Book reviews → We Won’t Pay!: A Tax Resistance Reader (David M. Gross)

We Won’t Pay!: A Tax Resistance Reader.

And now for the advertisement. Much of what I’ve drawn on to compose today’s entry can be found in my upcoming book We Won’t Pay!: A Tax Resistance Reader, including:

  • The Nuremberg Principles
  • Larry Rosenwald’s “On War Tax Resistance”
  • William Lloyd Garrison’s “No Union With Slaveholders”
  • Leo Tolstoy’s “Letter to a Japanese Correspondent”
  • J.G. James’s “The Ethics of Passive Resistance”
  • John H. Dadmun’s “Caesar is Responsible”
  • G.W. Gillespe’s “The Trial of One’s Faith”
  • T.S. Grimké’s “On Civil Obedience”
  • Edward Swaine’s “Law and Conscience”
  • Excerpts from Joshua Maule’s “Transactions and Changes in the Society of Friends, and Incidents in the Life and Experience of Joshua Maule”
  • Samuel Allinson’s “Why We Cannot Pay Taxes for the Support of War”

It’s finished, I’ve approved the proofs, and it’s orderable and everything — We Won’t Pay: A Tax Resistance Reader has gone from being my little project to being a not-so-little-anymore (just shy of 600 pages) reality.

It’s got examples of writing from tax resisters from many countries and time periods, with a wide range of ideologies and tactics and concerns — as well as some pieces from critics of tax resistance whose criticisms are every bit as interesting.

I’m really happy with how it turned out. It’s full of thought-provoking and challenging material that covers a broad spectrum of tax resistance, and it’s handsomely-packaged as well.

Here’s an overview of what you’ll find in the pages of We Won’t Pay!:

We Won’t Pay: A Tax Resistance Reader, edited by David M. Gross

  2. John Hampden
  3. The American Quakers
  4. Other Christian Pacifists
  5. The Regulators
  6. The American Revolution
  7. Paul Cuffe
  8. The Whiskey Rebellion
  9. The French Revolution
  10. The Breton Association
  11. Reform Bill Agitation
  12. The Bezuidenhout Affair
  13. Pacifists
  14. Henry David Thoreau
  15. Tolstoy’s Christian Anarchism
  16. Karl Marx
  17. The Irish Land League
  18. Benjamin Ricketson Tucker
  19. The Church Rates
  20. British Nonconformists
  21. The Vyborg Manifesto
  22. World War Ⅰ in the United States
  23. Women’s Suffrage
  24. Julia and Abby Smith
  25. Mahatma Gandhi
  26. The Amish and Social Security
  27. Ammon Hennacy
  28. Libertarians, Objectivists, and Voluntaryists
  29. American Constitutionalists and the Peace Tax
  30. Karl Hess
  31. The Cold War and the Arms Race
  32. 21st Century Tax Resistance
  33. Scholarship

Amazon has activated their “search inside” feature for We Won’t Pay!: A Tax Resistance Reader, so if you want to have a better idea of what you’ll find in the pages of my book, you can browse through the index or read an excerpt on-line.

The issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter, More Than a Paycheck, is out. It includes:

  • The reports from the 12th International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns from Ruth Benn and Ed Hedemann that I linked to .
  • Clare Hanrahan’s review of We Won’t Pay: A Tax Resistance Reader:

    “both daunting and encouraging and well worth the considerable reading time… captures in one indexed volume many individual acts and campaigns of conscientious objection to war and of revenue refusal to tyrannical governments… sincere voices and challenging arguments.”

  • Elizabeth Boardman’s review of American Quaker War Tax Resistance:

    “167 intelligent and intense writings on the challenging question of whether people of conscience should pay for war… People struggling with this moral issue today will be guided by the writings in this book and may find some wonderful language to use in their own statements of conscience… a straightforward and compelling book.”

  • Some notes on frivolous filing warnings, new tax laws, and IRS enforcement techniques.
  • Notes about tax resisters Bob Williams, Mike Palecek, and David Schenck, about the trial of two Los Alamos National Laboratory protesters, and about the upcoming New England Regional Gathering of War Tax Resisters and Supporters.
  • A story about long-time resister Thomas Wilson. The state of Massachusetts suspended his dental license 21 years ago when he stopped cooperating with state tax laws because the state, in turn, was acting as a collection agency for the IRS. Wilson kept practicing dentistry without a license, and was able to keep doing so until this year when he was forced to shut down after a competing dentist ratted him out to the state board of registration.

    At 75 Tom is philosophical about closing the door on his professional life and has no regrets about his choices. “In this present economy we’re getting a payback for what the government has been doing and what I haven’t been paying for and resisting all this time. People ask if war tax resistance changes anything. I can’t say that, but it’s helped me put up with what we have to put up with in this country.”

There’s a new issue of NWTRCC’s newsletter, More Than a Paycheck. It includes a brief review of We Won’t Pay! from Don Kaufman (author of The Tax Dilemma and What Belongs to Caesar):

Don Kaufman (Kansas) recently sent this note: “As of yesterday I have completed reading David M. Gross’s magnificent tax resistance reader titled ‘We Won’t Pay!’ Yes, I read all 566 pages. It is an amazing resource for historical information on conscience, dissent, government, militarism, nonviolence, patriotism, peacemaking, religious freedom, responsibility, revenue refusal, tax redirection, truth, violence, and war. The challenge now is for us to find readers who will dedicate time to read and digest material which will make a difference in our daily living.” Available from createspace or Amazon.com. David Gross is a member of NWTRCC’s Administrative Committee.

Also in this issue:

  • NWTRCC coordinator Ruth Benn reflects on the recent troubles in Gaza and encourages people to renew their pledge to boycott war taxes in .
  • An update on the legal taxable income baseline for and on how much income is exempt from IRS levies, a note about how some banks are charging exorbitant processing fees when they submit to a levy, and some other news about tax policy and enforcement changes.
  • Some news about the international conscientious objection to military taxation movement
  • News about a celebration of the Wally Nelson Centenary to be held in Massachusetts, brief notices of a few books that have been published recently by war tax resisters, some information on the activities of War Resisters International, and another call to order some fundraising message scarves while the weather cooperates.
  • Information about resources available to people promoting war tax resistance and/or the war tax boycott.
  • News, including an update about Steev Hise’s tax resistance film project, the new NWTRCC “Speaker’s Bureau”, a request for nominations for people to fill two seats on the NWTRCC administrative committee that will open in , and a call to begin a discussion on whether or not it would be a good idea for NWTRCC to endorse the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act.
  • An update from a new war tax resister, John Parrish who, along with his wife Kate, dipped their toes into the tax resistance pool with a token $50 resistance. They were surprised and alarmed when the IRS shark came for the toes and took the whole leg — assessing a $5,000 “frivolous filing” penalty on John and then another one on Kate! With the help of the folks at NWTRCC, their Congressman, and “the IRS Legislative Advocates” they managed to get the fines removed. John tells the story.