Why pray for peace while paying for war?
JUNKERMAN, JOHN
Why pray for peace while paying for war? Tax resisters seek the path of conscience JOHNJUNKERMAN When agents of the Internal Revenue Service first encountered tax resister Paul Monsky, they must...
...Yet for fourteen years Monsky has refused to pay taxes for the military operations of the United States Government, and nothing the IRS has done in response has budged him from his determined noncompliance...
...This would be an opportunity to shift American policy by trying to shift the money...
...A jury convicted him of "willfully supplying false information" on his withholding tax form, and he was sentenced to a year of part-time community service...
...Tax resisters seek the path of conscience JOHNJUNKERMAN When agents of the Internal Revenue Service first encountered tax resister Paul Monsky, they must have found him something of an enigma...
...Conscientious objectors could divert the military's share of their taxes to the peace fund...
...Wisconsin War Tax Resistance and Alternative Fund Rt.2, Box 161 Turtle Lake, Wisconsin 54889 —Provides tax resistance organizing and counseling...
...empted from military service, and Christian Scientists and the Amish are exempted from the payment of Social Security taxes because of religious opposition...
...Tax agents promote this fear through highly publicized prosecution of tax evaders and seizure of assets...
...It also provides legal representation and publishes a monthly newsletter...
...No such immunity has been granted those who would refuse to pay for war...
...Criminal cases are rare: Monsky's prosecution was the first in New England in anyone's memory, and the imprisonment of war tax resisters is virtually unheard of...
...The Peacemaker Guide to Resistance offers this advice: "In the world of today, if an individual is wedded to the so-called security of a steady income and a savings account, and to the conviction that his socially useful occupation is vital to the community, it might be a healthy thing for him to examine both in the light of their true value...
...some resisters, especially those who refuse only a small sum, never hear from the IRS again...
...Many Vietnam war resisters paid their taxes instead into alternative funds that held the money in escrow and invested the interest in social action programs...
...God and Caesar P.O...
...It was this spirit that moved a group of Cold War objectors to form Peacemakers, an organization dedicated to draft and tax resistance...
...makes both loans and grants to socially constructive causes...
...He came to be what one associate called "a rock-like presence" in the antiwar movement...
...There are some signs the IRS has begun a crackdown on resisters...
...Activists in Boston and Philadelphia report increased enforcement attempts in the past year, and the Philadelphia office of the IRS has established a two-person task force to concentrate on war tax resistance...
...Can we make peace when the Pentagon is making $10 million...
...marshals, she was carried off to jail in her bathrobe...
...Pearson estimates the military share at thirty-two cents from each tax dollar, with 10 cents of it going to nuclear weaponry...
...ward the brink of nuclear and electronic warfare...
...Said Hennacy: "Each day I win, and each day the Government loses...
...it might devour others, but not for this...
...It is a dilemma that Sojourners magazine summarizes as "paying for war while praying for peace": of the $3,000 the average taxpayer will turn over to the Government in 1981, a third will go to the military...
...The Nelsons accomplished that feat by structuring their lives around tax avoidance: Wally worked for years selling bookplates, receiving his pay in advance so the IRS could never collect from his employer...
...I never thought, when I said, 'No, I can't go kill the Germans or the Japanese,' that I was going to be in this type of situation today...
...At a rally after his sentencing, just a week before taxes were due, Monsky reaffirmed his belief in "the significance of the vote we cast every April 15...
...Others resist on political grounds, arguing that military spending drives the country toJohn Junkerman is a free-lance writer whose earnings in recent years have made him an involuntary tax avoider...
...His deductions were disallowed...
...The fund now contains about $100,000 in refused taxes...
...It's just been a matter of exploration...
...Fellowship of Reconciliation Box 271 Nyack, New York 19060, —Publishes a war tax packet...
...As tax avoiders, the Nelsons have had to change jobs, keep money out of banks, avoid the accumulation of assets...
...He looks like an easy target for intimidation, a sure bet to crack after one visit from the tax collector...
...Some refuse to cooperate in any way with the IRS or the Justice Department...
...Months, even years, may pass without any follow-up...
...The same 10,000 each turn over an average of $1,000 annually to the military through taxes—a total of $10 million...
...20008 —Publishes a newsletter on the progress of the peace fund bill...
...Despite its small size, the movement has been motivated by the belief that, as Thoreau put it, "It is not so important that many should be as good as you, as that there be some absolute goodness somewhere...
...Wally discovered, as have others, that resistance opened up new worlds: "Once you begin to act on some principle that means a great deal to you, you find yourself in a world you've never thought of...
...War tax resistance, both religious and political, has deep roots in this country...
...The peace fund proposal originated in 1972 with David Bassett, a Quaker physician from Michigan...
...Conscience and Military Tax Campaign 44 Bellhaven Road Bellport, New York 11713 —Provides petitions and other materials for the campaign, a campaign packet at $5, and a newsletter...
...During the 1967 escalation of the war in Vietnam, he refused to pay the few hundred dollars he owed at the end of the tax year...
...The fact of the matter is, they are anything but consistent—they are chaotic about who they go after...
...If the amount of owed taxes is substantial, as it was in Monsky's case, the likelihood of an IRS collection attempt is far greater...
...Juanita held down a number of part-time jobs, always taking care that the income from each remained below the threshold for withholding...
...While resisters may, in the words of one tax resistance guide, "look to the Tightness of attitude rather than the effectiveness of conduct," one must question whether the resister's hands have actually been washed of complicity with the military when, in the end, the tax is paid...
...Finally, last spring, the Government took Monsky to court on criminal fraud charges...
...When the tax collectors began appearing in the fields, he arranged to be paid in advance so that he was not owed anything and no money could be seized...
...Typically, the IRS first sends computerized letters and requests for payment...
...Avoidance takes many forms: You change jobs frequently, work for yourself, work on contract, work part-time, find tax shelters, live on a subsistence income...
...Throughout their dealings with the IRS, the Nelsons have followed the philosophy of noncooperation, refusing to file any returns, denying information requests, and ignoring summonses...
...It gave me courage to pursue other political acts...
...Repeated confrontation with government authority has only strengthened his conviction...
...There are precedents for such a law: Conscientious objectors are exContact Some resources for the war tax re-sister: Center on Law and Pacifism P.O...
...Pearson proposes to place military tax money instead into an escrow account until the World Peace Tax Fund is legislated by Congress...
...Despite the strong constitutional arguments that can be made in their defense, in deference to Congress the courts have repeatedly held against conscientious objectors who refused to pay their taxes to military spending...
...Many resisters, especially those acting in isolation, turn to the second choice, tax avoidance, if only to escape the persistent pressure from the IRS or the opposition of unsympathetic employers...
...Pennsylvania Quakers led a movement in 1755 to oppose taxes levied by the British to fight the French and Indian Wars...
...Henry Thoreau's celebrated resistance to taxes for the Mexican War provided the political inspiration for much civil disobedience and is still an important model for tax objectors...
...This will make it more difficult for resisters to avoid the automatic payment of their taxes, and "it may mean that more people will be violating their consciences," Gulick says...
...Here the radical character of tax resistance emerges: A decision to act on principle ideally leads one to test every action accordingly...
...They are very much aware of the aggressive posture of the military...
...Says a skeptical member of Congress: "I will become a cosponsor after the millenium...
...After Vietnam "there was a precipitous drop in the number of resisters," says Bill Sullivan, a member of the group, which is now called New England War Tax Resistance...
...He urges peace-oriented people to "consider the very direct route between April 15, the IRS, and nuclear holocaust...
...It may also increase pressure for the passage of the peace fund bill and lead more resisters to avoid taxes altogether...
...One of the major platforms of Peacemakers was nonregistration, and another major emphasis was on nonpayment of taxes...
...New regulations require employers to notify the IRS if an employe claims more than nine deductions...
...As many resisters do, Monsky began his refusal slowly...
...After the war, he and Juanita helped found Peacemakers, a radical pacifist group...
...Sometimes I thought that by buying a can of tomato soup I was helping buy a piece of shrapnel that will end up in somebody's belly...
...I realized," Paul Monsky recalls, "the Government wasn't a monster that would devour me...
...One of the problems with the American system," says Gulick, "is that people don't have enough control over their Government and particularly over what their money is spent for...
...J.J...
...Of sixty million Federal tax returns filed in 1979, the IRS counted only 12,000 as protesters, and only one or two thousand of those were for war resistance...
...They come to tax resistance saying, ? won't be a part ofthat.' We're getting a larger percentage of that smaller group of people...
...It was his first act of civil disobedience, and it gave him confidence...
...his appeals to the tax court were denied...
...Furthermore, in time the IRS usually manages to collect from long-term resisters, thus reducing tax resistance to a symbolic protest...
...Those refusing taxes since Vietnam are "a different group of people, primarily younger," says Sullivan...
...But there has been steady growth since then," he adds...
...We must remember," he told a crowd outside the Boston courthouse, "that we don't have any choice whether to fight in the next war, a war that will be fought at long range with most of the victims noncombatants...
...The first option pits resisters against the IRS, a frightening prospect for many...
...War tax resistance surged during the Vietnam war...
...The Supreme Court, the Congress, and the Administration have not dealt with this issue, so it becomes incumbent upon the sovereign folk to make the rules, to say that we won't pay for this any more," he says...
...Box347 Newton, Kansas 67114 —A Mennonite newsletter...
...There is no huge distance between his thoughts and his willingness to act...
...That is the number Pearson considers necessary to make the effort "politically viable...
...A matter of exploration9 Wally Nelson has a simple explanation for his refusal to cooperate with the Internal Revenue Service: "I don't feel any concern to show any respect to a government that spends most of its energy, or even a large amount of it, developing weapons to destroy and kill...
...One of the strongest arguments in favor of the peace fund is, in the language of the act, "that legislative relief is the only legal avenue available for resolving the conscientious objector's dilemma between his beliefs and his obligations of citizenship...
...In 1959, Juanita was arrested for contempt of court for such a refusal...
...Such resistance was common among members of the historic peace churches—the Quakers, Mennonites, and Brethren—during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars as well...
...The peace fund proposal, which has died in committee in the last five sessions of Congress, would create a Secretary of Peace and promote the peaceful resolution of world conflict...
...Juanita explains: "For me that means trying to be self-sufficient, trying to reduce our needs, and to supply those that we can...
...Peacemaker P.O...
...A forty-four-year-old professor of theoretical mathematics at Brandeis University near Boston, Monsky is shy and self-effacing...
...Today their income remains far below the taxable level...
...He was later arrested three times, for civil disobedience at an Army base, a draft board, and the Pentagon...
...First came threatening notices, then orders to appear for interviews...
...Monsky is part of a small but persistent tax resistance movement in this country...
...The act would encroach upon Congressional control over the budget, a prospect that appears "very exciting" to Steve Gulick, editor of WIN magazine's "Tax Talk" column...
...Income tax resistance was less prevalent—the IRS recorded a peak of 1,740 returns from war tax resisters in 1971—but uncounted resisters refused to file any return or chose to live on nontaxable income...
...It has never been a large movement...
...The level of resistance often reflects political cycles, and there has been a notable increase since the reinstitution of draft registration and Jimmy Carter's boosting of the military budget early in 1980...
...People have notions of efficiency that probably the FBI doesn't attain...
...If a law is bad or unjust, is not every phase of its enforcement simply an extension of the law and to be as greatly resisted...
...Beneath his timid demeanor lies an unshakable pacifism...
...Claiming forty-two "military deductions" on his employe withholding tax form, he reduced his weekly tax deduction to zero and sent in no money with his annual income tax returns...
...Five hundred people have pledged to begin resisting as soon as he can convince 100,000 to join the campaign...
...Our money more than our bodies will fuel that war, and if we are to be conscientious objectors, now is the time to object...
...Box627 Garberville, California 95440 —A monthly newsletter containing information of interest to war tax resisters, available for $10 per year or a donation...
...Its Philadelphia chapter has a nationwide listing of counselors, centers, and alternative funds...
...As a noncooperator, he refused every order of the prison guards and spent much time in solitary confinement...
...Pearson estimates pacifists constitute 4 per cent of the population, but only a small minority refuse to pay military taxes...
...Monsky initially turned his withheld taxes over to the Roxbury War Tax Scholarship Fund, an alternative fund that contributed money to education in Boston's ghetto...
...The Government responded with escalating counter-measures...
...Some in the movement resist on ethical or religious grounds, believing they cannot condone the preparation for war any more than they condone the fighting of wars...
...The Government dropped the charges...
...Organized into regional organizations, or carrying out their defiance in isolation, those refusing or avoiding the payment of taxes for military spending may number in the tens of thousands...
...Since the first Federal draft law during the Civil War, Congress has made provision for objection to military service, but it is through statute and not constitutional right that COs have been recognized...
...One must strain to hear his softly spoken words...
...During a 108-day fast before his release, he was kept alive by force-feeding through an intravenous tube...
...Sometimes this means you must forgo employment that contributes to the conventional social good...
...A turning point came in the 1960s: "Those days I was helping with the Farmworkers, and I realized every time I went to the A&P, I was probably exploiting somebody...
...WIN 326 Livingston Street Brooklyn, New York 11217 —Carries a monthly column on tax resistance...
...The effort is widely dispersed, with counseling centers in twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia...
...For it matters not how small a beginning may seem to be: What is once well done is done forever...
...In a sense, it's more honorable to not have to pay taxes because that means you're not using as much stuff...
...A colleague at Brandeis remarked that Monsky "thinks very clearly, both about political matters and pure mathematical matters...
...A minister on the East Coast recently chose to abandon his resistance when he moved to a small church in a conservative community that would not tolerate his civil disobedience...
...When the Vietnam war wound down but military spending remained at wartime levels, Monsky increased the level of his resistance...
...National Council for a World Peace Tax Fund 2111 Florida Avenue NW Washington, D.C...
...for that will leaven the whole lump...
...The Supreme Court has yet to grant a hearing on war tax resistance, silently affirming that conscientious objection is not a constitutional right...
...However, the serious objector is likely to find the IRS less intimidating than expected...
...I realized," he recalls, "that I could try to live my life in a decent way and not be forced into that kind of crazi-ness...
...J.J...
...War tax refusal had atrophied during the two world wars, but the 1948 enactment of the first peacetime draft in the nation's history brought it to life again...
...It was "an amalgamation of people from a number of pacifist groups who were dissatisfied because the groups were not going far enough, particularly on nonregistration [for the peacetime draft]," said Juanita...
...he often averts his eyes during a conversation...
...And that is where the peace people come in: "Until and unless the peace people put their money where their mouth is, [and] the peace movement becomes more a body of integrity, the overall picture is not going to change...
...asks Pearson...
...It is exactly this smaller group of people, the "peace people," that Ed Pearson of Bellport, New York, has targeted in his Conscience and Military Tax Campaign...
...In 1973, they abandoned their city life for the Arizona countryside, where they began farming, not so much to avoid taxes as to further their quest for a "peaceful life...
...His academic specialty is the theory of number rings and prime numbers, a field which, he says, can "never be applied to missiles or anything...
...The Federal excise tax on telephone bills, targeted by the War Resisters League, was resisted by more than 70,000 households in 1972 and 1973...
...Opposition to the Reagan Administration, its aggressive foreign policy, and the further expansion of military spending is expected to spur others into resistance...
...Awakened by U.S...
...It usually takes the form of a civil action, begun after an audit or a judgment in tax court, with a penalty added to back taxes seized from an employer or a bank account...
...You will do what you think you should, what you have been ordered to do," she said, "but I shall not help you to do it, no, not even to the extent of getting dressed so that you may feel more comfortable in your mission...
...Adds Wally, "At least we've gotten off the farmworkers' backs when we began to raise food ourselves and began to bend our backs and break our backs...
...In 1977, the IRS attached his paycheck for back taxes...
...Dane County Conscience and Military Tax Resistance 5526 Ethelwyn Road Madison, Wisconsin 53713 —Provides war tax resistance organizing and counseling...
...War Resisters League/War Tax Resistance 339 Lafayette Street New York, New York 10012 —The WRL offers a tax resistance kit for $3 and publishes a bimonthly newsletter...
...For Pearson, the peace fund proposal is a constitutional issue—the recognition of the citizen's right to freedom of conscience...
...Wally was a conscientious objector during World War II, spending thirty-two months in prison for his resistance...
...15 per year...
...The group has about 300 active members, and deposits to the alternative fund grew 10 per cent in 1980...
...His National Council for a World Peace Tax Fund has an office in Washington and has targeted certain members of Congress for support, but it has made little progress...
...Consider, for example, that some 10,000 members annually contribute about $40 each to the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a religious pacifist organization...
...Nineteen of these funds are operating today, in thirteen areas of the country, and two new funds are being organized...
...Most people have a totally erroneous idea of how powerful the IRS is," comments Bill Sullivan...
...Box 1584 Colorado Springs, Colorado 80901 —The Center publishes a military tax refusal guide ($2), which offers information on the legal consequences of resistance and provides a listing of counseling centers and alternative funds around the country...
...Eighteen months ago, Pearson began his campaign to put some clout behind the peace fund effort...
...The late pacifist Ammon Hennacy took another route, working as a field laborer where taxes were not withheld from his pay...
...Nelson, seventy-one, and his wife Juanita, fifty-eight, live on a small farm in western Massachusetts...
...As a result, objectors have two choices: violating the law through tax refusal or avoiding taxation entirely by living on a nontaxable income...
...In thirty-two years the IRS has succeeded in collecting only three dollars from them...
Vol. 45 • April 1981 • No. 4
