My Experience Resisting Paying Taxes for War
by Paul Leatherman
From mid 1966 through mid 1968 I was working under the auspices of Vietnam Christian Service assisting refugees in South Vietnam caught in the crossfires of the war. While I lived in Saigon I made many trips by air to areas in South Vietnam that were considered safe during the daylight hours. Almost every night I heard B52’s dropping bombs in the distance. I saw planes dropping bombs on rural area and villages. On one flight we needed to fly out over the ocean to avoid cannon fire from a ship shooting inland hitting who knows what. I saws planes spraying Agent Orange on the forests to defoliate the trees hoping to locate and destroy the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Many nights Puff the Magic Dragon (a DC3 with 3 rotating cannons mounted on one side as it banked it sprayed bullets in every square foot the width of a football field) was circling just over our house. The intent was to saturate the area circling Saigon to keep the VC from entering the city. Much of this firepower resulted in indiscriminate killing of civilians. I saw many wounded and crippled women and children.
Conscience Behind Bars: The Prison Letters of Norman Lowry is available now as paperback ($5.00) or FREE PDF BOOK.
Arrested for his acts of faith-inspired civil disobedience, Norman Lowry reflects from his prison cell on what it means to follow Jesus in a culture of perpetual war-making.
September 7, 2018 Interview with Norman Lowrey
Peace and Social Justice Show — Sept. 7, 2018
KZFR 90.1 FM People Powered Radio Chico, CA
The Right Not to Kill
I would like to think, and I do actually claim, that the free exercise of my religion includes the right to not kill other people, in war or otherwise. Paying others to do what it would violate my own conscience and religion to do seems a poor way to live a moral life. So I have resisted war taxes in a variety of ways, with my wife, for many years. We do what we can to make a clear witness amid so much madness in our world.
John K. Stoner, Akron, PA
Confessions of a Prudent Man
For 35 years, I’ve been exposed to the writings of those who resist militarism by nonpayment of their federal taxes. This past April, I took my first step toward joining their cause. Along with my wife, Sharon, I failed to pay $10.40 of the amount Form 1040 indicated was due.What convinced me after all this time?
First, I feel genuine distress about what is being done in my name by the U.S. government: illegal invasions of other countries, kidnappings and detentions, torture, orders to kill U.S. citizens based on allegations they are terrorists, constant surveillance of U.S. citizens, constant propaganda.
When I stand before the Creator, when my grandchildren remember their grandfather, am I prepared for the record to show I knew of these crimes but did nothing?
Second, I began to associate with people who talked about tax resistance in language that finally made sense to me. They didn’t claim payment of taxes was equivalent to buying weapons. They didn’t make tax resistance seem heroic. They simply said it was appropriate and even urgent for tax payers to communicate concerns of conscience to the tax collector. I knew they were right.
Third, these people with whom I talked had their feet on the ground. They understood our members of Congress have been co-opted by a business interests that survive on fat contracts from the Pentagon and Homeland Security. They understood this will never change until we find another way for lots of people to band together and make our voices heard. They understood the level of anger simmering in this country, and the importance of taking practical, peaceful steps to restore democratic norms.
So from now on, each April when I comply with the law’s requirement that I communicate with the IRS, I also will convey my objection to potentially criminal activity the government is engaged in with our money. I’m pretty sure the IRS keeps track of such objections; they’ve been in correspondence with us ever since they noticed our payment was $10.40 short.
I’m aware the willful failure to pay my federal income taxes is punishable, in the extreme scenario, by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year. A more likely penalty would be up to 25% of the tax, or $2.60.
I expect to pay what we failed to pay last April. Sooner or later, one way or another, Sharon and I will see $10.40 plus interest and penalties move from our control to theirs. What we’ve done is not so much break the law as register a complaint. While others aren’t so sure about that, Sharon and I are prepared to live with that risk.
As you may have noticed, we’re not the heroic kind. But something more important is at stake than 100 percent certainty about our legal standing. Honor, integrity, conscience, each of those terms starts to get close. It’s the basic human obligation to object when something wrong is being done right before our eyes, using the money we provided.
Berry Friesen
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, September 2010
Testimonial on $10.40 withholding:
For some years now Mary and I have not paid any 1040 income tax, since we are retired and try to give as much as we can to the many needs in our world today. But I do believe we should witness to Christ’s teachings in the political sphere. Our country spends too much on defense and the military.
Even though we won’t have to pay tax, we will send a letter to our President, Representative, and Senators expressing our concerns that reallocation of US Budget resources is essential to our national budget and now well-timed as the U.S. is phasing out of two unfortunate wars. Building the country’s infra-structure, supporting education, health-care for all, use of new energy technologies that free us from oil consumption, and reducing money spent on political campaigns are priorities that must mark our future. These priorities express the moral teachings of Jesus and the Christian Scripture.
Dr. Willard Swartley and Mary Swartley, Elkhart, Indiana
September, 2010
Refuse Voluntary Payment of Income Taxes for War
Another follower of Jesus of Nazareth, I quit my job and changed my life in 2006 so that I could refuse voluntary payment of income taxes for war. At this point, my debate with the IRS regarding the balance due on my 2008 tax bill is moving into the district court, where I will continue claim my human right of conscience not to support the killing of human beings. Many other Quakers in California are paying under protest, sending clear letters to that effect to their federal legislators.
Elizabeth Boardman, Davis, California.
AM I NOT RESPONSIBLE?
I am a Baha’i with Christian roots. Since 1992, I have sought to reconcile conflicting demands as a citizen who is simultaneously called to obey governmental laws and
to love all persons, especially enemies. I have tried several methods to reconcile this dilemma (reduced income & tax liability, redirected taxes, paid under protest, sought religious counsel, and from 2006-2008 spent 60-70 hrs/wk building support for a legal alternative (the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund bill).In 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Baha (son of the prophet-founder of the Baha’i
Faith) said: “Implements of war and death are multiplied and increased to an inconceivable degree, and the burden of military maintenance is taxing the various countries beyond the point of endurance. Armies and navies devour the substance and possessions of the people; the toiling poor, the innocent and helpless are forced by taxation to provide munitions and armament for governments bent upon conquest of territory and defense against powerful rival nations. There is no greater or more woeful ordeal in the world of humanity today than impending war.”
War and its ravages blight the world. Conquest of territory has partially been replaced by corporate control of resources, but military maintenance still taxes people beyond the point of endurance. A large portion of the substance of the people still is devoured by idolatrous militarism. And I am still being forced by taxation to provide munitions and armament to my government which inadequately uses the means of development and diplomacy to prevent or resolve conflicts.
In the past, a number of adult men were compelled by the U.S. government to directly participate in war by “the bearing of arms”, in violation of their consciences. After decades of struggle, military service alternatives are now recognized by the international community as a freedom of conscience right.
At present, men, women, and children are being compelled by their governments to directly participate in the financing of war with their personal earnings, in violation of their spiritual consciences. The inequity of U.S. federal spending between military and social/environmental needs partially drive my beliefs in the inherent waste and sinfulness of war. When I knowingly contribute financially, am I not responsible for the predictable use of this money, and therefore complicit in collective sin?
The freedom to manifest one’s beliefs was central to the formation of U.S. colonies and unification as States. The United Nations was created to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, to reaffirm faith in the dignity and worth of each person, and to promote social progress. I truly believe all humanity is one and my family, and seek to love all as such. How can I simultaneously love my neighbor and enemies yet pay for their harm?I do not believe that all violence is categorically wrong or that my individual conscience should be exalted over society’s need for collective security. I support efforts at the United Nations level whereby principles replace expediency and some national sovereignty is curtailed in order to create a system in which force is used collectively and as a servant of justice.
I assert it is a natural right of conscience to be free from coerced participation in killing, whether that coercion be physical or financial. In doing so, do we not manifest part of the life-affirming collective conscience of humanity which the United States and United Nations were formed to nurture and protect?
Alan Gamble, Jackson MI,
United States
December 2010
(Send us your testimony for posting here.)