“If you are collectible, you could consider using an escrow account,” [Tana] Hastings said.
“If you know there’s a good chance your taxes will be collected, the escrow works well, because the money and the interest are put to good use, and in the event that the IRS seizes property or garnishes your wages, you can reimburse yourself, and not end up having paid your taxes twice.”
The nation’s largest escrow account, the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign, is located in Seattle.
The escrow account is a trust fund, and war tax resisters can redirect the money they would have paid to the government to this account.
The pool of money is used to support the sort of community development and education initiatives that many war tax resisters would rather see their tax dollars fund.
In the event that a war tax resister is penalized by the IRS, he can withdraw some or all of his money from the escrow account to mitigate his losses.
Because the war tax resister has relinquished legal claims to the money he places in the escrow account, the IRS cannot seize those assets to pay back taxes.
If I had to guess, I’d say that the way the fund administrators get around this is to take complete legal title to the deposited money, but keep informal, extra-legal records of who-paid-what so that they can later disperse the funds as “gifts” or “grants” to the depositors when reimbursements are requested.
This wouldn’t appease the IRS but might make it more difficult for them to do anything about it.
Deposits into the Account are confidential.
The pooled funds are held in NACC’s name, rather than in the names of individual depositors.
Some do choose to tell the IRS that they have deposited their withheld taxes in the CMTC Escrow Account (making a levy on those funds more likely).
If you don’t tell the IRS about your deposits, it will not know about them.
The IRS could, theoretically, trace the deposits through one’s bank — but this would be costly to the IRS, and isn’t very likely (and wouldn’t be possible at all for deposits made with personal money orders).
It’s also possible that the IRS could physically seize NACC’s records (and/or those of other Alternative Funds), and thereby learn the details of the Account’s depositors.
But here again, this would be an expensive undertaking, and likely generate an enormous amount of negative publicity, probably making it more trouble that it would be worth.
If I gave money to an escrow fund in this way, and then the IRS seized a hunk of change from my bank account and I then asked the fund to reimburse me — would that reimbursement legally count as part of my income for the year in which I received it?
Because of the legal fiction behind the fund, it would not just be my money being returned to me, but a “grant” or “gift” to me.
Why is any of this important?
Because I still want to keep my income below the tax line so that I neither pay nor owe income tax, even as I resist self-employment tax illegally.
If I receive a reimbursement from one of these funds, and the IRS gets wind of it, would that boost my income above-the-line for that year and cause me to owe even more money?
— Would they try to tax me twice for the same wad of cash?
I asked about this on a war tax resister’s email list , hoping that some sharp legal minds had already been all over this, but I didn’t get much in the way of answers, and none that sounded particularly authoritative.
One correspondent noted that there are many funds that are set up in many ways:
[It] depends upon the account and how it is set up.
Does the fund have separate accounts for each depositor, or is the money all pooled?
Do you still “own” your deposit or not?
If it is a true escrow account, the money is still yours, and there really was no transaction.
The Fund we set up in Atlanta specifically eschews being an escrow account: all monies go into one pot.
Donations are made according to a formula, however, which recognizes the possibility of IRS seizures from contributors and tries to hold enough $$ in reserve so that those who request reimbursal of seized amounts, up to the amount deposited in the Fund, may reasonably expect to be able to receive such amounts.
Reimbursal is provided only if the funds are actually seized, not merely upon request, because the depositor has no ownership of any amount in the Fund.
And no promises are made; were everyone who deposited funds to incur seizure, there clearly would not be enough money to cover all requested reimbursals, because some has been given away.
Of course, not everyone is seized from, by a long shot.
This arrangement is clearly different from an escrow account which may just be holding money for you and from which you can get those funds at any time.
But the problem seems to be that either you are depositing funds into an account that you own in the sense that you can withdraw those funds from it at will (in which case, these funds are just like any other asset you own, except perhaps that they support charitable causes) or you are relinquishing your money to a fund that may in the future decide to grant its benefactors funds to reimburse them for seized money (in which case, that might be considered taxable income — more grist for the IRS mill).
If you gave any one person gifts in that valued at more than $11,000, you must report the total gifts to the Internal Revenue Service and may have to pay tax on the gifts.
The person who receives your gift does not have to report the gift to the IRS or pay gift or income tax on its value.
But I’ve got to say that at the end of this information dump, I still don’t feel like I have any absolutely authoritative answers.
For now, I think I’m going to be my own personal alternative fund.
The East Bay Express takes note of the upcoming People’s Life Fund Granting Ceremony, at which Northern California war tax resisters will redirect their taxes from the Pentagon to worthy community projects:
[T]he activists in Bay Area War Tax Resisters have been sounding alarms for quite some time.
But unlike the legendary Paul Revere or those patriots who dumped barrels of tea into Boston Harbor, they’ve resisted with little fanfare, quietly refusing to pay tax dollars earmarked for the military-industrial complex, and, by extension, for an unjust war.
, a dozen war tax resisters from Northern California War Tax Resistance and Sonoma County Taxes for Peace handed out checks ranging from $500 to $1,500 to about a dozen community and activist organizations.
The money came from the interest on redirected taxes that resisters have deposited in the People’s Life Fund .
Tonight, I helped the People’s Life Fund distribute $10,000 of redirected tax dollars that war tax resisters have kept out of Congress’s clutches.
It was a good opportunity for the local war tax resistance community to come together and spread the word (and some cash) to other local do-gooders.
There were a dozen or so charities, with as many tax resisters handing out checks — each shared their story.
It’s in the United States — the deadline for filing our personal federal income tax returns.
In a few minutes, I’m going to head across the bay to meet up with Berkeley’s notorious squadron of Code Pink protesters at the Marine Corps recruiting center.
From there, the crew will march to the main Oakland post office to remind the last-minute filers what they’re paying for.
War tax resisters nationwide are having deductions taken from their fifteen minutes of fame , as the news media take advantage of the Tax Day angle to swing the lens their way.
Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now show is broadcasting from Portland, Oregon , and it features war tax resisters Pat & John Schwiebert, Portland locals who have been resisting taxes for .
(You can hear the show on-line — the Schwiebert segment starts at about 12:49.)
LoHud.com out of New York takes a look at war tax resisters there, including Ethan & Rima Vesely-Flad, Chad Murdock, Frederick Dettmer, Rosa Packard, Daniel Taylor Jenkins, and Hugh & Sirkka Barbour.
Tax resistance is the most direct way U.S. citizens can avoid being complicit in this war and other illegal activities and actions by government employees and agencies.
If all of us who have written our Congresspersons or taken to the streets also refuse to financially back the war and other illegal activities and actions of the government, the decision-makers in Washington have a much harder time ignoring our resistance.
More from the swarm of tax resisters who came out to play on :
“All I kept thinking about was just how many people oppose the war, wish the war wasn’t happening and don’t really see a clear way of doing anything about it.
On tax day, everybody’s scrambling to pay the government and feeling like their hard earned dollars are being sopped up and wishing that that money went to roads and to schools and to healthcare.
We were able to interject some information about where that money really goes — and to offer some alternatives… about how people can withdraw their own complicity.”
The Makingpeace blog has been covering war tax resistance actions in Austin, Texas and elsewhere.
As best we can figure, we gave out about 2200 flyers on at the Brunswick and St. Simons Island P.O.s.
Amazing!
We started at with 500 War Resisters League pie chart flyers at each P.O.
We ran out of those at in Brunswick and on St. Simons at , just as I arrived to give Bill Jerome a stack of about 400 “Economic Costs of the War” flyers with info from the American Friends Service Committee.
Milly Hastings reported later that when she & Steve Stevens finished their leafletting at , they had only 16 flyers left!
Although our youth were ready to provide someone to take over on St. Simons, there weren’t flyers for them!
On the Brunswick side, Cathy Browning brought us a couple of hundred of the flyers addressed to Georgia taxpayers, giving figures from the National Priorities Project on how much the war is costing us locally and what else the money could have purchased in services and meeting community needs.
Those weren’t going to be enough, so she went back and printed 600 more.
These were all gone by , a half-hour before the P.O. closed.
Paul Sheldon reports on his many tax day (more like tax week) actions at Paul’s Perambulations.
It will be difficult to keep up this witness — my wages at the Fellowship of Reconciliation, as of yesterday, are now being levied by the IRS — but we are going to try.
The most encouraging thing is the powerfully supportive response that we have received from so many people.
Clearly, our small action has struck a chord with others who similarly oppose this war, and are unsure about what they can do to help stop it.
Eric Muller: “The paper tiger casts a shadow, but it’s a shadow of paper and of enforcement.
What can they take from us? They can take our money.
And that’s a very small damage compared to the damage we’re creating throughout the world and particularly in Iraq right now, as we speak, you know much more damage is being inflicted than will be on the tax resisters who are working here today.”
Muller and others in the community have donated six thousand dollars to local charities instead of paying their full taxes to the federal government.
The money will go to Food for Lane County, Shelter-care, [and] peace groups, among others.
A while back, I started looking for examples of ways tax resisters have organized mutual aid pacts to help diffuse the effects of government retaliation.
In the course of doing the research, though, I started collecting examples instead of a larger variety of collective projects resisters and their sympathizers have used in support of tax resistance.
Here are some of the examples I found:
Tax resister “insurance”
For instance, the Breton Association in
France, which organized to “form a common stock or fund… to indemnify the
subscribers for any expense they may be put to by their refusal to pay any
illegal contributions imposed upon the public.”
Another example was the Association
of Real Estate Taxpayers in
Chicago, which formed a cooperative legal fund to fight an offensive legal
battle against the tax.
American war tax resisters today can use the War Tax Resisters Penalty
Fund to defray penalties and interest seized by the
IRS.
The fund is raised as-needed by asking subscribers to contribute an equal
amount.
The oath of the Regulator tax resistance movement in the North Carolina
colony bound its signers to “bear an equal share in paying and making up
[the] loss” if “any of our company be put to expense or under any
confinement.”
Communes, collectives, and co-housing projects.
Some tax resisters have formed mutual support communities.
Whiteway Colony
was founded to try to live up to Tolstoyan ideals. The members of the
Bijou and
Agape communities live below a taxable
income so as to avoid paying taxes.
Supporting resisters as an employer
Some members of the Restored Israel of
Yahweh ran a construction business and agreed not to withhold federal
taxes from the wages of those employees who were fellow-members and who were
resisting taxes.
Vivien Kellems refused to withhold
taxes from her employees’ wages, saying: “They are all free American
citizens, thoroughly capable of performing all of the duties and
responsibilities of citizenship for themselves. And so, from this day, I am
not collecting nor paying their income taxes for them.”
Charles Kanjama recently urged Kenyans
to begin a tax resistance campaign, and said that to foil pay-as-you-earn
withholding, “participating employers and employees can enter into a
voluntary contract to convert monthly employment into quarterly or
half-yearly employment, thus effectively delaying tax liability for several
months.”
British nonconformists and women’s suffrage activists a century ago also
used this tactic. Auctions became rallies, with speeches and banners and
crowds that could number in the thousands. Supporters would pack the auction
house and refuse to leave their seats. On some occasions, violence broke
out. In some cases, auctioneers refused to handle goods that had been seized
for tax refusal.
Simply boycotting the auctions and refusing to buy seized goods is one way
communities offer support. It was part of the Quaker “Discipline” to refuse
to buy seized goods. When Valentine Byler’s horse was seized for non-payment
of the social security tax, “no Amish came to bid on the horses and, due to
a lack of bidders, they went for a good price, with the harnesses ‘thrown
in’ by the auctioneer.”
Pay cash so as not to leave a paper trail
Jessica Ramer and a
Claire
Files contributor brought this idea up. If you pay in cash
whenever you can, you give the recipient the opportunity to decide whether
or not to declare the income.
Cash tips are easy to under-report. I asked about that recently and was
told that most people pay with credit card/debit card and that the
government now uses a percentage method for tips. They look at the charged
meals, look at the number of total meals served, and then look at the
charged tips to figure out how much cash tips you received.
(100 meals served. 50 paid with card, tipping 15%. the government
calculates 15% from 100 meals even if cash tips are only 10%)
You can help out by tipping more when paying with cash or better yet, when
you pay with card, put 1% tip on it and put the rest out as cash. I even
leave a note for the server saying “this is your money, don’t
tell your boss, or the government. share it with the buss boy if that is
the policy.” This will help lower the average tip figures, but
still give the nice server what they have earned.
Use barter to avoid taxable/seizable transactions
Karl Hess found people willing to barter with him as he was dodging
IRS
seizures:
The other day I welded up a fish-smoking rack for a family in Washington,
D.C. It will earn me a year’s supply
of smoked fish. At about the same time, I helped a friend dig a foundation.
He’ll help me lay the concrete blocks for a workshop. Part of my pay for a
lecture at a New England college was the use of the school’s welding shop,
to make some metal sculptures. Three such sculptures have paid my
attorney’s fees in maintaining the tax resistance which is the reason
barter has become such an integral part of my life.
Manufacture and sell goods as alternatives to taxed products
Before the American Revolution, colonists who opposed Britain’s economic
control boycotted British products and began to produce homespun cloth,
alternatives to tea, and so forth. Gandhi’s independence campaign in India
made the wearing and production of homespun cloth central to the opposition,
and the Salt March was focused on the illegal production of untaxed,
non-foreign-monopoly salt.
An example today is home-brewed beer (which beats the excise tax on
alcoholic beverages).
Buycotts and boycotts that favor resisting businesses
One report from World War Ⅰ-era America noted that this was a technique used
by those who opposed the “Liberty Bonds”:
Efforts to prevent banks from handling the bonds have centered chiefly in
Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Missouri and
Oklahoma. The President of a Wisconsin bank has advised the Treasury that
his depositors, mostly Germans, or of German parentage, have withdrawn
many thousands of dollars from his bank because he aided the First Liberty
Loan.
These depositors, he added, had taken their accounts to two rival banks on
the understanding that those banks would not aid the second Liberty Loan.
The two banks, he reported, were not aiding the loan in any way.
Many banks have felt the pressure of German influence in this propaganda,
reports indicate. So pronounced was the movement that the States of
Minnesota, North and South Dakota, and Montana recently decided that they
would withdraw State funds from any bank which did not support the loan.
Social boycotts / shunning / noncooperation with tax collectors
Adolf Hausrath writes of Roman-occupied Judaea,
The people knew how to torment these officials of the Roman customs with
the petty cruelty which ordinary people develop with irreconcilable
persistency, whenever they believe this persistency to be due to their
moral indignation. In consequence of the theocratic scruples about the
duty of paying taxes, the tax-gatherers were declared to be unclean and
half Gentile.… among the Jews the words
“tax-gatherersand sinners,”“tax-gatherers and Gentiles,”“tax-gatherers and harlots,”
“tax-gatherers, murderers and robbers,” and similar insulting
combinations, were not only ready on the tongue and familiar, but were
accepted as theocratically identical in meaning. Thrust out from all
social intercourse, the tax-gatherers became more and more the pariahs of
the Jewish world. With holy horror did the Pharisee sweep past the lost
son of Israel who had sold himself to the Gentile for the vilest purpose,
and avoid the places which his sinful breath contaminated. Their
testimony was not accepted by Jewish tribunals. It was forbidden to sit
at table with them or eat of their bread. But their money-chests
especially were the summary of all uncleanness and the chief object of
pious horror, since their contents consisted of none but unlawful
receipts, and every single coin betokened a breach of some theocratic
regulation. To exchange their money or receive alms from them might
easily put a whole house in the condition of being unclean, and
necessitate many purifications. From these relations of the tax-officials
to the rest of the population, it can be readily understood that only the
refuse of Judaism undertook the office.
A social boycott of tax collectors was practiced in the years before
the American revolution. John Adams wrote:
At Philadelphia, the Heart-and-Hand Fire Company has expelled Mr. Hughes,
the stamp man for that colony. The freemen of Talbot county, in Maryland,
have erected a gibbet before the door of the court-house, twenty feet
high, and have hanged on it the effigies of a stamp informer in chains,
in terrorem till the Stamp Act shall be repealed; and
have resolved, unanimously, to hold in utter contempt and abhorrence
every stamp officer, and every favorer of the Stamp Act, and to
“have no communication with any such person, not even to speak to
him, unless to upbraid him with his baseness.” So triumphant is the
spirit of liberty everywhere.
Harassment of tax collectors was a signature action of the Whiskey
Rebellion. An early published resolution of the rebels read in part:
[W]hereas some men may be found amongst us, so far lost to every sense of
virtue and feeling for the distresses of this country, as to accept
offices for the collection of the duty:
Resolved, therefore, That in future we will consider such persons as
unworthy of our friendship; have no intercourse or dealings with them;
withdraw from them every assistance, and withhold all the comforts of life
which depend upon those duties that as men and fellow citizens we owe to
each other; and upon all occasions treat them with that contempt they
deserve; and that it be, and it is hereby most earnestly recommended to
the people at large to follow the same line of conduct towards them.
Tax collectors were tarred-and-feathered in America, both before and after
the revolution — the violent expulsion of tax collectors was a frequent
technique of the Whiskey rebels. Tax collectors have been the targets of
violent reprisal at many times and in many places. Because of this,
governments have often had to pay high salaries — or, frequently,
percentages of the take — to convince collectors to take on the job, which
only increases the resentment of those being collected from.
During the French Revolution and its aftermath, customs houses were burned
by mobs, tax rolls were destroyed, excise collectors were made to renounce
their jobs and then were run out of town — or in some cases killed.
The first Boer War was triggered when an armed group of Boers seized a
wagon that was being auctioned after it was distrained for resisted taxes.
The Whiskey rebels threatened to destroy the stills of those distillers
who complied in paying the excise tax.
Boycotts / social boycotts of non-resisters
If a tax resisting movement is large enough, it may be able to dissuade
people from paying taxes through boycotts or social boycotts of people
who are tax compliant. In Massachusetts, a group enforced a boycott of
taxed British imports by declaring that
…we further promise and engage, that we will not purchase any goods
of any persons who, preferring their own interest to that of the public,
shall import merchandise from Great Britain, until a general importation
takes place; or of any trader who purchases his goods of such importer:
and that we will hold no intercourse, or connection, or correspondence,
with any person who shall purchase goods of such importer, or retailer;
and we will hold him dishonored, an enemy to the liberties of his country,
and infamous, who shall break this agreement.
Maintain solidarity in the face of divide-and-conquer tactics
In
Germany, the government attempted to break a tax resistance movement by
offering to moderate its enforcement efforts against people who could show
that they had limited means. Karl Marx, who was promoting the resistance at
the time, saw this as a divide-and-conquer tactic:
The intention of the Ministry is only too clear. It wants to divide the
democrats; it wants to make the peasants and workers count themselves as
non-payers owing to lack of means to pay, in order to split them from
those not paying out of regard for legality, and thereby deprive the latter
of the support of the former. But this plan will fail; the people realizes
that it is responsible for solidarity in the refusal to pay taxes, just as
previously it was responsible for solidarity in payment of them.
Keep a record of the “sufferings” of resisters
The Quakers responded to persecution by keeping careful records of
individuals who had suffered thereby. In the archives of Quaker meetings,
you can find lists of people who had resisted militia taxes or tithes for
establishment church ministers, and what property was distrained by which
tax collector.
Sign petitions and public advertisements, engage in public protests
When the American Amish were trying to resist compulsory enrollment in the
social security system, 14,000 of them signed a petition to Congress.
During the Vietnam War, public advertisements were taken out by tax
resisters. In , for instance,
448 writers and editors put a full-page ad in the New
York Post declaring their intention to refuse to pay taxes for the
Vietnam War. The signatories included James Baldwin, Noam Chomsky, Philip K.
Dick, Betty Friedan, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Goodman, Paul Krassner, Norman
Mailer, Henry Miller, Tillie Olsen, Grace Paley, Thomas Pynchon, Susan
Sontag, Benjamin Spock, Gloria Steinem, Norman Thomas, Hunter S. Thompson,
Kurt Vonnegut, and Howard Zinn.
Protests, rallies, pickets, and the like have been a part of many
large-scale tax resistance campaigns.
Hold resisters’ property as an informal trustee
Some resisters who are vulnerable to property seizure find sympathetic
friends who are willing to hold the resisters’ property in their
names as a way of foiling seizure. Some war tax resister
alternative funds function
partially as “warehouse banks” that hold deposits of war tax resisters.
When a frustrated tax collector seized Ammon Hennacy’s protest signs
as he was picketing the
IRS
office — claiming that he planned to auction them off to pay Hennacy’s tax
debt — a friend of Hennacy helped him make new signs, each one marked “this
sign is the personal property of Joseph Craigmyle.”
Keep in contact with resisters and express support
After the press reported that Valentine Byler’s horse had been seized by the
IRS
as he was plowing his field, he got letters of support from all across
the country.
Form groups for mutual support & coordinated decision-making
Here there are too many examples to list.
Give financial aid to evicted rent strikers
When the Irish Land League launched its rent strike, it claimed that
“The funds will be poured out unstintedly to all who may endure
eviction in the course of the struggle. Our exiled brothers in America may
be relied on to contribute, if necessary, as many millions in money as they
have thousands, to starve out the landlords and bring the English tenantry
to its knees.”
Comfort and aid imprisoned resisters
The trick to supporting imprisoned tax resisters is to respect their real
needs and desires. When “someone interfered,” as Thoreau put
it, and paid his taxes in order to spring him from his night in jail, they
thought wrongly that they were doing Thoreau a favor, “for they
thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall.”
Juanita Nelson tells of the support she received in jail, where she had
been taken in her bathrobe from her home. Her supporters took the time to
learn how to support her in a way that was appropriate to her resistance:
Two fellow pacifists, one of them also a tax refuser, had been permitted
to come to me, since I would not go to them. I asked them what was
uppermost in my mind, what they’d do about getting properly dressed?
They said that this was something I would have to settle for myself. I
sensed that they thought it the better part of wisdom and modesty for me
to be dressed for my appearance in court. They were more concerned about
the public relations aspect of getting across the witness than I was. They
were also genuinely concerned, I knew, about making their actions truly
nonviolent, cognizant of the other person’s feelings, attitudes and
readiness. I was shaken enough to concede that I would like to have my
clothes at hand, in case I decided I would feel more at ease in them. The
older visitor, a dignified man with white hair, agreed to go for the
clothes in a taxicab.
They left, and on their heels came another visitor. She had been told that
in permitting her to come up, the officials were treating me with more
courtesy than I was according them. It was her assessment that the chief
deputy was hopeful that someone would be able to hammer some sense into me
and was willing to make concessions in that hope. But he had misjudged
the reliance he might place in her — she was not as critical as the
men. She did not know what she would do, but she thought she might wish to
have the strength and the audacity to carry through in the vein in which I
had started.
And she said. “You know, you look like a female Gandhi in that robe.
You look, well, dignified.”
That was my first encouragement. Everyone else had tended to make me feel
like a fool of the first water, had confirmed fears I already had on that
score. My respect and admiration for Gandhi, though not uncritical, was
deep. And if I in any way resembled him in appearance I was prepared to
try to emulate a more becoming state of mind. I reminded myself, too, that
I had on considerably more than the loincloth in which Gandhi was able to
greet kings and statesmen with ease. I need not be unduly perturbed about
wearing a robe into the presence of his honor.
Support the families of imprisoned resisters
When Gandhi was preparing the groundwork for a tax refusal campaign in
India, he noted that the Indian National Congress “should undertake
to feed the wives and families of those who may be imprisoned.”
Study the law, give legal support
When Elizabeth Cady Stanton was contemplating a tax resistance campaign for
women’s suffrage in the United States, she noted, “One thing is
certain, this course will necessarily involve a good deal of litigation,
and we shall need lawyers of our own sex whose intellects, sharpened by
their interests, shall be quick to discover the loopholes of retreat.”
Combine redirected taxes for dramatic charity giveaways
Larry Rosenwald wrote, of this technique, “To sit on the Grants and
Loans Committee of New England War Tax Resistance, and to dispense the
interest on refused taxes to a youth group in Chelsea, a video for cable
television on United States involvement in Central America, and a
people’s garden in Roxbury is to be reminded of the ideal community,
however blurred and fragmented, that war tax resistance is done on behalf
of, in the hope of helping to make it clear and whole.”
The conference, a regularly-scheduled business & strategy meeting of NWTRCC, brought together about 20 dedicated members from across the country — some of whom have decades of experience with tax resistance — and also drew some curious locals who are just getting their feet wet.
Our hosts did an incredible job of organizing beds, meals, and transportation, and making us feel comfortable and at home, so that we could keep our minds on a challenging agenda throughout .
, at the national gathering in Santa Rosa, I was the curious local getting my feet wet.
, I was appointed to a term as an alternate on the national administrative committee.
I’d been reluctant to consider taking on a responsibility like this in the past, for one reason because we already had an AdCom member from Northern California, and for another because I thought I might not be sufficiently on-the-same-page with the group as a whole (for instance, not being much of a “progressive” and thinking the “Peace Tax Fund Act” is worse than worthless).
But then the AdCom member from our area resigned, and the more I thought about NWTRCC the more I realized that we’re a wildly diverse lot ideologically and we manage to comfortably fit on the “same page” anyway.
For the most part, we’re pretty good at concentrating on the stuff we agree on and treating the diversity of perspectives on other issues as a strength rather than a nuisance.
During the conference, we heard reports of Tax Day actions and general status reports from local groups around the country.
These varied a lot in tone, with some groups reporting a surge of interest and enthusiasm, while others were discouraged at diminishing membership and activity.
We spent a lot of time reviewing the War Tax Boycott — what worked, what didn’t work, and whether we should continue it in some form or change tactics.
I have mixed feelings about the Boycott.
On the plus side, I think that it provided a good project for us to focus our energies on, and it was a good wedge for publicity and outreach.
I think that it’s very likely that our project inspired, perhaps subliminally, the parallel war tax resistance projects that sprung up last year — Code Pink’s “Don’t Buy Bush’s War” campaign and Christian Peace Witness for Iraq’s “Pledge for Peace.”
Bill Ramsey at the War Tax Boycott press conference
However, these are largely side-effects.
In terms of the goals we explicitly set for the Boycott — which seemed to me to involve creating and maintaining a large-scale mass resistance and redirection campaign — I think the Boycott was mostly a flop.
It was unable to even reach a large percentage of current NWTRCC members to convince them to sign on.
My feeling is that we could use our resources, time, and energy more productively in the future by pursuing more realistic goals or by partnering with other organizations that have the resources to lead the sort of campaign we have in mind.
However, mine was very much a minority position.
And I heard enough about how useful the Boycott campaign had been to people in their local outreach that I became convinced that the campaign should continue in some form.
At the meeting, we agreed to spend some time reassessing and restructuring it, but to commit to continue it for at least.
On , Bill Ramsey, who has been the main organizer behind the Boycott effort, organized a press conference to announce that $325,000 had been redirected by boycotters from the Pentagon to humanitarian projects.
Antor Odu Ndep, executive director of Common Ground Health Clinic, accepts redirected taxes
Antor Odu Ndep, executive director of the Common Ground Health Clinic in New Orleans, was on-hand to accept a check representing donations from tax boycotters and to talk about what the clinic has done and is doing to help people in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Najlaa al-Nashi of Direct Aid Iraq joined the press conference by an audio/video link to talk about how that organization will use the redirected funds to help provide medical care for refugees from the Iraq War.
Tax resister Joffre Stewart speaks with representatives of the Direct Aid Initiative on a videoconference from Jordan
The Birmingham News also had a reporter on site, who fired off a quick note afternoon, and then filed a more complete story for the edition, featuring local resister David Waters:
David Waters’ protest started .
The Vietnam veteran couldn’t support the United States’ first Gulf War, what he calls a “slaughter in the desert.”
So he stopped paying his federal taxes.
“It just went against my conscience,” said Waters, a 61-year-old carpenter who lives in the Avondale community of Birmingham.
Today, he is one of more than 520 U.S. citizens from 44 states who refused to pay some or all of their federal taxes and pledged to redirect the money — more than $325,000 — to humanitarian causes.
On , a New Orleans health care clinic and an Iraqi refugee aid group accepted about $95,000 in gifts and pledges through the anti-war tax boycott.
The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, the organization that led the boycott, met in Birmingham to award some of the monetary gifts.
The Common Ground Health Clinic, a free clinic in New Orleans, received more than $50,000 in pledges.
The Direct Aid Initiative, or Direct Aid Iraq, got more than $44,400 of the would-be taxes.
Other “tax resisters” gave to local projects or humanitarian causes of their choosing, member Bill Ramsey said.
Najlaa al-Nashi, with the Iraqi refugee organization, said over teleconference afternoon from Jordan that her organization was grateful for the money.
Daniel Woodham put $300 on the table after al-Nashi spoke.
“I thank you so much for putting it to much better use than my government ever would,” said Woodham of Greensboro, N.C.
Woodham said he hasn’t paid his taxes , which he estimates amounts to about $15,000 before penalties.
The 43-year-old farmer and English language teacher files every year with a letter explaining where he is redirecting his money.
Woodham said he questions why his federal taxes should go “to kill people.”
“I don’t think it increases our safety.
I don’t think it increase our integrity around the world,” he said.
“I’m a conscientious objector.”
After the press conference, we returned to the Quaker Meeting house and I facilitated a workshop on how to talk to people about war tax resistance.
Mostly I was concerned with how we should respond when we’re promoting the tactic to activists who aren’t currently tax resisters, and then they throw up one of the dozen or so objections we’ve all heard before.
This was largely an extension of what I discussed here , with a focus on one-on-one communication as opposed to talking to and through the press.
After going on at some length about these theories of mine that I’m so proud of, I opened it up to the group by play-acting a potential resister who is raising excuses (in each of the needs / fears / values categories) as to why they don’t think tax resistance is right for them, and asking how the resisters present would answer the objections.
I thought it went well, provided a lot of food for thought, and could help to make us more persuasive as we go back home, away from the true believers, and have to respond to the old familiar objections again.
That evening we heard David Waters tell the gripping and fascinating story of the path he has taken in his life, from being an Army Special Forces volunteer in the Vietnam War, to being a “revenuer” for a liquor-law enforcement agency, to being a war tax resister.
I’ve left out a lot of nitty-gritty that occupied a lot of our time, but probably doesn’t have a whole lot of interest to those not already elbow-deep in the springs & gears of the organization.
I brought down six copies of We Won’t Pay!: A Tax Resistance Reader, figuring that if this wasn’t a good opportunity to find its audience nothing was.
Of the six, I gave away one to our hosts and sold seven (that is to say, I had to place quick orders for two more to keep up with demand).
I can’t convey, but should certainly mention, one of the most important parts of the meeting, which is just to be able to meet face-to-face and share stories and outlooks and be together in a group where tax resistance isn’t a frightening fringe idea but is the center of discussion.
Two things kept rattling around in my brain after I got back from the NWTRCC conference in Birmingham .
One was Joffre Stewart’s a capella “Oh-Ba-Ma!” song.
I don’t remember the lyrics, but only the general tone of blasphemy, in which Barack’s virgin birth was denied, and the miracles attributed to him were cast into doubt.
The other was something Clare Hanrahan said about redirection.
“Redirection,” in which war tax resisters take all or some portion of what the IRS claims they owe and send the money instead to charity, is a very popular war tax resistance tactic.
Some would say “tactic” is the wrong word — it’s not really the means to an end but is itself the end they’re aiming for: being able to use their money to support their own idea of community needs, rather than the Pentagon’s wasteful and immoral priorities.
But those of us who are doing tax resistance by reducing our incomes below the income tax line can sometimes feel left out when redirection is given a big priority, or when, as sometimes happens, those resisters who do redirect their tax money talk as though they assume that’s what all of us do or should do.
But we don’t have an amount to redirect because our strategy has been to reduce that amount to zero.
Furthermore, because we may have had to squeeze our budgets in order to do tax resistance this way, we may not have much left over with which to make a big donation in April.
Hanrahan said that as she sees it, there’s more to redirect than money:
For the most part my redirection of time and personal involvement has been possible by my choice to spend my hours in direct service and solidarity where my heart leads me, rather than in wagework geared to bring in cash.
Currently I do literacy volunteer work, stand in solidarity with Veterans for Peace, and with Women in Black, serve on boards and committees, and in years past, founded and managed a homeless advocacy center.
I believe that redirection of time and presence provides a personal and potent contribution to the common good, a gift of self that has more dimensions than money alone.
I redirect each time I give my time and energy in support of good work within my community.
It is a way to share in the work of change, my liberation bound up in that of those I stand with, rather than perpetuating the hierarchy of charitable giving.
That makes a lot of sense to me.
Google is starting to do for newspaper archives what it has been doing for books: putting scanned images on-line and making them text-searchable.
Hooray for Google, says I.
Here are a few articles I found while browsing around today:
A couple of pieces regarding a reconstruction-era dispute over the legitimacy of the Louisiana state government (in which tax resistance played a role):
The Nixon Administration asked the Supreme Court today to rule out draft exemptions for men who are conscientiously opposed to the Vietnam war but not to all wars.
…
Besides, the Administration argued, if selective exemptions are approved people could refuse to pay their taxes on religious grounds or could defy other laws.
Washington [D.C.] Official Urges Tax Refusal to Push Statehood The New York Times (“Walter E. Fauntroy, the District of Columbia’s Delegate to Congress, has urged residents here not to pay their Federal taxes until Congress makes Washington the 51st state.”
[C]ollection will be a formidable challenge after years in which taxes
were identified by Palestinians with foreign occupation.
Tax resistance is strong in the territories. It spread during a seven-year
uprising against Israeli rule, when Palestinians working in the tax
department resigned. According to Israeli estimates, only 20 percent of
Palestinians taxed in the West Bank met their payments in 1993, when tax
revenues totalled some $90 million.
The Palestinian Authority has already run into difficulties collecting
taxes in Gaza and Jericho, and it has published appeals in recent weeks
urging tax payment as a national duty. Outside of Jericho, it has no
police powers in the West Bank, and the legal system there remains under
Israeli control.
“Taxes are the dowry of independence and the key to democracy,” said Atef
Alawneh, director general of the Palestinian finance department, at the
ceremony today in Ramallah.
“Nonpayment of taxes under occupation was a national struggle worthy of
praise,” he added. “Now it is 180 degrees different. Now delay in paying
means a delay in building the Palestinian state.”
Zuhdi Nashashibi, the finance minister in the Palestinian Authority, said
he was confident Palestinians would now “hurry to pay” their taxes.
Mr. Alawneh argued that collection by Palestinians would be more effective
because it would lack the coercion of military occupation, would extend to
places the Israelis were unable to reach because of security concerns, and
would create new revenue sources. The tax authorities will not use force,
he said, but will rely instead on friendly persuasion and public goodwill.
Remember what this sort of thing used to be like? You’d get yourself down to
the library, and then you’d look through each volume of the
Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature or whatever,
one at a time, hoping that what you were looking for was among the things the
editors of that guide felt was worth indexing. Then with luck, some of what
you were looking for was available in bound volumes, microfilm, or microfiche
on-site (elsewise you could always try for inter-library loan, but that might
take a couple of weeks). In the case of the first, you could find it on the
shelves or ask the reference librarian, and then thumb through the pages, but
in the case of the latter two, you’d have to haul your film over to a reader
(one that wasn’t broken or occupied) and then spend five minutes or so just
trying to locate the pages you were interested in. Then, if it turned out to
be good, you’d have to scribble things down or drop in some coin for a
barely-legible photocopy.
I like the future.
The issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter, More Than a Paycheck, is now available on-line.
Among the features in this issue:
A new article about war tax resistance in Spain shows how similar the situation is there to in the United States, in many ways.
The article begins by promoting the idea of war tax resistance and redirection of a percentage of due taxes equal to the military budget to more socially-responsible projects.
It then tries to calculate that percentage, complaining that the official figures understate the real expenses by about half:
Because along with NATO, military expenses
include veterans benefits, the national guard (included in the budget of the
Department of the Interior), and military
R &
D, among others. If, in addition, we add the percent of the interest
on the national debt that corresponds to military expenses, in Spain by
the figure reached €18,609.60 million for
military spending. Even more, if we look closer still, this figure should
increase by approximately 15%, the usual variation between the initial
military budget and the eventual spending.…
For their organized redirection campaign, they have chosen La’Onf, which is trying to educate about, organize, and promote nonviolent conflict resolution strategies and nonviolent resistance techniques in Iraq.
They claim that last year, 874 participants redirected €85,253.86 in this way.
The comments in response to the article also seem very familiar.
One commenter argues that if you redirect your taxes there’s no reason to expect that the government will lower military spending — if there’s a shortfall, they’ll probably just cut social spending.
Also, why are they refusing the income tax, a progressive tax, instead of some regressive tax like the value-added tax?
Also, isn’t conscientious tax resistance a reactionary, assertion of individual conscience over the public good?
After all, couldn’t right-wingers object to welfare benefits and patriotically redirect their their taxes to the military using the same logic?
Everything seems familiar, though the accent is different.
It’s a little like landing in Barcelona and stopping in at a Starbucks.
I’ve been debating publicly and privately about how I was going to respond
when the State finally escalated their actions against me. Clearly this is a
slow-moving situation and while it carries certain risks, going to jail at
this point still isn’t one of them — come on, I’ve been resisting since
TY2005, still walk
free and only now have they gotten around to serving me?
I think I mentioned a while back that Ericka and I had discussed what my
ultimate course would be as the Taxman ratcheted up the pressure, and we
decided that I would eventually cave (we’ll cross, then burn, that bridge
with the Feds when we get to it). So after letting the
VT
Dept of Taxes spin their
wheels for a while — in the complaint they mention they’ve repeatedly tried
to get me to comply — it’s time for me to drop this tactic in favor of
other methods of resistance.
He shares the letter he wrote to the government begging them to cut him a deal
and explaining his reasons for resisting in the first place.
NWTRCC regulars were joined by curious locals like Tom Quinn of EcoWatch and Michael Patterson from Dennis Kucinich’s office (our meeting place is in Kucinich’s House district and he was curious enough to send an aide to take notes).
A few things jumped out at me during the opening introductory go-’round:
Jim Stockwell of North Carolina mentioned that after some initial mutual
suspicion there was surprising synergy between the traditional Tax Day
protest his war tax resistance group held
and the Tea Party protests going on
at .
Many of the local groups reported diminishing numbers and less-frequent
activity in the past months, mirroring a general doldrums in the peace
movement.
Bill Ramsey noted that it has become harder to set up alternative funds
in the post-9/11 financial paperwork era.
Ramsey also reported on an interesting and creative tax day protest in his
neck of the woods. A group grabbed hundreds of 1040 forms from public
places where such things are found (libraries, post offices, and the
like), then printed ghostly images of coffins and of children wounded in
war over the forms, and then replaced them where they had originally found
them.
Ginny Sсhnеider noted that in New Hampshire, the notoriety
of the Ed
and Elaine Brown tax protester stand-off fiasco has made it difficult
for her to do outreach in the progressive community. People hear “tax
resistance” and immediately their minds conjure up images of nuts holing
up with their arsenals and their conspiracy theories until the government
locks them up for life.
We watched a near-final cut of a film
NWTRCC is producing about war tax resistance and resisters:
Death and Taxes. It met with great acclaim (and
plenty of suggestions for last-minute edits). Last I heard, it’s due for
release .
Attendees watch a cut of Death and Taxes, an introductory war tax resistance film due to be released next month
Later, Phil Althouse, an election observer in El Salvador, updated us on conditions there, and Mike Ferner of Veterans for Peace talked about how to move from activism to organizing and build bonds between disparate parts of the broader anti-war coalition.
Mike Ferner and Phil Althouse address the gathering
While coalition building always sounds great in the abstract, when it comes
down to actually doing it, it runs into the practical difficulty of finding a
common ground and deciding where to compromise and where no compromise is
possible. Ferner thought that organizing around the larger vision of
real democracy was the way to go. Other folks were skeptical. It can
be difficult to find anything approaching an ideological common ground even in
a small group like
NWTRCC
with an inherently common, specialized and political interest.
In members of
NWTRCC
there’s often a tension between avowed nonviolent principles and promotion of
progressive projects (like universal health care and publicly-financed
elections for instance) that fundamentally rely on a coercive, violent state
to carry them out. The avowedly nonviolent progressives either don’t see the
violent ramifications inherent in such projects or I have failed to understand
the ingenious way they have squared this circle. I usually avoid the
temptation to press the point, but sometimes give in.
Anyway, after this we split up into two groups: a War Tax Resistance 101
discussion group that I moderated, and a larger group that discussed issues of
interest to more experienced resisters. There were other groups that met over
the course of the afternoon as well, but by then I found it hard to be in even
one place at once.
In the evening we heard more in-depth stories of the tax resistance from our hosts, Maria Smith and Charlie Hurst, and from Juanita Nelson and Erica Weiland.
Juanita Nelson told the story of her arrest-in-a-Sears-bathrobe that she also tells in A Matter of Freedom.
Erica described her transformation from a young Dean Democrat to a tax resisting anarchist (a salvation narrative in which, to my delight, The Picket Line plays a role).
Since , MCC and its Global Family Program have provided more than $7 million in humanitarian and educational assistance to the people of Afghanistan.
Through Global Family sponsors, five schools and nearly 6,000 Afghan children have directly benefited from peace and environmental education programs. Children also receive school kits, computers and other educational supplies.
War Tax Resistance (WTR) is the refusal
to collaborate with one of the worst ways in which capitalism extends
worldwide: with militarism and war, even if the spin as of late is
“humanitarian interventions” or “wars against terrorism.”
What is War Tax Resistance /
WTR?
With WTR we
are actively resisting military spending at the moment we fill out our income
tax return. At a purely technical level, this would consist of deducting from
our taxes the part that is destined to be spent for military purposes.
With WTR we
are not encouraging or promoting some sort of “a la carte taxation” as some
people believe, as though it were not being used as a tool for civil
disobedience, which is to say, to disobey and to disrupt, publicly and
collectively, a law or rule that is considered unjust, seeking to overcome
it together (in this case, military spending and militarism).
The ultimate goal of
WTR is the
elimination of armies, military research, and the military-industrial
complex, through a progressive reduction in military spending. By resisting
war taxes we show our collective refusal of military spending in particular
and militarism in general, at the same time that we are in solidarity with
other struggles taking place in our society by means of the projects we
select.
With the money that we redirect when we file our
WTR returns,
the CGT
aims to financially support concrete struggles, resistance funds, or social
projects related to anarcho-syndicalist organization and ideas. Providing
these funds that are withheld via our acts of disobedience is achieved by
carrying out social projects that do not receive subsidies, and that allow
continued working for a more just and equitable society:
Project One: Home Territory
We are women from various countries, of different nationalities and
experiences. Some have legal documents, others do not. We do domestic labor.
We have certain work conditions that make us very vulnerable. The difficult
conditions and fear function to isolate and separate us.
For this reason we have decided to struggle together, in a real challenge to
isolation and fear, as a way to make us stronger.
Domestic work sustains the life of thousands of households daily, and,
nevertheless, is invisible, undervalued labor. We want this to change and to
be included in the Régimen General, an important step in the
recognition of its value. Also that undocumented workers should have the same
rights as everyone else. We cannot forget that this work is moving out of the
hands of some women (those of Northern countries) to others (those of
Southern countries), making the problem far from disappear, but globalize.
Project Two: Antimilitarism in Paraguay
For years in Paraguay various antimilitarist groups have been working for a
demilitarized society and are supporting other struggles (peasants, human
rights, the youth movement,
etc.).
Tax Resistance will be dedicated to
supporting the antimilitarist movement in Paraguay and the action that War
Resisters International has prepared for the
, which this year focuses on the
situation in Paraguay.
“I advocate overthrowing the government by force but not by violence, and tax refusal is but one of the cutting edges and forces that are available to us.” — David Dellinger, , in Washington, D.C. at the Vietnam Moratorium rally
is also the annual 15 Minutes of Fame day for war tax resisters, and I’ll be keeping my eye out for media mentions.
I was invited on something called “The Mancow Show” this morning.
The host was some sort of weird, pro-wrestling-like caricature who solemnly says things like “if you cut me, I bleed red, white, and blue.”
His show is one of those short attention span things that are mostly sound effects and snippets and soundbites and running jokes.
Pretty much a waste of time; live and learn.
This evening I’ll be attending the People’s Life Fund granting ceremony.
Many war tax resisters in the San Francisco bay area deposit the taxes they “owe” in this Fund rather than sending them to the U.S. Treasury (some with the option of reclaiming these deposits should the IRS seize money from them).
Each year, the Fund gives away any interest and dividends earned on these deposits to various charities. the Fund is giving away some $20,000 to over twenty groups.
From the
Afro American:
Tax resisters give money to agency
Philadelphia — Several hundred tax resisters,
who have refused to pay their taxes as a protest against government military
spending, turned over their tax money to a Roman Catholic agency which runs a
soup kitchen for the poor at a ceremony in Philadelphia
.
The event at St. John’s
Hospice, 13th and Race
Sts, is part of a war tax
resisters’ witness and rally which started at noon at City Hall West,
Philadelphia.
The funds were received by Brother Stanley O’Neil. The hospice is run by the
Brothers of the Good Shepherd.
Following the presentation at the Hospice rally participants met with
Senators Arlen Specter and John Heinz at their offices in the Federal
Building, 6th and Arch
Sts, Philadelphia, to
petition for the transfer of military taxes to peaceful purposes.
The rally is being organized by the War Tax Concerns Committee of the
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).
Bill Strong, of the committee staff, said a growing number of Quakers and
other Philadelphians are refusing to pay their taxes through a variety of
methods including: non-payment of the military portion (34 percent of income
taxes goes for current military spending), non-payment of the three per cent
“military tax” levied on phone bills, adaptation to a simpler life style
below the taxable level, and general protest activities.
Speakers at the rally included Peggy Hasbrouck, of the Brandywine Peace
Community; Robin Harper, of Pendle Hill, a tax refuser for the past 19 years;
Lillian Willoughby, a founder of the Movement for a New Society, a social
change agency based in Philadelphia; Joe Volk, peace education secretary of
the American Friends Service Committee and Father Paul Washington, Episcopal
Church of the Advocate, Philadelphia. The program will include music by
several high school choral groups.
For a while, it seems, Bill Strong was the Philadelphia go-to guy for quotes
about Quaker War Tax Resistance.
Here’s another article, from
that confusedly refers to war tax resistance as a modern invention among
Quakers rather than an old tradition being rediscovered after nearly a century
of near-dormancy:
Quakers consider withholding taxes to protest arms
Philadelphia — For three centuries, Quakers
have refused to go to war. Now, an increasing number of them are considering
whether they also should refuse to help pay the country’s military bills.
Tax resistance — withholding all or part of tax payments as a protest against
military spending — will be the central topic of discussion
among Quakers gathered at the
Friends Meeting House here for the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
The program for the yearly meeting, which began
and concludes
, lists tax resistance as a “burning
concern” for Quakers to consider.
A grass-roots interest in tax resistance has developed among Quakers in the
100 monthly meetings — local Quaker congregations — in Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, Delaware and Maryland that make up the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,
according to William Strong of the yearly meeting’s War Tax Concerns
Committee.
The issue was one of three main topics of concern suggested by the monthly
meetings for this year’s agenda, said Betty Balderston of the yearly
meeting’s Committee on Aging.
Some Quakers “never have seen their own financial involvement” in war, even
though they might have worked for peace, said Strong, a former bank trust
officer.
Historically, the burden of opposing war has fallen on young Quaker men who
refuse to fight, Strong said. Tax resistance spreads the responsibility to
other Quakers.
Quaker-Led Tax Protest Gets Boost from Other Faiths
Philadelphia, (AP) —
Quakers are taking the lead in a growing movement that subjects members to a
painful dilemma — obeying the law or following their pacifist beliefs by
refusing to pay taxes that go to the military.
When most Americans meet the Internal Revenue Service deadline Friday for
filing income tax returns, up to 10,000 forms from Quakers will contain
adjustments for withholding the “war tax,” said Bill Strong, a member of the
Religious Society of Friends’ War Tax Committee.
“I used to think three years ago that this was an off-the-wall, peculiar
obsession of a handful of particular Quakers,” said Strong, who has chosen to
keep his income below the taxable level for three years.
“But we’re convinced now that this is moving to the center. You’re getting
people who are thinking about it for the very first time. That’s exciting,”
Strong said.
Other churches are beginning to join the movement, Strong said, adding he’s
particularly heartened by support from Roman Catholics.
“We’re 100,000; they’re 50 million. When our concern starts bouncing back as
their concern, don’t you think we feel good?”
Some members of the two faiths were preparing to join in protest
, when several hundred protesters
planned to turn over their tax money to the Catholic hospice Brothers of the
Good Shepherd during a Quaker witness and afternoon rally at City Hall.
The protest was among 70 planned across the country, with thousands of
Quakers participating, said Strong, 53, who is on leave from his job as a
trust officer at a bank to advise tax resisters.
Quakers, who abhor killing and live by the creed of “God in every man,”
helped lead the struggle to free American slaves in the early
19th century. Some were imprisoned for refusing to
fight in World War Ⅰ; others persuaded Congress in
to establish a conscientious objector
provision to the draft laws.
The Quakers’ tax resistance has taken many forms.
Some have refused to pay a 3 percent excise tax on their telephone bills,
which Strong claims raises $2 billion a year for the military.
Others refuse to pay 36 percent of their income taxes, claiming 28 percent
goes to the military and 8 percent represents interest on the Social Security
trust fund which they say goes to the military.
And some have also withheld an additional 17 percent of their taxes that they
say covers the cost of past wars, including veterans payments and war-related
interest on the national debt, Strong said.
“For others, withholding 53 percent isn’t enough because they know that no
matter what taxes you put in, they go to the military. And they refuse all
taxes, turning in a blank 1040. That’s a criminal offense,” Strong said.
A Quaker in Seattle, Irwin Hogenauer, 70, says he hasn’t paid taxes since
.
“I’ve lived a life of principle and I’ll continue to stand by it,” he said.
Hogenauer, who is now retired, managed for most of his working life to keep
his income below the taxable level.
“People who are conscientious objectors often mold their lifestyles so they
don’t have any taxes to pay,” said Helen Provost-Kees, an
IRS
spokeswoman in Seattle.
Single people who earn $5,400 or less a year or couples who earn under $7,400
owe no taxes, she said.
Still, the decision to break the tax law is difficult for many.
“It troubles us to find ourselves in conflict with what we judge to be a fair
obligation to pay the taxes,” said Joe Volk, secretary of the American
Friends Service Committee’s Peace Education branch and a tax resister since
.
The present state of War Tax Resistance at the level of strategy
The ideological debate
From its origins to the present day, War Tax Resistance (WTR) has been criticized on both political and strategic grounds: that it does not grow sufficiently, that it does not accomplish reductions in military spending, that the practice is bureaucratic and cumbersome, that each time it is more complicated to object to the income tax because of technical changes that are introduced every year by the tax agency, that it does not exhaust the possibilities that civil disobedience can accomplish… There are even those who brand it as reactionary in that it challenges the only progressive tax or plants the possibility that conservative groups may use it as a springboard to obtain “a la carte objections” to those public issues that they don’t want to pay for.
On the other hand, and from another political point of view, it is also accused of being reformist by not questioning the right of the state to levy taxes.
Conscious that most of these criticisms contain some truth, we remain confident in the validity of the reasons with which we embarked.
In times of great social demobilization and the lack of real confrontation between social movements and the institutions, like those we are experiencing, WTR allows us to articulate a statewide campaign to denounce the present militarism with great potential to reach different classes and social sectors with its message.
The other alternative that the pacifist/antimilitarist movement has at the present time in order to achieve the wide participation of people, is the protest against military operations abroad, or the successive military invasions by the international (or should we say imperial) coalition led by the US.
But this type of work, which is also undertaken, and which affords us with good results, only functions intermittently as the media spotlight shines.
Furthermore, the anti-war demonstrations often end up being a jumble of different political persuasions, often with messages difficult to assimilate by the nonviolent antimilitarism/pacifism, which is where we have enrolled ourselves.
The message of WTR is much sharper and more difficult to instrumentalize; it does not question a particular military intervention, but the very existence of the military, fought from the same root, that is, the money that society invests in making it possible.
WTR is an ongoing task, in the short, medium, and long term, and even if nothing comes of it, it does not function reactively in response to the injustices of the governments.
It not only questions the negative reality, but also proposes alternatives and points out the real needs that a society should want to defend and the most ethical methods to bring that about.
In addition, the argument is still valid that this political action has great possibilities to be exercised by many people because of its simplicity and the low level of repression that is suffered.
Also we can mention the educational element present in it: WTR is a dignified exercise of civil disobedience that in practice appeals to society and invites it not to be afraid, to confront injustice and to learn to be the master of its own decisions.
For these and other reasons it would take too long to explain, we don’t agree with the groups that understand the campaign as an effort to obtain an officially recognized WTR box on their forms when making a tax return.
Reforms in the Campaign
Some years ago, in Antimilitarist Alternative-MOC, a nationwide organization that belongs to our group, we restructured the campaign and made some modifications.
Mainly we consider that it is more advantageous to emphasize the dimension of disobedience and protest against military spending, and not so much the aspect of solidarity that comes from redirecting quantities of money to entities that we want to support, usually in poor countries.
It’s not that we had become insensitive, or that we don’t see this solidarity as important, which in any case has been ongoing; but the gamble was only to sharpen the political point capable of transforming consciences.
So we decided to call for a “Campaign against Military Spending” and introduced a second motion of protest in Autumn, approving it during the processing of the General State Budget.
Also, we decided to encourage the existence of local recipients of the redirected money, because we feel that it could, as it were, be a way of involving many different people and groups in the campaign, which could only result in the expansion and dissemination of its contents.
Finally we focused on collecting a good set of data and on its subsequent release, to reaffirm the collective and political nature of WTR.
We believe that the result of this effort has been good and has contributed to a campaign that is more well-known.
At the moment, we are trying to improve the part that has to do with a possible continuation of disobedience in those cases in which the Treasury reclaims the redirected money.
We are improving our legal resource materials and are designing political campaigns to help resisters who are trying to exhaust all legal possibilities for their resistance.
(See: campaign to support the war tax resisters of València.)
Booster organizations are lacking
Without a doubt the main obstacle that we face is the lack of organizations to promote the campaign in their cities and regions.
This reality poses a real obstacle to its growth potential.
And certainly, as we have said, such a group exists and the campaign can be carried out with an minimum of effort and responsibility and does guarantee certain results.
We can give an example of our own Antimilitarist Tortoise Group.
In the last five years, since we began to make a more committed effort to the campaign, the number of resisters in the province of Alacant, though always in small numbers, has not stopped growing.
Our commitment to generate local destinations [for redirected taxes] at the provincial level has provided us with a rich set of contacts with numerous groups on the ground which have learned of the campaign and the same reality of military spending, converting some of these into local destinations and therefore into new disseminators of the campaign and its political content.
In various places in Alacant each year, public events are staged to extend WTR, the occasional explanatory lecture is given, and informative materials are released, always in increasing numbers.
It doesn’t work more or better than in other places, but we think that it can be a good example to inspire other people and groups to make similar efforts, as certainly they are not that onerous.
Everybody can participate
Given the small number of antimilitarist/pacifist groups in the state, it’s very important that they join in the campaign and with other groups of socialist, libertarian, feminist, ecological, local, syndicalist, and north/south solidarity natures… and also groups of resisters at a particular level.
We have an archive with email addresses of resisters scattered in different parts of the state, and also groups more or less interested in the campaign.
It would be more than interesting if in each place some of these people could meet and organize a small or large campaign at the local level.
Since our group will gladly supply the addresses necessary to establish the pertinent contacts.
If one flinches in the end at the deed of contacting with different entities, in order that in each zone there will be local destinations the least one can do (including photocopying) is distributing a leaflet from the campaign.
Anything is good for restarting where years ago the collective work left off with WTR,
We have the good fortune to have sufficient documentation to know the whole labyrinth of military spending in Spain, and can calculate the different percentages that they represent in public spending.
Our own Antimilitarist Alternative-MOC, and the J.M. Delàs Center for Justice and Peace, the Gasteizkoak group or the investigator José Toribio, among others, each year provide plenty of basic documentation for the campaign (see estimates for ).
We also have graphic material for distribution that you can ask for from us and we will try to get it to you free of charge, and our Tortoise Group offers free-of-charge to adapt annual diptychs or tryptychs of the campaign of AA-MOC to the local facts of the groups that ask us (tortuga nodo50.org).
Also we are working on studies of the legal basis for resisters whose resistance is rejected by the state but who want to continue.
By now, you know that such recourse has little or no likelihood of success, but it can be a good opportunity — as was realized in València — to propagandize WTR and the critique of military spending, provided that there is a support group behind the person resisting.
Obviously with this writing we are not uncovering anything new, nor saying things that have not been said before, but we have hope that it can serve to to generate hope and desire in some people and groups to dedicate a little effort to a cause as beautiful and transformative as the dream of a demilitarized society.
As Gandhi said, “there is no way to peace; peace is the way.”
Conscientious Objection to military spending, or Tax Resistance, consists in refusing to pay the State the money that is destined to build and maintain militarism, and to divert it to an alternative destination that shows your identification with the objectives of the campaign.
For this, it is necessary to fill out your tax return according to the Treasury, including the resisted amount in the section for deductions and adjusting the corresponding justification.
This documentation must be remitted to the deputy of the Treasury along with a manifesto-printout from the campgian.
(View letter examples.)
This year, the newspaper Diagonal comes to form part of the tax resistance, with a project that is identified with the construction of critical attitudes about the militarization of society.
For all who want to engage in tax resistance helping Diagonal, the steps to follow are:
Pay the amount to object (84 euros, in protest of the 84 countries impoverished by external debt) to the account of the Asociación Punto y Coma (La Caixa 2100‒4065‒10‒2200111082).
Send a copy of your receipt and a manifesto-printout to the deputy of the Treasury along with the rest of your paperwork.
From here, they go on to try to estimate the “military percentage” of the Spanish budget.
The group Antimilitarista-MOC came up with two numbers, one based on a more strict definition of military spending (11.8%), the other with a more inclusive definition that includes spending on police, intelligence gathering, and incarceration (17.21%).
They recommend four possible methods of resistance:
Redirecting a percentage of your taxes corresponding to the percentage of the budget that goes to the military (such as one of the numbers above, or as little as 5.7% if you strictly base this on the budget of the Ministry of Defense).
Redirecting a fixed amount, such as the 84 euros suggested in the Diagonal-sponsored campaign.
If you’re not ready to try tax resistance yet, calculate the amount of taxes you are paying to the military and send a check for that amount to an alternative project (in addition to your taxes), and make note of this in writing when you file your return.
This isn’t tax resistance per se, but increases awareness of the war tax and seeks to mitigate its negative impact.
If you have zero net tax payable, or don’t have to file, you can still send a letter demanding the recognition of the right to conscientious objection to military taxation.
All of this feels very familiar to me from my involvement with the war tax resistance movement in the United States.
Although, ironically given the countries’ relative military budgets and ongoing military operations, the war tax resistance movement in Spain seems to be undergoing a resurgence while the one in the United States is in the doldrums.
An update on the Conscience and Military Tax Campaign.
This is an alternative fund to which war tax resisters can redirect their taxes.
It has a national focus and so is an alternative to the various regional alternative funds.
Æteleia writes: Acting on advice received from Mrs. [Ethel] Ayres Purdie, I am able to evade the payment of Income-tax on investments.
I intend to give everything saved in this way to the funds of the W.F.L. as a Suffragist’s form of “conscience money,” and would recommend the same course to all women who derive income from investments.
Francine Wall of Nashua, left, and Ruth McKay of Hudson, right, members of the
Nashua-Hudson War Tax Resistance Support Group, are protesting war by
distributing leaflets in front of the Nashua Internal Revenue Service office
.
McKay said she plans to hold out 35 percent of her income tax payment this
year because that portion of the federal budget is spent on war efforts.
Hudson woman to hold back on income tax as war protest
by Jon Sherwood
Ruth McKay of Hudson expects to hear from the
IRS
.
She figures the
U.S. government
spends one-third of her taxes on nuclear armament and preparation for war.
So, she said, she will deduct that amount from her tax payment because she
is opposed to war on the grounds that it violates God’s wishes.
McKay adds she’ll write a letter to the Internal Revenue Service to explain
her refusal to pay. That way, she said, she won’t be prosecuted for tax fraud.
McKay, of 17 Barretts Hill Road, belongs to the eight-member Nashua-Hudson
War Tax Resistance Support Group. The aim of the one-year-old group, she
said, is to promote world peace by showing governments military spending will
not be tolerated.
McKay and Francine Wall, of 7-E Hartford Lane, Nashua, have been pacing in
front of the
IRS’
Main Street office to publicize their fight.
They speak with passersby and dispense information pamphlets. On
and
, they plan to hold vigils at
Monument Park on Library Hill, with the theme “Christ is Betrayed by Nuclear
Weapons.”
Kiki Soris, public affairs officer for the
IRS in
Portsmouth, explained the procedure when a tax payment falls short of
expectations.
She said the
IRS
sends a notice to inform the taxpayer more money is owed. If there is no word
from the taxpayer, the tax collection agency sends up to four more notices,
each more serious than the last.
Soris said the fifth notice warns that, if no explanation is received,
enforcement action will be taken. That means seizing a personal bank account,
attaching wages, or attaching Social Security checks.
If no word is received after the fifth notice, she continued, the agency will
take action to get the money. Soris said the
IRS is
also allowed to put a lien on a home, or confiscate and sell a taxpayer’s
personal property and put the proceeds toward the tax bill. Also, Soris said,
interest and penalties are charged on late tax payments.
But McKay knows the procedure and said she nevertheless plans to hold back
her 35 percent as a symbol of civil disobedience, so the government will get
the message. She said she expects to be charged the interest and penalties
fees.
McKay said some Quakers in the state also hold back tax money from the
government as a protest. But, she said, a lot of those persons make so little
money annually they fall below the minimum tax guidelines. McKay said she
isn’t willing to go that far just yet.
Tax money withheld from the Internal Revenue Service by some members of the
Nashua Area War-Tax Resistance Support Group has been deposited in a local
bank account, members say.
Ruth McKay of 17 Barrett’s Hill Road, Hudson, said she withheld 32.9 percent
of the tax she owed — $800 — because statisticians say that portion of the
federal budget is spent on war and war preparation.
Francine Wall of 7-E Hartford Lane said she and her husband, Thomas, have not
yet donated any money to the cause. They declared a 32.9 percent peace credit
on their tax return and expected to have received the money by now.
Mrs. Wall said the expected procedure is for the
IRS to
mail them the credit after their return is fed through a computer. The Walls
would donate that to the fund. When the
IRS
hand-processes the return, Mrs. Wall said, the accountant will notice they
are not eligible for the credit and will send a letter requesting the money
in return.
She said they will then try to keep the government from getting the money
back.
The pacifist group decided at a potluck supper at the Hudson Community Church
this past week it would keep the withheld dollars in escrow, to be given to
the government when policies change and when the money will be used for
purposes other than war.
The group decided that until those policy changes do occur, interest from the
account will be contributed quarterly to peace work or hunger relief projects.
Mrs. McKay said, “I expect they (the
IRS)
are going to get the money because they can attach my pay — I work the second
shift at Centronics.” Other
IRS
methods of retrieving back taxes include putting a lien on a resister’s home
or attaching a spouse’s earnings or assets.
She said she expects the
IRS to
charge interest for the time the money is withheld, and may even assess her a
fine, “but I’m willing to pay the price.”
During the meeting, group members shared war-tax refusal letters they had
written to the
IRS on
, and other correspondence they
have had with the federal agency. The group is committed to peaceful
resistance of military preparation and war. The group’s purpose is to educate
and support persons who witness for war-tax resistance.
As for the escrow account, Mrs. McKay said “Any tax refuser in this part of
the state will be welcomed with open arms,” if they would like to donate
withheld money.
She said the government cannot attach the money because the account is under
an organization name, but it would be returned to the resister when the
government finds another method of getting its due.
In the meantime, she said, the group would use the interest to foster
peaceful causes.
Mrs. McKay said she got involved with war-tax resistance when she was
teaching high school-age Sunday school classes during the Vietnam era. She
said, “One of the boys in my class pushed his Sunday school books across the
table and asked me what he should believe. Whether the government was right
or the church was right.
“He said he could be drafted to go to war, but the church told him not to
fight. He was using the knowledge we gave him the way it was supposed to be
used.”
It occurred to Mrs. McKay that “when you put obedience to God first, you run
into worldly problems. But it has always been that way. Jesus had that
problem.”
“It’s really simple,” she said. “If you believe in God, it is easy to make
the decision. But it is hard to live it out.”
The group meets quarterly.
The next meeting is a picnic .
For information, interested persons may contact Mrs. McKay or the Walls.
By , the fund had accumulated enough interest to make a small donation to the Center for Law and Pacifism.
The article that reported on the donation also mentioned that McKay was planning to try to present a case for her war tax resistance in Tax Court.
That apparently was not successful, as by , the IRS was levying her social security checks for back taxes.
Many war tax resisters take the money the government wants from them and they
give it instead to “alternative funds.” Sometimes these funds donate the money
they receive from resisters to groups doing good. Other times these funds hold
the money in escrow until such time as the government seizes assets from the
resister or (don’t laugh) gives up its evil ways — meanwhile, donating any
interest or returns on investments from the funds to charity.
The new issue of More Than a Paycheck, NWTRCC’s newsletter, is now on-line, featuring the following stories:
No to War Again — a lead-off editorial about the evergreen resistance tactic of war tax resistance now that we’re confronting yet another war, this time in Libya
I shall add an act of fraud to the list of my many “crimes.”
I will go to my employer, the University of Wisconsin, and claim ten dependents on form W4.
I am claiming seven more dependents than I’m legally entitled in order to avoid the withholding tax and, ultimately, the income tax.
I have, as you know, avoided paying taxes in the past by holding two jobs and limiting my income to $112 per month per job — thus I was able to make a taxable income and have nothing withheld from my salary.
Then when April 15th rolled around, instead of filing form 1040 I was able to picket your office, demanding an end to taxes in general and to war taxes in particular.
I no longer find this method of tax refusal convenient.
It’s a pain in the neck to make sure your income doesn’t exceed the $112 limit imposed by law.
I have therefore decided to circumvent this law by breaking another.
The reasons for my tax refusal are two-fold. First, as an anarchist I am
dedicated to the overthrow of all governments and therefore cannot finance
this one. Second, and far more important, I cannot as a pacifist
conscientiously give my tax dollar to you knowing that more than 70¢ out of
each dollar will go for the sole purpose of killing people. This is morally
wrong — far worse than an individual act of “fraud” — and, therefore, I
cannot and will not support you and the system you represent.
Four years ago, Ken Knudson, a member of the pacifist Peacemaker Movement,
pioneered in a new form of tax resistance: the idea of claiming enough
exemptions on the Form W-4 Employee’s Withholding Exemption Certificate so
that no tax can be withheld from one’s wages. Last fall, on
, at Lincoln Park in Chicago, a
dozen people gathered to form the first tax resistance group based on the
Knudson method. All the members adopt the Knudson approach and claim the
exemptions; then they take the money which would have been paid into the
U.S. treasury and
pool it into a cooperative association, the Chicago Area Alternative Fund,
which uses the funds for constructive, as well as voluntary, purposes.
A 25-year-old Madison [Wisconsin] man burned his $500 check and tore up an
income tax form in front of the Internal Revenue Service office
. He said he was demonstrating his
opposition to military spending and the war in Viet Nam.
But the demonstration quickly backfired against Kenneth Knudson.
The shredded tax form had scarcely touched the sidewalk when a police officer
ordered Knudson to pick it up under threat of a $25 fine for littering.
Knudson complied but his troubles weren’t over yet. Another officer served
him with a warrant for failing to pay overtime parking tickets amounting to
$15. Knudson borrowed the money from several other demonstrators marching
with signs that read “No Money for Murder.”
Knudson said the $500 check represented the amount he owes in federal income
taxes.
Tax Collector Sheldon S. Cohen commented: “The government has never lost a
case in which a taxpayer refused to pay on the grounds he disapproved of how
the money is spent.”
Quinlan: The People’s Life Fund is the escrow account that was established so that people who are refusing to pay all or part of their taxes can put that money in escrow, and the interest from that is granted each year to groups that are doing the kind of work that we feel the government should be doing.
The kind of work that’s being cut right now.
While the military is allowed to grow, our schools and social services are being cut.
Erica Weiland is on the administrative committee for the [NWTRCC] national office.
She says redirecting even a small part of what she considers a “military tax” has rewards that outweigh any fines or possible prison time.
Weiland: De-funding the military opens up a huge amount of money, resources, and time that could be used building up our communities and supporting communities around the world — who need that so much more than they need to be bombed and shot at.
Here’s another look at the American war tax resistance movement of yore, this time in the form of an article from the D.C. Gazette:
On Refusing Federal Taxes
by Bill Samuel
Tax refusal is an old American way of making a protest.
Religious pacifists refused taxes during the French and Indian Wars, large numbers of colonists refused unjust taxes imposed by the British prior to the Revolutionary War, and Henry David Thoreau refused to pay taxes to kill Mexicans.
The practice has enjoyed a rebirth in the last few years.
Sickened by the Indochina War, growing numbers of Americans began refusing federal taxes.
A national organization, War Tax Resistance, was formed which spawned more than 150 local centers around the country.
The movement did not go away when the Administration declared the war over.
People continued to resist, protesting continued involvement in Indochina, the spending of 60% of the federal administrative budget for military-related purposes, the lack of representation for DC residents and a host of other reasons.
Hang Up On War
The government used excise taxes on telephone service to help finance World War Ⅰ, World War Ⅱ, the Korean War and the Indochina War.
But it wasn’t until the Indochina War that large numbers of people began to refuse to pay the tax.
It is a good target for refusal, not only because of its historical association with war but also because it is easy to refuse.
It is clearly marked on the phone bill, so one just has to deduct it from the total and enclose an explanation when paying the bill.
The telephone company is merely a collection agent and is forbidden, by the Federal Communications Commission from penalizing the telephone subscriber for refusing to pay it.
The company merely passes the information along to the IRS, which may eventually try to collect it from your bank account.
It costs the IRS far more to collect than it gets for its troubles.
Don’t Be An April Fool
The phone tax may be the easiest to refuse, but the income tax is the most important.
Growing numbers of people are refusing part or all of their federal income taxes.
The tax resistance movement has developed several good techniques, and IRS sometimes accepts claims made by resisters.
One technique is to claim a tax credit which one may call “a war tax credit.”
Another is similar and involves taking a miscellaneous deduction among your itemized deductions sometimes called “a war tax deduction.”
People whose tax has not all been withheld may simply refuse payment of the remainder or a portion thereof.
Some people file a blank return with nothing but their name and perhaps their address on it, relying on the Fifth Amendment to protect their right (conceded by the IRS) not to provide financial information as it would be evidence one had committed a crime (willful failure to pay tax).
Some refuse to file a return at all.
No matter which technique is used, the IRS has followed a practice of not prosecuting those who have openly submitted an explanation giving conscientious reasons for their actions.
The IRS may assess the refuser and attempt to collect, but there is a long appeal process that can stave off collection for years.
Some people, not quite ready to refuse outright, pay their taxes but simultaneously file for a refund.
They use Claim Form 843 (available from IRS) for “Refund of Taxes illegally, Erroneously, or Excessively Collected.”
This form gives the taxpayer space to explain why he/she is asking for a refund.
Protect Your Salary
The chief deterrent to massive income tax refusal has been the withholding system.
People never see their tax money normally.
But this is not so difficult a problem to get around, since the amount of one’s withholding is based on a form (Form W-4) each employee files with his/her employer.
On the W-4, the employee merely lists a total number of withholding allowances without giving any justification for them.
The employer is required by law to accept this form.
To prevent withholding from one’s salary completely, one merely files a new W-4 claiming a number of allowances at least equal to one’s annual salary minus $1300, divided by 750.
If one then uses the “war tax deduction” method of refusal on one’s 1040, the W-4 is completely legal since one is allowed to claim withholding allowances based on one’s expectation of claiming a large amount of itemized deductions at the end of the year (the validity of the claimed deductions is irrelevant for purposes of W-4).
At the very least, you should be sure that all allowances to which you are normally entitled are claimed.
In addition to allowances for yourself and any dependents, you are now also entitled to an additional Special Withholding Allowance unless you hold more than one job simultaneously or have a spouse who works.
If you don’t claim it, you will be loaning the government money at no interest.
WAFFL — Food for Life
In an effort to make the positive witness of war tax resistance clearer, more than 55 alternate funds have been established around the country to put refused taxes to good use.
In the DC area, the Washington Area Fund for Life (WAFFL) was established last summer.
The Fund collectively makes decisions on the use of money and retains rereserves to provide mutual aid to members if needed.
The Fund provides financial support to two South Vietnamese children whose fathers were killed in the war.
It has also made grants to the United Farm Workers Union and the Washington Peace Center.
It holds regular monthly meetings.
For more information about tax resistance and WAFFL, contact Washington War Tax Resistance, 120 Maryland Ave., NE, DC 20002; (546‒8646 or 546‒6231).
Ames, Iowa — An anti-war group, with assistance from Iowa State University, says it will award an annual scholarship to a conscientious objector to the military draft.
Preference for the privately funded scholarship will be given to a student denied federal financial aid for refusing to register for the draft.
The first scholarship is to be awarded .
“Our group wants to help ensure that students who are morally opposed to fighting a war are not denied an education,” said Keith Schrag, coordinator of the Ames War Tax Resistance Fund and a member of the Ames Mennonite Fellowship.
A bill signed into law denies federal student aid to students who do not verify they have registered for the draft.
The provision is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Yonkers Herald Statesman profiled war tax resister Connie Hogarth on .
I’ve only found fragments of the article on-line, but here is a brief excerpt about her tax resistance:
This year, she has taken a more personal tack.
While acknowledging that it may not immediately hasten disarmament.
Mrs. Hogarth and her former WESPAC co-chairman, Charles Scheiner, and several other county residents are refusing to pay the IRS a large percentage of their income taxes.
Instead, they are depositing the money into something called the Greater Westchester Alternative Fund.
So far, about 20 people are withholding payment of up to 40 percent of their federal taxes, the amount they estimate would go to the military.
The fund, under the direction of an elected board, has pledged to allocate the money to community projects such as day-care centers and drug-rehabilitation programs already suffering from federal budget cuts.
Mrs. Hogarth explained all this to the IRS in a cordial February letter which began, “Dear People:” She was withholding, she explained in phraseology typical of her.
“so that I can withstand being complicit in fueling the move toward human destruction by nuclear madness.”
Then she quoted a Mennonite who said.
“I’d rather explain the folly of war tax resistance to those who misunderstand, than explain my silence and inaction to my children and grandchildren, should nuclear ovens become our graves.”
In closing, she told the IRS.
“The dangers are too real… life is too precious.
I hope you will try to understand and perhaps follow.”
This final suggestion that the people opening the mail at the IRS might be compassionate, thoughtful and even courageous fellow citizens underscores Mrs. Hogarth’s indefatigable nature.
She believes “converts” are to be found everywhere.
…Mrs. Hogarth’s “conversion” of one Gary Ward remains a favorite characterization of her faith.
Ward was the New York City police officer who guarded Mrs. Hogarth following her arrest during the first United Nations special session on disarmament in .
She spoke with him at length and decided that, “he’s really sympathetic to us.”
She immediately put the officer on WESPAC’s permanent mailing list.
“Of course,” one WESPAC volunteer adds cheerfully, “we’ve never heard a word from him.”
After watching Mrs. Hogarth one morning in front of the IRS, the conversion of Officer Ward does not seem farfetched.
In contrast to the stereotypical dissenter, Mrs. Hogarth rarely registers an alienating note.
Instead, she uses a delightfully subversive quality known as charm.
Not surprisingly, the federal Protective Services police assigned to sit in their car and observe the protest took home a handful of Jobs-with-Peace petitions after Mrs. Hogarth spent a few minutes with them.
Connie Hogarth; the poster next to her reads: “I’d rather explain the folly of war tax resistance to those who misunderstand than explain my silence and inaction to my children and grandchildren should nuclear ovens become our graves.”
Some updates on the prospects of passport restrictions for tax resisters, consequences of the laws implementing Obamacare for tax resisters, challenges in being a phone tax resister, and how non-filers can navigate the food stamp program.
International news about the upcoming international war tax resistance conference, and a quashed legal appeal by a German conscientious objectors’ group against mandatory military taxation.
Glimpses at the state of war tax redirection funds, an upcoming () New England war tax resisters’ gathering, some war tax resisters who got shout-outs in a Mennonite Women publication, and an update on the Cindy Sheehan case.
Organizational news including an announcement of the thirtieth anniversary of NWTRCC’s founding, a note about the national gathering coming up in Colorado Springs, and about NWTRCC’s presence at the School of the Americas Watch protests in .
A profile of Seth Berner, who has been resisting a token protest amount of his taxes for 20 years.
There’s another wave of “Tax Day” protests coming this year.
Here’s a press release from the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee about some of them:
Refusing to Pay for Cruise Missiles and Drone Strikes:
30 Years of Tax Day Antiwar Protests
On people in communities across the United States will be leafleting, marching, doing street theatre, committing civil disobedience, and picketing at post offices, IRS offices, federal buildings, among other public spaces, using materials calling attention to the harmful effects of military spending.
A list of U.S. Tax Day events with links to international actions can be found at www.nwtrcc.org/taxday2013.php.
is also the third annual Global Day of Action on Military Spending.
, during his first term, President Ronald Reagan set off a massive buildup in the U.S. armed forces that stands out on historical graphs of U.S. military budgets since World War Ⅱ.
This motivated thousands of taxpayers to resume the civil disobedience (begun during the Vietnam War) by refusing to pay taxes to buy cruise missiles and other weapons, and led to the formation of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC).
In that same year Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle, risking official censure, withheld half his income tax to protest nuclear weapons, calling on others to do the same.
The spike in military spending surpasses that of the Reagan years.
Today U.S. taxpayers are buying even more expensive weapons systems, new nuclear weapons plants, assassinations by unmanned drones, and soaring interest payments on the national debt along with burgeoning health care costs for thousands of wounded veterans.
On , an ad placed in a Massachusetts weekly began, “We refuse to pay taxes for the violence of war preparations and other military expenditures including present military involvement in other countries.
Over half of the federal income taxes are used for military expenses.”
Many of the 120 signers still refuse today and still protest on tax day, joined by newer activists who have been provoked into protesting taxes for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the endless war on terror.
Massachusetts residents Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner were signers of that ad.
Despite a house seizure and other collection efforts by the IRS, Kehler and Corner say, “With the federal government running up huge deficits by spending trillions of taxpayer dollars on weapons and war, at the expense of its own people (especially its soldiers) and the people of other countries, we invite our fellow citizens to join us in saying ‘No!’ and to begin re-directing their federal tax money to local projects that meet genuine human needs.”
Redirection: Our “Constructive Program” — Bill Ramsey compares redirection (the common practice in war tax resistance circles of giving your due taxes to charity rather than to the government) to the “constructive program” part of Gandhi’s campaigns.
Like us! — Erica Weiland points out the various facets of NWTRCC’s social media presence.
Counseling Notes — how credit rating worries and student debt may discourage war tax resisters; suspicions of an uptick in the underground economy; lots of bad news for the IRS; and war tax resistance counselor training notes
War Tax Resistance Ideas and Actions — a recap of some of the creative outreach and protest actions of the nationwide war tax resistance community
How We Want Our Tax Dollars Used — a look at the granting decisions of a handful of war tax resistance alternative funds, which coordinate the redirection of many war tax resisters
NWTRCC News — a recap of the NWTRCC national gathering in Asheville earlier this month
the American Revolution was portrayed as the culmination of a tax revolt in this educational cartoon short that aired frequently between Saturday morning cartoons in the United States in
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
your humble editor and his little brother in
I was a little too young to be much of an observer of the political scene, but I remember as being something of an orgy of innocent patriotism.
America was sick of being cynical and wanted to go back to being stupid — besides, the Vietnam War was mostly over, at least for most Americans, and we’d given Nixon the heave-ho — and so there were plenty of red-white-and-blue commemorations of the bicentennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The Friends Journal wasn’t quite so willing to get with the star-spangled program.
In particular, it intensified its coverage of war tax resistance during the bicentennial year.
The issue was the Friends Journal’s first special issue devoted to war tax resistance.
It starts off with a couple of inspiring quotes on the subject from A.J. Muste and David Dellinger, then opens with a piece by Jennifer S. Tiffany on how she met the challenge of deciding whether to pay or to resist.
Excerpts:
This fall was a time when I was grappling a great deal with the question of war tax resistance.
To start with, I knew and had known for a long time that I could not be clear in paying taxes to any state which would use them to pay for war-making.
Particularly, I could not contribute to the nuclear death race between this nation and the Soviet Union.
Perhaps it goes back to the civil defense tests and simulated nuclear air-raids which had terrified and confused me when I was a child.
Anyway, the imperative, the need to keep clear of war (to use Bruce Baechler’s words), had always been strong.
I had been acting on it, in small ways, for a long while-avoiding earnings beyond the taxable minimum, for example, and claiming six “peace dependents” on my W-4 form when my income did exceed this minimum.
I also corresponded with the IRS concerning my views and actions.
However, a disclarity still existed regarding full resistance, with all the possible ramifications on my life and lifestyle.
The question was, to me, was I strong enough and centered enough to maintain a taxable income level, restructure my life in such a way as to prevent eventual government levies, and go on with my resistance?
Could I face creatively the possibility of putting a good deal of energy into court cases with the eventuality of prison?
I came into meeting for worship one morning at the height of these grapplings.
As I settled in, I was astounded.
Somehow the fears and conflicting leadings within me changed.
They did not fade or diminish, but grew into context.
The spirit of the meeting, the presence of loving Friends, who loved whether or not they agreed with one another’s approach, literally overwhelmed me.
The presence of God wholly covered the gathering, and finally clearness came.
Our God, the Presence in our worship and acts of witness, is a gentle, healing, loving, empowering God, one who speaks strongly and softly from within us.
At the same moment as making demands on our lives, this Presence says, “You need not fear; if you act on this I will sustain and strengthen you throughout the whole process.
I am…” This was a moment of resolution for me.
I was no longer entangled in a negative refusal to pay taxes, but was healed and sustained and led to a positive witness.
I could go on.
It is in this context that tax resistance has its roots and life.
War tax resistance, any resistance to war and to those authorities which bring about war, is not a negative presence: every no implies a yes, and this no to killing and death can be a yes to healing and life.
Within tax resistance dwell seeds which can help a whole new order to grow — seeds which deny fear and powerlessness in the face of death; seeds which lead us to the creation of healing alternatives to structures which sustain death.
As John Woolman puts it, “to turn all we possess into the channel of universal love becomes the whole business of our lives.”
I can speak only of my moment of resolution, the clearness and joy which is liberated in my life through a tax witness.
As I see it, this issue of Friends Journal is not a coercive tool, saying “you must for these reasons refuse to pay your taxes or I will no longer judge you to be a good Friend.”
The point of this issue is not to define terms for judgment, to draw lines of inclusion and exclusion.
Our faith is an experiential one, and your experience of real clarity is as right and valid for you as mine is for me.
The point is to lay ourselves open to what speaks truthfully in us, to really open ourselves to the spirit which utterly denies war, to really grapple with the questions this raises and the demands it makes on our lives.
One of those questions has to do with tax resistance.
This is an invitation to grapple with it, and a reaching out which says there is a great company of people, past and present, who have done so.
There is a process of empowerment, growth and the birth of community among people which can take root through tax resistance.
First comes the knowledge that the authorities of death are not all-powerful, that the laws and structures which sustain any war machine are in fact quite weak.
As Marion Bromley says in her article, “What can they take away that is of real value?”
Second dawns the realization that alternatives are possible: through the flaws in the death order, we glimpse the order of life.
And, although such consequences as possible imprisonment or loss of property, and the inward struggle with fear, are largely borne alone, the vision is shared by a growing company of sisters and brothers.
Isolation is hard to feel when so many glimpse the possibility of a new order — an order beyond war.
Finally and especially, tax resistance often grows as an act of ministry, an act of obedience to the loving and healing spirit.
War tax resistance is one aspect of a community set on fire with the presence of a gentle, empowering God.
Bruce Baechler thought the question of whether Quakers should resist war taxes was a no-brainer.
He wrote in from prison (where he was doing time for draft resistance) with this defense of war tax resistance.
Excerpts:
Do Friends support war?
At one time this could be answered with a “not at all.”
These days, though, it seems to depend on how one defines support.
Friends, generally, denounce war in the strongest terms. Indeed that’s all many people know about us.
But for the most part Friends can no longer claim to renounce, or “utterly deny” war.
Friends today are not compelled to bear arms… instead of fighting with outward weapons ourselves, we are merely asked to buy the weapons through taxation, and leave the dirty work to others.
And most of us do.
Yet we cling to our traditional peace testimony, often expressed as early Friends did in the Declaration of :
We utterly deny all outward wars and strife, and fightings with outward weapons, for any end, or under any pretense whatsoever; this is our testimony to the whole world.
This is strong language.
One cannot, without being hypocritical, utterly deny something and still give it material support.
But most Friends do.
There are many reasons given for paying taxes.
Most of these are quite valid, if one thinks of tax resistance as a protest.
But I see a difference between various types of protests, such as vigils and letters to Congress, and nonsupport, or remaining clear of war, as by tax resistance.
In protesting, one makes her/his views known, but leaves it up to someone else (the government) to make the decision.
Governments are not noted for their receptivity to the pacifist message, and it is unlikely they will be in the near future.
I am not deriding protest — much has been accomplished through it.
I am just saying that it is not enough.
Nonsupport, on the other hand, emphasizes individual responsibility.
To refuse to pay one’s taxes is to accept responsibility for the way they would be spent, and to refuse to allow them to be spent for immoral purposes.
Tax resistance should not mean just withholding taxes from the government.
An integral part of tax resistance is to redirect the money normally spent for taxes into life supporting channels.
In many places this is done through Alternative Funds, where the resisters in a community band together to make most effective use of the money.
Thus not only is money diverted from warmaking, but at the same time it is made available as a resource for peaceful activities.
Perhaps the biggest problem most Friends have with not paying for war is that it is illegal.
One faces the prospect of prison for it, and this alone is enough to make most people give it only superficial consideration.
Hopefully the World Peace Tax Fund, if established by Congress, will alleviate some of this problem in much the same way that the Conscientious Objector provisions in the draft laws gave a legal alternative to the army.
But in the meantime the problem remains.
Friends have often suffered for their beliefs.
Throughout our history large numbers of Friends have been imprisoned, tortured, and killed for preaching and practicing the message of the Inward Light.
Would you stay away from a Meeting for Worship if to go meant certain arrest?
Would you attend but not speak when moved, if that would be dangerous (a situation facing Korean Friends today)?
Would you join the army to avoid prison?
Kill to avoid being killed?
The question is where to draw the line.
When, to you, does the personal suffering involved in a course of action outweigh the reasons for taking that course?
Each person must decide for her/himself.
Another response to the problem of imprisonment is that if any substantial number of Friends did engage in tax resistance, the likelihood of their being imprisoned would be small, and some provision in the law would probably be made for them, thus eliminating the problem and encouraging more people to resist.
Jack Cady shared his long, meandering letter to the Director of the IRS.
Excerpts:
[O]ur first confrontation… will be the examination of my tax return.
I expect the examination is prompted by my refusal last year to pay half of my income tax.
I will refuse. to pay half of the tax again this year, although because of withholding, your agency already has most of the money.
I refuse to pay half of the tax on various grounds, some of which are moral, some of which are legal.
The refusal is prompted by the expenditure by our government of over fifty percent of tax monies on the maintenance and purchase and use of armies and weapons.
Through its agency, Internal Revenue Service, the United States Government seeks my complicity in the violation of twenty centuries of moral teaching.
The government is in further violation of the Constitution of the United States.
It is also in violation of various international treaties and agreements, and is, in fact, engaged in crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.
In requiring that I pay taxes for the support of war, planning for war, offensive weapons and the maintenance of a standing armed force sufficient to engage combat on a worldwide scale, the U.S. Government through its agent IRS is in violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees my religious freedom.
I am a member of the Port Townsend meeting for worship of the Society of Friends (Quaker).
The Quaker belief and effective detachment from war dates from the beginnings of the Society in .
The precedent of refusal to pay war taxes in America dates from when John Woolman, John Churchman, and Anthony Benezet refused to pay for the French and Indian wars.
Nonviolence and refusal to pay or endorse either side in a combat dates in U.S. history from the revolution when Quakers who refused to kill were stoned or beaten under the brand of Tory.
I claim my devout belief in God and the injunction that we may not kill as sufficient reason to refuse this tax.
I would expect that opposition to this view would also have to overcome three hundred years of Quaker nonviolence and two hundred years of U.S. acceptance of Quaker attitudes that insist on nonviolence.
[I]n asking taxes, the U.S.A. through its agent IRS seeks my complicity in crimes against peace and crimes against humanity as defined by the Nuremberg Principles.
These principles hold that citizens of a nation are guilty of crimes committed by that nation if they acquiesce to those crimes when, in fact. a moral choice is open to them.
In requiring that I pay taxes to support a war industry and armed forces capable of contending on a worldwide scale, the U.S. Government is threatening both my moral and my physical existence.
I am not being protected, because the U.S. builds atomic weapons, B-1 bombers, atomic submarines, poison gas, lasers, rocketry, napalm and all of the other expensive paraphernalia of war.
These do not protect me.
They invoke the suspicion and fear of other nations, and they provoke among other nations the building and stockpiling of similar weapons.
[T]he U.S. now gives every indication that it is, in fact, not a nation of laws but a nation of men and corporations.
This, despite the resignation from office of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew.
I charge that the freedom of the citizen is largely illusory, and that the payment of taxes, the keeping of tax records, the invasion of privacy by IRS and other agencies of government, the making of rules by agencies (rules that have the force and effect of law but which are not to be challenged in courts), the maintenance of records or files on the political, religious, economic and moral statements and actions of the individual, the power to levy fines and licenses by agency rule, and the presumption by government that citizens are guilty of any agency charge and must therefore bear the burden of proof of their innocence; all of these show the citizens of the U.S. are no longer free.
I have two main intentions in this tax refusal.
The first is quite clear.
I do not intend to pay for the destruction of other human beings, nor endorse by word or deed the crimes of the United States.
The second intent is a little more nebulous but it is just as strong.
It is strong because I love my country.
In this refusal I intend that the United States will display by its action whether or not a citizen, raised to believe in U.S. principles of freedom, equality, protection under the laws; raised, in fact, under statements like, “With a proper regard for the opinions of mankind,” can indeed trust and believe in the way he has been raised.
Either the Constitution is sound or it is not.
The U.S. will either honor its national and international commitments or it will not.
The courts will either face issues or the courts will duck them.
…If the rules of IRS are bigger than the Constitution, the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Principles and the Christian teaching of two thousand years, then I believe it is time that the U.S. acknowledge this…
The next article came from Marion Bromley.
Excerpts:
Ernest and I began a tax refusers’ newsletter soon after our marriage in .
In all the time since, only a tiny proportion of Friends and other pacifists have become tax refusers, and we sometimes try to understand why.
It has been, for us, more a personal imperative than a carefully reasoned political position, though we have done what we could to expound on all aspects of refusing to allow one’s labor to be taxed for war and weaponry.
Most people, whether they are pacifists or not, seem to respect our “right” to refuse taxes when we have a chance to explain how we feel about it.
In turn we have to accept the “right” of others to continue to pay large sums in taxes, even though the U.S. budget continues to be overwhelmingly devoted to war and the war system.
Before 1800 taxes were levied largely for specific things such as bridges, schools, highways.
A levy for war was as separate as the others.
Quakers, Mennonites and a few others who had strong scruples against paying for the militia or for gunpowder refused to pay and sometimes suffered distraint of goods or imprisonment for their stand.
When all these items began to be lumped together into one, general tax, it was no longer so simple an issue.
Some, with a considerable feeling of relief, began to pay; others paid more out of frustration.
And one of the most potent testimonies against war during became lost.
Now, in , probably no reasonable person believes that the billions to be spent for weapons research, deployment of armies and nuclear weapons, nuclear submarines prowling the ocean floor, planes carrying nuclear bombs, and intercontinental ballistic missiles will be in any sense a “defense” for anyone.
Since such policies and practices will probably lead to a nuclear holocaust at some future time, maybe distant, maybe near, paying for these weapons comes close to being an evil act.
It may be that the reason most Friends do not see it in that light is that they are conscientiously committed to liberalism — to the direction the federal government began in and from which there is now no retreat.
The federal government, in order to ease suffering and to maintain control over its own populace, began to assume some social responsibility.
Possibly most Friends are in the same position as those who began paying the “mixed” taxes in .
But in the whole world has witnessed the kind of horror that a powerful military state can unleash even without resort to the ultimate weapon.
…In an individual such behavior would be deemed madness.
Would a mad individual be permitted to continue such activities because that individual was also performing some useful services?
Another aspect of liberalism that has probably influenced Friends greatly in the past fifty years is the commitment to law.
I cannot explain why most Friends think it is almost a religious principle to honor the law and the courts, while I feel it is very low on my list of loyalties.
My religious instincts are insulted when I observe a judge in the robes of a priest, high above others in the courtroom, the witnesses and observers in pews and the bailiff enforcing a hushed silence.
My view is that this holy-appearing scene is for the purpose of defending the property and the power of the people who have those commodities.
It is the same in a socialist or a capitalist state.
It is certainly an acceptable arrangement for people to agree on certain codes or laws, agreements about property.
I would not disobey laws for frivolous reasons.
But I have no qualms about disobeying laws which would force me to pay for murder and other crimes related to the war system.
Civil disobedience which requires long-term adherence, such as arranging to make one’s living without the withholding system, perhaps is considered impossibly difficult by many conscientious people.
For many Friends, commitment to a service type vocation seems to require “fitting in” with a professional life style.
The scale has not been invented which could balance service that is beneficial to others with the negative effects of supporting warmaking and possibly silencing one’s conscientious stirrings.
The only contribution I can make to such considerations is my testimony that refusing to pay income taxes has proved to be a blessing in many ways.
For one thing, it resulted in our “backing into” a simple life style, consuming less than we otherwise would.
Friends who have valued simplicity know of its blessings — the simple life is more healthful, more joyful, more blessed in every way.
A new friend we met following seizure of Gano Peacemakers’ property, our home for 25 years, wrote us after moving from Cincinnati that he supposed we were having a very sad summer at Gano this year, knowing that we would be evicted in the fall.
This notion was quite contrary to the way we felt.
We were enjoying the time here more than ever before.
The growing season seemed more productive than ever, and the surroundings more beautiful.
We were working very hard, preparing leaflets, signs and press releases, corresponding, thinking of new ways to tell everyone who would listen that the IRS claims were fraudulent and politically motivated.
We expected to be evicted but never had the feeling that we would “lose” in the struggle.
(The following paragraph, concerning the eventual IRS surrender in the Gano Peacemakers case, is largely obscured in the PDF.)
One of the pleasant feelings we have about the reversal of the sale (besides knowing that we can continue to live on these two acres) is that many people have told us they got a real lift when they heard that some “little people” had prevailed in the struggle with the IRS.
We had the feeling that our daily leafleting and constant public statements during the seven months’ campaign had, at the least, the effect of showing that people need not fear this government agency.
People do fear the IRS and that is an unworthy attitude.
What can they take away that is of real value?
Jack Powelson struck a dissenting note, listing war tax resistance among a number of popular Quaker positions that he felt to be sentimentally motivated and economically naive.
Excerpt:
Friends are concerned about paying taxes to a government that allocates a high proportion of its budget to the military.
But we also know that if enough Friends refused to pay taxes so that the government was seriously impeded in its operations, the first items to be cut would be welfare and education, and the poor would suffer.
The Journal then quoted John A. Reiber on his vision for “a cultural revolution with political implications, not a political revolution with cultural implications.”
Excerpt:
The most effective social changes are not going to come from within the system, but without it.
We must realize that the vast, impersonal and powerful institutions are not intrinsic to our survival and well-being, but, in fact, extrinsic and harmful.
What we must do to achieve a cultural (r)evolution is to, first of all, withdraw our support of our unendurable, tyrannical and inefficient institution of the government.
One way of doing this is through tax resistance.
But tax resistance, by itself, is only a part of the solution.
Money, time and energy should be channelled into alternatives to our technological mass consumption/ mass waste society, our irrelevant and oppressive educational institutions and our mass media which don’t meet our informational needs.
Craig Simpson next gave a report on war tax resistance as it was practiced internationally.
Excerpts:
During the Peace Research and Peace Activists Conference in Holland in , I met Susumu Ishitani, a member of the Japanese Conscientious Objectors to War Taxes Movement (COMIT).
The group is the first of its kind in Japanese history and was started in .
It is made up of Christian pacifists — Mennonites, FOR members and Quakers — as well as non-church pacifists.
The group apparently has been growing rather quickly.
They have meetings all over Japan, print articles in newspapers, and hold press conferences.
Their emphasis is on the refusal of the 6.5% of their taxes which goes for the so-called “Self-Defense Forces.”
They have even written a “Song of 6.5% or 6.5% for a Peaceful World” protesting war taxes and expressing the need for money to stop death and the pollution of our environment.
Susumu is a wonderful and gentle member of the group.
Outside of his job as a university professor he is active as a member of the local Friends Meeting in Minato-ku (Tokyo).
He also trains students in nonviolence and works to raise consciousness about the Japanese government’s involvement with the repressive South Korean government.
He clearly sees the importance of not sending his money to the government for destructive purposes.
COMIT was still in operation at least as late as , but I haven’t been able to find much about them on-line.
France… has a long tradition of resistance to war and the military.
The tax refusal movement began in its present state in during the first French atomic tests in the South Pacific when a number of people decided to refuse the 20% of their taxes which would go to the war department.
This money was redistributed to organizations working for peace and developing social alternatives.
Groups soon were organizing in Orleans, Paris, Mulhouse, Lyon, and Tours and by were working in cooperation with one another.
They then made a decision to broaden the movement by asking people to refuse only 3% of their income tax.
They felt this way they would be able to attract more people because of the minimum of risk.
Many of these people decided to redistribute their money to the peasant-worker struggle in Larzac.
Larzac is a plain in Southern France where a group of peasants, farmers and shepherds have been resisting the expansion of an army training base onto land where they have lived and worked for centuries.
The Larzac struggle has become extremely important in France.
It receives broad support from leftists, environmentalists, workers and antimilitarists.
The peasants, who have come to believe strongly in nonviolent struggle, have used some very creative tactics to draw attention to their plight.
For example, they drove their tractors from Southern France onto the streets of Paris.
On the way, they were met in Orleans by 113 tax refusers who gave their tax money to the peasant struggle instead of to the military.
This link between the peasant struggle against the military and the people who refused taxes solidified the movement and both benefited.…
By , 400 French people had become tax refusers and at latest count as many as 4,000 are giving their money to Larzac instead of the government.
Many farmers, workers and pacifists are involved now in the refusal of taxes to support the Larzac struggle.
Most recently in France, pacifists are discussing and organizing for 100% refusal of their taxes as their non-cooperation with the military becomes more consistent with their lifestyles.
the issue also had a list of resources interested Quakers could use to find out more about war tax resistance
There were also several letters to the editor on the subject:
Mary Bye wrote in to explain the rationale behind her tax resistance.
“I believe that my tax dollars go to support a system which perpetuates misery and suffering in large parts of the world.
Here at home we have set up a monstrous military budget while the programs for the poor, the minorities, the disadvantaged and the defenseless are being cut.
I believe that the first step to moral health is to realize the callous role of oppressor we, as a nation, play abroad and at home.
The second step is to act.”
She said tax resistance works for her because “I know of no other way to introduce this concern into the courts, and… I want to commit my money to help meet human needs neglected by the government.
I give voluntarily an amount equal to that computed by IRS regulations to help build a community of caring.”
Ross Roby wrote in to promote the World Peace Tax Fund Act.
“Essentially, this bill would provide conscientious objectors to war (male and female, young and old) an alternative to having their Federal tax payments used to finance government agencies that wage war and those that contribute to the waging of war by our government and by other governments of this world.”
He complained that the proposal hadn’t gotten much Quaker support: “Are we unable to recognize a friendly hand when it does not come in Quaker garb?
Or, has vocal pacifism fallen so irrevocably into the hands of radical resistants that a congressional bill which proposes accommodating conscientious objection to the realities of the Internal Revenue Service (and vice versa) is automatically dismissed?”
He described the mechanism of the Act this way: “It sets up a Fund for Peace to which we, conscientious objectors to war, would automatically contribute as we paid our usual federal income tax.
If the federal budget were determined, by an impartial authority, to contain sixty per cent for military purposes, then sixty cents of each dollar we pay would enhance the treasury of a fund that builds peace…”
Jim Forest wrote about his decision to stop tax withholding from his paycheck by filing a new W-4 form.
“We will be using these moneys for human needs that aren’t being adequately met in the present world: hunger, housing, resistance to militarism, various efforts for impoverished people, etc. We receive fund appeals each day which, had we the means, we would respond to, or respond to more generously.
Now we will.”
Donald Hultgren gave a report of Robin Harper’s talk about war tax resistance and charitable redirection at the Quaker Meeting in Cornwall, New York.
Harold R. Regier, the Peace and Social Concerns secretary of the General Conference Mennonite church, wrote to thank the Journal for its “encouragement in our efforts to work at war tax payment/resistance issues.”
Harold R. Regier, the last letter writer I mentioned, said that: “One of our efforts along this line was to convene a war tax conference to look particularly at the theological and heritage bases for war tax resistance.”
The Journal article that followed concerned this conference.
A note at the top of that article said that “[o]ne hundred twenty persons registered” for a Mennonite/Brethren in Christ sponsored conference to seek theological and practical discernment on war tax issues.”
That conference issued a summary statement, which the Journal reprinted.
Excerpts:
After considering the New Testament texts which speak about the Christian’s payment of taxes, most of us are agreed that we do not have a clear word on the subject of paying taxes used for war.
The New Testament statements on paying taxes (Mark 12:17, Romans 13:6–7) contain either ambiguity in meaning or qualifications on the texts that call the discerning community to decide in light of the life and teachings of Jesus.
Although those in the Anabaptist tradition were generally consistent in their historical stand against individual participation in war, they were not of one mind regarding the payment of taxes for war.
Evidence suggests that most Anabaptists did pay all of their taxes willingly; however, there is the early case of the Hutterite Anabaptists, a sizable minority in the Anabaptist movement, who refused to pay war taxes.
In the later stages of Anabaptist history there is no clear-cut precedent on the question of war taxes.
During the American Revolution most Mennonites did object to paying war taxes, yet in a joint statement with the Brethren they agreed to pay taxes in general to the colonial powers “that we may not offend them.”
The record continued to be mixed until the present day.
Only a small minority chose to demonstrate their allegiance to Christ through a tax witness.
So far most discernment on the war tax issue has been done on an individual level as opposed to a church or congregational level.
Although individuals struggling with the issue have been supported by similarly concerned brothers and sisters, wider church support has been lacking.
While recognizing the need for a growing consensus in these matters, we know that not all in the Mennonite/Brethren in Christ fellowship are agreed on an understanding of scriptural teaching and a faithful response regarding war taxes.
We are ready to acknowledge this disagreement and seek to continue discerning God’s will in this.
But as a church community, we feel we should be conscious of the convictions and struggles of our sisters and brothers and supportive of the steps they have taken and are considering.
And all that’s just from one issue!
The issue included an article by Robin Harper about the Brandywine Alternative Fund, one of “a series of experiments [that] go by various names: fund for humanity, people’s life fund, life priorities fund, war tax resistance alternative fund.”
Excerpts:
As many as forty sprang into existence in as the country’s agony over Vietnam reached a crescendo.
Though each is organized and operated a bit differently, the basic concept is to pool federal war taxes (both telephone and income) conscientiously withheld from the IRS and redistribute them, by loans or grants, to community groups working for peace, social justice, and other areas of social change.
…the Brandywine Alternative Fund serves Delaware and Chester Counties just west of Philadelphia.
Although the greater part of the Brandywine fund comes from “reallocated” federal taxes, we also encourage deposits of personal savings.
This policy has not only enlarged the fund but has also broadened participation to include persons eager to help “reorder our nation’s priorities away from the military” who don’t choose to use the particular method of principled tax resistance.
In addition, seven monthly meetings, churches and civic groups have made deposits or contributions to the alternative fund, following the precedent of London Grove Friends Meeting.
This development of religious and other community groups investing in Brandywine is, I believe, a rather new departure for the alternative fund movement and offers an opportunity for sensitizing even larger numbers of people to issues of war preparations, civilian priorities and tax accountability.
Through the growth of our alternative fund, we have begun to take our central concern to the people of the communities in which we live; we are seeking creative ways to support financially some of those groups which are addressing a range of social and economic problems largely neglected by government; and we have undertaken the task of stripping the mask off one of our most powerful institutions — the IRS — as we portray its grim role in the betrayal of our society’s and world’s ultimate security.
World Peace Tax Fund promoters tried to jump on the bicentennial bandwagon with a bizarre logo they promoted in the issue
The issue had some Revolutionary War-era history lessons.
Nonviolence theorist Gene Sharp wrote an article on “The Power of Nonviolent Action” in which he pointed out (among other things) the usefulness of tax resistance in the struggle for American independence:
During the Townshend resistance, in … for example, a London newspaper reported that because of the refusal of taxes and the refusal to import British goods, only 3,500 pounds sterling of revenue had been produced in the colonies.
The American non-importation and non-consumption campaign was estimated by the same newspaper at that point to have cost British business not a mere 3,500 pounds but 7,250,000 pounds in lost income.
Those figures may not have been accurate, but they are significant of the perceptions of the time.
The attempt to collect the tax against that kind of opposition was not worth the effort, and the futility of trying eventually became apparent.
Finally, Lyle Tatum examined the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s activity around .
Excerpts:
Although the Yearly Meeting was clear that members should not participate in military activities or pay direct war taxes, some areas were more difficult to decide.
Bills of credit, a form of negotiable instrument sanctioned by the colonies, were controversial.
The use of them stood in a similar position to the payment of taxes today.
To those Friends who were trying to get other Friends to stop using bills of credit, the Yearly Meeting minuted a bit of advice:
…we affectionately exhort those who have this religious Scruple, that they do not admit, nor indulge and Censure in their Minds against their Brethren who have not the same, carefully manifesting by the whole tenor of their Conduct, that nothing is done through Strife, or Contention, but by their Meekness, Humility and patient Suffering, that they are the Followers of the Prince of Peace.
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of met in , just a little more than two months after .
As we have seen, pressure on the peaceable testimony had been growing over the previous few years.
In the face of this, the Yearly Meeting minuted:
…we cannot consistent with our Christian peaceable Testimony… be concerned in the promoting of War or Warlike Measures of any kind, we are united in Judgment that such who make religious Profession with us, & do either openly, or by Connivance, pay any Fine, Penalty, or Tax, in lieu of their personal Services for carrying on the War under the prevailing Commotions, or do consent to, and allow their Children, Apprentices, or Servants to act therein do thereby violate our Christian Testimony, and by so doing manifest that they are not in Religious Fellowship with us…
In spite of their many hardships, Friends were holding firm.
Loyalty oaths were going strong in .
It was minuted:
…in some places Fines or Taxes are and have been imposed on those who from Conscientious Scruples, refuse or decline making such declaration of Allegiance and Abjuration, it is the united Sense and Judgment of this Meeting, that no Friend should pay any such Fine or Tax…
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
There was hardly an issue of the Friends Journal in that did not at least mention war tax resistance, and some issues covered the topic in depth.
In the issue was an article by Scott Benarde about the Quaker community of Monteverde in Costa Rica.
Excerpts:
In , a year after the sentencing [of Marvin Rockwell for draft resistance], Rockwell and the small Quaker community of Fairhope made national news.
In a short article, Time magazine mentioned that “for the first time in history a group of Quakers were planning to leave the U.S. because of their peace-loving convictions.”
Seven Quaker families — including Marvin Rockwell and his parents — twenty-five or thirty people in all, had decided to move to the Central American Republic of Costa Rica.
, Marvin Rockwell recounts why he left the U.S. and what has happened to him since settling 5,000 feet up in the steep, rugged mountains of Costa Rica.
“We had a growing dissatisfaction with what we in Fairhope thought was a military build-up, a wartime economy.
We wanted to be free of paying taxes in a war economy,” Rockwell says in a soft, yet deliberate, voice.
“When the judge sentenced us he said, ‘If you’re not willing to defend your country, you should get out.’
So we began to think seriously of that possibility.”
That issue also brought the news that Quaker Richard Catlett “has been indicted on criminal charges of willful failure to pay income tax for three years” (the indictment was actually for failure to file).
The issue — under the theme “Can the Government Cancel Conscience?”
— had many mentions of war tax resistance.
The opening article, by Ruth Kilpack, began:
Ten years ago, at the height of the Vietnam War, a Friend spoke directly to my condition at Philadelphia Yearly Meeting when he said, “Many of us support our sons’ conscientious objection to serving in the armed forces.
But what about ourselves?
Do those of us who are beyond draft age, or not otherwise subject to the draft, conscientiously object to giving our money for war?”
For me, this struck deep, as did the words, “Two things are needed to fight a war: warm bodies and cold cash.”
For the first, the full flush of youth is required for combat.
For the second, there is no age limit for those who must pay tax funds, over half of which are channeled directly into wars, past, present, and future.
Everyone is involved.
By the payment of taxes, all are required to support the “national defense,” or whatever the current euphemism is.
Kilpack’s article concerned the legal case of Robert Anthony, who was appealing his tax case on religious freedom grounds.
What Bob Anthony’s case was about that day was an effort to break the longstanding precedent set by the case of A.J. Muste, the great peace activist, who in had challenged the U.S. government in the matter of paying taxes for war.
The court had then ruled that the income tax does not interfere with religious practice.
Whatever attempts have been made since that time to break that precedent-and there have been many-have been thwarted, federal judges repeatedly refusing to examine the deep issues involved: the issues of rights of conscience and the First Amendment’s protection of religious belief.
As it turned out, according to Anthony, “the court came up with a complete backing of the government’s right to cancel conscience for the sake of the taxing system.”
The same issue reprinted excerpts from a letter that Media Monthly Meeting had sent to the court that was hearing the Anthony case, in which it said:
As a Meeting, we have consistently backed and encouraged [Anthony’s] position on military taxes.
We believe that any citizen who on the basis of religion or conscience is opposed to paying for armaments or war should not be compelled by the tax laws to pay taxes for these purposes.
Refusal to participate in any way in killing and warfare is a basic principle of the Quaker faith.
…Robert Anthony’s refusal of military taxes constitutes an essential and consistent implementation of Quaker religious principles.… We assert that the free exercise of the Quaker religion entails the avoidance of any participation in war or financial contribution to that part of the national budget used by the military.
In the same issue, Bruce & Ruth Graves wrote of how their war tax resistance had grown out of their conscientious objection to the draft.
[O]ur early married years were largely those of family and professions, years in which we were no longer pressured by government to form external written attestations of belief to satisfy the draft board.
After all, we had done that.
What else could just we two do to alter this evil?
The pacifist ideas could safely rest — or could they?
In retrospect, those beliefs that had been yanked forth from us by society, perhaps too early in our lives, needed more time to mature, to become integrated into our very beings.
Perhaps ten years of integration preceded our realization that a different and subtler written attestation of belief was being required of us by our society.
This attestation was made not once, but every year and it was an attestation of beliefs we did not believe.
It was a lie.
It was our income tax return.
We signed it every year, and thus gave money, without objection, to buy the tools of war, even though we did not believe in killing.
It was subtle because it was money and did not look like death.
But when you put them together, it is a contract.
…All of this occurred during a time when militarism increasingly permeated national policy.
Here, then, we finally reached a point where the idea of our financing the arms race became unbearable.
After all, warfare was becoming more automated, thus relying far more on the expenditure of tax money than on the conscription of lives.
In fact, it now appears that conscientious objection itself may be tending toward irrelevance, unless the concept is expanded beyond the confines of the Selective Service system — especially for those over draft age.
At this point we changed our tax returns into something we could in conscience sign and our remittance checks into contracts for the Internal Revenue Service.
Each year, the item “Foreign Tax Credit” and about fifty percent of our normal tax “due” was entered.
Carrying that credit over to the first page as instructed, we showed each year on our signed returns a credit balance due us from the IRS.
To reduce IRS profit from interest and penalty, we still paid tax “owed” as calculated normally, but our check required the IRS to promise to refund the war tax we claimed by their endorsement because of a restrictive clause we placed on the back of the check.
Rather than our refund, the IRS has usually sent a notice for us to sign, correcting our return.
We have never signed these, because that means agreeing to the original war tax.
Yet the IRS seems to need our agreement to resolve each case legally — that is, unless it should decide to initiate proceedings against us in U.S. Tax Court.
That, in fact, happened to us in for tax year .
From here, the Graveses write about their frustrations with the legal system, which seems eager to latch onto superficial technicalities to avoid having to face head-on the issue of whether the government can force people to violate such core tenets of conscience as “thou shalt not kill” via the tax system.
They also express the need they feel for a stronger and more sustaining national war tax resistance organization:
At present, the community of war tax resistance appears to us to be a loosely-structured communications network of interpersonal contacts, newsletters, and small organizations perhaps not always widely known.
Entrance to this network, we presume, is often gained through need for help by individuals who then grow, gain experience, and are later able to help other newcomers in their various situations.
Whether they do help others or just gradually fade out of the network, however, is crucial to the power of the community.
If we, ourselves, were to fade out as our own tax problems become less immediate, for example, the experience and knowledge we will have gained (even though far from complete) would be lost to the others.
It would seem to be a sad waste to have this process repeated over and again for each member passing through the community.
There are a few organizations emphasizing war tax resistance (e.g., WTR, Peacemakers, etc.), from which a range of handbooks and information is available for individual action.
Some may provide counseling: for example, we have recently learned that CCCO is in liaison currently with the Philadelphia Office of War Tax Resistance (WTR), thus affording the wider range of counseling needed by this more recent form of conscientious objection.
They added:
There are other courses of individual action besides variations on how to fill out a tax return.
One such course is to reduce one’s income to a level of lower — or no — taxation.
For some, this would mean a change in profession, or else a donation of one’s professional services to his or her current employer.
If it is not desirable to put that kind of commitment into that particular employer’s pockets, one can give away up to fifty percent of taxable income to tax deductible organizations, thereby reaching three simultaneous objectives: a) continue one’s profession, b) support human interests of choice, and c) decrease war tax payments.
Tax liability on interest income can also be reduced by buying tax-exempt bonds or shares in exempt bond funds.
Both Individual Retirement Accounts and Deferred Tax Annuities (sometimes available through the employer) enable the postponement of income to retirement years, when, hopefully, the World Peace Tax Fund Act will have become law.
This provides a reasonable chance for legally claiming the exemption on a part of current income, the exempted funds then being redirected to the WPTF Trust Fund for uses more closely aligned with human values.
Also in that issue was an update on the Richard Catlett case, in which he was charged with “willfully and knowingly failing to file income tax returns for ” — he in fact hadn’t filed .
The Brandywine Peace Community wrote in with “some fundamental questions of reality and responsibility” for Quaker taxpayers.
The community ran an alternative fund “comprised of refused war taxes, personal savings, and group deposits, [that] makes interest-free loans to groups working for social change or providing change-oriented services.
Thus, the alternative fund is a small-scale act of beating swords into plowshares and initiating our own peace conversion program.”
Also:
In past January–April tax seasons, the Brandywine group and its supporters have been present at local IRS offices, presenting the option of war tax resistance, and posing the question, “H-bombs or Bread?” with peace tax counseling available.
The issue shared the story of John and Louise Runnings, who…
…have withheld payment of their income taxes in order, as they state, “to resolve the conflict between the spirit that dwells within and the violence implicit in surrendering our substance to the building of the war machine.”
They have submitted a brief to this effect to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Runnings feel that since their action makes them answerable to “those Quakers whose light allows them to pay the federal tax,” they must plead their case before the Society of Friends as well as before the Federal Court.
In doing so, they stress the fact that they share Friends’ testimonies against war but feel that these testimonies will be muted if they are not supported by actions which speak louder than words.
They question how we can “speak truth to power” when so large a part of our income supports that power.
They invite Friends to join them “in taking those uncomfortable actions which put us in conflict with the government rather than with the Spirit.”
That issue also brought the update that Robert Anthony’s appeal to the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals had been rejected.
It also noted that, according to the Albuquerque Monthly Meeting’s newsletter, the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and the AFSC were contributing to the legal expenses in the case.
At the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, according to the Journal, “[a] minute on nonpayment of taxes for military purposes was adopted” — but not one that required much explanation, apparently.
A letter from Austin Wattles appeared in the issue in which he encouraged the Journal to continue to cover war tax resistance, saying that to him, “[t]he movement seems to be growing.”
He told of the support he had received from Meetings in his area — specifically the Old Chatham (New York) Monthly Meeting and Worcester (Massachusetts) Meeting.
He concluded:
[T]ax resistance can have its penalties.
You don’t have money to send your kids to college if you change your profession in a way not to pay withholding tax.
I think certainly one reason so few Friends have considered this witness is it can hurt one’s profession so seriously.
It’s not only losing the wages, but Friends enjoy doing a good job where they are working and don’t know how else they can live.
I like Quakers very much.
I’ve always been an active Friend.
But I feel our being part of the world to the degree we are prevents us from following Christ if the price is too high.
Molly Arrison also had a letter in that issue, but she thought war tax resistance “to be a most unrealistic and disrupting idea” because it would lead to a slippery slope of every citizen withholding taxes for whatever items of government spending they disapproved of, leading to “50 million contingencies” that would overwhelm the government’s revenue system.
She recommended that Quakers instead “orchestrate consistent barrages of phone calls, letters, and lectures until the general public has more influence than the Pentagon.”
David Scull considered this same argument in a letter in the issue:
We wish not to pay taxes for what we so strongly disapprove of.
But there are those who equally strongly feel that government contributions to the United Nations, or government money to pay for abortions, violate their principles.
It would not be difficult to compile a long list of purposes objected to; of course we say that our cause is a matter of high principle, but one person’s principle is another’s foible.
Is there some guideline which would make it easier to distinguish between two paramount obligations when they seem to be in conflict, one to support those purposes which our society has determined (no matter how imperfectly) to be for the common good, and the other to obey our consciences?
It seems to me that this can best be judged by our willingness to make some tangible sacrifices on behalf of conscience.
Scull went on to say that this made him skeptical of the World Peace Tax Fund plan: “[I]f I understand it correctly, there is no personal sacrifice involved.
It is just too easy to say to the government, ‘Please send my money where I want it to go instead of where you want it to go.’ ” He suggested improving the World Peace Tax Fund idea by “add[ing] the principle of personal sacrifice”:
Suppose I say, “Instead of $1000 which you say I owe you, here is $1100 as evidence of my sincerity; now will you allocate it in these ways?
That is how much extra I am willing to pay for the privilege of having my money not go to pay for machines of war.”
The inclusion of such a sacrificial element in the WPTF program would make a great deal of difference in my own ability to argue for it, and I think it would make a very convincing argument as we work toward its widespread acceptability.
…When we ask to relieve our consciences because of the way our money is spent, we should be… willing to put a price tag on the privilege.
A letter-to-the-editor in response to Scull’s argument, from Bill Samuel, thought that while the personal-sacrifice angle “has some surface attractiveness…”
Put another way, the proposal amounts to a government tax on conscience, which is quite a different matter from a voluntary personal sacrifice.
Not only is it morally questionable for the government “to put a price tag on” conscience, but some legal authorities believe it would constitute unconstitutional discrimination as well.
The World Peace Tax Fund bill would not be a special privilege.
Rather, the WPTF bill is a practical means of implementing the rights of conscience guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Like women, blacks and homosexuals, pacifists should take the position that we need not earn our rights but that they should be respected as a matter of course in a free and pluralistic society.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with the concept of people of conscience making a sacrifice for their deeply held beliefs.
Rather than impose a ten percent tax on conscience, concerned Friends might send an amount equal to ten percent of their tax payment to the National Council for a World Peace Tax Fund…
Corporately, Friends can also act to support those working to secure the right of pacifists not to pay for war.
One yearly meeting recently agreed to give $1,500 to the NCWPTF and several monthly meetings include the NCWPTF in their budgets.
Mennonites and Brethren each give a full time volunteer service worker to the NCWPTF.
While Friends do not have the kind of organized volunteer service effort that the other historic peace churches have, meetings can do their part by together contributing enough to support a full-time salaried worker.
Ross Roby also had some words to say about Scull’s argument against the World Peace Tax Fund plan.
He first begged for “immediate self-sacrificial labor and giving, on behalf of passage of a WPTF bill” and then wrote:
I would like to remind those who, like David Scull, have “difficulty with the World Peace Tax Fund as presently offered,” that there is nothing sacred and immutable about the present wording.
We can be quite certain that, when Congress takes a serious scrutiny of provisions for an alternative fund for C.O.s, much rewriting will be done.
The final bill. when passed, may look very different from the WPTF bill as now published.
He suggested that conscientious objectors to military spending should “soft pedal” the arguments amongst themselves over the details of the WPTF plan and instead concentrate on trying to convince the government to enact “a change in the income tax laws that will allow ‘free exercise of religion’ and give us the opportunity to build institutions for nonviolent solutions to international conflict with our present war tax dollars.”
His advice seems to have been followed, and the current campaign for “peace tax fund” legislation seems to have become so unwilling to use critical judgment and so eager to pass legislation of any sort that it has ended up backing a bill that would do nothing to help people with genuine conscientious objection to supporting military spending, nothing to reduce the military budget, and indeed nothing to increase spending on nonviolent conflict resolution — and yet even this bill has gone nowhere in Congress.
Such is the cost of “soft pedaling” internal debate.
an ad in the issue of Friends Journal
John J. Runnings confronted Molly Arrison’s argument more head-on in the letters-to-the-editor column of the issue.
Excerpt:
Our actions are determined by the degree of urgency we feel.
When our house is on fire we may exit by way of an upstairs window rather than by the conventional route via the stairs.
Many of us see the arms race as a fire out of control, and we are so adverse to feeding the flames that we are prepared to suffer considerable discomfort rather than do so.
So we break the law and are prepared to suffer the penalty.…
To break the law openly and expose oneself to the wrath of the power structure is to witness to the urgency and depth of one’s convictions.…
The early Quakers started at the places that Molly suggests, in the heart and in the community, but they went further.
They broke the law.
And they got themselves hanged and imprisoned; and they were heard above the contending clamors of their day.
And when the Constitution was written it contained provisions for freedom of religion and freedom of speech.
Modern Quakers continue, as of old, to work from the heart and in the community, but if we are to outshout the Pentagon we will have to use a louder and more urgent voice than we have used heretofore.
Perhaps more and more and more of us will have to break the law.
Franklin Zahn also responded to Arrison’s slippery-slope argument: “In practice, the portion of federal income tax for the military is far greater than for any other item.
Currently thirty-six percent goes for present costs and another estimated seventeen percent for past wars.
Objectors to smaller items would not find withholding worth the bother… [W]ords alone eventually lose all effect if no one ever acts.
But if a few other than war objectors choose to refuse, I see no objection to their doing so.”
Sally Primm interviewed Lucy Perkins Carner for the issue.
Among other topics, Carner addressed her war tax resistance:
[Q:] “Did you ever consider not paying part of your tax?”
[A:] “Oh yes, for years I’ve taken out of my income tax payment a portion that the Friends Committee on National Legislation says is equal to what the Pentagon gets.
Then I write a letter to the income tax people.
It’s good propaganda.
I send copies to my representatives in Congress and the President.
“I know my failure to pay isn’t going to impoverish the Pentagon, but it’s good propaganda.
They go to your bank and get the money.
I send them a copy of the letter, too.
Some people have refused to give them the information and go to jail as a result, but I’m not heroic.
They get it out of my bank every year.
“The bank has a right to charge for that, a service charge.
Well, in the last few years, believe it or not, I’ve received a letter from the bank saying they won’t make the charge any more.[”]
[Q:] “Why did they say that?”
[A:] “Well, that just shows you what good propaganda will do.
They know why I’m doing it.”
[Q:] “And how long have you done this?”
[A:] “I don’t know; when I became a pacifist, whenever that was [around the end of World War Ⅰ, according to another part of the article —♇].
I don’t even know when the income tax started.”
The issue covered the “New Call to Peacemaking” in which representatives from the three historic “peace churches” (Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren) got together to try to put some oomph behind their peacebuilding efforts.
There was actually less about war tax resistance in this article than in much of the mainstream media coverage of the Call — perhaps because the civil disobedience angle was thought to be more newsworthy or attention-catching.
Here is where taxes were mentioned in the Friends Journal coverage:
The Friends Committee on National Legislation points out that all the federal income taxes withheld from your paycheck from January 1 to June 23 go for military purposes.
Not until June 24 do you begin to support any other part of the budget.
Especially in recent years — in light of increasing military budgets and the trend toward fewer soldiers and more expensive weapons systems — many conscientious objectors have chosen to witness against war by refusal to pay voluntarily those federal taxes that will be used to fund present, past, and future wars.
Some have done this by lowering their income below the taxable level; others who owe taxes have refused to pay the portion that would go for the military.
In the same issue, Robert C. Johansen wrote about the challenge of putting forward a pacifist alternative to mainstream political thinking.
In the course of that, he wrote:
Even though their goals are radical in the sense of seeking fundamental system change, political moderates will feel most comfortable using conventional means of education, consciousness-raising, lobbying, campaigning, organizing, and personal witness.
Those people who have tried such means and found them weak and insufficiently penetrating politically will search for other actions, such as tax resistance and civil disobedience, that convey a seriousness and urgency more equivalent to the threat of planetary militarization.
Maynard Shelly gave the Mennonite perspective in the wake of the New Call conference, and claimed that “[r]esistance to the payment of war taxes is becoming the witness of choice for a growing number of Mennonites.”
Charles C. Walker wrote in to the issue to suggest a token $1 resistance to the Pennsylvania state income tax as a way of protesting against its anticipated adoption of capital punishment.
The issue noted in its calendar that the Media Pennsylvania Friends Meetinghouse would be hosting a “National Military Tax Resistance Workshop” that would be “[i]ntroducing the program and services of the newly organized Center on Law and Pacifism.”
Over the past few years, an interesting hybrid has developed in Spain: a combination of elements from the traditional war tax resistance movement, which in Spain has a largely pacifist or anti-militarist conscientious objection focus much like the war tax resistance movement in the U.S., and elements of the critics of neoliberal state capitalism who emerged in new forms during the recent economic crisis — roughly the counterparts of the “occupy” movement in the U.S.
I’ve been keeping an eye on this for two reasons: first is that it’s obviously an interesting development in terms of this blog’s subject matter and my pet interest, and second is that people in NWTRCC have been toying with the idea of trying to increase their influence in activist circles by reaching out to other movements and trying to find ways of linking up — and this looks like one possible model they could consider.
So to the end of understanding this a little better, today I’m going to try to translate the introduction to the second edition of the Manual de Desobediencia Economica, which recently came out, and represents some of the ideas that are fermenting in this hybrid movement:
In these times when corruption has become unmasked, we live at a turning point of a historical cycle at which the portrayal of the State can no longer hide the extent of its villainy.
The impunity enjoyed by the usual suspects contrasts with the criminalization of all social movements and the persecution of all those people who daily tell themselves: enough.
In this context, disobedience and rebelliousness transcend a purely ideological issue.
It’s about giving some meaning to the word justice.
It’s about our dignity, but even more, of shedding fear, because they want to take everything from us except for the right to consume and the duty to obey.
There is much that we can recover if we also disobey fear: another social order in which the people are the most important.
We have much to do, and who knows how far we can go this time… we’ll see you on the road.
In this second edition of the Handbook of Economic Disobedience, we invite you to take some steps to make your life more in line with your manner of thinking and feeling.
Specifically, we address those of you who may want to stop acting under the force of economic pressure and instead to dedicate your time to activity that would really make you feel accomplished.
Also, those who want their money, as the fruit of their labor, to go to what they believe and not to the banks, or politicians’ salaries, or armaments, or grand infrastructures… among other misuses with which we do not want to collaborate.
The State is paying to indulge and engorge the fortunes of the banks and other financial speculators — more money than it has been “forced” to cut from various budget items.
Throughout this Handbook, we take part in a call to initiate and extend an action of tax resistance against the Spanish State and those who control it, and consistent action to demonstrate that we will not pay their debts, because we do not recognize the current Constitution nor the current government which is a puppet of global financial capitalism, nor the 2013 State Budget.
In place of this we put our money towards self-managed taxation.
This way we will funnel the resources we do not want to pay to the State into self-managed projects that are helpful for meeting the needs of the people.
Although the Handbook, to the extent that data, laws, and experiences are referenced, is written for the Spanish State, we hope to inspire disobedience anywhere on the globe, since the situation we are living out in the Spanish State is common to many countries in the world.
In this way we hope to have the cooperation of dozens of volunteers to translate it into multiple languages.
The centralized distribution of this Handbook of Economic Disobedience on paper will only be made thanks to funding from the CoopFunding crowdfunding campaign “Disobedience Cannot Be Imprisoned” and is available on derechoderebelion.net and in the offices of economic disobedience with the corresponding local appendix of self-managed projects, where we hope that they can self-publish copies as needed and possible.
Much of the funding for starting up this project, as I understand it, came from an interesting bank robbery masterminded by Enric Duran.
Duran took out loans from dozens of banks under false pretenses and then donated most of the money as start-up capital for these radical self-managed projects, went bankrupt, and then went underground to escape prosecution.
This raises the question of how self-sustaining this movement really is (that is, how dependent it is on this one-time influx of funds) and also how grassroots it really is (does this manifesto represent the gestalt of a movement, or just the axe being ground by its sugar daddy).
If I have time and interest, I’ll try to translate some other sections of the Handbook.
The usual disclaimers apply about my sub-par command of Spanish.
V. Schneider’s take on the ramifications of the Affordable Care Act for war tax resisters.
I’ve shared some of my experiences with the Act’s provisions as a low-income, return-filing resister here at The Picket Line.
Ms. Schneider writes about the challenges of the Act from the perspective of a resister who does not file returns, and therefore has no clear way of proving that she qualifies for the Act’s insurance subsidies.
Schneider has some helpful recommendations for non-filling resisters who cannot afford non-subsidised insurance.
Some notes on the new federal standard deduction and personal exemption amounts for the upcoming tax year, on the new IRS program that allows you to download some of the files the agency keeps on you, on a new website that keeps track of the legal aspects of alternative currencies, and on the troubles of the increasingly overwhelmed and under-budgeted IRS.
Some war tax resistance news, including a report of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day war tax resistance display at a recent anti nuclear weapons protest, a mention of some recent honors given to war tax resisters Robin Harper and Joanne Sheehan, and a brief note on the conviction and jailing of Quaker war tax resister Joseph Olejak.
You can find more about the Olejak case in this recent article from the Times-Union.
Olejak is spending several consecutive weekends in prison, and has agreed (in a plea bargain) to partially and incrementally pay the $242,684 the IRS says he owes since he stopped paying in .
The group is looking for people who want to serve on its Administrative Committee.
The War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund — which helps to reimburse any penalties and interest seized from a war tax resister by the government — is now under new management.
The next NWTRCC national gathering is scheduled for and will be held in San Diego, California.
Robin Harper reflects on the development of “redirection” as a war tax resistance tactic: “I think it is fair to say that the essence and origins of the very widespread practice today of WTRs conscientiously redirecting their refused taxes into channels of constructive activism, community building, and addressing human needs, can be traced to [his own case in] .”
The “Comprehensive Disobedience” movement in Spain has developed international ambitions, and as part of this project it has launched a new media platform — RADI.MS — that aims to spread news about allied projects around the world.
The site content is currently translated into English, Castillian (Spanish), and Catalan.
In mid-April, people across the United States struggle to fill out their federal income tax returns.
This shared calamity has created something of an inverted holiday season — with grumbling about paperwork and frustration towards government bureaucracy replacing the “peace on earth, goodwill to men” of the Yuletide.
The money came from a war tax resisters’ “alternative fund” called the “People’s Life Fund” — one of more than a dozen such funds in the United States.
The Fund’s annual mid-April “granting ceremony” brought together representatives from each of the recipient groups, who accepted their checks and briefly summarized their work for the benefit of the other attendees.
The People’s Life Fund (like most other such funds) accepts deposits from war tax resisters of the money they are refusing to pay to the government.
The fund holds the money in alternative financial institutions like credit unions and socially-responsible investments.
If the government manages to seize the resisted taxes from the resister, he or she can reclaim the money from the Fund.
Meanwhile, any investment returns from the deposits are distributed to local groups in these annual granting ceremonies.
“Redirection” has a long history in American war tax resistance. American war tax resister Bill Ramsey says it reminds him of Gandhi’s “constructive programme” with which the commander of the Indian resistance movement worked to strengthen grassroots Indian institutions at the same time he was trying to weaken British imperialist ones:
The spinning wheel was the center of Gandhi’s constructive program.
Redirection is the war tax resistance movement’s spinning wheel.
The “constructive program” is positive action that builds structures, systems, and processes alongside the obstructive program of direct confrontation to or noncooperation with oppression.
When we redirect our war taxes, we invest in imaginative and positive projects in our communities and around the world.
At first, redirection was largely practiced by individuals, and in an ad hoc manner.
For example, in 1968, war tax resister Irving Hogan stood outside the Federal Building in San Francisco and redirected his federal income tax dollars one at a time by handing them out to passers by.
“I want this money to be used for the delight, not the destruction, of men,” he said.
“Here: go buy yourself a beer.”
But today redirection is frequently coordinated by local or national war tax resistance groups.
Some have used redirection to strengthen the anti-war movement.
One group used its alternative fund to create a scholarship for college students who had been barred from government financial aid because they refused to register for the military draft.
Another made an interest-free loan to a legal defense group that was supporting a group of military draft resisters who were on trial.
Traditional charity and relief organizations have also been recipients of redirected taxes.
In 2008, a national effort called the “War Tax Boycott” redirected $325,000 (approximately €235,000) in federal taxes from the U.S. Treasury to two organizations: a health clinic in New Orleans struggling with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and Direct Aid Iraq, which provided medical care to refugees from the American war.
War tax resisters aren’t just redirecting their money.
Many American war tax resisters resist by deliberately lowering their income below the level where the federal income tax applies.
They do this by working fewer hours of paid employment and by simplifying their lives so that they can live on less money.
Such resisters no longer have an amount of income tax to redirect, but they can redirect their time instead.
One low-income resister, Clare Hanrahan, wrote: “I believe that redirection of time and presence provides a personal and potent contribution to the common good, a gift of self that has more dimensions than money alone.
I redirect each time I give my time and energy in support of good work within my community.”
When Erica Weiland of NWTRCC delivered the keynote address at a recent “economic disobedience” conference in Eugene, Oregon, she said:
When we heard about this work in Spain, it was clear to us that war tax resistance is economic disobedience, the refusal to cooperate in an economic system that is built on war, militarism, and the perpetuation of human suffering.
It was also clear to us that a variety of movements that also practice economic disobedience are allied with us in this struggle.
When people refuse to pay debts to ruthless debt collectors, resist foreclosure, set up bartering networks that don’t report bartering as income, set up gift economies that avoid the IRS bartering regulations, organize lending circles for low-income borrowers, counsel high school students on alternatives to military service, squat abandoned houses, organize tent cities for the homeless regardless of bureaucratic and inhumane regulations, and struggle against corrupt landlords and employers, we are engaging in economic disobedience.
The economic system we live under is not set up to support us, so we should withdraw our support from the system whenever feasible.
American war tax resisters are withdrawing from the warfare state and the economic model it enforces and are committing themselves with all of their strength and all of their resources to the creation of a more just system in which we can live with dignity.
In doing so, they are blazing the trail that leads to this better world we all yearn for.
As a veteran of both the U.S. Coast Guard & the Army National Guard, (one taking me to assist in the relief effort in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina, the other to war in Iraq) I have witnessed how taxpayer-funded death and destruction in other countries goes hand in hand with the lack of much-needed resources here at home.
I do not seek to pay less than my fair share to my society.
Refusing to pay federal income tax is not a selfish act seeking personal financial gain.
It is also not an act that I take lightly.
This is not a joke.
If Americans knew exactly what they were funding, and those we kill were actually humanized to the American public, there would be no more war.
I am an American citizen, but beyond that I am a veteran of the US military.
I eagerly enlisted at 18 to serve my country, and if that is what I was doing I would still be in the military.
I took part in the destruction of Iraq and will have to live with this fact for the rest of my life.
As you may know, (according to the VA) twenty-two veterans feel they can no longer live with the guilt forever etched on their consciences, (and mixed with trauma) every single day.
It is difficult to reconcile the things we were taught to believe about America as children and still see on the ‘news’ and hear spewing from the mouths of politicians, with the reality of what we experienced.
Our taxes would be better spent helping heal the warriors society is as quick to discard as they were to label ‘hero’.
We are not at war to protect ourselves; we are at war because it is the most profitable business on the planet.
We are at war because we are greedy.
We are at war because we socialize our children to see other people as less than human.
I have learned that I have far more in common with the average Iraqi citizen than I do with every single member of congress.
Since I do not trust that the tax dollars I pay will be earmarked for peaceful purposes even upon my request, I am instead donating the full amount that I was asked to pay in federal taxes instead to organizations working to improve the human condition.
To quote Dr. King (a man with a federal holiday in his honor, and a Nobel Peace Prize, as well as an FBI file) for the last time, “The bombs in Vietnam explode at home.
They destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.”
That is exactly what the bombs are doing as they explode in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in Yemen and Somalia, in Iraq and Syria, in Libya and in Uganda, but the bombs falling on schools and hospitals in Gaza are also keeping Detroit from thriving.
It is not just the bombs that we drop, but the weapons we build and the massacres we make possible.
I have had enough.
As a human being, I am not going to stand for this insanity any longer.
So long my hard earned dollars are taxed away to be spent on violence, on death, on destruction… on war, I will ensure that every penny which I owe is rerouted to fund peace.
I love the people of this country, but I love all people.
It is mostly unchanged from previous editions, with a few updates, a slightly
expanded section on alternative currencies, and an expanded section on tax
resistance. I’d attempted a translation of an earlier edition in
, and you can find those
translations at the following pages:
Introduction
Introduction to Civil Disobedience, Economic Disobedience, and Comprehensive Disobedience
Exercise the Right of Rebellion: Join the Manifesto of a New Rebel Dignity
Tax resistance as a strategy of rebellion; Auditing the national debt; Mechanisms for resistance to the value-added tax
Bankruptcy, squatting, cooperative housing, and other techniques
How to stop collaborating with the banks
Collectives
Alternatives to the system; integrated cooperatives
The community economy, barter, alternative currencies, the transitory relationship with the capitalist economy
Alternative cooperative finance, self-management cores; Living the comprehensive revolution
Here are my translations of the new sections:
Practical Guide to Income Tax Resistance
Everyone can practice war tax resistance
The state collects taxes throughout the year from everyone in society, and it
does so in many ways, not only via the income tax. This money is destined in
large part for the army, internal security, payments on the debt, and other
undesirable expenses.
Your income tax return represents a magnificent opportunity to recover this
money and redirect it to a just end. Therefore:
Anyone, whether or not they have income, whether they get a paycheck or
not, whether they are registered or not, may fill out a tax return and
reclaim money from the state to redirect to an alternative and
constructive project.
The return can have an amount due, a refund, or a big zero; in each case
you can still resist.
What is tax resistance?
It’s the unwillingness to collaborate with the State in military spending,
the military, the internal security apparatus, the prison system, the
monarchy, the national debt, and other undesirable expenses — active
disobedience at the point of filing the tax return. It technically consists
of sending a part of those taxes to a project that works in the defense of
the progress of social solidarity. It is inspired by war tax resistance, which
for years has successfully operated in Spain, and extends this to other budget
items that we also consider unjust.
We call for complete tax resistance to the State in order to redirect the
taxes to a budget autonomously managed by local, grassroots collectives,
much more deserving of sovereignty than the government institutions that
force subjection on the population.
Where is the money redirected?
The redirected money promotes work for peace, social justice, cooperative
development, environmental improvement, human rights, the support of
transformative struggles in other nations,
etc.
With this money projects are able to be continue working for a more just and
equitable society. These are the redirection alternatives: any collective or
organization that works in a non-hierarchical form for a more just society.
Grassroots collectives and non-profit organizations such as associations,
ecological groups, cooperatives, cultural associations,
etc., that are
not directly liked to the Administration or to partisan politics.
What for?
As the crisis becomes more acute, people are becoming more and more familiar
with economic concepts. Debt, risk premium, liquidity, and one word in
particular: cuts.
The government scissors, held by capital on both handles, inside and out,
seem to have no restraint. The various government branches, whatever party
they belong to, cut spending here and there. Sectors as sensitive as health
care, primary education, or pensions are tapped.
“When the government violates the rights of the people, insurrection is for
the people and for each portion of the people the most sacred of rights and
the most indispensable of duties.” — Declaration of the Rights of Man and
Citizen of
Tax resistance is, in reality, an assertion of the right of rebellion, to
disobey on behalf of the common good in the face of situations like those
in which we are living.
We are committed to the common good, and for that reason, we declare ourselves
rebels against the Constitution, unsubmissive to the State, and disobedient
to all of the authority that it represents.
Tax resistance was one of the strategies of civil disobedience that led India
to independence from the British Empire; now it may be a key strategy for us
to gain independence from global capitalism.
How is it done?
Here follows a technical discussion of how to use the electronic filing system
used in Spain to apply for a refund of taxes by filling in an amount “for tax
resistance” for a miscellaneous-withholding line-item.
Then it is reiterated that anyone can object in this way, regardless of their
employment situation or whether or not they will owe taxes on their return.
People are encouraged to decide for themselves how much to resist and redirect:
perhaps as little as €1, or an amount like €890.87 which represents the amount
of military spending per capita in Spain.
“In any case, tax resistance is, above all, a public and collective action of
denouncing the injustice of the economic system, and a challenge to society.
The act of resisting is much more important than the quantity resisted;
therefore, any amount, however small, is valid.”
If the Treasury rejects my resistance, what can I do?
Occasionally, the Treasury will not give up the money reclaimed or demands
what it was not paid on returns that demand refunds. It might be the case
this year that the Treasury will not audit us, and the next year it will. Or
the other way around (just because they don’t allow our resistance one year
is no reason to be discouraged to try it again next year). The Treasury could
even try to reclaim from us the amounts we haven’t paid or that — in their
opinion — they have over-refunded to us during various years. In such cases,
you should be aware that the Treasury cannot reclaim anything that is more
than four years old.
For this reason, and particularly for tax resisters who resist significant
amounts each year, the alternative destinations that receive the redirected
money must provide escrow accounts in which they keep at least a portion of
those funds during those four years.
The provisional or parallel returns (when the Treasury detects the resistance
and reclaims the redirected money) may be appealed, and this does not involve
any fees or expenses (sometimes one of those recourses is effective).
Given that, it is best to continue to rely only on people who, supported by
personally-known groups, want to conduct a campaign of denouncing undesirable
government spending.
What sanctions do I risk?
Once the provisional or parallel return is confirmed, if we don’t pay what
they demand of us, the administration may attach interest to the amount
starting from the filing deadline and continuing until the payment date.
This process is described in your tax return documentation; in no case is
the tax resister accused of anything or receives any sanction. There will
never be a criminal prosecution (a tax offense requires a larger “fraud” of
more than 120,000 euros).
What if I cannot afford to repay the amount I redirected?
The worst that can happen if the Treasury detects your tax resistance is that
you will be on the hook for double the amount: the money we redirect to the
alternative destination and, if we are unlucky and the Treasury discovers us,
we are required to repay the Treasury. In such a case, if we resist a small
amount, redirecting only a quantity that we judge will not be a problem for
our finances: 50 euros, 30, 10… so that, if the Treasury detects it and
charges us a second time, it won’t break our bank. We will have added one more
objection and with it our voice against these immoral, unuseful, and
undesirable expenses.
It is also true that the Treasury may wait some years before revising our
return, even after we have paid some amount in our tax return (with the
amount of tax resistance withheld) or we have had some amount refunded (with
the amount of tax resistance added).
The Treasury has a maximum of four years to reclaim from us what they call
errors in our return, or unjustified figures, or whatever legal terminology
that occurs to them to reject our position of tax resistance.
What can we do in such cases? There are distinct possibilities: the escrow
accounts mentioned earlier, or simply asking whoever you redirected your taxes
to for a refund, if the redirector cannot cope with the demands of the
Treasury, depending on the quantities involved and the personal situations of
the resisters, and keeping in mind that four year statute of limitations.
A Tax Resistance Fund is necessary as a common tool for everyone who
participates in a campaign of tax resistance. A common fund to cover costs
that may hit any person or collective that participates in this tax resistance
campaign, because of the consequences of the possible acts of the Treasury
against tax resisters.
The economic relations that exist in the autonomous economic system
(SEA) form part of the
theory of the social and solidarity economy. The
SEA has the objective
of developing and providing an economic framework to serve the people, that
satisfies their needs, by means of economic empowerment and collaboration.
Social currency represents and/or substitutes for an exchange relationship
between two people, created after offering something and not receiving
equivalent compensation at the same time. It does not represent a debt so much
as an agreement, or rather a confidence that serves us to close the circuit of
exchange, receiving that which we want or need. Thus, money vanishes, flows,
and allows for multi-reciprocal exchanges and puts into circulation new
products and services.
For this reason there must be tools designed that encourage a space for
exchanges (internet platforms) and that facilitate the extension of exchange
as a modus vivendi.
It’s important to pay attention so that the criteria of valuation do not
devolve into relations of exploitation or fraud that could affect the
confidence of people. In this sense, the personal dimension of the process of
exchange transcends the buyer/seller relationship. A reciprocal, supportive,
or exchange valuation can apply the same hourly rate.
Integrated cooperatives like the ecoxarxes form part of the same
autonomous economic system, and all of the money (each ecoxarxa has
its own currency) are interrelated and are reciprocally exchangable.
Lastly, the integrated cooperative is a point of reference and coordination
from which collaborative and collective means are generated such that any of
the previously-mentioned processes may be chosen and used, from legal tools
(cooperatives) to telematic or internet tools, and, especially, forms and
plans of action to strengthen self-reliance and self-organization.
Some new links of interest to war tax resisters in particular:
The next national gathering of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee will be held in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania (near Philadelphia).
Check this page for details.
Announcements about the upcoming New England Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters and of Campaign Nonviolence’s Action Week, along with commentary on tax day actions and the recent Shut Down Creech camp.
War tax resister Ruth Anne Friesen was recently profiled in the Mennonite World Review.
Excerpt:
For two years, Ruth Anne Friesen has redirected a portion of her federal
income tax payments to support the Strategies for Trauma Awareness and
Resilience program at Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice
and Peacebuilding.
NWTRCC
has issued its report on war tax redirection for . The group learned of $44,660 that had been redirected from
the U.S.
Treasury to worthy charities by war tax resisters who organize Alternative
Funds for the purpose.
Jordan Cooper speculates about the possibility of using blockchain techniques (a la bitcoin) to create a self-enforcing escrow account that people could deposit their taxes into such that the money would only be released to the government when certain conditions / demands were met: Blockchain Based Tax Resistance a.k.a. “Resistcoin”
Workers in the Codevi (Free Trade Zone) in Ouanaminthe, Haiti have gone on strike to protest a new 10% tax on their wages.
It’s a zone where the multinational clothing companies enjoy access to cheap labor (the minimum wage is something like $5.15 per day) and almost entire exemption from corporate taxes and customs charge.
Labor apparently doesn’t get to take advantage of a similar boon in economic freedom.
The Catalan independence movement continues to lay the groundwork for what it anticipates will be a mass tax strike leading to the political separation of Catalonia from Spain.
Already some people and municipalities are paying their federal taxes to the Catalan tax office instead of to the federal government.
Currently, this is a symbolic gesture, as the Catalan tax office forwards these payments to Madrid.
But when a critical mass of taxpayers make their payments this way (€7 billion total, they estimate), the separatists plan to cut off the flow.
The French Cour des comptes (Court of Auditors) has released a report on the écotaxe fiasco.
France introduced a new tax on trucking that met a bold and sustained resistance campaign in Brittany which eventually forced the government to abandon the tax.
The Auditors determined that the government lost over €1 billion directly from its abandonment of the tax, and gave up an additional €10 billion in anticipated revenue.
ROAR Magazine looks at The Irish water insurgency.
The government of Ireland has long been trying to extract more money from its subjects via increasing rates at the public utility monopolies, rather than through more above-board taxation.
And the people of Ireland have long been using a variety of tactics to try to stymie these moves.
There are many of us in the Mid-Hudson area who are appalled at the way the federal government spends our tax dollars.
It spends 60 per cent of its national budget on military programs while many other social needs are ignored.
We disagree with this ordering of priorities.
We feel human beings are more important than the electronic battlefield over Vietnam.
We believe the money spent on military equipment and research could be put to better use for health care, housing, and the other needs of our communities.
In this way lasting peace and understanding will be established.
To publicly state our disagreement with the government’s spending policies we have formed a group called Mid-HUDSON War Tax Resistance, and we maintain close contact with National War Tax Resistance in New York City.
Our local program falls into three parts: 1. advocating resistance to the 10 per cent federal excise tax on phone service, 2. advocating resistance to federal income taxes, and 3. advocating that people use the money that they are refusing to give the government by joining together with other resistors in their community and forming an alternative fund.
Through this fund the refused war taxes will be rechanneled to meet community needs.
On , we met at the Asylum Coffee House in New Paltz to collectively decide how the money donated during was to be used.
[T]here was over $200 to allocate.
It was decided to give $65 to the Emergency Food Fund of the Ulster County Friends of the Farmworker, a group concerned with the rights and welfare of farm workers.
$75 will be given to the Asylum Coffee House which exists on donations and is a gathering place for those who seek an alternative to the “local bar scene.”
$25 is going to National War Tax Resistance for pamphlets and other literature.
And finally we are giving $50 to Karl Meyer and his family out in Chicago.
Karl was one of the early tax refusers and through his commitment gave encouragement to all of us in our struggle to resist.
He is now on parole and does volunteer work.
His family needs financial help since the IRS is trying to collect back taxes.
War tax resistance will not end with a truce or ceasefire in Indochina.
Our struggle will end only with a change in this government’s policies toward people, This country does not have a right to determine the future of others.
People want to live, have enough to eat, and see their children grow into adults.
Vietnamese do not ask to be napalmed nor do the Blacks of this country happily live In their ghettos.
Please join us in this movement of love and responsibility for our brothers and sisters throughout the world.
Peace Debbie Loewe Anne Costello
A new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter is out, with content including:
I’ve been refusing to pay federal taxes for many years now, and this year I got
to experience one of those rare and beautiful triumphs we tax resisters
sometimes have: One of the tax debts the
IRS has
been pursuing me for fell off of the ten-year statute of limitations.
In I filed my federal tax return, showing
that I owed $3,695 in self-employment tax. I didn’t enclose a check. The
IRS came
after me with its usual series of exasperated demand letters, eventually adding
about $2,800 in interest & penalties to the original total. They even
successfully seized $469 from a bank account once.
But then they seemingly lost interest in the chase. At any time they could have
seized money from my
IRA
or tapped the client who sends me most of my self-employment revenue. But they
just plain dropped the ball.
I had allowed myself to hope that this would happen, but I didn’t really expect
it. I got away with it. I didn’t pay my taxes, weathered the
IRS
threats, called their bluff, and walked away without having to pay. That’s
pretty fantastic.
Here’s how I’m celebrating:
Enclosed, please find a check for $3,226 made out to the
Prisoners Literature Project. As a
former volunteer with PLP I
know how well this money will be spent.
Several years ago, I became unwilling to continue to offer financial support
to the U.S.
government by voluntarily paying taxes to it. In
, for example, I filed a tax return showing
that I owed $3,695, but I refused to write the check. The
IRS
has periodically sent me threatening notices about this, has added significant
penalties and interest to the total, and has even managed on one occasion to
seize $469 from my bank account. But , the ten year statute of limitations on that tax debt expired
without the
IRS
managing to collect the remaining $3,226.
That is to say: I totally got away with it.
I’m grateful for the opportunity to share my good fortune with the Prisoners
Literature Project and with those the Project serves.
Sincerely,
David M. Gross
P.S. My check comes to you via the People’s Life Fund, which operates as a way for conscientious tax resisters like myself to coordinate in order to redirect their taxes from harmful government spending to beneficial causes.
One of the new elements of the campaign against payment of taxes destined for military spending is a workshop in which those interested can make out their return on their own.
The number of people who resist taxes for military spending rises every year in the Basque Country.
The Eragozpen Fiskala-Objeción Fiscal platform has accounted for at least as many disobedient tax returns as with almost a month still to go before the tax filing season ends.
This is the third year that offices have been established in three Basque capitals to help people not to collaborate with the State’s war taxes.
“It reminds me of the assemblies [permanencias], during draft resistance [insumisión],” says Idoia Aldazabal about her experience in the Bilbao office.
Then, the antimilitarist movement was focused on stopping mandatory military service.
The objectors refused to take part, disobeying the laws.
For one or two days a week, they met in some location to share their doubts, talk with other people about civil disobedience, give support, etc.
“It’s a way to do politics, in a sense of togetherness, of welcome,” explained this activist.
“We work from non-violent direct action,” explains Arrate Vivar, who is also part of the conscientious objector movement.
Vivar says that once the struggle to end the draft was complete, the antimilitarists could devote more energy to other paths to do away with the military, in this case by attacking the budget.
The law does not have a category for tax resistance; it’s alegal, that is to say, an irregular but not illegal way to file.
“It’s one of the few ways that we have to protest,” says Vivar in reference to the backlash on civil rights and political rights because of the Gag Law.
at least two people are preparing returns each weekend in the office, and they have nearly all shifts filled .
“We are, as they say, victims of our own success,” jokes Miguel Martínez, also a KEM-MOC activist.
one of the challenges facing the campaign is to meet the need for help from all the people who have been interested.
To meet this need, for the first time , a workshop was held in which the participants, with the help of one person, made out their own tax return including tax resistance.
“This is more empowering and more participatory,” explained Martínez, who notes that the objective is for the people to become capable of resisting on their own, in order to free up the office so it can bring in new people.
“If in the future 10,000 people do tax resistance in the Basque Country and we finish off the military, we won’t be able to attend to all of them,” he says with some wishful thinking.
Today, a few final notes from the Friends Bulletin
archives, as we reach .
The issue was haunted by the
U.S. attack on Iraq
that would begin that month.
The Meeting urges all of its members to find direct expression of their
opposition to this escalation of violence — including war-tax resistance,
public demonstration and public civil disobedience, [and so forth]…
I missed my chance to be a conscientious objector when my number didn’t come
up in the last year of the draft. It was .
During high school I got the opportunity to think through whether I could kill
other people in a war. I couldn’t see how I could possibly allow myself to be
trained to shoot or bayonet another human being.
Well. It’s and my wife
Kathy and I’ve been well trained in killing. Not the kind of face-to-face
killing that kept me awake in my high school years. Like a bomber pilot, we
never see our victims unless they show up on the news. Maybe we can’t even be
directly implicated. We don’t look dangerous, but we are accomplices.
Over the years we’ve been trained to look the other way as our federal taxes
paid for others to kill, or threaten to kill, in our places. From Vietnam to
Afghanistan and beyond, we’ve had a hand in financing the deaths of millions
of human beings. With the nuclear weapons and delivery systems we’ve helped
pay for, billions of others are threatened.
Well, we didn’t have a choice did we?
We didn’t think we had a choice. If we didn’t pay our taxes we’d go to jail.
That simple, right? The idea of resistance never even occurred to either of us
until . Since that
time Kathy and I have wrestled with the idea of conscientious objection to the
draft in high school. The two ideas are closely related.
Our family’s bodies and minds are useless to the military at this point. Our
tax dollars are valuable. They are being drafted and have been drafted since
we started working and making a living wage. In today’s high-tech military,
warm bodies are of secondary importance. Cold cash is key.
Military spending makes up between 40 to 50% of the federal budget, depending
on whose statistics one uses.* In order to resist
conscription of my family’s share of this money, I submitted a new W-4 to my
employer and adjusted dependent allowances to reduce my withholding. Now only
about half as much is removed. At the end of the year we will correctly fill
out and file our federal income tax return as usual, but we will only pay 50
to 60% of the balance due. The remainder, the military portion, we will
redirect to worthy causes. With our tax forms we’ll enclose a letter that will
explain the reasons for our action.
What will happen to my family and me? Lord knows, but if past events are good
predictors of the future, then this is the likely scenario. First, the
IRS will
send us letters. These will go from brusque to threatening. There might be a
personal visit. At some point, maybe in a few months, maybe in a few years,
they will come after the money. This they will easily find in our family bank
accounts or by garnishing my pay. They will take interest and penalties beyond
our unpaid balance. They will almost certainly not put Kathy or me in jail (as
I said, the Federal Government has little use for our bodies, and no one is
known to have been jailed for war tax resistance in the
U.S.A.
for over a decade, though there are thousands of resisters).
So what’s the point? If they’re going to take the money anyway, why go through
all of this?
The point is that we have a choice about whether to look the other way while
my money is used for murder. In our way of thinking, we have an obligation to
object when we see evil, to avoid participating in it willingly or tacitly,
and to try to do what we can to stop it. The military will likely get our tax
money, but we will not have handed it to them. They will have to take it.
We don’t look so dangerous. But maybe we are. Instead of being a threat to
world peace, we’ve taken a step toward being a threat to world war.
* Good sources for this information are the
American Friends Service Committee, War Resisters League, and the Center for
Defense Information.
That issue also reprinted an article from the San Francisco
Chronicle about Elizabeth Boardman’s trip to Baghdad shortly before
the war. That article mentioned in passing her war tax resistance.
The issue included an article
by Vickie Aldrich on “A History of War Tax Resistance in the United States.”
Another note in that issue mentioned that her Meeting, the Las Cruses, New
Mexico, Monthly Meeting had adopted a minute “in support of war tax
resisters.”
Another article in that issue included the following minute, approved by the
Intermountain Yearly Meeting:
Our religious convictions lead us to take a stand against war. There are many
ways to do this, one of which is war tax resistance. We support those in our
Yearly Meeting who feel called to war tax resistance.
The issue featured a query from Peg
Morton of the Eugene Friends Meeting:
“Are We Ready to Refuse to Pay for War and Accept the Consequences?”
She asked Quakers to remember their history of war tax refusal, and invited
them to take part in the “War Tax Boycott” that
NWTRCC
had organized that year.
As far back as Aristophanes’ The Lysistrata, women have demonstrated their power to affect peace.
They rendered Greece’s armies hostage by denying them sexual favors and forced the priapic warriors to lay down their arms for “love.”
Such a strategy no longer works in today’s context, for any number of reasons.
Women have traditionally embraced peace organizations comprised of both men and women.
Such groups happily embrace women, but not necessarily feminism.
In the arena of political activism, women find themselves struggling for visibility and equal recognition among their peers, in addition to working on issues.
Among the politically active movements, there is a fringe element known as the war tax resistance movement.
War-tax is the 63% of every tax dollar directed to military expenses.
This resistance movement is dedicated to diverting funds from the military by refusing to pay part or all of “owed” taxes.
In looking at how this issue pertains to women, I spoke with some members of a group called Feminist Tax Resistance Assistance about how the issue of taxes in general affects women.
FTRA has been in existence for nearly two years.
It was formed out of a need expressed by women who had previously felt verbally repressed or ostracized for being “divisive” when expressing feminist concerns within mixed groups.
The following are anonymous quotes from FTRA members.
“Tax resistance is a very individual choice.
I was involved initially with the peace movement.
The way I came to tax resistance was just realizing that it didn’t make sense for me to spend my time working for peace and, at the same time, allowing the IRS to take money out of my check to pay for the very thing I was working against — the military.
“The first couple of years I resisted.
I didn’t pay any taxes or I withheld as close to 100% as possible, other than what was automatically taken from my paycheck.
I filed an accurate return, showing the correct amount owed, and enclosed a letter explaining why I refused to pay.
Last year I withheld the 63% marked for the military.
I paid by money order rather than check so they wouldn’t know where my bank account was and place a levy on it.
To cover my employers, I sent a formal, signed memo to the accounting department to be forwarded to the IRS: ‘My job situation is temporary.
I might change jobs soon.
I may be moving shortly.
Therefore, I can receive mail at an organization I work with.’
And I gave the War Tax Resistance office address.
“Tax resistance is a serious thing.
I think about the fact that resisting my taxes means I’ll be in a contest with the IRS for the rest of my life, and their power to intimidate is amazing.
We all feel it every time we get a threatening letter in the mailbox.
But in truth that’s their most efficient collection procedure.
People get scared and send in the money.
The likelihood that you’re going to get thrown in jail is almost nonexistent.
I’m not going to say it’s impossible; but it’s usually for side issues, like refusing to give information to a judge or failing to produce records.”
In its brief history.
Feminist Tax Resistance Assistance (FTRA) has spent a great deal of time defining itself through analysis of its policies and positions.
Its basic focus is on feminism and tax resistance, and how these two issues relate.
Tax resistance groups in general are usually insular and often have a pacifist or religious focus.
Since women earn 59 cents to every dollar a man earns, and since a large percentage of poverty-level heads of households are women, it may be necessary to re-examine the entire taxation system, military taxation notwithstanding.
“We strive for a recognition of this whole thing.
We look at what’s getting funded, as well as what’s not getting funded.
And what is the whole tax system, anyway?
That’s a focus the traditional tax movement has not always had.
Traditional tax resistance groups tend to focus on how much money is going for which particular weapon, and whether the world’s going to blow up.
For my part, regardless of what they do with the money, they’re not me.
They don’t represent me.
They’re old white men taking this money and doing their stuff.”
The FTRA gives interviews on television and radio, publishes public statements and brochures, and holds workshops in tax resistance, most notably for the Women’s Study Program at New Paltz University.
When asked if visibility has proven to be a risk factor for tax resisters, one woman replied: “They know we’re here.
We’ve been in the media, and sure, there’s the possibility that they’ll see someone’s name and decide to pick up on her just because she’s out there.
But the reason we do this is because we want to educate and encourage others to resist.
And the only way to do that is to go public.”
FTRA
places a strong emphasis on the diversion of tax monies into community and people-related projects and organizations.
“Several women from the group either put money into the People’s Life Fund themselves or serve on its board, or both,” a spokesperson said.
“Those of us in that position have made a point that we need a commitment of a certain percent of money to go specifically for women’s groups that have limited resources or opportunities for funding.”
Last year they gave grants of $300 to groups such as Madre, New York Women Against Rape, Seneca Women’s Encampment, and the St. Mark’s Lesbian Health Clinic, as well as to food co-ops and homelessness projects.
This obviously has a direct impact on the lives of women in lower income brackets.
FTRA
also exerts energy in trying to get a couple million people to withhold a small amount from their Federal returns.
In this way, a massive public protest could really be felt by the IRS, and it would be done at a very low risk to resisters.
“Symbolic protest is an excellent way for people to experience tax resistance.
If you start small, then maybe the next year you’ll decide not to pay taxes at all.”
This is the nineteenth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was
reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today we
are up to 1972, a year in which there was an enormous amount of material
about war tax resistance in the magazine.
In a weekend workshop was held
for “people who seriously question the morality of paying all that Caesar
demands.” The General Conference Mennonite Central District Peace and Service
Committee was one of the sponsors. From the edition:
Christian response to war taxes was discussed by about 100 participants in a
workshop in Elkhart,
Indiana.
The weekend was sponsored by the Elkhart Peace Fellowship, the General
Conference Mennonite Central District peace and service committee, and other
regional church peace and service committees.
Michael Friedmann of the Elkhart Peace Fellowship said many of the
participants felt the war tax question involved a shift in life style to
reduce involvement in the military-industrial complex.
Al Meyer, a research physicist at Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana, suggested
to the group that one does not start by changing the laws to provide legal
alternatives, to payment of war taxes, but by refusing to pay taxes. We need
to give a clear witness, he said.
Mr. Meyer did not oppose payment of war taxes because he was opposed to
government as such, but because he did not give his total allegiance to
government. He felt it was his responsibility to refuse to pay the immoral
demands of government.
“No alternative will be provided by the federal government until a significant
number of citizens refuse war taxes,” he said.
Art Gish, author of The new left and Christian radicalism, said
draft resistance led logically to war tax resistance.
“If I won’t give the government my warm body, I shouldn’t give it my cold
cash,” he said.
On , John Howard Yoder, president
of Goshen Biblical Seminary, discussed the purposes of resisting tax payments.
He felt the point is to make a clear moral witness. The goal should not be
absolute resistance in keeping the government from getting the money. He said
he would not give his money voluntarily, but would let the Internal Revenue
Service know where they could find it.
Other participants felt tax refusal could be both witness to war and part of a
larger movement to shift national priorities.
Mr. Gish discussed legal and illegal tax resistance. Goshen attorney Greg
Hartzler emphasized that those who break tax laws should make their religious
motivations clear if they want to avoid a severe sentence.
The workshop also discussed communities which are carrying the spirit of
voluntary service into a total life style and are freer to develop a clear
witness on the tax question.
Another topic was the World Peace Tax Fund, which a group in Ann Arbor,
Michigan, is attempting to establish through a bill which it hopes will be
introduced in Congress in . The bill
would enable those who can demonstrate conscientious objection to war to put
that portion of their taxes which would go to war into the fund. The fund
would be used for such purposes as disarmament efforts, international
exchanges, and international health.
Is there a significant difference between fighting a war as a soldier and
supporting it with taxes? “…why should the pacifist refuse service in the
army if he does not refuse to pay taxes?” (Richard Gregg) Why should any
person, on receipt of the government’s demand for money to kill, hurry as
fast as he can to comply? Why pay voluntarily?
What is the biblical or Christian basis for paying or not paying war
taxes? What responsibility does an individual have for wars which are
fought and financed by a government to which he makes tax payments? To
whom is the Christian really responsible?
When faced with a “war tax” situation, what should Christians do? Should
Christians “…take their obligations toward government more seriously than
their church obligations”? (Milton J. Harder) Unless followers of Jesus
dissent from paying war taxes, how are government leaders to know that
Christians are opposed to making war on other peoples whom God has
created? What are the ways whereby we can keep dear our commitment to God
and his love as revealed in Jesus, the Christ?
Can a Christian obedient to God as the supreme Lord of his life continue
simultaneously to “Pray for peace” and “Pay for war”? “How do you
interpret Christ’s answer about the coin in relation to war tax payment?
(See Mark 12:17.)
Must Christians pay to have persons killed? What is Caesar’s? What is
God’s?” (William Keeney) At what point does a government become satanic or
demonic in that it demands what is God’s?
Should Christians who object to paying war taxes wait with their protest
until the whole Christian community agrees to do so?
For the Christian who is opposed to war taxes, is it enough to simply
refuse voluntarily payment of the money requested by
IRS
or should he put forth serious effort to prevent the government from
obtaining the money?
Isn’t the question of military taxation a reflection of the most
formidable problem which every person or religious group must face in our
time: Nationalism?
Ted Koontz of Harvard Divinity school attended the Mennonite Graduate
Fellowship’s annual winter conference and “presented an analysis of reasons for
war tax refusal for use in dialog with those who believe the war in Indochina
is unjust but continue to pay war taxes.” (According to
an
article in the edition.)
The commission asked William Snyder, executive secretary of the Mennonite
Central Committee, if
MCC
is discussing with other religious groups continuing the pacifist position
beyond current “popular” opinions, and if
MCC
is pressing for an alternative fund for war taxes in light of the changing
nature of warfare with finances as the primary resource.
Meetings to discuss war tax resistance were scheduled at three Mennonite
churches in Kansas and Pennsylvania in
and
, according to
an
announcement in the
edition. One of those meetings was covered as follows in the
edition:
About fifty persons shared ways of protesting the use of their taxes for war
at a meeting in Buhler, Kansas,
sponsored by the Western District peace and social concerns committee.
After watching the slide set, The automated air war, produced by
the American Friends Service Committee, participants discussed ways they are
avoiding contribution to the war: refusing the telephone tax, refusing to pay
income tax, investing in corporations which do not produce war materials,
voluntary service, keeping income below the taxable level, and retirement.
Money and the weapons it buys, not the bodies of draft-age men, have become
the primary resource for waging war, the group agreed. But individuals
differed on the best way to influence government against war.
The Internal Revenue Service will attach bank accounts or auction personal
property to collect delinquent income tax or telephone tax, and some persons
questioned the effectiveness of refusal to pay when the government collects
the money later with interest. Or are we simply called to be faithful? some
asked.
Willard Unruh said, “It’s not the money that’s important; it’s the opportunity
to express my opinion. I sent copies to Senators Dole and Pearson of my letter
to the
IRS.
They both responded.”
Jonah Reimer suggested establishing a fund in Kansas into which persons
refusing federal taxes could put an equivalent amount. “It would be an
excellent way to witness,” he said.
The group also discussed attempts to place before Congress a bill to establish
a government fund into which conscientious objectors to war could place their
tax money, which would not be used for military purposes. Such a fund,
however, would not necessarily reduce the amount of money going to the
military.
Some persons objected to the fund, analogous to legal alternative service for
conscientious objectors, saying that such a legal alternative would give
approval to the evil of the military-industrial complex.
One man said, “Mennonites want special privileges. They want to come out of
the war with a clear conscience. But we should want that clear conscience for
everybody.”
“An increasing number of Mennonites are asking what it means to render to
Caesar what belongs to him and in particular to render to God what belongs to
him,” said Wesley Mast, Philadelphia, convener for the seminars. “Since war is
increasingly becoming a matter of bombs and buttons rather than people, we
need to ask what form Christian obedience takes.”
The other two meetings were covered in the edition. Excerpts:
Wesley Mast, Philadelphia, said, “The degree of openness on an issue as
explosive as war taxes was amazing. We wrestled together first of all with the
message of the Scriptures. Would Paul, for example, admonish us today to pay
taxes, as he did the Roman Christians? Would he do the same to Christians in
World War Ⅱ under Hitler? We noted that the times had already changed in the
early church from the ‘good’ government in Romans 13 to the ‘beastly’
government in Revelation 13.”
The seminars also discussed the nature of the present war. Mr. Mast said the
seminar participants heard that since World War Ⅱ the need for foot soldiers
has declined 50 percent. Present war is becoming automated. “When they no
longer need our bodies, how do we declare our protest?”
Another issue concerned tax dollars. “When over half of our taxes are used for
outright murder, how can we go on sinning by supporting that which God
forbids?”
With regard to brotherhood, “should the few who cannot conscientiously pay for
war wait until others come along? How do we discern the Spirit’s leading in
this and not make decisions on an individualistic basis?”
Howard Charles, Goshen Biblical Seminary, was resource teacher on biblical
passages dealing with taxes. Other input was given by Melvin Gingerich and
Grant Stoltzfus on examples of tax refusal from history. Mr. Mast presented
options in payment and nonpayment of taxes. Walton Hackman broke down the
present use of tax dollars, 75 percent of which go for war-related purposes.
“Mennonite collegians will meet
to rap about the kind of lifestyle they want to adopt,” hiply noted
an
article in the edition.
Among the topics on the agenda: “how to avoid complicity with militarism
through paying taxes.”
The continuation of the war in Southeast Asia calls upon us in the United
States to review again our payment of taxes that go to support the war. In
, the Council of Commissions meeting in
Newton, Kansas, urged churches to consider the non-payment of a portion of
their taxes. One of the district conferences passed a resolution chiding the
council for being unbiblical. This response should have called for a mutual
study of the question and this can still be done. It is the intention of the
writer that this article should be a contribution toward the continuation of
dialog on this topic.
The record of Jesus’ pronouncement on the paying of taxes is recorded in all
three of the Synoptic Gospels
(Matt. 22:15–22;
Mark 12:13–17,
Luke 20:20–26). This indicates the importance of this account to the
early church.
The account tells of Pharisees’ and Herodians’ coming to ask a question of
Jesus. They came the day after the cleansing of the temple. Their purpose was
to discredit Jesus in the eyes of the people. Jesus had shown up the leaders
of the temple and they were anxious to get back at him. This question is one
of several that they used. Here the cooperation between the Pharisees and
Herodians is strange. The Pharisees were opposed to the occupation by the
Roman authorities, while the Herodians were enriching themselves by
cooperating. They united because they both wanted Jesus out of the way.
The question of paying taxes brought different answers from these two groups.
The Pharisees were nationalistic and were against any foreign occupation. They
saw the payment of taxes as a symbol of their subjection to a heathen foreign
power. They also hated using the coins with an imprint of Caesar’s likeness as
it went against their interpretation of the second commandment. The Herodians
were willing to see the taxes paid for they had improved their livelihood by
their cooperation.
Thus the question would appear to be a legitimate one. Who was right? They
recognized that Jesus was impartial to people and that if they could appeal to
his sense of justice they might get him to make a judgment. On the surface
their query seemed innocent enough. But they were laying a trap for Jesus.
The question was two-pronged. Jesus could be caught if he answered either
“yes” or “no.” A “yes” would have disowned the people’s nationalistic hopes
and given approval to the hated tax burden. The total taxes paid amounted to
as much as 35 to 40 percent of their income. A “no” to the question would have
made him liable to the charge of sedition and he could be reported to the
Roman authorities. So either answer was one that was looked upon as a means of
hurting Jesus and either discrediting him or doing away with him. Luke says
clearly that they wanted to deliver Jesus up to the authority and jurisdiction
of the governor (Lk. 20:20).
Mark says at the outset that the intent of the questioners was to entrap
Jesus. We are also told that Jesus was aware of their hypocrisy, their seeming
sincerity in asking a question with a hidden intent to trap him. On the basis
of this information, to expect Jesus to reply with either a yes or a no would
be to assume that Jesus was caught in their trap. The amazement of the
questioners after Jesus’ reply indicates that Jesus did not give the kind of
answer they expected.
Turning to the crucial issue, the Pharisees asked if it was lawful to give
taxes to Caesar. The idiomatic rendering of this is “pay taxes.” Jesus replied
that they should “pay back” to Caesar that which was his. Did Jesus see taxes
as a return for benefits received? He probably did, but without sanctioning
all that Caesar was doing. For it was Caesar who had provided for the making
of the coin. But the paying back to Caesar statement does not stand alone and
we cannot treat it as such. To it is added the phrase that we are to pay back
to God what belongs to God. These two phrases need to be interpreted together.
And there are several ways in which this can be done. What did Jesus mean?
First, some see the realm of Caesar and the realm of God as two side-by-side
but separate and distinct realms, each having its own concerns and existence.
The Christian lives in both realms and has a dualistic ethic. When it comes to
killing, a Christian as a citizen of God’s kingdom will not kill. But as a
citizen of this world he will be obedient to Caesar and take up arms. Many
Christians see no inconsistency in reading the words of Jesus to mean this is
the way they should live.
To some of us it is quite obvious that this is not the way Jesus taught us to
live. We do not see him giving Caesar equal authority with God. Jesus warned
that no man can serve two masters. So we reject the position that would say we
should pay to Caesar regardless of the uses he makes of our money.
A second view is that the Kingdom of God is above the kingdoms of this world.
God’s realm is holy and the worldly realm is sinful. According to this model,
one would seek to live as much as possible within God’s realm. It might be
necessary to be involved in the world to some extent but one would take no
responsibility, such as voting or holding office. One would pay taxes to
Caesar but would not see the money as purchasing any services. This has been
the view of some Mennonites in the past. They asked nothing from the world and
gave what was demanded except where it involved their personal lives. They let
the governing authorities take full responsibility before God for the use of
the taxes they paid. This position we also reject as an inadequate
interpretation.
A third point of view sees the whole creation as belonging to God, with God
acting in and through all men. Within the world are a number of states having
separate existence but not autonomous existence for they are all under the
judgment of God. What the rulers do, they are to do as ministers of God and it
should always be according to God’s purposes. Their authority is a derived
authority. Because the rulers of the states are not autonomous, they
frequently seek to wield more power than given by God and so become demonic.
Thus Caesar is not to be obeyed regardless of what he asks. We see fine
examples of this in both the Old and New Testaments. When Caesar asks for more
than God has set for him, the Christian must definitely refuse to grant it to
him. Then the words, “We must obey God rather than men” are appropriate.
Knowing Jesus’ life of total obedience to the will of his Father, we have no
doubt in saying that Jesus saw governing authorities as ruling under God. He
told Pilate, “You would have no power over me unless it had been given you
from above” (John 19:11).
The Christians who received the revelation of Jesus Christ were told that
those who are faithful unto death to their convictions would receive the crown
of life
(Rev. 2:10).
It is to this third model that we look for guidance.
The words, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” does say explicitly
that there is an amount that is due a government. But we also hold that it
says there are limits to what Caesar should ask. Jesus was not being asked
about the payment of all taxes. A variety of taxes were levied by Caesar and
the one Jesus was asked about was the annual poll tax that each male above
fourteen years of age had to pay with the specific coin Jesus called for.
We need to see Jesus’ words as providing a generalization rather than a
universal prescription. In moving from a general statement to a particular
situation, we must always move carefully. Let me illustrate: we are told a
person who is a guest should eat what is set before him
(Luke 10:7).
However, if a person is diabetic, it would not be right for him to eat food
that would be harmful to his system. While we can say that Jesus supported the
payment of taxes, we cannot thereby say that he favored the payment of every
particular tax that a government might levy. We can all think of programs
(such as the destruction of elderly and handicapped persons) which we would
not be willing to support with our taxes. If that is the case, then we need to
look seriously at what our taxes are doing in making war possible.
Living under a government that says it is responsible to the concerns of its
citizens, we have an opportunity to witness by bringing our concerns to the
government. A first step should be to write those who represent us and make
the laws for our country. Stating our position in this manner is being a
faithful witness. If the tax money is being used for purposes that are utterly
contrary to what we understand to be the will of God, then we ought to
consider the act of refusing to pay the tax. The purpose of this action is the
desire to be faithful to the will of God as we know it and to help the rulers
become aware of how they are overstepping the bounds of true ministers of God.
Paul in his letter to the Romans exhorts Christians to be obedient to the
authorities. But he has already stated the principle that Christians should
not be conformed to this world (12:1). Or as Phillips has translated it,
“Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its mold.” This calls for
discernment on the part of the church. Can we as Christians continue to pray
for peace while we pay for war?
The edition profiled two small
Mennonite intentional communities in Kansas: the Fairview Mennonite House and
The Bridge.
The
article noted:
[The Bridge] began forming at a Western District war tax workshop. David and
Joanne Janzen, Randy and Janeal Krehbiel, and Steve and Wanda Schmidt were
ready to stop paying taxes for war and to join into a brotherhood of shared
income “to make our whole lives count for peace.”
Both intentional communities are a part of the voluntary service program of
the General Conference Mennonite Church and follow the same financial pattern
of self-support as the majority of other voluntary service units. All income
is turned over directly to the voluntary service office in Newton, which
reimburses the unit for such items as food, housing, travel, and medical
expenses. Each individual receives $25 a month personal allowance.
Although critics of the intentional communities have accused them of using the
voluntary service program as a tax dodge, members of the communities felt
strong ties with their Anabaptist heritage and wanted to channel their
resources to and through the church. But there are no apologies for not paying
taxes. “We’re witnessing to the fact that the federal government is not using
our money responsibly in its huge military expenditures,” said Ken [Janzen].
A member of the Love, Joy, Peace Community (Washington,
D.C.)
wrote a letter in response
in which he wrote (in part):
The problem of war taxes is one which both Fairview House and The Bridge are
addressing. It’s good to see people more concerned with “rendering to God what
is his” (our whole lives), rather than being obsessed with Caesar and his
temporal demands! We have long been passive, instead of active peacemakers. We
pray for peace while we pay for war.
Dear Editor: As members of the Mennonite congregation of Boston, we are
writing this letter to make public our decision to withhold a portion of our
federal taxes, either income or telephone taxes. This decision came out of
discussions with the entire congregation. We are doing this because our
Christian consciences and our Mennonite backgrounds tell us the war in
Southeast Asia is counter to the teachings of Christ. We have chosen to
withhold our taxes because part of the responsibility for the war resides with
those who willingly support it financially, regardless of what they believe.
Realizing this act will undoubtedly have a very small effect indeed on
governmental policy, we hope it will in some way influence others into taking
concrete actions which will demonstrate Christian love. Our friends and our
families cannot help but react to our decision to withhold taxes.
The desired effect of our actions is not, however, the sole reason why we have
chosen this form of protest. As conscientious objector status has become more
automatic for Mennonites, refusal to pay war taxes has provided an additional
way to demonstrate one’s Christian beliefs. Because we have only rough guesses
as to the effects of our act, we accept as a matter of faith that this act
will at least be a significant event in our Christian lives.
While we know the government will eventually collect our taxes, our intention
to send an equal amount of money to the Mennonite Central Committee for
Vietnam relief is a further Christian witness. It offers our alternative to
war.
Jerry and Janet Friesen Regier, Weldon and Rebecca Pries,
Ted and Gayle Gerber Koontz, Dorothy and Gordon D. Kaufman.
An increasing number of people are sending war tax monies to Mennonite Central
Committee, instead of paying them to the United States Government for military
use, said Calvin Britsch,
MCC
assistant treasurer.
Contributions of tax money are of two kinds, Mr. Britsch said. More people are
refusing to pay the federal tax levied on the use of telephones. This 10
percent tax is seen as a direct source for military expenditures. People who
refuse this tax simply subtract the 10 percent from their telephone bill and
send it instead to
MCC.
We also receive contributions from people who refuse part of their federal
income tax, Mr. Britsch said. Several people, for example, have withheld and
have sent in as a contribution ten or 15 percent of their income tax in a
symbolic protest against the Vietnam war and the whole United States military
machine. Others who have had less than the total tax withheld send that
remainder to
MCC
rather than to the Internal Revenue Service. We often get letters with tax
refusal contributions explaining the individuals belief that, as a Christian,
one cannot voluntarily, or without protest, pay money to be used for the
destruction of human life.
Tax refusal contributions, unless otherwise designated, are usually applied to
the
MCC
Peace Section budget, Mr. Britsch said.
The General Conference had asked the Commission on Home Ministries and the
Commission on Overseas Mission to come up with some sort of repentance action,
focused on the Vietnam War. They settled on a coordinated day of repentance,
with other Mennonite and Brethren churches also joining in with a day of
fasting and prayer. Included with the letter from the commissions announcing
this was
a
confession of complicity, which said in part:
We recognize that though we cannot completely disassociate ourselves from the
destruction and suffering the people of the United States are inflicting upon
others, we continue to seek ways “to perform deeds worthy of (our)
repentance.”…
As a church we have opposed war and worked for peace through programs of
relief and service. Yet we share responsibility for the destruction in this
way through our silence, through our profiting from a military economy,
through our patronage of corporations with substantial defense contracts, and
through our payment of the portion of telephone and
IRS
taxes used for war purposes. Much of this involvement is unintentional and may
even be done without knowledge of the implications.
To pay income tax means to help buy the guns, airplanes, and bombs which
continue daily to kill the men, women and children of Indochina. To pay this
tax means to help build the nuclear weaponry which threatens the possibility
of any joyful human life. To pay this tax is to help retire the mortgage of
the atomic bombs which destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
So, instead of trusting my money to the federal government, I have directed my
financial resources to organizations and individuals working for peace and
justice.
Claus Felbinger, writing about the Anabaptist church in
, said, “We are gladly and willingly subject
to the government for the Lord’s sake, and in all just matters we will in no
way oppose it. When, however, the government requires of us what is contrary
to our faith and conscience — as swearing oaths and paying hangman’s dues of
taxes for war — then we do not obey its command.” Living in the
Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition, I feel that, rather than pay taxes, I must
hear and respond to the cries of those who fall victim to the American
war-making power.
I hope that you people working for the Internal Revenue Service will
understand and accept my decision to follow conscience. I hope that you will
also consider the contribution which your work of collecting war taxes makes
to the suffering of our fellow human beings.
Accompanying this was a maudlin poem by another author, called “Confession”
that began “I killed a man today / Or was it a woman or a child?” and went on
to explain that his taxes paid someone to kill, in spite of all the other
things he did to express his dislike for killing. But he was writing a letter
to the
IRS to
tell them why he wouldn’t be paying “that part of income tax which is used for
killing.”
The “Central District
Reporter,” a sort of supplemental insert in the magazine, reported this from
the district’s Peace and Service Committee:
Parents too have stopped being passive about peace. If son will not register,
father will not pay the tax which keeps the army and any war going. All ages
are learning more and more that there is no one way to give witness to
convictions.
A
letter to the editor
from Jacob and Irene Pauls discussed their decision to redirect 64% of their
federal income tax (“clearly designated for war”) from the government to the
Mennonite Central Committee. They wrote: “The state has chosen an enemy, but we
have no enemy. We do not accept the premise that the state can choose an enemy
for us and force us to help annihilate the state’s enemy.”
From the edition:
War tax resistance means sale of car. David Janzen, Newton, Kansas, at right,
talks with Internal Revenue Service officials in Wichita as they open and
record sealed bids for Mr. Janzen’s station wagon. The automobile was
confiscated in for nonpayment of $31.32
of telephone excise tax which would have been used to carry on the war in
Indochina. The officials read bids for one cent to $501, but refused to read
bids for “one napalmed baby” and other “units of suffering” submitted by other
war tax resisters and supporters. “All we’re interested in is the money,” said
the IRS
officer. “We’re interested in what the money buys,” replied Mr. Janzen. The
intentional community of which he is a member bought back the station wagon.
There are some points at which it is necessary “to make a one-sided emotional
commitment to one value” (our militaristic brethren in the church feel we do
this on the war question — especially when we begin to urge withholding part
of our income tax).
What was billed as a “‘Lamb’s war’ camp meeting”
took place in . Sixty or
seventy mostly youngish people, mostly but not all Mennonites, met to discuss
“a life of sacrifice and aggressive peacemaking” as part of “a nonviolent army
under the direction of God.” War tax resistance was one of the topics
discussed, and the verse “gonna lay down my telephone tax, down by the
riverside” was spliced in to the popular spiritual during an evening
sing-along.
A letter to the editor from Robert W. Guth
on the subject of war taxes again told the story of the excommunication of
Christian Funk for paying taxes to the Continental Congress during the American
revolutionary war, and of Andrew Ziegler’s “I would as soon go to war as pay
the three pounds and ten shillings” response.
Preliminary results from the first Church Member Profile survey were revealed
in a article. Excerpt:
In the United states… only 11 percent were uncertain about their position,
should they be subject to the draft. Seventy-one percent would choose
alternative service, an option acceptable to both the government and the
church’s teaching in recent history.
However, 33 percent were uncertain about refusal to pay that proportion of
their income taxes designated for the military. Fifty-five percent opposed
nonpayment of war taxes.
Bill Londeree, a member of Koinonia Partners, Americus, Georgia, emphasized
the personal response to affluence and militarism.
The Methodist Church, he said, has $40 million in investments in the top
twenty-nine defense contractors — and sends out the antiwar slide
presentation, “The automated air war.” Members of the Mennonite Church paid
$87 million last year in war taxes and call themselves a “peace church.”
“This is schizophrenia of the first order,” Mr. Londeree said. “The greatest
need is for examination of our own lives. Jesus’ first statement to us all is
a call to repentance, to metanoia. This does not mean
feeling sorry, but is a command to change.”
The assembly spent much of its time in small groups discussing the
presentations and related topics, such as life style, the ideology of growth,
war taxes, international economic relations, economic needs of church-related
institutions, strategies for social change, new value orientations, and
investments.
This is the twenty-eighth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we hit 1981.
In our last episode, a proposal was briefly floated in which people would be allowed to become legal conscientious objectors to military taxation in exchange for donating their labor, one year out of every seven, in a “sabbatical service” program.
Robert Hull, who developed this idea along with a young conscientious objector he was counseling, expanded on this idea in two articles for The Mennonite in :
Can it be that this misplaced respecting of institutions and laws rather than persons has come about because we have put the burden of Christian witness on 18-to-20-year-olds, who are perhaps least prepared through experience to detect the difference?
Can it be that because of the risks to ourselves and our security, we who are older have failed to acknowledge that conscientious objection to military participation and conscientious objection to war taxation are Siamese twins?
Just because we may have become too old to be liable to the draft does not mean our contribution to warfare is ended.
We continue to serve the military through conscription of our taxes.
In fact, governmental draft boards could, for reasons of administrative efficiency, take the position that everyone who is nonconformist enough to request a conscientious objector classification should be granted it, so long as he or she continues to work and pay taxes.
So our rush to prepare our sons and daughters as Christian peacemakers to face the draft board and seek alternative service may be leading them only to “men-pleasing eyeservice” if we do not wrestle with our command to “make known the wisdom of God to the principalities and powers.”
The difficulty which faces us in is that those among us who have recognized this danger have so far been given no option but noncooperation with conscription, and jail or emigration.
(And let us recognize in due honesty the Christian service and witness that has frequently been given in these situations.)
What we are called upon to propose in is a new option, a new model for Christian service in the midst of the demands of militaristic societies.
Our proposal must be directed first to the church, and secondarily to the U.S. and Canadian governments.
It must strike a new stance in the political arena where the demands of the state and the call of God overlap and frequently conflict.
The congregational ministry of sabbatical service as outlined in part one would seem to be such an option.
It would involve the whole congregation, including people at every stage of life, and would remove the particular burden of responding to militarism now largely borne by 18-to-20-year-old males.
By acknowledging that we as Mennonites ought to face together the Siamese twins of military conscription and war taxation, which spring from the parent, militarism, we can unify the generational differences in our congregations.
How can this be accomplished?
Currently the World Peace Tax Fund bill is pending in the U.S. Congress, and efforts are being made to introduce a similar measure into the Canadian Parliament.
By diverting from military to peacemaking uses an amount (equivalent to the military proportion of the annual federal budget) from each “eligible” taxpayer’s income and estate taxes, the peacemaker’s burden of conscience with regard to paying for war would be satisfied.
(This does not answer the political problem of swollen military budgets themselves, of course, but only whether peacemakers shall contribute to them.)
So the Peace Tax Fund bills speak effectively to the war taxation twin.
They speak to the military conscription twin as well by defining as “eligible” taxpayers those classified as conscientious objectors.
If it is true, as General Lewis Hershey and numerous U.S. Selective Service documents have claimed, that the CO provisions of were a good accommodation strategy for the U.S. government (by avoiding a direct confrontation with the peace churches as in World War Ⅰ), then one wonders why the U.S. legislators and Canadian MPs have not rushed to establish Peace Tax Funds and thereby avoid confrontations with the war tax objectors.
Certainly one part of the answer is that our governments know that the peace churches are not unified on this issue, and they can continue to deal with individual objectors quietly and piecemeal in Internal Revenue Service and Revenue Canada offices.
But perhaps the stronger reason is that taxation is more important for a high-technology military establishment than manpower.
Peace Tax Fund bills allow the taxpayers some choice in directing the spending of their taxes.
This could, as the minds of many legislators conceive, “open the floodgates” to a deluge of what they look upon as “special interest legislation.”
Most of such tax legislation, or “loopholes,” is written to financially benefit individuals, groups, or corporations.
One answer to this mindset of legislators is to point out the distinct history of conscientious objection and its recognition in both legislative acts and judicial decisions.
This argument is usually helpful but not sufficient.
Many legislators and MPs still see little distinction between CO alternative service and “draft dodgers,” despite its legal status.
It seems to them a special interest provision, the “easy way out.”
If a young person were to covenant as a sabbatical servant, pledging to perform subsistence-level VS periodically throughout his or her working life, and willing to undergo repeated financial sacrifice for this purpose, would this help change the mindset that “these COs are parasites on the U.S. (and Canadian) economic system”?
For this reason, a “Sabbatical Service Act” may have considerable appeal in the U.S. Congress or Canadian Parliament where the Peace Tax Fund bills alone have not.
How can one consider that a people who are willing to accept seven years of service spread throughout their working lives, and thus accept substantial limits on their income growth, are seeking “special interest legislation”?
Are such a peculiar people unpatriotic, who are willing to reduce the benefits they receive from North American economic systems in return for recognition of their conscientious objection to military service and military-purposes taxation?
How could this be done?
A “Sabbatical Service Act” could be introduced into the U.S. Congress and the Canadian Parliament which would provide legal recognition for persons who covenant with their congregations (or agencies established for the purpose of receiving such sabbatical service covenants from conscientious objectors).
In other words, a form such as the Christian Peacemaker Registration, which has become familiar among U.S. Mennonites in recent years, would then be the registration.
Congregations or conferences would then simply report those who so covenant to the appropriate government, and they would then be omitted from military conscription rather than registered, and their beliefs classified by the governments.
The “Sabbatical Service Act” would further incorporate the Peace Tax Fund provisions (which may differ in Canada and the U.S.).
When a sabbatical servant performed his or her periodic VS, their income would be below taxable levels.
During the six intervening years, when their income would be taxable, the Peace Tax Fund mechanism would operate to divert the military-equivalent proportion of their taxes to peacemaking efforts (such as National Peace Academy, funding an Ambassador for Disarmament, conflict resolution research, economic conversion plans for military installations, etc.).
The concept of sabbatical service thus envisions a response to militarism (represented by military conscription and war taxation) which is voluntary in the sense of being self-chosen by peacemakers, yet structured into enabling legislation by governments.
It is a proposal which could be both faithful and legal, with the potential for generating a Jubilee of enthusiasm for service in the name of Christ.
Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section’s “Taxes for Peace” fund experienced an increase in contributions during .
The fund was established in late .
“Persons whose consciences forbid them to yield money on request to the government’s death-by-technology militarism are contributing the military portion of their income tax instead to the life-supporting work of MCC U.S. Peace Section,” says John K. Stoner, executive secretary of the section.
“They see it as a way of fulfilling the scriptural command to owe no one anything, except to love one another.”
Paul Leatherman explained why he and his wife Joan had started to dip their toes into tax resistance, in the issue.
Excerpts:
A willingness to allow the ongoing conscription of our tax dollars for war purposes — without witness against it — is surely a tacit support of the arms race.
This reality is crucial to Mennonite witness today.
The fuel that supports military madness is tax dollars, not the conscription of our youth.
Previous conscientious objection (CO) patterns — expressed mainly in alternative service by our youth — are inadequate.
We must find new ways to show our personal CO witness.
Several options have some validity.
(1) Leave the country and find a place not given to the madness of war.
Our forefathers have done this more than once.
(2) Decrease our earnings so we have no tax obligation.
(3) Increase our giving to the church; that which otherwise goes for the arms race.
(4) Do not file an income tax return.
(5) Withhold payment of that portion of income taxes used for military purposes.
(6) Symbolic withholding of income tax.
(7) Pay taxes under protest.
(8) Do nothing at all.
We personally have tried various ways to withhold a portion of our income taxes we considered to be used for military purposes.
This has opened unique opportunities for witness.
But in the end the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) took the money.
What next step might a larger group of Mennonites take?
Many have done nothing; some have written letters of protest.
A lot of them feel quite uneasy.
This year we withheld $7.77. There is no place on U.S. tax form 1040 — nor is there legal provision to take such a deduction; just as there was no legal provision for our youth to register as COs. But Mennonite churches encouraged those who registered to do so as COs. To us, it seems that a symbolic $7.77 war tax deduction helps us to be counted as COs. We used line 46 on page 2 of the form and wrote in the words “war tax credit — see letter.”
An attached letter explained the deduction.
Our proposal of a $7.77 deduction may be as little as one can do and still be counted.
It is not more radical or illegal than asking our youth to register as COs when there was no legal provision.
Why $7.77?
Seven is the perfect number in the Bible.
Jesus tells us to forgive 70 times 7. While any amount might do, $7.77 has special meaning to us.
If you withhold $7.77, it is necessary to explain to IRS.
Seven dollars and seventy-seven cents becomes a frustration to IRS.
It is too small and too costly to collect.
Much discussion can follow.
We are proposing — to our elected officials — passage of the World Peace Tax Fund (WPTF) so we can designate taxes for peaceful purposes.
We sent our $7.77 to the national council of the WPTF in support of its efforts.
If nobody joins us in this symbolic withholding, IRS will be glad for one less war-tax resister to deal with.
In the past they came to take from us what we withheld.
This year they may ignore us.
But if 1,000 or 10,000 or perchance 100,000 would join us in this symbolic action, it could not be ignored.
Provision would be made to accommodate these COs.
We know symbolic withholding of $7.77 is timid.
But by this act we can be counted as COs. It is our attempt to follow Christ’s teaching to be peacemakers.
The midtriennial in Minneapolis where the war tax resistance idea came to a head in the General Conference seems to have planted some seeds in the local faith-based peace community.
From the edition:
An interdenominational clergy and lay group in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area has sent a statement of protest against the world arms race and the taxes levied to support it to U.S. senators, representatives, and President Reagan.
The group, called the “People of Faith Peacemakers,” sponsored a public meeting on the arms race and war tax resistance recently at University Lutheran Church of Hope in Minneapolis.
The statement, entitled “Covenant of Witness and Mutual Support,” grew out of the meeting and was attached to a list of 50 supporters, with signatures and addresses.
The statement reads as follows: “We, people of faith in God as our sustainer and source of peace, hereby register our protest against the world arms race and against taxes levied to support that race.
As stewards of life we are compelled by conscience to oppose the use of our money for the infliction of suffering and destruction of humanity.
“We therefore support each other as we select various means, such as the following, to protest this payment for war, recognizing our responsibility as American citizens and members of the larger global community: (1) Deliberately choosing to earn less than a taxable income; (2) Payment of taxes accompanied by a letter of protest against their use to sustain the arms race; (3) Withholding a token amount of taxes as a symbol of opposition to the use of any funds dedicated to military purposes; (4) Refusal to pay the entire portion of taxes used for military purposes; and (5) Refusal to pay the telephone tax which is levied for military purposes.”
The last three measures were coupled with a clause whereby the withheld amount could be donated to an escrow account for the World Peace Tax Fund, the Minnesota Alternative Fund, or some other peaceful purpose.
The interdenominational group took shape shortly after the General Conference Mennonite Church held a special midtriennium session in the Twin Cities on the theme of Christian civil responsibility in .
Myron Schrag, pastor of Faith Mennonite Church in Minneapolis, is one of the coordinators of the interfaith body.
A conservative backlash to changes in the Mennonite General Conference, including but not limited to the emergence of war tax resistance, resulted in the “Smoketown Consultation.”
A “Consultation on Continuing Concerns” grew out of that, and held another meeting in .
An article on the meeting included this section on taxes:
[Myron] Ausburger said we are unfair when we expect the state to operate at a Christian level.
It is a people’s franchise.
The church is Jesus[’] franchise.
We need to relate to the state as we do to the world — in loving responsibility first to God but also to our fellow persons.
Augsburger also presented his tax-proposal: (1) Get giving high as possible, so taxes are low as possible; (2) pay taxes; (3) calculate amount used for defense and give an equivalent amount to a peacemaking fund.
Dean Denner wrote to the IRS to explain his tax resistance, and portions of the letter were reproduced in the edition:
Of the United States income tax collected, approximately 50 percent is used for the military.
Such use is in violation of my constitutional rights and responsibility.
The First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law… prohibiting the free exercise (of religion)…”; i.e. my religious beliefs preclude my paying for the genocide or mass suicide… The Ninth Amendment: “The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”; i.e. I maintain the right not to participate in (by paying for) governmental mass murder… International law as ratified in Congress and signed by the President is U.S. law; e.g. the Nuremburg Principles state each individual is responsible for not being complicit in crimes against peace, war crimes, or crimes against humanity.
Therefore, it is my responsibility as a United States citizen not to be complicit in such crimes by paying for U.S. first-strike nuclear war preparations.
Therefore, I have used Schedules A and B for a war tax deduction which results in the necessary 50 percent adjustment in my income tax… For further clarification please contact me at…
The edition brought the news that the war tax resistance bug had reached the Netherlands:
[N]either the Mennonite church nor the IKV [Interchurch Peace Council] feels comfortable with individual radical action.
Dirk Visser, a Dutch Mennonite journalist working for the equivalent of the Associated Press wire services in the Netherlands, called my attention to Willem-Jan Maas, a Mennonite minister serving in Opeland.
This minister tried to funnel what he considered the war tax portion of his income tax to the Dutch Mennonite Peace Group via the local income tax office.
This effort was halted by the tax officers, but even had it been successful, the minister would not have been applauded by the IKV, according to Visser.
The IKV has taken the political action route, and with that the churches can cooperate.
I think war tax resistance is a viable means for Christians to express their opposition to a system that is requiring unchristian behavior.
The Anabaptist tradition calls us to noncooperation if the state asks us to support something that we believe is contrary to the will of God.
The edition brought the news that the General Conference Mennonite Church was going to federal court to ask a judge to order the IRS to stop requiring the Conference to withhold taxes from the income of conscientiously objecting employees.
Mennonites have traditionally eschewed lawsuits for biblical reasons, for example:
“…I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.
And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.”
Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints?
…
But brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers!
Now therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another.
Why do you not rather accept wrong?
Why do you not rather let yourselves be cheated?
No, you yourselves do wrong and cheat, and you do these things to your brethren!
So the General Conference had to explain why this lawsuit was different.
First off, it wasn’t a case of brother going to law against brother, but an institution asking a judge for a ruling on a constitutional interpretation.
Secondly, if the Conference did not initiate such a suit, the only way to get such an interpretation would be for it to break the law, be brought into court by the government, and then defend itself, but “the majority does not want to break the law in order to test whether the law violates the constitution [so] the only alternative is for us to take the initiative”.
That didn’t completely settle the debate.
In particular, the Deacon board of the Eicher Emmanuel Mennonite Church wrote in to say they wanted nothing to do with the suit.
Their objections “in the order of their importance” (my summaries):
Christians are under Biblical obligation to pay taxes.
Lawsuits fly in the face of Mennonite nonresistance.
The ostensible separation of church and state Constitutional issue in the lawsuit disingenuously masks the real purpose of the suit, which is to defend conscientious objection to military spending.
The lawsuit is doomed to failure and will only have the effect of enriching lawyers to the detriment of other church functions.
Even if it were won, the underlying issue would remain unresolved.
Member congregations should not be compelled to support a position like this that they don’t agree with.
The MCC Peace Section (U.S.) met in , and a majority resolution on the nuclear arms race from the 225 members there included this statement:
We were repeatedly reminded in this assembly that the conscription of our income supports the nuclear arms race.
Moreover, we saw that the government is increasing expenditures for nuclear and other weapons by decreasing expenditures for human services for the poor and oppressed.
We encourage people to consider ways to witness against this evil use of the power of taxation, such as refusing to pay the military portion of the federal income tax.
An accompanying article said that the original draft of this statement “was criticized for not being specific enough, [so] the group moved to add a paragraph on the war tax issue.”
This is the twenty-ninth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we continue to work through the early 1980s.
Representatives of the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Internal Revenue Service failed to reach an 11th-hour compromise at a meeting in Washington on which would have averted a suit by the 63,000-member denomination against the government agency.
IRS
officials at the meeting denied that there was any administrative solution to the conference’s complaint that it must withhold the income taxes of its employees, thereby acting as a tax collector for the state.
The denomination has argued, and will argue in a forthcoming judicial action, that the IRS requirement violates the concept of separation of church and state as embodied in the First Amendment in the U.S. Constitution.
“The 45-minute meeting was cordial, but unproductive,” said Vern Preheim, general secretary for the conference.
“We outlined our concerns about the withholding issue as a historic peace church and described the problem which the IRS requirement poses for us.”
William Ball, the conference’s attorney in the matter, then formally asked members of the IRS’s special working group on withholding issues whether there was any way to exempt the General Conference from the problematic requirement.
Nancy Schuhmann, who chairs the special group, stated that the IRS must abide by its codes of operation and would not be able to offer an exemption on tax withholding to the conference.
IRS officials Susan Cunningham and Gail Libin were also present.
In light of the results of the meeting, attorney Ball will complete the preparation of the conference’s complaint and submit the brief to a U.S. district court after one last check to make sure all administrative possibilities have been exhausted is complete.
The General Conference’s General Board was authorized to initiate a judicial action on the tax withholding question at an international gathering of the conference membership at Estes Park, Colo., in .
More than a year earlier, on , delegates to a special midtriennium conference session instructed the GB to “use all legal, legislative and administrative avenues for achieving conscientious objector exemption” to the tax withholding requirement.
GB also heard a brief report by its general secretary, Vern Preheim, on the progress of the judicial action on the tax withholding issue.
Progress seems to be slow, as witnesses and a co-plaintiff have to be found.
Employees of the conference who are taking action of their own on the war tax issue were assured of adequate and appropriate conference support.
But by the issue, everything had come to a screeching halt:
In the light of a negative judgment rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court against an Amish employer on , the General Conference’s judicial action committee has recommended to the denomination’s General Board that a planned suit against the IRS on the issue of tax withholding “be put on indefinite hold."
The committee’s decision came at the end of a conference call with William Ball, who has been preparing the case on behalf of the church group over the past year.
During the telephone meeting.
Ball indicated that, considering the Supreme Court ruling in the case U.S. vs. Lee, the General Conference would almost certainly lose its case.
In the Amish case, employer Edwin Lee argued that his withholding of Social Security taxes was against both his own and his employees’ consciences.
In the unanimous decision of the court on the Amish question, Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote, “The tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge tax systems because tax payments were spent in a manner that violates their religious belief."
Rather than pursue a negatively shrouded course of action at this time, the General Conference committee also urged the General Board to make more money available “for additional efforts to promote the World Peace Tax Fund.”
In his letter to General Board members, general secretary Vern Preheim concluded: “With closure of the ‘administrative avenue’ during my meeting with IRS, and now closure of the ‘judicial avenue’ via U.S. vs. Lee, we are left with the ‘legislative avenue’ as our only conceivable legal avenue prior to our triennial sessions.
“If no significant progress is made in terms of additional congressional sponsorship of the WPTF legislation, we will have to report a totally negative outcome to the efforts resolved at Minneapolis in .
This will again bring us to the threshold of divine obedience/civil disobedience.”
In coming to that decision, the group weighed the importance of a number of concerns, including the timing of the GC action, the witness value of the suit if it were pushed forward, the fact that a loss in court might set a negative precedent which would eclipse favorable decisions in related cases, and whether proceeding with the action when defeat seems certain would be good stewardship.
Preheim hopes to gather together preliminary response of the General Board to the committee recommendations in the next few weeks.
A full discussion will take place at a fall meeting of the board.
The decision of the board was covered in the edition:
Realizing they had reached a critical juncture in their church’s ongoing struggle against the payment of taxes used for war, members of the General Conference’s General Board decided on to stall its impending suit against the IRS and let delegates to ’s triennial sessions decide on what course of action to take.
A resolution to proceed with the judicial action, which would have tested the constitutionality of laws forcing the church to collect taxes on behalf of the state, was turned down by a vote of six to two, with seven abstentions.
The move to put the suit on indefinite hold was based on recommendations from the church’s judicial action committee and the denomination’s attorney in the matter, William B. Ball of Harrisburg, Pa.
In a letter to general secretary Vern Preheim dated , Ball had been pessimistic about the chances of the judicial action’s success in the light of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case Wisconsin vs. Yoder [sic].
As part of its ruling in that case, the court had stated, “The tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge the tax system because tax payments were spent in a manner that violates their religious belief.”
“We regard that language as most threatening to [the General Conference’s] position, if not foreclosing it completely,” wrote Ball.
Rather than scuttle the proposed litigation completely, GB members agreed at the recent meetings to consider the suit again, “if and when more favorable conditions prevail and depending upon the response at Bethlehem, Pa.” (the location of ’s triennial sessions).
Delegates to the General Conference’s triennial sessions in Estes Park, Colo., empowered the General Board to initiate a judicial action as a follow-up to a special session on the theme of Christian civil responsibility in Minneapolis .
At that meeting, delegates resolved to “use all legal, legislative and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector exemption from the legal requirement that the conference withhold income taxes from the wages of its employees.”
Part of the General Board’s discussions focused on interpretation of that resolution; namely, at what point each of those “avenues” would be considered to have been exhausted.
Some members felt that Ball’s advice closed the legal avenue; others said that the judicial route would not be blocked until a court ruled against a suit brought before it by the conference.
Many agreed that a legal test would be an important public witness and is, for that reason alone, worth considering further.
The administrative avenue to a solution was eliminated after a meeting between GC officials and representatives of the IRS on
, when IRS declined to make any exceptions to rules requiring the conference to withhold taxes from the salaries of its employees.
The World Peace Tax Fund legislation, currently in committee in the U.S. Congress, represents the legislative avenue.
Board members will ask the GC delegate body to answer some of these questions at Bethlehem , and to make a decision about whether or not the conference’s business office should simply go ahead and stop withholding taxes from the salaries of those employees who wish it, thereby breaking IRS regulations.
In such a case, the general secretary and business manager would be immediately responsible, Preheim reported.
The conference’s judicial action committee will prepare appropriate background materials and resolutions for presentation at Bethlehem and present these to the General Board at its meeting for review.
Level one — tax protest. Why is it that those who feel uncomfortable with tax resistance spend more time protesting civil disobedience than war taxes?
Persons filing and paying taxes each April 15 should attach a protest letter, outlining one’s opposition to how 50 percent of the tax money will be spent.
Most importantly, copies of this letter should go to your representative, senators, newspaper editor and should be posted in the church.
Openness is critical.
The IRS is fearful of those who publicize their tax protest — even if it is merely a letter — because it encourages others.
For those who feel exceptionally penitent, file back letters of protest and ask that they be attached to your previous returns.
Level two — tax resistance. This is a clear call to civil disobedience — organized tax resistance with acceptance of penalties.
Having a support group to guide you in this decision is important.
Hopefully, congregational affirmation of such a decision would be forthcoming.
One should be prepared for the IRS to use its unchecked power to collect any income or other tax owed.
Level three — tax avoidance. Legal tax avoidance — keeping one’s income below taxable levels — is certainly in line with living more with less.
Perhaps we ought to have our MCC overseas workers explain to us how half the world can live in poverty on $100 a year, when we with abundance and waste all around us cannot seem to live on less than $10,000.
Legal tax avoidance has the additional blessing of insuring that no income tax is used for war.
Minimum U.S. income levels for 1981 are $3,300 for single people and $5,400 for married couples.
Level four — tax counseling. This level incorporates any of the three levels above, but commits one to a study into the IRS, military budget and federal tax policy.
Just as draft counselors sprang up during the draft years, we need more tax counselors to aid us in responding to the draft on our money.
According to Sen. Pryor, D-Ark., the Pentagon spends more on military bands — close to $90 million — than we spend on arms control — about $20 million.
When will we hear the music?
Perhaps there is no single right answer for everyone, but surely silence is not an acceptable response.
The edition reviewed Affirm Life: Pay for Peace, a small handbook put out by the Historic Peace Church Task Force on Taxes, designed in a loose-leaf form so it could be updated, and meant to help classes and discussion groups explore their response to war taxes.
(There was another review of the book in the edition.)
James W. Nikl, in an letter to the editor, encouraged readers to consider cutting their income to cut their taxes.
“What
would happen if we all cut our incomes in half?” he asked.
“How would it affect the military budget?”
He did the math for a dual-income couple in the 49% tax bracket and found that they would significantly lower their taxes and gain a lot of valuable free time in the bargain.
He concluded:
We have a choice.
We can race our motors all our lives, and the government will take most of what we produce.
Or we can take time to smell the flowers along the way.
In response to a critic who thought Nikl’s tax advice was too materialistic and coldly practical, he responded:
I agree with what [the critic] said about our attitude toward material possessions.
We should put a strong emphasis on the gospel of peace which embraces the needs of those in our community who are without.
I believe, however, that Mennonites should and would prefer to use their own wealth as they see fit and would be much better stewards of God’s bounty than the U.S. government.
I doubt that willfully giving of our tax money so that a small portion will go for human resources is really attractive to many Mennonites.
I would also question whether the good effects of the human resources portion of our tax even comes close to offsetting the bad effects of the military part.
A testimony of an “outsider” in attests that Mennonites were still people of conscience at the end of their first century in North America: “It is well known that the Quakers and Mennonists were formerly some of the best farmers in Pennsylvania.
These people, from having their cattle, horses, farming utensils, etc., so often taken from them for taxes, have sensibly declined as farmers.
Many of them have sold their farms and gone to other states, whilst others of them do not raise 20 bushels of grain, where they once raised 100.”
MCC
has spent over $10,000 to purchase and ship about 1,200 shovels to Laos.
$4,000 of that amount was allocated from MCC’s “Taxes for Peace” fund [which] was established in to receive contributions from church members who had voluntarily withheld portions of their taxes as a symbolic protest against the government’s excessive spending for military purposes.
The Lutheran Peace Fellowship recently issued “A Call to Tax Resistance for Lutherans” statement committing members to tax resistance as a moral stand against the nuclear arms race.
According to Dennis Jacobsen, fellowship coordinator, 23 Lutherans from 11 states endorsed the statement, which said, “We will no longer pay for war while praying for peace.”
The St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Indianapolis made a public decision to withhold payment of the excise tax on its phone bill.
This was done, said the congregation, “in response to the gospel call to be peacemakers and to church teachings that we, as Christians, must devote ourselves to the cause of peace — and, in particular, disarmament.”
In the same edition, James W. Nikl gave some advice on seeking tax shelters and deferrals.
Most of this was fairly dry tax advice, but the article ended with a section that began thusly:
Role of our churches. Recently the Boulder, Colo., Friends Meeting proposed a position of peace secretary for the congregation.
That person would become an authority on taxes and related items and keep the rest of the congregation informed as to how to legally divert their tax dollars from military uses.
We could perhaps create a position on our various church boards and work toward this same goal.
Two members of the Methodist Federation for Social Action have found an innocent way to protest U.S. budget priorities.
John and Pat Schweibert concluded that about 41 percent of their income tax was going for armaments.
So they withheld that amount from what they owed, then handed out a $5 bill to each of 200 unemployed people they found in line at a state employment office.
The distribution, timed for , received coverage in the local paper.
Seattle Catholics gave significantly more to the annual archdiocesan funds appeal after their spiritual leader, Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, took a strong stand against nuclear war, reports the lay-edited National Catholic Reporter.
“We thought the archbishop’s stand would have some adverse effect on the appeal,” said Paul LeBlanc, archdiocese assistant director of development.
“We didn’t think (the funds) would be this large… The letters to the diocese are running eight to one in favor of the archbishop.”
Hunthausen has attracted nationwide notice for withholding the portion of his federal income taxes used for the military.
A petition with 14,000 names of Old Order Amish in Lawrence County, Pa., was presented to Rep. Eugene V. Atkinson, a Democrat whose district includes Lawrence County.
The Amish are seeking a legislative remedy to having to deduct Social Security taxes from employees’ salaries.
A bill by Rep. Robert S. Walker (R-Pa.), and cosponsored by Atkinson, would exempt members of religious faiths opposed to the program from paying Social Security taxes.
Hanno Klassen sent the Internal Revenue Service two checks this year — each for half the amount he owed.
One was made out to IRS; the other (to cover the military share of his taxes) was made out to the American Friends Service Committee.
Klassen explained his action in a letter to IRS: “The check made out to AFSC is to show that I want to pay what I owe.
But I cannot let my life or my substance be used for killing.
You see, I was a member of Hitler’s destructive forces in World War Ⅱ.
I was used once; I will not be used again.”
This is the thirtieth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we continue to work through the early 1980s.
War tax resisters’ hour comes round at last in Bethlehem
On the ongoing issue of tax withholding, GB agreed to submit a resolution to delegates at Bethlehem to “authorize the officers [of the conference] to test the constitutionality of [the tax withholding] requirement… by refusing to serve as tax collectors in cases where individual employees have asked that their federal income taxes not be withheld from their wages, in order that they may conscientiously refuse to pay for war.”
The church which seeks to save her security by following only “legal, legislative and judicial avenues” to salve its war tax conscience will lose her life; the church willing to lose her security in supporting non-registrants for the sake of Christ will find life.
At the triennial sessions, the conference authorized the General Board to initiate a judicial action seeking exemption for the General Conference Mennonite Church from withholding taxes from the income of its employees.
James Gingerich, Duane Heffelbower, Larry Voth, Robert Hull, and Vern Preheim were appointed as a judicial action committee to implement the resolution.
William Ball was engaged as legal counsel.
In , Ball advised the conference that the general climate in the United States, the attitude of the present government administration, and the attitude of the Supreme Court as evidenced by some recent decisions dealing with religious conviction or conscience and taxes were such that the likelihood of the General Conference accomplishing its objectives through a judicial action was virtually nil.
The committee recommended and the General Board concurred to put the judicial action on hold and to bring the matter once again to the conference for further discernment and decision.
A more detailed report and a recommendation from the General Board to the conference that we honor the requests of employees to not withhold taxes on their wages will be sent to the congregations in advance of the triennial sessions.
Throughout , while pursuing judicial action, we also continued to encourage the enactment of World Peace Tax Fund legislation.
An editorial in the edition described the upcoming decision thusly:
At a special midtriennium conference in Minneapolis in , GC delegates voted 1,218 to 134 in favor of urging their General Board to “use all legal, legislative and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector exemption from the legal requirement that the conference withhold income taxes from the wages of its employees.”
If no solution could be found within three years, the GB was to bring the matter back for further action.
At Estes Park in , a judicial test case on the issue was okayed by a vote of 1,156 to 353.
Bethlehem will bring GC delegates face to face with the fact that all three avenues, at present, look like dead ends.
As a result, the GB is proposing that the conference stop withholding taxes from salaries of employees who request such action in order to “assert the higher claim of Christ’s law of love.”
If approved, the resolution would take the conference one small but significant step into the sphere of divine obedience/civil disobedience.
It could become the most formidable — and challenging — business item for GCs, despite the fact that several other organizations have already taken the same action.
In advance of the Bethlehem gathering, the text of the proposed resolution was released in the pages of The Mennonite:
Among the resolutions for consideration by delegates at the General Conference Mennonite Church Triennial Sessions… is a formal action authorizing conference officers to stop withholding taxes from the salaries of its employees as required by U.S. law.
It also encourages Canadian Mennonites to obtain relief from the same requirement by Revenue Canada.
The conference’s General Board… will bring the "Resolution on Faithful Action Toward Tax Withholding" to Bethlehem delegates as their recommendation for resolving the moral dilemma which church officials feel they are facing.
If approved, the resolution could take the conference into divine obedience/civil disobedience.
Thus we urge our governments to sharply reduce military spending and use our resources for life-affirming purposes.
Furthermore, just as conscientious objectors have received exemption from military service, we also seek legislation exempting conscientious objectors from paying taxes for military purposes.
Thus we continue to work in the United States for passage for the World Peace Tax Fund Act and in Canada for the Peace Tax Fund, which would allow individuals to designate all of their federal taxes for peaceful purposes.
Both the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and Revenue Canada require the General Conference Mennonite Church to violate the consciences of its employees who are conscientious objectors to paying taxes for military purposes.
In the United States, we have thoroughly explored all legislative, administrative and judicial avenues for obtaining a conscientious objector exemption to these withholding requirements, as we resolved at the Minneapolis midtriennium conference.
Our explorations have convinced us there is no likelihood of relief in the near future for conscientious objectors to military taxes.
The time has come when, like Peter and the apostles, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
In Canada, equally thorough explorations of similar avenues for seeking a conscientious objection from withholding requirements have not yet been accomplished.
We commend the “Resolution on Security and Disarmament” of the Canadian Mennonite Conference in and the work of the Canadian Tax Task Force under the sponsorship of MCC Canada Peace and Social Concerns.
We encourage Canadian congregations to continue study of materials made available on the issue of military taxes.
As delegates to the triennial sessions of the General Conference Mennonite Church, we therefore:
Authorize the conference officers to test the constitutionality of the withholding requirements in the United States and to assert the higher claim of Christ’s law of love by refusing to serve as tax collectors in cases where individual employees have asked that their federal income taxes not be withheld from their wages in order that they may conscientiously refuse to pay for war preparations.
These employees will be treated similarly to the way General Conference treats ordained ministers, i.e. as self-employed persons, in that their earnings will be reported to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, but no federal income tax withheld.
We request that the Conference of Mennonites in Canada consider means to obtain relief from Revenue Canada withholding requirements as these apply to General Conference Mennonite Church employees.
We shall inform the U.S. government of this act of conscientious objection to their withholding requirements.
We shall again urge them to provide exemption from these requirements and exemption for people of peacemaking conscience from military use of their tax money.
At this moment of decision we commit ourselves to surround with our prayers the General Conference staff and government officials who will be involved in this action and all those individuals who refuse in conscience to pay taxes for war preparations, however costly their witness may be.
Jim Gingerich of Moundridge, Kan., chairperson of the conference’s judicial action committee, reported that the suit against the IRS approved at Estes Park was, in the opinion of constitutional lawyer William Ball, almost certain to fail.
Little progress was being made on the legislative or administrative fronts either.
In light of this, the General Board was recommending that the conference honor the consciences of its employees who request that their full salaries be paid to them, allowing the employees themselves to remit to the IRS what their consciences would allow.
After Robert Hull, secretary for peace and justice, had reviewed the experiences of other groups which had attempted similar actions, Duane Heffelbower of Reedley, Calif., outlined the points of the resolution in detail and spoke of their possible ramifications.
“We could scarcely devise a softer velvet glove to cast at the feet of the IRS,” he said.
“But the action does show our corporate willingness to stand beside our employees.
What will the government do?
We don’t know.”
What followed was probably the most vigorous interchange of viewpoints by GC delegates of the entire week.
Nearly two dozen speakers took their turns at the mikes before the vote was called for.
Viewpoints on the resolution ran the gamut from disassociation with it to praising God for it.
“We believe that the Bible says we ought to pay our taxes.
We want to be separated from and not have any part of this action,” said Paul Goossen, Wayland, Iowa.
“This resolution is creating an impossible situation for our government,” added John Voth of Meno, Okla. “We have emphasized that we love our enemy.
I wonder whether the government has become our enemy.
Have we adopted the same big-stick approach that we so often have criticized?”
Others, however, urged the conference to push ahead with the proposed action.
“Mennonites took a stand against slavery even though it was unpopular,” said Mark Winslow, Allentown, Pa.
“Today, the nuclear arms race is the primary social sin of our day.
We should take a stand regardless of the fact that it may be unpopular.”
Lois Barrett, Wichita, Kan., observed that “in the U.S., disobeying the law is the time-honored way of changing the law,” noting that the cause of civil rights in was advanced primarily through civil disobedience.
H.A. Fast of North Newton, Kan., prompted the only round of applause during the lengthy discussion.
“We refuse our selves in service, but we say nothing about our taxes,” Fast said.
“I have said to the government, ‘You can’t take my body to fight a war.’ I have said, ‘You can’t take my son.’ And now I am saying, ‘You can’t take my money, either.’ ”
When it was over and the ballots counted, the resolution passed by a 70 percent majority. [1,128 to 457]
One of the characteristic features of the discussion on tax withholding, as well as other debates during the week, was the sensitivity and willingness to listen with which delegates approached the microphones.
Several told of how they had come to the convention ready to vote one way, but were now moved to vote another.
Phrases such as “I want to respect your point of view…” or “I’m willing to learn more…” preceded many of the speeches.
And the tough debates of Bethlehem, during which emotions ran high and convictions deep, never seemed to overshadow the determination by participants to celebrate their common identity, their peoplehood, their unity.
After the convention, many attributed that prevailing unity to the moving of the Spirit.
Delegates at the conference were treated to a performance of The Plow and the Sword, a musical about American Mennonites during the Revolutionary War who disputed whether or not it was proper to pay taxes to the rebellious Continental Congress.
“The play’s content was powerfully pertinent to the delegates meeting at Bethlehem who discussed present-day responses to war taxes.”
Acting on the basis of a resolution adopted by General Conference delegates at Bethlehem , conference treasurer Ted W. Stuckey on issued the first paychecks on which federal income taxes were not withheld.
Seven employees of the denomination’s central offices made the request that the taxes not be withheld, so that they can remit to the IRS personally the amount of federal taxes their consciences will allow, given the U.S. government’s high rate of military spending.
Those making the request were Robert Hull, secretary for peace and justice; Lynn Keenan, Mennonite Voluntary Service associate director; Paula Diller Lehman, secretary for youth education; Fred Loganbill, assistant for peace and justice; John Sommer, overseas personnel secretary; Meribeth Sprunger, secretary for mission communications; and Elizabeth Yoder, general editor.
Several others have indicated that they may be willing to take part in the action at a later date.
Stuckey said that, beginning with the paychecks, the seven will have state and social security taxes deducted but be treated like self-employed persons as far as federal income taxes are concerned.
Under such a classification, they would be required to submit quarterly estimated tax payments to the IRS.
The seven plan to make a portion of those quarterly payments but put the balance — the amount they feel they cannot voluntarily pay because of high U.S. military spending — into a special account at General Conference central offices.
Stuckey and general secretary Vern Preheim informed Commissioner Roscoe L. Egger, Jr., at IRS headquarters in Washington by letter of the conference’s action, the motivation of employees for requesting the procedure, the reasons for the church’s granting the requests, the identities of the seven employees and the location of the account to which the IRS may initiate collection procedures.
“We’re trying to be completely open and above board with them about this matter,” he said.
Copies of the letter were also sent to IRS offices in Wichita, Kan., and Austin, Texas, as well as to state and federal legislators.
The pay period is the first opportunity for the conference to implement the “Resolution on Faithful Action Toward Tax Withholding” adopted by delegates to a churchwide convention in Bethlehem, Pa., on .
There, conferees voted 1,128 to 457 to “authorize the conference officers to test the constitutionality of the withholding requirements in the United States and to assert the higher claim of Christ’s law of love, by refusing to serve as tax collectors in cases where individual employees have asked that their federal income taxes not be withheld from their wages, in order that they may conscientiously refuse to pay for war preparations.[”]
Miscellany
A note in the edition mentioned that the Historic Peace Church Task Force on Taxes had decided to go all-in on the World Peace Tax Fund bill, promoting “dunamis groups which approach congresspersons in a spirit of compassion rather than confrontation… to obtain a dozen more co-sponsors for the WPTF bill in the coming year.”
The edition noted that “MCC U.S. Peace Section has put together a War Tax Packet, designed to equip individuals and groups with a variety of resources for study on the question of paying taxes for war.
Cost is $2.”
The edition included a profile of Cornelia “Nellie” Lehn, whose war tax resistance became the focus for much of the debate that overtook the General Conference Mennonite Church.
It summarized this as follows:
Nellie was… dealing personally with the perplexing issue of war taxes.
She liked to read Bible verses that say to pay your taxes, but began to wonder why she did not concentrate equally on those saying to love your enemies and put your sword away.
Finally she felt she could not pay that part of her taxes going to war purposes and asked the General Conference office not to withhold any of her salary for taxes.
“The time comes when you have to cut through all the complexity and be obedient,” she says, reminiscent of her stand earlier in life.
At the triennium she stated her views.
The conference continues to work on this issue even today.
I’m surprised I haven’t come across this amusing example of war tax resistance outreach before:
Mennonites in Harrisonburg, Va., gathered on to attach over $300 to about 75 helium-filled balloons.
Each balloon, in addition to a five- or ten-dollar bill, carried a note from a participant explaining why he or she had withheld the money from current income taxes.
“Because we are Christians who are trying to follow the peaceful way of Jesus, we cannot support this country’s military build-up,” said many of the notes.
“Instead, we have chosen to ‘waste’ our money in a more constructive way.”
Participants read Scripture, sang, danced, prayed, confessed their sins, and clowns passed out jelly beans as the balloons rose.
The shift of focus to “Peace Tax Fund” legislation would aggravate a decline in interest in real war tax resistance in the General Conference Mennonite Church that continues to the present day.
Clearly, some Mennonites perceived this danger, as Robert Hull wrote an article to defend the push for such a law:
An argument by some war tax resisters is that any peace tax fund is a means for conscientious objectors to salve their conscience with regard to diverting their own taxes, and that this provision then will encourage such COs to be quiet and passively accept the warmaking of governments which will continue more efficiently without their dissent.
When I have explored this argument, I almost invariably discover that the war tax resister speaking is drawing upon an analogy made with the 20th-century U.S./Canadian history of conscientious objection to military service.
The Civilian Public Service camps of World War Ⅱ by and large had this “quietistic” effect.
However, it should be noted that the provision for COs in World War Ⅱ came about because the government remembered the difficulties it had encountered with historic peace church resisters in World War Ⅰ.
Similar spokespersons on the eve of World War Ⅱ stated their convictions to “draw the line” again if acceptable provisions were not made.
But even during World War Ⅱ, the legal criteria for CO classification in the United States were broadened by the Supreme Court to include all religious objectors, then during the Vietnam War to include people holding a belief equivalent to that in a Supreme Being (Seeger, ), and later to all people morally, ethically or religiously opposed to all war (Welsh, ).
In the draft registration debate in , projections by the Selective Service of future CO claimants extended to 40 percent of all registrants.
It seems reasonable to conclude that at least one cause for this large increase in the potential CO population is a result of the public visibility of thousands of young men performing alternative service during the Vietnam War.
The recent response of the U.S. Selective Service to its own projections has been to develop plans for CO alternative service which seek to once more “contain” the CO visibility by centralizing the program under direct Selective Service administration in order to meet military mobilization priorities.
This policy is in turn quite likely to produce non-cooperators who will have registered but then find that such an alternative service program is unacceptable to their conscience.
A significant number of such non-cooperators would increase the already more than 500,000 draft-eligible young men who have not registered.
Twentieth-century CO history has lodged anomalous laws within the government structures.
That is, if these laws are interpreted by relatively tolerant regulations, the CO population may grow uncontrollably large; if the laws are interpreted by repressive regulations, the number of non-cooperators may grow uncontrollably.
Now let’s pursue this analogy with regard to peace tax legislation and war tax resistance.
I am convinced that Parliament or Congress will never enact peace tax legislation until the war tax resistance movement grows so large that such laws come to be viewed as an expedient accommodation, as Civilian Public Service was viewed on the eve of World War Ⅱ.
But several differences between the two are significant.
Bear in mind that peace tax legislation provides for the taxpayer to claim he or she is a CO and that the burden of the challenge and rebuttal lies upon the government.
Additionally, peace tax legislation’s provision for income tax forms and information materials to describe the military proportion of the federal budget in some detail will ensure that a far greater percentage of the taxpayers become aware of the peace tax alternative than the percentage of draft-age men who were made aware by the government of the CO alternative from World War Ⅱ through Vietnam.
Finally, the peace tax legislation provides for the diversion of CO taxpayers’ “military taxes” into a trust fund.
This is intended to result in a direct drain out of the general treasury available for war preparations.
Thus the peace tax legislation further raises people’s consciousness.
If peace trust funds in the United States and Canada are administered as the legislation intends, many millions of people will choose to support peacemaking alternatives to conflict rather than supporting warmaking preparations, and a “democracy of defense” may develop: those who rely on military weapons can pay for them without coercing the contributions of those who place their reliance upon other alternatives.
If the CO eligibility criteria are interpreted too restrictively, or inaccurate portrayals of the military proportion of the federal budget are published, or CO taxpayers’ funds are demonstrably rechanneled into the warmaking treasury, then increased numbers of informed citizens may respond with direct tax resistance.
The government will thus have on its hands another significant anomalous law, one by which millions of citizens can measure the government’s tendency to override their democratic rights in its clearing of the path toward war.
This then is the educational strategy behind the peace tax effort as I see it.
The legislation will reach millions of people with the message that there are alternatives to paying for the war system.
It will provide a step which millions of citizens can take, and whose aggregate pressure for peacemaking will be enormous, without overwhelming risk to the individual taxpayer.
After all, it is at least in part the risk involved in war tax refusal which keeps it an infinitesimally small protest movement in the total population.
I hope that thousands of active peacemakers will heed the call to war tax refusal and that the pressure for peace upon the warmaking tendencies of government will grow.
As it does, I believe it will prove disastrous if the peacemaking community has no legislative proposal to put forward which will secure as much of the “democracy of defense” goal as possible, and to which the government can turn as an accommodation.
The Church of the Brethren has long supported members who conscientiously object to the payment of war taxes.
Some members wish to refuse to pay taxes but are unable to because the taxes are withheld by their employers.
The delegates approved a paper that gives guidance to church institutions whose employees request, for reason of conscience, that their taxes not be withheld.
The annual conference recommended that all legal possibilities be explored first but affirmed civil disobedience for both individuals and institutions when it is a matter of conscience.
A United Methodist congregation in New Haven, Conn., backing their pastor’s right to refuse paying federal taxes for military use, has declined to turn over his salary to the Internal Revenue Service.
Carl Lundbord [sic], pastor of First and Summerfield United Methodist Church, has withheld federal income taxes in both and , telling the IRS his “obligations as a Christian and as a citizen are no longer reconcilable.
The 50 percent of my taxes that support the military I cannot pay.” IRS ordered the church to withhold the pastor’s salary until the amount was paid.
But church members voted on to reject IRS’s demand.
Our ancestors migrated to the United States so that they would not be forced to participate in European wars.
Eventually this government respected their deeply held beliefs about peacemaking and granted them the right to register as conscientious objectors.
Today we find ourselves in a technological age in which our money is more useful to the military than our bodies.
So we are being forced by law to participate financially in the preparation for war, which violates the biblical command to love our neighbors as ourselves.
When Caesar’s demands conflict with God’s, we cannot blindly obey our government.
These words from John S. and Sara L. Wengerd’s letter to the Internal Revenue Service echo the convictions of nearly 60 individuals and families who chose to contribute to Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section in lieu of paying a portion of their income taxes that would have been used for military purposes.
For some, the contribution was a symbolic amount, such as $7.77.
For others, it equaled the 36 to 54 percent of their tax dollars that would have financed military activity.
That portion is commonly referred to as a “military tax” or a “war tax.”
In another case, a couple’s taxes had already been withheld by the Internal Revenue Service, so they donated an amount equal to their military taxes, which they had already paid.
In all cases, these individuals felt that silent compliance with the tax collection process would be a violation of their consciences and religious convictions against killing and participating in war in any way.
Many noted that their dilemma of conscience could be ameliorated by passage of the World Peace Tax Fund (WPTF) Act…
Meanwhile, the federal government is attempting to crack down on various types of tax protests.
People who object to paying taxes for military purposes may face stiff penalties designed to deter those trying to evade tax collection or destroy the tax system.
The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of instituted an automatic $500 penalty for individuals filing “frivolous” tax returns.
The penalty can apply to people who take unallowable deductions, credits or exemptions or give incomplete information on their tax returns.
Those taking “war tax” deductions or credits or claiming an excessive number of exemptions to reduce their tax liability could be subject to the new fine.
Several conscientious military tax resisters have received notices from the Internal Revenue Service that the penalty has been imposed, according to the May–June issue of Center Peace, the news journal of the Center on Law and Pacifism.
Robert Hull, peace and justice secretary for the General Conference Mennonite Church, suggests that conscientious objectors to military taxation take steps to distinguish their non-payment of military taxes from secular tax protests and evasion schemes.
If taxpayers correctly compute and report the amount owed and indicate in an attached letter that they cannot with a clear conscience pay the military-related portion, their tax returns will go directly to the Internal Revenue Service Collection Division instead of to the overloaded Audit Division.
Hull suggests that this action be accompanied with letters to legislators to communicate the religious and moral grounds for such action, and to demonstrate the need for remedial legislation such as the World Peace Tax Fund.
Bill Samuel, member of the WPTF steering committee, suggests that taxpayers write a contract on the back of their check to IRS stating that deposit of the check constitutes a legally binding agreement (contract) that the money will not be used for military purposes.
Courts have held that contractual checks involving private parties are legally binding, but it is uncertain whether or not IRS would abide by the contract.
John R. Dyck
A article profiled Canadian war tax resister John R. Dyck.
Excerpts:
All his life, John R. Dyck of Rosthern, Sask., has been a law-abiding citizen.
He’s never been to court.
But he expects that to change when Revenue Canada catches up with him for non-payment of taxes.
Dyck is one of a small but growing band of Canadians who are refusing to pay the portion of their income taxes they feel is designated for the military.
Instead, they are calling for an alternative “peace tax fund” which would use their tax money for peaceful purposes.
Since that alternative does not exist and Dyck withheld 10.5 percent of his taxes for and for , he expects a court order to arrive eventually.
John R. Dyck is not a young radical defying authority.
Officially he is retired (though not willingly or inactively) and has given the better part of the past two decades to service with the Mennonite Central Committee, Mennonite Foundation and the MCC Food Bank.
A sudden stroke forced him to slow down over a year ago, but he has recovered and calls it “a real miracle.”
Now he can go on serving, and he places military tax resistance in that category.
The decision did not come easily or hastily.
“I don’t know where it (a conviction) began,” he commented during an interview at this year’s annual meeting of MCC Canada in Saskatoon.
He had come to listen to the discussion and spend time with his brother and fellow peace-seeker, Peter J.
He remembers that “Cornelia Lehn made us sit up and think” in .
John began with his tax return, filed while the Dycks were in Jordan under MCC and able to observe firsthand the effects of military exploitation.
He sent two checks to Revenue Canada, asking that the smaller one be used only for peaceful development work.
He heard nothing further and assumed that both checks flowed into government coffers.
Along with his tax return he sent only a letter of concern.
But with his return he again enclosed two checks, one for Revenue Canada and a second made out to the Peace Tax Fund.
Revenue Canada replied that such a fund did not exist (legally) and demanded payment in full.
Dyck then sent the check to the Victoria, B.C.-based Peace Tax Fund and began correspondence with government officials to explain why.
“I want to do things correctly and openly,” he says.
Now Dyck is expecting a day in court.
It is bound to come, since Revenue Canada wants his money and must obtain a court order before garnisheeing his account at the Rosthern Credit Union.
The sooner the better, he adds, since it may help establish a right of conscience that would allow other people to divert their hard-earned tax money from bombs to working for peace.
He also hopes to find a sympathetic lawyer to handle the case.
“I think a lot of people would rather not talk to me about it,” he says, summing up the reaction to his protest.
So far, any criticism has been muted, though one friend told him, “I admire you for it, but you’re wrong.”
Paula, his wife, is supportive, but most fellow members at Rosthern Mennonite Church are either uninformed or indifferent.
John R. Dyck firmly believes, “We don’t need the military.”
The threat of nuclear war hanging over the world means Christians must resist militarism with renewed vigor.
“I see this (nuclear holocaust) coming and we’re accountable.
The handwriting is on the wall.”
Dyck adds that there is a growing network of people asking about the peace tax fund, though the actual number withholding taxes is still small.
(Ernie Hildebrand, a teacher at the Swift Current (Sask.) Bible Institute, is another Mennonite who is doing so.)
“But people must think this through carefully,” Dyck concludes.
“You can’t legislate a thing like this… I’m glad the Lord led us to this position.”
As the General Conference pushed ahead with its support of war tax resisting employees, with the blessing of the majority of conferees, the U.S. “Peace Section” seemed more reluctant to take a stand, at its meeting. From the edition:
While agreeing that the church has an important role to play in saying no to preparations for [nuclear war], the members struggled with the place of military tax resistance as a method of saying no.
Several members observed that the constituency is “not of one mind on this matter,” while Darrel Brubaker of Philadelphia, Brethren in Christ representative, urged that “here is one place we need to be leaders more than representatives.”
After the matter was tabled overnight for further reflection, the group affirmed a recommendation commending the General Conference for the serious attention it has given the issue and urging churches to work more diligently at the process of prayerful discernment of their response to this issue.
The resolution also strongly encouraged constituents to initiate further action in support of the World Peace Tax Fund bill, which would provide a legal alternative to the payment of taxes for military purposes.
War tax resister Don Schrader wrote in on to insist that Mennonites can best criticize revolutionary and other violence if they are careful not to support violence with their taxes:
Until our nonviolence becomes revolutionary, revolutions will be violent.
[A]s long as well-fed U.S. pacifists pay war taxes to support the imminent nuclear terror and mass murder of our planet and the dictatorial repression of Central America, what integrity do we have in questioning or condemning those peasants’ use of violence for survival.
To be peacemakers in this perilous age, we must refuse to pay war taxes, we must renounce all materialism which breeds militarism, and we must denounce foreign policy regardless of the risks for our community standing and employment.
Over four years ago I confronted the question “How can I speak for peace and pay for war,” and I became a war tax resister.
This is the thirty-fifth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of The Mennonite.
Today we finish off the 1980s.
The issue announced that a new poster was available from the MCC:
Seattle Mennonite Church established a Northwest Peace Fund in to receive donations and recoverable deposits from people withholding a portion of their federal income taxes or phone taxes because of the large military buildup in the United States.
Anyone who wishes to may donate to the fund so that the resulting interest can be used for local peace activities.
Interest from the Northwest Peace Fund has been used to support peace-related projects in the Puget Sound area, such as the Emergency Feeding Program and the Victim Offender Reconciliation Program (VORP).
While the Seattle Mennonite Church’s Northwest Peace Fund will accept deposits and contributions from outside the Northwest, we strongly encourage each Mennonite congregation to establish its own peace fund.
We approved these seven operating guidelines:
This fund will be called the Northwest Peace Fund.
It will be a non-profit investment fund that will generate income.
This income will be distributed for peace and social concerns projects in the Pacific Northwest.
The peace fund will be administered by three peace fund representatives selected by the peace and social concerns committee of the Seattle Mennonite Church initially for one-, two-, and three-year terms, and for two- year terms thereafter.
Current peace fund representatives are Charles Lord, Bob Hamilton and David Ortman.
Money may be deposited into the fund through a peace fund representative either on a donation or recoverable-deposit basis:
(a) Donations will be retained to generate income for the fund,
(b) Recoverable deposits may be placed in the peace fund for a period of up to five years.
During this time period such funds may be returned to the depositor within 30 days upon written request of the fund’s address, given below.
Recoverable deposits will be used to generate income during the time these funds remain available.
After a period of five years, if not reclaimed, such deposits will revert to the status of donations.
The fund will operate on a fiscal year ending on May 31.
One meeting of the peace fund representatives will be held each April to prepare an annual report, copies of which will be available upon request.
At this meeting the peace fund representatives are also authorized to distribute up to all income generated from the fund to peace and social concern projects in the Pacific Northwest.
Any disbursement must have prior approval of the Seattle Mennonite Church advisory council.
The peace fund is authorized to budget up to 10 percent of any income generated by the fund to cover costs of advertising the fund to attract additional deposits and to provide copies of the annual report.
Any peace fund representative is authorized to withdraw within 30 days any recoverable deposit to a depositor upon a written request by the depositor.
In the event of the dissolution of the peace fund, all funds will be transferred to another peace fund escrow account and the depositors notified.
The mailing address of the fund will be…
Peace Tax Fund campaign director Marian Franz also wrote in with a brief note in which she suggested war tax resisters prompt their Congressional representatives to become Peace Tax Fund law supporters:
Sometimes the sequence goes like this (and I wish it would more often):
Carl Lundberg, a United Methodist pastor from New Haven, Conn., refuses to pay the military portion of his taxes.
The Internal Revenue Service comes to garnishee the wages.
The congregation has a meeting.
The vote is unanimous.
The answer is, No, they will not cooperate with the IRS because they will not be tax collectors, because they will not violate the pastor’s right to his own views of conscience and living by those, etc.
Then in the same year the U.S. Senator from Connecticut, Lowell Weicker, becomes a co-sponsor of the Peace Tax Fund Bill.
Is there a connection?
I think there is and that more will be coming.
That is because I am a person of hope.
Another invitation for war tax resisters to redirect their taxes through the MCC U.S. Peace Section’s “Taxes for Peace” fund appeared in the edition.
This time the funds were to be disbursed to both the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund and to the Christian Peacemaker Teams program.
The note said about $4,000 had been donated to the fund .
The Commission on Home Ministries is interested in hearing from Mennonites who have placed some of their resisted military taxes into alternative peace funds.
Information on recent judicial decisions affecting such peace funds is available from the General Conference Peace and Justice office…
Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner’s Colrain, Mass., home is scheduled to go on the auction block any day.
The Internal Revenue Service seized their house for non-payment of $20,000 in taxes and $6,000 in fines and fees.
The couple has been withholding their federal taxes for 12 years, donating the money to a shelter for homeless women and children, a veteran’s outreach center, and a local peace group.
Kehler says they are willing to risk the consequences “because we can’t not do it.”
While the IRS is looking for a buyer, many local realtors will not touch the sale of the house because of strong community sentiment in favor of the couple’s decision.
After 7½ years of litigation, 27 hearings, and with a case file that grew two inches thick, the Tokyo District Court has ruled against a taxpayers’ organization that sought to end the Japanese government’s collection of income taxes for military purposes.
The case had its origin after the bank accounts of Akiteru Nakagawa and Mennonite minister Michio Ohno were attached by the government and the telephone of Yoshinori Tan was seized, in each instance due to their non-payment of taxes.
The Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church voted to combine into a single organization at their joint conference in .
This, I hope, will simplify things for me at least, as it’s been difficult to keep track of the subtle differences in names between the two organizations and their subcommittees.
Also at that conference:
The Mennonite Church narrowly (59 percent) approved a resolution calling for its General Board to take four steps on military tax-withholding.
It will establish a policy of not withholding (U.S.) federal income taxes from wages of any of its employees who make this request because of conscientious objection to war.
The resolution supports “other church boards and agencies that may adopt similar policies,” giving direction, not a mandate.
The General Conference took a similar action in in Bethlehem, Pa., but with a stronger vote, 71 percent.
The edition included an editorial by Muriel T. Stackely that brought readers up to speed on the history of the withholding debate.
Excerpt:
Our conference [the General Conference Mennonite Church] now does not withhold federal tax from those employees requesting this.
“We immediately notified the Internal Revenue Service,” says conference treasurer Ted Stuckey, “explaining our actions, being open, concealing nothing.
That was .
We still have not heard any more from the IRS — after getting its initial response, which told us that this was illegal.
We answered that we knew it was illegal but that it was in response to the action taken by the delegate body.”
Currently three employees of our conference offices in Newton, Kan., are requesting that tax not be withheld.
They are treated as self-employed people.
They say, observes Ted, that they have appreciated the opportunity to witness in this way.
The amounts not paid to IRS have been symbolic rather than comprehensive.
One expression of our commitment to non-violence has been war tax resistance.
Thus we and our friends found that our commitment to practice war tax resistance encouraged our commitment to a simple lifestyle.
We have defined war tax resistance as filing our taxes, but refusing to pay 50 percent of what is owed because that is the portion of U.S. income tax that goes toward military spending.
Fifty percent is a conservative estimate because parts of the U.S. military budget are hidden or secret.
We have learned that if we own a car, even one that is six years old, the IRS will sell it at a public auction to collect back taxes.
It became obvious that consumerism and war tax resistance are incompatible.
As a result several of our friends have made a conscious decision to do job-sharing or half-time employment.
It has worked out that between couples both parents can act equally as care-takers for the children while also having employment, which is psychologically rewarding and complementary to their vision of participating in God’s reign on earth.
Our choice of war tax resistance as a way of reducing our participation in the U.S. war machine has made a simple lifestyle almost mandatory because it has led us to lower our tax liability and lower our material consumption.
Another editorial by Muriel T. Stackely, this one in the edition, complained that “the 7,000 brochures about the Peace Tax Fund distributed at our triennial session in Normal, Ill., among 8,000 Mennonites netted one, one new membership for this campaign that says to the U.S. government, I want my tax dollars to be used to promote life, not death; peace, not war.”
War Resisters League is initiating organizing for major Tax Day demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco on .
Based on the theme “Alternative Revenue Service,” the actions will emphasize the U.S. government’s militaristic spending priorities and will feature a 1040 EZ Peace tax form and the distribution of redirected tax dollars to peace and social justice programs.
WRL is inviting other tax resistance and peace groups to join in planning the actions.
For more information contact Ruth Benn, War Resisters League…
This is the forty-fifth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we finish off the first decade of the new millennium.
What belongs to God and what to Caesar? It’s a riddle that has to be puzzled
over again and again by Mennonites in the context of war tax resistance. In the
edition,
Titus Peachey took a swing
at the pitch: Given all that belongs to God, he asked, “can we who follow Jesus
willingly give our tax dollars for war and killing?”
In the edition,
Scott Key
answered Everett J. Thomas’s editorial statement — “There seems to be nothing
we can do but write letters and pray that [the war in Iraq] will stop.” — with
some more practical ideas, including boycotts of and divestment from military
contractors, and war tax resistance.
Susan Miller Balzer wrote in to applaud and supplement this:
Scott Key… lists some important ways to work against war and for peace. In
mentioning war tax resistance, he expresses a common misconception that
employees cannot prevent their employers from withholding federal taxes from
their paychecks.
However, it is possible to limit or stop withholding by increasing withholding allowances on the W-4 Form (or legally writing “Exempt” on the form if you did not owe federal income taxes last year and do not expect to owe in the coming year).
See the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee’s “practical” publications on the Web site nwtrcc.org on controlling federal tax withholding and on low income or simple living for helpful information on ways to keep from paying for war.
On the same Web site, click on the War Tax Boycott, Withhold from War/Pay for Peace to find ways to participate in this national effort to defund war.
The “draft” of federal tax money to pay for present, past and future wars is a
fundamental issue that our church should address as it works to replace
suffering, destruction and injustice with healing and hope. The military draft
affected only young men. The current “economic draft” affects young men and
women who enter the military to try to get out of poverty. The draft of tax
money affects people of all ages as long as they have a taxable income.
If everyone in just one congregation refused to pay for war and redirected
their refused taxes to an underfunded social service, imagine the
opportunities for witness and change that could occur.
Don
Kaufman was back in the
letters to the editor column:
If enough of us withhold from war and pay for peace, we can stop the harm.
War-tax resistance is not a passive or unethical tax avoidance but an act of
conscience that everyone can do. The cross of Jesus as nonviolence and
compassion is our model for hope and change.
Individuals shoulder great responsibility for warfare and for peace. At times
the most effective way to take responsibility is refusal to collaborate, as
Franz
Jaggerstatter did in Hitler’s Austria in
. How can we take a stand against a
government that leads its citizens into committing murder? The task is to be
reform-minded, to live in an ethical way, and progressively to make
unthinkable the coercion of conscience by the majority who put their faith in
military or violent solutions.
Like Jeremiah, let us
unmask the illusions of power by being servants of hope among the vulnerable
and wounded.
Stanley Bohn
encouraged people to engage in at least a small symbolic act of war tax
redirection, in the edition,
claiming important benefits from the gesture that go beyond its likely
practical results:
Will this action make Congress and the Bush administration change their funding priorities?
Unlikely, even if millions took part in this effort.
After all, war fuels our economy, is useful in getting national unity and political support, and it focuses on the evil of others, allowing us to raise our self-esteem.
As Chris Hedges wrote in his book War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, war provides us with purpose and a civil religion.
What happens to us: For some Christians, the motive for participating
in tax redirection may start as a protest against refugee making, the
slaughter of people as collateral damage, torture of prisoners, creating
mentally damaged veterans, ballooning war debt, ruined international
relations, and other disastrous consequences. But when we take a stand for our
Christian convictions, something else may happen.
We gain an understanding of Jesus’ way of being lumped with criminals when
choosing the community-building, caring, enemy-loving life at the heart of the
universe. We realize that Jesus did not live or teach a religion guided by
what is respectable, safe, stress-free, or that waits for a consensus. Jesus
calls us to a life that is unpredictable and vulnerable.
Tax redirection is not a criterion of who is a “real Christian” but is more
accepting life as a gift, being what we are here for, living what we see in
Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. When the
IRS
makes us pay a small percentage more than our lawful tax, we can experience
what we believe is more important than money, and the hold money has on us is
reduced.
Living this kind of trust in the Jesus way helps keep serious Christians from
attempting to be pure and withdraw from life’s realities. It keeps us engaged
in current issues and with those proposing different goals. We are engaged,
however, in the kind of peace Christians should expect when choosing an
alternative way to conquer evil.
The risk of taking a stand regardless of consequences brings an unexpected
peace. It is not a peace that makes us feel protected, free of fears, or
satisfied with ourselves. It is a peace from knowing one is on a venture of
trusting in the universe-guiding reality we see in Christ. It is an empowering
peace given us when we offer ourselves to the one who gave us this life,
trusting God for the outcome. It is an empowerment that keeps us open rather
than defensive and having to shut out the desperate cries of others. It is an
alternative to a consumer-oriented Christianity that brings an unintended
transformation that makes us vulnerable and powerful at the same time.
Possibilities after April 15: There is no telling if or how God might
use the April 15 tax-redirection event. Consequences may occur that we never
thought of, including what powers or gifts might be released in ourselves.
We should not expect the government to inform us how many participated. The
media may not be free to report it, even if it knew. If the amount we withheld
and diverted is seen by the
IRS as
worth taking action against us, we will likely receive threatening letters and
finally have those funds confiscated along with a penalty.
Yet significant tax redirection can mean some humanitarian agencies will get
more financial support, and starving people will be fed. Maybe some
legislators will hear the conscience dilemma of many taxpayers and join other
co-sponsors of
HR 1921, the
Freedom of Religion Peace Tax Fund, which would make legal the redirection of
taxes by conscientious objectors to war. And maybe a few thousand redirectors
will discover we are less bound by the expectations of others and are freer
than we thought we could be.
Most important, we may learn that choosing risky ways of living for others,
even civil disobedience, can bring spiritual healing. We won’t defund the war,
but we can be more confident of the Power that overcomes our fears and by
God’s grace enables us to be the humans God intended us to be.
One such redirection idea was announced in the edition:
“Turning toward peace.”
This Mennonite Central Committee
(U.S.) initiative
allowed Americans to “redirect[] war tax dollars to help children in
Afghanistan through
MCC’s
Global Family education sponsorship program.” Titus Peachey, director of peace
education for
MCC
(U.S.) was quoted:
According to Peachey, most who have chosen to withhold believe, “If we cannot
conscientiously participate in war with our bodies, we cannot pay for it
either. We need to give our money to causes that build up rather than destroy
the presence of God in each person,” he says.
Most inform their governments of their actions. “Given the presence of Western
military action in Afghanistan today, the opportunity to contribute to
peacemaking there is timely,” says Peachey. “Equally important is the way in
which withholding war taxes challenges our own systemic militarism.”
A joint letter from Susan Balzer, Deb & Wes Bergen, Anita & Stan Bohn, Ron Faust, Don Kaufman, H.A. Penner, Steve Ratzlaff, Mary Swartley, Willard Swartley, and Dan Leatherman appeared in the edition.
They were responding to an editorial that suggested the Mennonite Church had surrendered as a peace church and had come to be “at peace with war.”
There is a traditional, positive witness opportunity for conscientious
objectors to war of all ages. It may seem scary, but many find it almost
routine. It involves redirection of income-tax assessments used for killing
and refugee-making to ministries meeting human need.…
Our descendants and overseas Christians will wonder how Christians in a
superpower, with over 700 military bases around the world, fighting two wars
and considering a third with Iran, supporting covert wars in places such as
Colombia and Israel, could be so at peace with war.
“The church should consist of communities of loving defiance. Instead, it
consists largely of comfortable clubs of conformity,” writes Ron Sider in
Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. If we teach it is wrong, why
do we support it financially?
Shame is the negative motivation. The positive is that Jesus promised his
spirit of truth would abide in us and enable us to live differently from the
world’s ways. If we love him, we are empowered to keep his commandments
(John 14:15–17).
War tax redirection is “alternative service” for dollars we earn, service that
provides hope and new possibilities for suffering people instead of endless
war.
The issue covered
John
Stoner’s “$10.40 for Peace” campaign.
This was another attempt to get timid people to take baby steps into war tax
resistance by resisting a small, token amount of their taxes. The campaign is
still going on today but has yet to
catch fire.
The article seemed to me to exaggerate the scariness of such resistance even as
it tried to assuage the fears of potential resisters. Excerpts:
Stoner says the group hears some concern from individuals about the possible
penalties and “heavy hand of the
IRS
coming down.”
Stoner’s response is threefold. First, “As disciples of Jesus, we shouldn’t
have so much fear,” he says. Second, the past experiences of individuals who
have withheld taxes for similar reasons have been minimal. Third, the tax
withholder can decide later to pay the full amount.
“The most important thing is to make that statement that calls for democratic
conversation about how federal money is spent,” Stoner said.
Others say this movement should take more risks and that
U.S. war spending
remains too large. However, if enough people join, the risks and penalties
would increase, Stoner said.
The article noted that Shane Claiborne had signed on as an endorser and would
be speaking at an upcoming public meeting on the campaign.
This is the twenty-second in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal
of the (Old) Mennonite Church.
was marked by heated debate in the pages of
Gospel Herald about war tax resistance, while
Mennonite Church institutions continued to struggle with whether or how to take
a stand.
The issue reported on
Mennonite war tax redirection:
Mennonite Central Committee
U.S. Peace
Section’s Taxes for Peace Fund experienced a substantial increase in
contributions during 1980. The amount of $10,400 was contributed in
, compared to $6,200 in
.
The Taxes for Peace Fund was established in late
. “Persons whose consciences forbid them to
yield money on request to the government’s death-by-technology militarism are
contributing the military portion of their income tax instead to the
life-supporting work of
MCC
U.S. Peace
Section,” says John K. Stoner, executive secretary of the section.
During , the
U.S. budgeted $138
billion for current military spending. Thirty-two percent of the income tax
paid by every American during contributed to
raising this money. An additional 15 percent went to veterans benefits and the
portion of the national debt related to past wars. Thus, nearly half of the
federal budget, raised almost entirely by individual and corporate income
taxes, is military related.
A recent preliminary census taken by
U.S. Peace Section
found that over 200 Mennonite families and individuals are refusing to pay a
portion of their income taxes and are instead contributing that money to
organizations working for peace.
Withholding a portion of one’s income tax is only one of many ways to witness
against military spending. Some Mennonites are using other methods, such as
reducing income below taxable level, increasing charitable contributions,
refusing to pay the federal telephone tax, and actively supporting the World
Peace Tax Fund.
The Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries was distributing
a war tax study packet
by this time, according to the issue:
A revised and updated War Tax Packet covering a variety of issues
related to the question of payment of taxes for military purposes is
available. The packet contains articles by Willard Swartley, Marlin Miller,
David Schroeder, Donald Kaufman, John Stoner, and William Durland; the stories
of some persons’ own experiences; several brochures and other reprints; an
issue of God and Caesar newsletter; a list of peace
organizations; and a bibliography. Copies of the War Tax Packet are $2.00 and
may be requested from MBCM… or
MCC…
If the church wants to speak to the peace and justice issues of our day with
credibility, we will need to live out more radically our status as God’s
children. We must really be, in fact, the peacemakers we are called to be.
This goes for the church in all parts of the world, but most importantly, it
is for all of us who are citizens of a nation which insists on being number
one in the world.
After hearing my views on peace, a student leader in Spain asked me what I
intended to do about paying taxes to support the armament race. I personally
do not see how Christians can proclaim the gospel of peace with integrity
while intentionally supporting America’s desire to be the number one military
power. This contradiction is compounded when we realize that, in the eyes of
the rest of the world, the United States is the great bastion of evangelical
Christianity.
Things really began to heat up starting in the issue, which featured this commentary (I corrected the
numbering of items 5–7, where the numbers were missing from the original, but
there was some ambiguity so I might have gotten it wrong):
Editor’s Note: The question of war taxes has been a subject of
discussion among Mennonites for years. It does not appear any nearer solution
than before. Should we then cease discussing it? On the contrary, the issue
is so important that we should listen to all who have insights, especially
those who not only speak, but practice their convictions.
This is a blunt article, but I believe it is written with love. Can we
receive it as such? See also the author’s personal note at the end of his
article.
Introduction For years I have struggled with the knowledge that there
are in our Mennonite Church many pastors, educators, theologians, seminary
professors, and writers who have condoned, justified, and rationalized the
payment of war taxes, even placating those whose tender consciences were
bothering them every April 15.
Many times I have argued with the Spirit when confronted with the request that
I witness against this inconsistency. I had good excuses too! Except for a
year of junior college Bible at Eastern Mennonite College, my academic
training has been in engineering and natural science. I can’t read Greek or
Hebrew! How then could a non-seminary, practically illiterate nobody have
any influence? These little dialogues were nearly weekly experiences
(some more detailed), while driving the car, alone in the field, reading
Scripture in sermon preparation, even in silent prayer.
Finally on , while husking
corn, a terrible dread came over me. I stopped the husker right there in the
middle of the field and shouted: “Okay God, if You want me to make a fool of
myself. I’ll do it, I will, I will.” (No one heard me above the noise of the
John Deere, else they might have questioned my sanity.) What a relief and joy
I felt! I think I sang all the hymns I knew by heart the rest of the day!
It was my day off at the hospital, but that evening I was just “too tired” to
“start anything,” and for two weeks I was just “too busy.” Always when I come
home at 12:30 or 1:00 a.m. I fall asleep
the minute I get to bed. Then one night I was wide awake! After an hour of
tossing I finally got up, picked up my Bible and came down to the kitchen,
dropped it on the table rather disgustedly, got a drink of water, and sat
down. The Bible had fallen open and the first words I read were Ezekiel 3:20,
21. That did it for me! (Don’t bother to tell me that is not the
proper way to read the Bible. I already know that; I’m just telling
you what happened to me.)
I thought I should share these experiences with you so that you may know the
motivation for this communication.
Come then, my brothers and sisters, let us reason together concerning the
payment of war taxes!
The United States Internal Revenue Service has stated: “The
IRS
can only collect income taxes because of the voluntary
cooperation of the citizens.” Let no one say that they voluntarily
pay income taxes, because they have no choice. That is not true!
The payment of war taxes is viewed by the government as voluntary
cooperation; the final endorsement of their policies.
If you choose not to pay voluntarily, and make no
other deduction arrangements, then the
IRS
will eventually try to collect in some other way. We have never paid war
taxes and are now giving our entire farm to the church so that we will pay
no income tax. It is costing us something. The burden of proof is upon you
who approve of war taxes because it costs you nothing.
Now I know that many of our people are not in a position to do as we
are doing, so I have with many others been working for seven or eight
years to get the World Peaee Tax Fund passed. The only reason it
has not passed and will not pass is because of lack of concern. United
States senators and representatives have told us many times that except
for the few of you, “There is no evidence that anyone else has any problem
paying war taxes; so why are you bothering us with this bill?”
A highly educated theologian of our denomination said to me, “You can’t
hang a guilt trip on me about war taxes, because we aren’t in a war.”
Doesn’t everyone understand that this is a “Pay now, go later plan”? I
doubt that we will ever again pay for a war during a war. When the atomic
destruction comes it will be no consolation for the victims to remember
that these atomic bombs were paid for by peace-loving Mennonites, not some
terrible heathen Russians! If I should live to see that total destruction
(may God spare me that) I will know that my own brothers and sisters in
the faith have helped make it possible!
It has been pointed out to me that Menno Simons said “we should pay our
taxes” as justification for paying war taxes today. Based on Menno’s life
and teachings, how can anyone even suggest that he would voluntarily pay
our war taxes? I don’t know how it would be possible to dishonor the man
more than to hang that on him, when he was hunted like a criminal for
things a whole lot less contradictory to Jesus’ life and teaching than
voluntarily paying for killing!
In Luke 13:10–17,
the ruler of the synagogue was correct in calling attention to the laws of
the Sabbath. Sabbath observance was a good rule of conduct to obey, but
when it interfered with meeting human need, Jesus demonstrated that
meeting human need took precedence over Sabbath observance.
Now, suppose for the sake of comparison, I allow you to take
Romans 13:1–7
as universally applicable for today’s world. Now you have the same
difference that existed between Jesus and the Pharisees, namely literal
observance of the law versus human good and well being. You are opting for
the former (as the Pharisees did), but Jesus opted for the latter.
Even verses 8, 9, 10 of the same chapter
make it impossible to obey verse 7 if “their dues” are whatever they ask,
because today the payment of war taxes and loving my neighbor as
myself are mutually exclusive!
Certainly Jesus would not view preparation to kill someone as
the proper way to express God’s love.
Some of you say, “The Bible specifically says, ‘Pay your taxes,’ so
that’s what I do and what the government does with it is not my
responsibility.” That was the position of the church during Hitler’s
extermination of the Jews, a position which some of you have criticized
very severely even though to “be faithful” then was much more disastrous
than to be so now. Personal responsibility is such a consistent principle
throughout the Holy Scriptures that I should not need to belabor the
point. Even the worldly legal system has affirmed personal responsibility
regardless of government demands!
If you really behaved in such a simplistic literalism, then you ought
to advocate hatred of parents, because Jesus Himself said that if you
don’t hate your father and mother you can’t be His disciple. Since this is
completely opposite to all His teachings, we know that He said that for
comparison, for emphasis. In the same way, I wished to pay all my taxes
(and always had) until doing so became completely contrary to the life of
Christ!
Some of you argue, “The government will get the money anyway,” or
“Withholding my war taxes won’t stop the arms race.” The exact same
reasoning should put you into a military uniform! I could have reasoned
(as many did) that if I didn’t go into the military, they would just get
someone else to take my place. The day that I was drafted into Civilian
Public Service, I didn’t really notice any lessening of hostilities! I
didn’t take conscientious objector position because I thought it would be
successful (nor is that why I am writing this). The words I want
to hear from my Lord are: “Thou hast been faithful.”
Our citizens are told that all our “defense” (?) budget is to protect
our life and property. (Even if I were in favor of that, I wouldn’t
approve exceeding that by at least 25 times for the personal profit of
special interests.) Some years ago a Mennonite bishop wrote in the
Gospel Herald, “We shouldn’t criticize our
government because they protect our property.” The logical honest
extension of that is: “There is nothing more important than our property.”
What could be more contrary to the essence of the gospel, or the faith of
the Anabaptist martyrs? Didn’t Jesus specifically teach in
Luke 9:24
that if your overriding concern is to save your life, then you
will lose it? Certainly you can already see the beginning of the
financial destruction of our country because of the irresponsible and
insane spending of the military! How pathetic that the Mennonite Church,
because of our worldview, our concept of discipleship, and our persecution
history, could have been in the strength of the Holy Spirit, a powerful
mover toward peace and sanity, but instead has become a farce
instead of a force! History (if there will be any) will say of us
as Jesus said of the Pharisees: “They say, but they do
not.”
Is it any less a sin to kill someone than to ignore human need? If not,
then it seems very appropriate to paraphrase 1 John 3:17
for today. “If any of you have this world’s goods and voluntarily allow
some of it to be used to prepare to kill your brothers and sisters and to
destroy all that God has made, how is it possible for the love
and spirit of the God and Father of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, to
dwell in a heart like that?”
What a horrifying possibility that any one might some day tell Jesus,
“Haven’t we held many evangelistic meetings, preached many great sermons,
written wonderful books, healed the sick, spoken in tongues, sang your
praises with great fervor?” and Jesus will have to say to you, “Depart
from me, ye workers of destruction!”
Have you ever considered this question: What effect will my being an
accomplice to the American military have on our worldwide witness to God’s
love and His saving power?
If I were an unbeliever in some Third World country and knew that
“Christian America” is the only country that ever dropped an atomic bomb
on a civilian population, and that “Christian America” supports and arms
42 repressive dictatorships in order to maintain the highest standard of
living on earth for themselves, and that they sell six times more weapons
of violence and destruction than any other country, and that the church
justifies all that, I am sure that I would never want to become a
Christian or have anything to do with such a God!
I fully expect that you will be able to put me down with theological
arguments, or discredit me with a self-righteous application of Scripture
taken out of context to justify and rationalize your position; but, at least,
ask yourself this pragmatic question: If everyone did as I do,
regarding war taxes, what difference would it make? If everyone (or
even all so-called pacifists) would respectfully decline to pay for war, what
difference would that make?
Why are Mennonites unable to take an official position against paying for war?
Is it because we really don’t know what the truth is? Is it because we never
had it so good and we don’t want to risk anything? Is it because we have
become so acculturated, so affluent that we don’t want martyrs anymore. Do we
much prefer millionaires now?
It is my firm conviction that, as far as God is concerned, the day that I pay
war taxes I effectively discredit all that I have ever said, written, or given
for the cause of peace!
The forces of evil do not care what you say, or how you pray as
long as you pay!
A personal note, please: None of us is “off limits” to Satan’s deception! I
therefore remind you of your responsibility to tell me if you believe that I
have been misled in my search for the path of obedience!
Daniel Slabaugh is pastor of Ann Arbor
(Mich.) Mennonite Church. He
is a laboratory supervisor at
St. Joseph Mercy Hospital and
has a farm as a hobby.
I have only one point of disagreement with Mr. Slabaugh; that is the matter
of paying our war taxes voluntarily. I pay taxes, but not voluntarily. I
happily pay the portion of my taxes which go for human services and running
the government (even if some is wasted), but I do not happily pay the
portion that goes for military support. We have a Quaker friend who once
“arranged” not to pay his war taxes and the
IRS
showed their “appreciation” by “arranging” for him to spend several months
in prison. Some years ago, we refused to pay our telephone surcharge tax but
later found that our checking account had been debited for that amount,
which they claimed we owed. We then refused to pay that tax by having our
telephone removed.
I would like to “arrange” not to pay war taxes, but the consequences for
exercising that “freedom” would be too harsh for me at this Hme. I,
therefore, pay my war taxes “under protest,” and may God have mercy.
I thought this was a pretty extraordinary example of tying yourself in
knots to justify continuing to pay war taxes:
Does a Christian have to pay all of his taxes? I don’t believe that he can
be taxed on what he does not have; and I don’t see any compelling reason
why a Christian should have to accumulate things just so as to pay
more taxes. In fact, a Christian who in his work gathers a great amount of
money to himself probably is doing more harm in participating in whatever
is bringing him the money than is being done by whatever portion of the
money is going to taxes.
But, what happens if we withhold part of the taxes on our incomes? If we do
not pay all of the taxes, people who are employed by defense contractors
and defense-related industries as well as military personnel may be thrown
out of work. Unemployment will be a hardship to these people; it will be
suffering caused by the actions of nonresistant Christians.
I should think that the appropriate method to be used by nonresistant
Christians to close the defense plants would be to convert such a large
part of the population to the discipleship of Christ that there would not
be enough people remaining to man the defense plants. The fact that this is
not now the case may very well be the fault of Christians, past and
present, and not the fault of the defense workers.
Of course, the easy answer is to cause suffering to someone we don’t like
so as to alleviate the suffering of someone we do; or to see the problem in
terms of things (money and bombs) rather than people. We
Christians are not to seek vengeance on the defense workers because of
their production of bombs, but it seems easier to overcome evil with evil
than to attempt to overcome evil with good. In this evil world we would
like to keep just a little evil for our own use, just for self-defense.
We in our human fear forget that man has no more power to destroy himself
than he has power, of himself, to draw his next breath. So we abandon the
methods of Jesus Christ and allow Satan to win the decisive battle and so
rob us of our share in the assured victory of Christ.
Took the traditional Render-unto-Caesar / Romans 13 line, asserting that
U.S. currency
belongs to the
U.S.
government, which can reclaim from Christians it at will.
I found myself cheering enthusiastically when the article by Pastor
Slabaugh on the payment of war taxes appeared… I hope there will be more
and more freedom in church papers to deal with this up and coming concern.
Considerations of conscientious war-tax resistance point up some larger
problems that we as the Mennonite Church live with but don’t necessarily
resolve. These problems have to do not with the ample biblical teaching
supportive of noncompliance with war support, but rather, with the lack of
practical models as well as awareness of support resources and groups.
These facilities would greatly enhance our ability to work out responsible
individual witness stances. Several kinds of practical questions seem to
emerge.
In the first place, what ranges of governmental receptiveness (especially
IRS
receptiveness) have been encountered by members of our faith and what
constructive follow-up responses have we Mennonites explored after we are
categorized as tax-evaders? Second, and more specifically, what kinds of
deduction possibilities have been attempted and upon what rationale?
Third, how may we relate the quality of committed Anabaptist peace
perspectives to the degree we withhold tax dollars? Finally, what types of
congregational support models have emerged and what growth has occurred in
each process?
I seem to hear the Apostle Peter speaking across a vast expanse of time
and firmly addressing not only a failing government but a growing church
as well with a burning perspective — “One should obey God more than men”
(Acts 5:29).
Yes. Now how does it happen within the war-tax arena in practical terms?
There is much discussion about the war tax. Maybe we should also give some
thought to the balance of our tax money. We can name the education tax, the
research tax, welfare tax, road tax, regulatory tax, as a few. We can also
identify the abortion tax, tobacco subsidy tax (although maybe this isn’t a
concern since we accept the fact that a lot of grain goes to the liquor
industry), the waste and fraud tax, and of course the congressman salary
tax that pays the people that vote for the war tax. On the local scene we
have others, including the state, county, and city police tax. I wonder if
paying the tax for local law enforcement could be understood to say that we
recognize that the state needs to carry a stick. Is it possible that it’s
the church’s responsibility to decide how big that stick should be? All
this gets somewhat complicated and confusing. It would be much simpler if
taxes were just taxes.
I thought Fretz’s commentary was a good demonstration of how much the
terms of the debate had shifted, even from the point of view of the
pro-taxpaying faction:
Nonresistant Christians pay taxes
Jesus’ kingdom is one of testimony to truth, saving truth, truth that
changes lives, truth that builds character. Caesar’s kingdom was one that
used the sword to restrain evil and even to crucify the innocent.
And yet Jesus had told inquirers to show Him the coin used for paying
taxes to Caesar.
Then He asked them, “Whose portrait is this? and whose inscription?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied. Then Jesus said to them, “Give to Caesar what is
Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”
Jesus did not discuss what percent of the tax money was spent for soldiers
or for war, even though He knew this. There was no implication in His
teaching that taxes paid to Caesar should be called “war taxes” or that
nonresistant Christians should try to avoid payment of such taxes because
they knew they would be used for military purposes.
In reference to payment of specific taxes for support of the military
enterprise such as were imposed by the Continental government in the time
of the Revolution, one can understand that nonresistant Christians found
themselves unable to pay them and especially so since it was
revolutionaries who were asking for them — to subsidize their rebellion.
Then, too, one can understand the attitude of the nonresistant Hutterites
in Moravia who were asked to pay a special war tax to support the war
against the Turks in the 1500s. Peter Riedemann, their leader, said: “For
war, killing, and bloodshed (where it is demanded especially for that) we
give nothing but not out of wickedness or arbitrariness, but out of the
fear of God (1 Tim. 5)
that we may not be partakers in strange sins” (“Taxation,”
The Mennonite Encyclopedia,
p. 688).
I do not agree with Daniel Slabaugh that the federal income tax is a war
tax, per se. His entire article is based on calling it
that… However, it is a good thing to give one’s farm to the church (and so
reduce one’s payment of a tax that is partly used for military purposes).
But should such gifts be given to the church only to reduce payment of
federal income tax? Would not a more scriptural reason be to help the
church in its mission of testifying to the truth?
When I was a young man of 18, I was graciously healed from a critical
attack of pneumonia, and I decided to devote my life to full-time service
to the Lord, wherever and whenever He would want me to serve. For fifty
years I have served in mission work or Christian school teaching on an
income basis that took care of my needs (Phil. 4:19),
but often exempted me from payment of federal income tax, especially if I
was faithful in support of the Lord’s work and diligent to claim other
exemptions and deductions.
But I do not call federal income tax a war tax, nor think I should promote
nonpayment of it on this basis. Should others want to follow my example of
devoting their lives and income to the Lord’s work I would encourage them
to do so, not primarily to avoid payment of federal income tax, but in
order to build Christ’s church on earth.
I think we need to watch that we don’t lose our salvation in going overboard
in some subjects. I do appreciate a country where we have freedom of worship
to our God. The best way to show our appreciation is to pay our taxes. To
hold some back and refuse to pay, saying, “We don’t want to pay for war” is
not the answer. How do you know that the remaining taxes you pay can also be
put in the military? The taxes are for the government to use and it is
theirs. The responsibility of how and where it is used is theirs also.
I have become increasingly aware of the fact that the issue of payment of
war taxes is dividing the Mennonite Church. I have indeed found myself
pulling for both sides at different times and I realize that much study in
the Word of God is required.
As far as Daniel Slabaugh’s article… is concerned, he raised some very good
questions and made us more aware of our need as a church to come together on
this issue. I am not sure that our problems will go away by all of us
turning our properties over to the church but I do believe Daniel made an
honest response.
I’m not convinced that war taxes is the real issue. Right now this is the
issue that is surfacing, but somehow I believe that God is speaking to all
of us about how we use His money. We are living in an age where luxuries are
now necessities, and giving is done when it is convenient. That doesn’t add
up to the teachings in the New Testament at all.
My suggestion would be to try to live a simpler lifestyle. It is very
obvious only those that make increasing amounts of money pay taxes. Could we
lower our standard of living and give more thereby reducing our taxable
income? My suggestion would include taking a look at the Macedonian church
as Paul talks about them in 2 Cor. 8:1–7.
He tells us that they have given as much as they were able and even beyond
their ability. It would be good to learn a lesson from them. Also let’s look
at what Paul says to the Corinthians in 2 Cor. 9:6–7:
“Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows
generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has
decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God
loves a cheerful giver”
(NIV).
Farrar saluted Kratz’s letter, and added: “we must first really tithe all
of our incomes… a life of voluntary simplicity… would make all talk or tax
resistance superfluous. Indeed, I believe the only radical response to
war — that which strikes at the root causes — is voluntary poverty.”
Shall we tell our Caesar that he is wrong? Peter and Paul both said that we
should submit to the authorities and that we should show them honor and
respect. Since we live under a democracy instead of a dictatorship I would
like to suggest that we show respect and honor to our president by sending
him a message. No, not just a letter or a phone call, but a money message.
You know, money speaks!
Let all Mennonites and any others that care to join them send their tax
monies to the Mennonite General Board to forward to the
IRS in
one lump payment with the message, "We, the people, request these monies be
used for people programs and none be used for military purposes.” That would
be democratic and respectful, would it not?
The implications of this statement for the Mennonite Church today are
enormous. Most Americans, believing what the popular media and the
government propaganda tells them, are not really aware of the dangerous path
we are walking as we pile up arms and simultaneously arm other nations
involved in active wars — both internal and international. Mennonites have
been well informed for years about these things but have done far too
little, even symbolically, to redress the imbalance. There is no excuse for
this. When will the church recoil from the unavoidable fact that our taxes
and our greed are destroying our brothers and sisters while we read these
lines? When will we give a strong, clear “No” to the government’s growing
demand for funds for war?
There remains but one immediate response that will suffice — that of
voluntary poverty (living below the federal tax line) and personal service
to those we have wronged. The list of places to work is staggering and
growing longer: Somalia, Cambodia, Italy, Lebanon, the Persian Gulf,
Bangladesh, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Brazil, Mississippi, the inner city,
Appalachia…
Mr. Reagan proposes to cut taxes while increasing the war budget
drastically. He knows there is a real economic crisis simmering in the
U.S., yet is
blind to the fact that our military dominated economy is the single greatest
cause of inflation and unemployment. While he officially opposes the draft
he wants more sophisticated instruments of mass slaughter, costing enormous
amounts of money.
I call the Mennonite Church to stop evading responsibility and challenge her
to stand up publicly, and by word and action, witness for peace and justice
and a nation more ready to welcome the kingdom of God.
Helmuth made a long-overdue frontal assault on the traditional
interpretation of Romans 13:
Is one government ordained as much as another?
Taxes and the faithful church
Twenty years ago efforts to introduce ideas of war-tax refusal into the
Mennonite church met with little response. Times have changed and Daniel
Slabaugh’s “Testimony Regarding the Payment of War Taxes”… indicates how
deeply we are now being challenged on this issue.
No one who endeavors to live in the spirit of Christ can feel easy while
helping to finance the machinery of war. We all want to feel our lives are a
consistent witness for the truth of Christ’s love and are, therefore, made
increasingly uneasy as the testimony against war taxes gains currency within
the church.
The standard method of reasoning, to put at ease those whose conscience has
grown tender on this point, is to remind them that the government is
ordained of God and that Christians, therefore, are to obey the government.
(An exception to this reasoning is made in the case of personal military
service. Having allowed this exception we must, it seems to me, allow that
growth in moral sensitivity may well lead to further civil disobedience. )
What exactly does it mean to say “the government is ordained of God”? To
approach this question we need to distinguish two levels of ordination.
First, we hold the church to be ordained of God in a unique way, quite
distinctly different in origin, character, and mission from other social
institutions. Second, because God is the origin and sustainer of all life,
it may be said that, in general, social institutions are ordained of God.
Plainly, the idea of government being ordained of God belongs to the second
level.
Now, it seems to me, that when someone argues that I must pay my taxes
because the government is ordained of God, they are confusing the two
levels. They are talking as if the government was as uniquely and as
specifically ordained of God as the church. This is plainly not true, and a
good many of our ancestors laid down their lives to avoid this confusion.
Government is born out of a human predisposition to organize and control.
Slavery, being derived from the same human predisposition, may also be
regarded as having once been ordained of God. Slavery evidently gave the
apostle Paul no moral pause. He did not foresee that it would become
intolerable to Ghristian morality. Nor did he foresee that governments would
fall and rise through a wide variety of processes, including representative
assemblies, constitutional conventions, force of arms, and subversive
manipulation.
To regard all governments as somehow equally ordained of God is to sever the
concern for social justice from its biblical mandate. A large talent for
political naivety would be required to see the government visited on Uganda
by Idi Amin and the government of Switzerland as equally legitimate.
It is possible to argue that one’s own government is “more ordained” than
others, but such a self-serving view brings with it the whole baggage of
civil religion, and ill befits the world-servant role to which we understand
ourselves called. Governments may be ordained of God in some general
naturalistic sense, but people who care about social justice and human
well-being must judge whether they are legitimate or illegitimate.
Perhaps because Mennonites have a traditional aloofness from politics, the
matter of legitimacy in government often seems poorly understood. I have
seen it argued recently in the Mennonite press, and supported by biblical
proof texts, that opposing the government on the war-tax issue is the same
as opposing God.
It is important to understand that the political framework needed to support
this argument is something very close to the “divine right of kings.” Why
this antique political notion, deriving from ancient and medieval despotisms
and seriously confusing church and state, should be used against the
testimony of tax refusers in the Mennonite Church is, indeed, a curious
matter. Perhaps others, better equipped than I, can delve lovingly into the
motivations of this desperate argument.
Life in North America has been so good to our people that it is difficult to
imagine Mennonites becoming an outlaw church on the issue of war taxes. Yet
the teachings of Jesus and the demands of faithfulness, if taken seriously,
plainly move us in that direction. The conviction that the faithful church
must, at times, become an outlaw church should not be shocking to those
acquainted with Anabaptist origins and history.
If we don’t draw the line at paying for nuclear weapons (or conventional
weapons, for that matter), will we draw it at their use? Military planners
no longer regard nuclear weapons as of deterrent use only. They are openly
talking about a limited use of their offensive first-strike capacity.
What if a nuclear bomb had been dropped on Hanoi in an effort to end the war
in Vietnam? What if the American government uses nuclear weapons to maintain
access to Middle East oil? Would the church then draw the line and move into
a position of active tax refusal? Or will we sit tight, no matter what the
government does?
Is there any threshold of violence or oppression which the government might
cross that would cause the Mennonite Church to advocate tax refusal?
Yoder was having nothing of such scriptural revisionism:
“The teachings of Jesus and the demands of faithfulness, if taken
seriously, plainly move us in that direction [of resisting taxes which may
be used for military purposes],” writes Keith Helmuth…
Whatever teachings he has in mind, however, he neglects to identify. Of
course, that is a common omission among Mennonite writers who advocate tax,
draft, and other forms of “resistance” and “civil” disobedience. Bold
assertions, sharp reasonings, and generalized allusions to Scripture. But,
no direct quotes or citings of passages.
I feel the teachings of Jesus plainly move us in a direction radically
different from tax resistance. I find those teachings in such places as
Mt. 5:41
where Jesus is quoted as instructing those who would seriously seek the
kingdom to, if forced to go a distance, continue on an additional distance.
It is my understanding that this teaching likely referred to the practice
of the Roman army to conscript civilians, literally off the street, and
force them to carry military supplies for perhaps a mile or so. From that
it seems logical for me to conclude that Jesus did not even exclude forced
assistance of the military (such as by taxes) from the compensatory love
response he prescribed for those who are beaten, stolen from, forced to do
things against their will.
Certainly the faithful church will often also face becoming an outlaw
church. The Scripture makes that plain. But, search as I may, I can’t find
any scriptural evidence that resisting taxes is something our Lord would
call us to. Rather, I can only conclude tax resistance to be a symptom of
the philosophy of those seeking a political kingdom and a social salvation
through the exercise of earthly power.
It seems to me that it is only fair that Mennonite editors ask writers
supporting tax resistance to document all supportive references found in
Scripture for their points. I think we readers are by now quite familiar
with their reasonings and rhetoric. If they have a scriptural basis, let’s
hear it.
D.R. Yoder is correct. I cannot cite a specific teaching of Jesus on war tax
refusal.
The case for war tax refusal, however, rests not on proof texts, but on the
fact that Jesus introduced a profound moral vision, with an extraordinary
potential for growth, into the stream of human consciousness. When Jesus was
asked about the “greatest commandment” He replied: “Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it.
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
Starting from this masterly summation of spiritual life, faithfulness, it
seems to me, depends on our growth in moral sensitivity and not on our
ability to correctly analyze all the cultural idiosyncrasies to which Jesus
was necessarily responding. Should we help finance the defoliation of our
neighbor’s rice fields or the massacre of her family just because Jesus
never had the occasion to comment on those situations? I think it entirely
fair to say the “teachings of Jesus” move us away from such behavior.
It was recognized by the early Anabaptists that personal military service
was seriously out of harmony with “the teachings of Jesus.” The refusal of
state ordered military service is not a specific injunction of Jesus, but
the growth in moral sensitivity which accompanied the Anabaptist movement
drew out this inherent aspect of the gospel. The same process, apparently,
kept the Anabaptist settlers in the New World from making use of readily
available slave labor, though Jesus nowhere condemns the institution of
slavery. It is this same growth in moral sensitivity, …which is now focusing
the issue.
As for “seeking a political kingdom and a social salvation through the
exercise of earthly power,” I doubt that very many who support the witness
of war tax refusal have any such aspirations. “Political kingdoms” can only
exist on the conscripted lives and resources of our communities and it is
exactly this that tax refusal opposes. The concept of “social salvation”
has, by now, lost even its nostalgia value. Our dreams are far more modest.
We hope to avoid nuclear holocaust and keep the planet habitable. We want
the resources now being wasted in military budgets to help feed, house, and
clothe the poor of the world. This is not “social salvation.” It is only
good sense and common decency.
One final note: The issue of war tax refusal is one that all persons have to
weigh in the balance against all the other important factors in their lives.
Judge not is the rule here. What makes no sense from the standpoint of a
growing family might come to make good sense after 50.
Our lofty discussion is probably beside the point. If we could see the
anguish that brings people to the point of tax refusal we would be inundated
with images of napalm and herbicides raining down on Vietnam, families
massacred in El Salvador, and the chilling vision of the neutron bomb
grinning over empty cities.
All our rhetoric, all our proof texts stagger and fall in the face of a dead
child and screaming mother with helicopters thundering overhead. The
crucifixion of Christ’s flesh is ever before us. Our sins roll across the
landscape. We do what we must and pray for strength.
In the Mennonite Board of
Congregational Ministries board of directors met.
Among their decisions:
In harmony with the General Board
action to support the General Conference Mennonite Church in their judicial
challenge of the collecting of taxes by church agencies, the board acted to
encourage staff “to publicize among our congregations the issues involved in
the judicial action and the need for funds for this purpose.”
The organizers of the Smoketown Consultation (which was in part a conservative
Eastern Mennonite backlash against war tax resistance and other innovations)
met again in in what was
called the “Berne consultation.” This time, however, according to
Gospel Herald:
“Little attention at Berne was given to war taxes, a dominant theme at Smoketown…”
…neither the Mennonite Church nor the IKV
feels comfortable with individual radical action. Example: Dirk Visser, a
Dutch Mennonite journalist working for the equivalent of the Associated Press
wire services in the Netherlands, called my attention to Willem-Jan Maas, a
Mennonite minister serving in Opeland. This minister tried to funnel what he
considered the war-taxes portion of his income tax to the Dutch Mennonite
Peace Group via the local income tax office.
This effort was fraudulently aborted by the tax officers, but even had it been
successful, the minister would not have been applauded by the IKV,
according to Visser. The IKV
has taken the political action route and with that the churches can cooperate.
In a Peace Tax Fund-boosting article
in the issue, it was noted that
war tax resisters acted as the “bad cop” to the “good cop” of lobbyists:
“[David] Bassett and others cited the ‘inconvenience factor’ of current war tax
resistance to the IRS as further incentive for change in the tax laws.”
Richerd Lewman, Jr. went back on
the offensive with a forceful rebuttal of Christian war tax resistance for the
issue:
To accept the statements that justify the nonpayment of war taxes is to accept
the statement that Jesus was a hypocrite.
After reading much about the war-tax issue and listening to much discussion,
both pro and con, I wanted to find out more about the issue, so that I could
take a stand consistent with God’s teachings. I read all that I could that
justified not paying taxes. Then I read as much as possible justifying the
payment of taxes. Both of these included much Bible reading and prayer. I then
did a lot more praying and asking God to guide me to what his truth is. He led
me to more reading and research.
After all of this, I was led to only one conclusion. If we believe Jesus
taught that we should not pay taxes to a government in the process of or
planning to slaughter people, then Jesus was a hypocrite because he paid his
taxes. If Jesus was a hypocrite, because he taught one thing and did another,
then Jesus sinned and he was not the unblemished lamb suitable to die for our
sins. So there cannot be salvation through him.
The first point made by those who would condone, even encourage, the
nonpayment of war taxes, is that income tax is voluntary, because it requires
citizen cooperation and to pay it is to agree with the government’s policies.
Using this same line of thinking we could say that all laws are voluntary, and
to obey them is to agree with them. I may not agree that I should not drive
any faster than 55 miles per hour, but if I decide not to obey the law I will
be penalized for it. If I pay my taxes I do not necessarily agree with how my
tax money is spent. But I still must pay.
A second point that is made is that the personal responsibility of loving my
neighbor comes before the law. I agree. But, I ask this question. What were
some of Jesus’ actions and how did they coincide with his teachings? Many
instances of civil disobedience and tax evasion have been justified using
Jesus’ teachings. I feel that his teachings are removed from their context if
they are not in agreement with the example of his perfect life. Do we read in
the Bible that Jesus went to Rome to picket in front of the Senate about the
atrocities committed against Jerusalem. Do we find Jesus lobbying to have the
Roman troops withdrawn from the temple, or for the exemption of the Jews from
paying the many taxes levied on them largely for the support of the
bloodthirsty Roman army? Or do we find Jesus not paying his war taxes? The
answer to each of these questions is a very clear “No!”
But wait, you say it was different back then. Was it?
They say that we must not pay our taxes, in order to make a witness, since we
as Mennonites are not drafted anymore. Well, the Jews in Jesus’ time were not
drafted either. They say they did not have conscription back then. Wrong.
Conscription dates back to the earliest civilization. They say that our
government needs our money more than our bodies. Well, the Roman government
needed money, because many of the soldiers were professionals and they fought
for the money. They say today we have the atom bomb, the most destructive war
machine ever devised by man, up to this time. Back then it was the Roman army,
the most destructive and bloodthirsty war machine ever devised by man, up to
that time.
How do we know that Jesus paid his taxes? The Tribute Coin referred to by
Jesus was a coin used to pay the poll tax which had to be paid by every male
person, ages 14–65, and by females, ages 12–65. If Jesus had not paid his tax,
would not the Pharisees and Sadducees have brought this to the attention of
Pilate when Jesus was before him, since they were looking for something to
convict him of?
If you say that Jesus’ teachings are that we should not pay our war taxes, I
cannot accept this. I believe that Jesus was the perfect example of the
Christian life and that his life was consistent with his teachings and that he
was not a hypocrite. If Jesus paid taxes to the government of his time, then I
can do no less. In fact, I must pay those taxes if I am to be in accordance
with Jesus’ life and teachings.
You say that we must follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. I agree, but how
do we discern the leading of the Holy Spirit? We must go to the Bible. If the
Bible and Jesus’ example contradict what we thought was the leading of the
Holy Spirit, then it can’t be the leading of the Holy Spirit. The leading of
the Holy Spirit, if it is authentic, will always agree with the life and
teachings of Jesus.
You ask. Why doesn’t the Mennonite Church take an official position against
payment of war taxes? I ask you. How can we take an official position
condemning something that Jesus did? I am in no position to question Jesus’
actions!
If we are to be consistent about not paying our war taxes because we disagree
with their purpose, then let’s stop paying that portion of our taxes that goes
for abortion and subsidizes the tobacco industry. But then, why not withhold
our property taxes if the schools teach evolution or sex education? Once the
pattern of nonpayment as protest is begun, there will be no logical place to
stop.
Jesus taught us to pay our taxes and his example showed us we must do the
same. If I am to be a Christian and desire Jesus to say to me someday, “Well
done, good and faithful servant,” then I can do no less than pay my taxes.
A
letter from Elvin Glick
fired just about every arrow from the traditionalist quiver: “there is no such
thing as a war tax” — “The government has a right to its armies and police
forces.” — “Governments have a right to levy taxes.” — Render unto Caesar, two
kingdoms, go the extra mile, Romans 13, Jesus & Paul never resisted their
governments, war taxes are different from military service,
etc.
[One extreme of the feedback:] In 22½ hours of business sessions, 266
delegates who answered the roll call “dragged their feet in giving women equal
leadership opportunities in the church, in speaking with a clear voice on
nuclear armaments and war taxes, and in preparing a relevant and up-to-date
confession of faith.”
In their business sessions delegates… in the longest discussion of the
week — struggled with how to realize reconciliation with a delegate who
denounced them for continuing to pay war taxes.
Most of the floor discussion centered in the letter to President Reagan…
“There’s an unfortunate philosophy behind this letter,” said James Hess,
Bethel, Pa. “It’s that
because I’m a Christian, I’m qualified to advise the government how to go
about its business. That goes against our historic doctrine of the separation
of church and state.”
Said Dan Slabaugh, Whitmore,
Mich.: “The president will
laugh when he reads this letter — if he reads it at all. He’ll laugh because
he knows that every payday we disavow what we say when we continue to pay our
taxes for war.”
A sidebar to that article read:
A prophetic voice?
How does the assembly process minority viewpoints? That became the focus in an
intense discussion engaging assembly delegates for 2½ hours beyond their
scheduled closing time in the final business session.
Impetus for the discussion came when Dan Slabaugh, Whitmore Lake,
Mich., asked permission to
make a four-minute statement on a concern of his. He confronted delegates with
their failure to back up their sentiments about peace, as stated in their
letter to President Reagan, with their actions. “Why do you continue to pay
taxes that go for war purposes?” he asked. “The religious community in America
could stop the arms buildup if it wanted to; I can’t understand why this
doesn’t excite us.”
Slabaugh reported he had wanted to put two motions on the floor but had been
advised by assembly leaders not to. (Later discussion revealed one motion
would have called delegates to acknowledge that paying war taxes was sin but
that they planned to continue doing so anyway; the other would have called for
all Mennonites to stop paying war taxes immediately.) In frustration Slabaugh
concluded: “I joined the Mennonite Church because of its stand on peace and
nonresistance. I will leave it for the same reason.” He then walked off the
assembly floor to participate in a seminar on war taxes.
In subsequent discussion, many delegates voiced concern about the incident and
called for reconciliation to be effected between Slabaugh and assembly
leaders. There was also discussion on how the assembly can hear a prophetic
word and what is the process by which it is determined whether or not a
minority opinion is prophetic.
After long discussion, delegates approved a motion which (1) made Slabaugh’s
concerns about war taxes a part of the official record of the assembly; (2)
asked the Council on Faith, Life, and Strategy to bring proposals to the next
assembly for dealing with the war tax issue and for discerning “prophetic
voices”; (3) called for immediate steps to be taken to bring about
reconciliation between Slabaugh and the assembly.
For Suzanne Polen, a part-time research microbiologist in Pittsburgh,
President Reagan’s recent decisions to increase arms spending mean that she
will no longer pay that portion of her taxes she says would fund national
defense. “The government is buying weapons which will eventually kill me,”
said the 45-year-old tax protester. Instead of paying her full tax bill to the
government, she plans to deposit about 50 percent of the money into the newly
created Pittsburgh Fund for Life, which describes itself as a peace and
justice ministry.
Since the Vietnam War ended, Wildon Fadely of the Internal Revenue Service
said, the number of those who have withheld taxes to protest Pentagon
activities has been “minuscule.” The category is so small that no separate
records are kept, he added. But he admitted his general impression was the
“protests of all kinds are on the rise.”
A conservative Anabaptist conference on “Basic Biblical Beliefs”
was held in . Among its
concerns for the church: “There is a growing alignment with ‘leftist elements’
who advocate civil disobedience, demonstrations, and nonpayment of taxes used
for military purposes.”
We call for acts of tax resistance to be undertaken since our federal income
taxes fuel the arms race. We suggest giving funds denied for use in building
nuclear weapons to groups working for peace and disarmament, and to groups
meeting human needs.
Jim Longacre, Peace Section chairman, brought a statement of concern to the
group for possible adoption. After the document was criticized for not being
specific enough, the group moved to add a paragraph on the war tax issue.
Although there was some dissent regarding the usefulness of a statement (one
person noted: “It’s easier to assent to a piece of paper than to be
accountable”), and the initial voting process was confused and had to be
repeated, the majority of the participants approved the statement.
That section of the statement read:
We were repeatedly reminded in this Assembly that the conscription of our
income supports the nuclear arms race. Moreover, we saw that the government is
increasing expenditures for nuclear and other weapons by decreasing
expenditures for human services for the poor and oppressed. We encourage
people to consider ways to witness against this evil use of the power of
taxation, such as refusing to pay the military portion of the federal income
tax.
Episcopal Bishop Robert H. Cochrane of Olympia,
Wash., while denouncing the
worldwide buildup of nuclear arms, stopped short of condoning a tax revolt as
did his Roman Catholic counterpart.
“Please know that I shall continue to pay to my government every penny of my
income tax, but at the same time every penny that I save under our president’s
new tax plan I shall give away to meet the needs of the poor and uncared for,”
Bishop Cochrane said in his annual address to the diocesan convention.
“I invite you to do the same.”
Bishop Cochrane’s diocese covers western Washington, the same area taken in by
the archdiocese of Catholic Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen of Seattle. The
archbishop has become a rallying point for a growing anti-nuclear movement
among leaders of nearly a dozen denominations in the Pacific Northwest.
Archbishop Hunthausen has said that people would be morally justified in
refusing to pay 50 percent of their income taxes in nonviolent resistance to
nuclear “murder and suicide.” He also said he favors unilateral nuclear
disarmament.
Truman H. Brunk, Jr., snuck a
war tax resistance message into his article
“Disarmed by his peace”:
Neither can Christians hide their eyes from the evil insanity of the arms
race. Christ came to signal peace on earth, not preparation for war. Christ’s
peace means that we cannot participate in the crime of preparation for nuclear
war. The obedience of Christians to their government is not absolute and
unconditional. We need the courage to avoid adding even a particle of evil to
our broken creation. How long can good Mennonites pray for peace and pay for
nuclear readiness with our tax dollars?
[T]here are three things God is doing in Ames, Iowa… [including] the
formulation of guidelines for a war tax alternative fund.
[Ames Mennonite Fellowship] is taking the lead in establishing a war tax
alternative fund for persons in the Ames area who are conscientiously opposed
to paying taxes for war. In ,
AMF
took formal action to establish the fund. Since then, some $300 has been
contributed to it. On
seven persons gathered and drew up guidelines for participation in the fund.
In brief, the group determined that contributors to the fund need to pay “an
equivalent to the amount actually withheld from Internal Revenue Service.”
Participants are expected to sign a “statement of purpose and guidelines” at
the time of the first deposit. Keith Schrag, Dan Clark, and other
AMF
participants in the fund welcome questions and counsel from the broader church
in this matter.
This is the twenty-eighth 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.
When I hit in the archives it seemed to me that I started seeing a lot more mentions of how “our tax dollars” were financing this or that government-sponsored horror, but much less followup from there about how such a thing might lead one to resist paying.
Maybe that was seen as an obvious corollary by then, or maybe some people had abandoned the idea of war tax resistance as impractical and had just become resigned to complaining.
It’s hard to tell from the record.
That’s not to say there wasn’t war tax resistance content.
Plenty of it.
The “Taxes for Peace” war tax redirection fund, run by the Mennonite Central Committee’s (U.S.) Peace Section, announced it’s annual drive in the issue.
The fund would be redirecting money to the Lancaster County (Pa.) Peacework Alternatives Project, and announced that they had redirected $4,600 to a project to aid victims of violence in Guatemala the previous year.
A curious story, “The parable of the taxpayers” by John F. Murray appeared in the .
It was a sort of updating of the “parable of the talents” from the Bible.
It included a character who was a war tax resister but the parable chided him for hiding his money away from the tax collector rather than spending it on good churchly stuff.
Perhaps this indicates that this was one stereotype of war tax resisters — as miserly sorts — that was prevalent in Mennonite circles.
The emerging war tax resistance movement in Japan took the offensive in , according to this article:
A Mennonite pastor is among 22 Japanese tax resisters who have sued the government for what they say was an “unconstitutional” collection of their taxes in .
The 22 are all members of Conscientious Objection to Military Tax (COMIT), and 12 of them are Christians — including Michio Ohno, a Mennonite pastor in Tokyo.
The government action involved the seizing of the bank accounts of Ohno and two others.
The 22 charge that Japan’s so-called Self-Defense Forces is a violation of the post-World War Ⅱ constitution, which forbids the country to have an army, navy, and air force.
So, they charge, the collection of taxes for the military is also unconstitutional.
Members of the Mennonite Church in the United States contribute $9 to the federal government for military purposes for every $5 they contribute to the local church for the cause of Christ.
Nine to five is the proportion of military support to local church support.
Nine to five is also a traditional eight-hour workday.
The fruit of our labor is paying for the arms race.
The nine-to-five calculation is based on figures from the current Mennonite Yearbook, p. 190. The contributions given by U.S. Mennonite Church members through the congregational treasury in totaled $57,269,704. This figure does not include individual gifts that were not channeled through the congregation.
The estimated military tax paid by the same people in was $105,800,000.
Stanley Kropf, churchwide agency finance secretary, estimates that the pretax income of Mennonite Church members in was $1,602,600,000. I have calculated a 12 percent tax rate paid on that income, with 55 percent of the taxes going to past and present military costs, including a portion of interest on the federal debt attributable to inflationary military spending.
I believe that these figures are correct within a margin of 5–10 percent.
No great concern?
Maybe it isn’t a matter of great concern.
Some say that the government is responsible for what it does with tax monies.
We are not accountable.
Bernard Offen, a Jewish survivor of Auschwitz, thinks differently.
His letter of war-tax protest came across my desk recently, and I share it as a stimulus to reflection on our war taxes in :
The guards at Auschwitz herded my father to the left and me to the right.
I was a child.
I never saw him again.
He was a good man.
He was loyal, obedient, law-abiding.
He paid his taxes.
He was a Jew.
He paid his taxes.
He died in the concentration camp.
He had paid his taxes.
My father didn’t know he was paying for barbed wire.
For tattoo equipment.
For concrete.
For whips.
For dogs.
For cattle cars.
For Zyklon B gas.
For gas ovens.
For his destruction.
For the destruction of 6,000,000 Jews.
For the destruction of 6,000,000 Jews.
For the destruction, ultimately, of 50,000,000 people in World War Ⅱ.
In Auschwitz I was tattoo #B‒7815. In the United States I am an American citizen, taxpayer #370‒32‒6858. I am paying for a nuclear arms race.
A nuclear arms race that is both homicidal and suicidal.
It could end life for 5,000,000,000 people, five billion Jews.
For now the whole world is Jewish and nuclear devices are the gas ovens for the planet.
There is no longer a selection process such as I experienced at Auschwitz.
We are now one.
I am an American.
I am loyal, obedient, law-abiding.
I am afraid of the Internal Revenue Service.
Who knows what power they have to charge me penalties and interest?
To seize my property?
To imprison me?
After soul-searching and God-wrestling for several years, I have concluded that I am more afraid of what my government may do to me, mine, and the world with the money if I pay it… if I pay it.
I do believe in taxes for health, education, and the welfare of the public.
While I do not agree with all the actions of my government, to go along with the nuclear arms race is suicidal.
It threatens my life.
It threatens the life of my family.
It threatens the world.
I remember my father.
I have learned from Auschwitz.
I will not willingly contribute to the production of nuclear devices.
They are more lethal than the gas Zyklon B, the gas that killed my father and countless others.
I am withholding 25 percent of my tax and forwarding it to a peace tax fund.
Offen gives permission to reproduce or publish his letter and says he may be contacted at Sonoma County Taxes for Peace, Box 563, Santa Rosa, CA 95402.
No simple answer.
What is the answer to the war-tax dilemma?
I offer no simple one.
I simply identify a challenge to our faith which will not go away.
And I think it is helpful to have some idea of how much money, and in what proportion, we are giving to the death machine.
St. Augustine said, “Hope has two sisters: Anger and courage.”
Beautiful women, these, in an age of despair.
Thank you for printing the article by John Stoner, “Nine to Five”… It is good but uncomfortable for us to be reminded of our involvement in military and war-related activity.
I wonder how much longer the Mennonite Church can remain so silent and still carry the distinction of being a peace church.
In a democracy, silence gives consent.
In light of Scripture, our history, and the present reality that Stoner points out, how can we Mennonites give our consent to spending so much for war?
Withholding federal income tax for conscience’ sake is still a lonely and often misunderstood act, even within the church.
True, there are individuals and small segments of the Mennonite Church who have taken positions similar to the Stoners.
But I long and pray for the time when such actions of civil disobedience will be strongly supported and encouraged by the majority of Mennonites.
A war tax redirection ceremony and tax day protest was covered in the issue:
Michigan group gives war-tax money to the poor.
On the income-tax deadline of , a group of 11 people in Kalamazoo, Mich., called “Partners in Peace” gave a public witness to their beliefs in front of the post office.
They mailed their income-tax returns minus the amount they calculate is used for military purposes — 50 percent.
Instead the group gave that amount — which together came to about $5,500 — to five local agencies that assist the needy.
Here Partners for Peace member Karen Small gives a check to Marcia Jackson of Loaves and Fishes.
The group, which includes Mennonites, also conducted a short worship service with singing, prayer, and testimonies by several participants.
Onlookers were given printed statements and pens with the inscription, “If you pray for peace, should you pay for war?”
This is the second year the public witness has been conducted.
Winfred Stoltzfus, a Mennonite doctor who is a member of the group, said he and others are being “harassed” by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, which is seizing bank accounts and portions of their paychecks.
“Even if you are not a war tax resister, you can help those who are,” say a group of Christians who operate the Tax Resisters Penalty Fund.
Based in North Manchester, Ind., it helps resisters when they suffer financial loss through the seizure of penalties and interest by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
The fund, started in as a project of the local chapter of Fellowship of Reconciliation, is currently trying to broaden its base of support because of the increasing number of requests for assistance.
More information is available from the North Manchester Fellowship of Reconciliation…
While war tax resistance seemed mostly a U.S. phenomenon during the Vietnam War era (and this led to some chagrin when Canadian Mennonites felt like they were being dragged into disputes about it), Canadians were also getting in on the act by this time ():
Conscience Canada, a Victoria, B.C.-based organization objecting to Canadian military taxes, held its first national conference recently.
Several participants reported that they sent the military portion of their taxes to Peace Tax Fund — a trust account administered by Conscience Canada which is not approved by the government.
Member of Parliament James Manley told the participants how they could be more effective in lobbying their MPs.
Motions favoring peace tax legislation were introduced in the House of Commons by Manley in and and by MP Simon De Jong in .
Reporting on war-tax resistance in the United States, Robert Hull, a Mennonite who chairs the Washington, D.C.-based National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund, said his group has enlisted 55 representatives and four senators as sponsors of peace tax legislation in the U.S. Congress.
“Conscience Canada is part of a movement in 17 countries, from Finland and Spain to Australia and New Zealand,” said Edith Adamson, the organization’s coordinator.
Study packet on militarism in Canada from Mennonite Central Committee Canada.
It includes pamphlets, articles, and a fact sheet.
The packet helps Canadians struggling to discern a faithful Christian response to militarism, including the issue of whether or not to pay war taxes.
It is available for a suggested donation of $3 from Information Services at MCC Canada…
David Charles wrote a commentary for the issue in which he went on at length about the horror of nuclear war and said “Some have even come to recognize our complicity in the situation through silence and the payment of war taxes.”
And: “Our continued silence to a government that is not merely content to collect tax but is mortgaging the entire country to pursue a ridiculous ambition is conveying a message of acceptance.”
But his suggested response was hilariously pathetic:
We can write on the bottom of our tax returns that our money is to be used to build peace, not more arms.
For an increasing number of Christians the conscription of their taxes for military purposes is becoming a problem of conscience as clear as the conscription of their bodies for military service.
The question will not fade away.
Are the excuses offered by Nazi collaborators or Iran-contra conspirators that someone else is making the decisions that much different than washing our hands of responsibility for how the state uses the resources God has given us?
Challenge and action.
The study suggested by MCC and the militarism resolution — “Growing in Stewardship and Witness in a Militaristic World” — which will be considered by the General Assembly at Purdue arose directly out of the struggle of conscience about war taxes by some members of the church.
The proposed resolution is intended to alert us to the broad scope of this challenge and suggest appropriate actions.
Let us expand our support for proposed Peace Tax Fund legislation in both the United States and Canada, recognizing that legal recognition of conscientious objection to payment of taxes destined for military use will require the same patient persistence which resulted in legal recognition of conscientious objection to military service.
Let us prayerfully examine the practice of church organizations withholding and transmitting income taxes of church employees who themselves are conscientiously unable to pay taxes for military use.
As part of that effort, we will participate in a conference planned for for Mennonite, Brethren, and Quaker employers to share their experiences relating to tax withholding and conscience and to develop a strategy for relief of this ethical dilemma.
Let us continue to support those whose conscience prevents them from paying taxes destined for military use or from registering with the U.S. Selective Service System.
A report from the conference, carried in the issue, carried the ominous quote “Personally, I think the Peace Tax Fund is a way out of this” as a way of excusing why the Mennonite Church seemed to be waffling rather than taking any committed stand:
A statement on “Growing in Stewardship and Witness in a Militaristic World” was approved more quickly.
It offers suggestions to congregations for ways to counter the increasingly pervasive “evil” of militarism in North America and around the world.
Ed Metzler, who presented the statement, said one of the best ways Mennonites can oppose militarism today is by supporting the campaign for “Peace Tax Fund” legislation in both the United States and Canada.
Metzler, who is peace and social concerns secretary at Mennonite Board of Congregational Ministries, said this would permit conscientious objection to war taxes in the same way that Mennonites and others won the right to conscientious objection to war.
He called to the podium the executive director of the campaign in the U.S. — Marian Franz, a Mennonite.
“Conscience is contagious,” she said, “and peace concerns are spreading far beyond the historic peace churches.”
Approval of the statement did not end the discussion on militarism.
Especially after Mennonite Board of Missions president Paul Gingrich reminded the delegates that his agency is still waiting to hear what it is supposed to do about employees who request that taxes not be withheld from their paychecks so that they can resist war taxes.
“I wish this body would act on this,” he said.
Metzler agreed, pointing out that the Mennonite Church General Board “ducked the issue” by calling for a general statement on militarism.
“We wish the issue would go away,” he said, “but it won’t.” Moderator-Elect Lebold defended General Board inaction, noting that the church is deeply divided on the subject.
“Personally, I think the Peace Tax Fund is a way out of this,” he said.
Nondelegate Ray Gingerich, an Eastern Mennonite College professor who is a war tax resister, challenged the notion of having to wait on the government to make legal a matter of conscience.
Many delegates seemed to agree, and by majority vote, they instructed General Board to take immediate action on tax withholding and give a clear answer to MBM and other agencies seeking guidance.
Well, I think so.
It is an odd question for a 53-year-old person because nobody’s asking me to wreak violence on anybody else.
We are all very fortunate to have that little dialogue about paying over the coin to Caesar because otherwise we 53-year-olds, if we thought of being pacifists, would have to think of financing nuclear weapons.
I guess that little dialogue lets us out, or at least in some people’s minds it does.
But I figure that by now the taxes I paid have bought a lot of destructive weaponry, if I am paying my share.
The Church of the Brethren (Anabaptist cousins of the Mennonites) also held their annual conference.
The issue reported:
An agenda item on “taxation for war” prompted little debate, since a study committee said the church has written enough about war-tax resistance, and that it is time for members to study seriously what has been written.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) has publicly asked the forgiveness of an 81-year-old Cincinnati minister who was defrocked by a regional church body 25 years ago for his antiwar activism.
Maurice McCrackin, pastor of the nondenominational Community Church of Cincinnati, was deposed from the ministry by the Cincinnati Presbytery in after he refused to pay the portion of his income taxes that would go for military spending.
Meeting in Biloxi, Miss., the denomination’s highest governing body, the General Assembly, formally confessed error in removing McCrackin from the ministry and endorsed an action taken in by the Presbytery of Cincinnati restoring him to clergy status.
The attempts to get the Mennonite Church to take risks on behalf of war tax resisters got the goat of of Elmer S. Yoder, who wrote the following for the issue — again suggesting the Peace Tax Fund as a way of sidelining the problem:
The concluding appeal by a delegate at Purdue to “respect the individual conscience” in regard to church institutions not withholding “war taxes” failed to address a key question.
The appeal sounded simple and persuasive, on the surface, but it is much more complex and far-reaching.
Whose conscience is to be respected?
The conscience of the individual employee of an institution or the collective conscience of a board of directors, or perhaps even General Assembly?
The corporation is a legal entity and owes its continued existence to statutory provisions.
The centralized management of the corporation can and does express the collective conscience of the institution.
Our major church institutions are incorporated and directed by boards.
The directors have been charged with the optimum operation of the institutions.
The institutions (corporations) are faced with options different from those of an individual in respect to a refusal to pay the tax in question.
An individual refusing to pay what he considers is the war tax would be confronted by an agency of the government.
The result might be the placing of some financial restrictions upon him, or additional legal action, such as seizure of property, or in extreme cases, imprisonment.
Noncompliance by a church corporation would almost certainly result in governmental measures amounting to a substantial loss of freedom.
This loss could well include its legal base to perform the objectives and purposes included in its charter and given by the Mennonite Church.
An individual Christian respecting the conscience of a war-tax resister suffers no detrimental consequences legally.
A trustee of a church institution is in a completely different situation.
By consenting with fellow trustees not to withhold the tax in question, he and the trustees are inviting various restrictions on the institution via legal action.
Legal alternatives of not withholding the war tax have been researched thoroughly by the General Conference Mennonite Church, without finding any legal recourse.
This means that trustees of church institutions would engage in civil disobedience by not withholding from any employee’s salary the part of the tax he protests, but in addition, would push the institution into a morass of legal restrictions and extended court procedures that would severely hamper the operation of the institution or drain its resources through protracted legal fees.
This is not a plea to act only on the basis of potential consequences.
The call to faithfulness supersedes consequences.
But faithfulness in great diversity of understanding, such as the war tax issue and the legal consequences, is difficult to achieve.
It is not in the interests of brotherhood to create or foster an institutional versus individual conflict, but neither is it proper or ethical to evade the issue of an institutional conscience.
In church institutions that conscience is molded by the larger brotherhood and those directly charged for the operation of the institutions — the trustees.
Nearly 100 years ago, the Mennonite Church began forming institutions (corporations) to carry out more effectively its tasks of nurture, education, and evangelism.
The institutions have served well and have contributed in many ways to the mission of the Mennonite Church.
Shall this servant role of the institutions continue?
Trustees of the institutions can, by openly defying the law over an issue on which such a diversity of opinion exists within the Mennonite Church, shackle the institutions, rather than performing as stewards.
Perhaps the time is coming, in the United States, when the church may again need to preach, to teach, and to evangelize without the legal entity of the corporation.
Perhaps there again will be the time for the fabled school with the professor on one end of a log and the student on the other.
The church corporation, which makes possible educating larger numbers, would be conspicuously absent, because of legal ramifications.
But, in my opinion, that time is not yet.
Perhaps, rather than urging a course of action which would eventually eliminate faculty and staff positions in the institutions, the energies and efforts devoted to this should be channeled into making possible a legal alternative, such as the Peace Tax Fund.
Devoting one’s energies to making it possible for larger numbers to step out and take advantage of the Peace Tax Fund certainly would be preferred to potentially reducing the church institutions into ineffectiveness.
The “New Call to Peacemaking” initiative was still active, but seemed to be deemphasizing war tax resistance.
It is not until the penultimate paragraph of this story that war tax issues are mentioned:
Some of New Call’s limited resources do go to renewing the vision within the historic peace churches.
In a conference will be cosponsored with the Quaker War Tax Concerns Committee on the challenge to church organizations from employees requesting their federal taxes not be withheld so they can exercise their conscience in relation to war taxes.
Thank you for sharing Ike Glick’s courageous decision of conscience to resign from a company that might be involved in military contracts ().
All of us in North America are inextricably involved in an economy addicted to huge military expenditures.
Ike’s conscience challenges especially all of us who think that the taxes we pay to build weapons of war are something for which we have no responsibility.
Our stewardship teachings tell us it is God’s money.
How we use that resource surely must be a matter of conscience as much as the way we use our God-given talents in our occupations.
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…
This is the thirtieth 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 General Assembly
would hold a long-overdue vote on whether or not to support war tax resistance
as an institution. You’ll have to scroll down to see how that turned out.
A Japanese court has ruled against 22 military tax resisters, including
Mennonite pastor Michio Ohno. The ruling by the Tokyo District Court came
recently after nearly eight years of litigation. The case had its origin after
the bank accounts of Ohno and another person were attached by the government
because they didn’t pay their taxes. For reasons of conscience, the 22 object
to paying the portion of their taxes that is used for military purposes. The
negative ruling does not discourage them, however. “We believe it is this type
of lawsuit which, repeated a thousand times, will open the way to legalize
conscientious objection to military taxation in Japan,” said Ohno.
A “Taxes for Peace” fund is again being set up by Mennonite Central Committee
U.S. Peace Section.
It is for people who withhold war taxes to give money for a peaceful purpose.
It is a symbolic action and not a legal alternative to paying the tax.
’s fund will be divided between National
Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund and Christian Peacemaker Teams. More information
about the fund is available from
MCC
U.S. Peace Section…
As the general assembly loomed, a series of letters to the editor concerning
war tax resistance hit the Gospel Herald pages in
:
Krabill felt that war tax resisters were twisting themselves in knots trying to explain away scriptural passages that on their clear facial reading counseled taxpaying.
Peachey explained why she thought war tax resistance was worth taking seriously (this is the same commentary as appeared in The Mennonite and that I excerpted here).
Nafziger thought that Krabill wasn’t discerning the clear obvious meaning of the bible so much as offering a distorted version of it in order to justify paying war taxes.
Do Mennonites need more time to study the tax withholding issue or more
courage? Will the Mennonite Church be known as a “historic peace church” 50
years from now? These and other questions came to mind as I read “General
Board Makes Cautious Preparation for Normal
”…
General Assembly actions in recent years have repeatedly affirmed tax
resistance, based on Christian conscience, as a valid part of our peace
witness. We see these actions not as liberal trends but rather a needed
return to New Testament teachings: to the life, nonviolent teachings, and
spirit of Jesus and to Anabaptist understandings of church and state
separation, roles, and loyalties.
Today military technologies are more important than personnel and therefore
the drafting of our dollars for war and preparation for war is a crucial
matter. The central issue in the earlier General Board recommendation, in my
perspective, was not tax resistance per se but whether the Mennonite Church
is ready to respect and support the consciences of those who request that
their taxes for military purposes not be withheld.
Recently, a young man named Jose was returning to his house in the
Philippines. Government soldiers, who later claimed Jose was out after
curfew, shot this defenseless youth, leaving him with a serious leg injury.
They refused him treatment for enough days that gangrene claimed his lower
leg. When we finally met Jose in the hospital, the lad needed to find blood
for his leg amputation.
Weekly, in our work with Mennonite Central Committee, we hear stories of
global brothers and sisters who are being maimed or killed with weapons of
war, many of them supplied by the American government. Therefore, when we
are faced with the turning over of our income to the Internal Revenue
Service for supplying these coffers of war, it feels to us that to do so
willingly would be the equivalent of signing the death warrant for innocent
friends.
We do not expect that everyone in the Mennonite Church will share these deep
convictions of ours. We believe that many Mennonites have wrestled with this
issue in honesty and prayer and have come to different conclusions from our
own.
Still, we are very saddened when we learn in Gospel
Herald that Mennonite Church General Board chose to back away from
recommending to General Assembly that the convictions of church
institutional employees who object to paying military taxes shall be honored
by their employers. The action leaves us feeling lonely.
What is the church telling us? Are our convictions out of place in our
church? Are we considered stubborn people who refuse to see the truth that
the church identifies? Is the church asking us to give up these deeply held
convictions? We don’t know. We sincerely value the counsel of the church
community. And yet somehow we can’t seem to shut off our (misguided?)
consciences on this matter.
Linda Peachey in “Agonizing Over War Taxes”… makes a good argument for
withholding war taxes. However, there is another angle from which to view
the issue of not paying war taxes. The primary Scripture cited in the debate
is Matthew 22:15–22 (and parallels). If we would apply a little historical
and political exegesis to this passage, we would have to ask ourselves how
we could apply Jesus’ response to ourselves.
For instance, we are not a nation or a people held captive under a foreign
ruler, such as Palestine was during the time of the Roman Empire. Also, we
are not presently ruled by a monarch; we realistically have no “caesar” over
us. If there is a caesar, so to speak, then we are caesar.
In the United States, our constitution begins by naming our caesar, “We the
people,” and Abraham Lincoln elaborated that phrase from our preamble by
claiming that our government essentially is and must remain a “government of
the people, by the people, for the people.”
In our form of democracy, we have no absolute authority set over us. What we
do have is public servants set under us. We, as responsible citizens, are
the authority of this nation. If our nation blunders and falls, the blame is
on us, not merely on those whom we have elected.
Those of us who withhold a portion of our tax are trying to re-orient our
national priorities. While what we do is considered to be illegal, we are
breaking a law of the people (willing to take responsibility for our
actions), but we are not breaking a law against caesar. What we are
trying to do is give to our government (ourselves) what it needs to function
as a force for order, a system for providing for the needs of all, and as a
body of law to carry out justice. (See Jacob Hutter’s and Menno Simons’
writings in Plots and Excuses and Foundations,
respectively.)
We do not all agree on the question of nonpayment of taxes for military
purposes… But shouldn’t we all be asking whether an agency of our church
should withhold taxes for employees who have a conscience against payment of
the military portion? Should a peace church agency side with the state
against the conscience of its own members? And is that consistent when the
church is on record supporting the conscientious action of its members in
nonpayment? It would seem appropriate for us to arrive at a plan whereby the
request of employees be respected and taxes for military purposes not be
withheld by church agencies.
We’ve known since childhood the stories of God’s people in the Old and New
Testaments who said to government and religious authorities, “I can’t do
that,” or “You can’t do that,” or “We can’t do that,” and then took the
awful consequences. Will we rouse from our easy “Christianity” and recognize
when the time has come for us to say such words — to obey God rather than
man and take the consequences?
As for the recommendation on military tax withholding, the board concluded
after consulting the district conferences that the recommendation had to be
rewritten. The sequence of events was as follows.
At Purdue , General Board was asked by General
Assembly to consult the church on the question of the conscientious objection
to the payment of military taxes, particularly the withholding of such taxes
by church institutions for persons who objected to paying them.
In , General Board approved a
statement for presentation to General Assembly at Normal
which included the recommendation that the
convictions of church institutional employees who object to paying military
taxes shall be honored by their employers.
During , district
conferences were contacted by General Board to seek their counsel on the
proposed statement. Responses were mixed. Three conferences supported the
proposal for presentation to General Assembly. Four conferences did not
support it. Eight supported the statement with modifications or cautions.
Executive Secretary James Lapp reported to the board that “I perceive in
general there is no broad consensus of support for the proposed stance of the
General Board.”
Accordingly the board saw it as necessary to prepare a drastically revised
proposal. Gone from this proposal was any reference to illegal action such as
a church institution refusing to collect military taxes from those
conscientiously opposed to paying them. Instead the statement which is to
appear in the “workbook” prepared for General Assembly delegates calls for
“study of the church/state issues raised by the collection of taxes by church
agencies” and for support of the Peace Tax Fund options being called for in
both the U.S. and
Canada.
Military taxes for church employees is a particularly difficult subject. This
issue has been knocking around for several years already. As I reported on
, the General Board at its last
meeting passed a much less decisive proposal than expected. This revision was
made after consultations with district conferences. If anyone wishes to press
for the church to take a radical position on this issue, it will be necessary
to make that point clear since the General Board received mixed signals in
consultations with the conferences.
The General Board had a last chance to tangle with the issue
:
The Mennonite Church General Board held a
prior to Normal
. No major issues were resolved in this brief
meeting. Much of the activity involved receiving reports and doing final work
on statements to be presented to General Assembly.
Among the reports being prepared for the assembly was one related to the
payment of war taxes. This followed an action of Purdue
which had called for the board to study this
issue and report to Normal . There had been a
change of stance after consultation with the district conferences.
In , the board had drafted a
proposal which included a recommendation to respect the consciences of
employees of church organizations who do not wish to have the military portion
of their income tax deducted from their paychecks. By
this proposal was withdrawn and the
emphasis was rather on study of the issue and support of the Peace Tax Fund.
On , the board made final revisions
on this statement for presentation to Normal .
And then the General Assembly met and pushed back against the Board’s
reluctance:
The conference delegations caucused several times during the debate about
war-tax resistance. Here Dave Miller makes a point to his fellow delegates
from Indiana-Michigan Conference.
Merger with a sister denomination and illegal support for war-tax resisters
became a distinct possibility following two crucial secret-ballot votes by the
Mennonite Church General Assembly delegates during Normal
. The merger vote was decisive — 86
percent — and there were no surprises. But the tax vote was close — 59
percent — and was the result of an unexpected turnaround on the General
Assembly floor.
Ruth Brunk Stoltzfus of Virginia Conference calls for more courage instead of
more study on the matter of tax-withholding.
The war-tax issue proved to be a much thornier and more complex matter. It all
started about 10 years ago when employees of Mennonite Church
agencies and schools began requesting that taxes not be
withheld from their paychecks so they could refuse to pay the
portion of their federal income taxes (about half) that is used by the
U.S.
government for military purposes. The
employees said they are conscientious objectors
to military taxes in the same way their fathers and
grandfathers were conscientious objectors to
military service in times of conscription.
The agencies and schools would break the law if they honored their employees’
request. Caught between their employees’ consciences and the government’s
requirements, the agencies and schools appealed to General Board for help.
What followed was years of study and discussion.
Finally, in , General Board members
voted to recommend to General Assembly that church agencies and schools be
permitted to honor the requests of employees who want to resist war taxes. The
General Board action then went to district conferences for their response. The
response was mixed and generally cautious, so General Board watered down the
recommendation at its meeting. By
the time of its meeting the day before the start of Normal
, however, General Board put some teeth back
into the document, but it was still a weakened form of the original version.
When General Assembly took up the issue, several delegates jumped up to scold
General Board for its indecisiveness. “General Board has backed off on this
issue, and that makes me sad and angry,” said Bob Hartzler of Allegheny
Conference. “General Board must exercise leadership on this and not just
gather consensus.” He then asked that the original recommendation be restored.
After more debate and two time-outs for district conference caucuses, the
delegates agreed to vote separately on the three sections of the revised
recommendation and then on the “heart” of the original version, as requested
by Hartzler. The three sections were approved by unanimous or near-unanimous
hand votes.
The revised document calls for (1) further study of the war-tax issue, (2)
financial and other support for the peace-tax fund options being proposed in
the U.S. Congress
and the Canadian Parliament, and (3) moral and financial support for war-tax
resisters.
Action on the heart of the original version, giving agencies and schools
permission to not withhold taxes when requested, was tabled until later in the
week. When the issue came up again,
GC general
secretary Vern Preheim was present to report on his denomination’s experience
since it took a similar action in . Though
the U.S. Internal
Revenue Service contacted the
GC leaders
early on to confirm the action and warn them about the consequences, to date
IRS
has not moved against the
GC Church.
The district conferences then caucused, and when debate resumed, many of the
speakers reported on the general feelings of their conference delegations. “We
stand in a long line of saints who have faced decisions like this, starting
with the women who illegally hid baby Moses,” said Weldon Nisly of Ohio
Conference. Del Glick of Indiana-Michigan Conference reported that several
people in his delegation had changed their minds and were now prepared to vote
yes. “We want to take a stand,” he said. “It will probably take more courage
to face our congregations than to face the government!” Brent Foster then
announced the support of Afro-American Mennonite Association.
Ron Schertz, a lawyer who is a board member of Mennonite Board of Missions,
offered one of the few opposing comments. He warned that approval of the
document would get in the way of
MBM’s
main mission and jeopardize its tax-exempt status.
When the votes were counted, the resurrected war-tax recommendation passed
142-100. Moderator-Elect George Brunk Ⅲ commented that the vote is not a
decisive mandate for General Board but that it does represent “some momentum
on this question.” He said General Board “will have to move with due caution”
and that “we’ll have to see if a greater sense of consensus emerges in the
coming biennium.”
Robert Hartzler of Allegheny Conference introduces an amendment that put
teeth back into the war-tax recommendation.
Special-interest activities abounded. Vigorous
discussion marked a session entitled “Should the
Church Be Caesar’s Tax Collector?”
This was followed by the General
Board meeting, at which the probably somewhat shocked Board would
have to determine how (or whether) to put the Assembly’s
mandate into practice. It seemed to reach the conclusion that since
it could not identify any employees who were currently
requesting the Church to stop withholding war taxes from
their salaries, they could safely
kick the can down the road a few years further:
Another major agenda item for General Board was follow-up work on the military
tax action by General Assembly at Normal . After years of study and debate, the General Assembly delegates
voted to permit denominational agencies and schools to honor — illegally — the
request of employees who, for conscience’ sake, don’t want taxes withheld from
their paychecks. This is so they can refuse to pay the portion that is used
for the military.
The General Assembly vote was close (59 percent) and no employees are
currently requesting non-withholding, so the General Board members agreed to
proceed with caution. But they also agreed that regardless of what the
agencies and schools do and regardless of whether General Board itself has
employees who request non-withholding, they would take a clear stand on
military taxes and submit another recommendation to the next General Assembly
sessions in .
Meanwhile, General Board will plan a major consultation on military taxes for
and prepare a study guide to be
ready by then. Conferences and congregations will then be encouraged to study
the issue and report to General Board.
This is the thirty-first in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it was reported in back issues of Gospel Herald, journal of the (Old) Mennonite Church.
General Board Follies
So if you remember from our last episode, the board of the Mennonite Church was dragging its feet about supporting employees who did not want war taxes withheld from their paychecks.
Then the whole Church, in its General Assembly, forced their hand by voting to honor the requests of such employees.
But apparently the board still saw that as advisory and not binding, because
they kept right on dragging their feet:
After several years of study and discussion, the Mennonite Church General Board brought the military tax question to a vote — and tabled it.
Normal attenders will recall that a majority of General Assembly delegates voted to “support” the efforts of church board employees who do not wish their taxes deducted so that they can deal with the government in regard to military taxes.
The issue came back to the General Board as such issues will and it was given
extended attention at the spring meeting which convened at Kalona (Iowa)
Mennonite Church, .
An early straw vote strongly favored going ahead, but when decision time came,
a majority voted to table the motion.
As presented, the motion called for agreeing “in principle” to honor requests of employees who ask that their income tax not be withheld.
However, such approval was intended to be reviewed in the session of the board after a congregational study process which is now being initiated.
No taxes were to be withheld prior to .
Motion to table, it was suggested, was related to the pending congregational
study process. The board was concerned not to prejudice the case before the
study process. Also there was concern that the possible consequences of such
withholding be better understood. What action might the government take toward
board officers?
Moderator George Brunk Ⅲ and Executive Secretary James Lapp indicated that they were not unhappy about the motion to postpone action. “Some of us thought ‘in principle’ could be helpful in the study process,” said Brunk. “The board position has been in the direction of the proposed motion,” he continued. “But there are different ways to capture this.”
Yet another Military Tax Consultation was held to allow for more jaw-exercise and to cover for the delay:
Mennonite Church General Board is holding a Military Tax Consultation in response to actions taken by General Assembly at Normal .
It will be held at Goshen College.
Mennonite Church conferences are invited to send teams of persons to the event.
Since General Assembly called for “continued study of issues raised by taxation for military purposes,” General Board is currently preparing a study guide for use by congregations.
It is being prepared under the direction of Robert Hull and will be ready in time for the consultation.
The most controversial — and potentially illegal — action taken by General Assembly was its permission to denominational agencies and schools to honor the request of employees who don’t want taxes withheld from their paychecks so they can refuse to pay the portion (about half) that goes to the military.
More information about the consultation is available from General Board…
Ray Gingerich talks about tax resistance during the small-group discussion
time.
Daniel Hertzler reported on the consultation:
Wilma Gingerich (left) and Leanna Rhodes share their experiences in refusing
to pay the military portion of their taxes.
Some 30 people met at Goshen College, , for a “Consultation on Military Tax Withholding.” The military tax question has been on Mennonite Church agenda , General Board executive secretary James Lapp told the group.
But now it has become focused on the issue of “tax withholding” by church agencies for people who wish to deal with the Internal Revenue Service on their own.
Avowed purpose of the consultation was to introduce a study guide, “As
Conscience and the Church Shall Lead,” being prepared for use in
congregations. To this end Marlene Kropf of Mennonite Board of Congregational
Ministries led the group in an educational experience.
In the beginning, and alternatively throughout, there was story telling.
Military-tax resisters told how they got into it.
All referred to a variety of spiritual influences and life-changing experiences.
Seven persons told personal stories.
Among them was Dan Hunsberger of Hesston College, who worked one summer for a contractor without taxes withheld and got a tax bill for $1,700. “I considered this use of money wrong, not only from a peace standpoint, but also bad business.”
David Weaver, a teacher at Central Christian High School, grew up in a family
that eschewed political involvement. But in
he went on a student tour to the Middle East and spent some time on the West
Bank of the Jordan River, the home of persecuted Palestinians. Then, in
, he wrote a paper on the issue of war taxes
and in the same year he went to Nicaragua with Witness for Peace. “I saw the
Nicaraguan people and looked into their eyes,” he said. That year he decided
to withhold 55 percent of his income taxes.
“At the beginning I felt very heavy about this.
In November when they came and took money from my account, it was like a burden was lifted.
What really can they do to harm me?
We’re in the world for a short life.
There are little things we can do.
This doesn’t mean my hands are clean.
But it is a small action.”
Ray and Wilma Gingerich from Harrisonburg,
Va., gave a joint report
which recounted a decades-long, growing concern over the issue of war taxes.
When they first became aware of the issue, they had no income taxes to pay.
But by they finally had enough income to be
taxed and began to withhold 50 to 59 percent. “Our son Andre refused to
register under Carter,” they said. “We saw some relation between this and
middle-aged people not paying for war. We cannot continue to pay taxes while
applauding our young who resist the draft.”
Ray expressed concern that Mennonite Church leaders have not been more forthright about the issue. “We need to try to draw our leaders into the discussion.
Leaders generally get their authority from the people, not from the poor or the Bible.
In some respects, tax resisters must lead the leaders.”
Among the leaders present was Paul Gingrich, president of Mennonite Board of
Missions. He acknowledged that
MBM
first faced this issue , when
John and Sandra Drescher-Lehman asked that their taxes not be withheld. The
MBM
board of directors is divided. Some threaten to resign either way.
But Gingrich concludes that some corporate action needs to be taken as an object lesson, a parable so that younger Mennonites may learn firsthand about resisting militarism. “We have a generation that only hears the stories of those resisting World Wars Ⅰ and Ⅱ and the Korean conflict,” he said. “The institution can become a symbol.
In the action is a tremendous teaching moment.”
He continued, “In every generation we need to discover the issue on which we
will not compromise. For what will we be ready to die? Is this the place to
stand? Is this the way to stand? If an institution takes such an action, it
may be that the institution will not survive. But maybe that is not the most
important thing.”
No clear-cut answer to Gingrich came out of the consultation.
But from small-group settings a cautious consensus emerged.
Most groups encouraged church agencies to respect the consciences of persons who do not wish their taxes deducted by the agency, even though such honoring would involve the agency in illegal action.
Several groups pointed out, however, that there are ways for persons to gain
access to enough tax money to make a symbolic protest without implicating
their agency in illegal action. It was urged that they explore these first.
James Lapp, who called the consultation, and Marlene Kropf, director of the educational experience, both expressed satisfaction with the session. “We need to recognize that there is a complex set of issues here,” said Lapp. “Our goal is to help people to see that there is more than one way to be faithful.”
Although I have not been involved in the issue, I believe the issue of military tax deductions of church employees has been around for at least a decade.
I am concerned about the continued reluctance of General Board to implement the will of General Assembly to support church board employees who as a matter of conscience do not wish to have their taxes deducted.
As reported in “General Board Tables Military Tax Question”… the eagerness
with which the board embraces broad “visions” while avoiding concrete actions
is striking. Whatever the possible actions of the government toward board
officers if tax withholding is stopped, it would surely be mild in contrast to
the price paid by Mennonite leaders during World War Ⅰ who refused to
financially support the war effort. “A Pastor Pays a Price for Peace” in the
same issue of Gospel Herald is an illustration.
[See ♇ 1 September 2018]
Discussion of visions is fine, but no vision is more catching than one demonstrated through faithful action.
My sympathies are with the General Board employees who have patiently gone through the lengthy process required to have their concerns embraced by General Assembly, only to have the issue kicked back into a “study process” by General Board.
The board’s apparent relief at being able to postpone action on this issue
should be juxtaposed with Moderator George Brunk Ⅲ’s concern stated in his
“state of the Mennonite Church” address that “We are not facing conflict as a
people of God. The question of our faithfulness calls for eternal vigilance.”
Daniel Hertzler tried to put the whole thing in context with a editorial:
The issue of paying military taxes has been knocking about in the Mennonite Church for close to a generation.
At the “Consultation on Military Tax Withholding” (Goshen College, ) it was reported that John Howard Yoder was writing about this already in .
Perhaps these writings were not published. The earliest material on this
subject which I could find in the Gospel Herald was
“Dare We Pay Taxes for War?” by John Drescher ().
I found this editorial with help from Swartley and Dyck’s Annotated
Bibliography of Mennonite Writings on War and Peace:
(Herald Press,
). This book has 16 pages on the topic “War
Tax Resistance,” so the subject has clearly been one of concern among us. Some
of the references go back into , but
not in the Gospel Herald.
Drescher’s editorial indicates that concern about the issue arose during Mennonite General Conference and that “delegates asked for direction on the matter of paying taxes designated for war purposes.” A resolution was passed calling for “a fresh study of the biblical teaching”!
Has anything changed among us in 23 years?
At the Goshen consultation I listened to Willard Swartley declaim on Romans
13:1–7, and I suddenly got a clue as to why this issue keeps grinding on with
no resolution in sight. “Pay all of them their dues,” writes Paul, regarding
the authorities, “taxes to whom taxes are due…”
So there it is.
If Paul wrote to the Romans that they should pay their taxes, why do modern Mennonites sit around debating whether they may pay the military part of their taxes?
We are known as people of the Bible.
Isn’t the Bible plain enough?
Not so fast. At Goshen, Willard Swartley presented a 12-point outline entitled
“Method for Bible Study.” The first three points were entitled “Observation:
What does the Bible say?” The second five he captioned
“Meaning: What is the text saying?’ The final four he called
“Significance: What says the text?” Beyond these I think the most
important thing he said was that Romans 13:1–7 should be interpreted as part
of a longer unit in the letter (certainly a basic Bible study principle) and
that probably there was a local controversy in Rome over the payment of
specific taxes. Paul’s counsel to the Romans was to pay these specific taxes
and was not intended as a general principle, regarding all taxes in all times
and all places.
Willard pointed out that the New Testament has a number of normative texts on this subject.
He mentioned the following: Colossians 2:15; Ephesians 1:19–23; 3:10; 1 Peter 3:22; 1 Corinthians 15:24–26; Romans 8:35–39; Ephesians 6:12–20.
Romans 13, he said, should be interpreted in dialogue with this longer stream of texts.
In the end, said Willard, there is “ambiguity in the biblical tradition over the place of authorities: respect for their responsibility for order versus awareness that they represent evil.” In other words, by simply paying taxes without thinking, we may be selling out.
Two others at Goshen discussed the issue from a theoretical standpoint: ethics
professor J.R. Burkholder and Pastor John F. Murray. Murray proposed that the
answer to the war tax problem is to be found in generous giving to the church.
Since in the U.S.
one can contribute up to 50 percent of one’s income, or $50,000, he proposed
that reducing our income through contributions is a more effective response
than tax resistance. Further, he pointed out, anyone who saves money and puts
it in the bank is supporting the military just as much as the person who pays
taxes. “When we give only 5 percent of our income as a denomination, we are
not faithful.”
Burkholder stressed the reality of ambiguities. “We will have to learn to live with pluralism in the Mennonite Church,” he asserted. “We do not have the same position on war taxes.”
Clearly we do not. And as James Rhodes responded to Burkholder, “There is
danger in an emphasis on ambiguity of diluting our basic foundation of
biblical obedience.”
So it is important that we not give up just because we come with different perspectives on the issue.
It is urgent that those with different points of view listen to each other under God and under the Scriptures.
We have no other place to go.
In response to your editorial, “Why is it so Hard to Get to the Bottom of the War-Tax Question?”… and the news article piece on the war-tax consultation in the same issue, let me note the following: Why is it that the Mennonite Church can so easily reach clarity that homosexuality is a sin and ban any dialogue whatsoever with gay members of our community but yet find the war-tax issue “contains a complex set of issues” and that it is “filled with ambiguities”?
Why must we accept pluralism and ambiguity on this issue when we can so
easily reach apparent consensus on the gay question? Is this not rather
self-serving and hypocritical, for on the one hand our church fathers tell
us we must accept differing biblical interpretations, pluralism, and
ambiguity on war taxes but somehow the gay issue is crystal clear!
It seems to me that there is no ambiguity, for as you note, Romans 13 is not intended as a general principle that we must pay all taxes to government.
Further the whole text seems to make clear that we must clarify our loyalties and choose whom we serve, God or Caesar.
Further it seems clear that if we follow the way of peace, we can have no part in allowing our money to pay for killing and war.
If there is room for ambiguity I think it is more apparent on the gay question.
On war taxes it seems clear.
Perhaps our leaders wish to keep it plural, for only a minority can support
our historic peace witness these days, while they know that pluralism is
unacceptable for the gay question given the majority in our community who
are convinced that homosexuality is sin. Wake up, leaders, and be fair! You
can’t have it both ways. Either we seek clear standards and follow them or
we become Unitarians or Quakers, where everything is ambiguous.
Schultz started off with the typical Render-unto-Caesar / after all Rome
was a militaristic government / Jesus never complained about paying taxes
line. Then he finished off with the “silent majority” gambit:
I urge all of those conservative Mennonites who usually remain silent to “send the General Board a message” — mainly, not to be tempted into politicking with the liberal pacifist elements, and to remain within the boundaries of biblical nonresistance.
If there are those who want to withhold taxes, let them do it without having the actions of the General Board as a shield.
“Why Is It So Hard to Get to the Bottom of the War Tax Question?”… Maybe because there is no bottom — only a bottomless chasm between two irreconcilable views.
In my own imagination I see the story told in Matthew 22 in modem “dress.”
The Pharisee digs through the pockets of his custom-tailored suit. From a
jumble of temple contribution receipts and credit cards (Pharisee-controlled
banks) he produces a $50 bill.
“Whose portrait is on that bill?”
“General and President Ulysses S. Grant.”
“If you deal in portraits of deceased generals and presidents, you owe a commission to those who occupy their offices today.
But don’t forget that you owe even more to God.”
Again, we know that Caesar does not divide his tax collections between two
baskets labeled “war” and “peace.” It all goes into one basket, and then is
divided out as Caesar wishes. And so, if 50 percent (or whatever) goes for
“war,” then 50 percent of anything that an individual deposits into
the basket goes for “war.” The persons who pay 50 percent of their taxes are
in fact paying half of their “war” tax and half of their “peace” tax.
I admire those who for conscience’ sake voluntarily live at the “poverty” line so that they do not owe the tax that they object to paying.
They have adjusted their lifestyle to put their (lack of) money where their “mouth” is.
I’m not willing to do that — a character flaw, perhaps, but one that I seem to share with many others.
Is it wrong to want to share in at least part of the standard USA lifestyle without paying for Caesar’s expenses in maintaining conditions that promote this lifestyle?
Do we want a “free lunch”? And, of course, Caesar’s money can do God’s work,
or so we are told by those responsible for keeping church agencies and
institutions in the black. Those who have the spirit of generosity also need
something to be generous with. And Caesar pays a part of the gift.
If we deal in portraits of deceased generals and presidents, what do we owe to those who occupy their offices today?
Over a number of years I have read articles, pro and con, on the war-tax issue.
Your editorial on the same subject has rekindled my interest.
A large percentage of the arguments have been of a theological or theoretical nature.
However, I have not seen the following point of view mentioned.
Many of us in the Mennonite Church are no longer independent farmers and/or
businessmen or self-employed.
(At age 48 I have witnessed this transition.) Therefore, we have little or no control over the deductions from our pay checks.
No company, business, or public institution that I know of would seriously consider a request not to withhold a certain percent of taxes due.
Some firms that are operated by Christians may grant us their understanding and be sympathetic in attitude, but simply are not willing to get into the legal and business ramifications of a tax fight with the federal government.
Consequently, the war-tax issue, while perhaps valid, is to many simply a
moot point lingering in a gray mist on the edge of our consciousness. Could
this be why the General Assembly vote on
the General Board war-tax recommendation went 142 for and 100 against?
For me, if the federal government would institute a special, separate, extra-budget war tax (as done in the American Revolution, for example), that is a horse of a different color.
I would try to resist in some way as my ancestors collectively did in Lancaster County, Pa., in the Revolutionary times.
Having written my Indiana senators and representative on the war-tax issue, I see no change in federal tax regulations to be soon in coming.
The issue announced that if “continued study” was the order of the day, the Mennonite Church General Board was equipped:
Study guide on military tax withholding from Mennonite Publishing House.
Prepared at the request of Mennonite Church General Board, it is designed to facilitate discussion of the General Assembly request for “continued study of issues raised by taxation for military purposes.” It is entitled As Conscience and the Church Shall Lead.
A response form is provided so that Sunday school classes, small groups, and individuals may provide feedback.
Question was also raised about the Normal decision regarding war taxes.
Board members noted a lack of clarity on what the decision meant.
Slightly more than half the delegates had agreed that churchwide agencies need not withhold the military portion of taxes for employees who request this.
Moderator George Brunk Ⅲ noted the decision is valid but that it can be reconsidered following a churchwide study on war taxes currently underway.
[T]he Mennonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church General Boards take the following action:
That the General Boards express deep concern about and opposition to the
military buildup and the growing threat of war in the Persian Gulf, reaffirm
their biblical understanding that the will of God is for humankind to live in
peace and harmony and that war and militarism are counter to God’s intentions,
and call our congregations to the following:
To confess our own complicity and selfishness in utilizing more than our share of the world’s supply of oil and other resources and for our limited concern for long-standing injustices in the Middle East, and also to confess and reexamine our complicity in paying for the military buildup through our taxes.
They focused on the question of withholding war taxes for their employees. delegates to Mennonite General Assembly had authorized churchwide boards to honor requests of employees not to withhold the military portion of their income taxes; final decision was up to each board.
Though it had been previously discussed in several meetings, General Board had made no decision on the issue.
Nor did it come easy this time. Board members raised questions about their
financial liability. They acknowledged the burden of leadership: other
churchwide boards were awaiting the General Board decision for help with their
own.
In the end General Board agreed “to honor the request of an employee who for conscience’ sake requests that the military portion of his or her federal income tax not be withheld.” But they hedged.
They made the action subject “to development of acceptable policies for implementation approved by the board.”
Miscellany
There was also plenty of content around this time that wasn’t directly prompted by the Mennonite Church board’s inaction.
For example, there was a series of letters-to-the-editor
debating war tax resistance. Here are a pair of them, side-by-side:
Why I willingly pay my taxes
While paying taxes may be an economic burden to some, may be a question of
conscience to others, and may be an accounting nightmare for many more, I
willingly pay my taxes. Why?
It is a matter of submission.
“Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no
authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.
Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.” ―Romans
13:1–2
I am called to not only submit to God and to submit to my church leaders
but also to submit to my civil authorities.
The only time that I can refuse to obey the governing authority is when God’s law requires me to
do otherwise.
It is a matter of conscience.
“You must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’
sake.
For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing.
Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs,
fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.” ―Romans 13:5–7
For me the payment of taxes is not so much an attempt to avoid
penalties, court orders, or imprisonment but it is a matter of Christian
conscience.
It is a matter of integrity.
“ ‘Tell us, therefore, what do You think? Is it lawful to pay taxes to
Caesar, or not?’ But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, ‘Why do you test Me, you hypocrites?
Show Me the tax money.’ So they brought Him a denarius.
And He said to them, ‘Whose image and inscription is this?’ They said to Him, ‘Caesar’s.’ And He said to them, ‘Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are
God’s.’ ” ―Matthew 22:17–21
I consider firstfruits tithing to be an important dimension of Christian
living.
However, should I render unto God the things that are God’s by tithing through my local church but fail to render to Caesar that which belongs to Caesar by paying my taxes, only one part of Jesus’ instruction would be fulfilled.
To be a person of integrity requires me
to both practice firstfruits tithing and to pay my taxes.
It is a matter of honesty.
“You shall not steal.” ―Exodus 20:15
To steal is to take that which belongs to someone.
The Israelites were told by the prophet Malachi that they had robbed God.
The problem was not a pilfering of the temple storehouse, but rather a withholding of tithes and offerings.
To keep back a portion of tax dollars that the Internal Revenue Service determines are due to my government would, in my opinion, be a form of stealing.
To be a person of honesty requires me
to pay my taxes in full.
It is a matter of credibility.
“Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s
sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good.
For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men — as free, yet not using your liberty as a cloak for vice, but as servants of God.” ―1 Peter
2:13–16
Admittedly, I have concern about some aspects of the federal budget.
Reports of mismanagement, fraud, and excessive deficit spending are certainly not consistent with my understanding of fiscal responsibility.
However, should I withhold a portion of my taxes as a means of protest when the Scripture specifically calls for the payment of such would be to lose my credibility and Christian witness.
To have credibility in a world of many critics of the gospel, I must be careful to “do good” — in
this case, to pay my taxes in full.
―Robert D. Wengerd, Coshocton, Ohio
In response to “Why I Willingly Pay My Taxes”…, I feel I must prayerfully challenge the author’s unquestioning willingness to pay all taxes while he in no way addresses the tax issue as it pertains to the military budget.
In fact, the author’s own reasons for paying taxes are some of the same reasons I can no longer pay the portion of tax that finances the war machine.
The first point being a matter of submission, the author concludes that the
only time he can refuse to obey the governing authority is when God’s law
requires him to do otherwise. The law of God is that we love God with all
our heart, soul, and mind, and love our neighbor as ourselves. How can I
love my neighbor if I willingly pay for his murder? Hitler was able to do as
much evil as he did because so many Christians submitted to human authority
rather than God’s authority.
Second, it is a matter of conscience.
I willingly and conscientiously give taxes, customs, fear, and honor to whom they are due (Rom. 14:5–7), but only as I can do so with a clear conscience before God.
To willingly contribute to a system of oppression and murder under any nation’s flag is in conflict with what God calls me to do.
Third, it is a matter of integrity. To say that our firstfruits tithing goes
to God and our taxes go to Caesar is to miss the point of what Jesus says in
Matthew 22:17–21. Such an understanding puts God and Caesar on equal footing
as though each is due equal allegiance. To be a person of integrity, I must
offer all I have to God first, including my awareness of how my tax dollars
are spent. I cannot with integrity refuse to bodily take part in killing
another human made in God’s image, but be willing to pay someone else to do
so.
Fourth, it is a matter of honesty.
I don’t believe that refusing to pay for war is stealing from the government.
Indeed, we pay for war by stealing from the poor.
We have the choice to either help bring hope of a better life to our neighbors with needed services, housing, and education or take part in their oppression by buying weapons to protect us from them when they tire of watching their children starve to death.
Fifth, it is a matter of credibility. The author pays all taxes because he
wishes not to lose his credibility and Christian witness. Of what and to
whom are we witnesses? Are we credible witnesses to Jesus’ presence in our
hearts to our brothers and sisters in Central America, such as the priests
and church workers in El Salvador who were murdered by death squads trained
and armed by our tax dollars? I might be willing to pay all my taxes if
Congress passes the Peace Tax Fund bill which would allow those who are
conscientious objectors to have their taxes used for nonmilitary purposes.
But until that opportunity is available, I will no longer pay war taxes, but
instead will put that money to use where it will nurture life and not poison
it.
Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section is inviting contributions for the Taxes for Peace Fund.
The fund, established in , gives people who want to withhold war taxes a way to contribute their money toward peaceful purposes.
While contributing to this fund is a symbolic action and not a legal alternative to paying the tax, many people have found it a meaningful way to demonstrate their commitment to peace.
Last year, $5,750 in Taxes for Peace money was divided between the National
Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund and Christian Peacemaker Teams. This year’s
contributions will be divided the same way.
The National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund seeks to enact the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill, which would give those conscientiously opposed to war a way to pay 100 percent of their taxes by designating the military percentage to a separate fund for peace-enhancing programs.
Christian Peacemaker Teams is an initiative of North American Mennonite and related churches to develop and support more assertive peacemaking.
MCC
constituents have contributed more than $75,000 to the Taxes for Peace Fund.
Among other projects, the money has funded reconstruction efforts in
Indochina, aided victims of violence in Guatemala, and supported the
MCC
U.S. Peace Section.
The following excerpt is from one of several dozen letters sent to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in by contributors to the Taxes for Peace Fund: “We will sleep better tonight than if we would be helping to keep the murder machine going for the United States.
And hopefully, all the people of the world will sleep better when we can all stop financing their death threats and death squads.” (John and Sandra Drescher-Lehman, Richmond, Va.)
Checks for the Taxes for Peace Fund should be made payable to
“MCC,
Taxes for Peace.”…
An information packet on military-tax opposition is available for $3 from MCC U.S. Peace Section.
It contains varying theological positions on the war-tax issue and materials about tax laws and legal concerns for the tax resister.
Updated materials are available for those who purchased earlier editions of the packet.
The issue announced a “Standing Up for Peace” contest in which young people (ages 15–23) “are urged to interview someone who has refused to fight in war, pay war taxes, or build weapons and then write an essay or song, produce a video, or create a work of art.” The MCC (U.S.) Peace Section was one of the sponsors.
St. Louis (Mo.) Mennonite Fellowship has decided to stop paying its telephone tax as a form of protest against military spending.
Federal phone tax revenues, first collected in , contribute directly to the U.S. Armed Forces. “Though the biblical basis for such action has been debated, we wish to respect the convictions of our members and Anabaptist forebears and foremostly to be disciplined followers of Jesus Christ,” said Scott Neufeld, who coordinates the congregation’s peace witness.
The congregation will send its tax money instead to Mennonite Central Committee.
Five European Mennonite theologians are proposing changes in a World Council
of Churches statement that is being discussed at
WCC’s
Convocation on Justice, Peace, and the Integrity of Creation in Seoul, South
Korea, .
One of them, Andrea Lange of West Germany, took the proposed revisions to
Seoul as a representative of the Dutch Mennonite Church and the North German
Mennonite Church, both of which are
WCC
members. The Seoul statement grows out of an extended “conciliar” process by
WCC
member churches. The Mennonite revisions call for the rejection of force and
support for conscientious objectors to military service and those who refuse
to pay war taxes. The revision also calls for the full use of women’s gifts in
the church — and to “admit them to all church offices.”
The issue included an article on Mennonite martyrs of the World War Ⅰ period who were persecuted for refusing to buy war bonds (see ♇ 1 September 2018 for that article).
The issue of military tax withholding for MBCM employees was discussed at length.
However, no action was taken.
Since no MBCM employees are currently requesting that the military portion of their taxes not be withheld, the board agreed to wait for such a request before responding to the military tax withholding question.
In J. Lorne Peachey took over from Daniel Hertzler as editor.
We haven’t heard from Peachey yet so I don’t know if he took any position in the war tax resistance debates that might influence his editorial positions.
A letter to the editor from John F. Murray used the war tax resistance issue as a rhetorical hook in the course of trying to prompt readers into tithing more to the Church.
Another letter,
from Jim Leuba, in the
issue, gave taxpaying Christians a pointed edge:
In reference to your suggestion in your editorial that we spend a day praying for “Peace in the Persian Gulf”…, I feel the following is an appropriate prayer:
“Lord, today I am praying for peace in the Persian Gulf. I pray our armies do
not use the weapons I helped pay for with my tax dollars. Never mind. Lord,
that I could live at an income level that did not require paying war taxes.
And, Lord, a war will only increase the price of oil. I am so addicted to oil
that I can’t imagine life without it. Never mind. Lord, that I use at least 10
times more fossil energy than 75 percent of the earth’s human population.
Protect me. Lord; I am a North American Christian.”
The following syndicated news brief appeared in the issue:
A Philadelphia Quaker organization must garnish the wages of its employees who fail to pay income tax for religious reasons, a federal judge in Philadelphia ruled.
But Judge Norma Shapiro also said the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends cannot be penalized for failing to honor the levies imposed by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.
The case involved the refusal of three Friends employees to pay the full amount of their taxes because part of it would go to the military, and that would violate their religious antiwar beliefs.
In her decision, Shapiro cited the
U.S. Supreme Court
decision last year in Employment
v. Smith, the
controversial Oregon peyote case. In denying unemployment benefits to two
residents, the high court ruled that since ingestion of peyote was a crime in
Oregon, “the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the
obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on
the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion
proscribes (or prescribes).”
Eastern Canada Conference of Mennonites was struggling with the same issue of tax resisting employees that had troubled the General Conference Mennonite Church and the Mennonite Church (Ron Rempel reporting, ):
Canadian conference responds to military tax objectors
Waterloo, Ont. (Mennonite Reporter) — Two Ontario Mennonite leaders have declared their conscientious objection to the payment of military taxes.
However, their employers have not yet decided whether or how to cooperate with the request to redirect military taxes for peaceful purposes.
Fred Martin, the student and young adult minister for Eastern Canada
Conference, first raised the issue in . Jean-Jacques Goulet, pastor of Wilmot Mennonite Church, took a
similar stand the week that the Persian Gulf War started. His church is
waiting to see how the conference will resolve the matter.
, at its fall delegate meeting, the conference gave notice of a recommendation that will be dealt with at the annual meeting .
That recommendation called on the conference to support Martin not forwarding to Revenue Canada the portion of his income tax used for military purposes.
Since the meeting, the executive board
of the conference has looked more closely at how to proceed if the
recommendation is accepted. The board has
prepared an alternative resolution, calling on the conference: (1) to
“withhold no income tax from the salary of any conference employee who
requests this on the basis of conscience”; (2) to inform Revenue Canada and
members of Parliament of the decision; (3) to ask the government to introduce
legislation recognizing conscientious objection to payment of military taxes
and to provide peaceful alternatives for use of these tax dollars; and (4) to
support other church boards, agencies, and congregations that may adopt
similar policies.
“As far as we know, no one in Canada has gone this route,” commented Sam Steiner, secretary of the conference.
Others who have asked for the cooperation of employers in not paying military taxes have become “contract employees,” or “self-employed contractors.”
Eastern Canada Conference, however, is proposing to treat military tax
objectors as full employees, and to continue all regular benefits and
deductions, except for income tax deductions. It would be left to the employee
to remit income taxes to Revenue Canada after redirecting the military
portion.
This procedure has been used by the General Conference Mennonite Church after that denomination decided in to support military tax objectors.
The Mennonite Church has made a similar commitment in principle, but has not yet decided on a procedure to use.
According to Steiner, the conference would technically be Hable for breaking
tax laws by deciding not to collect income taxes for the government.
Reporter Ron Rempel followed up on that report with this:
Baden, Ont. (Mennonite Reporter) — After a vigorous debate, delegates to the annual meeting of Eastern Canada Conference, , defeated a proposal calling on the conference not to deduct income tax from employees who want to redirect the military portion for peaceful purposes.
They also tabled an alternative resolution.
The conference executive board developed its proposal in response to a request
from its student and young adult minister, Fred Martin. He indicated in
that he objected on the
basis of conscience to paying military taxes. He asked the conference — which
is required by law to deduct all income taxes and remit them to Revenue
Canada — to help him find a way to express his conscience.
In the recent Gulf War, “my body was not being conscripted, but my money was,” commented Martin in a brief presentation before delegates. “How can I pray for peace but pay for war?”
In introducing the proposal, conference secretary Sam Steiner said the
executive board had not been unanimous. Some abstained from voting; others
were against the proposal. He also said the proposed action could make the
conference legally liable for breaking the Income Tax Act.
The legal question dominated the discussion by delegates.
For example.
Ken Musselman said military tax objectors should use other options, like increasing charitable donations or cutting back their overall income to reduce taxes.
A number of delegates said that individuals who want to redirect military taxes should assume the legal liability themselves — for example, as contract employees — rather than expect conference to bear it.
Others supported the proposal.
They cited historical precedents such as World War Ⅰ conscientious objectors choosing jail rather than the military uniform.
A number who lined up at the open mikes said they liked the second part of the
executive board’s proposal — to seek legislation recognizing conscientious
objections to payment of military taxes — but objected to the first
part — asking conference to defy current income tax laws.
The delegates then faced two choices: either table the executive board’s proposal or look at an alternative resolution.
The alternative, presented by Margot Fieguth, began with the second part of
the original proposal: an attempt to work through legislative and legal
avenues to secure recognition of conscientious objection to payment of
military taxes and to provide peaceful alternatives. This resolution also
suggested that conference offer Fred Martin a contract position, so that he,
rather than conference, would be responsible to make income tax payments.
Delegates decided not to table the original proposal.
But before they started debating the alternative, there were voices calling for a vote on the executive board’s proposal.
“I would like to hear the truth of where the conference stands on this issue,”
said Jean-Jacques Goulet, pastor of Wilmot
(Ont.) Mennonite Church.
During the Gulf War he had declared himself a conscientious objector to
military taxes. And his congregation was waiting to see how conference would
respond to Fred Martin.
In a ballot vote, the executive board’s proposal was defeated 159-48.
It was late in the evening.
The alternative resolution was on the floor.
But someone proposed that it be tabled till the next session of conference.
The motion carried.
The “Taxes for Peace” war tax redirection fund gave its annual report in the issue:
The Peace Section of Mennonite Central Committee U.S. is inviting contributions for the “Taxes for Peace” fund.
Established in , it gives people who want to withhold war taxes a way to contribute their money to peaceful purposes.
Donations last year totaled $3,700, and they were sent to the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund and to Christian Peacemaker Teams.
More information is available from MCC U.S. Peace Section…
Another General Assembly was held
, and
I’m sure the board of directors were on tenterhooks hoping that the Assembly
would let them off the hook about implementing the decision they’d made at
the previous General Assembly to begin refusing to withhold war taxes from the
salaries of objecting employees.
Delegates did look to themselves in reconsidering a statement on the Peace Tax Fund.
The statement had called on individual Mennonites to contribute to this fund.
Noting that less than one percent had done so, this time delegates took action to urge conferences and congregations to put the Peace Tax Fund in their budgets.
The Peace Tax Fund would allow conscientious objectors to pay their taxes by
diverting the military portion to a special trust fund. Efforts are currently
underway to have the Fund be considered by lawmakers in the
U.S.; a comparable
campaign is also being considered in Canada.
In Mennonite General Assembly went on record to encourage individuals to contribute to a peace tax fund campaign.
Less than one percent of us did.
So in Oregon delegates made their action stronger: they are now “urging” district conferences and local congregations to put the peace tax fund into their annual budgets.
So your congregation will need to make a decision about that “urging” some
time in the next two years. Will you give expression to your belief in peace
by supporting a congregational budget item to contribute to a peace tax fund?
The contribution will be used to help sponsor legislation in both Washington
and Ottawa to legitimatize a peace tax fund as an option for persons opposed
to having their tax money used for military purposes.
Some Seniors for Peace withhold the military portion of their income taxes and contribute it to a peace fund.
Many actively support lobbying for legislation for a peace tax fund to provide alternative service for tax dollars.
And finally, a letter to the editor from Tim Nafziger urged Mennonites not to stop, satisfied by redirecting their taxes to a peace tax fund. “The Mennonite Church is called to do more than be morally pure,” he wrote.
This is the thirty-fifth 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.
The Gospel Herald would cease publication as an independent magazine at the beginning of , merging with The Mennonite as the Mennonite Church merged with the General Conference Mennonite Church.
Today I’ll show some of the final mentions of tax resistance in the magazine before the merger.
The “Taxes for Peace” redirection fund gave its annual update in the edition:
Mennonite Central Committee U.S. peace and justice ministries is again inviting contributions for the “Taxes for Peace” fund.
the fund has allowed people who withhold the portion of their taxes that would go for military purposes to contribute that money to peacemaking initiatives.
In , the funds will bolster efforts to halt the production of cluster bombs and landmines and support resources on conscientious objection to military service and taxes.
Contributions made payable to MCC can be sent to “Taxes for Peace,” MCC U.S. Peace and Justice Ministries…
A report on the “Taxes for Life” group appeared in the issue.
They somewhat carelessly redirected their taxes from the federal government to the state government, for what that’s worth:
Taxes for Life delegates present a check of diverted war taxes for health needs of low-income families to the governor’s office in Harrisburg (Pa.) on .
They are (left to right): Herb Myers, Annn Marie Judson, John Stoner, and Dave Schrock-Shenk.
Lancaster, Pa. — On , the day U.S. income taxes are due, some Mennonites here diverted a portion of their war tax money toward health needs of unemployed persons.
They presented a check of $1,000 to the office of Governor Tom Ridge in Harrisburg.
The war tax objectors are part of Taxes for Life — a group that meets to support each other in seeking biblically nonviolent responses to the government’s demand for funding of war and military preparations.
Governor Ridge had threatened to cut 260,000 persons off the medical assistance rolls in Pennsylvania, arguing that the money was not available in the state to cover those needs.
“We wanted to demonstrate that if wasteful and destructive expenditures in military systems could be redirected, life-giving programs like health care to vulnerable citizens could be well-funded,” says member Earl Martin.
Speaking to government actions.
On , in a perhaps unrelated action, Governor Ridge announced his intention to compromise on his cut-back proposal.
The $1,000 gift came both from diverted federal war tax money and “sympathy money” from supportive friends, according to Martin.
For example, Sarah and Herb Myers of Mount Joy, Pa., wrote to the Internal Revenue Service, “How can we continue contributing financially toward the madness and sinfulness of our military system when we have claimed to be conscientious objectors to serving in the military?”
The Myers, Mennonite medical professionals, each withheld $28.50 from their taxes due to the IRS.
The $28.50 symbolized a dime for each of the $285 billion the United State government spends on current military expenditures.
“We realize the above action is illegal and we do not undertake it lightly,” they wrote to the IRS.
“We have taught our children that laws are to be obeyed “unless they violate one’s commitment to a higher power than the government.”
[sic] But in a democracy, they added, “we must speak clearly toward our government’s actions or we too are guilty of complicity.”
On , members of the Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster took a celebrative “second offering” in which children and adults walked forward to contribute “sympathy money” to the Taxes for Life effort.
They added $575 with that spontaneous offering.
Governor Ridge’s representative, after an extensive discussion of the issues with Taxes for Life representatives, received the check only to pass it on to the state treasurer’s office.
Whether the state treasurer will choose to cash the check marked “diverted war tax money and contributions” remains unknown.
The issue of whether a person could be a Mennonite in good standing, and be a soldier at the same time, was still being argued out in the letters to the editor column.
Here’s an excerpt from Eldon Epp’s letter in the issue in which he tries to bring the discussion back around to war taxes:
I wonder if we often limit our nonviolent witness to refusing military enlistment.
That leaves the onus for the sins of violence on military personnel.
Our witness must include the invitation to military personnel to consider Jesus’ way.
That witness has integrity when the rest of the church is also asking how to be nonviolent Christian citizens.
Mennonites paying taxes and remaining silent about an astronomical “defense” budget are also complicit in violence.
Brother Leslie Francisco Ⅲ expressed this well in Between the Rock of Peace and the Hard Place of Outreach.
A letter from Perry Keidel () began by advocating war tax resistance, but then suggested Peace Tax Fund lobbying instead:
While no war now rages that demands our sons, people of conscience in the United States are nevertheless forced into the morally unconscionable position of underwriting the continued, unchecked growth of the largest military industrial machine in history.
Mennonites have a proud and painful history of refusing to compromise on the issue of military conscription.
But given that war revenues from Mennonites are enough to at least support the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, we cannot at the same time be called uncompromising pacifists.
Perhaps the state department concedes CO status to Mennonites because we still by and large hire the soldiers that fire the bullets.
If Mennonites are unable to take responsibility for the use to which the state allocates revenues forcibly taken from them, then Mennonite understandings of separation of church and state must expand to organized refusal to cooperate in paying war taxes.
Every Mennonite congregation should send two or three letters to their U.S. Senators voicing their concern and asking that the Peace Tax Fund bill be adopted.
This bill would amend the Internal Revenue Code to provide that a taxpayer conscientiously opposed to war have tax monies spent for nonmilitary purposes.
That’s the first step.
In the issue “vsw” (Valerie Weaver) wrote about angels without wings (i.e. ordinary people who do extraordinary things), and included war tax resisters among them:
[I]f angels play wonderful, life-giving jokes on the world, then I’ve seen them… They play jokes of life on the government by refusing to pay war taxes and then giving more to mission and service agencies than the government would even require for itself.
And in the issue, J. Lorne Peachey wrote an editorial asking what makes Mennonites special or different.
In the process, he gave short shrift to war tax resisters and demonstrated how much their stars had fallen:
Larry Hauder’s questions are worth pondering: How are we different from the world?
What does it mean today to be separate?
My favorite answer is that, in addition to accepting Jesus as Savior and Lord, we believe in a lifestyle of peace and nonviolence.
Yet that’s hard to make visible when our country is not involved in a major war.
Those who try to do so through such means as refusing to pay “war taxes” we generally dismiss as too zealous in making discipleship practical.
The issue reprinted from The Mennonite a news brief about the IRS seizure of the home of war tax resisters Elizabeth Gravalos and Art Harvey.
Editor J. Lorne Peachey was back in the to ask whether one reason the Mennonite Church was stagnating might be because it wasn’t being persecuted for taking bold stands:
…comfortable North American churches aren’t growing while persecuted churches in other countries are.
How do we “stand alongside [the poor, the dispossessed, and the outcasts]”?
Some of us have answered by withholding our war taxes.
Others have joined Christian Peacemaker Teams. Some sell or give away their possessions and live in community.
Others go into dangerous parts of the world and attempt reconciliation.
Yet these are mainly individual acts.
For the most part, we as a total church have not been able to agree even on these relatively simple attempts toward faithfulness.
Can a non-persecuted, comfortable church also be a growing, faithful church?
The record has not been good.
In Mennonite history, we have the examples of churches in Russia and Europe, where, as Christians grew wealthy and accepted, their message became diluted and weak.
Even in the New Testament we read much more about the “mission outposts” that were being questioned and oppressed than we do about the more wealthy and better-accepted mother church in Jerusalem.
A faithful church that’s not persecuted?
God just may be giving North American Mennonites another chance to see if that’s possible.
We are the best-read, most-educated, and probably the wealthiest Mennonites who ever lived.
Can we catch a vision to channel that knowledge and wealth into living and proclaiming the gospel rather than in spending the majority of it on ourselves?
We… try to legally avoid federal taxes because of the large portion which supports the military.
We have some tax breaks that many others do not have because John is an ordained minister.
But, as a matter of principle, to legally avoid taxes, we have placed our savings in tax-free investments, tax-sheltered Individual Retirement Accounts, and similar 401K instruments.
These savings, with tax-free compounding, have grown to $200,000 — by saving 15 percent of our annual income with interest compounding at an average rate of 6 percent over the years.
Another international conference on war tax resistance and peace tax fund campaigns was held .
Again, the Gospel Herald coverage of the event made it out to be mostly a Peace Tax Fund legislation conference, with actual war tax resistance only a footnote:
London, England — Supporters of peace tax campaigns and war tax resistance from 16 countries met here, , to discuss the progress and importance of working corporately toward a peace tax law.
Three American Mennonites attended the conference that was hosted by British members of the Peace Tax Campaign: Marian Franz, director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund; Cesar Flores, member of the Honduran Mennonite Church, and Susan Balzer, administration committee member of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee.
Speakers reported on the peace tax legislation proposals in various countries and expressed the belief that if one country passes a peace tax bill, other countries would soon follow.
In , the United States became the first country to initiate peace tax bill proposals.
Current lobbying efforts are geared toward making the bill’s passage a religious freedom issue.
Keynote speaker Erik Hummels, from the Netherlands, defined peace as “a dynamic process of cooperation among people which includes human rights, economic justice, and the absence of situations that can lead to war.”
In addition to observing Prisoners for Peace Day and honoring those who have been imprisoned for conscientious objection, conference participants attended workshops on war tax resistance issues.
Meanwhile, on the 25th anniversary of the original introduction of the peace tax fund bill in the U.S. Congress, Representative John Lewis would try to attach it as an amendment to some bill that would actually see action on the floor, but his attempt was voted down.
A Clinton administration spokesperson testified against the amendment.
The bill would then be rewritten into something closer to its present form, under the title “Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act.”
How can I work for peace if I pay for war?
Is paying for soldiers to murder less evil than pulling the trigger myself?
Millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Japanese, Salvadorans, Iraquis, Koreans, and Germans begged their gods to protect them as U.S. bombers destroyed their homes and crops and massacred their families.
Some of the victims prayed to Jesus.
All this happened while Christians in the United States paid taxes to build and fly the U.S. bombers and sang every Sunday about God’s love for all people.
Half of every federal income tax dollar goes for war — past, present, and future.
Tax dollars are the lifeblood of the military beast devouring the world’s poor.
In order for the U.S. or any other empire to plunder and to massacre, two things are required from many citizens — silence and paying taxes.
For 18 years I have paid no federal income tax by living under the taxable income level, and I also am not silent.
I prize living the truth as best I see it far more than unnecessary material possessions.
I say — not with my money, not with my silence, not in my name!
“If you really care about not supporting the military with your taxes, use the full charitable donations deduction allowed,” the speaker in our young adult Sunday school class challenged.
We could deduct up to 20 percent of our income for charity.
Twenty percent — the figure echoed in my thoughts.
My husband-to-be, George, and I had chosen to follow parental patterns of tithing 10 percent and giving gifts above and beyond.
I knew no one who gave even close to 20 percent.
Yet I certainly cared deeply about using my money for life-giving purposes rather than for building up an arsenal of destruction.
Was George stirred as I was?
Through discussion, George and I soon reached agreement.
We would move toward the goal of giving 20 percent.
Thus began a joyful journey of stewardship as a married couple.
In the first year of marriage, we inched toward our goal.
We used bicycles while saving for a car.
George continued graduate studies while I started my first full-time job.
Within four years, we had a fuel-efficient car and our first child.
We had managed to reach 15 percent in donations.
Even though I stayed home with our infant and we had a tight budget, we were able to eat good, nutritious food, continue with retirement savings, and buy the things most important to us.
When George finished school, we moved to the United States for a job.
We moved at the right time — housing prices had soared in our area, and we sold our small condominium for several times the price George paid a decade before.
Our household income increased dramatically.
We had major stewardship decisions to make.
Initially, I felt disoriented in the new economic terrain.
Reducing our military taxes continued to be a high priority for us.
Since interest from mortgage payments is tax deductible, we invested in a spacious house on a wooded lot.
We committed to making our home an open place for those who needed a place of retreat from the stresses of human services, overseas work, or ministry.
Buying the house reduced the need for other stewardship decisions; after donations, mortgage, taxes, and utilities, our budget was more generous but not radically different from student days.
By the time our second child was born, we had nearly reached our goal of 20 percent donations.
We started catching up to our goals for university savings for our young ones.
And, to wrap up this series of excerpts, here is an excerpt of a letter to the editor from Jacob Hubert () which is the only example I’ve seen that takes Mennonite nonresistant / pacifist principles to a logical anarchist conclusion and determines that taxation itself is a violent act that Mennonites should not countenance:
Martin Shupack asserts that the federal government, while sometimes a “violent rebel,” can be an instrument for good when used for such causes as welfare for the poor, Medicare, Social Security, and other social programs designed to help those in need (“Violent Rebel or Valuable Servant,” ).
What Shupack does not seem to realize is that all government programs are the products of violence, regardless of who benefits from them.
Taxes can be collected only if the government backs up its taxation policies with violence and threats thereof.
The question, then, is this: are Mennonites absolutely for peace and against the initiation of force?
Or is the taking of money by means of violent coercion acceptable when the money will be spent on causes they regard as worthwhile?
If the Mennonite Church is to be consistent in its opposition to the use of force, it must be opposed to it in all forms — including the form of taxation.
There’s a new National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee newsletter out, with content including:
TaxProf Blog gives a fascinating overview of the bureaucratic morass the IRS slogs through even on a good day, when it’s not shut down.
There are multiple oversight bodies and committees all demanding that the agency do this or that, and obsolete laws demanding that it collect irrelevant data.
It’s a wonder they can get anything done.
Some tabs that have passed through my browser in recent days:
War tax resisters in the United States celebrated “Tax Day” with the usual protests, penny polls, leafletting, and other methods of outreach.
The Berkeley Daily Planet covered the People’s Life Fund annual granting ceremony in which they redirected $15,000 in taxes from the federal government to local charitable groups.
The refusal to collaborate economically with the state, in the financing
of military spending and other things that we consider socially unjust
or harmful, empowers us and allows us, collectively and cooperatively,
to show our opposition to certain state policies, to generate a social
debate about the model of society that we want, while at the same time to
promote the construction of “another possible world” by giving economic
support in solidarity with other transformative struggles that exist in
our society and elsewhere.
Mike Causey, at Federal News Network, adds another article to the growing consensus that the IRS is in a world of pain. Causey includes a long quote from an anonymous “long-time career IRS manager” who says:
…There are barely enough people left keeping the lights on to barely
allow enough people to barely meet far reduced goals.… Millions of
dollars of production are lost due to not having hundreds of dollars of
resources on a regular basis.
Most of the personnel with most of the talent and experience have retired
or fled to the private sector…
The Republican tax reform legislation does seem to have cut taxes for just
about everyone. But only a minority of people think they personally got a tax cut.
This may be in part because of Democratic talking points about the cuts
having only gone to the wealthy — they seem to have hit their target and
sown doubt about what the legislation accomplished. It may also be because
tax refunds haven’t gotten any bigger for the typical taxpayer,
and changes in tax withholding aren’t salient enough to make an impression.
This may also erode tax morale by contributing to the impression that
lawmakers are jiggering the tax code to favor the other guy.
A majority of Americans
believe the federal tax system is not fair, and among Democrats in
particular, perceptions of the fairness of the federal tax system are lower
than they have been in recent memory.
Automated traffic-ticket-dispensing radar cameras in France have undergone
an extraordinary wave of attacks by frustrated motorists. Statistics on the
extent of the attacks and their effect on government revenue continue to
come in. The latest show that revenue from radar vans in particular dropped 42% last year.
The IRS is hoping to get a bunch of new funding for a desperately-needed computer modernization effort. Problem is, this isn’t the first time, and the last couple of times they’ve gotten a bunch of new funding for desperately-needed computer modernization efforts, they’ve bungled it badly. Will Congress let them take another swing? Do they have a choice?
Boston (LNS) — Twice
a year the Roxbury War Tax Scholarship Fund (RWTSF)
presents monetary awards to different local community and anti-war
organizations. During a short ceremony in Boston at the end of
, the RWTSF
awarded $427 each to “Our Place to Grow”, a local day-care center; the New
England Action Research (NEAR)
of the American Friends Service Committee, and the Wounded Knee Information
and Defense Fund in Cambridge.
This money represents the interest on a fund of over $66,500, held in escrow
at the United Bank of Roxbury, accrued on the tax money withheld by 500 tax
resisters.
Anyone wishing more information about the Roxbury War Tax Scholarship Fund
should contact them at Box 174, MIT Branch PO, Cambridge, Mass, 02139
–30–
(Thanks to Susan Phillips for this short).
In , some Catalan separatists started paying
their federal taxes into the Catalan state treasury rather than to the Spanish
government. This was a mostly-symbolic action, as the Catalan treasury just
forwarded the money to their Spanish counterparts, but it was designed to
prepare for the day when a Catalan separatist government would cut off Madrid
for good.
The separatists had success at the ballot box and the Catalan parliament voted
to declare independence, but Spain then dissolved the state government, and
imprisoned its leaders and/or forced them into exile. As a protest movement,
the independence campaign is still active, but the independence of the state
government appears to have been successfully suppressed by Spain at this point.
And now, one of the early adopters of tax resistance — a restaurant in Siurana
which had been paying its taxes to Catalonia — has been forced to close
after the tax agency rescinded its tax identification number and froze its
accounts.
The owners of the restaurant (Andreu Bartolomé and Maria Casademunt) had moved
on to a more extreme form of tax resistance than paying symbolically to the
Catalan treasury. Rather than pay taxes there, only to see the money eventually
go to Spain after all, they began to redirect their taxes directly to schools,
hospitals, and other social programs in Catalonia, and then filed the
receipts for these donations with the tax agency in lieu of their taxes.
James Maule loves a story about a disgruntled taxpayer paying in a wagonload of small change. The latest story comes with a couple of twists: first, the county anticipated such protests and has an official policy of refusing to accept large payments in coins; second, over the course of the protest it was discovered that the tax assessor was sitting on 8,600 unread emails, which may explain why less-theatrical avenues of protest failed to work.
Speed camera vandals continue their bold assaults on traffic-ticket robots in Europe. The latest reports are of several attacks in France and Italy, and several more in France. Fire seems to have become a more popular weapon as winter has come on.
A retrospective of the history of the Project Learn School notes that the school, an independent cooperative, got a $5,000 loan from a war tax resistance redirection fund at a critical moment at its founding, and has been in operation for fifty years now.
Lebanon
I’m working off of Google Translate, and not an actual knowledge of Lebanese Arabic, but I think this says something like “No taxes for the power authority.
Gather in front of the TVA building to press the authority and confirm our demands, starting at six in the morning.
#مش_دافعين” The TVA building is home to the Finance Ministry.
I’ve been frustrated at the lack of detail in the English-language reporting out of Lebanon about the tax strike there.
It’s difficult to know how widespread it is, how central it is to the larger protest movement, or which tax resistance tactics are most prominent.
But here is some reporting:
“Protesters Are Wielding the Ultimate Weapon” (Haaretz) — “[T]he people behind the tax protest aren’t prepared to sit tight and wait patiently. They are calling on the Lebanese to stop paying their electricity and water bills, municipal taxes, fines and even their bank loans payments.” But who these people are goes unsaid. The reporter just quotes from a recently-created anonymous Twitter account. The article does have a good analysis of why the government power monopoly and its utility bills are a major focus of the protests.
Some links that have bubbled up in my browser over the past few weeks as I’ve been on my Brethren binge:
Businesses in Chattanooga, Tennesseee held a one-day strike in support of #BlackLivesMatter, as a way to withhold sales tax dollars in order to pressure the city government to redirect funding from the police department to less-nefarious uses.
American war tax resister Ed Agro has died.
Agro was one of the founders of the New England War Tax Resistance regional group, and was also the admin behind the wtr-s war tax resistance email list.
Richard Yoder responds in a letter: “I am grateful that there seems to be a renewed emphasis on the historic peace witness of the Mennonite tradition, including war-tax resistance and redirecting of our tax dollars to life-giving activities. The nature of warfare has changed from the past when the military needed our bodies to now needing our dollars to pay for high-tech warfare. So in the same way Mennonites in the past found a way to say no to participating in war through conscientious objection, we now need to do the same with our tax dollars.”
A Glasgow man whose apartment keeps getting flooded has accused the city of negligence for signing off on the building’s construction, and is refusing to pay his council tax as a pressure tactic.
In the United States, prisoners are supposed to file income tax returns like anyone else.
And unless the law says otherwise, the same tax rules apply to them.
When Congress passed the last stimulus bill, giving taxpayers a tax credit and then pre-paying that credit to them by mailing out checks, prisoners were among those who benefited.
Because that was the law.
Israeli musician Hemi Rudner has gone on tax strike to protest the lack of government support for the self-employed during the pandemic shutdown.
I’m a normal citizen.
And aside from a joint here and there, I abide by the law, love my country, and of course, pay taxes.
Around half of my income has gone to the state for decades already.
Only God knows how many meetings I’ve funded.
Myself, and millions of other citizens in the State of Israel, are stuck in a horrible situation, where in addition to fears about our health, we don’t have any way to make a living and support our families.
In other Western countries independent workers get an economic safety net as an integral part of their rights.
In Israel, the tyrannical government toys with us as if we’re invisible, like there are no faces behind the masks.
I want to say that as long as we don’t receive our rights as citizens, without the terrible and discouraging bureaucracy, I’m declaring that I’m not paying taxes to the State of Israel.
I call on all Israelis to do the same.
Maybe then, at the end of the day, something will change here.
Gwen Jaspers issues a call to Defund the Pentagon, and says this we don’t have to wait for the politicians to act: “We may even decide, eventually with trusted supporters, not to pay for the Pentagon’s war budget by omitting the amount from our tax payment that the Pentagon receives — a whopping 50 percent or more of what we pay in federal income taxes.”
As the (delayed) approaches, J.D. Tuccille asks taxpayers to consider what they get for their money: public health incompetence, abusive security forces, and economic instability.
when I filed my federal tax return for 2010 it showed that I owed $3,856.
I didn’t pay it.
Since then, the IRS has sent me pleading letters and threats, and warned me it would add penalties and interest to what I didn’t pay.
But by law, the IRS has ten years to recover unpaid taxes, after which time a statute of limitations kicks in and the tax becomes permanently uncollectible (interest & penalties too).
, that ten year deadline expired.
I successfully called the IRS’s bluff.
Today, I’m celebrating by donating that $3,856 to GiveWell’s Maximum Impact Fund.
I appreciate the work that GiveWell does to identify charitable giving opportunities that can do the most good for the most people with the greatest impact per dollar.
The tax filing deadline came and went in the United States.
Now that fewer people are filing last-minute paper returns, this is less of a spectacle than it once was, but war tax resisters still like to mark the occasion as a sort of ceremonial holiday.
For example, in Harrisonburg, Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley Taxes for Peace group redirected taxes from the government to useful groups.
The People’s Life Fund in California also redirected $61,000 of would-be tax dollars to better causes.
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration issued yet another report.
According to them, the IRS still had about four and a half million unprocessed paper tax returns to get through as of , only a couple hundred thousand less than they started the year with, while meanwhile half a million new returns had come in and hadn’t been processed.
The agency had a goal of hiring 5,473 new submission processing employees to cope with this, but as of , they’d managed to onboard only 521.
Today I’m sending a check for $4,031 — representing what I didn’t pay in federal taxes in — to the Maximum Impact Fund run by the GiveWell organization.
GiveWell researches promising charities to determine which are currently able to make the greatest impact per donated dollar.
They have a number of top recommendations, mostly involving disease prevention in poorer parts of the world.
Rather than choose from those, I chose the simpler option, which is to give to GiveWell’s Maximum Impact Fund, whereupon GiveWill will give that money to whichever charity is currently at the top of their list.
You may remember that I also redirected my taxes to the Maximum Impact Fund .
The National Catholic News Service carried this dispatch on :
Episcopal Diocese Pays Protesting Priest’s Tax Bill
By NC News Service, Philadelphia (NC) —
The Episcopal diocese of Philadelphia has decided to pay $545 in income taxes withheld by one of its priests as a protest against the Vietnam War.
After the Rev. David Gracie, an urban missioner here, had refused for 10 months to pay half of his income tax assessment, the Internal Revenue Service went to his employer asking the Episcopal diocese to turn over $545 of the priest’s salary.
Refusing to do so would have made the diocese liable for possible criminal charges for non-payment of the taxes.
Father Gracie appealed to the Episcopal council “to join in a corporate act of resistance against this barbaric, immoral war.”
Paying the bill, he said, “will finish me as a tax resister.”
Voting to pay the tax bill, the council also set up a committee to study the theological implications of conscientious tax resistance and tax exemption.
Tom Cornell reviewed the book Ain’t Gonna Pay for War No More (Robert Calvert, The War Tax Resistance, ) in the issue of Catholic Worker:
Ain’t Gonna Pay No More
This book represents a tremendous contribution to the movement against war and for a more decent society, in itself and in the War Tax Resistance campaign from which it emerges.
Probably the most significant development in The Movement during the past two years has been the growth of organised tax resistance along with its alternate funds.
Tax resistance has long been recognised as a pillar of anti-war activity, at least in theory.
After long incubation since the beginning of the Cold War in , tax resistance is taking its place in the minds of many pacifist activists alongside such stances as conscientious objection and draft resistance.
Ain’t Gonna Pay is an unusual movement publication.
It is pocket size, has a soft cover, is handsomely but modestly produced.
The type is legible and generously spaced.
It is crammed with useful information in a digestible form, and it is sprightly and wryly humorous.
To Bob Calvert is due not only credit for this most useful book, but also for the cohesion and outreach the national tax resistance has attained.
A most extraordinary man, you may read more about him in his own disarming paragraphs “About the Author,” in the comments about him by Bradford Lyttle on the back cover, and in David Dellinger’s Preface.
Karl Meyer
Much of the impetus for the tax resistance movement has come from the writings of Karl Meyer.
Karl has recently been released from Sandstone federal prison where he served 10 months for one of his experiments with tax resistance.
An important new development he has spurred has been the alternate fund.
Basic reasoning behind both tax resistance and the fund is well stated by Karl himself in his CW article. It is well to repeat portions of it:
If we pool all of the tax money that we did not pay in locally administered funds, we can create a model for a future in which men can regain direct control of their common institutions and effectively deny their consent to governmental programs they believe evil.
In each community or region we can set up a common fund. Each contributor will have one vote, as in a cooperative.
The members will meet from time to time to set priorities and guidelines for administering it according to their guidelines.
Assuming that the federal income tax contributions of most people in the movement probably exceed their voluntary political, organizational and charitable contributions, we would expect that the tax alternative funds could become one of the most substantial sources of money for the projects and purposes in which we most strongly believe.
But beyond that we could hope that our experience in mutual aid through these cooperative funds would bear fruit in the development of ashrams and communities for closer economic and social cooperation, for it is when our constructive action and our resistance to evil become for real that we see the need and value of mutual aid and begin to create cooperative alternatives within the competitive society on which we live.
If we ignore or neglect the great potential of tax resistance joined to constructive action, we must be deaf to history and blind to experience.
Do we not know that tax resistance has been one of the greatest sources and strategies of revolutionary movements throughout history?
Has not history shown that taxation is a process requiring the general consent and cooperation of the populace?
Has it not been shown that when numbers of people reject a government by withdrawing their consent from the elaborate bureaucratic process of taxation, that government is in deep trouble?
Did not the French Revolution begin with tax resistance?
Was not tax resistance the slogan and rallying cry of the American Revolution:
“Taxation without representation is tyranny I”?…
Did not Thoreau fashion the cornerstone of American resistance theory out of his own experiences as a tax resister?
Was not Gandhi’s largest and most significant campaign of civil disobedience, the Salt March, based on the strategy of tax resistance?
Can we not see what the IRS knows full well: that even where the public gives general consent to the process of taxation it is always and everywhere a grudging and tentative consent, a resentful and querulous consent, a fragile consent that must always be nursed and safeguarded by positive relations?
There exists among the public at large a great reservoir of grievance, a vast subliminal potential for tax resistance and evasion that only needs to be aroused by news of widespread tax resistance.
Let us learn from the experience of the draft resistance movement and the telephone tax refusal campaign.
A few years ago, many people regarded draft refusal as a personal witness of the solitary conscience.
Today it has taken on the dimension of a social movement.
It is, however, restricted by the narrow age and sex range of those who are subject to conscription, and even more restricted by the narrowness of the draft as a single focus of action.
When we combine real war tax resistance with the tremendous constructive potential of a Fund for Humanity, we will have raised a banner to which all honest and courageous men of conscience can repair.
Penalties
People are always anxious to know the penalties for various forms of tax resistance.
There is a chapter of questions and answers taken from the column by Payno Warbucks in Tax Talk, organ of the WTR ($2 a year subscription).
It is practical and accurate.
Stories of individuals who have dealt with IRS’ and the courts’ attempts to make them pay are told succinctly.
Long-time readers will recall the stories of Wally and Juanita Nelson, Rev. Maurice McCracken, Walter Gormly and Eroseanna Robinson.
Some recent efforts to collect taxes-due through confiscation of property and sale at public auctions are related with hardly suppressed glee.
Here is the story of Bob Marcus:
On , the IRS auctioned the car of Bob Marcus at the National Guard Armory in Boulder, Colorado for $1.25 in phone tax money.
People from the Institute/Mountain West, a branch of the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence and Denver War Tax Resistance decided to make good use of the opportunity.
They sent out a leaflet to the 3500 people in the Institute’s mailing list, telling them what had happened and asking that they contribute to a fund to buy Bob’s car back at the auction.
It was explained that all money bid for the car above the unpaid tax and fees is refunded to the tax (non)payer.
The excess money would be put into the war tax resistance alternative fund.
The auction was promoted as a “joint IRS/Institute for the Study of Nonviolence fund-raiser for war tax resistance.”
About thirty people showed up at the auction, held in a stiff wind outside the armory.
“We passed around cookies in the shape of the resistance omega, tossed balloons of all colors into the air, and held signs which read ‘I ain’t gonna pay for war no more’ and ‘celebrate life — don’t pay war tax.’ ”
Beneath a skull and crossbones “Jolly Roger” kite that went wild in the wind, two revenuers read the IRS ground rules.
They told Bob that he could still redeem the car.
He stepped foreword and said, “But can I redeem my soul?”
The car was sold for $277.00.
It took about twenty minutes to complete the transaction because much of the money was in twenty dollar bills.
After the IRS got its blood money, and the Institute expenses had been paid, the war tax resistance alternative fund had netted $203.35.
Bob donated the car to the community.
He decided that he preferred bicycling to polluting the air.
In addition, all the media covered the story extensively and pretty sympathetically.
It can be stated that the IRS bought tens of thousands of dollars worth of publicity for the idea of war tax resistance.
“A final benefit is that we showed the people of the community that tax resisters will stick together and help each other out.”
How’s that for a bit of nonviolent jujitsu? (pp. 89–90.)
The book ends with a listing of the eighty-nine local War Tax Resistance centers around the country (as of press date ).
There are now almost one hundred more, as well as twenty-three alternate or “Life Funds.”
These centers offer tax-resistance counseling, supply current literature, buttons and bumper stickers, coordinate speakers, produce demonstrations, and administer Life Funds.
I suggest you buy at least five copies of this book to give to friends who might then help you to organise a war resistance center in your locale.
You will get all the help you need from Bob Calvert
The National Catholic Reporter covered Karl Meyer’s war tax resistance in its issue:
An act of “political significance”
Resister urges withholding of taxes
By Jerry De Muth
Special to the National Catholic Reporter — Chicago —
“Tax resistance is now like draft resistance was in ,” Catholic Worker Karl Meyer told 1,000 persons who gathered to greet him on his parole from prison where he had been serving a two-year sentence for falsifying his federal income tax deductions.
“When I tore up my draft card in , it was an act of personal witness,” the 34-year-old Meyer explained.
“Today it has become an act of political significance because so many do it.
“In , eight of us refused to pay the telephone excise tax.
Now at least 100,000 do not pay that ten per cent tax.”
The tax was levied for the expressed purpose of raising funds for the war in Indochina.
Today, Meyer sees the number of income tax resisters as numbering at least 10,000 and perhaps as many as 20,000.
And, he hopes that soon this act of personal witness will also become an act of political significance.
In an interview after his talk, Meyer said, “I like concrete results.
If you don’t send $500 to Washington, you can spend that $500 as you wish on something positive.
That’s concrete, but there’s no other concrete result unless tax resistance becomes organized and grows.
“The first step,” Meyer said, “is nonpayment of the ten per cent telephone tax.
Then there is nonpayment of any balance due or nonpayment of $50, $100 or a significant amount of the income tax.
If many do this it does have political significance.”
The affair for Meyer included a $5-a-plate dinner, with the proceeds going to the Chicago Peace Council, Peoples Coalition for Peace and Justice and the Catholic Worker movement.
Referring to the people who promoted the dinner, he said:
“They should have decided not to send $500 in tax money to Washington and instead sent it to the Peace Council.
But instead they send $500 to Washington and send $5 to the Peace Council, and then they wonder why Washington is strong and the Peace Council is weak.”
Meyer: Tax resistance is like draft resistance was in 1967
Meyer was first exposed to pacifism by his mother, who taught him about Gandhi, and his father, William H. Meyer, a former U.S. representative from Vermont who was a conscientious objector during World War Ⅱ.
, the elder Meyer proposed the abolition of both Selective Service and the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
In , young Meyer became involved in active resistance, joined the Catholic Worker and converted to Catholicism.
Also a believer in such “educational” acts as peace marches, he has participated in many such actions, including a ten-month, 6,000-mile San Francisco to Moscow march in .
Meyer’s frequent protests against the war have resulted in numerous arrests.
In , he was expelled from South Vietnam for antiwar activities and, he says, similar efforts resulted in his being beaten up by delegates to the Lions International convention in Chicago in .
Meyer began his protest against the use of tax money for the military in by having his income tax underwithheld.
In , he progressed to all-out resistance through the influence of a Chicago tax resister, Eroseanna Robinson, an Olympic high jump champion.
So that no income tax would be withheld from her pay, Miss Robinson would change jobs every time her income from a job totaled more than $600.
At the end of the year she did not report any of her income.
She was arrested and while detained in Cook county jail in Chicago began to fast while Meyer and others picketed outside.
Sentenced to a year in prison, she continued to fast.
After 108 days the Bureau of Prisons, Meyer said, asked the judge to release her and the judge complied.
“I said to myself then that I was not going to pay taxes any more,” Meyer said.
“I began by leafletting the IRS IRS offices.”
At the time Meyer was supporting a House of Hospitality in Chicago and legally claimed as exemptions the persons who were living there.
As a result, no taxes were withheld.
“But as I phased out the house,” he added, “I no longer legally had a sufficient number of exemptions.
But in I claimed 12 anyway, and in I claimed 10.”
Meyer was legally entitled to four — for himself; his wife, Jean; a son, William, now eight, and a daughter, Kristin, now four.
(They since have had a third child, Eric, now one year old.)
It was for those extra exemptions that Meyer received a maximum two-year sentence plus a $1,000 fine last .
He was released from the federal prison at Sandstone, Minn. — where Joe Mulligan and Ed Hoffmans of the Chicago 15 are also imprisoned — on and will remain on parole until .
Meyer has frequently changed jobs to avoid a lien on his wages.
Once, the government got $46.60 before he quit one job.
It is the only income tax he has paid in the past 11 years, he says.
He has also avoided paying all but $8 of the federal excise tax on phone service.
“My jobs were determined by my radical pattern of life,” he explained.
“I was in jail a lot.
I was not thinking of building a career, which was good because, as soon as you stop living as the poor live and stop working as the poor work, you stop caring about their needs.”
A simple lifestyle is a very important part of tax resistance for the Meyers.
“There are essential principles more important than tax resistance,” Meyer emphasized.
“They are the idea of voluntary poverty and simplicity of life which we have done through our House of Hospitality, sharing our income with others.
“The other major principle is the refusal to do harm to others, especially to claim control of our own productivity and not pay for the killing of others.
We can claim control of our lives through tax resistance.”
Meyer said there is only one reason why more persons, even if they strongly oppose the war, do not refuse to pay part or all of their income taxes — “They’re afraid.”
“But the first time it’s done, there’s certainly no risk,” he said confidently.
Partly for this reason he backs mass tax resistance as a national antiwar action.
“The question,” he said, “is how do you tell people about their own strengths.
They mistakenly think that Karl Meyer is stronger then they.”
Meyer, who frequently delves into history with a preference for the writings of Thomas Paine, fondly points out that the American Revolution, the French Revolution and Gandhi’s movement for Indian independence all had their roots in tax resistance.
The step of tax resistance, he feels, is important for those who have unsuccessfully urged their senators to vote against military appropriations.
“When the time comes for us to vote against appropriations — and that day comes April 15 — do we vote against appropriations?” he asked.
“The courage we ask of our representatives should not be greater than the courage we ask of ourselves.”
Meyer: “voluntary poverty and simplicity of life”
As for the Meyers’ future, Meyer said that they will not pay the $2,000 in taxes owed for , will not pay the telephone tax and will not pay his $1,000 fine.
“But in order that we may be allowed to remain together and not be separated by imprisonment,” he added, “we will limit our income to an amount that will not be taxable, to about $4,800.
It’s easy to live on this.
In fact, I think we can live on $4,000 by the simplification of our life.
We will then be in a position to share the surplus with others not so fortunate as us.”
Meyer was working at a hospital when he was arrested a year ago and now is employed by “an association,” working with the mentally retarded.
“We will continue to do productive work for the good of society,” he vowed.
“We will continue to oppose this war and all other wars and all militarism by the testimony of our lives and the witness of our actions.”
From the The Catholic Advocate:
Promotes “Tax Resistance” to War
A 27-year-old priest refuses to pay the “war share” of his federal income tax.
Rev. Thomas McKenna, assistant pastor at St. Luke’s, St. Paul, Minn., in a letter to more than 100 priests inviting them to discuss possible tax resistance, said: “No matter how we vote, no matter what we say, no matter how many statements, marches and demonstrations we endorse, we still support the war (and the weekly death toll) with a large portion of every dollar we pay in federal income and telephone excise taxes.”
A follow-up on this from the National Catholic Reporter, :
17 clergy to withhold tax
Special to the National Catholic Reporter — St. Paul, Minn. —
Seventeen Twin Cities’ area priests, ministers and seminarians have announced that they will refuse to pay a portion of their federal income tax to protest the Vietnam war.
Among the group are five priests of the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese.
“We cannot before God support or finance this unjustifiable killing of fellow human beings whether American or Southeast Asian,” said Father Thomas McKenna, a leader of the group, in a statement read at the federal building here. “Therefore, we feel that we must in conscience refuse to pay that portion of our federal income tax that goes to support this inhuman, ungodly war.”
Father McKenna, an assistant pastor at St. Luke’s Catholic church in St. Paul, said that 25 priests of the archdiocese had indicated to him that they might join in the tax resistance.
The 20 who did not join, he said, are still considering other forms of protest, such as withholding the federal telephone tax.
The tax resisters’ statement came at the conclusion of a peaceful demonstration by more than 200 clergy, seminarians and laymen who marched from St. Paul’s Dayton Avenue Presbyterian church to the St. Paul cathedral and then to the federal building.
The march was organized by the Ecumenical Witness for Peace.
A skeptical reporter for the Pittsburgh Catholic penned this for its edition:
Most pay little attention
Peace marchers get mixed reaction
By William McClinton
A procession of 25 people, even when escorting a black coffin and led by a man with a cross, doesn’t make much of a ripple in the hurrying crowds in downtown Pittsburgh at lunch time.
So it was with the 25 clergy and laity — mostly Catholic — who marched some 10 blocks to the Federal Bldg. to protest the escalation of the Vietnam war and the use of their tax money to finance the war.
Their sidewalk procession drew attention in some less busy areas, but in the main blocks was separated and absorbed by the crowd.
Nevertheless, the war headlines at every newsstand illustrated the relevancy of their concern, and the news media was present, almost as numerous as the marchers.
The 25 were members or friends of the recently opened Thomas Merton Peace and Justice Center, an interfaith but predominately Catholic effort on the South Side.
Larry Kessler, director of the Center, said the cross was to illustrate the religious motivation of the protesters who cannot “in conscience” support “this atrocity we call the Indochina war.”
Asked if the escalation wasn’t the result of North Vietnam’s attack, several responded in essence:
“What do you expect? We’ve had plenty of time to get out. We shouldn’t be there in the first place.”
The demonstrators chose the front of the Diocese of Pittsburgh Bldg. to form, unknown to diocesan officials.
As they filed through town they passed out handbills signed by 45 persons, including 12 diocesan priests and three nuns, announcing the undersigned were withholding part of their federal tax payment or the 10 per cent phone excise tax to protest the war.
The handbills urged others to “conscientiously object” the same way.
Many people took the bills and read them impassively.
The procession stopped at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral on Sixth St. for a brief prayer service and again at the Methodist Bldg. on Smithfield at Seventh where the closest thing to an incident occurred.
The ground floor of the building houses a bank branch, and Fr. Donald Fisher had hardly begun paraphrasing a psalm through a portable mike when the building manager rushed out and announced that “You can’t do that here.”
It was private property, the manager said tensely and when the demonstrators tried to discuss it, he hurried off to call the police.
By the time he returned, however, the demonstration had moved on.
At the Federal Bldg. on Liberty Ave. where several more demonstrators were waiting, the group set the wooden coffin down in the outdoor plaza, and after Kessler read from one of Fr. Daniel Berrigan’s writings, they tossed into the coffin some old phone bills and income tax forms as a symbolic gesture.
Several dozen persons who gathered to watch included four or five young men preparing to enlist at Armed Forces offices inside the building.
“It’s a shame.” said Robert DeRose Jr., 18, from Gallitzin in Cambria County, a sturdy, dark-haired youth who said — looking at his watch — he was to be sworn into the Navy “in 10 minutes.”
“All they’re doing is letting Communism spread around the world,” he said heatedly.
“Yet they’ll be the first to scream when Communism comes in.”
There was a humorous moment when five of the priests went inside to pay their self-reduced income tax and — even as any hapless taxpayer — were unwittingly directed by a solicitous Internal Revenue guide to the wrong line.
“I don’t take any money here,” the official told them after they had worked their way up to his desk and Fr. Donald McIlvane had introduced everyone all around and explained their purpose. “You have to give it to the cashier.”
The cashier proved to be an attractive redhead at the other end of the room who listened politely to the priests’ explanations, smiled and said, “Thank you,” as she accepted each payment.
The procession’s religious aura commanded respect — the prayers, the obvious concern for peaceful protest, the appeal to Christian principles, as the marchers see those principles.
But the intensity of the division this war has generated was reflected by the reaction of a stumpy, graying man on one streetcorner.
“They’re a bunch of Communists,” he told a companion contemptuously.
“They wouldn’t do that in Russia.”
“Not in East Germany either,” his friend replied in a strong foreign accent.
The National Catholic News Service carried this dispatch on :
Tax Problems Dog Catholic Worker Movement
By NC News Service New York (NC) —
“My little case is to explain to the court that performing the corporal works of mercy is indeed charitable even under the standards imposed by our government, and I refuse to apply for tax exemption.”
With those words Dorothy Day, the 74-year-old founder of the Catholic Worker movement, has summarized what she expects to say when she appears in a federal court in Lewisburg, Pa.
Miss Day will have to explain why the Catholic Worker movement has not paid $296,359 in fines, penalties and back income taxes to the Internal Revenue Service for the past six years.
A confirmed pacifist, Miss Day has opposed the theory of a just war, a theory that has been foremost in her decision not to apply for federal tax exemption.
“Our refusal to apply for exemption status in our practice of the works of mercy is part of our protest against war and the present social ‘order’ which brings on wars today,” she said.
“One of the most costly protests against war in the way of long enduring personal sacrifice is to refuse to pay income taxes for war,” she wrote recently in the Catholic Worker newspaper.
She argues that the Catholic Worker organization has never paid salaries.
Its volunteer workers are given room, board, clothing and free instruction in the Catholic Worker movement.
“So we do not need to pay federal income taxes,” she contends.
“I’m sure that many will think me a fool indeed, almost criminally negligent for not taking more care to safeguard, not just the bank account, but the welfare of all the lame, halt, and blind — deserving or undeserving poor — who come to us.”
Miss Day told NC News Service she considers the tax investigations a “harassment by the federal government” because the Catholic Worker movement is against all war.
The Catholic Worker is not incorporated as a religious organization and therefore is not exempt from paying federal income taxes.
She said the Catholic Worker does not incorporate because it is a principal of the movement to avoid all ties with the state.
She says the Catholic Worker did not set up a defense committee to campaign for Catholic funds.
“I can only trust that this crisis will pass,” she said.
“I am sure that some way will be found either to avert the disaster, or for us to continue to care for our old, sick, helpless, hungry and homeless if it happens,” she said.
The National Catholic Reporter reported that the “peace tax fund” idea had captured Catholic attention as well:
Applying papal suggestions
From tax dollars to peace fund
By Phil Haslanger
Special to the National Catholic Reporter, Madison, Wis.—
Trying to apply papal suggestions to political realities is not the easiest job in the world.
Take, for example, Pope Paul’s suggestion in his encyclical Populorum Progressio that a world fund be established “to be made up of part of the money spent on arms, to relieve the most destitute of this world.”
For Dr. Daniel J. Guilfoil, a 39-year-old philosophy professor at Edgewood college here, that suggestion provided the key to his dream of having part of his tax money be deferred from military expenses to help the poor.
With the introduction of a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives which would enable citizens to avoid paying war taxes on grounds of conscience (N.C.R., ), Guilfoil saw his dream moving closer to reality.
Although Guilfoil had worked for about two years to have his congressman, Rep. Robert Kastenmeier (D-Wis.), introduce such a bill, the push which finally got the bill introduced came from a citizens group in Ann Arbor, Mich. under the leadership of Dr. David Bassett, a physician.
Neither Guilfoil nor the Ann Arbor group had any knowledge about each other — a fact Guilfoil interprets as both a weakness in the tactical effort and a sign that the bill embodies an idea whose time has come.
The path Guilfoil followed which led him to work for such legislation was not dissimilar from that followed by other liberal Catholics in the wake of Vatican Ⅱ.
As enthusiasm for the declarations of the council yielded to frustration over the pace of change, Guilfoil, his wife, Barbara (“She’s probably more activist than I am”) and their nine children became a part of Madison’s John ⅩⅩⅢ experimental community.
With the community, they worked on civil rights and open housing legislation and, in Guilfoil’s words, “moved into the peace movement, if you will, as a connected issue.”
Working with the social action committee of Madison Area Community of Churches to establish a draft counseling center, Guilfoil became sensitive to the witness offered by conscientious objectors and he began to think that “the principle of alternative service should be extended to all people,” not just to draftable young men.
At the same time, he was aware of the growing tax resistance movement to protest the war and he was considering the implications of Populorum Progressio.
The various threads were woven together by Guilfoil and other members of John ⅩⅩⅢ into a petition, signatures were gathered and a resolution was adopted by the social action committee of the diocesan priests’ senate urging “legislation to create an alternate fund to administer to the needs of people.”
From there, more signatures were collected and on , Guilfoil talked with Kastenmeier about the possibility of having legislation to that effect introduced.
The congressman responded favorably and suggested the petitions and information be sent to his administrative assistant.
Kastenmeier’s office considered the proposal, but decided that the time was not yet ripe for such a bill.
Some time later the idea of just such a bill was stirring in Ann Arbor.
By fall the World Peace Tax Fund steering committee had been established.
According to Arthur Mack, the committee’s corresponding secretary, a second committee was established in Washington to lobby towards such legislation.
Rep. Ronald Dellums (D-Cal.) liked the idea and put his office to work on rounding up cosponsors.
In , he and the other nine congressmen introduced the “bill and saw it referred to the House Ways and Means committee.
, Guilfoil prodded the faculty of Edgewood college to “go on record as supporting the right of all citizens to the privilege of the status of ‘conscientious objector.’ ”
, he convinced the social action commission of Blessed Sacrament parish in Madison to unanimously adopt a resolution asking the parish council to educate the parish “on the theology of alternate service.”
Resolutions written by Guilfoil supporting the passage of the World Peace Tax Fund act the bill pending in the House were adopted by both the Second District caucus of the Democratic party (Madison) and, most significantly of all, by the State Democratic party as a part of its platform.
Guilfoil sees his efforts on the local level as part of the push to draw national attention to the bill.
He said he hopes the National Conference of Catholic Bishops will consider supporting the legislation, and he would like to see other national groups support the bill.
As for the realistic chances of getting the bill out of committee and passed into law, Guilfoil admits, “I’m not optimistic.
But if you told me two years ago it would even be a bill now. I wouldn’t have believed you.”
He sees lobbying combined with education as the lever to getting the bill moving.
“There’s enough sentiment today that taxes are being directed foolishly,” he says.
“It’s a matter of getting people aware that straight people can think about these things.”
For Catholic groups, he added, the concepts of the bill “must be tied to the pacifist and just war traditions of the church — the doctrine of the church is surely important.”
As for Guilfoil himself, he is not waiting for the government to pass legislation which will make that papal suggestion a political reality.
He has joined with others in the state to form a Wisconsin Peace Fund.
The specifics of the group haven’t been worked out yet, but basically, members will put a part of their tax money into the fund and the group will disperse it to local causes.
What Guilfoil and the people in Ann Arbor hope is that someday that peace fund will be on a national or even international level.
The World Peace Tax Fund act has helped sustain that hope.
The issue of National Catholic Reporter reported on a national war tax resistance conference and included a sidebar on “How tax resisters resist taxes.” From the opening paragraphs, it appears that a political endorsement was on the agenda, suggesting that the conference was much more mainstream-liberal then than it is now (I doubt such an endorsement would be seriously considered by a NWTRCC conference these days):
War tax resisters
Can’t quite “endorse” McGovern
Jim Castelli, Associate Editor
Kansas City, Mo. —
The second National War Tax Resistance Conference, attended by about 40 persons from around the country, gave what amounted to a qualified endorsement to the presidential candidacy of Senator George McGovern.
The tax resisters approved a statement praising McGovern for his promises to end the war, cut military spending, restudy the entire tax system and support a guaranteed annual income.
The statement also said the political climate in the country would substantially improve with McGovern as president and that he would end “repressive” actions by the government.
But the tax resisters also said they saw a negative side to McGovern, saying he “completely believes in maintaining United States power in the world” and that providing more arms for Israel, as McGovern has said he would do, is not the way to end the crisis in the Middle East.
Despite such criticisms, the statement said that most of the participants would probably vote for McGovern.
Discussion indicated that those at the conference not voting for McGovern would either vote for Dr. Benjamin Spock, the People’s Party candidate, or not vote at all.
One participant suggested that applying pressure on McGovern from the left would let voters see him as a moderate, and therefore more acceptable.
Another noted that because War Tax Resistance has strong anarchistic tendencies, a statement in support of McGovern might induce some anarchists to vote in this election.
The conference was held at St. Mark’s church, an unusual church in that it is staffed by Protestant and Catholic clergy.
The participants, for the most part, wore sandals, well-worn jeans and long hair but weren’t all young.
They came from both coasts and such cities as Denver, Chicago and Ann Arbor, Mich.
Also coming out of the conference was an agreement to draw up a statement on what the focus of the war tax resistance movement should be when the war ends.
It was agreed tax resisters should continue to oppose the domination of the federal budget by the military and the centralization of power in the hands of governmental and corporate structures.
This opposition, the participants said, should include presenting alternatives, such as a nonviolent peace-keeping force and a blueprint for converting to an economy based on peace — for example, an analysis of how to shift the emphasis at Boeing Aircraft to building mass transportation facilities.
The conference expressed opposition to key segments of the World Peace Fund Tax Act, a measure introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressman Ron Dellums (D-Calif.) and nine other legislators.
The bill would allow taxpayers who qualified for conscientious objector status under Selective Service standards to divert the percentage of their taxes slated for the military to a “world peace tax board,” which would study peaceful alternatives to international conflict.
The major objections to the bill were the screening process to obtain the conscientious objector status and the fact that the alternative funds would still be controlled at the national level, preventing tax money from being used in the community from which it was paid.
No specific action was taken at the conference on the bill, but Robert Calvert, coordinator of War Tax Resistance, said he expects a new national working committee to try to rework the bill in .
Calvert, in an interview, said the number of Americans withholding taxes because of the war is growing.
He estimated that between 100,000 and 200,000 are either refusing to page the 10 per cent federal telephone excise tax, which is used for the war, or refusing to pay all or part of their income tax.
At present, he said, there are 192 war tax resistance centers in the U.S.
He added that each regional office of the Internal Revenue Service now has a person or department dealing with taxpayers protesting the war.
“We’d love to get our hands on the IRS list,” he said.
“They have many more names of resisters than we have because many people resist on their own without working with a local center.”
The two main purposes of the conference were organizational: the creation of a working committee, and the question of whether or not to move the national office from New York to Kansas City.
The proposal to move the office was approved, partly because of expected lower operating costs, but mostly because War Tax Resistance wants to be closer to “middle America.”
The move is expected to be made by the end of the year.
The working committee, now being assembled, will consist of representatives of national regions and the seven state area around Kansas City.
The committee is to meet every two months beginning in .
How tax resisters resist taxes
Special to the National Catholic Reporter, Kansas City, Mo.—
How do you resist paying taxes as a protest against the war, and what happens when you do?
Interviews conducted at the second annual National War Tax Resistance Conference and materials put out by the movement provide these answers:
There are a variety of ways to resist taxes:
Withholding the federal telephone excise tax, withholding all or part of the federal income tax, not filing a tax return at all, paying taxes under protest and keeping one’s earnings below a taxable level.
All have a different set of consequences.
The most common form of resistance is withholding the telephone tax, says Robert Calvert, coordinator of the War Tax Resistance organization.
The telephone tax, which helps finance the war, currently is 10 per cent.
To withhold it, resisters simply deduct the tax when they pay their phone bills, explaining that it is a protest against the war, not against the phone company.
Members of War Tax Resistance say that telephone companies have told resisters that their service will not be interrupted, and that they regard the protest as a matter between the individual and the government.
They point out, however, that phone companies do provide the Internal Revenue Service with the names of resisters.
The experience of resisters is that, after several written demands for payment, IRS can usually secure payment by attaching the resister’s bank account, taking the amount of the unpaid tax, plus up to six per cent interest.
Technically, a person who resists the telephone tax is liable to a year’s imprisonment and a $10,000 fine, but so far the government has been satisfied with collection, resisters say.
In Calvert’s opinion, the government might still decide to arrest telephone tax resisters.
But, he adds, it has been the history of movements such as tax resistance that they are strengthened by governmental crackdowns.
Resisting income taxes is more difficult because taxes are withheld from most people’s wages during the year.
Thus, resisters who owe money at the end of the year can refuse to pay it or, through the use of such tactics as claiming more dependents than they actually have, file for a refund.
Income tax resistance is viewed more seriously by the government; resisters have been jailed, but penalties are greater for falsification of income tax returns or failure to file than for refusal to pay.
(Any tax returns indicating resistance should be accompanied by a letter explaining the nature of the protest.)
So far, however, either because their returns have been accepted by IRS computers, or because appeals proceedings can take years, most resisters have still not had to pay taxes.
Tax resisters advise against keeping withheld tax money, however.
The organization instead advises putting the money into alternate funds which may be used to assist tax resisters who are challenged by the government.
The government can seize personal property such as cars and houses for public auction to bring in the owed taxes.
(Whatever money is brought in over and above the taxes and auction fees is returned to the resister.)
These auctions have become occasions for peace demonstrations.
An auction for a car that had been seized from a Kansas man for tax resistance heard bids of Vietnamese tears, coffins, and napalmed babies.
Also, a resister can often arrange to have friends or a resistance center make the actual purchase at the auction.
The use of withholding allowances as a means of tax resistance was devised by John Egnal, a lawyer from Philadelphia representing resister Jack Malinowski.
Malinowski was charged with supplying “false information” on his tax status; he had claimed 14 dependents (the number of other people in the Philadelphia tax resistance center), an amount which negated his tax for the year.
He was found guilty, but has not as yet been sentenced.
The problem with past methods of tax resistance is that they are all technically illegal because they hinge on a yes or no answer to questions regarding certain parts of the internal revenue code.
The use of withholding allowances, however, seems to avoid this situation.
An employee fills out IRS form W-4 to indicate to his employer the number of deductions he will claim for the coming year; form W-4E indicates that no tax liability has been incurred for the year, usually because of income below the taxable level.
People who expect to have a large number of itemized deductions can enter a number of withholding allowances — converted from dollar figures by a chart on the back of the W-4 form — which will reduce tax payments; this way, higher taxes are not paid and then refunded at the end of the year.
Egnal holds that “the withholding allowance claim would be applicable to any tax resister who believed that, as a result of the illegal and immoral conduct of the U.S. government, some or all of the federal taxes claimed could not lawfully be collected.
“If one held such a belief… it would be necessary to improvise some basis for preparing one’s income tax returns, since IRS has not, as yet, seen fit to follow the law of this country, which includes not only the Internal Revenue code, but also numerous principles of international law to which the U.S. has subscribed.”
This improvisation, according to Egnal, would be a “war crimes deduction” for which a withholding allowance could be entered.
Egnal, claims that if the government were to prosecute such a resister, “the only false statement they could point to would be ‘I am entitled to a war crimes deduction because…’
Such a statement reflects a legal conclusion which has never been ruled upon by any court, and which… enjoys the support of many noted scholars.”
Even if the courts eventually rule that such deductions are illegal, Egnal points out that past rulings would not allow prosecution because the fact that the legal question was in doubt erases the possibility of “willfully” breaking the law.
A similar situation exists with form W-4E, which states “Under penalties of perjury, I certify that I incurred no liability for federal income tax for and that I anticipate that I will incur no liability for federal income tax for .”
A resister could, according to Egnal, use the “war crimes deduction” to justify the claim that he was not liable for any taxes.
(A follow-up brief in the issue read: “There was some discussion at the annual conference of War Tax Resistance that if McGovern lost the election, his followers would make a prime target for the tax resistance movement.
He lost, and the war is still going on; if it drags on until income tax time, it will be interesting to see if there is an increase in tax resistance.”
Another, in the issue read: “The war tax resistance movement has found a new home in Mid-America — Kansas City.
The organization moved from New York to save money and to be physically closer to ‘middle Americans.’
Nearby Independence, Mo. is the national headquarters of the paramilitary Minutemen, but tax resistance members don’t expect any hassles.
One resister joked, ‘Maybe we can learn something from them about grassroots organization.’
The new address will be 912 E. 31st St., Kansas City, Mo.”)
The same issue included this opinion piece:
War taxes and conscience
“It is the issue of coresponsibility and complicity that will become salient”
By Roderick Hindery
Even if United States military forces in Indochina should be reduced to a residual element or less before or after the election, the war will remain an issue crucial for the conscience and morale of those who led it and those who were coresponsible.
It is particularly the issue of coresponsibility or complicity that will become salient.
The fact that the Indochina war was explicitly rejected by millions who simultaneously supported it by taxes and other forms of cooperation may make the judgment of Nuremberg the question of the present era:
“that a person acted pursuant to the order of his government or a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.”
One of the more constructive expressions of an emerging consciousness of coresponsibility for military action is the World Peace Tax Fund Act (N.C.R. ).
Although the bill may never escape committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, as one attempt to legislate an alternative to economic participation in war for those conscientiously opposed, it is enormously important.
The rationale attached to the bill argues that since compulsory significant participation in war against one’s religious conscience is opposed to the original spirit of the First Amendment, the law should allow a realistic alternative such as contributions to qualified peace-related activities — for example, research toward non-military solutions of conflict.
The compatibility of alternate contributions with responsible citizenship is defended by reference to Christian tradition, the traditions of the United States, judicial interpretations and legal precedents.
In a survey of some of the bill’s ramifications, the authors assure their readers that tried and proven standards for determining authentic conscientious objector status can also be applied to military tax objectors.
As for other possible abuses, it is alleged that the Peace Tax Fund’s passage would not open the floodgates to earmarking tax dollars because opposition to war involves a right of conscience that is uniquely fundamental.
In a concluding section entitled “Effectiveness,” the Peace Tax Fund proposal realistically admits that the military budget would not decrease unless Congress were persuaded by the fund’s growth to reduce the priority of military spending.
Tax exemption is primarily a means to that end.
In noting that the bill would “force” taxpayers to decide whether they can support military spending, the authors underline the thesis with which we began — the importance of an emerging consciousness about coresponsibility for war through military spending.
The Peace Tax Fund, of course, is not the only path of dissent being explored.
An increasing body of tax resisters (192 listed groups in the United States) have experimented with alternatives ranging from individual protests to communal resistance and harassment of the Internal Revenue Service.
Taxes are withheld totally or in amounts proportionate to military spending by the government.
Equivalent sums are donated to social and charitable causes.
However, if the citizen takes steps to insure that military taxes are not confiscated from his salary or property, he is liable to legal sanction.
While refusal to work for taxable wages and emigration are further options, emigration alone may offer the only route toward a “pure non-cooperation.”
When economic systems can support war by deficit spending and by the transfer of non-military funds to military budgets, even participation in a future World Peace Tax Fund would not neutralize the fact that living within a military economy is itself a kind of cooperation in war.
The option most commonly followed is to justify support of military spending as a means of buying time and freedom to work toward a less militaristic administration.
None of these options to economic military support necessarily presuppose a totally pacifistic position.
In principle they also apply to citizens concerned with the justice of supporting particular wars, revolutions, counterrevolutions, or exorbitantly massive forms of national defense.
In each of these instances it is maintained that money becomes power and weaponry which kills against one’s conscience.
What was always true is becoming increasingly obvious.
Conscientious objection is a problem not only for draftees but for all taxpayers and their dependents.
The fact that the problem is not yet widely recognized is partly grounded in a profound dilemma never resolved in the history of theoretical ethics and only tenuously confronted by national constitutions and international law.
The dilemma can be expressed in two questions:
1) Is there not a basic and inalienable human right/duty not to kill against one’s conscience?
2) If this right/duty is inalienable, how can the right/duty of national defense override it?
Within the legal dimension the dilemma is not yet totally resolved.
The Russian Constitution, for instance, legislates that the duty of defense supersedes freedom of conscience.
The United States Constitution refers to no such priority, only to a religious freedom which implicitly presupposes a prior freedom of conscience in matters so basic as killing.
No subsequent legislation has inverted that valuation, and judicial decisions consistently interpret the Constitution in favor of the primacy of conscience (at least in reference to opposition to war in general).
This priority of conscience was explicitly confirmed by the principles of Nuremberg, which were approved by the United States and promulgated as international law by the United Nations in .
In principle the United States accepts international law as an authority which obliges its own citizens.
In the United States the priority of conscience still needs clearer and more explicit legislation.
The unconstitutionality of compulsory war tax may be argued from the perspective of the written Constitution (intentions or actual practice of the framers or citizens who first ratified it) or from the viewpoint of the living constitution (manifested in judicial decisions or people’s referendums).
From either or both of these methodological perspectives the priority of conscience may be argued more cogently than it has in the past.
In other words, whatever may be said for or against other freedoms of conscience, the liberty not to kill, when killing is judged immoral, is unique.
It is so basic to the freedom of conscience which the Constitution presupposes, that there is need of an explicit amendment or other legislation to guide courts in deciding all cases involved.
A bill like the World Peace Tax Fund, while not as irreversible or desirable as a constitutional amendment, is needed to help explicate what is already implicit at the legal level.
Within the ambit of theoretical ethics which operate autonomously outside or within various world religions, the priority of the right not to kill against one’s conscience is in jeopardy due to two as yet unsolved theoretical controversies.
The first controversy is the one engendered by classic utilitarianism’s principle that morality is always determined by whatever serves the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people.
As recently as John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass., Harvard U. Press, ; cf. The New York Times Book Review, ), philosophers have joined in continued debate about the adequacy of the greatest happiness principle and have argued the pragmatic need to supplement it by postulating an equal and, in some ways, prior principle of justice:
Since certain individual rights of life or liberty are inalienable, their inviolability necessarily, if sometimes invisibly, brings about the greatest happiness.
This principle is not acceptable to everyone since it seems verifiable only in the future.
The second controversy has been sharpened by analysis of ethical language.
Are rights something people merely feel about and confer or bestow on one another?
If rights are dependent on what others think of us or what they contract with us, how can rights be inalienable?
Or, if some rights are inalienable, what is the source of human certitude in specifying them, intuition or what?
Ethical thought which is not rooted in heteronomous religious authority continues to founder on these two controversies and lacks the ringing certitude about inalienable rights proclaimed by the United States Declaration of Independence and the Founding Fathers, by the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or by the international principles of Nuremberg.
Consequently, the sources of national and international laws manifest a greater unanimity and authority than do conflicting approaches in theoretical ethics.
Whoever does not immediately perceive the self-evidence of the liberty not to kill against one’s conscience will apparently function best when he appeals not to a universal authority in reasoned ethics but to the legal authority and presuppositions of constitutions or international law.
As mentioned previously, those who are convinced of conscientious objection’s legality should work for its logical extension into the economic sphere.
Not all wars or military spending appear so clearly immoral to so many people as does the war in Vietnam.
There are other issues on which progressives or conservatives may be divided among their own groups, e.g., future support of military operations in the Near East or Latin America, nuclear defense programs powerful enough to destroy the planet many times over, or foreign aid programs thought to be gravely exploitative and imperialistic.
The authors of the World Peace Tax Fund Act give assurances that exemption from war taxes would not open the floodgates for citizens who wish to earmark their tax dollars in other programs.
On the contrary, this concern may be offset with the judgment that, given a plurality of fundamental human rights, there may be many other crucial moral issues on which citizens should vote with their dollars.
The lasting merit of the growing war tax resistance movement may not be that it helped end the war in Indochina, but that it raised the question of citizens’ coresponsibility to the moral priority it deserves, not only in matters of war and peace, but in every matter of life and death.
The issue of citizens’ coresponsible decision-making entails more than the purity and liberty of individual consciences.
If free and informed decisions by greater numbers have anything to do with the effectiveness of democracy, the future of democracy itself may be involved.
Roderick Hindery teaches religious ethics at Temple university in Philadelphia.
An obituary for Dwight Macdonald in the Catholic Worker touched on his tax resistance.
Excerpt:
In , he joined the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” in refusal to pay taxes for the Vietnam War.
This was his first act of civil disobedience.
Dwight defended his action as “the deliberate, public, and non-violent breaking of a law because to obey it would be to betray a higher morality.”
The National Catholic News Service sent this dispatch over the wires on .
Excerpts:
British Churchmen Urge Disarmament Steps
By Robert Nowell
London (NC)—
Two top church leaders in Great Britain have urged nuclear disarmament initiatives by their country and a third revealed that he is waging a tax protest against England’s military spending.
On a new booklet on conscientious objection to military taxation carried the text of a letter in which a prominent Anglican, Canon Paul Oestreicher, announced to the government that he was withholding part of his income tax “as an act of conscientious objection to the manufacture, possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons” by the British government.
Canon Oestreicher is assistant general secretary of the British Council of Churches.
Canon Oestreicher wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer announcing that he was withholding a token sum of 30 pounds (about $46) “as a symbol of my duty as a Christian citizen to refuse to be party to a policy which I believe to be of doubtful legality and certainly immoral.”
His letter was printed as an appendix to a booklet on military tax resistance issued by the Quaker Council for European Affairs.
The Service sent out this dispatch on :
Bishop Thanks War Tax Resisters for “Witness”
St. Paul, Minn. (NC)— Bishop Raymond Lucker of New Ulm has thanked war tax resisters “for their witness” while stating that he does not “personally hold that position.”
“I believe that the arms race is evil.
I believe that the very possession of nuclear weapons as long as we are making no sustained commitment to achieve multilateral disarmament is evil,” wrote the Minnesota bishop in a column published in The Catholic Bulletin, newspaper of the St. Paul-Minneapolls Archdiocese.
The paper also serves the neighboring New Ulm Diocese.
Bishop Lucker compared war tax resistance with other forms of civil disobedience to unjust laws or immoral public policy, saying for example that he would go to jail rather than obey a law requiring him or a Catholic hospital under his jurisdiction to participate or cooperate in an abortion.
He said he resolves the problem of not supporting the “madness” of the arms race by not earning enough income to be subject to federal taxes.
“I do not want to contribute to this madness,” he wrote. “What I do is take such a small salary that I no longer pay income tax.
I make sure that my annual salary each year is less than $3,600.
This is no special hardship; my needs are few.
I have no family to support.
I am free to contribute to the poor.”
In Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen of Seattle announced that he was refusing to pay half of his federal income tax as a symbol of his resistance to U.S. involvement in the nuclear arms race.
He said he was giving the money instead to worthy charitable causes.
In at least 10 Catholic priests around the country, including eight in the Diocese of Pittsburgh, refused to pay a portion of their taxes as a protest against U.S. nuclear arms expenditures.
The eight Pittsburgh priests announced that they would again refuse to pay the part of their taxes that goes to pay for nuclear war and nuclear weapons.
They planned to hold a press conference and prayer service in Pittsburgh before delivering their tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service.
In discussing civil disobedience Bishop Lucker cited “many instances in history where Catholics and other Christians disobeyed a law rather than violate their conscience.”
“They used non-violent means and were willing to pay the consequences,” he wrote.
“Frequently their witness was what got an unjust law or sinful public policy changed.”
Among cases he cited were those of early Christian martyrs who refused to worship the Roman emperor, St. Thomas More’s refusal to acknowledge King Henry Ⅷ as head of the Church of England and the non-violent resistance to racist laws in the United States by the Rev. Martin Luther King and his followers.
He said that Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States were beaten and jailed before the U.S. Supreme Court recognized their right to refuse to salute the flag because they believe the action would violate the First Commandment.
“Hundreds of thousands of Americans are working to change the interpretation of the Constitution which allows abortions taking life away from the unborn.
We have a right to dissent.
We must dissent.
The issue is not going to go away,” he wrote.
He also wrote that a Christian soldier has an obligation to disobey an order that is immoral and that a person “can be a good Catholic and a conscientious objector” to all war or to a particular war.
“Each of us in our own way must respond to the Lord’s call,” Bishop Lucker wrote.
He said that not engaging in direct civil disobedience but not earning enough money to be subject to U.S. income taxes “is one way for me.”
The Service sent out this dispatch on :
Tax Resistance Funds Go to Catholic Agencies
By Brian Baker
Albany, N.Y. (NC)—
Catholic and Catholic-affiliated agencies were among 33 social service and community organizations that received donations from a war tax resistance fund in Albany.
On , the day before the deadline for filing tax returns, the Military Tax Resistance and Alternative Fund distributed more than $5,500 in checks, ranging from $50 to $600, to the non profit organizations.
The money came from people who, for reasons of conscience, refused to pay the portion of their federal income tax that they estimated would be used for military purposes.
At least five of the recipient organizations were agencies affiliated with the Diocese of Albany, among them Catholic Family and Community Services of Schenectady.
The tax resistance fund has grown each year, from $1,000 when it was begun in to $5,500 .
total was $1,500 more than despite a new federal law passed last summer which adds a $500 penalty for filing a frivolous return on top of already existing penalties for failing to pay all taxes owed.
Maureen Casey, a spokesperson for the fund and a member of St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Albany, said she has been a tax resister for three years because “it is wrong to kill people, either personally or through war.”
“I see what I am doing as the continuation of a tradition followed by many respectable people, including Dorothy Day,” a pacifist and foundress of the Catholic Worker movement, Ms Casey added.
Donald Roberts, a public affairs officer for the Internal Revenue Service, said that tax resisters could have assets seized or levies placed against their salaries to recover the taxes and applicable penalties.
In addition, he said, if the IRS decides to launch a criminal investigation a resister could be prosecuted and imprisoned.
He added, however, that the agencies receiving donations from a tax resistance fund face no legal risks for doing so.
This “news in brief” item was carried by the Service on :
Indianapolis (NC)— An Indianapolis parish has been ordered to pay for its pastor’s act of civil disobedience.
The Internal Revenue Service has issued a notice of levy on the salary of Father Cosmas Raimondi of Holy Cross Parish for $604.18 for unpaid income tax, penalties and interest.
While Father Raimondi was associate pastor at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish, Indianapolis, in he informed the IRS that he was withholding 50 percent of his income tax “as a protest against the nuclear arms race, military intervention in Central America and efforts to reinstate a mandatory military draft.”
And a follow-up on this, from a dispatch:
Friends Pay Priest’s Taxes After IRS Seizes His Car
By Jim Jachimak
Indianapolis (NC)—
An Internal Revenue Service case against an Indianapolis pastor has been settled, but the priest’s tax protest has not ended.
The IRS seized Father Cosmas Raimondi’s car on to cover federal income taxes which he withheld in but other parties have decided to pay the tax so the car can be returned.
Taxes, penalties and interest owed by Father Raimondi, pastor of Holy Cross Church, amounted to $608.14.
The car, a Honda Civic, was valued at $2,500 by the IRS.
“I have been informed that people who care about me are getting the car back by paying the taxes, which I would rather not have happen,” Father Raimondi said. “But that is their decision.”
He withheld $564.87 from the IRS to protest the nuclear arms race, U.S. intervention in Central America and draft registration.
the IRS has been attempting to collect the back taxes.
He said his action has focused attention on the issue of militarism and caused the parish council at Holy Cross to discern “the good and moral thing to do given the teachings of our church.”
In an IRS levy against Father Raimondi’s salary ordered the Holy Cross parish council to pay the amount he owed.
The council announced that it had decided not to honor the levy.
Father Raimondi said that he plans to take a reduction of salary in the future so that he will not be required to pay any federal income tax.
Jane Sammon wrote an article on tax resistance for the Catholic Worker.
There’s very little meat in it, but it does have the earliest mention I’ve found so far in this archive to the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (with a post office box address in East Patchogue, New York, and Kathy Levine listed as the contact person).
A letter-to-the-editor in the Catholic Worker promoted NWTRCC:
Ithaca, NY
Dear Catholic Worker Friends,
I hope this letter finds you in good spirits.
In these times of heightened and outrageous war fervor, it seems vital that we continue to do what we can to further the cause of peace.
The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) is currently conducting an outreach effort to promote the work that we do: serving as a clearinghouse for the conscientious war tax resistance movement in the US.
For those who are questioning their contribution to this government’s increasing militaristic emphasis, NWTRCC can extend a hand with a variety of resources and contacts.
The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee sees poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, economic exploitation, environmental destruction and the militarization of law enforcement as integrally linked with the militarism which we abhor.
Through the redirection of our tax dollars, National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee members contribute directly to the struggle for peace and justice for all.
For information, please contact us at NWTRCC, PO Box 6512, Ithaca, NY 14851.
In solidarity, David Meyers
Another article in that issue promoted the New York City People’s Life Fund for tax redirection:
NYC People’s Life Fund
As approaches, we are reminded of the crucial act of war tax resistance.
In , almost 50% of the US fiscal budget went to war tax and past military expenditures.
Today’s war tax resisters are people from all walks of life who have in common a deeply felt opposition to paying taxes in support of the military establishment.
The New York City People’s Life Fund (PLF) is the direct offspring of New York City War Tax Resistance.
Founded on , in direct response to escalating war spending and declining funds for social and economic problems, the fund redirects tax-resisted monies to assist people in need.
For more than two decades, the New York City People’s Life Fund has offered grants and loans to New York City-based groups such as Coalition for the Homeless, 4th Street Food Co-Op, John Heuss House, The Living Theater, Metropolitan Council on Housing, Theater for the New City, and Workers Defense League, Inc.
This spring, the New York City People’s Life Fund is proud to announce the upcoming publication of Why Just Survive? — Flourish! a New Yorker’s Guide to Jobs, Healthcare, Education, Alternate Living, and Leisure Time Activity.
Addressed particularly to New Yorkers, this useful sourcebook is designed to enrich the lives of its readers and promote change, leading toward an alternative and more communitarian approach to life.
For further information, please contact the New York City People’s Life Fund, or New York City War Tax Resistance, at 339 Lafayette Street, New York, NY 10012.
The following front-page article appeared in the issue of The Catholic Worker:
War Resisters and Taxes
By Ruth Benn and Ed Hedemann
What better time to be a war tax resister than now?
The horrifying death and destruction in Afghanistan and Iraq, funded by US tax dollars at the shocking rate of $5–6 billion a month, demands the strongest protests.
Withholding money from the government will certainly get its attention, and the more people who do it publicly, the more war tax resistance will grow, bringing us back around to getting more of the government’s attention.
When Ed began his life of crime as a war tax resister during the Vietnam War, that was an equally critical time to resist.
Pictures of the war were on the news every night and hundreds of lives were lost — and reported to the public — on a daily basis.
We saw the body bags coming home and the Gold Star mothers protesting.
The draft was real, and for Ed, having refused induction into the military, the next sensible step was to refuse to pay for any of it.
As a student with not much in the way of income, a telephone had to be purchased so that war tax resistance could begin.
Telephone tax resistance among peace activists was well-known and thousands refused to pay.
In , the Johnson administration brought to Congress a bill to continue the excise tax at 10% (rather than phase it out as had been intended since the Korean War), prompting the famous quote from Wilbur Mills, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee: “it is Vietnam, and only the Vietnam operation, which makes this bill necessary.”
After the war in Indochina finally came to an end, many dropped out of the peace movement and stopped resisting war taxes, but others saw yet another equally important time to resist.
The Cold War was still in full swing.
The US and the Soviet Union were stockpiling bombs and challenging their best scientists to outdo each other with their destructive power and speed of delivery.
The threat of nuclear war was growing, and the whole ecosystem was endangered by the environmental destruction which is a side effect of building these horrific weapons.
At the time Ruth began resisting, President Jimmy Carter — who looks like a good guy by today’s standards — was bringing us draft registration and growing military budgets.
As before, the connection between knowing that you would refuse to be part of the military and knowing that your tax dollars pay for someone else to do it hit home.
Once again, it seemed like a good time to be a war tax resister.
With the Reagan era of , the military budget skyrocketed, and children in Latin America were living a nightmare as family members were killed in wars sponsored by the US.
We said to ourselves, “What better time to be a war tax resister?” Despite the “warm and fuzzy” legacy that Nancy Reagan wants to promote, US taxpayers are still stuck with huge debt from that era and the boondoggle of the Star Wars missile shield program.
George H.W. Bush brought us the first Gulf War and the focus on the Middle East reminded us that without US tax dollars, Israel could not support its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Then there was Kosovo, military aid to Colombia, and always the willing commitment by elected representatives to throw billions of US tax dollars at corporate contracts loaded with waste, mismanagement, and cost overruns.
All of this and, at the same time, a litany of needs around the world that could be solved with a serious commitment of money and human resources.
Who can look at the Sudan today and not be shamed — shamed — that the money and human energy devastating Iraq is not being used to help solve the crisis there instead?
During our combined 51 years of war tax resistance, we’ve openly refused somewhere around $97,000 in federal taxes.
That money has been rerouted to all kinds of non-governmental groups who try to ease the suffering caused by the military priorities of this country.
On one hand, our resistance adds up to one small part on a single cruise missile.
On the other hand, the government doesn’t like it, and they don’t want other people to get the idea that refusing to pay taxes is a way to demand change.
Why else would the IRS be the most feared agency in the federal system?
In addition, there is a personal satisfaction in giving to good causes, even if the amounts are not huge.
The risks and inconveniences of this resistance are real — ongoing collection efforts by the IRS made up mostly of piles of letters, levies that can lead to the loss of a job, and an occasional trip to court.
These days, the IRS puts most of its collection efforts against war tax resisters into sending letters demanding payment, and once in a while they’ll make bank account and salary levies.
But one group in New Jersey is headed to court for their refusal to pay.
The Restored Israel of Yahweh is a small religious community in southern New Jersey that has a long history of resistance to war taxes.
Their leader was arrested and jailed in for tax resistance, and the group has also supported military resisters over the years.
On , three members of the community were arrested by federal marshals and taken to US District Court in Camden, New Jersey.
They were charged with “conspiring to defraud the United States for the purpose of impeding, impairing, obstructing and defeating the lawful government functions of the IRS in ascertaining, computing, assessing, and collecting taxes; Tax Evasion; and failure to file Tax Returns.” The weight of these charges is unusual with war tax resistance, and the community seeks support in their efforts to resist government interference with their religious beliefs.
Quakers in Pennsylvania have also been in court recently.
One staff member, Priscilla Adams of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (PYM) is a longtime war tax resister, and the Meeting has tried to honor her resistance by not sending her withheld taxes to the IRS.
The money was placed in a bank account, available for the IRS to seize, but not paid over willingly.
The IRS sued last year, demanding that the Meeting hand over the money and asking a 50% penalty, all totaling about $60,000.
In , a judge ruled that PYM must pay the principle to the IRS, but not the penalty; the ruling indicated that the judge felt that the Religious Freedom Act had some validity and left the door open for PYM to find some other way to handle the withheld taxes that could stand up in court someday.
These more dramatic — though very rare — cases, while used by the IRS to keep up the fear, are also the ones that bring wider attention to war tax resistance.
Each time an article appears, more people call to ask how to resist, challenged by those who stand up for their convictions, despite the legal consequences.
The act of refusing to pay one’s income taxes for war is the simplest and easiest form of direct action against war: file your tax return (IRS form 1040), withhold some or all of the taxes due, and include a letter of explanation.
What would happen if every peace activist refused to send $1 owed to the IRS and enclosed a protest letter with their refusal?
Resisting a token amount is very low risk but forces the government to deal with the protest.
Since the election, calls and emails to the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee indicate a growing interest in tax resistance and in making it visible.
Many people say that they would resist if they felt they were part of a campaign where the numbers could more easily be tallied.
War tax resistance can be a lonely affair at times, and everyone wants to know, “How many war tax resisters are there?” How many of you receiving this paper resist, but no one knows?
It’s time we all stepped up our vocal refusal to pay for war.
There have been plenty of reasons to resist over the last fifty years, but there’s no better time than now to stop paying for war and for the ongoing military spending that allows the government to wage it.
If we don’t do it, the era of endless war will certainly become a reality.
For more information and resources call the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee at 800‒269‒7464.
