, when the U.S.-led so-called war on terror came into full swing, Goldberg has been withholding about eight percent of his yearly income-tax bill, the percentage equivalent of what he says Ottawa normally allocates from the federal budget for military spending.
The 36-year-old Victoria man then sends a cheque representing the amount held back to the peace trust fund administered by the Toronto-based antiwar group Conscience Canada, with a copy furnished to the Canada Revenue Agency.
He has since received letters from the agency reminding him that he owes money to the government.
“I don’t want to contribute financially to war and to killing,” Goldberg told the Georgia Straight.
“I would be really thrilled to have the military portion of my taxes go to the government to be used for peaceful purposes, whether it’s domestically or internationally.”
Goldberg isn’t losing sleep over the prospect that one day he’ll be dragged to court by the government to force him to pay.
“They may, and if they do, I’ll deal with that with the support of other people who have gone through that,” he said.
“I really don’t worry about that.
My father came to Canada as a war resister during the Vietnam War.
People make all sorts of difficult decisions.”
Bruna Nota, president of Conscience Canada, told the Straight that in , some 73 Canadians across the country didn’t pay their income taxes in full and contributed to the peace fund as their way of objecting to Canada’s participation in the U.S.-led war on terror.
Nota said that the peace trust fund has totalled about $30,000 .
Although Conscience Canada started advocacy work in , its trust fund was liquidated when a previous set of officers decided to refund all contributors in .
Nota said that many former contributors haven’t returned yet since she and her group decided to continue the organization’s work.
“There are many ways of doing conscientious objection,” she said.
“One is to withhold taxes and send it to the peace tax fund.
Another one is to live below the poverty line so you don’t pay taxes.
There are quite a number of them who choose voluntary simplicity as part of the witnessing.”
They’ve also published a booklet describing their recommended process for resisting war taxes in Canada.
This involves diverting a portion of your income tax into a “Peace Tax Trust Fund” operated by Conscience Canada.
The organization will hold your redirected funds until either you ask for the money back or the government sets up an officially-recognized way for conscientious objectors to pay these redirected taxes for “non-military peace and security initiatives” only.
This emphasis on legalized conscientious objection to military taxation, though regrettable in my opinion, is typical of war tax resistance groups worldwide.
(Only in the United States, it seems, are war tax resisters and “Peace Tax Fund” advocates distinct enough to require two separate organizations.)
Conscience Canada seems also more explicitly pacifist and statist than its counterpart in the United States.
This tighter ideological homogeneity allows them to advocate government policy changes, for instance: replacing the military with nonviolent civilian defense training and nonviolent international intervention groups (sort of a Christian Peacemaker Teams-style force operating on a United Nations scale).
Gandhi said the responsibility to resist evil is as great as the
responsibility to promote the good. A small, determined group of Canadians
began resisting their financial involvement in war in
, and since that time more than 1,000 of
them have deposited military taxes in the Peace Tax Fund operated by
Conscience Canada. They were conscientious objectors who could see that in
modern wars, governments need to conscript not their bodies, but their money.…
Canada has a 200-year history of respect for conscientious objection to
bearing arms. Furthermore, as far back as ,
Upper Canada allowed conscientious objectors to redirect their militia taxes
to public works, and during the First and Second World Wars to purchase peace
bonds instead of war bonds.
What are the consequences? In the 30 years Conscience Canada has existed,
there have been no criminal charges, no seizures of goods and no financial
penalties other than the standard rate of interest on unpaid taxes. We know
of only one person who was audited. Most of the time, the Canada Revenue
Agency will collect the money they consider owing within a year or two. At
that point the conscientious objector can take back the money he or she
deposited in the trust fund.
We have a semblance of representation, but not in reality.
Nobody asks you if you want to build more prisons. Nobody asks you if you
want to bomb children in Iraq. Nobody asks you if you want your money to go
to the poor, to schools, to roads.
Nobody ever asks.
So sometimes, sometimes you just have to tell them.
Every year we are asked to pay our taxes, send in our forms, pay for the
bullets, the bombs that kill the children, the men and women.
We are given no choice.
Just as we were given no choice as children whether or not to rise before
class and say the pledge of allegiance to America’s wars.
There’s a new issue of More Than a Paycheck, NWTRCC’s newsletter.
In this issue:
The lead story concerns Frank Donnelly, a war tax resister from Maine who pled guilty to tax evasion charges and is due to receive prison time.
It is rare for a war tax resister to face criminal charges.
In this case, Donnelly resisted by working in the underground economy and underreporting his income.
The IRS seems to be treating it as an ordinary tax evasion case.
International news including a note on the World Council of Churches policy on war tax resistance, war tax resistance in Canada, and the upcoming International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns in Norway .
Obits for recently-deceased war tax resisters Dennis Brutus, George Willoughby, and Lillian Willoughby.
The group “Conscience Canada” has created a “Peace Tax Return” that war tax resisters there can file instead of or as a supplement to their annual income tax return.
Chomsky:
In — in , I tried to organize — a friend of — an artist friend of mine, since died, tried to organize a national tax resistance.
Well, we got somewhere, so that’s taking, you know, sort of a mild risk.
But in , there were the stirrings of an effort to organize more serious resistance.
Goodman: Did you not pay your taxes?
Chomsky: I didn’t pay my taxes for years.
But what — you know, it’s — I mean, there is a — how the IRS reacted is kind of interesting.
In my case, of course they can get the money, you know.
Goodman: And did they just take it out of your salary?
Chomsky: They just took it.
I got a nasty letter from them from some computer.
But in some cases, they randomly, as far as I could tell, you know, they took people’s houses.
People went to jail, and so on.
So there’s a kind of a risk associated with it.
Were I a Canadian, I would be embarrassed to find my country’s judges relying on United States court precedents for their cases.
I might also be a little alarmed to find judges conducting bible study from the bench, especially if I caught them truncating Jesus’s “Render unto Caesar…” bit half way through in order to make a rhetorical point.
The Tax Court of Canada has ruled that taxpayers can’t refuse to pay taxes to be used for military purposes.
The ruling by Mr. Justice Guy Tremblay released on means that Dr. Jerilynn C. Prior of Vancouver must pay the federal government the $1,675.58 she refused to pay on her taxes.
Prior, a Quaker, agreed that she owed the government $15,957.87 for that tax year but withheld 10.5 per cent on grounds of conscience.
She said that 10.5 per cent of the federal budget was used for military purposes.
“As a person of conscience who would refuse to fight in a war on moral and religious grounds, I also refuse to pay for war on the same grounds,” she wrote the government.
“My Constitution allows me freedom of conscience.”
She sent the amount instead to the Peace Tax Fund, which was started in by Edith Adamson of Victoria.
Tremblay noted that , 315 taxpayers had deposited $85,000 in the Peace Tax Fund rather than have it used for military purposes.
The judge said that even if Prior’s freedom of conscience was infringed by the way the taxes are used, “it is the court’s opinion that the Canadian tax system, which is required to collect money to provide for the needs of the nation, which include its defence, would be a reasonable limit that must be imposed in a free and democratic society.”
He rooted his decision in a U.S. case in which a member of the Old Amish religion objected to paying social security taxes on grounds his religion forbade him to pay for or accept such benefits.
In that ruling the United States Supreme Court said some religious practices must “yield to the common good” in a cosmopolitan country where almost every conceivable religion is practised.
Tremblay quoted the following passage from the U.S. ruling:
“If, for example, a religious adherent believes war is a sin, and if a certain percentage of the federal budget can be identified as devoted to war-related activities, such individuals would have a similarly valid claim to be exempt from paying that percentage of the income tax.
“The tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge (it) because tax payments were spent in a manner that violates their religious belief.”
Tremblay agreed with the U.S. court that “religious belief in conflict with the payment of taxes affords no basis for resisting the tax.”
He said he doubts that payment of the military tax is “against the spirit of Christ,” as Prior claimed.
The judge quoted Jesus’s advice to the Pharisees: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s.” He quoted St. Paul to the same effect.
“Jesus and Paul, as citizens of Judah, could not ignore that an important part of the Roman Empire’s budget was used for military purposes,” Tremblay said.
Cheryl Vickers, Prior’s lawyer, said in an interview Monday her client has three months to decide whether to appeal the ruling.
And the irony of the judge relying on that particular Supreme Court decision is that the United States government did eventually accommodate the conscientious objection of Mennonites who wanted to remain outside of the Social Security system — thus proving that it was neither impossible nor too daunting for the government to make exceptions for conscientious objectors in the tax code, contra the court’s finding.
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
Is the dilemma facing pacifist Quakers who are asked to pay a war tax best resolved by conscientious objection and civil disobedience, or by lawsuits and lobbying?
Both approaches could be found in the pages of the Friends Journal in .
On , the Supreme Court ruled, unanimously, in U.S. v. Lee, that an Amish person who conscientiously objected to the social security system did not thereby have a First Amendment right to opt out of it.
The tax system could not function if denominations were allowed to challenge it because tax payments were spent in a manner that violates their religious belief.
Because the broad public interest in maintaining a sound tax system is of such a high order, religious belief in conflict with the payment of taxes affords no basis for resisting the tax.
As a reductio ad absurdum on the losing legal argument, the court noted that if Lee were allowed to assert the right to opt out of social security on conscientious grounds, it would open the door to other similar challenges:
If, for example, a religious adherent believes war is a sin, and if a certain percentage of the federal budget can be identified as devoted to war-related activities, such individuals would have a similarly valid claim to be exempt from paying that percentage of the income tax.
A note in the issue of the Friends Journal noted that this had also slammed the door on the various First Amendment arguments for conscientious objection to war taxes that people had been pursuing:
In the light of a negative judgment rendered by the U.S. Supreme Court against an Amish employer on , the judicial action committee of the General Conference Mennonite Church has recommended to its General Board that a planned suit against the IRS on the issue of tax withholding “be put on indefinite hold.”
Having been turned away by the judicial branch, they decided to double-down on the legislative:
Rather than take a negatively-shrouded course of action at this time, the General Conference committee urged the General Board to make more money available “to promote the World Peace Tax Fund.”
an ad from the issue of Friends Journal
The issue reviewed two books on war tax resistance: Affirm Life: Pay for Peace from the Historic Peace Church Task Force on Taxes, and People Pay for Peace by William Durland.
The first of these opened with this challenging statement:
A wedge of contradiction is opening a wide fissure in our peace testimony.
While nearly all of us declare ourselves to be conscientiously opposed to war and preparations for war, and while many work tirelessly for its elimination, the overwhelming number of us continue voluntarily to pay for what we openly abhor.
The book, according to the review, covered the “biblical and historical basis for military tax refusal” and presented “a systematic exposition of the proposal for a World Peace Tax Fund.”
It also “gives large place to the significance and importance of achieving religious clarity and motivation.”
However, “[i]t does not… adequately address the mechanics of military tax refusal.”
That gap was filled by the second of the books, of which the reviewer said: “Most useful, I think, is the section entitled, ‘How to Refuse to Pay the Military Tax.’ ”
The same issue had an obituary for Lois Mae Handsaker which noted: “Before there were any peace marches in , she was apprehended during the picketing of the local post office to protest the use of income taxes for war.”
The issue announced that the Iowa Peace Network would be collecting money withheld from taxes by war tax resisters and using it to buy grain which it would submit to an IRS office in lieu of tactics to “symbolize opposition to taxes for the Pentagon and emphasize the need for funding human services.”
The article noted: “In the event that the IRS refuses to accept the grain, it will be donated to local meal programs for the needy.”
Alas, the notice followed-up that news with the silly idea of protesting against war taxes by writing “not for military spending” in the memo field of the check you write to the IRS.
“If enough people take this step, a class action suit against the IRS may be filed” — by some sort of magic, one supposes.
At Canada’s Parliament passed a “Constitution Act” which made it yet more independent of the British government.
The act enshrined “freedom of conscience and religion” as a fundamental freedom.
The Canadian Peace Tax Fund Committee said it was going to “test” this “by assuming that [our legislators] mean we can divert our defense taxes from killing to peaceful uses, on conscientious grounds.”
The notice of this, in the issue, didn’t give any details as to how this “test” would take place, but pretty quickly shifted to “hopes” that the legislature would enact a Peace Tax Fund in the spirit of the new Constitution Act, so lobbying may have been all the testing they planned to do.
ad from the issue of Friends Journal
Similarly vague was the report from the meeting of Carolina Conservative Friends, which decided on “asking ourselves and other American Friends to make some sort of statement against the use of tax money for military purposes, through coordinated activity in filing our returns .”
A report on the Lake Erie Yearly Meeting also vaguely mentioned “continued explorations within monthly meetings about war-tax resistance.”
Another report on the New York Yearly Meeting said that “[s]ome Friends planned to take further individual action supporting nonregistration and tax refusal.”
This consistent vagueness makes me suspect that there was some embarrassment and certainly no consensus about war tax resistance in these meetings.
Trudy Knowles brought things more in the brass tacks direction in the “Memoirs of a War Resister,” an article that concentrated mostly on the plight of Vietnam War veterans in the United States, that she shared in the issue.
Her resistance included tax resistance:
I do not pay the federal excise tax on my phone bill which is earmarked for the military.
I refuse to pay the 50 percent of my income tax that goes to preparing this country for war.
I put this money instead into an escrow account to be held until the government establishes a means by which this money can be used for the peaceful resolution of national and international conflicts — or until they take it by force.
There was a thoughtful overview of the “Holy Experiment” of William Penn’s founding of a colony run on Quaker principles in Pennsylvania by Margaret H. Bacon in the issue.
Toward the conclusion, it discussed war tax resistance as a possible way of advancing the experiment:
Through [John] Woolman we come to the most pressing unfinished business of our Holy Experiment: freeing ourselves from complicity in war.
Penn and his colonists hoped to govern without weapons, placing their hopes on “seeing what love can do,” as well as on the establishment sometime in the future of the instruments of arbitration, Penn’s Congress of Nations.
Neither the personal practice of nonviolence nor the best efforts of the United Nations have yet worked to rid the world of the threat of war, and now time is running out.
Earlier Friends were at least able to separate themselves from complicity in preparations for war by refusing to pay militia taxes as well as refusing to serve in the militia.
Today the principle of conscientious objection for the bodies of our young men (and perhaps young women) is well established with us, having been pioneered by a handful during the Civil War, a few hundred during World War Ⅰ, and some thousands in World War Ⅱ.
The idea of demanding conscientious objector status for our tax dollars is in its infancy.
In the past years, a few courageous souls have refused to pay the government that portion of their federal income taxes that supports war.
Today more and more monthly meetings and yearly meetings are beginning to wrestle with the problem.
Is it time for the Society of Friends as a whole to get behind this move?
Surely if we did it, and the Mennonites did it, and the Brethren did it, we could make a change in the law.
Is there not some simple, single forward step that we could make together in ?
Some Friends find this issue complicated, because the graduated income tax supports many good things, and Friends who designate their taxes solely for peace purposes are just making it necessary for others to pay solely for war.
The same arguments can be raised against conscientious objection to military service.
But is there not a deep and inward side to tax refusal?
Do some Friends feel, as Woolman felt, that they cannot pay these taxes and still keep in touch with the living and life-giving Holy Spirit?
Let us be tender before we argue with our tax refusers, for they may be pointing our way to new light.
The issue brought the news that “25 members of the Friends House staff in London” had embarked on war tax resistance.
The Meeting for Sufferings of London Yearly Meeting agreed to put 34% of the taxes withheld from the objectors into an escrow account, “the intention being to release it to Inland Revenue after assurances that it would be used for non-military purposes.”
An obituary notice of Roberta Dickinson in the same issue noted that “[s]he supported the peace testimony through organized war tax resistance.”
At the meeting of the Friends World Committee for Consultation, that group decided to refuse to submit withheld taxes to the government from its war tax resisting employees (according to a Journal report ).
Walter Ludwig reflected on contemporary and historical Quaker war tax resistance in an article he wrote for the issue.
Excerpts:
The writings from George Fox, John Woolman, Joshua Evans, Timothy Davis,
Moses Brown, and Samuel Allinson that are mentioned in Ludwig’s essay can be found in the book American Quaker War Tax Resistance.
Members of our meeting [Rahway and Plainfield (New Jersey) Monthly Meeting] several years ago began as individuals to withhold a percentage of their income tax in protest of its use for war.
No devastating consequences have resulted.
Courteous, almost sympathetic Internal Revenue Service agents have visited one member, telling her a red tab has been affixed to her folder in the file.
She hopes the IRS will soon run out of red tabs.
I have withheld the military third, sending it the first year to the American Friends Service Committee and since then to the Quaker Peace Tax Fund, custody of Albany (N.Y.) Monthly Meeting.
The first response from the IRS came just .
They want the “underpaid tax,” $939.58 in penalty and interest.
My refusal to support mass murder will likely be ignored, as have been my explanatory notes of “conscientious deduction” sent quarterly during the past three years
In my letters of refusal I have mentioned membership in the Religious Society of Friends.
Do I thereby leave with the IRS the impression that of course Quakers do not pay military taxes, as they once refused to pay tithes to a state church they could not in conscience support?
But has refusal to pay taxes for war been within the main stream of Quakerly testimony and practice?
May war-tax-resisting Friends today take aid and comfort from a tradition of military tax refusal?
George Fox was clear on the matter.
A restored portrait of Fox presents him as a man of property from a well-to-do family with enough investments to give him private means.
He paid his taxes.
If we pay we can plead with Caesar and plead with them who hath our custom and hath our tribute.
Refuse to pay and they will say: “How can we defend you against foreign enemies and protect everyone and their estates and keep down thieves and murders?”
And again:
To bear and carry weapons to fight with… the man of peace cannot act… but have paid their tribute [taxes] which they may still do for peace’s sake… In so doing Friends may better claim their liberty.
Sara Fell kept the Fox family account book after George married her mother, Margaret.
Her accounts disclose that the family paid the poll tax to carry on England’s war against the Dutch in .
When England fought the French, the entry reads: “ by M paid to the Poll Money by father and mother 1 pound 2 shilling.”
Robert Barclay, foremost Quaker theologian, wrote in :
We have suffered much in our country because neither ourselves would bear arms nor send others in our place, nor give our money for the buying of drums, standards, and other military attire.
Such “trophy money,” as these direct taxes were called, many early Friends refused to pay.
Most, however, paid the general or “mixed” taxes even in time of war.
Their willingness may be found in the advice of the gathering at Balby encouraging “all who are indebted to the world endeavor to discharge the same.”
As Fox put it in , “Keep out of debt; owe to no man anything but love… Pay to Caesar, as to your fellows, what is due.”
[H]omespun-clad John Woolman was given a cool reception by elegant London Friends.
They were securely of the propertied class with enterprises in heavy industry and were largely in control of the Atlantic trade.
They would not give their persons to the business of war-making, but did they make nice distinctions in how the empire used their tax money in extending colonial rule?
Philadelphia Friends, like London’s, were well placed in government and trade.
“The richest,” wrote a visiting London doctor, “talk only about selling of flour and the low price it bore.”
Using George Fox as authority, some Quakers tried to persuade others to pay a tax levied for an armed expedition against Canada in .
When war with the French and Indians finally came in , John Churchman, Anthony Benezet, John Woolman, and other Friends refused to pay war taxes that were mixed with taxes for civil uses.
In extenuation of Fox and early war-tax-paying Quakers in England Woolman said:
To me it appears that there was less danger of their being infected with the spirit of the world than is the case with us now.
[They] had had little share in civil government… our minds have been turned to the improvement of our country, to merchandise and the sciences… and a carnal mind is gaining among us.
When ten Quaker members of the Pennsylvania Assembly resigned rather than vote for the War Supply Bill of , the remaining “secular” Friends voted the war taxes and penalties for nonpayment.
The abdicating legislators and their supporters in the Society then began close cooperation with Mennonites, Dunkers, and other pacifist groups that carried on through the Revolution.
When military officers appeared in Mount Holly to draft for the French and Indian War, Woolman noted in his Journal, “In this time of commotion some of our young men left these parts and tarried abroad till it was over” (a prelude to Vietnam).
Woolman in had recorded his uneasiness about paying war taxes:
A few years past, money having been made current in our province for carrying on wars… by taxes laid on the inhabitants, my mind was often affected with the thought of paying such taxes… To refuse the active payment of a tax which our Society generally paid was exceedingly disagreeable but to do a thing contrary to my conscience appeared yet more dreadful.
Joshua Evans in wrote:
I found it best for me to refuse paying taxes on my estate which went to pay the expenses of war, and although my part might appear at best as a drop in the ocean, yet the ocean, I considered, was made up of many drops.
Committees appointed by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting agreed on an “epistle of tender love and caution to Friends in Pennsylvania” signed by those who felt free to do so and forwarded to monthly and quarterly meetings.
It was in keeping with William Penn’s earlier statement, made when he refused to send money to England for war against Canada:
No man can be true to God and be false to his own conscience, nor can he extort from it a tribute to carry on any war, much less offensive, nor ought true Christians pay for it.
I’ve tried many times to track down a source for this Penn quote, with no success.
The war was in full swing when queries sent annually by London Yearly Meeting to English Friends were adopted in by yearly meetings in Virginia, Maryland, Philadelphia, New York, and New England.
They asked:
Do you bear a testimony against bearing arms and paying trophy money or being in any manner concerned in privateers letters of mark, or dealing in prize goods as such?
Friends were expected not to pay voluntarily to hire a substitute for military service or voluntarily pay any tax solely and directly for military purposes.
Every other tax, even mixed taxes that would be used in part for the military budget, Friends were expected in conscience to pay.
The Revolution shifted the locus of tax-raising authority for Americans from London to state and federal governments.
Whereupon Timothy Davis in circulated his tract titled, “Advice of a Quaker to Pay Tax to American Revolution.”
War taxes, especially mixed ones, should be paid, wrote Davis, and he quoted a weighty Friend, Thomas Story, who had declared, “If the officer demand tax from me and tell me ’tis to maintain war, I’ll pay it.”
Sandwich (Mass.) Monthly Meeting took a dim view of the Davis publication and disowned its author.
Quaker books of discipline of the time counseled disowning members who paid war taxes.
During the Revolution Moses Brown reminded Friends:
Our ancient testimonies were and remain to be supportable of paying tribute and customs for the support of civil and yet refuse to pay trophy money and other expenses solely for war.
He suggested Friends might ask, with the war over, for a separation of taxes into their several budget purposes.
“If it should be refused we might be united in refusing even those the greater part of which may be for civil uses.”
The clearest Quaker statement on war taxes during the Revolution came from the pen of Samuel Allinson, a young Friend of Burlington, New Jersey.
In Allinson circulated manuscript copies of his “Reasons against War and paying taxes for its Support.”
War is not a defensible function of civil government, reasoned Allinson, and each generation must apply biblical truths to the issues of its own time.
Peace committees of monthly meetings might well spend a session with Friend Allinson’s cogent thinking.
Quaker support of withholders of war taxes was recorded in a minute approved by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting in , reaffirmed in , and used as model for a minute approved by New York Yearly Meeting.
It reads, in part:
Refusal to pay the military portion of taxes is in keeping with an honorable testimony, fully in keeping with the history and practice of Friends… We warmly approve of people following their consciences and openly approve civil disobedience in this matter under divine compulsion… We ask all to consider carefully the implications of paying taxes that relate to war-making… Specifically we offer encouragement and support to people caught up in the problem of seizure, and of payment against their will.
The same issue noted that a minute passed at the gathering of the New England Yearly Meeting “supported efforts to establish a World Peace Tax Fund and current forms of war tax refusal.”
Also in that issue was an announcement about the formation of a war tax resisters’ penalty fund:
The Tax Resister’s Penalty Fund is a network designed to distribute the burden of penalties or interest levied against military tax resisters.
For example, 200 people would share a $500 penalty at $2.50 each.
For information contact TRPF, Box 25, North Manchester, IN 46962.
The fund was still in operation at that address until fairly recently.
It has not formally disbanded, though it appears to no longer be operating effectively.
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
Mentions of war tax resistance in the Friends Journal in tended to either look back fondly at resisters of the past, or to look forward to a time when a peace tax fund law would magically dispel the dilemma of praying for peace while paying for war.
Paul Zorn’s article from which cast a skeptical eye on the value of Quaker war tax resistance picked up some dissent in the issue.
An ad from the issue of Friends Journal:
“Why have people risked their jobs, their homes, their families, and even spent time in prison to take a stand for peace?
The Standing Up for Peace Contest invites young people, ages 15–23, to talk face-to-face with people who refused to fight in war, pay taxes for war, or build weapons for war.
To enter the contest, participants express their perceptions by writing something or creating a work of art or music.
The contest commemorates the 50th anniversary of the U.S. law that provided alternative service for Conscientious objectors…
The contest is sponsored by ten national peace organizations.”
Merrill Barnebey felt that Zorn “fails to fully grasp the significance and timeliness of tax resistance.
For one thing… Quakers who do not protest war taxes are establishing a credibility gap.”
He also felt that tax resistance helped to pressure Congress to pass the Peace Tax Fund bill.
Also in the issue, Elwood Cronk told a story of how a meeting that was involved “an ecumenical effort to establish a food cupboard” reacted with hostility to war tax resisters in their midst:
A couple, wishing to make a war tax witness to IRS, presented the meeting with a check for $100, the portion of tax they were withholding.
Their accompanying letter stated they felt this was an appropriate gift to the meeting, in view of federal budget cuts in social services.
They asked that the money be accepted as a start-up fund for the food cupboard.
…One person walked out, another questioned their motivation, and the meeting declined the check.
The one positive thing which did happen occurred the next Sunday.
A member of the adult class proposed that war taxes be discussed that day.
An obituary notice for Ronald E. Chinn in the issue noted that Chinn “helped found a university endowment fund for lectures on peace issues, using money withheld by Alaskan war tax resisters.”
an ad for the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund from the issue of Friends Journal
In the issue, Kenneth Miller wrote in to share the exciting news that, after persistent lobbying and lots of hard work, Peace Tax Fund bill supporters had managed to convince Nancy Pelosi to cosponsor the bill.
(Pelosi at the time was just starting her career as a U.S. Representative.
She became Speaker of the House in and is currently the Minority Leader there.
She is no longer a cosponsor of the present peace tax fund scheme.)
The issue announced a new edition of Conscience Canada’s book The First Freedom which “reviews the legal history of conscientious objection for taxpayers in Canada and provides an overview of new charter decisions and recent court cases.”
“Honoring employees’ requests not to withhold the military portion of their federal income tax is now the official policy of Baltimore Yearly Meeting,” began a short piece in the issue.
“In taking the action as requested by individual employees, the yearly meeting emphasized its history of supporting military tax resistance through urging passage of the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill, as well as supporting other religious organizations involved in military tax refusal.
In , the yearly meeting minuted that it ‘stands in loving support of those moved by conscience to witness against making payments for war and preparation for war, including those who refuse to pay military taxes voluntarily.’ ”
D.H. Rubenstein penned an op-ed piece for the issue in which he reviewed the difficulty that Friends and Friends Meetings had with the issue of war taxes, and held out hope that Congress would throw Quakers a rope by passing some sort of Peace Tax Fund plan.
Excerpts:
It is a perplexing problem to be a citizen of a country whose policies include militarism and war as a means of relating to other nations and at the same time be a member of a religious society whose traditions are contrary to such policy.
Conscientious objection to military service is now accepted.
But what about paying taxes to support war and militarism?
When Friends gather to consider this dilemma it is often expressed that each person must decide on the basis of the individual’s own leading how to resolve the claims of conscience between being a law-abiding citizen and a faithful Friend.
Rarely is unity achieved.
Another entanglement is the matter of Friends organizations and their involvement in the payment of war taxes.
One of the key questions is whether or not such organizations have a “corporate conscience” and a responsibility to act in accord with traditional Quaker witness and its historic peace testimony.
Relatively few individual Friends are prepared to refuse to pay war taxes — an illegal, punishable offense — and suffer the consequences of such refusal.
How could they, therefore, adopt a policy which would make the corporate body and its officers liable for such consequences?
In other words, is it fair for me to expect a higher order of morality from the corporate body than from its individual members?
(Please consider a slight digression.
Is it fair to assume that if a legal way of not paying war taxes existed we would take that option?
If the answer is yes, we should commit ourselves to the promotion and support of the Peace Tax Fund Bill… whose aim is to provide that specific option.)
Friends are staunch in their belief that that of God within each individual should be the guiding light by which life is lived.
Quaker experience, however, has verified the need for the admonition of Paul, who cautioned believers in Rome, “Do not be conformed to this world…” (Rom. 12:2).
The light of the Spirit is available to each one of us: its accessibility without distortion by our own willfulness or societal influences is a hazard we do not always recognize.
It is this of which Paul reminds us.
This is one of the reasons our corporate wisdom has established that although the Light is available to each of us, it is essential we gather together for communal seeking and sharing in order that our findings be validated in the group, which is less likely to be misled than the individual.
If we are unable to discern God’s leading, that is a very different matter than God saying no.
It means further seeking is required until clarity is achieved.
It does not mean no action is required.
We need to recognize that at present we are involved in actions which by implication indicate Friends support and believe in militarism and war.
This is what our present tax paying and tax collecting actions declare.
What do we believe?
Must our apparent schizophrenia on this subject be a permanent state, or can we thresh our way out of it?
The Peace Tax Fund would create a legal alternative.
The enactment of an economic conversion bill (several now in Congress) could provide for a specific application of CO tax funds to a basic civilian need and away from the military-industrial behemoth.
Our energies applied to the support and adoption of these two legislative proposals might supply some ameliorative therapy for our dilemma while we pursue some serious threshing.
That same issue included a profile of George & Lillian Willoughby that included a section on their tax resistance:
George Willoughby at a Tax Day demonstration in Philadelphia in
Working for Peace, not Paying for War
Another significant protest in the Willoughbys’ lives has been their ongoing tax resistance.
“I object to taxes that go completely out of my hands and have no connection to me — that are supporting things I cannot tolerate, such as bombs and nuclear energy,” Lillian says.
After years of refusal to pay their federal telephone tax, IRS officers seized the Willoughbys’ Volkswagen to collect the $100 they owed.
But the Willoughbys’ many friends raised more than a thousand dollars through a “peace bond” mailing so they could submit the winning bid and recover the car.
The extra funds were donated to the Philadelphia War Tax Resistance Fund.
“One IRS official complained,” George recalls, “ ‘Here we seize your car to raise money for IRS, and you are using it to raise money for your cause!’ ”
After that incident, there were no more seizures of automobiles of tax resisters in the Philadelphia area for the next nine years, the Willoughbys say.
Explaining their tax witness, Lillian notes, “Some sacrifice is involved, and not everyone can do it.”
For George, it is a matter of integrity and empowerment.
“Tax resistance is something I can do to withdraw support from the government,” he says.
“Why should I give them money to do evil things I wouldn’t do myself?”
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
There was a great deal about war tax resistance in the Friends Journal in , in part because of the occupation of the Randy Kehler/Betsy Corner home which the IRS was trying to auction off, and in part because of the IRS suit against the Journal to try to force it to pay its editor’s resisted taxes, and in part because of the Peace Tax Fund bill’s first congressional hearing.
A note in the issue pointed out that politicians were playing a name game that had apparently fooled some Quakers into thinking that the telephone excise tax had been transformed into something benign:
The telephone tax continues as a source of money for military expenditure, contrary to recent confusion about its status.
The tax, which was due to expire in , was extended under the Act for Better Child Care.
Those who proposed the act were searching for a way to finance their new program and seized upon the telephone tax as their “new” source of money.
However, the phone tax revenues continue to go into the General Fund, as always, and are not earmarked for the child care programs. More than 50 percent of the General Fund is used for military expenditure.
The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee recommends that conscientious resistance to the telephone tax continue, as it can have a powerful impact if enough people are involved.
an ad for NWTRCC in the issue of Friends Journal
That issue also had a follow-up on the “Alternative Revenue Service” protest:
In , the Alternative Revenue Service reports that individuals redirected $104,740 of their federal income taxes away from the military to areas of human need.
The total includes $12,898 redirected through the ARS, $38,416 redirected by Alternative Funds, and $53,426 that individuals redirected to social action and relief programs. The Alternative Revenue Service campaign is designed to educate taxpayers about how their federal income tax dollars are used.
The service provides the EZ Peace Form, which participants can use in registering their opposition to military spending at the time they file their taxes.
The service reports that 70,000 EZ Peace Forms were distributed nationwide last year.
This year’s form is simplified, with clearer instructions.
The issue brought the news that the Peace Tax Fund promoters had finally managed to get a Congressional Committee hearing for their bill, which was scheduled for .
“The hearing will be informational to determine the need for such legislation, not a preparation for floor action.
The need is assessed from the testimony of both individuals and religious bodies.
The hearing will support the bill by providing a permanent public record, by lending it legitimacy, by possibly attracting more serious consideration from prospective cosponsors, and by providing a record of congressional scrutiny.
The hearing will be brief, not lending itself to extended exchanges.
However, written testimony can be added and will become part of the official record.”
A follow-up in described the latest Peace Tax Fund bill as one that “would amend the Internal Revenue Code to permit qualified conscientious objectors to have part of their federal taxes — that part equal to the military portion of the federal budget — to be paid into a fund for peace-related projects.”
It encouraged readers to submit “written testimony for the official hearing record,” to publicize and perhaps attend the hearing, to contact Congressional representatives and encourage them to attend and to support the bill, and to donate money to the cause.
The issue described how the hearing before the House Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures went — “the first actual hearing held since a Peace Tax Fund Bill was first introduced in Congress .”
Excerpts:
“If we give the right to a person to withhold their body from a war as a conscientious objector, that person should be able to withhold his money as well.”
So spoke Sen. Mark Hatfield in his lead-off testimony…
…Several hundred spectators from across the country packed the hearing room.
Many attended as concerned individual taxpayers.
Others came as members of religious denominations and peace groups long associated with the Peace Tax Campaign.
Three chartered buses, one from Lancaster, Pa., two others from Philadelphia, swelled the numbers by some 150 supporters.
When the last of them filed in from a late-arriving bus to find all spectator seats occupied, Chairman Charles Rangel stopped the hearings momentarily, inviting standing-room only observers to move forward and to occupy empty seats normally reserved for officials and the press.
Many did so.
Veterans of peace demonstrations, several parents holding small children, young bearded men in simple dress, older couples from the peace churches created a colorful patchwork as they mixed with congressional aides, heads of foundations, and Capitol bureaucrats in business suits.
…Over 2,300 letters in support of the Peace Tax Fund Bill were bound in large volumes and set on a front table to be presented to the committee.
From 50–100 such letters a day continued to arrive as of the time of the hearing.
Following the introductory testimony of Mark Hatfield, lead sponsor of the bill (S.689) in the Senate, there were also presentations by four members of Congress: Andy Jacobs (lead sponsor of the bill in the House), Nancy Pelosi, and John Conyers.…
…[A] panel of religious leaders testified.
One, Thomas Gumbleton, Roman Catholic bishop from Detroit, and past president of Pax Christi, pointed out that two of the first leaders of the church, John and Peter, said that sometimes it is necessary to obey God before obeying the law.
How much better it would be, Gumbleton said, for COs to be able to pay all their taxes, knowing their money would be used for life-affirming purposes.
William Davidson, retired Episcopal bishop of western Kansas, a CO in World War Ⅱ, has actively opposed war .
“Having lived past draft age, I have been saddened and conflicted each year having to pay taxes to support war,” he said.
The Episcopal Peace Fellowship has consistently supported war tax resistance as a religious witness.
John A. Lapp, executive secretary of Mennonite Central Committee, Akron, Pa., spoke on behalf of the three historic peace churches (Mennonites, Quakers, and Church of the Brethren).
The issue of war-related taxes is one of religious freedom, Lapp said.
“Many of us feel the pain of having our religious institutions serve as tax collectors for war.”
During committee questioning, Representative Jacobs asked Rabbi [Phil] Bentley [with the Jewish Peace Fellowship], “Is [passage of this bill] going to give rise to requests for similar legislation from people who don’t want their money going for a golf course?”
…[Friends Journal] editor-manager Vint Deming, associate editor Melissa Elliott, typesetter Susan Jordhamo, and board members Robert Sutton and Sam Legg joined several hundred other citizens in packing the hearing room…
The hearing was informational, to give legislators material to use in future considerations, rather than to schedule the bill for action.
As such, it gave supporters a chance to formally present the case, get testimony in the written record, and show the depth and breadth of people’s interest in the bill.
The pace of this legislative process is frustratingly slow, but, for many of us, the hearing was a heartening experience.
There, we heard people testify in a formal legislative setting to our most deeply held beliefs.
One activist-participant said, “All my life I’ve been on the side that opposes government decisions.
It was a weird experience to see all those peace movement people in the same room with legislators.
I’ve never seen anything like that before, nor ever imagined it.
It gave me a different vision of what might be possible.”
The Peace Tax Fund Bill has come a long way , with many technical refinements, and it has a long way to go in gathering widespread support.
On we witnessed one small step in validation, acknowledgment of our beliefs, and moving the dream closer to reality.
Perhaps one day we will look back, as do those who watched the process of legalizing conscientious objection, and be glad we were involved in making it legal to follow our beliefs with our money-as well as with our bodies.
“This is not a political issue, but a moral issue of conscience,” responded Bentley…
Jacobs, in response, thanked the Rabbi and others of religious conscience who had testified.
“I am a sponsor of this bill,” he said, “but I am not a pacifist.”
He called to mind one of his favorite movies, Friendly Persuasion, and the lines spoken toward the end of the film: “It’s good to know that somebody is holding out for a better way of settling things!”
Terrill Hyde, tax legislative counsel for the Department of the Treasury, presented the Bush Administration position opposing the PTF.
She mentioned “problems of complexity, confusion, and increased administrative burden,” sure to arise if the bill were passed.
There would be no deterrent either, she said, to restrain taxpayers from inappropriately claiming CO status.
If taxpayers were allowed to designate the uses for which their tax dollars were spent, “our entire budgetary process would be undermined.”
There would likely be loss of revenue to needed federal programs.
Others, however, presented differing views.
Several speakers argued that there would likely be substantial increases in revenue as a direct result of the bill.
Many who currently refuse to pay a portion or all of their taxes would gladly pay.
Also, large costs resulting from IRS efforts to collect from tax resisters would be avoided.
Answering the criticism of how the act might increase paperwork and administrative costs, several people testified to the simple nature of the bill and of the tax filing process.
As to IRS claims that the bill raises possible legal questions, a panel of two law specialists responded.
Mark Tushnet, professor of law at Georgetown University, said, “A nation that wants to protect the religious freedom of its citizens can reasonably be expected to enact legislation to enable the freedom to be expressed.”
It seems perfectly appropriate, he concluded, that such legislation be enacted.
“It is needed in addition to the Religious Freedom Act.”
Philadelphia, Pa., attorney and war tax specialist Peter Goldberger agreed.
“Legislation of this kind has a noble history in our country,” and he quoted from a letter from then-President George Washington to Philadelphia Quakers.
The nation’s laws, Washington wrote, must always be “extensively accommodated” in cases of individual conscience.
Alan Eccleston, a Quaker and an organizational development consultant from Hadley, Massachusetts, told about how, in his own tax witness, he has endured penalties, punishments, and the threat of losing his home.
The IRS has a lien on his house right now.
“Conscience must be taken into account.
Spiritual values are real.
They are not to be treated as incidental or expendable to fit the needs of the state.
This is what the First Amendment is all about.”
Ruth Flower, legislative secretary of Friends Committee on National Legislation, emphasized that the Peace Tax Fund Act would not offer an escape to those who do not wish to pay their taxes, because they would have to pay the same amount either way.
It would, however, provide a legal way out of violating one’s religious beliefs in order to comply with the laws of the land.
Her point was born out by Patricia Washburn, who gave perhaps the most moving testimony of the hearing.
She talked about the challenge presented to each of us, and to her personally, in Micah 6:8: “…what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, to love constantly, and to walk humbly with your God?” Walking humbly requires us to acknowledge the seeds of violence in our own hearts, rather than projecting them onto someone else.
“Loving constantly” can be a discouraging and difficult task, especially in today’s climate of distrust and alienation.
“I am not opposed to paying taxes, but I find no alternative form of tax payment… Thus, I see no current alternative to withholding the military portion of my taxes… I pray that my witness is done in love and that it will help to build a bridge across the chasm of violence and fear.”
After the hearing and following the press conference, [Marian] Franz [executive director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund] gave a brief workshop on lobbying for the bill.
She pointed out that the testimony would now be entered in written record and could be referred to in the future.
She added, “the fact that we got a hearing is absolutely amazing.”
Many other pieces of legislation have not yet been so lucky, and the demand is great.
“If all members of the committee had been present, they all would have been deeply moved, and we would be a lot further down the road.”
Franz encouraged people, when lobbying, to talk in terms of conscience, as defined by Pope John ⅩⅩⅢ, who said, “Deep inside, each one of us finds a law that we did not put there.
It tells us to do this and shun that.”
That is what puts the issue of paying taxes for war in the arena of religious decisions and touches on every individual’s right to follow their faith — whether they are housewives, bureaucrats, lawyers, teachers, or politicians.
That is why it is important to keep trying to open doors and ears and minds.
Marian Franz has a suggestion for how to approach people: “Talk to aides and legislators as though you’re sharing something personally.
You will often find that when you are talking about conscience, people are moved deeply.”
The issue also plugged “Good Use: Songs of Peace, Tax & Conscience” — “a tape of War Tax Resister Songs, featuring Charlie King, Luci Murphy, Geof Morgan, Lifeline, and others.
It was produced by Don Walsh, who donates the royalties.”
The lead editorial (by Vinton Deming) in the issue concerned the ongoing Randy Kehler/Betsy Corner case:
Finding Affinity
Randy Kehler and his wife, Betsy Corner, have been tax resisters .
They have given the tax money instead to a variety of groups doing constructive community work.
the IRS has been trying to sell their house in Colrain, Mass., in an effort to collect $25,896 in back taxes — but it hasn’t been easy.
First of all, there’s been a growing tax resistance movement there in Franklin County.
Bob Bady and Pat Morse, for instance, had their house seized and auctioned in .
(They still live in the house, however, and the buyer hasn’t taken possession.)
Shelburn Falls dentist Tom Wilson had his dental license revoked when he refused to cooperate with IRS.
(He continues his practice, however; even the local sheriff remains one of his regular patients).
So when the word got out that IRS planned to auction Betsy and Randy’s house, supporters in large numbers turned up on the announced day to oppose the sale.
There were lots of signed bids (such as an offer to clean the teeth of an IRS agent, others pledging to do community work or to be peace activists for life) — but no cash buyers came forward.
Not a one.
So, in , IRS upped the ante.
Betsy, Randy, and daughter Lillian, 12, were given an eviction notice.
When Randy decided to stay, he was held in contempt and tossed in the county jail for 6 months.
This didn’t go unnoticed by friends and neighbors, however.
A sign-up sheet got circulated, and volunteers committed themselves to stay in the house around the clock.
There’s been a continuous presence there .
Groups from as far away as Washington, D.C., have signed up to come and help out.
In , members of Mount Toby (Mass.) Meeting formed such an affinity group for a week.
Meanwhile, Randy stays in jail and makes the most of his time there.
He has made friends with many of the prisoners, has organized a chess tournament, and does what he can to interpret his tax witness.
Allan Eccleston, member of Mount Toby Meeting, has been approved as the meeting’s official minister and visits Randy twice a week.
So what’s next?
IRS has scheduled another auction, this time out of the area in Springfield, Mass. — in the hope, it seems, of attracting a buyer for the house, someone who doesn’t know about this whole chain of events.
Randy will not be there to talk about it, but lots of his friends will.
Even if the house is sold, the issue will be far from over.
The house is part of a land trust (Randy and Betsy own the house but not the land on which it stands) — and there’s the likelihood of a continuing nonviolent presence in the house to welcome any potential new buyer.
How might Friends respond?
I asked this question in of Francis Crowe, long-time head of the American Friends Service Committee office in western Massachusetts and a supporter of Randy and Betsy.
She suggests:
Form an affinity group to help sustain the presence in the house.
(To be scheduled, contact Traprock Peace Center…
Funds are also needed to support the action (checks made out to “War Tax Refusers Support Committee”…).
Letters to the editor on the subject of taxes and militarism are always helpful.
More sponsors are needed in Congress for the Peace Tax Fund bill.…
At a rally in support of Betsy and Randy, Juanita Nelson — who, with husband Wally, has been a tax refuser for decades and is known to many Friends — offered these words by Goethe: “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has Genius, Power, and Magic in it.”
Good advice as another tax season is upon us, when many of us seek to find our way on this difficult question of taxes for war.
In a later issue, David Zarembka reported in a letter-to-the-editor about how the occupation / blockade of the Kehler/Corner home was proceeding:
On , federal marshalls arrested seven members of the Flowing River Affinity Group who were occupying the Kehler/Corner home and removed the furniture into storage.
At , the IRS sold the house to the highest bidder in an auction for $5,400. The seven affinity group members were released from jail later in the afternoon.
So was Randy, who had served two months of his sentence.
Do not think, however, that Betsy and Randy have lost their home in an exotic cause!
As soon as the federal marshalls left the house, an affinity group reoccupied it, and other groups, including one from Washington, D.C., of which I am a member, have continued to occupy the house on a 24-hour basis.
Affinity groups, which occupy the home for a week each, have been organizing , but new ones are still being formed…
The “buyers,” a young couple with a two-month-old son, have visited the house several times but have not as yet forced the issue.
They are consulting with their lawyers.
Betsy and Randy have become members of the Colrain Neighbors Affinity Group, which will occupy the home for the week beginning .
They and their twelve-year-old daughter, Lillian, will move back into their home when they can comfortably live there once again.
I would hope that this action would lead Friends to consider how their cooperation with the federal tax collection process — even those who are symbolic tax resisters or those who force the IRS to take their taxes from them — allows the present military system to thrive.
A report in that issue on the Canadian Yearly Meeting that had taken place noted that:
Canadian Yearly Meeting, in its role of employer, was asked to refuse to remit that portion of its employees’ taxes that will be used to support the military.
Concern was expressed by the yearly meeting’s trustees, who would bear the legal results of such actions.
Although the yearly meeting came close to supporting a minute for this action, it agreed to seek clearness with the trustees and monthly meetings and return to this issue next year.
an ad from the issue of Friends Journal
The issue was largely devoted to war tax resistance.
It began with an editorial from Vinton Deming concerning his war tax resistance and the response of his employer, the Journal.
Excerpt:
From the outset, I knew it wasn’t a very practical thing to do.
The government was too powerful, and all the tax laws were against me.
I’d just end up paying much more in the end, so why not choose a better way to work for peace?
A good letter to my congressman, for instance, or a tax vigil at the federal building on Apri1 15.
But this was in .
Our war in Vietnam was just over, but the Cold War continued.
As the Reagan years unfolded, with still larger military expenditures and big cuts in domestic programs, I became even more clear: I must resist as fully as possible the payment of taxes for war.
The Journal board was always supportive of my witness.
It refused twice to honor IRS levies on my wages.
In doing so, Friends openly accepted the possibility of being taken to court one day and fined severely.
The board wrote to IRS: “Our position of noncompliance to the requests of the Internal Revenue Service is not an easy one.
We do not question the laws of the land lightly, but do so under the weight of a genuine religious and moral concern.”
Well, as they say, “What goes ’round comes ’round.”
, Friends Journal was told by the U.S. Justice Department to pay up or we’d be taken to court.…
I am grateful for the steadfastness of the Journal’s board of managers.
, it has been faithful to the Quaker peace testimony.
The road has been an uncertain and confusing one at many points, but Friends have shown courage in continuing.
In my own personal war tax journey, these words by John Stoner have served to guide: “We are war tax resisters because we have discovered some doubt as to what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, and have decided to give the benefit of the doubt to God.”
Sam Legg, clerk of the Friends Journal Board of Managers, gave his take on the Deming situation and on why the Journal had decided to throw in the towel and pay the IRS’s demands.
Excerpts:
… Vinton refused to pay any federal taxes.
Each tax year he sent a blank 1040 along with a letter to the president explaining his opposition to war and his unwillingness as a Friend to pay for it.
Since there was no Peace Tax Fund, Vinton reasoned, he would instead contribute the money to worthwhile projects and see that it was used for peaceful purposes.
In , the IRS served a levy on Friends Journal for $22,714.16, Vinton’s taxes for the period, plus interest and penalties.
The IRS asked Friends Journal to withhold part of Vinton’s salary each month, but the Journal Board refused, writing that “We… are in support of Vinton Deming’s conscientious witness.”
In , Friends Journal received a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice reminding us of the levy on Vinton’s salary and asking us to try to “resolve this matter short of litigation.”
That is, to pay the original assessed amount plus interest and a possible 50 percent penalty on the total.
We were given until to respond.
If we were to continue refusing to honor the levy, an immediate court action would follow.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision, Smith vs. Oregon, as Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and the American Friends Service Committee have learned, teaches us that there is no way we could win such a case in court, nor could our assets be protected from seizure.
More troubling, this seizure could make others who are not involved in our decision, undergo unwelcome investigation.
Finally, a court case offers IRS the opportunity to set a legal precedent requiring the payment of the 50 percent penalty (which a sympathetic judge excused in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting case last year).
We fear that the inevitable negative decision could establish that precedent and thereby restrict other individuals’ or groups’ religious freedom.
And so, most reluctantly, the Friends Journal Board has agreed to negotiate with IRS and to pay the least amount IRS will accept ($31,300) as settlement of this claim.
Our painful recognition of failure is heavy upon us.
We have to accept that our witness in its present form can no longer serve a useful purpose.
We can hope Vinton’s action and our support will have brought the issue of tax refusal to the attention of others, thereby becoming a part of the tradition of citizen pressure that in the long run eliminates or diminishes social evils such as slavery and war.
Our protest is on record.
What we will do now is support the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of … which aims to reestablish the first amendment religious rights lost in the Smith vs. Oregon decision.
We also urge support for the U.S. Peace Tax Fund Bill… which makes the same witness, but provides money to finance peace-enhancing projects.
(Needless to say, if there had been a Peace Tax Fund in , Vinton’s taxes would have been paid gladly, and there would have been no need for an IRS levy.)
We ask all those who share our concerns to join in these legal approaches to the continuing effort to convince ourselves and others of the futility of armed conflict and the necessity of finding other means to resolve human disputes.
The immediate financial challenge to the Journal is a very real one.
In a year in which we already face a substantial budget deficit, the payment of such a large lump sum adds an enormous burden.
Vinton has engaged to repay the Journal through payroll deductions over time.
We have been heartened as well, as word of our tax witness spreads, to receive gifts of support from our readers.
One contributor writes: “I hope everyone at the Friends Journal can be made aware of Friends’ approval of [your] Board action.
To help this happen, I encourage the Journal to go as public with the story as is consistent with respect for Vint’s privacy and the Journal’s limited resources.
I am convinced that other Friends will wish to help financially when so informed.”
For such words, and unexpected gifts, we are most grateful.
Readers wrote in with their feedback about the Journal’s decision, and some of their letters were printed in the issue:
Duane Magill wrote to “applaud” and “sympathize” with the Journal’s stand.
“As a war tax resister myself for the past quarter of a century, I have had some brushes with the IRS myself and know what it is like.
I also appreciate your giving publicity to the subject.
I know that not many Quakers take this position, and giving the matter this extensive coverage just might encourage more to take this stand.”
Yvonne Boeger wrote in on behalf of the Live Oak (Texas) Meeting to say that the meeting had recently “discussed the importance of war tax resistance as a means of witnessing to Friends’ long-standing opposition to all forms of war and violence” and that the Meeting was supportive of the Journal’s (and Deming’s) action.
“We send the enclosed check as a token of our support and solidarity in Friends’ resistance to war.
Thank you for the example you have set for us all.”
Lillian and George Willoughby wrote to express gratitude for the Journal’s “courage in standing in support of Vint Deming.”
They wrote: “Most important is the example of a Quaker religious employer providing support to staff who endeavor to live according to Friends’ teachings.
The Journal has run considerable risk and incurred heavy expenses.
We enclose our check as a demonstration of our support.
We think that many other Friends will want to help carry the financial burden of this witness.”
An editorial note in the letters column expressed “thanks to all those who have sent checks!” and a later editorial note (in the issue) said that they had received “$8,000 from individuals and meetings, $7,000 from a Sufferings Fund of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,” and almost $4,000 from Deming himself.
Mennonite war tax resister (and, according to his author bio, “itinerant prophet and spiritual retreat leader”) John K. Stoner wrote about the call he got from an IRS employee.
Excerpts:
We talked for about ten minutes, as I explained why Janet and I had said “no” to paying the full amount of our income tax.
The man could not understand why anyone would invite the collection pressures of the IRS upon themselves by withholding some taxes.
But by the time the conversation was over, he was a little closer to understanding that this was, for us, a matter of faith and a question of the practice of our religion.
It was a Mark 13:9 kind of experience of being called before the authorities, “before governors and kings,” because of Jesus, as a testimony to them.
By the sound of Mark 13, Jesus expected this kind of thing to happen regularly to his followers.
Mark 13 is a good text to remember when everybody around you is quoting Romans 13.
The Christian Peacemaker Teams organization is promoting symbolic war tax refusal as a way to make a clear witness in the matter of war taxes.
Taxes for Life is a plan to have taxpayers redirect to education an amount equivalent to 1 penny for every billion dollars in the military budget.
For tax year this is $3.03, which can be mailed to Christian Peacemaker Teams… Listen to your conscience when you pay your taxes.
Write a letter of witness to the IRS, with copies to Congress and your local newspaper.
Redirect some taxes to education through CPT.
If the IRS calls, tell them that it makes you a little bit nervous to break their law and that you do not enjoy being harassed by the collectors of blood money.
Go on to say that you are far more apprehensive, however, about breaking God’s law.
Tell them that you hear God’s warning rising up from the bulldozed mass graves of Iraqi conscripts, fathers and husbands, and the nightmares of their children.
Explain that you are really afraid to harden you heart to the cry of the victims and that you have decided you will not take their blood upon your hands.
When Randy Kehler was thrown in prison on contempt of court charges for refusing to vacate the home that had been seized by the IRS, he prepared a statement that he hoped to read.
The court denied him permission to address it.
The Journal printed the statement he’d hoped to have made, which is a good thing: it would be a shame if such an articulate statement was left to sit unread in a file folder somewhere.
My refusal to give up our home is not an act of contempt or defiance of your court order.
I regard it as an act of conscience and also an act of citizenship.
The two go hand in hand.
The first obligation of responsible citizenship, I believe, is obedience to one’s conscience.
Obedience to one’s government and to its laws is very important, but it must come second.
Otherwise there is no check on immoral actions by governments, which are bound to occur in any society whenever power is abused.
I want to assure you, however, that I am not someone who treats the law lightly.
Even when a particular law seems at first to have no clear purpose or justification, I try to give it — that is, give those who created and approved it — the benefit of the doubt.
In an ideal sense, I see law as the codification of those rules and procedures by which the members or citizens of a community, be it local or global, have agreed to live.
A decent respect for one’s community requires a decent respect for its laws.
At their best, such laws express the conscience of the community, causing conscience and law to coincide.
The international treaties and agreements that my wife, Betsy, and I cited in the legal documents recently submitted to, and rejected by, this court are wonderful examples of the coincidence of law and conscience.
These agreements, each one signed by our government, include the United Nations Charter, which outlaws war and the use of military force as methods of resolving conflicts among nations; the Hague Regulations and Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the use or threatened use of weapons that indiscriminately kill civilians and poison the environment; and the Nuremberg Principles, which forbid individual citizens from participating in or collaborating with clearly defined “crimes against humanity,” “war crimes,” and “crimes against peace,” even when refusal to participate or collaborate means disobeying the laws of one’s government.
These international accords — which, as you know, our Constitution requires us to regard as “the Supreme Law of the Land” — are at least as much affirmation of conscience, rooted in universal moral standards, as they are statements of law.
Betsy and I regret that you chose to deny our request for a trial, which would have allowed us to argue the relevance of these international laws before a jury of our peers.
Even in the absence of such laws, however, I believe that citizens would still have an affirmative obligation to follow their conscience and refuse to engage in or support immoral acts by governments.
It is not true, as is commonly thought, that if large numbers of people put conscience ahead of the law and decided for themselves which acts of government were immoral, civilized society would break down into violence and chaos — that is, greater violence and chaos than there is now.
In fact, the opposite would likely occur.
There would likely be greater compliance with those laws that are fundamentally just and reasonable — in other words, most laws — and there would be greater public pressure to abolish or reform those laws (and policies) that are unjust or unreasonable.
There would be exceptions for the worse, of course.
In the name of conscience, certain individuals would, no doubt, do some terrible things and cause much injury and death, which happens now.
On balance, however, the historical record is clear: from the Spanish Inquisition and the African slave trade, to Stalin’s purges, Hitler’s Holocaust, the genocide of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and our own devastation of Vietnam and Iraq, far more killing and suffering, has resulted from people following “legal” orders and obeying the law than from people refusing to do so in obedience to conscience.
My own refusal to kill (which led me to spend nearly two years in federal prison rather than cooperate with the Vietnam draft), Betsy’s and my refusal to pay federal taxes used for killing (which caused the IRS to seize our home), and now our refusal to turn over our home in lieu of taxes, are all acts of conscience.
It has not been easy for us to deliberately violate the law in these instances, and in so doing incur the anxiety and disapproval of some of our friends and family, as well as the scorn and censure of many members of the community.
We are painfully aware that even though we do pay our town and state taxes, and even though we have given away to the poor and to the victims of our war-making in other countries every cent that we have withheld from the federal government, nevertheless we are still regarded by some as irresponsible and not contributing our fair share.
These are times, however, when all of us are confronted with difficult choices.
Betsy and I, and many others like us, feel we must choose between knowingly and willingly paying for war and killing, and openly and nonviolently breaking the law with respect to federal taxes.
Our consciences compel us to choose the latter.
For me, the issue is larger than simply the taking of another human life, or even the instance of a particular war in which many lives are lost.
I have increasingly come to see the larger issue as war itself.
Whereas there has always been a moral imperative to end war and refrain from killing, today the imperative is much greater.
Today the logic of peace, the logic of nonviolence, is also the logic of survival.
It is impossible to dis-invent today’s nuclear, chemical, biological, and so-called conventional weapons of mass destruction.
Therefore, we have no alternative but to effectively abolish war.
This is the one essential adaptation the human species must make — and, I firmly believe, can make — if life as we know it is to continue.
War today is the scourge of the planet.
It is tragic enough that war is daily claiming the lives of people, maiming more, leaving orphans and widows, and destroying homes, schools, and hospitals — to say nothing of the irreplaceable treasures of human civilization destroyed in Baghdad last year and in Dubrovnik over the past several months.
What makes war today even more tragic, more horrible, are the incalculable economic, social, and environmental costs that go along with it.
Instead of using our human and material resources to produce food, medicine, housing, schools, and other desperately needed commodities, the world’s nations, led by our own, are annually spending trillions of dollars to purchase more and more weapons of even greater destructive capability.
The hundreds of millions of children, women, and men whose lives are ravaged by poverty, hunger, and homelessness — around the world and here in the States — are as much victims of our addiction to war and militarism as are those who are hit directly by the bullets and bombs.
While the awful gap between the rich minority and the poor majority of the world’s people grows wider and wider, war’s assault on the earth — the earth that sustains us all — becomes more savage and less reversible with each new armed conflict.
The severe and longterm ecological damage to the Persian Gulf region that resulted from only a few weeks of war last year is just the tip of the iceberg.
The cumulative impact of the many smaller, less publicized wars elsewhere around the globe is no less severe and, ultimately, no less threatening to the well-being of people everywhere, including the United States.
Furthermore, here at home, where ecological damage to our own environment is proceeding at a frightening pace, the single largest polluter by far, producing more toxic and radioactive waste than any other single entity, is the U.S. military.
I am not at all suggesting that our country bears sole responsibility for the global state of affairs.
But we bear a good deal of it, and therefore any steps we take to move away from war will have great influence upon other countries around the world.
Even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, we had the most powerful armed forces in the world, the most sophisticated weaponry, and by far the largest number of military bases outside our own borders.
Since World War Ⅱ, we have used our military might to bomb, invade, or otherwise intervene in more countries around the world than any other nation.
We were the first to develop the atomic bomb, and we are the only nation ever to use it.
For years we have led the Soviets in atomic test explosions, and we ani continuing these tests even though Soviet testing has stopped.
In addition, we have long been the world’s largest arms merchant, today supplying 40 percent of the entire overseas arms market.
We have been told that all of this is necessary for our security, but the opposite is true.
This military colossus we have created has greatly undermined our security — by creating more enemies than it destroys, by wasting our precious resources and poisoning our environment, by degrading our democracy with “national security” secrecy, covert actions, and official lying, and by undercutting our highest Judeo-Christian values with the insidious doctrine of “might makes right.”
Betsy’s and my actions that have brought us to court are testament to our belief that there is another way for us to live in the world, and another way for us to resolve our conflicts with our fellow human beings.
It is a way that is rooted in the best of our values: the values of generosity and justice, of human dignity and equality, of compassion and mutual respect.
The seeds of this alternative way — the way of nonviolence that Dr. Martin Luther King tried to teach us — already exist within our society, and within each person.
We have only to honor and nurture those seeds, individually and collectively.
This is a prescription based not on wishful idealism, but on practical necessity.
It is our only real hope for survival.
The transformation required cannot be accomplished without our accepting some measure of personal responsibility for the mess we are in.
It would be futile to expect our government, or any other, to initiate it.
In any event, we cannot afford to wait.
The transformation must begin with us.
Because we profess to be a self-governing people, it is all the more our responsibility.
We can exercise this responsibility by means of the choices each of us is called upon to make.
For example, we can choose to speak out publicly against governmental practices and priorities that we know to be wrong.
Many of us can also choose not to hand over to the federal government some part of our tax money — instead redistribute it to those in need, until such time as those in need become our government’s first priority.
And each of us can choose to continue leading lives based on materialism, consumerism, and environmental exploitation, or we can find ways of living based on simplicity, sharing, and respect for the Earth.
The choices we make as individuals will determine the choices we make as a nation.
This is, no doubt, a dangerous and ominous time to be alive in the world.
Yet it is also a very exciting time to be alive.
People all over the world, despite the opposition of their governments, are taking initiative to bring about momentous and long overdue changes.
These winds of change are sweeping the planet, and they are not likely to stop at our borders.
If the people of Prague and Moscow can overthrow Soviet communism and bring about democracy and human rights; if the people of Soweto and Johannesburg can abolish South African apartheid and establish an egalitarian, multi-racial society; then, I feel sure, it is equally possible for us to dismantle U.S. militarism and replace it with attitudes and institutions of nonviolence.
It is my great hope, my silent prayer, that Betsy’s and my struggle to see that the fruits of our labor are used for nurturing and healing, rather than for killing and war, will somehow contribute to that process.
Following this, Christopher L. King had a piece promoting the Peace Tax Fund.
He described it as the brainchild of David Bassett, who some twenty years before had come up with the idea of allowing taxpayers to perform “alternative service” money the way conscientiously objecting draftees could with their labor.
King wrote that he was surprised to find little awareness of the bill in Quaker circles and described some of the work that he and his comrades were doing for the bill.
Those of us who meet each month and a quiet group of supporters in the surrounding communities believe in our consciences that war and militarism are wrong.
We don’t believe they should be the major tools of our foreign policy.
We sympathize with citizens like Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner of Colrain, Massachusetts, who have chosen to pay no taxes because they are pacifists.
We empathize with those brave souls who choose alternative lifestyles so they can keep their income below taxable levels.
It often means their children must learn to sacrifice at an early age.
It means stepping out of the mainstream culture.
Most of us don’t want to change our lifestyles radically or go to jail for our beliefs.
Some might argue that if we are true to our faith, we have no other choice.
On the other hand, there is a need to resist the fundamental tyranny that requires that we must become rebels if we wish to stand firmly for peace.
King’s article was pretty vague on the mechanics of what the Peace Tax Fund bill would actually accomplish, and it was written as if there were no reason why a conscientious objector to paying to war might not find it a satisfactory solution.
The issue included a brief review of the video Paying for Peace: War Tax Resistance in the United States, which was produced by Carol Coney.
Excerpt:
Among those interviewed are Brian Willson, a war tax resister and Vietnam veteran who in was run over by a train while blocking munitions shipments at the Concord naval weapons plant in California.
Also interviewed is Maurice McCrackin, a minister who was sentenced to jail for war tax resistance in ; Ernest and Marion Bromley, who have lived under the taxable income level to avoid paying taxes for military purposes; and Juanita Nelson, an early civil rights organizer who was the first woman to spend a night in jail for war tax resistance.
The issue included an op-ed from Allan Kohrman suggesting Quakers ought to be more patriotic, perhaps singing “God Bless America” during their Sunday meetings, and in particular should rethink their permissive attitude toward civil disobedience and war tax resistance.
“Many Friends seem to define civil disobedience as breaking any law they feel is morally wrong.
Some will not pay war taxes, testifying that God has called them to resist.
I would argue that paying taxes is a basic responsibility of citizenship, a function of my almost mystical relationship to my country.
God calls me to pay my taxes much as God calls others to resist them.”
That’s what “an almost mystical relationship to my country” will get you, I guess.
Another note in that issue concerned two Quakers in Germany — Christa & Klausmart Voigt — who had been prosecuted for war tax resistance.
“About 40 Friends from all over Germany attended the hearing, which was overseen by five judges.”
Klausmart had “placed his money in an account for a peace tax initiative,” and at press time they were still awaiting the court’s decision.
There was another note about the Tax Resisters’ Penalty Fund in the issue, which described it this way: “When a request for assistance comes in, the committee that oversees the fund takes it under consideration, then notifies people who have agreed to participate of the amount each would need to contribute to cover the tax resister’s penalty and interest debt.
Contributions are not used to cover the tax liability itself.
The fund is administered in cooperation with the North Manchester (Ind.) Fellowship of Reconciliation.”
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
By the coverage of American Quaker war tax resistance in the Friends Journal makes it seem pretty weak — not a lot of activity at all, and what there is of it is half-hearted symbolic measures or pathetic attempts to get Congress to pass a “Peace Tax Fund” scheme.
There was almost more news about war tax resistance in Canada than in the United States.
The issue made note of another lobby day for the Peace Tax Fund bill, and of a new “EZ Peace Form” that the “Alternative Revenue Service” was encouraging tax filers to fill out:
The Peace Form has a similar format as IRS forms, with a section for figuring one’s tax share, a section that shows the percentages going to various government programs, and a section in which one can indicate where to redirect one’s tax contribution.
Forms are to be returned to the Alternative Revenue Service so it can announce the number it receives and the amount of taxes redirected from financing war to providing for human needs.
Another note told readers how they could obtain transcripts of the Congressional hearing on the Peace Tax Fund bill, and noted: “The hearing was attended by several hundred Friends, Mennonites, Brethren, peace activists, and pacifists of all faiths.… The hearing received more than 2,300 letters of written testimony from people across the country, from which a selection is published in the transcript.
Some of the voices are from Friends Journal, Friends United Meeting, the American Friends Service Committee, a number of yearly meetings, and many other denominations and organizations.”
A letter from John K. Stoner of the “New Call to Peacemaking” in the issue asserted that “Some day in the future the true heroes of our time will be named.
They will be the people who refused to pay war taxes, who vigiled, prayed, and demonstrated in front of weapons plants, who resisted in whatever way they could the insidious, relentless pressure to conform to the mentality of deterrence, the idolatry of redemptive violence, the rule of the gun, and the economy of death.”
An article in that issue mentioned that the Congressional hearing concerning the Peace Tax Fund bill was the product of a great deal of work: “[T]o arrange for that hearing,” the article said, “FCNL lobbyists worked with the Peace Tax Fund Campaign for eight years!”
The issue included two articles on war tax resistance.
One by Robin Harper that I mentioned in an earlier Picket Line, and a second: “What Do We Owe Caesar?” by Marguerite Clark.
It gave a sort of fresh, starting-from-scratch overview of the war tax issue and at how Friends had tried to meet it, but was overwhelmingly pessimistic, asserting that there’s no satisfying way to practice war tax resistance because the government has the power to inevitably get its hands on the money eventually (Clark used the case of the Friends Journal capitulating and paying Vinton Deming’s taxes as a case in point).
She ended her piece by hoping Quakers would “take a stand” by supporting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a hopeful first step in legalizing conscientious objection to military taxation (that Act eventually passed but has so far been of no help at all in legalizing such conscientious objection).
A letter from Edwin A. Vail in response to Harper’s article trotted out the familiar argument that it’s wrong to withhold your taxes from the government on the grounds that the government might spend the money improperly for the same reason that it’s wrong to refuse to repay a debt because you think the person you owe money to might spend the money unwisely.
The issue brought news of a new group, calling itself “The Peace Taxpayers” —
The Peace Taxpayers are available as counselors for people wishing to experience “the joys of peace taxpaying.”
The organization works to change existing U.S. tax codes which force all income taxpayers to be supporters of war and preparations for war.
The counselors can help with questions about Internal Revenue Service regulations, how to redirect war taxes, and how to reduce taxable income.…
The Peace Taxpayers organization is accepting submissions for a new book, The Joy of Peace Taxpaying.
They are looking for writings of any style and length that describe paths taken and personal experiences of those who have acted on their opposition to paying for war.…
Michael Fogler and Ed Pearson were given as contact persons for the group.
“The Peace Taxpayers” was still somewhat active as late as , and I’ve seen references to it dating back as far as .
International news
An obituary notice for Albert E. Moorman in the issue mentioned that “[i]n he and his wife immigrated to Canada to free themselves from paying taxes to the United States government, whose foreign policy they had long been at odds with.”
A note in that issue also asserted that “It is possible to divert one’s military taxes to selected charitable donations in Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia, Canada.
Under recent Ontario law, donations to Conrad Grebel College, University of Waterloo Foundation for Peace Studies, qualify as ‘gifts to the crown.’ ” However, a letter-to-the-editor in the issue threw some cold water on that:
A news item in your issue gives the impression that directing military taxes to peace in Canada is possible and simple, by making donations to the Crown (all levels of government).
We wish it were so, but there is no provision in the Income Tax Act so far to exempt us from paying a proportion of our taxes to the military, as in the States.
We have been advocating making donations to charitable organizations, political parties, and to the Crown to reduce all taxes, including military taxes, but one would have to donate very large amounts to eliminate taxes altogether.
Most of us probably would not want to do so, as we benefit from medicare, pensions, social assistance, etc., all paid for with our taxes.
Ray Funk’s Private Member’s Bill was scheduled to be debated in the House of Commons on , but the government recessed the House on , and we are now headed for an election on .
Jean Chretian [sic.], the leader of the main opposition party, has suggested to us that we might be able to direct our war taxes to the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security, which he intends to reestablish, if elected.
So we are hopeful that, in the next Parliament, some progress will be made.
Edith Adamson Conscience Canada, Inc.
Canadian war tax resister Jerilynn Prior, who had been pursuing a long and fruitless court battle to try to get conscientious objection to military taxation recognized as a right under the new Canadian Constitution, wrote a book about her stand — I Feel the Winds of God Today — that earned a brief review in the issue.
“The author describes the influences in her life that led her to become a war tax resister… she talks about the difficulties in the [legal] process and her disappointment at not receiving a hearing at court.
Interwoven with this is an account of her conscientious leadings regarding her career in medicine and her vocation as a mother.
She also refers to the troubles of Canadian Yearly Meeting in following requests of employees who with to become war tax resisters.”
The London Yearly Meeting, according to the issue, was spurred to “renewed action,” as the Journal called it, “in the form of a letter writing campaign, to express objection to paying taxes for military purposes.
A monthly letter to the Inland Revenue, expressing London Yearly Meeting’s position, is now being supported by an effort to reach the members of Parliament.
However, help is needed.
Friends are asked to use these monthly letters, and their law-quoting responses, to show the dilemma which arises when an employer with 300 years’ heritage of peace witness is required to collect and hand over money which pays, in part, for war and war preparations.”
War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in
American Quaker war tax resistance reemerged in the Friends Journal in , with some real live resisters telling their stories and sharing the processes by which they had developed their methods of resistance.
The issue had several mentions of war tax resistance.
Editor Vinton Deming’s lead editorial concerned his annual confrontation of the “agonizing question” of what to do at tax-filing time.
Excerpt:
an ad from the issue of Friends Journal
For many years I sought ways to protest.
I started by submitting a letter with my 1040 objecting to the large sums going to the Pentagon and the neglect of other needed programs. No one responded.
At other times I requested a refund so I might send a sum to a human service program not being adequately funded.
Nice idea, I thought, but IRS didn’t think so.
One year they told me the request was “frivolous,” and they tried to penalize me for asking.
My lawyer got them to drop the matter.
Then about 15 years ago I stopped filing a tax return altogether, choosing instead to write a letter to the president explaining why I was not willing as a Friend to pay for things like B-1 bombers, cruise missiles, or Star Wars.
The latter approach clearly got the attention of IRS officials.
Suddenly I was “playing in the big leagues.”
The government took me to court on two occasions and threatened to do the same to my present employer unless my back taxes, interest, and penalties were paid at once [see ♇ ].
Reluctantly, and after much soul searching, the Journal agreed to pay.
I released them to do so, being convinced we had resisted as long as we could and had explored all legal means.
Friends rallied to support us with financial gifts to help pay the large debt.
In I made my last monthly payment to the Journal.
I continue to struggle with IRS on this matter, which dates back to my tax resistance of .
The government disagreed with our math for what we believed was actually owed in back taxes.
My lawyer is maneuvering to try to prevent IRS from seizing my Individual Retirement Account, an argument to be decided by a judge later this year.
In more recent tax years I have filed and paid, trying to claim as many exemptions as possible and to limit the government’s take.
I have lobbied for the Peace Tax Fund Bill and supported others who are resisting.
David Shen also wrote of his war tax resistance in that issue.
Excerpts:
For 12 years, I have withheld a portion of my income tax from IRS.
I refuse to give money to the military to kill people.
There is too much need around us.
For the last three years, I have given this portion to My Brothers’ House, a homeless shelter my Quaker meeting supports in the inner city of Philadelphia.
Each year at tax time, I sigh deeply.
I know IRS may punish me.
And I know I stand on the side of life.
For these 12 years, IRS and I have been corresponding politely.
They send me notices; I write back.
Since I received notices of intent to levy and since they have not levied, I assume I have been lost in their millions of files.
I was surprised, then, when my college employer received the levy on my salary.
My first talks with IRS, lawyers, and F/friends left me feeling depressed and helpless.
IRS would get what they thought was theirs.
Then God intervened.
Inadvertently, my lawyer angered me.
In my anger, I took a position of reducing my wages to a level IRS could not levy.
(By law IRS must leave me a wage to live on.)
I had not considered it before, since doing so would cost me $2,200 — more than the levy’s $1,200.
I think Shen is being too modest here in giving God the credit for a bold decision that came direct from Shen.
I approached the college dean, my superior.
“Reduce my wages,” I said, “so IRS cannot satisfy its levy.”
But the dean shocked me.
Her superior, the vice president, would not allow me to reduce my wages.
I had to quit or pay the levy.
That sounds very familiar.
When I first started resisting, I went in to the human resources department of my employer to ask if reducing my salary below the tax line was an option.
They told me it was out of the question.
My response was to resign and become an independent contractor.
Shen took a different tack:
After a conversation with one of my students, I decided to continue teaching and pay the levy.
I would, however, also continue learning about love and Truth.
Could I reach administrators, I wondered, if I used Gandhi’s principle of selfsuffering?
I would direct suffering to me, and not to the college, by teaching at reduced income rather than quitting and leaving the college with 80 angry students.
I met with the administrator who wrote my paycheck, the department chair, the dean again, and then the vice-president.
Three respected my position (the vicepresident didn’t reveal his stand).
The payroll administrator blurted out, “Isn’t there a legal way you can do this (pay income tax without paying the military)?”
When I met with the president of the college, six weeks had passed and the levy was almost fully paid.
He was busy.
He startled me by agreeing with my right to take my position, and he would seek how I could do so at the college.
Two weeks later, he informed me he could not find a legal way to accommodate me.
I, though, was thrilled.
In our two conversations, the president and I connected.
We talked about my tax situation for 20 minutes and unexpectedly talked about his and my family for 90 minutes.
He was late for one of his appointments.
As I waved goodbye, he asked, “Stop in for coffee again, will you?”
What did I learn?
I am poorer by $1,200, but I am richer in intangible ways.
I feel in the flow of God’s will for me and feel connected to people — F/friends who support me and opponents who respect me.
I am invigorated and happy
It must be comforting to feel that “God’s will” is responsible for all the difficult and fuzzy decisions you make.
Whether you zig or you zag, whether things turn out well or ill, God’s in charge and if you’re willing to give Him all the credit, He’ll be glad to take all the blame.
The same issue published part of an interview that Susan Van Haitsma conducted with Paula Rogge .
Excerpts:
What were the motivating factors in your decision to become a tax
resister?
Deciding to refuse to pay taxes for war was a slow, gradual process for
me… As I grew older and attended Illinois Yearly Meeting, I heard more about tax resistance.
I met two men who had served time in prison for refusing to pay war taxes or resisting cooperation with the Internal Revenue Service.
I saw them as very committed people with a lot of integrity, and I could see that the yearly meeting supported them.
So, at some level I felt that tax resistance was the logical extension of my pacifist views, and I knew there was a community of support for tax resistance among the Friends and the wider peace community as well.…
How did you go about your tax resistance?
That first year, I think I owed one dollar.
I refused to pay the dollar
and sent a letter to the IRS explaining my position.
The next year, I increased the number of withholding allowances on my W-4 form so that I owed the IRS at the end of the year instead of vice-versa.
I began by refusing to pay 40–50 percent of my federal tax money because at the time, that was the approximate percentage being used to fund current and past wars.
Then, over time, I realized that of the 50–60 percent I was paying, 40–50 percent was still being used for military purposes, so I stopped paying the whole kit and caboodle.
I stopped paying all taxes because I had no control whatsoever over how the money was being spent.
In the last several years I’ve also stopped paying social security taxes because the government borrows from those funds to help cover the deficit, indirectly financing the defense system.
So, it’s been a gradual process of taking my tax resistance further and further.
I’ve always filed, and the IRS and I have always agreed about how much I’ve owed (now over $60,000 including penalties and interest).
At this point, I don’t feel led to stop filing.
For myself, I feel better being open about it, but I realize many tax resisters don’t file, and I respect their reasons for going that route.
Have you redirected your tax money?
The first couple of years that I did tax resistance, I put the money
aside in a bank account, assuming it would be seized.
It wasn’t seized right away, however, and I’m afraid the money was spent without having been donated as it should have.
But I learned, and since then I’ve made sure the amount of money owed in taxes and social security is donated every year to charitable groups.
I’ve had a lot of fun giving this money away.
Sometimes when I have sent the contribution, I have included a note explaining that the donation represents refused war taxes, and I have received supportive notes in return.
It’s a very empowering feeling to know that my money is doing some good.
Have there been special ways in which you would say your life has been
affected positively by your practice of tax resistance?
When I finished my residency, I worked in a migrant clinic for two years
in the Rio Grande Valley in Harlingen, Texas: a very conservative community.
The second year I was there, I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper explaining that I was a war tax resister and why.
The newspaper editor phoned me to make sure I really wanted the letter printed!
I said yes, and they did print it.
I was afraid of the response I might get from the community, but I felt it was important to be public about my stance.
After the letter was printed, the other doctors in Harlingen actually became much friendlier and began to take a certain interest in me.
I don’t think any of them agreed with the tax resistance, but they seemed to respect my position.
Several nurses and a nuclear medicine technician I hadn’t known before introduced themselves and expressed their support of my war tax resistance.
I didn’t get any negative reactions.
In , I began a medical family practice in Austin, Texas, along with another doctor.
The first year into the practice, the IRS sent notice that my wages would be garnisheed.
I asked that my salary be lowered to $100 per week, as that is the amount exempt from levy.
In order to supplement this reduced income, I began to work moonlighting jobs in various agencies: the city Health Department, Planned Parenthood, and the State Commission for the Blind, for example.
I had to find new moonlighting jobs every two years or so because that was about the length of time it usually took the IRS to catch up and begin attaching wages again.
Something good happened as a result of this.
I’ve had to explain to all potential employers that at some point the IRS would begin to levy my wages and when that happened, I would no longer be able to work for them.
When I explained this to the Texas Commission for the Blind during my interview, for example, they were quite taken aback, and I thought I probably wouldn’t get the job.
But, a few weeks later, they did hire me!
The woman who hired me said she understood why I was doing tax resistance and that she agreed with my convictions.
I came to feel a real sense of support and community there.
In , the
IRS
seized your automobile.
Could you describe what happened?
Well, some time before the car was seized, an
IRS
agent, accompanied by a law officer, came to our clinic to pay me a visit.
I could tell they were nervous and even a bit hostile.
But as we sat and talked, and I explained why I simply could not pay for war, I could see them both soften a little.
Toward the end of the interview, the officer began asking questions about our practice and commented that it was unusual for us to be located in such a poor neighborhood.
As they were leaving, I complemented the officer on his cowboy boots — he had on some kind of exotic boots — and I think he was tickled pink that I had noticed them.
He told me where he had gotten them.
It was kind of a humorous exchange and I felt very good about that.
We had related as people.
I figured that since my wages had become uncollectible and I had no bank account, eventually my car would be seized.
But even so, the morning it happened, it came as a bit of a shock.
My IRS agent came to the bouse and, poor woman, she was just shivering in her shoes, she looked so nervous.
She placed a sticker on the car and then asked if she could use my phone to call the tow truck!
I decided that they were going to tow it one way or another, so I invited her in to use the phone.
I had a sick patient in the emergency room at the time, so I took a taxi to the hospital right away.
Having a patient to worry about took my mind off the car long enough to ease my worry about the situation.
Then friends came forward and loaned me their cars without my having to ask.
A month following the seizure, the car was auctioned.
About 20–30 Quakers and other friends came and protested the auction, asking potential buyers not to bid on the car.
At least one potential buyer was convinced to refrain from bidding, but a used car dealer did, in the end, buy the car.
A week following the auction, a doctor I had once worked with phoned and said that he wanted to buy the car back from the car dealer and donate it anonymously to our practice.
That was such a wonderful surprise.
I was very moved because I respected him very much as a doctor.
I talked the offer over with friends.
Though I didn’t want the money going, even indirectly, to the IRS, I did want this doctor to have an opportunity to support the whole cause of war tax resistance, and this was his way of contributing.
I decided to accept the car.
It came back with new tires, looking much cleaner than it had before it was seized!
A friend of the doctor had also done a tune-up on it — and it was great.
I think the best part of this story is that when I tell it, people chuckle.
You see, it’s such a good example of how limited the power of the IRS is in the face of creative resistance.
It’s also an example of how our needs are often met in unexpected ways when we take a stand for peace.
I think these three experiences in particular — the return of my car, receiving the job at the Commission for the Blind, and the reaction to the letter in Harlingen paper — were all occasions when I felt that speaking out for truth actually opened doors and tore down barriers between other people and me.
When I was willing to take a stand for what I felt was right, I discovered a community of support I hadn’t realized existed.
Perry Treadwell also wrote about his war tax resistance in that issue.
Excerpts:
Today I received another one of those white envelopes from the Internal Revenue Service — the ones that tell me I failed to pay $35 in or $106 in and now I owe a lot more in penalties and interest.
I file them away with the other ones from .
But this time their arrival reminded me of an anniversary of sorts.
It has been .
I refused to pay for people to kill other people.
I resigned my tenured university position [see ♇ ] and drastically simplified my lifestyle so the fruits of my labors would not be used for war.
I still get that little twist in the stomach when those IRS letters come.
Sometimes the IRS actually raids a bank account or Individual Retirement Account.
However, I know that Friends are there should I ever need their support in not cooperating with a government whose only answer to conflict is violence.
I have been able to simplify my life to a point where I am below the taxable level.
Friends’ support has helped.
The richness of my life is proportional to my friendships.
That is what I have learned in , and that is what I pass on to others.
The issue had an obituary notice for Jane Palmer which noted that she “chose to live in accordance with the Quaker peace testimony and purposefully limited her income to avoid paying taxes that supported war efforts,” and one for Mildred Teusler Ringwalt which mentioned “her refusal to pay the portion of her income taxes she believed supported such [war] efforts.”
One of the events at the Friends General Conference Gathering in — the “Henry J. Cadbury Event, sponsored by Friends Journal” — was “an original production in story and song about the war tax witness of Randy Kehler and Betsy Corner from Colrain, Massachusetts.
The stage performance won a favorable review from those who crowded the auditorium (despite the heat and lack of air conditioning!).
A video of the show was made and will be available at a later date.”
At the Illinois Yearly Meeting in (according to a Journal article ), “Sebrina Tingley explained not just the nuts and bolts of war tax resistance but also the spiritual call to do so” and “Bill Ramsey (American Friends Service Committee) told of his personal experiences involving war tax resistance.”
The lead editorial of the issue was all about the Peace Tax Fund Bill and an effort to get 10,000 people to write letters to Congress supporting it.
“The Peace Tax Fund Bill,” according to one supporter’s letter, “when it becomes law, will give us our religious liberty.
We’ll be able to pay our taxes in good conscience since we’ll be allowed to pay for peaceful projects rather than for war.”
Two letters-to-the-editor in the issue reacted to that project: one, by Marge Schier, thanking the Journal for aiding the cause — “We’re even more sure now that we can do it!”
— and the other, by Elizabeth Campuzano, giving the gist of the letter she had sent: “I told them that I voluntarily live below the federal poverty limit in order to avoid paying income taxes for war.
I told them that if this bill passes, I will raise my income in order to pay for education, road and bridge repairs, anti-monopoly enforcement, etc.” She added: “I think this is one of the greatest things FJ has ever done!”
International news
“a Spanish war resistance sticker: peace (paz) and bread (pan), not bombs”
A report about the previous year’s Canadian Yearly Meeting in the issue mentioned that “[t]he ad hoc committee on war tax concerns has found a method which potentially will allow Canadian Yearly Meeting to redirect the military portion of employees’ income tax remittances to the federal government’s Debt Service and Reduction Fund.
This is not an entirely satisfactory solution, but perhaps a first step.”
’s Canadian Yearly Meeting (according to a story in the issue) “reached joyful unity in a decision as an employer to stop remitting to Revenue Canada the military portion of taxes for those employees who request it.”
This decision follows several years of study, prayerful consideration, and the attempt during for use of legal means of expressing our conscientious objection to paying for the military.
The remittance will instead be paid into Conscience Canada, with consideration given to establishing in the future a specific trust fund.
The Fifth International Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns was held in Spain in and was covered in the Journal in a report by Steve Gulick.
Excerpt:
About 70 activists from all over Europe and a number of other parts of the world gathered in Hondarribia, Spain, , to charge our batteries, to compare conditions in our various countries, to get to know each other, and to carry on business.
It was inspiring to meet, get to know, and work with war tax resisters and peace campaigners from all over Europe and from the United States, Canada, Peru, Iraq, and Palestine.
The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee raised money to make it possible for the Palestinian, Elias Rishmawi from Beit Sahour, West Bank, to attend.
The Iraqi and the Peruvian attenders are currently living in Europe.
One problem with the gathering — similar to the War Resisters International gathering that I attended in — was the difficulty of getting a diverse attendance.
Folks from India were unable to attend, for example, in part because of the distance.
I attended as a delegate from the War Tax Concerns Support Committee of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
Other attenders from the United States were David Bassett and Marian Franz (National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund), Susan Quinlan and Larry Rosenwald (National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee), Cynthia Johnson (Women Strike for Peace), and Gerri Michalska (Pax Christi) — which gave some of us from the U.S. movement the opportunity to get to know each other.
The conference issued a number of public documents — the most important being the bylaw of a new non-governmental organization which will have consultative powers with both the UN and the European parliament: Conscience and Peace Tax International.
The role/goal of the organization will be to espouse the cause of those who take stands of conscience in relation to military expenditures — and also military service and issues of conscience and civil and human rights more generally.
A report back from the Germany Yearly Meeting mentioned war tax resistance matter-of-factly:
In our commitments to projects such as “alternatives to violence,” civilian peace service, war tax refusal, and in our decision to give financial support to the setting up of a Quaker Center in Moscow, Russia, we express that we not only ask ourselves “how do we see God?” but also “how do we do God?”…
Paper Money carried an article on the “Thoreau Money” banknote-like leaflets that were used by war tax resistance groups in the United States during the Vietnam War.
The article goes into unusual detail about the history and structure of the war tax resistance movement in that period.
The group Conscience, from the U.K., has finalized its version of “peace tax” legislation, which it hopes to get Parliament to consider.
It differs in some ways from other countries’ versions of this plan for implementing legalized conscientious objection to military taxation.
I’m through with symbolic, feelgood, bumper-sticker activism; I’ve taken Phil Ochs’s I Ain’t a-Marchin’ Anymore to heart and I’ve left the “peace parade” marches and rallies with their tired chants and terrible speakers behind.
I take a practical approach, learning about the tax laws and about how to live well by being down-to-earth and sensibly frugal.
How do I feel about my life now that I’ve gone from a $100,000-a-year urban playboy lifestyle to living on around $12,000?
Money Magazine profiled me briefly, for an article they put out on how to avoid paying taxes.
They concluded that their readers probably wouldn’t enjoy what they called the “ascetic lifestyle” that comes along with my technique.
If this is “asceticism,” asceticism is very underrated.
The life I’m leading now is fuller and more enjoyable than ever; I have less anxiety (and less guilt about my taxes) and I feel like I have integrity, and I’m genuinely living a life of abundance.
For one thing, by being willing to take in less income, I am able to work fewer hours.
It turns out that those free hours are much more valuable than the money for which I’d been trading them (and the more practice I get in living vigorously, the more valuable my free time becomes to me).
Now, more of what I do with my life is for goals I think are valuable, useful, and interesting; much less is what I have to put up with for a paycheck.
I don’t have a one-size-fits-all strategy for abundance and fulfillment.
But what I’ve learned is that by taking a more direct responsibility for your life and your effect on the world, by radically reassessing how your activities relate to your priorities, and by backing away from the consumer and job cultures, you can make your own life better and reduce your complicity in making other people’s lives suck.
James Maule loves a story about a disgruntled taxpayer paying in a wagonload of small change. The latest story comes with a couple of twists: first, the county anticipated such protests and has an official policy of refusing to accept large payments in coins; second, over the course of the protest it was discovered that the tax assessor was sitting on 8,600 unread emails, which may explain why less-theatrical avenues of protest failed to work.
Speed camera vandals continue their bold assaults on traffic-ticket robots in Europe. The latest reports are of several attacks in France and Italy, and several more in France. Fire seems to have become a more popular weapon as winter has come on.
A retrospective of the history of the Project Learn School notes that the school, an independent cooperative, got a $5,000 loan from a war tax resistance redirection fund at a critical moment at its founding, and has been in operation for fifty years now.
Lebanon
I’m working off of Google Translate, and not an actual knowledge of Lebanese Arabic, but I think this says something like “No taxes for the power authority.
Gather in front of the TVA building to press the authority and confirm our demands, starting at six in the morning.
#مش_دافعين” The TVA building is home to the Finance Ministry.
I’ve been frustrated at the lack of detail in the English-language reporting out of Lebanon about the tax strike there.
It’s difficult to know how widespread it is, how central it is to the larger protest movement, or which tax resistance tactics are most prominent.
But here is some reporting:
“Protesters Are Wielding the Ultimate Weapon” (Haaretz) — “[T]he people behind the tax protest aren’t prepared to sit tight and wait patiently. They are calling on the Lebanese to stop paying their electricity and water bills, municipal taxes, fines and even their bank loans payments.” But who these people are goes unsaid. The reporter just quotes from a recently-created anonymous Twitter account. The article does have a good analysis of why the government power monopoly and its utility bills are a major focus of the protests.
