Tax resistance in the “Peace Churches” → Quakers → 20th–21st century Quakers → Dorothy & Edward Snyder

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in

There was lots about war tax resistance in the Friends Journal in , including an active debate about the worth of the World Peace Tax Fund legislation.

In the issue Jill Penberthy shared how a “committee on clearness” organized by the Middlebury (Vermont) Friends Meeting helped her decide how to use an anticipated IRS levy as an outreach opportunity. Excerpts:

…I struggled to figure out how to respond to an Internal Revenue Service computer’s $1,800 bill for taxes, penalties, and interest on my account withheld as a war tax protest. I also remembered a tai chi class in which we were taught to yield with the aggressor, using his or her energy and our own creativity to change the process. I was puzzled about how to use these concepts with the IRS. The computer was not listening to my numerous letters explaining my position as a war tax resister. I was unable to contact anyone within the IRS with whom I could share my witness.

I brought my quandary to Middlebury Friends Meeting in Vermont and asked for a committee on clearness. We gathered at my home and in the silence were moved to initiate a Peace Witness Fund under the care of the meeting that would be transferred to a local bank for seizure by the IRS. The process became one of grace among us and within the Middlebury community.

The committee asked to share the penalty and commitment to peace represented by the withheld taxes. Quaker history bears witness to conscientious objection through tax resistance. We struggled to move beyond resistance to “yielding and overcoming,” and this we did with the guidance of the Spirit.

Letters of purpose were sent to Friends and sympathetic supporters requesting acknowledgment of the commitment to peace and offering a share in the assessed penalty. They were asked to send copies of the purpose to elected officials and the IRS, and to join us on the Green in the center of Middlebury for singing and dancing before depositing the Peace Witness Fund in the bank.

We announced the peace gathering in the local papers — “Everyone is welcome.” At the gathering we distributed leaflets explaining our concern about the present military escalation and preparation for nuclear war. Babies and siblings, parents and grandparents, and retired military men all joined hands on the Green in a dance of peace, recognizing the Light within each of us. “We are all one planet, all one people on earth,” sang a myriad of voices.

During the silence that followed, a professor from France said, “There are people you don’t even know about who are supporting you. Let that be your strength.” Another witness said, “This isn’t happening in my home state. I’ll take it home with me.”…

…Our group proceeded up the hill and into the local bank where tellers and customers witnessed our Peace Fund deposit.

A brief note in the same issue said that “[s]ignatures of war tax resisters are being collected by the War Tax Resistance National Ad Campaign for placement in newspaper ads in ” and gave an address for the campaign. A second brief announcement read:

A Peace Tax Fund has been established by Friends United Meeting. The FUM general board established an escrow account this past fall into which war tax resisters who belong to FUM may deposit taxes withheld from the government. Should the IRS take action against the depositor, the money may be withdrawn later. Income generated from the fund will be used to finance FUM peace and justice programs. For more information…

The issue brought news that the Palo Alto (California) Meeting had endorsed phone tax resistance: “In keeping with our Peace Testimony,” a minute from the Meeting read, “Friends are encouraged to refuse payment of taxes which would otherwise be used primarily for killing and war preparation.” The Meeting suggested redirecting resisted taxes to an alternative fund set up by the Pacific Yearly Meeting in .

At the Friends World Committee for Consultation meeting in , the group formed a new committee: “Friends Committee on War Tax Concerns.” According to a Journal article on the meeting:

Sponsorship of the FCWTC followed two broad-based consultations the FWCC initiated in on questions of conscience raised by the use of Friends’ taxes for war and war preparations. Drawing upon decades of experience with conscientious objection to conscription, representatives of all Quaker organizations formed the FCWTC to prepare a series of papers for discussion and to organize regional conferences and a conference for Quaker employers on the complex issues involved.

A later issue mentioned Wallace T. Collett as the new Committee’s clerk and Linda Coffin as “staff.” It reported:

The FCWTC initially is focusing on three areas of work. The first will be publication of educational materials, with the hope of reaching a broader understanding among Friends of the concern about war taxes. The pamphlets will cover such topics as the biblical guidance for war tax refusal; Quaker history and recent Quaker statements on war tax concerns; recent experiences of individual Friends; positions of other churches and Christian denominations on the payment of war taxes; legal issues, IRS codes, and alternatives for those with war tax concerns; spiritual and rational bases for war tax concerns; possible legislative remedies for conscientious objectors; and a general annotated bibliography.

The second area is consultative services to Quaker employers who are involved in the issue through the actions of their employees and through their own role in the collection of taxes. A conference for Quaker employers is being planned for or .

The third area is facilitating consultation and study throughout the Society of Friends through a series of regional conferences. The first of these conferences, “Paying for War; Paying for Peace,” was held in Washington D.C., , under FWCC auspices. The FCWTC also hopes to develop informal ties with other groups working on the issue of conscience and war taxes, including both those of other denominations and those outside the United States.

Barbara Harrison mentioned in a letter-to-the-editor in the issue that as her husband has an income that “meets most of our needs (wants, though, are beyond us), and as I wish to limit the amount of money we pay in taxes that goes for military expenses, I avoid most paid employment” and that this has freed up her time to volunteer to help at a local elementary school.

The issue brought an update on Karl Meyer’s “cabbage patch resistance” technique:

The Internal Revenue Service seized a trailer and a station wagon from Karl Meyer of Chicago during the night of . Early two IRS officers came to his door and served him with a levy for $20,160 in frivolous tax return penalties and a “Notice of Seizure” for the vehicles they had already removed. In , Karl Meyer, a long-time peace activist and pacifist, filed a daily protest tax return to the IRS — 365 in all. On the day after the seizure, about 30 supporters joined him in a protest demonstration at the Chicago IRS office. Meanwhile, he has been taking public transportation to his work as a carpenter.

The same issue also mentioned a sort of round-about form of tax resistance being pursued by Lucy & Sheldon Clark and Dorothy & Edward Snyder, Quakers from Baltimore, who were filing a lawsuit against the government for the return of that portion of their taxes that they believed had been spent on illegal acts of military aggression in Central America. The issue noted that the suit was dismissed.

That issue also mentioned a seminar on war tax resistance would be among those offered at “The Rise of Christian Conscience, a national conference of Christian nonviolence and civil disobedience sponsored by Sojourners Peace Ministry.” It also noted a quarterly newsletter from a General Conference Mennonite Church-associated group called “God and Caesar” concerning conscientious objection to military taxes.

The Lake Erie Yearly Meeting in approved a minute that “suggested that Friends General Conference set up a fund for Friends who wish to withhold the military portion of their taxes.”

Do you need “Friendly” tax law assistance? … Our reasonable fee, personalized tax services make possible our reduced-fee assistance to those who, for reasons of conscience, challenge compulsory taxation for war-making.

an ad from the issue of Friends Journal

In a weekend retreat was planned in Voluntown, Connecticut to discuss “the Philosophy of War Tax Resistance”. Bob Bady appears to have been an (the?) organizer.

The issue noted that NWTRCC had published some brochures on topics like “Your Taxes Pay for the War in Central America,” “Your Taxes Pay for the Nuclear Arms Race,” and “Your Telephone Tax Pays for War” as well as “a Telephone War Tax Resistance Poster Kit.”

The issue noted that the IRS had seized an alternative fund from a Meeting to collect a tax debt:

Four IRS agents seized Craig MacDonald’s pickup truck on in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., in lieu of his federal income taxes. Craig MacDonald, a member of Purchase (N.Y.) Meeting, attends Cornwall (N.Y.) Meeting, where he is clerk of the Peace Committee. The IRS had ordered Craig to pay $1,440.85, which includes interest and penalty charges. The original amount of taxes owed, $1,159.90, was put into the Stamford-Greenwich Friends Meeting Peace Tax Fund. The IRS seized this money in addition to the truck. The IRS explained in a letter that it did not know about the account until after seizure of the truck. Neither truck nor money has been returned to Craig. To pay the additional IRS charges, Cornwall Meeting has set up a fund for suffering for Craig.

The same issue noted that the Quaker Council for European Affairs had published a second edition of its pamphlet, Paying for Peace containing “facts for Friends concerned about conscientious objection to military taxation,” and that Conscience Canada had published a booklet called The First Freedom: Freedom of Conscience and Religion in Canada to promote the Maple Leaf State’s version of the peace tax fund proposal.

The “Peace Tax Fund” Debate

In the issue was an article by Christopher Hodgkin entitled “Second Thoughts on the World Peace Tax Fund.” Excerpts:

The World Peace Tax Fund ranks almost as a motherhood-and-apple pie issue for Friends.… [It] now offers a legal basis for conscientious objection to taxation along with the chance to support a national, tax-supported peace fund.

Indeed, a multitude of pacifist organizations have endorsed the fund, including such Friends organizations as the American Friends Service Committee, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Friends United Meeting, Friends General Conference, and various monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings. Such heavyweight support is impressive. It is also, however, a nagging cause for concern. Quakers have historically, and with good reason, been religious “contrarians.” Often the proposals with the widest support need the closest scrutiny. Truth most often comes on tiptoe and alone. Is there something in this well-regarded and well-supported measure that needs to be more carefully examined?

[Proponents argue that] Conscientious objection to conscription of the body is recognized; why shouldn’t conscientious objection to conscription of the dollar be recognized equally?

Unfortunately, they are not parallel for two principal reasons. First, one’s person and one’s dollars are not the same thing. One’s person is a creation of God; one’s dollars are a creation of the state. Jesus dealt with the different responsibilities for the two quite succinctly; I do not need to add to his teaching.

Second, military conscription and taxation have completely different scopes. The draft is a single-purpose instrument. It conscripts U.S. men for military duty. It has no other dimension. It is relatively simple to say that one accepts or rejects military service, and therefore accepts or rejects conscription.…

The income tax, on the other hand, is a multipurpose vehicle that supports the entire range of programs and activities of our government.…

Assume for a moment that our government conscripted people, as it conscripts dollars, to perform the complete range of government activities. Does anyone doubt that the equivalent of C.O. status would be granted to, say, Catholics to exempt them from performing Medicare abortions? If we conscripted people to teach the theory of evolution as truth in our schools, does anyone doubt that fundamentalist Christians would become conscientious objectors to that service? If we conscripted people to perform death sentence executions, would all citizens perform such duty, or would some seek exemption? Conscientious objection to war is the only conscientious objection currently sanctioned by our government not because there is something special about war resisters but because military service is the only bodily conscription now sanctioned by the government.

He later extends this point into the familiar slippery-slope argument in which if conscientious objectors to military taxes are granted a legal exemption from paying such taxes, the government would be acting inconsistently if it did not offer similar exemptions to people who have conscientious objections to other aspects of government spending.

[The promoters’ statement that war taxes mean “conscientious objectors must either violate their beliefs or violate the law”] is, of course, not true. A number of individuals who object to paying taxes for war arrange their incomes and live so that they are not subject to taxation and therefore pay no taxes for war. No law is violated. What this argument really says is that conscientious objectors who are unwilling to undergo economic discomfort in support of their beliefs must either violate their beliefs or violate the law. These objectors would not be likely to impress those early (and not so early) Friends who over the years have suffered a great deal more than economic discomfort in their commitment to Truth.

The simple fact is that any person who objects to paying taxes for war can legally avoid paying them. What they may not be able to do is avoid paying taxes for war without making some sacrifices. It is not the exercise of conscience that is at stake, but convenience. Are Friends ready to endorse a major change in national policy and in the principles of shared representative government to support those whose principles may be less important to them than their comfort? Those who would ask for the crown without the cross?

Perhaps the greatest irony in this issue is that the bill diverts attention from the real issue of peacemaking. The World Peace Tax Fund bill is a special interest bill for a special interest minority. If we truly believe in the need for a national peace effort — and I believe that many individuals who are not conscientious objectors recognize the urgent need for serious new approaches to peacemaking — we should be supporting legislation to add a serious commitment to peacemaking to the budget, legislation supported by all taxpayers, not just conscientious objectors.

Many U.S. citizens not yet ready to reject all defense spending are desperately afraid of nuclear war and would strongly support an active national peacemaking program. But the World Peace Tax Fund allows no role to such individuals. It demands that its supporters renounce all military spending at whatever level as a condition for participating in a tax-supported peace effort. This exclusionary approach reduces the funds and personal commitments that could be available to a nationally supported peace program.

The World Peace Tax Fund claims to protect conscientious objectors to war from having their dollars conscripted for military purposes. But that right already exists. This proposal does not create the right; it makes its exercise painless. The World Peace Tax Fund seeks special privileges for one religious minority that will inevitably lead to special privileges for a multitude of other religious minorities, quite possibly doing serious damage to programs that the fund’s supporters consider most important. The World Peace Tax Fund seeks to provide taxpayer support for a national peacemaking effort, but ironically the approach taken may actually reduce the funds that could be made available if such an effort were undertaken as a normal part of our national budget.

As you might expect, this led to some debate in subsequent issues:

  • Brandt Chamberlain thought that Hodgkin’s slippery slope didn’t have anything very frightening at the end of it: “Laws permitting the diversion of tax dollars from programs felt to be morally objectionable could meet the demands of individual conscience while increasing our democratic influence on setting government priorities.” He also is skeptical that resisting taxes by lowering income is such a great idea, as “economic disengagement in this manner could limit us in our efforts to help define and meet the material needs of our society.”
  • Wallace T. Collett wrote in to say that he is on the whole supportive of the federal income tax system as “the most equitable way to raise the funds needed for necessary government services,” and regrets that an overwhelming conscientious imperative forces him to noncooperate with it. “But… we cannot separate the collection process from the use of the funds that are collected… military policies that lead toward the death of all life on earth.” He hoped that once “a million” Americans either refused to pay war taxes or chose to pay into the World Peace Tax Fund, “then the dominance of the military on our nation’s policies will be overcome and our country and the world will be set on a new course.”
  • Robert Hull, then chairperson of the National Campaign for a World Peace Tax Fund, also wrote in. He disagreed with Hodgkin’s scriptural interpretation of money as being a creature of the State, and therefore the State’s to do with as it will. Conscripting a person’s money is tantamount to conscripting the time they took to earn that money.

    When such large proportions of the exchange value of one’s labor (i.e., money) is confiscated through the federal treasury for military purposes, I believe there is a strong case for speaking of “military conscription.” And if “military conscription” is operating, then conscientious objection is appropriate. In our technological age, the young few have at times been conscripted for military duty; the many older are continually being conscripted through their labor.

    Hull also had no fear of Hodgkin’s slippery slope.

    …Hodgkin’s fear [is] that if we are allowed to divert our taxes away from military expenditures, the floodgates will open to every group with a conscientious dissent. So be it! Let each of them go to Congress and make their case, as we are doing. We trust our representatives to sort out the true grievance of conscience from the false greed of opportunism.

  • Alan Eccleston defended the World Peace Tax Fund bill this way (excerpts):

    …[A]t either a symbolic or substantial level, we can refuse voluntary compliance with a tax system that has God’s priorities turned upside down. The institutional wheels of government start grinding and, in time, the IRS will collect the money withheld plus interest and penalties. What has been accomplished? Is this just an act of self-righteousness? Has the world changed?

    Yes, it has changed! I know this experientially.

    Praying for peace is powerful in itself. When the prayer is made manifest in one’s daily life its power multiplies. There are many ways for the manifestation to be expressed, and each of us must listen to our inner guide for direction. Those of us who, through love, are led to say no to war taxes announce we trust God, not armaments, for our security.

    In addition to creating a new ethical choice for most of the adult population, the World Peace Tax Fund bill establishes a separate trust fund that will disburse over one billion dollars a year for programs of health, education, and welfare. I know of no other peace initiative that has this potential.

  • James B. Eblin wrote that the option of lowering his income below the tax line was not available to him as “I am morally and legally obliged to support my children.” He therefore sees the World Peace Tax Fund as his only possible relief.
  • Lissa Field also criticized Hodgkin’s stark distinction between conscription of bodies and taxation of earnings. “[W]e are responsible for both… as my taxes pay for the destruction of other humans and that of God within them, I am responsible for responding on the level of God’s rules, not Caesar’s.” She also, as someone who had faced a $5,000 fine for her resistance, found “particularly tedious” Hodgkin’s casting of tax resisters as unwilling to sacrifice.
  • Joe Marinello also thought that since income is the fruit of his labor, his person is very much wrapped up in his income, and so Hodgkin’s distinction does not hold. “My labor (directly represented by my earned income) is the fruit of my being in this world. I will not let my actions, my labors, be used to create weapons of mass destruction. Nor will I allow my labor to be used by others to kill our neighbors.” And he reminded Hodgkin of the sorts of sacrifices above-the-line resisters have to make so “that the government does not steal my labor. I am self-employed, have no savings accounts, no property in my name, and I give away most of my income. I have no desire to go to jail, but I will go to jail before I willingly pay any war taxes.”
  • Linda Coffin prefers the World Peace Tax Fund to living below a taxable income because the latter “would be shirking our responsibility to support the life-affirming programs of our government. I could not take that option because it would mean ceasing my support for public schools, federal programs for the poor, health assistance programs, U.S. contributions to the United Nations and international aid agencies, and so on.” In contrast, “The Peace Tax Fund bill… uniquely demonstrates the depth and sincerity of our concern for the moral use of our tax dollars.”
  • Ira Byock felt that conscientious objection wasn’t really what the World Peace Tax Fund was about. “The real value of the Peace Tax Fund — like so much of what we do in peace work — lies in its symbolism, in its potential for heightening general public awareness of the percentage of our tax money spent on the military. We bear witness to the morally objectionable so that others may pause to notice.” That said, “the issue of conscience remains real. To write one’s elected representatives, contribute to peace campaigns and organizations, take part in public peace activities, and then send in money for guns, subs, missiles, and bombs is inconsistent.” And this is true even for people not willing to live below the tax line.
  • Anne Friend agreed with Hodgkin in his opposition to the World Peace Tax Fund. Weirdly, though she was most persuaded by Hodgkin’s argument “that having a witness made easy dilutes its power and will probably deflect it from its ultimate goal,” she didn’t see this as a call for her to make a difficult witness instead, but rather to wait and meanwhile do nothing: “I am not yet ready to refuse the military portion of my income taxes. But when that becomes an option [?], I expect the action required of me will be noncooperation, even if special status is available.”

Historical Notes

Margaret Hope Bacon penned an article on “Effective Peacemaking” in the issue that discussed the history of war tax resistance in the Society of Friends:

[T]he Quaker testimony against paying war taxes began with a few individuals who felt an opening and a “stop in my mind.” Theirs was an even more difficult path than that of C.O.s, for the Society itself was not always behind them. Friends have always refused to pay purely military tithes, but when the taxes are “in the mixture,” that is, war taxes and civilian taxes mixed together, or when the tax is not publicly stated as being for war, they have urged members to pay. In , London Yearly Meeting disciplined a woman member who was advocating that Friends refuse to pay a new tax that she thought was clearly for war purposes. She was told that for the past 1600 years Christians have always paid their taxes. In this case the individual was trying to respond to the dictates of conscience (religion) while the group was concerned to prevent further persecution (politics). This uneasy balance continued for years, until today, at last, monthly and yearly meetings are beginning to give more support to tax objectors, and some believe we will eventually have legal provision for the conscientious objection for our tax dollars as well as ourselves — a political result of a religious impulse.

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in

The issues of Friends Journal had a few mentions of war tax resistance and an extensive debate about the wisdom of supporting the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund act.

The issue mentioned that J.E. McNeil had been named the head of the National Interreligious Service Board for Conscientious Objectors, and that her legal experience had included “cases involving war tax refusers and conscientious objectors to military service.”

The issue included an article about the Monteverde community in Costa Rica, which was founded by American Quakers who fled the United States in part to avoid paying military taxes there. Excerpts:

Many Friends know about Monteverde, the Quaker community established in Costa Rica in . “They came here to be free to practice religion in the way they felt was important.” They wanted no military taxes. They wanted to send their children to Quaker schools and to bring them up with a good sense of priorities, away from materialism and militarism. Some came out of a sense of adventure. Four of them had just spent time in prison for their beliefs. They wrote: “We hope to discover through Divine Guidance a way of life which would seek the good of each member of the community and live in a way that will naturally lead to peace rather than war.”

[At the trial of four Quaker conscientious objectors to draft registration], the judge said, “If you are not willing to defend this country, you should leave.” They decided to do just that but had to wait until their jail sentences were over. One couple in the meeting had visited Costa Rica, and several families had already been thinking of moving there. Besides being a fairly prosperous and democratic country, and not very crowded, Costa Rica abolished its army in . Forty-one people from the meeting eventually moved there, including the teacher of the meeting’s private school.

“We were looking for a peaceful place to raise our families without being involved in the military preparedness of the United States,” recalls Marvin Rockwell.

Marvin Rockwell ran the Flor Mar Pension, a simple hostel-like bed-and-breakfast with a pleasant restaurant serving delicious food. He says he was never disappointed in the hopes he had when he moved to Costa Rica. “Costa Ricans are a friendly, helpful people.” He smiles, “And I do not feel bad at all paying taxes in Costa Rica. The largest item in the tax budget is for education.”

In the same issue, Chuck Hosking (in the course of a larger article on ethical investing), said: “If I hadn’t had to start an IRA to lower my income below the taxable minimum (to avoid financing U.S. militarism), I would have put these retirement savings in the same place we’ve put most of our contingency savings — into no-interest loans to American Friends Service Committee and Right Sharing of World Resources.”

In there was a “Religion & Social Issues Forum” titled “Building a Culture of Peace” at the Pendle Hill Quaker conference center. Among the speakers at the conference was Gordon Browne, who “told of his experiences as a ‘military tax refuser’ for over thirty years” during “a session on how Friends can make a personal difference today.”

The issue commented on the Rosa Packard legal case:

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a Quaker appeal of Internal Revenue Service penalties on religious practice. Rosa Packard, a Greenwich, Conn., Quaker, had challenged the authority of the IRS to penalize her for religiously based non-payment of war-related federal income raxes. For the last 18 years Packard has filed her income tax return, notifying the IRS by an attached letter that her core religious beliefs prevent her from paying a tax if any part of the money collected from her is used to fund war or preparation for war. Every year she has placed the full amount of her taxes, as her letter to the IRS states, in trust for the government in an escrow account maintained by Purchase (N.Y.) Quarterly Meeting. In Packard requested that the federal government waive the discretionary penalties imposed by the IRS for late payment and failure to pay estimated taxes. Packard appealed the lower court’s dismissal of this request to the Supreme Court.

An obituary notice for Richard R. Catlett in the same issue noted that “Richard was a founding member of Columbia Meeting and an active war rax resister, for which he was imprisoned briefly about 25 years ago. In his war tax resistance, he was supported by both Illinois Yearly Meeting and Columbia Meeting, which held an open meeting for worship at the prison where he was held.”

The “Peace Tax Fund” debate

The last issue of had included an op-ed by Spencer Coxe in which he cast a skeptical eye on the Peace Tax Fund idea (see ♇ ). Boiled down, his complaints were these:

  1. The Peace Tax Fund bill would ostensibly allow conscientious objectors to earmark their taxes for non-military government spending, but this will not in fact make any practical difference whatsoever in how Congress spends tax money.
  2. Conscientious objectors could have more practical effect on actual military spending through such mundane political activities as lobbying, demonstrating, attempting to influence elections, and the like; and attempts to get a Peace Tax Fund bill passed distract from this.
  3. The idea behind the Peace Tax Fund concept — that individual taxpayers can override the spending priorities of their elected representatives with their own conscientious imperatives — is corrosive of democracy, which requires people to compromise and accept the decisions of their representatives rather than engaging in a free-for-all.
  4. If it were enacted, the Peace Tax Fund would make conscientious objectors to military taxation legal, and therefore mundane and unworthy of attention. In contrast to the war tax resister of today, whose sacrifices evoke admiration and controversy and government inconvenience, the Peace Tax Fund payer would just be another citizen checking a box on a form — which would “[channel] a potentially effective resistance movement into a harmless backwater.”

I have less faith in the democratic process and in democracy in general than does Coxe, but his criticisms are sound, and, from my perspective, way overdue. A sentimental, blinkered, panglossian take on the Peace Tax Fund bill had become part of the Quaker canon, and, disturbingly, had crowded out other discussion of the dilemma of paying for war with your taxes.

But now that the criticisms had finally been aired, how would the scheme’s supporters respond? Voiciferously, as future letters columns showed:

Edward F. Snyder partially conceded the point. “The aim [of the Bill] is not to reduce the military budget… The main purpose of the bill is to honor and respect the conscientious objections of those citizens who are opposed to war in any form, including the financing through their tax dollars…” He compared it to draftees who do “alternative service” rather than serving in the military. “If I thought the primary purpose of the Peace Tax Fund were to reduce the military budget as Spencer Coxe does, I’d be hard pressed to give the proposal the time of day, and for many of the reasons he cites. There are many more direct and effective ways to challenge military spending and the policies on which it rests.” But he believes that since this isn’t the purpose, the bill is still worthwhile. He also thinks that the fact that war is such a clear violation of a bedrock conscientious value, and because it is such a large part of the budget, it holds a unique place, and carving out an exemption for conscientious objectors here will not necessarily open the floodgates for vast numbers of objectors to every little this and that in the budget.

Joe Volk wrote an extensive op-ed in response (which, alas, is partially obscured in the PDF I have). He said that he had shared Coxe’s letter with the Friends Committee on National Legislation’s Policy Committee (Volk was the FCNL executive secretary) as a way of provoking a discussion as to whether that group ought to change its policy of supporting the Peace Tax Fund bill (they decided to continue supporting it). Volk shares Snyder’s views that the slippery slope is not so slippery in this case, and that one can support the bill without believing that it would reduce military spending (“On the contrary, another argument for the Peace Tax Fund is that it would not alter Congress’s control of the purse strings” and “Of course, federal funds are fungible. Thus, whatever the Peace Tax Fund pays for simply frees other funds for the military.”) Volk asserted that were the Peace Tax Fund passed into law, rather than defanging conscientious objectors, it might free them from their current troubles in tax court to take up more productive struggles. Besides “the absence of the Peace Tax Fund does not seem to be generating the waves of protest and tension that Spencer Coxe fears we would lose were it enacted.” He also felt that rather than being corrosive of democracy, it was supportive of that essential element of democratic legitimacy that requires respect for minority opinions. And besides, Congress is carving out deductions and exemptions and other things all the time — it seems petty to pick out our own concern as the only one that’s corrosive of this manifestly imperfect democracy. Volk concluded:

My wife, Beth, and I have refused to pay our war taxes voluntarily . We want to pay our entire tax bill, but we won’t pay for weapons and the salaries of the people who use them. Having seen so much war and its effects, we could not voluntarily pay that portion of our tax that goes for war. So, we pay only that portion of our tax bill that does not pay for war. Every few years the IRS levies our bank account, wages, or savings. They take the principle, interest, and penalties on what we have refused to pay. We end up paying more to the government than had we paid the war tax. Once they took and auctioned our car. We no longer park it at our residence. We have never been able to own real estate; it would be confiscated. In the U.S. owning real estate has been a principal way for poor and middle-class people to accumulate wealth. Many of our friends could borrow on their land and property to put their children through school. We have not had that option. We are not complaining. We are happy following our conscience on this matter. We consider that these consequences of our war tax refusal are aspects of the voluntary self-suffering that nonviolent action uses to reveal truth to ourselves and to others. But we think the government should recognize our conscientious objection to paying war taxes so that we voluntarily can pay our entire tax bill. Today, we feel that we are being punished for our religious beliefs, a violation of the U.S. Constitution and of our human rights. Recognition of our claim to conscientious objection will not cut the military budget, will not end war, will not bring the Kingdom of Heaven. It will allow us to practice our faith without being punished for it. That’s a fairly radical idea still. It’s a dangerous thing too, but it can work without leading to anarchy.

Richard N. Reichley thought that Coxe was missing the point — that the Peace Tax Fund was not meant to put a dent in the military complex, but to permit certain taxpayers to follow their consciences. It might, he suggested, help spread the idea of conscientious objection to military spending: “Once the Peace Tax Fund Bill is passed, every taxpayer will know that it is law. IRS instructions will include the option to file as a conscientious objector. Perhaps we will be pleasantly surprised to learn how many Americans do not want to pay for war.”

Silas Weeks shared his frustrating experience with war tax resistance: “Eventually, the IRS invades our bank account and recovers [the] amount, plus interest and penalties. We end up paying more tax than we would otherwise have to, plus our income is reduced by whatever we have put in the local [alternative] fund.” He says that while “[i]t is extremely unlikely that the U.S. Congress will ever establish a legal peace tax alternative” it is “an improper judgment of others” to insist, as he says Coxe did, “that effort on behalf of a Peace Tax Fund wastes time and is a balm to individual conscience.”

Bruce Hawkins thought the Peace Tax Fund was not meant as an ultimate goal but as “an organizational and educational tool” for outreach and lobbying, and one that helps keep pacifist ideas on the agendas of legislators. “Don’t think for a moment that any of us will heave a sigh of relief and cease all political activity if the Peace Tax Fund passes! We would continue in the same political activity that we are in now, including support of sensible candidates for office. And we would encourage everyone we know to consider using the fund. One of our next goals would be to get enough people to use it so that it would make a difference. It will only be ‘low-key’ if we let it be low-key.”

Ben Tousley thought that while paying into a Peace Tax Fund might indeed have no practical effect on the military budget, the same could be said for many respected acts of “witnessing” — these things aren’t meant to be immediately, directly effective, but to have an eventual “transforming effect on both individuals and the larger society.”

Rosa Covington Packard echoed the idea that the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund bill was never meant “to influence the military budget” but instead “to acknowledge the inalienable right of conscientious objection to paying taxes for war and preparations for war and to accommodate it as a matter of religious freedom.” She also asserted that those who would take advantage of the Peace Tax Fund were not thereby engaging in a risk-free and invisible act:

When the bill passes, the option will be described in the tax forms everyone receives. Reports of numbers of conscientious objectors and amounts of taxes redirected to nonmilitary purposes will be published in the Congressional Record. The conscientious objector will affirm a statement of belief and ille it with his or her tax form. Even if conscientious objectors to paying for war are given legal status and accommodated, they will continue to suffer many forms of discrimination from the public and the military. Making slavery illegal did not end racial discrimination. Recognizing and accommodating conscientious objection to paying for war will not end religious discrimination.

Conscientious objectors were among the first to go to the gas chambers under Hitler. When we study the Holocaust, we mourn the atrocities against Jews, homosexuals, Gypsies — and “others” — our memories of the victims of war rarely even name conscientious objectors. Risk free indeed! We who choose a visible legal status may be more vulnerable to hostility.

Finally: “Without visible legal status, without acknowledgment that it is indeed legal to act upon our beliefs, our ‘democracy’ will continue to confuse and seduce each generation into thinking that war is honorable or necessary and that there are no other options.”

Mary Moulton addressed only the idea that the Peace Tax Fund would “ease the conscience of pacifists and [thereby] deflect them from hard work.” She said: “This prediction certainly would not apply to any of the peace activists I have known over the years.”

Samuel R. Tyson wrote in with his own set of objections:

  1. Conscientious objection laws discriminate in favor of members of historical “peace churches” which has the effect of adding a religious bias to the law.
  2. Such laws also (because they require objectors to convincingly testify to their conscientious beliefs) discriminate against people with less verbal or reasoning capabilities (a class bias).
  3. Such laws also, for the same reason, favor people with a paper trail in the “historically dominant white paper-based culture” which leads to a racial bias.

He concluded: “A Peace Tax Fund will make it easier for the few, without a full explanation in tax forms. Do we really want another federal bureaucracy to sit in judgment on conscience?”

Coxe wrote back, and in a letter that appeared in the issue. Excerpts:

The letters convince me that I overlooked two considerations, first that passage of the bill would signal a reaffirmation of our country’s respect for religious dissent (though in symbolic fashion), and second, that legislation would relieve the personal distress of pacifists.

I am surprised that no correspondent pointed out that logically my position is an attack on the legal recognition of conscientious refusal of military service.

As a matter of fact, I have come to the conviction (in my old age) that the pacifist movement might be strengthened if the government offered no alternative to military service except prison. Then the issue raised by the resister would be the government’s claimed power to conscript. In my view, conscription is the basic evil.

The government’s recognition of religious objection to military service blunts resistance to conscription.

Those who during the Viemam War said “Hell no we won’t go” were on the right track and did more co bring the war to an end than did the COs.

Debate aside, the issue noted that the Radnor, Pennsylvania, Meeting had approved a minute endorsing the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill, and considered this a way by which the Meeting “expresses its commitment to our historic Peace Testimony.”

Today I’ll look at war tax resistance among American Brethren in 1963 by hunting through the archives of Brethren periodicals.

Church of the Brethren: Gospel Messenger

In the issue of the Gospel Messenger, John Forbes introduced the idea of a form of tax resistance as a symbolic protest, rather than as a conscientious imperative (source):

Suggestions for Taxpayers

For the benefit of the readers of the Messenger and all others across the Brotherhood interested in the peace position, I would like to quote three statements and make a suggestion.

“We urge the Brethren Service Commission to continue its efforts to develop an acceptable proposal for an alternative tax arrangement” (Report of GBB to Annual Conference, adopted).

“My feeling has been that the initiative on this has to come from taxpayers around the country rather than from any organized effort here in Washington… that until there is widespread nonpayment of taxes by those opposed to war, there will be no change in government policy” (Edward F. Snyder, Friends Committee on National Legislation, letter to the undersigned ).

“I am as convinced as ever that all those who are opposed to preparations for nuclear extermination and who will owe any federal income tax should refuse some token amount. I suggest holding back $10, an amount large enough to be noticed but small enough to avoid excessive penalty. When Internal Revenue took $14.49 from my bank account, the ‘statutary addition’ was only 21 cents. The year before, when I owed $5.90, it did not bother to collect at all.

“This ‘token ten’ could be given to some constructive project, and IRS so informed in a letter explaining the objection to over half of it being otherwise used for destruction. Enough pacifists are interested in this, I feel, to make it become a significant force for peace” (Franklin Zahn to editor of the Peacemaker, ).

I think everyone in the Church of the Brethren with a concern for peace should take up this suggestion and apply it when income tax is due in April, if they can. I am willing to act as coordinator of this project, if one is needed and someone in Elgin doesn’t want the job. If enough Brethren and others take this action now, we shall surely see action in Congress or in the Treasury Department before long.

In a “Brethren Ministers’ Peace Retreat” was held. The Church teachings on pacifism and peacemaking were given a thorough going-over. Dale Aukerman reported on the retreat in the issue (source). Aukerman had himself come out as a war tax resister (see ♇ 31 May 2020), so he would likely have been attuned to any mention of it, but except for one mention of Civil War-era refusal to hire substitutes for military service (but payment of tax), his article on the Retreat is silent on the issue of taxes.

The issue published a brief dispatch about Quaker war tax resister Arthur Evans (source), but a more in-depth dispatch appeared in the Brethren Evangelist so I’ll save it for that section, below.

The following comes from the issue:

Minister Deducts Defense Share From Federal Income Tax

The minister of the Unitarian Universalist church in San Anselmo Calif., has declined to pay sixty-one percent of his federal income tax on the grounds that it would go for “carefully planned machinery to kill millions of human beings.”

The Dutch-born pastor, Karel F. Botermans, who was a leader in the Netherlands underground during the Nazi occupation, sent the remaining thirty-nine percent of his tax to the Internal Revenue Service.

In the protest letter he sent to President Kennedy and Secretary of Defense McNamara he asserted the belief that he had international law on his side. He referred to the Nurnberg trials, “where it was stated by our Allied judges that, in actions of genocide, every person in that society involved in those actions is to be held responsible.”

The pacifist clergyman points out that he would gladly pay the withheld sixty-one percent of his tax if the U.S. pledged to spend the money for other methods of settling international differences.

In the issue, O.E. Gibson raised a series of questions about conscientious objection, suitable for consideration by Brethren. Several of these concerned war funding, and the others seemed designed to guide the consideration of those (source). Excerpt:

  1. Is there a difference in principle in supporting one’s government as a soldier and supporting its war plans with money?
  2. Are those persons in the U.S. (some forty or fifty) who are openly refusing to give their money in tax to support the military plans of our government more radical or less realistic than the conscientious objectors who would not submit to the draft in World War Ⅰ?
  3. Allowing that refusal may mean much more than a few months in prison — that it may mean a complete change in one’s way or standard of living as is the case with most of those who are refusing, should we condemn or should we uphold them?
  4. Would history or reason suggest that a law allowing that one might divert his tax money into religious or peace work be passed by our Congress without a comparable amount of suffering as that endured to get our “alternative service” law?
The Brethren Evangelist

The issue of The Brethren Evangelist printed a wire service article about Quaker war tax resister Arthur Evans:

Quaker Deducts “Military” Cut from His Federal Taxes

Colorado Springs, Colo. (EP)— A Colorado Quaker who long has refused voluntary payment of that portion of his federal taxes earmarked for military spending plans the same course of action .

For 20 years, Dr. Arthur Evans, a Denver physician, has donated the amount of money equal to his tax burden of military spending to a charity and has sent the receipt to the Internal Revenue Service.

Every year the IRS attaches his bank account, collects the amount due and adds a 6 per cent interest charge.

, because the IRS was “using the information I was voluntarily giving for evil purposes,” Dr. Evans did not file any federal return.

To make up for his tax liability, the physician sent the IRS five checks for $200 each — payable to the United Nations, the Peace Corps, and the AID Program.

Dr. Evans contends he is meeting his obligation by contributing to organizations such as the United Nations, which are supported at least in part by the U.S. government. The IRS, in returning the checks, stated “they have no connection with any tax liability and cannot be accepted by this office.”

The Quaker, who terms military spending as a “Doomsday Machine,” continues to pay his state income taxes because they have no military spending connection.