Arthur Harvey, then an organic farmer from Hartford, Maine, was profiled in Samuel Fromartz’s book Organic, Inc. because of his legal battle to make sellers who use the “organic” buzzword adhere to the genuine standards of that variety of food production.
In the course of this, Formartz also mentions Harvey’s war tax resistance:
It was not the first time Harvey had gone up against the federal government.
As a tax resister opposed to military spending, “especially nuclear weapons, and the export of arms and military forces to many places around the world,” Harvey had refused to file or pay federal income taxes since .
His wife, Elizabeth Gravalos, hadn’t paid federal taxes since .
Instead, they donated time and money to social service and environmental organizations.
The IRS had come knocking at their door a couple of times, then seized the family’s property in and demanded $62,000 in back taxes and penalties — about three times the annual income of the farm.
When they did not pay, the IRS took the rare step of auctioning off the property at a town office across the street from their house, with protesters outside.
They initially lost the blueberry field to a bidder, though luckily no one bid on the house, perhaps because it had only rudimentary plumbing and no electricity.
Eventually, Gravalos’s mother bought the house, and the couple’s daughter successfully bid on another parcel of the land, which she later swapped for the blueberry field.
They were back in business.
Harvey, an affable and intelligent man with a wiry physique, perhaps owing to his vegetarian diet, said the lesson he learned from that fight was not to stop being a tax resister, but to avoid owning property in his own name that could be seized by the government.
“We own a couple of cars, so I guess they could go after those, but they aren’t worth much,” he told me.
Aaron Falbel wrote about the blueberry-growing couple for the War Resisters League’s magazine in :
Arthur Harvey has not filed a federal tax return or paid income tax .
His partner, Elizabeth Gravalos hasn’t filed or paid .
Until recently, the Internal Revenue Service gave them little trouble.
“They visited us twice, once around and again around , back when we lived in New Hampshire,” Harvey says.
“Probably they concluded we had nothing much worth taking and perhaps were not subject to much tax anyway,” he adds.
But after the Gravalos/Harvey family moved to Maine ten years ago, earned a bit more money, acquired a house, two wood lots and a blueberry field and started paying state taxes (New Hampshire has no state income tax, but Maine does), the IRS began to take notice.
, the IRS seized their properties in lieu of tax payments assessed at $62,000 (including interest and penalties) for an astonishing figure, considering the family’s annual income from their blueberry and flower business averages about $16,000.
Going Once…
The IRS held an auction at the town office across the street from the Gravalos/Harvey home.
“I might have cried if I were alone,” Gravalos admitted.
But she was far from alone.
About 75 supporters gathered outside the building and spoke of their solidarity with Elizabeth and Arthur.
To demonstrate the power and the good that can come out of war tax redirection, Harvey, Gravalos and their family and friends raised over $3,000 to pay off the local property tax liens of seven Hartford residents.
The auction didn’t last long.
When Gravalos and her family emerged stoically from the town office, she announced, “The good news is that no one bid on the house.”
Emily Harvey, Arthur and Elizabeth’s daughter and a sophomore at Wellesley College, bid on (and won) the small half-acre wood lot on behalf of her younger brother Max.
(Max, at age 16, was legally too young to enter a bid.)
The town selectman and town clerk teamed up to buy the larger 21-acre wood lot, and another Hartford resident bought the blueberry field.
Harvey speculated that the reason no one bid on the house was that the minimum bid was too high: $21,000 for a house with no electricity or indoor plumbing.
At the conclusion of the auction, the IRS declared that they would reevaluate the minimum bid and hold another auction .
Going Twice…
The minimum was eventually set at $7,900. Gravalos and Harvey had originally discouraged friendly bids on their house, feeling that the price was too high.
“We really did not want the IRS to get that much money,” Harvey said.
But for the second auction, with a lower minimum bid, they didn’t discourage people who would buy the house back for them, even though that meant surrendering money to the IRS.
Harvey explained that what matters most for him is making a strong public statement, bearing witness to the government’s violence: “Our reason for non-cooperating with the IRS is a reluctance to support war preparations, especially nuclear weapons, and the export of arms and military forces to many places around the world.
Others have gone a lot further in their war tax resistance than we have, and we honor and respect those people.
For [them], the most important thing is to withhold money from the IRS at all costs.”
That, he acknowledged, is not his style of war tax resistance.
“There are and there have been war tax resisters who have gone that far.
My friend Ammon Hennacy [the legendary pacifist connected with the Catholic Worker movement] was one.
Our approach is more complicated to describe and more flexible in practice.”
He scoffed at a news article that described him as “unwilling to pay one penny to the IRS.”
“We have three cars,” he noted, referring to the federal tax on gasoline that he pays every time he fills up at the pump.
About 35 supporters turned up for the second auction, this time held at the IRS office in Lewiston, Maine.
Demonstrators read excerpts from letters to IRS officials and to President Clinton urging them to call off the auction.
(As at the first auction, money was given away, this time to groups doing the kind of work tax dollars could fund: $500 to the local Abused Women’s Advocacy Project and $500 to a local chapter of Habitat for Humanity.)
Still Here
In the end, Elizabeth’s mother entered the winning bid for the house at $15,633. The town clerk and town selectman, who bid at the first auction, entered the only other bid of $8,000. The latter two were clearly miffed at having lost such a “bargain.”
(One war tax resister described them as “a picture of greed thwarted.”)
The clerk, clearly irate, asked, “Why was it okay for her [Elizabeth’s] mother to bid, but not for me?”
A week later, Arthur Harvey reflected on the clerk’s comment, questioning in turn the propriety of the town officials’ taking advantage of a family in a weakened financial position.
“That does not seem to me to be a proper thing for a town official to do,” he said.
Elizabeth Gravalos thinks the answer to the town clerk’s question is obvious: “The two of them were trying to take our house from under us, whereas my mother was trying to help us out, to help us continue our way of life here.”
Though Gravalos had dissuaded her mother from bidding at the first auction, she did not try to stop her at the second.
“It was harder to lose the blueberry field [at the first auction] than I thought.
I just didn’t feel I was ready to lose the house,” she admitted.
Harvey and Gravalos calculated that the house was worth somewhere between $10,000 and $15,000 and suggested that $13,000 would be a reasonable bid.
Max and Emily were in favor of a friendly bid; Max especially did not want to have to move.
“The alternative,” Arthur noted, “would be to go the Randy and Betsy route and not countenance a friendly bid and then risk eviction.
We, as a family, decided not to go that route.”
(He was referring to Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner, war tax resisters from Colrain, MA, whose supporters maintained an 18-month-long occupation/vigil after Kehler was arrested in and his and Corner’s house was auctioned off by the IRS.)
In the end, Arthur admitted, the auction “was something of a letdown.”
The IRS got a fair amount of money, $39,460 in all more money, he speculated, than it would have gotten if the family had filed and paid taxes all along.
Gravalos reflected, “Betsy and Randy did a better job at resisting the IRS than we did.
But each family has to draw its own line.
I really did not want to stage an occupation [as they did].”
So what does it mean for war tax resistance when the IRS manages to walk away with such a considerable sum?
Interestingly, Gravalos and Harvey do not think of themselves as having failed.
Along the spectrum of war tax civil disobedience, they are tax resisters rather than tax refusers.
(War tax resisters do not willfully hand over money to the Pentagon, but if the government nonetheless forcibly seizes money from them, they take those lumps, as it were; war tax refusers tend to put up more of a fight and are unwilling to let the government collect any money or assets whatsoever.)
But they believe both resisters and refusers provide witness to the backward priorities of the federal government.
“When it comes to war tax resistance,” Gravalos adds, “anything is better than nothing.”
Their 51 years (between them) of resistance to military spending and the redirection through the years of those war tax dollars is not to be scoffed at.
And what of the future?
Gravalos and Harvey do not hesitate when they are asked whether or not they will continue their war tax resistance.
Says Arthur, “We will continue our stand of non-cooperation, but we will certainly make sure not to find ourselves in such a position where we own so much property.”
And Elizabeth adds, “I do feel that the risks of paying taxes are greater than the risks of refusing to pay them.”
“He almost failed to graduate from high school after refusing to sign a loyalty oath to the laws and constitution of the United States.
‘I could support the Constitution,’ he said, ‘but I certainly wasn’t going to support all the laws.
They told me I was failing the rest of the students in my home room.
But I didn’t have much loyalty to my home room.’
Eventually the school gave him his diploma anyway.”
“In Michigan, a man who had recently returned from India lent him a book by Gandhi.
He was immediately struck by Gandhi’s arguments in favor of self-reliance and against excessive consumption.
In the late 1950s, Harvey spent six months in prison in Sandstone, Minnesota, for invading a missile base in Nebraska with a group of fellow peace activists.
‘Prison was a blast.
I was in there with one of my very best friends [Ammon Hennacy] and we played horseshoes and Scrabble and spent lots of time in the library.’
His tenure as library clerk ended when he refused to compile a list for the prison authorities of the books each prisoner was borrowing.”
A newspaper article
on educational outreach efforts by the pacifist non-violent action group Peacemakers, quoted Harvey on the nature of the group: “We are a radical pacifist organization.
We are against war preparation and against use of income tax for war purposes.
Our members also oppose mandatory registration for the draft.
However, we are not communists.
We believe the best defense is a strong spiritual one, in the tradition of the Indian leader Gandhi.”
The Sun-Journal of Lewiston, Maine, covered the tax auction in a pair of articles:
“Hands off our homes”
Couple protests on day before auction
by Mary Lou Wendell Sun-Journal Staff Writer
Auburn — The message on one of the placards held by many of the 50 or so protesters marching down Center Street morning was simple: “Honor family values.
Hands off homes.”
Accomplishing their goal for the day was not going to be so simple, however.
They were on their way to Lewiston to convince the Internal Revenue Service to halt the sale of property seized for nonpayment of taxes.
Arthur Harvey, who, before it was taken, owned the house and land in Hartford Center together with his wife Elizabeth Gravalos, led the march.
In his pants pocket was a letter the group eventually hand-delivered to the Lewiston IRS office on Main Street after walking there from the Auburn Mall, which took about two-and-a-half hours.
The note detailed the couple’s reasons for not paying federal taxes.
Funds collected by the federal government will “support war preparation of all kinds,” the typewritten letter read.
“This is not acceptable to our moral and religious beliefs.”
In , IRS agents served Harvey and Gravalos with a seizure notice for their property, which includes a small home and out-buildings, a 13-acre blueberry field, and 21 acres of two combined woodlots.
Selling blueberries and pansies, which is how the couple earns their living, brings in a total of $18,000 a year, Harvey said.
Based on those earnings, the government calculated Harvey and Gravalos owe $62,000 in unpaid taxes and penalties for , according to the couple.
A spokeswoman for the IRS in Boston said she would not confirm the amount owed because of disclosure and privacy laws.
Furthermore, the couple wrote in their letter to the IRS, “it is inconceivable that a family could be subject to a 49 percent tax rate, especially a low-income family including two children.”
Harvey and Gravalos have a daughter in college and a teen-age son, Max, who also marched on .
IRS
spokeswoman Peggy Riley did say the sealed-bid auction will go on as scheduled at at the town office in Hartford Center.
And if minimum bids were offered, the house and property will be sold, she said.
The minimum bid for the single family home was $20,476.98, Riley said.
The total minimum bid for everything else, which is divided into three properties, is roughly $16,000.
Against a backdrop of car dealerships, retail outlets and quick-change oil places, the protesters, who came from as far away as Chicago, walked in groups of three and four down Center Street.
Some came from New Hampshire and Vermont.
Most were from Maine.
Many of the protesters were also war-tax resistors and friends with Harvey and Gravalos.
Some had never met the couple but were marching to support their cause.
Sheila Dormody, a member of the 800-member organization, Peace Action Maine, pays her taxes, she said.
But she had sympathy for Harvey and Gravalos because she opposes disproportionate military spending, she said.
As the group hiked along, making their way across the Longley Bridge and around downtown Lewiston, Dormody passed out red fliers decrying the practice of “bloating the Pentagon… starving our communities.”
“This year Congress will give the Pentagon $7 billion more than requested,” the filer stated.
Education, mass transit, housing programs, job training and environmental spending are all the things that will be cut in order to pay for increased military spending, it said.
If the property is indeed sold , “we’ll have to find some place we can rent,” Gravalos said as she walked.
“I have a friend in Buckfield who has offered land so I can plant my pansies.”
Her husband thought it was a mistake to buy land, Gravalos said, adding he may have been right.
In hindsight, Harvey said, he would have preferred renting over owning property, which can be taken away.
But, while he and his wife have always paid their state and local taxes, he’s not sorry for not paying federal taxes, he said.
“We both understood the risk and we accepted it,” Harvey said.
It’s a matter of “personal responsibility.”
Withholding federal taxes is “a job that we can do,” he said.
Home survives IRS sale
Some of tax protesters’ Hartford property sold
by Judith Meyer Special to the Sun-Journal
Hartford — As sealed bids were opened morning, Arthur Harvey and Elizabeth Gravalos heard an Internal Revenue Service employee award three pieces of their property to others, but their home was spared, at least temporarily.
The couple, who are vocal about their resistance to paying federal taxes to a government that they say is spending irresponsibly, were served a notice of seizure on their property in .
That property was offered at a public sale in a sealed bid process inside the Town Office while a large crowd of supporters from throughout New England and reporters waited outside on the lawn morning.
Harvey and Gravalos, who say they earn about $18,000 a year growing blueberries and pansies, owe the IRS $48,555 in unpaid taxes .
Their properties were seized to satisfy that debt.
Attending the bid opening were dozens of other tax resisters, including one couple who carried a large painted poster proclaiming their nonpayment of federal taxes since .
The properties offered for sale included the couple’s home, which is not equipped with running water or electricity and which uses an organic compost septic system, a small house lot, a 21-acre wood lot and a 13-acre blueberry field.
No bids were submitted for the house, and a second sealed bid opening has been scheduled for at the IRS office in Lewiston.
If the property is not sold at that time, said IRS agent Diane Santoro, who conducted the sale, the federal agency will re-evaluate the $20,476 minimum bid established for the property.
Bids were opened inside the Town Office, which was restricted to bidders, the property owners, town and federal officials and five media representatives chosen by Capt. James Miclon of the Oxford County Sheriff’s Department from a pool of reporters standing in the side yard.
The couple’s children, Emily and Max Harvey, purchased the small house lot for $727, using money 16-year-old Max had earned raking blueberries, beating out a $600 bid from the town of Hartford.
Gravalos was visibly upset that the town bid on the property.
The Town Office stands directly across the street from Gravalos’ house on Route 140, and the piece of property the town bid on was being considered as a new Town Office site.
The couple’s wood lot was sold for $10,000 to Kathleen Hutchins and Linda Rowe, both of Hartford, beating out a $9,560 bid for the land.
Hutchins is the town’s tax collector, clerk, treasurer and administrative assistant, and Rowe is a selectman, but both women said they bought the land as private citizens.
The third piece of property, the blueberry field that has been cultivated for the past eight years by Harvey and Gravalos, was sold to Alan Noyes of Hartford.
Noyes, who left immediately after the bid opening, indicated that he liked the view at the property and would be willing to talk to Harvey and Gravalos about some kind of arrangement to continue farming the land.
Harvey said after the sale, which lasted less than 10 minutes, that he and his family intended to remain in Hartford, would continue to live in their home and would continue farming blueberries on fields they planned to lease from other property owners.
“The good news is that nobody bid on our house,” Gravalos told the crowd after the sale was finished, and Harvey expressed his pleasure at seeing so many people supporting their cause.
“This is not a victory or defeat for anyone,” Harvey said.
“It’s just a part of life.”
That observation drew a large round of applause from the crowd.
And although the IRS seizure is nearly complete, Harvey said his views on tax resistance haven’t changed and he has no plans to pay any money to the federal government.
Harvey has not paid federal taxes , and Gravalos hasn’t paid .
Supporter Jim Stockwell of Albion said, “I think (Harvey and Gravalos are) very proud of what they’re doing.”
Stockwell praised their resolve to stand firm for their beliefs against increased military spending and decreased spending for education and health care.
Lee Holman, a supporter and neighbor of Harvey and Gravalos, said the couple’s commitment to paying local and state taxes and resisting paying federal taxes comes from their desire to “redirect tax dollars to build real security in this town instead of investing in a false sense of security” with the federal government.
The couple can redeem their properties in the next 180 days if they pay the bid price, plus another 20 percent, and any costs associated with the sale to the IRS.
IRS
agent Santoro declined to talk to reporters before or after the sale.
Along with that second article was this sidebar:
Anti-tax group pays off liens of five families
Hartford — The tax resisters who demonstrated in support of Arthur Harvey and Elizabeth Gravalos say they are not against America’s tax system in itself and support payment of local and state taxes to help their own communities.
What they protest is the federal government’s use of the tax money, a use that they claim they have no control over.
In an effort to show support for the local property tax system, the group of resisters, who are calling themselves Spears into Pruning Hooks, walked into the Hartford Town Office just before the public sale of the Harvey/Gravalos property and paid off outstanding tax liens for five local families.
Harvey said the group paid nearly $2,200, choosing the liens to be paid off based on whether the property owner had children and actually lived in Hartford, rather than being a part-time resident.
The tax resisters did not have contact with the property owners; the payoffs were arranged through the Town Office.
The group originally offered to pay seven liens, but only five were paid because two of the families declined the group’s offer.
Tax Collector Kathleen Hutchins said the payment retired tax liens for property owners Joseph Bedard, Ann Carro, Penny Stubbs, Matthew Piantone and James Guilmet.
According to Hutchins, the property owners who declined the resisters’ offer of payment said they did not agree with Harvey and Gravalos’ stand on tax resistance.
Hutchins, who said the town has never seized any property for nonpayment of property taxes, indicated that there are others in Hartford who oppose the stand taken by the Harvey-Gravalos family.
Speaking for the group, which still has $800 in an account reserved for payment of other tax liens, Harvey said Spears into Pruning Hooks plans to continue raising funds and making goodwill gestures for struggling local taxpayers.
Harvey and Gravalos were still at it :
Federal income tax
Resisters keep incomes below filing threshold
by Kelly Morgan StaffWriter
Hartford — While many people across the country will be rushing to meet today’s deadline for filing federal income taxes, Arthur Harvey will more likely be home binding books or working on the mowers he’ll soon use to cut his blueberry fields.
It’s not that the 72-year-old organic farmer, inspector and book seller has filed early this year.
Instead, Harvey, who lives with his family across from the town office on Main Street, has not paid federal income taxes .
He won’t pay because he is opposed to where his dollars would be spent.
“My fundamental objection is to nuclear weapons,” he said Thursday while seated at a small table off his kitchen, surrounded by copies of the collected works of Mahatma Gandhi.
“And also to sending U.S. military forces to other countries.”
Harvey and his wife, Elizabeth Gravalos, 61, have joined as many as 200 Mainers and 10,000 people nationally who refuse to pay their federal income taxes in protest of military spending.
“We say about 8,000 to 10,000 people,” said Ruth Benn of the Brookly, N.Y.-based National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee on , “but it’s really hard to count.”
Benn said many, like Harvey and Gravalos, keep their incomes low so they won’t have to pay.
Many others protest by refusing to pay federal taxes on their phone bills, another action that’s difficult to track.
According to information from IRS spokeswoman Peggy Riley, who’s based in Boston, the federal government faces what it calls a “gross tax gap” of $300 billion a year.
The gap, Riley explained, “is the difference between what taxpayers should pay and what they actually pay.”
Riley said the IRS does not track those who refuse to pay on the grounds of opposing military spending.
Personal property seizures and deductions from paychecks are tools the IRS uses to collect unpaid tax dollars.
In , Harvey and Gravalos nearly lost their home and 13 acres of blueberry fields they farm in Hartford.
At an auction after the properties were seized, Gravalos’ mother bought back the house.
Their daughter Emily later received back the blueberry fields in a trade after the man who had purchased them found farming difficult, Harvey said, laughing.
Harvey, Gravalos and their son Max continue to farm the fields today.
They use wood heat and kerosene lamps and drive old Volvos.
Harvey sells books on the teachings of Gandhi, which he purchases from India, through the on-line marketplace Amazon.com.
The only electricity in the house comes from a small solar panel that runs a laptop computer and, on sunny days, a copier in a back room.
Because Gravalos now works as a part-time massage therapist, she does pay Social Security taxes, Harvey said.
But she hasn’t paid income taxes .
The two file separately, each having to earn less than $3,100 in order to fall below federal tax filing requirements.
Harvey and Gravalos have taken part in efforts of the War Tax Resistance Resource Center of Maine.
People affiliated with the organization often hand out fliers at IRS centers on tax deadline day.
Larry Dansinger, a Monroe-based representative of the group, said that people are expected to be handing out fliers from Portland to Ellsworth
He himself doesn’t pay federal phone taxes.
“In our calculations, about 50 percent of every (federal income) tax dollar that people pay is going either directly or indirectly for military purposes,” he said.
Not paying, he added, “is not a nice, easy thing to do.”
Hartford —
The Internal Revenue Service has set minimum bids on the Route 140 home of Arthur Harvey and Elizabeth Gravalos in preparation for a property auction to satisfy an overdue tax debt.
The couple was informed that the IRS intended to seize the property for sale at auction, seeking payment on nearly $49,000 in overdue taxes dating .
But the property, which includes their home, a blueberry field and some wooded acreage, won’t be enough to satisfy the debt even if the minimum bids are met.
According to Gravalos, the IRS has set the minimum bids for the property, seeking almost $10,000 for a 13-acre blueberry field and almost $21,000 for the couple’s home where they have lived for 10 years and have been renovating during that time.
These minimum bids are set according to a federal formula that takes into account local property assessment.
Gravalos said the IRS, when assessing the value, hadn’t considered that the building has no running water, no electricity and only an organic compost system for solid waste.
“I just don’t think it’s realistic,” Gravalos said, referring to buyers who may be interested in purchasing the house.
The couple call themselves tax resisters and Harvey hasn’t paid federal taxes and Gravalos as a way of protesting the government’s use of nuclear weapons and its policies on sending American troops and weapons overseas.
The IRS notice of seizure was delivered and includes not only the home and blueberry field, but another 21 acres of woodlot in Hartford.
Gravalos and Harvey said just after the notice of seizure was served that they were fielding many offers of help from family and friends.
Gravalos said Friday that a group of people was willing to get together and form a trust to buy the blueberry field so the couple can lease the land back and continue to earn a living.
Blueberry farming is the couple’s chief source of income.
“We’re not encouraging them (to form the trust) because the price is too high,” Gravalos said, because they’re not too interested in paying a high lease term on the land they once owned.
“It’s almost $10,000 for 13 acres down a road you can’t travel seven months a year,” Gravalos said of the minimum bid price.
“It’s just a ridiculous price,” that she thinks won’t come close to being met when the property goes to auction.
The couple was given 10 days to protest the minimum bids, with the deadline falling in , but in order to protest the bid Gravalos said they would have to hire somebody to evaluate the property and they are not interested in that extra expense.
Gravalos also said she didn’t believe there was any need to protest the minimum bids because when the property goes to auction, she said the bids will show the IRS how inflated the bids are.
If she’s wrong and somebody does bid $21,000 for the house, Gravalos said, “If somebody bids that high, let them have it,” because she doesn’t think the house is worth nearly that much either in fair market or assessed property value.
The couple is not making any plans to move just yet, Gravalos said, but will wait until after the auction to see how soon they’re forced to leave.
Profits from the auction will be used to pay overdue tax bills of $8,103 from ; $7,708 from ; $10,478 from ; $11,044 from ; $7,334 from ; and $3,806 from .
As it turns out, nobody bid on the house, but the wood lot and blueberry field were sold at auction .
The IRS tried again, at a lower minimum bid, and Gravalos’s mother purchased the house for $15,663 .
Hartford — Two Internal Revenue Service agents knocked on Arthur Harvey and Elizabeth Gravalos’ front door and informed the couple that the federal agency was seizing all of their property as payment for unpaid taxes and penalties.
The visit was not entirely a surprise for the couple since Harvey hasn’t paid any federal income taxes , and Gravalos .
The two are politically opposed to the government’s use of nuclear weapons and its policies of sending American troops and weapons overseas, they said.
The couple seems resigned to the seizure action and the consequences facing their family of four.
“The inconvenience to us is a lot less than the people who were maimed or died during the Gulf War,” Gravalos said, explaining that the couple has peacefully resisted paying federal income taxes because they have no say in where that money is to be spent.
“We have to draw the line somewhere,” Harvey said, noting that during the past 30 to 40 years,
IRS agents have visited him and questioned him, but have never seized any of his property.
The IRS notice of seizure includes the couple’s small home and outbuildings across the street from the Hartford Town Office where they have lived for 10 years; a 13-acre blueberry field which they farm; and two woodlots in Hartford of just over 21 acres.
All of the property, the couple has been told, will be offered for public sale within 30 days, and then the new owner will be responsible for any eviction proceedings against the family.
The value of their combined properties is $64,000, they said, but they estimated any profit from a sale of the properties would be less than $25,000 because of a depressed real estate market.
According to Gravalos and Harvey, the IRS has figured the couple owes $62,000 in unpaid taxes and penalties for .
This information could not be confirmed at either the Lewiston or Portland IRS offices as all media inquiries are fielded at the Boston office.
Gravalos and Harvey said their resistance is only to federal taxes; they pay local and state taxes each year.
But they are not anti-government; Gravalos, in fact, just finished serving jury duty.
Gravalos serves as a director on the SAD 39 school board and is the volunteer chairwoman for the Hartford Recreation Commission.
Harvey is also active in local committees, and served seven years on the town’s Planning Board.
They are a continued and vocal presence at public meetings for both their town and SAD 39.
Gravalos even said she would be willing to volunteer her time to satisfy the IRS bill, say for example, teaching on an Indian reservation.
Gravalos and Harvey home-school their teen-age son, Max, while their daughter, Emily is away at college.
And so far, their friends, neighbors and family have been very supportive, Gravalos said, with plenty of offers of housing and other assistance.
The two have met with other tax resisters in Maine, they said, and also with representatives from Quaker City, N.H., where there is a land trust they may consider joining.
The couple has no plans to move out of the house until they are instructed to do so.
The couple hopes that whoever buys their blueberry field at public auction will lease the property back to them so they can continue farming.
Another way people can assist and show solidarity with tax resisters is by coming to their assistance if their property is seized.
Here are some examples:
Practical support
The War Tax Resisters Penalty Fund was established in .
It helps war tax resisters who have had penalties and interest added to their tax bills and seized by the IRS by reimbursing them for a large portion of these additional charges.
The more people we could recruit to shoulder the penalties and interest of resisters, the lighter the burden for everyone.
With the modest help we could provide, conscientious resisters were able to keep on keeping on.
The penalty fund had the added benefit of making us all tax resisters, not just those who withheld all or a portion of their income taxes.
The base list of supporters has been as high as 800 people sharing the weight.
In nearly every appeal, at least 200 people respond, usually more.
In all we’ve paid out about $250,000 to help resisters stay in the struggle.
The story of the seizure of the Kehler/Corner home was the subject of the documentary An Act of Conscience.
When the home of war tax resisters Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner was seized for back taxes, supporters came from near and far to maintain a 24-hour occupation of the home:
[David] Dellinger and others have come from as far away as California to the Colrain [Massachusetts] house…
Mr. Kehler and Ms. Corner continued to live in the house until they were arrested by Federal marshals last December.
Since then, friends and supporters of the couple have arrived to occupy the almost empty house in week-long shifts marked by the Thursday “changing of the guard” ceremony.
Because the house was sold in a Government auction in , all who go inside risk arrest for trespassing.…
For Bonney Simons of St. Johnsbury, Vt., sleeping on a bedroll in the house is her first official act of civil disobedience.
At 72 years of age, she said, it is time to “put your body where your mouth is.”
Suffragist tax resister Dora Montefiore barricaded her home and kept the tax collector from seizing her property for several weeks in , in what came to be known as the “Siege of Montefiore.”
She noted:
The tradespeople of the neighbourhood were absolutely loyal to us besieged women, delivering their milk and bread, etc., over the rather high garden wall which divided the small front gardens of Upper Mall from the terraced roadway fronting the river.
The weekly wash arrived in the same way and the postman day by day delivered very encouraging budgets of correspondence, so that practically we suffered very little inconvenience…
A woman sympathiser in the neighbourhood brought during the course of the [first] morning, a pot of home-made marmalade, as the story had got abroad that we had no provisions and had difficulty in obtaining food.
This was never the case as I am a good housekeeper and have always kept a store cupboard, but we accepted with thanks the pot of marmalade because the intentions of the giver were so excellent.
Examples like this also proved to be vivid anecdotes that the press could use when describing the siege and the support from sympathizers.
When the U.S. government seized Amish tax resister Valentine Byler’s horses and their harnesses while he was in the field preparing for spring planting, sympathetic neighbors allowed him to borrow their horses so he could continue his work.
Other sympathizers throughout the country who heard about the case sent Byler money — more than enough to buy a new team.
An auctioneer who was dragooned into helping the government sell some of the livestock of a man who had been resisting taxes meant to pay for sectarian education in , donated the fee he had earned for conducting the auction to the resister.
During the water charge strike in Dublin, “local campaign groups successfully resisted attempts to disconnect water and in the couple of instances where water was cut off, campaigners re-connected it within hours.
The first round was won hands down by the campaign and it was back to the drawing board for the councils.”
Similar monkeywrenching is being practiced today in Greece, where activists promptly reconnect utilities of people who have been disconnected for failure to pay the increased taxes attached to their utility bills.
During the Annuity Tax resistance in Edinburgh, people sympathetic to the resisters would bid on and return furniture and other items that had been seized and sold by the tax collectors.
The Rebecca Rioters, on the other hand, were characteristically more direct in their resistance:
Warrants of distress were issued… and the constables proceeded to execute them…
The constables then went towards Talog; but when on their way there they heard the sound of a horn, and immediately between two and three hundred persons assembled together, with their faces blackened, some dressed in women’s caps, and others with their coats turned so as to be completely disguised — armed with scythes, crowbars and all manner of destructive weapons which they could lay their hands on.
After cheering the constables, they defied them to do their duty.
The latter had no alternative but to return to town without executing their warrants.
The women were seen running in all directions to alarm their neighbours; and some hundreds were concealed behind the hedges, intending to appear if their services were required.
The entire district seemed to be aroused, and awaiting the arrival of the constables, who were going to levy on the goods of John Harris of Talog Mill for the amount of the fine and costs imposed upon him by the magistrates.
There could not have been less than two hundred persons assembled to resist the execution of process, and vast numbers were flocking from all quarters, in response to the blowing of a horn, the signal of the Rebeccaites to repair thither.
Various mounted messengers were scouring the country and sounding the trumpet of alarm.…
At Maesgwenllian near Kidwelly, several bailiffs were put in possession for arrears of rent to the amount of £150, but about , Rebecca and a great number of her followers made their appearance on the premises, and after driving the bailiffs off, took away the whole of the goods distrained on.
As soon as daylight appeared, the bailiffs returned, but found no traces of Rebecca, nor of the goods which had been taken away.
A group in Olive Hill, Kentucky in followed the Rebecca model, to an extent, “in a raid… by a band of between 800 and 900 men, who forced Levi White, Collector of Taxes, to give up a stock of goods which had been seized.
The goods were then taken back to the store of Levi Oppenheimer, where the official had seized them.”
Last year in Oaxaca, the PRI said that the would “defend up to the point of injunctions those citizens who suffer from liens imposed as well as judgments in order to prevent the impounding of vehicles, considering it unconstitutional that the police will impound them to stop the driver and remove the unit if the striker does not pay the corresponding [vehicle] tax.”
The IRS auctioned off a portion of Ralph Shinaberry’s property in after he refused to pay a fine for growing more wheat on his farm than his government-assigned quota.
“I don’t believe the Government can tell me how much I can grow,” he said, explaining his resistance.
The winning bidder, Herbert Jessup, told a reporter:
“I have no intention of taking possession of the property.”
When war tax resister Cosmas Raimondi’s car was seized by the IRS in , a handful of families in his parish offered to permanently loan him their car so he could still get around, and many others loaned him their cars temporarily.
“I’ve not had to ask one person,” he said.
In Beit Sahour, when the Israeli occupation authorities seized furniture and appliances from resisters, relatives and others would loan them spares, or camping furniture to use as replacements.
“In Bedfordshire in community pressure persuaded a minister to return goods seized from a Quaker for non-payment of tithes.”
Moral support
When Dora Montefiore was first formulating her “siege” strategy with fellow-activists Theresa Billington and Annie Kenney, they agreed to organize daily demonstrations outside of her home while she was defending it.
Montefiore remembered:
The feeling in the neighbourhood towards my act of passive resistance was so excellent and the publicity being given by the Press in the evening papers was so valuable that we decided to make the Hammersmith “Fort” for the time being the centre of the W.S.P.U. activities, and daily demonstrations were arranged for and eventually carried out. …
The roadway was… ideal for the holding of a meeting, as no blocking of traffic could take place, and day in, day out the principles for which suffragists were standing we expounded to many who before had never even heard of the words Woman Suffrage.
At the evening demonstrations rows of lamps were hung along the top of the wall and against the house, the members of the W.S.P.U. speaking from the steps of the house, while I spoke from one of the upstairs windows.
…shoals of letters came to me, a few sadly vulgar and revolting, but the majority helpful and encouraging.
Some Lancashire lads who had heard me speaking in the Midlands wrote and said that if I wanted help they would come with their clogs but that was never the sort of support I needed, and though I thanked them, I declined the help as nicely as I could. …
The working women from the East End came, time and again, to demonstrate in front of my barricaded house…
When the IRS seized and auctioned off the home and farm of Art Harvey and Elizabeth Gravalos in , other war tax resisters and supporters were by their sides:
“I might have cried if I were alone,” Gravalos admitted.
But she was far from alone.
About 75 supporters gathered outside the building and spoke of their solidarity with Elizabeth and Arthur.
About 35 supporters turned up for the second auction, this time held at the IRS office in Lewiston, Maine.
Demonstrators read excerpts from letters to IRS officials and to President Clinton urging them to call off the auction.
In , the IRS levied 78-year-old war tax resister Ruth McKay’s social security checks to recoup the taxes she had been refusing to pay over the previous 20 years.
To show their support of her stand, 40 activists from New Hampshire Peace Action joined her for a vigil at the federal courthouse in Concord, New Hampshire.
When war tax resister Maria Smith’s wages were garnisheed by the IRS in , fifty supporters held a special church service in her honor.
“One of the Valod Vanias,” whose land was seized by the government during the Bardoli satyagraha, “who thus lost all his valuable property, celebrated the event by inviting friends and soldiers of Satyagraha to a party.”
On the other hand, some campaigns have taken the position that sacrifices for the cause are their own reward — that martyrdom is a blessing and that it would be foolish for such resisters to seek or accept recompense.
Nathaniel Morgan was speaking with someone curious about the Quaker stand on war and war taxes, and had this to say:
I told him then that I and my father had refused to pay the income tax on account of war, and had refused it on its first coming out, and withstood it 16 years, except when peace was declared, and that our goods were sold by auction to pay it.
This seemed to excite his curiosity, and made a stand to hear further, on the steps above the engine, going down to the river; asking me if we got anything by that, meaning, was anything refunded by the Society for such suffering.
I immediately replied: “Yes, peace of mind, which was worth all.”
On , National Public
Radio’s Morning Edition did a story about the
IRS
seizure of the home of war tax resisters Art Harvey & Elizabeth Gravalos.
Here are some excerpts from the transcript:
Charlotte Renner reports on an anti-military protester whose house and land
have been seized by the
IRS
and offered at auction because of his refusal to pay taxes which support the
U.S. military.
Bob Edwards (host)
Every year, an estimated 8,000 anti-military protesters refuse to pay
their federal taxes. They say they don’t want the government to use
their money for defense or military spending. The Internal Revenue
Service rarely seizes the property of these politically motivated
non-taxpayers, so when the
IRS
decided to auction off the property of a tax protester in rural Maine,
it created quite a stir. From Maine Public Radio, Charlotte Renner
reports.
Charlotte Renner (Maine Public Radio)
For almost ten years now, Arthur Harvey has lived with his wife,
Elizabeth Gravlos and their two children, along a country road in a
sagging wooden house without electricity or indoor plumbing. They pay
their state and local taxes, but they refuse to hand over any money to
the IRS,
which estimates their tax debt at $62,000. Harvey says that figure is
probably too high, but he doesn’t keep careful records of the profit he
makes selling organic blueberries, and he says he’d rather lose
everything than contribute a single penny to the Pentagon.
Arthur Harvey (anti-military tax protester)
To me, the important issue was nuclear weapons, and I felt, as soon I
realized what was going on in the ’50s, that the human race very likely
would come to a bad end unless we did away with nuclear weapons. So that
has been the focus of my feelings about it.
Charlotte Renner
For Harvey’s wife, Elizabeth, the deciding moment came during the
Vietnam War. A staunch Catholic, she can still remember the conversation
with a college roommate that made her throw her
IRS
forms in the trash.
Elizabeth Gravlos (anti-military tax protester)
She said, “Well, how can you be against abortion and pay for the
war?” — that was the war in Vietnam. So I said I can’t, after a
while.
Charlotte Renner
Gravlos and Harvey have known for decades that the
IRS
might decide to take the house, their two wood lots, and the blueberry
barren they depend on for survival. What they didn’t realize was that
the seizure of their property by revenue agents would spark a protest in
Hartford, Maine, a village where mill workers and farmers struggle to
make ends meet.
[excerpt from protest song, “I’m not gonna pay for that killing machine
down by the riverside, down by the riverside.”]
Charlotte Renner
On the morning of the auction as the sun dries the dew, about 30 of
Harvey’s supporters form a circle in the vacant lot beside the town
office which happens to be right across the street from Harvey’s house.
About a dozen of the protesters have been invited here by the War Tax
Resistance Resource Center, a national organization based in Maine.
While the bidders file in and out of the one-room town office, refusing
to speak to the small army of reporters clustered at the screen door,
Harvey sympathizers take turns speaking into the microphone. Bob Bady
says he hasn’t paid federal taxes for 26 years. Bady blasts the federal
government for what he calls “bloated” military spending, but avoids
blaming
IRS
staffers for doing their job.
Bob Bady (anti-military tax protester)
I guess what I had to remember is that they’re just little cogs in a big
machine, and we’re little pieces of sand in the big machine — we’re
irritants. And I take great pride in being an irritant, and on a day
like today I need to remember to be proud of being an irritant and not
scared of being a little piece of sand.
Charlotte Renner
Bradford Lyttle considers the Harvey clan a shining example of family
values.
Bradford Lyttle (anti-military tax protester)
I have followed his life and I find it an expression of high moral
principle.
Charlotte Renner
Lyttle has come all the way from Chicago to say his piece, but closer to
home, some neighbors are outraged by Harvey’s refusal to pay his
taxes. Armand Rowe watches the protest from his sister’s lawn across the
street. Rowe spent five years in the Armed Forces and he calls the
resistance, “un-American.” He believes that military spending is
justified in a dangerous world, and if he had the $21,000 the
IRS
wants for Harvey’s house, Rowe says he’d gladly write the check.
Armand Rowe (military Supporter)
You know just to say, “Hey, I’ve put a big old
POWs flag
up there, a United States flag, and a Maine state flag up there,” just
out of spite and send that to Harvey wherever he goes a pitch every time
I turn around.
Charlotte Renner
Although Rowe doesn’t try to buy Harvey’s property, a few others do. But
they don’t stay around to watch
IRS
agent Diane Santoro open the envelopes. Just before noon, as the
protesters begin chanting and beating a drum, Arthur Harvey, Elizabeth
Gravlos, and their daughter Emily, file into the town office, followed
by more journalists than the spartan building can hold. A Hartford
resident snags one of the wood lots for $10,000. The Harvey’s 30-acre
blueberry barren goes for about $13,000 to a hunter who reportedly plans
to build a lodge on the land. Harvey says he’ll still grow blueberries
in other barrens he’s been renting. And a one-acre wood lot will stay in
the family.
Diane Santoro, (IRS agent)
For map 07, lot 56 at $727, the successful bidder is Emily Harvey.
Charlotte Renner
Twenty-year-old Emily Harvey takes some consolation in beating out the
town selectman for the slice of land she can see from her bedroom.
Emily Harvey (protester’s daughter)
It would have been very difficult for me to know that the selectman owns
that lot because it was across the street. The reason that I put my bid
in was because my brother asked me to. So it was a joint thing, because
he’s only 16 and not able to own property.
Charlotte Renner
But there’s no way to know how much longer Emily and her family will be
able to live near their wood lot. The house didn’t attract a single
buyer, so the
IRS
plans to lower the minimum bid and hold another auction in a few weeks.
A similar strategy worked a few years ago in Massachusetts when agents
sold two other properties seized from anti-war activists, but
IRS
spokesman Helen Hertzer says she wishes another auction weren’t
necessary.
Helen Hertzer (IRS spokesman)
To not be able to sell the properties and reduce the taxpayer’s debt, of
course, we’re not meeting our objective or the taxpayer’s objective
there.
Charlotte Renner
Hertzer hasn’t given up hope that a lower price will hook bidders next
time around, but Arthur Harvey figures they’d be crazy to buy a house
built on a foundation that’s caving in. And, while he won’t accept the
property as a gift from anyone willing to pay federal taxes, he still
hopes that more protests by all his friends and fellow resisters will
keep potential buyers at bay. After all, he needs his kitchen — not just
to cook the family’s meals, but also to brew up the herb tea he uses to
kill weeds choking his blueberries.
This is the fortieth in a series of posts about war tax resistance as it
was reported in back issues of The Mennonite. Today
we finish off the mid-1990s.
He established the Michael and Margarethe Sattler Foundation to distribute his
royalties from Mathematica to people in need. He thus kept his income below
the taxable level in order not to contribute tax money to the military.
Following his deeply-held personal and religious beliefs, Keiper lived in a
very simple manner. He wore simple clothes, ate simple food, and used a
bicycle as his primary means of transportation. He also felt that to be
consistent in not supporting the military, he should avoid paying taxes to the
government. For a while, this meant that he would accept almost no salary. But
in the end he worked out a scheme for donating all but a small percentage of
his salary to charity. In addition, Keiper set up a foundation, which he named
the Michael and Margarethe Sattler Foundation, after two early Mennonite
martyrs. As part of Keiper’s compensation, Wolfram Research then made
donations to this foundation. The foundation solicited proposals, and in turn
supported various colleges, giving them both funds and copies of Mathematica.
Charles Hurst’s and Maria Smith’s letter to the IRS
was reprinted in one issue. The letter announced that they were redirecting
about 40% of their taxes “to groups or projects that bring healing for our
world.”
A supplement designed for the triennial conference noted
that through the Commission on Home Ministries, “[p]eace and justice resources
have been sent to individuals and congregations on such subjects as military
draft registration, alternatives to paying war taxes in the United States and
Canada, and New Call to Peacemaking peace education resources.”
A
profile of attorney Sharon Heath in the edition briefly mentioned that shortly after joining a Mennonite
church “she decided to become a war tax resister by living below the taxable
income level.”
An
editorial by Gordon Houser in the edition urged that “In our daily affairs we must learn to stand
against the idol called Bomb” and then, somewhat vaguely, said “We will want to
ask ourselves how our tax dollars are being spent and how we should respond to
that.”
An
article by John K. Stoner in the same issue echoed this: “What does it mean
for our souls that we have become willing to call down fire from heaven and
have made the capacity to call down fire from heaven the centerpiece of our
national security doctrine? What does this do to every person who consents to
it, pays their taxes for it, and remains silent as generation after generation
of nuclear missiles and weapons are developed?”
These sort of sidewise-glances at war taxes seemed to be becoming common.
A
report on the triennial conference, for example, noted in passing:
“Meanwhile, violence occurs in our homes; people of color experience a
qualified acceptance in our churches; our tax dollars continue to support the
building of nuclear weapons.”
The triennial sessions also seemed to sidestep any official recognition of war
tax resistance, replacing this with support for a Peace Tax Fund law:
GC delegates
also passed a resolution calling one another to support the
(U.S.) Peace Tax
and the (Canadian) Peace Trust campaigns, which work to provide legal
alternatives to paying war taxes. This was the third consecutive
GC triennial
session to affirm a peace-tax resolution.
A
letter from Don Schrader appeared in the issue, in which he expanded on the theme of the hypocrisy
of praying for peace while paying for war, noted his own choice of a life of
voluntary simplicity, and concluded: “For 16 years I have paid no federal
income tax, and I am not silent. I say, Not with my money, not with my silence,
not in my name.”
The Council of Commissions met in . According to
a
report, the Commission on Home Ministries in its meeting “agreed that the
Student Aid Fund for Non-Registrants should also apply to students who cannot
get loans because they are war-tax resisters.”
In
a
editorial about baptism,
Gordon Houser made a point of casting the original theological debate about
infant baptism as in part a tax resistance issue:
Those early believers were called Anabaptists out of derision. At that time
the state church in Europe baptized infants, which not only placed them on
the church’s membership list but on the state’s tax rolls as well.
Refusing to baptize infants and baptizing adults was a political act at that
time, one that threatened the sovereignty of the state government. It served
as a form of tax refusal, since taxpayer lists came from church membership
rolls. It also served as a protest against the state’s authority to conscript
people to fight the Turks.
A
letter to the editor from David E. Ortman, printed in the
issue, explained how the
resistance landscape had changed for telephone tax resisters in the aftermath
of the breakup of the telephone service provider monopoly. It mentioned two
phone companies that had created official ways for resisters to have the
federal excise tax removed from their phone bills. The letter ended: “Now, if
church organizations only had as much courage or political muscle as phone
companies to avoid being tax collectors.”
In the edition,
Titus Peachey reported
on “[a]n informal survey of 17 Mennonite and Brethren in Christ institutions in
North America [that] has found that few have written policies related to war
taxes.”
But some do honor requests from employees not to withhold all of their federal
income taxes or the portion which would otherwise go for military-related
expenditures. Others have policies opposing Internal Revenue Service levies of
accounts of war tax resisters.
Most institutions surveyed had not fielded such requests within
.
The General Conference Mennonite Church has had a tax-withholding policy in
place and has implemented it
several times. The Mennonite Church General Board agreed in
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.”
Mennonite Mutual Aid approved a
policy asking the Internal Revenue Service to lift levies related to war
taxes. “To the extent legally possible,
MMA supports
its members who are protesting the payment of war taxes by initially
requesting that
IRS
collection attempts or levies on MMA-controlled
assets be lifted,” the policy states.
Pennsylvania Mennonite Federal Credit Union in
adopted a similar position.
In a letter responding to an
IRS levy
on an employee’s wages, Mennonite Central Committee wrote: “We do not want to
do anything as an organization that would be an offense to the conscience and
beliefs of such individuals or that would suggest support for the world’s arms
race… We would therefore respectfully request that the levy… be withdrawn.”
Attention war tax resisters: Now you can avoid war taxes without
IRS
harassment. For free information, send SASE to:
Yoder’s Tax Information, 10630 Hiser’s Lane, Broadway,
VA 22815.
Given the Internal Revenue Service’s sullied reputation, this shouldn’t
surprise us, although it probably should offend us: After years of trying to
resolve the issue, Grace Montgomery, a Quaker war-tax resister from Stamford,
Conn., is calling for an
investigation after the
IRS
illegally cashed a photocopy of a check not even made out to the
IRS.
According to the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund newsletter, Montgomery
each year places the military portion of her federal income tax in a Quaker
escrow account. The
IRS then
usually levies her bank account for the amount owed. But in
, the
IRS
cashed a photocopy of Montgomery’s check to the escrow account. Her bank
accepted it even though it was not genuine and was made out to “The Religious
Society of Friends.”
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.
The following letter, published in the Catholic Worker, shows that a broader set of concerns than war and militarism were motivating some tax refusers in that milieu:
A Tax Resister’s Letter
Garden City, NJ
To: Internal Revenue Service,
On , I addressed a memo to you acknowledging receipt of your notice and explaining why it is not possible for me to fulfill the time requirements according to the law.
I have written three letters to the Internal Revenue Service explaining why I was not willing to pay taxes.
The first letter would have been around , the second in , and the last one in .
Let me try to explain my position a little more at length.
I recognize the right of a government to impose taxes.
Any system of taxation, however, must be eminently just.
It must distribute the responsibility to support the work of governing according to the ability of people to pay.
Our system of taxation places an undue burden on the poor and the lower middle class.
The economically capable have always been well protected from the imposition of a truly proportionate share of economic responsibility for governing and have been, as well, the objects of special benefits in the distribution of monies and services.
The injustices within the system are sufficient, I believe, to call the system itself unjust, and, for this reason, I have said in a previous letter that I am even unwilling to file or cooperate in any way in the system.
This position is not as clear to me as it seems in this statement, but it is certainly the direction of my thought.
The uses of tax money by the government are quite troublesome, as is the failure to use tax money for quite obligatory purposes.
Another way of saying this is that the actual priorities of government impel me to support policies and programs that I consider immoral, if I pay the taxes required.
Outstanding among these policies is the continuing enormous expenditure to support the planning, development and manufacture of arms for war.
Related to this is the continuing encouragement of the sales of arms to foreign countries through tax credits and other means to facilitate these sales.
I will not participate in this policy or in any program related to it.
If I should subtract from taxes due the proportion that supports the government’s policy on arms, as has been suggested to me, this simply means that the same proportion of whatever I might pay would still go to the support of those policies, since there is no way that I can direct where my money might go.
A significant enough proportion of tax dollars now goes to murder unborn children through abortion.
I simply refuse to participate in this, and the same problem presents itself to me as above.
I cannot subtract a proportion of my tax dollar since the same proportion of whatever I might pay would still go for legalized abortions.
As a whole, our country is not particularly generous to those in need, neither in our own country nor in other countries.
In our own country, there are substantial subsidies for the rich and even for the very rich, but the poor are not given the assistance necessary.
This is true not only of the economically poor but also of the needy in other aspects.
The drug addict, for example, who wants to turn his or her life around has great difficulty finding a program that will help since the government has allotted so little for this type of program.
And the list of similar problems is rather long, I suspect.
Likewise, among the developed countries, our own, the richest, is at the bottom of the list in terms of the proportion of our budget that goes for aid to underdeveloped countries.
Given these two realities, I decided long ago that I would use the money I was not paying in taxes to help the poor in the places where I have worked and in other areas as well.
I am not refusing to pay taxes in order that I might get rich or be better off.
A little investigation will show that I am far from rich.
I cannot tell you what proportion of my income goes to help the poor, I suspect it is at least 40–50%.
I can’t prove that and I have no desire nor interest in proving it.
I do not keep records of this and I could not even conceive of looking for a tax deduction if I were going to participate in the system.
I recognize that my position may be somewhat extreme.
I have been told that I have to take that opinion into serious consideration.
It seems to me, however, that there is no other route for me.
I am not asking the government to bless my position and grant me a pardon of taxes due.
I simply wait for the government to do whatever it feels it has to do in this case.
Andrew P. Connolly
Another IRS property seizure targeting war tax resisters was the subject of a Catholic Worker letter:
We Can Take This Stand…
Canton, Maine
Dear friends,
On , two Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents came to our home and delivered a notice of seizure of all our real estate.
This includes our home, a small woodlot across the street, our blueberry field of 13 acres, and, finally, another woodlot of 21 acres.
They said it would be offered at a public sale within 30 days.
The IRS figures we owe $62,000 in unpaid taxes and penalties for the years .
But we have not filed tax returns for much longer, Elizabeth not , and Arthur not or so.
Twice, in New Hampshire, IRS agents came to visit, once around and again around .
Probably, they concluded we had nothing much worth taking, and, perhaps, were not subject to much tax anyway.
After we came to Maine, earned a bit more and began paying the state income tax, the IRS must have obtained data from these forms in order to prepare their demands.
Our reason for non-cooperation with the IRS is a reluctance to support war preparation, especially nuclear weapons, and the export of arms and military forces to many places around the world.
A large part of income and social security taxes goes to pay for these things.
It seems necessary that someone stand against them as distinctly as possible, without using violence.
We can take this stand, while continuing our family life, farming, and volunteer work for various causes.
Our kids seem to be thriving.
Elizabeth is active in church and the school board.
Arthur works on organic certification and the coming clear cutting referendum.
Of course, it will be a major jolt to lose our home, after living here for ten years.
We have made progress toward fixing the roof, foundation, chimneys, etc.
Our blueberry field, too, is a pity to lose.
Our property is valued by the town at $64,000.
It will probably bring less than $35,000 at an auction.
Real estate is very depressed in price around here, and very few properties are sold.
If the buyer is willing, we would hope to enter into a long-term lease, so that we could continue as before.
If not, we will have to look for another place to rent.
Obviously, we will not want to own any more real estate.
The blueberry field is likely to be leased to us no matter who owns it.
It needs constant work to remain productive, and no one else wants to do that work.
So far, the neighbors and friends we’ve told have been supportive, offering us places to stay and help with figuring out what is best to do.
Yesterday, we met with some of them, including other Maine war tax resisters, a couple from our church “family," neighbors and representatives from Quaker City, NH, where there is a land trust we could join.
Since most of you could not be at that meeting, we would appreciate your prayers, even if you don’t agree with us, and your ideas and reflections. [RFD, Canton, ME 04221. (207) 388‒2860.]
