the many people hurt and adrift by wars…
In World War Ⅰ the government recognized my concern of conscience.
Can you grant us this kind of courtesy for our older years?
Six Mennonite pastors who have refused to pay some or all of their military taxes were interviewed in the issue of ACTS (Another Church Tries Something), published by the Commission on Home Ministries.
Donald Kaufman of Bethel College Church, North Newton, Kan., John Gaeddert of First Church, Halstead, Kan., S. Roy Kaufman of Science Ridge Church, Sterling, Ill., Ronald Krehbiel of Salem Church, Freeman, S.D., Mark Weidner of First Church, Bluffton, Ohio, and Dorothy Nickel Friesen of Manhattan (Kan.) Fellowship told of how they decided to resist war taxes, how they involved church members in the decision and how their action has affected others.
The New Call to Peacemaking initiative and the Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns sponsored a gathering of leaders from the traditional peace churches in to discuss what to do about the dilemma of such churches withholding taxes for the government from the salaries of their employees who wanted to resist paying war taxes.
Paul Schrag wrote up an article on the meeting that was reprinted in the edition of The Mennonite.
Excerpts:
The question of how church organizations can help their employees follow their consciences — and how to deal with the risks involved for both employees and employers — were the issues that the 36 Mennonites, Brethren and Quakers struggled with.
The church leaders, organizational representatives and lawyers affirmed their support for individual military tax resisters and for efforts to seek a legislative solution by working toward passage of the U.S. Peace Tax Fund bill in Congress.
They agreed to organize a peace church leadership group to go to Washington sometime in the future to support the peace tax bill and to express concerns about tax withholding.
They also agreed to help each other by filing friend-of-the-court briefs if tax resisters are prosecuted and by sharing the cost of tax resistance penalties.
“You may think the world will little note nor long remember what has happened here,” said Marian Franz, director of the U.S. Peace Tax Fund.
“But I regard it as a historic meeting.
“The decision to end the human race does not belong to Caesar.
Therefore, tax dollars that wrestle that decision out of the hands of God do not either.”
Participants in the meeting included both military tax resisters and people who would not engage in tax resistance themselves but support those who do.
People from churches that have policies of breaking the law by not withholding the federal taxes of employees who oppose paying military taxes shared their experiences with people from churches considering adopting such a policy.
The General Conference Mennonite Church and two Quaker groups are in the first category.
The Mennonite Church is in the second.
MC leaders, including moderator James Lapp and moderator-elect George Brunk Ⅲ, came to the meeting to explore church policy options on military tax withholding.
MC general assembly delegates asked the church to develop a policy recommendation on the issue for consideration at Normal .
“This roots us in a larger movement,” Lapp said of the meeting.
“It gives us ideas and handles about how other people have addressed it.
We don’t have to start from ground zero.”
The MC General Board plans to formulate questions about tax withholding for congregations to discuss.
It will prepare a recommendation next year based on congregations’ responses.
Robert Hull, GC secretary for peace and justice, said it was frustrating that many members of historic peace churches are not willing to witness against financial participation in preparing for war, although they are opposed to physical participation in war.
Some said it was disappointing that so many people are unwilling to follow their consciences until the government, through the Peace Tax Fund, might allow them to do so legally.
One quoted Gandhi: “We have stooped so low that we fancy it our duty to do whatever the law requires.”
“Do we want our righteousness without a price?” asked Ray Gingerich, a professor at Eastern Mennonite College, Harrisonburg, Va.
When a church or organization decides to honor employees’ requests not to withhold their federal income tax, it assumes serious risks.
Any “responsible person” who willfully fails to withhold an employee’s taxes theoretically could be punished with a prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.
An organization could be fined $500,000.
But such penalties have never been imposed on legitimate religious organizations, nor are they likely to be, said two lawyers at the meeting.
The usual Internal Revenue Service response to war tax resistance is to take the amount of tax owed, plus a 5 percent penalty and interest, from the employee’s bank account.
The IRS has not taken even this action against the four GC employees who are not having their taxes withheld.
All GC personnel who could be subject to penalties have agreed to accept the risk.
The Friends World Committee for Consultation, which has had a non-withholding policy , has had tax money seized, plus interest and penalties, from its resisters’ bank accounts.
The Friends United Meeting adopted a non-withholding policy .
The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends will decide in whether it should have such a policy.
Charles Boyer of the Church of the Brethren said he would use the input from the meeting to work toward helping develop a denominational policy on tax resistance.
An even more basic issue than war tax resistance arose concerning tax-withholding laws.
Some compared the church’s tax-collecting role to that of the biblical publicans.
“I have a growing dis-ease that the church is a tax collector for the government, regardless of what the money is used for,” said Vern Preheim, GC general secretary.
Participants made suggestions for improvements on a draft of “A Manual on Military Tax Withholding for Religious Employers,” written by Hull, Linda Coffin of the Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns and lawyers Peter Goldberger and J.E. McNeil, who both gave legal advice at the meeting.
The manual is expected to be available later this year.
That book’s availability would be announced in the edition.
Another concern I have with promotion of the Peace Tax Fund law is that in order to tempt legislators to support it, there is a tendency to defang war tax objection and make it less threatening to the government.
Take for example this description of Marian Franz’s testimony before a House committee reviewing the tax code:
“Franz said that the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill would alleviate a persistent burden on the IRS and permit these citizens [conscientious objectors] to pay their full share of tax without violation of religious conscience.”
All we want to do is pay our taxes and not cause any trouble for the IRS — is that really the best way to speak truth to power and challenge militarism?
The Internal Revenue Service filed two suits against a Quaker group in Pennsylvania because the organization refused to attach the wages of two employees who have withheld part of their income taxes as a conscientious protest against military spending, Religious News Service reported.
The lawsuits against the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends seek $16,836 in connection with federal taxes not paid by William V. Grassie and David A. Falls.
The Quakers sent a letter to the IRS saying neither Grassie nor Falls is “a tax evader but a conscientious taxpayer who is conscientiously refusing payment of the military portion of his taxes.”
This is the twenty-ninth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal of the (Old) Mennonite Church.
In the Mennonite Church danced right up to the brink of committing to corporate war tax resistance, as other church bodies around them considered their own similar actions.
The traditionalists were increasingly restive, though.
For example, in the issue, a letter to the editor from Robert L. Beiler took the traditional Romans 13 line and then went on to pointedly ask why war tax resisting Mennonites don’t seem to make any noise about taxpayer-funded abortions — and anyway the United States is a great country and we should be happy to pay taxes here.
The issue reported on how another Christian group was dealing with war tax resisters in the fold:
The General Board of Friends United Meeting — a Quaker denomination based in Richmond, Ind. — has adopted a policy of not withholding the federal taxes of employees who are conscientious objectors to paying taxes used for military purposes.
This means the denomination is willing to violate Internal Revenue Service tax regulations in order to support the conscience of its employees.
The policy requires employees who desire to participate in the witness of military tax refusal to first participate in a “clearness process” with their local congregation.
They are encouraged to compute the military percentage of their income tax, using the figures of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, and voluntarily deposit that sum in a special denominational account held for that purpose.
The remainder would be submitted to the IRS.
In taking this action.
Friends United Meeting is pursuing a long Quaker tradition of recognizing all outward warfare to be inconsistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It joins one other denomination in taking this action — the General Conference Mennonite Church.
Friends United Meeting is also seeking legislative remedy through the U.S. Peace Tax Fund bill in Congress.
This legislation would permit tax payers morally opposed to war to have the military part of their taxes allocated to peacemaking.
Leaders of two peace organization talk about military taxes — Julie Garber of Fellowship of Reconciliation and John Stoner of Mennnonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section.
Representatives of several “traditional peace church” denominations met to try to swap ideas about how to cope with the war tax resistance issue (Paul Schrag reporting):
Praying for peace while paying for war is a contradiction that historic peace churches must oppose by speaking out and taking action, representatives of those churches agreed at a consultation in Richmond, Ind. For some people, war tax resistance — refusing to pay the portion of one’s taxes that goes to the military — is a moral imperative.
Their consciences will not allow them to help pay for machine guns and nuclear bombs.
The question of how church organizations can help their employees follow their consciences — and how to deal with the risks involved for both employees and employers — were the issues that nearly 40 Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers struggled with at the meeting.
The church leaders, agency representatives, and lawyers affirmed their support for individual military tax resisters and for efforts to seek a legislative solution by working toward passage of the Peace Tax Fund Bill in the U.S. Congress.
They agreed to organize a peace church leadership group to go to Washington sometime in the future to support the peace tax bill and to express concerns about tax withholding.
They also agreed to help each other by filing friend-of-the-court briefs if tax resisters are prosecuted and by sharing the cost of tax resistance penalties, if necessary.
“You may think the world will little note nor long remember what has happened here,” said Marian Franz, a Mennonite who is executive director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund.
“But I regard it as a historic meeting.”
People from churches that have policies of breaking the law by not withholding the federal taxes of employees who oppose paying military taxes shared their experiences with people from churches considering adopting such a policy.
The General Conference Mennonite Church and two Quaker groups are in the first category.
The Mennonite Church is in the second.
Mennonite Church leaders, including Executive Secretary James Lapp and Moderator-Elect George Brunk Ⅲ, came to the meeting to explore church policy options on military tax withholding.
The General Assembly of the Mennonite Church asked the General Board to develop a recommendation on the issue for consideration at the next General Assembly in .
“This roots us in a larger movement,” Lapp said of the meeting.
“It gives us ideas and handles about how other people have addressed it.
We don’t have to start from ground zero.”
General Board plans to formulate questions about tax withholding for congregations to discuss.
It will prepare its recommendation based on congregations’ responses.
The meeting, held at Quaker Hill Conference Center, took place in an atmosphere of excitement generated by a gathering of people from different traditions who share a vision.
In the long and lively discussions, participants challenged each other and their churches to recommit themselves to active peacemaking and prophetic witnessing on the war tax issue.
Robert Hull, peace/justice secretary for the General Conference Mennonite Church, said it was frustrating that many members of historic peace churches are not willing to witness against financial participation in preparing for war although they are opposed to physical participation in war.
When a church or organization decides to honor employees’ requests not to withhold their federal income tax, it assumes serious risks.
Any “responsible person” who willfully fails to withhold an employee’s taxes theoretically could be punished with a prison sentence and a $250,000 fine.
An organization could be fined $500,000.
But such penalties have never been imposed on legitimate religious organizations, nor are they likely to be, said two lawyers at the meeting.
The usual Internal Revenue Service response to war tax resistance is to take the amount of tax owed, plus a 5 percent penalty and interest, from the employee’s bank account.
IRS has not taken even this action against the four GC employees who are not having their taxes withheld.
They pay the nonmilitary portion of their taxes themselves and deposit the 53 percent that would have gone to the military in a designated account.
IRS has not touched that account since it was established after GC delegates approved the policy in .
All GC personnel who could be subject to penalties have agreed to accept the risk.
The Friends World Committee for Consultation, which has had a nonwithholding policy , has had tax money seized, plus interest and penalties, from its resisters’ bank accounts.
The Friends United Meeting adopted a nonwithholding policy .
The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of Friends will decide in whether it should have such a policy.
Charles Boyer of the Church of the Brethren said he would use the input from the meeting to work toward helping his denomination develop a policy on tax resistance.
Participants made suggestions for improvements on a draft of “A Manual on Military Tax Withholding for Religious Employers” written by Hull, Linda Coffin of the Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns, and lawyers Peter Goldberger and J.E. McNeil.
The manual is expected to be available .
The consultation was sponsored by the Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns and New Call to Peacemaking.
The latter is a cooperative peace organization of the historic peace churches.
New Call to Peacemaking plans to sponsor a military tax withholding meeting for a wider range of church groups sometime in the future.
Whether or not military tax resistance “works,” participants agreed that people’s moral imperative to follow their consciences must be respected.
“No conscientious objector ever stopped a conflict,” said William Strong, a Quaker representative.
“But they had to explain what they did, and the vision was kept alive, and those ripples — you don’t know where they stop.
The Mennonite Church was playing catch up with their cousins the General Conference Mennonite Church when it came to deciding how to react to employees who were conscientious objectors to military taxation, but now it was their turn to begin the process.
From the issue:
As the result of a General Assembly mandate , Mennonite Church General Board has initiated a plan to consider church agency tax withholding.
The General Assembly action calls for General Board to bring to the assembly a proposal for how the church should respond to questions of conscientious objection to the payment of military taxes and the institutional withholding of the military portion of employees’ income taxes.
Steps in the consideration process, as approved at the board’s meeting, began in with participation in the interdenominational Employers Tax Withholding Consultation in Richmond, Ind. Then a working document, clarifying the issues and enumerating possible responses, will be prepared for General Board study.
Board members will devote a day to the issue prior to their regular meeting.
The discernment process will continue as revised copies of the working document are available for conference and congregational study .
A summary of conference responses will be included in the General Board docket in , when the board will develop a recommendation to be presented for General Assembly action in .
The issue noted that the “first major public event” of the Peace and Justice Center at Stirling Ave. Mennonite Church in Kitchener, Ont. “was a… seminar to explore alternatives to paying taxes for military purposes.”
In a letter to the editor in the issue, Jurgen Brauer wrote that after reading Tolstoy he came to feel that “it is high time that the issue of tax withholding (or redirecting) becomes the major issue of the church.”
The “Taxes for Peace” fund gave its annual update
in the issue.
They’d decided to donate all of the taxes redirected through the fund to the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund , and announced that they’d redirected about $4,000 to “the Lancaster County, Pa., Peacework Alternatives project.”
Poster on war tax resistance from Mennonite Central Committee.
The words on the poster are by John Stoner: “We are war tax resisters because we have discovered some doubt as to what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, and have decided to give the benefit of the doubt to God.”
It is available from MCC at…
The General Board of the Mennonite Church met in :
Chris Longenecker tells General Board how she decided to ask her employer — Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions — to stop withholding the military portion of her taxes from her wages.
Eastern Board, like other Mennnonite Church institutions, is waiting for guidance on this issue from General Board before it honors a request like this.
Ed Metzler (left) and Jim Lapp lead the General Board discussion on war taxes.
In a decision that will lead to breaking the law if approved by the General Assembly , the General Board of the Mennonite Church has recommended that war taxes not be withheld from the paychecks of denominational employees who request that.
The 32-member board passed the recommendation unanimously, with a few abstentions.
The action, which came during the board’s meeting in Kitchener, Ont., was a long-awaited response to several people at church agencies and schools who, because of conscience, do not want to pay the portion of their taxes — about 50 percent in the United States — that goes to the military.
It was also a response to an impatient General Assembly that instructed General Board to take a stand on the issue.
“This has been an area we have been reluctant to move in,” said General Board executive secretary Jim Lapp in introducing the matter.
Ed Metzler, the denomination’s peace and social concerns secretary, said the main reasons for taking the non-withholding action are to allow individual expressions of conscience and to witness against militarism.
“But is this the best way to witness against militarism?” asked Tim Burkholder of Northwest Conference.
Other board members wondered if the church corporately should break the law to satisfy the consciences of a few individuals.
The board members, meeting at Pioneer Park Christian Fellowship, gathered a day earlier than usual to take up the war tax matter.
Metzler arranged for a variety of speakers to address the subject, including two persons who have requested non-withholding — Chris Longenecker of Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions and Carman Albrecht of Mennonite Central Committee Ontario.
John Stoner, executive secretary of Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section, delivered a ringing “call for courage” based on the book of Revelation.
“It is unthinkable that John the Revelator would not see, in our time and place, the war tax demands of Western democratic militaristic capitalism as a challenge to our faithfulness to the witness of Jesus,” he said.
Bob Hull, peace/justice secretary for the General Conference Mennonite Church, explained the lengthy process that led to his denomination’s decision to honor requests for non-withholding.
It included a four-year effort to explore all legal channels — legislative, judicial, administrative — for avoiding the payment of war taxes.
Finally, at their convention in Bethlehem, Pa., 72 percent of the GC delegates voted to defy the law — the first denomination to do so.
(Several Quaker groups have since done the same.)
To date, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service has not moved against the GC Church.
In the discussion that followed, several people argued that consistent conscientious objection to war should include a refusal to fight as well as to pay for fighting.
Others wondered why the Mennonite Church — and other denominations — agreed so easily to a law in the U.S. (and earlier in Canada) that required them to withhold taxes from employees’ wages, thus putting the church in the role of tax collector for the government.
For a while it looked like the board members might postpone action on the issue or pass the buck to the 22 conferences of the Mennonite Church.
But Moderator Ralph Lebold reminded them of their instructions from General Assembly, and Dean Swartzendruber of Iowa-Nebraska Conference urged the board to “decide here today.”
In the end, the decision was made after much deliberation and considerable rewriting of the proposed action.
In addition to honoring requests for non-withholding, it includes support for the Peace Tax Fund bill in the U.S. Congress that would provide conscientious objection to war taxes and a call for “serious attention” to the question of the church as tax collector.
The recommendation will now go to the conferences for review.
, General Board will take the responses from the conferences and shape a final recommendation for submission to the General Assembly.
The board members agreed that the recommendation will be introduced in person to the leaders of each conference by a denominational staff person.
Gospel Herald kept readers up on the news of other denominations struggling with the same issue ():
Philadelphia-area Quakers took a historic step recently to aid employees who were opposed to paying taxes for war purposes.
The Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, in its 308th annual session, agreed to withhold but not forward to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service the estimated military portion of its employees’ federal income taxes.
This money will be set aside in a special fund and paid to IRS with interest when there is assurance the money will not go for military spending.
Currently the organization has 42 employees, of which an average of seven are tax resisters at any time.
The decision to establish the set-aside fund for war tax resisters augments the decision to refuse cooperation with IRS levies on salaries of war tax resisters employed by the Yearly Meeting.
The policies could make the group liable for sizable fines and penalties for breaking federal law.
The Yearly Meeting also could incur liability for employees’ unpaid taxes.
And some Mennonite congregations were taking stands on their own (, Cindy Hines Kurfman reporting):
War-tax resistance is an important subject at Lafayette (Ind.) Mennonite Fellowship — important enough that members commit themselves to “support for those who, for reason of conscience, resist ‘war tax’ payment.”
To Ken Nagele, who began refusing to pay a portion of his taxes in , war-tax resistance originally meant not paying “the percentage associated with nuclear weapons.”
He now refuses to pay for “all current and past military spending,” but still pays the portion that benefits veterans in the belief that he is “helping those scarred by killing.”
Nagele uses a Friends Committee on National Legislation document each year to determine how much he will withhold.
This year the figure is 53.1 percent.
The refused portion will be deposited in the Near Eastside Community Federal Credit Union of Indianapolis.
This community-development credit union makes loans to low-income persons and small businesses in an economically depressed portion of the city.
Another member, Mary Ann Zoeller, is refusing to pay war taxes for the first time.
“As a Christian, I knew I could not, in good conscience, support the killing of others,” she says.
“Yet the existing tax laws require me to do just this, by asking me to pay taxes that finance military services.
Following Christ’s teachings of love of his persecutors, even to the loss of life, I have been led to question my support of our military.”
Zoeller sends the war-tax portion to Amnesty International, a human rights organization.
Alternative methods of war-tax resistance are also demonstrated by several families in the Lafayette congregation.
One family, whose income is below the taxable level, has written a letter to their tax commissioner since which explains their belief that paying for war is a sin.
Another couple keeps their payment to a minimum by following the example of their parents; live simply and give a large percentage of income to the church.
A Virginia congregation has decided to officially support its members who refuse to pay the military portion of their taxes.
Community Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va., has 20 members who illegally withhold some of their tax money as an act of conscientious objection to war taxes or are seriously considering it.
“The congregation’s decision grew out of the desire and concern of a few of us that our action be more than the isolated action of individual conscience,” said Orval Gingrich, one of the 20. The congregation is encouraging all its members to include letters of protest with their income tax returns and has notified Internal Revenue Service that it fully supports its members who don’t pay war taxes.
By it was time for another backlash letter to the editor.
Titus Martin hit the predictable Romans 13 notes and warned readers against relying on their consciences when conscience and scripture disagree.
As a compromise he suggested that readers use charitable deductions rather than civil disobedience to lower their taxes.
Even the Presbyterians were getting in on the tax resistance act, according to this news brief:
The document describes obedience to civil authority as normative for Christians but asks the denomination to set up a special fund to support Presbyterians who suffer financial losses because of a stance of resistance.
The paper argues that withholding taxes to protest U.S. military policy is proper under certain circumstances.
Such activists are entitled to emotional support from the church, the paper says.
The IRS went on the offensive against the Philadelphia Yearly meeting, which may have been frightening news for a Mennonite Church which was contemplating taking a similar stand ():
The Internal Revenue Service has filed two suits against a Quaker group in Pennsylvania because the organization has refused to attach the wages of two employees who have withheld part of their income taxes as a conscientious protest against military spending.
The lawsuits against the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends seek $17,000 in connection with federal taxes that were not paid by William Grassie and David Falls.
IRS said it takes such action against the employer of anyone who fails to pay taxes on the ground that salaries are property that can be levied by the government in such cases.
A new resource is available on the war-tax issue for Mennonite Church conferences — and others — that are currently considering whether church institutions should be instructed to not withhold taxes from the wages of employees who express conscientious objection to the military portion of their taxes.
Conferences are to submit their counsel to General Board in preparation for a proposal to General Assembly at Normal .
The resource is a just-published book called Fear God and Honor the Emperor: A Manual on Military Tax Withholding for Religious Employers.
Each purchaser of the book will be on a mailing list to receive future updates on the subject.
The book is available at a special price of $11 from Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries…
