A recent study of Luke's Gospel by Father Richard Cassidy, Jesus, Politics and Society, asks the question: Was Jesus dangerous to the Roman empire? Cassidy concludes that Jesus did pose a threat to Roman rule. It was not the threat of a rebellious political zealot, but Jesus' words and actions were nonetheless threatening. Nonviolence coupled with love for all, including enemies, yields a reaction.
Jesus rejected the use of violence, criticizing the gentile kings for dominating their subjects. And he "refused to defer to or cooperate with the various political officials who were responsible for maintaining these patterns." Cassidy continues by responding to the question concerning the payment of tribute: "Jesus took the position that the Roman Emperor and the Empire were not to be accorded an autonomous or privileged position within the order of creation; they were rather to be evaluated on the basis of how closely they corresponded to the patterns desired by God."
There is no question that, in a religiously nonviolent way, Jesus resisted secular authority while at the same time witnessing to God's will that we love our enemies. Jesus' nonviolent posture and teaching clearly answered the question of whether Caesar may call upon Christians to kill their enemies or plan to kill their enemies by paying for it with their tax dollars.
The recent history of war tax resistance (or military tax refusal) shines with examples of people attempting to follow these teachings and actions of Jesus. No longer do those who proof-text from "render unto Caesar" and Romans 13 exercise unchallenged power over Christians. After four unsuccessful attempts to get the Supreme Court to honor conscientious tax refusal (the Anthony, Graves, Herby and Lull, and Purvis cases; see Sojourners March, 1980 issue), a flurry of other cases were decided in the lower courts. U.S. v. Catlett was decided in 1979, the first criminal conviction in years involving a conscientious military tax refuser. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit saw nothing wrong with the federal government's policy of prosecuting a "notorious tax protester" while using civil remedies against those whose failure to pay, while motivated by conscience, attracted little attention. Catlett had argued that he was selectively prosecuted as an anti-war Quaker even though his refusal to pay income taxes had received widespread publicity. The court said, "Focusing on defendants who attract widespread publicity furthers the Government's interest in promoting public compliance with the tax laws, and is therefore legitimate."
Also in 1979 the jury determined in U.S. v. Chrisman that the defendant was guilty of willfully failing to file or pay his income tax, even though it was established that he was motivated by religious convictions, which made him conscientiously opposed to war. The judge, who could have given him a year in prison, paroled him to do alternative service with the Mennonites and to pay the amount owed plus court costs. He lost his appellate case and filed a Writ of Certiorari with the Supreme Court, which was denied. In 1980 Paul Monsky, a professor at Brandeis University, was convicted of willfully making a false and fraudulent statement on his W-4 form. He had claimed 42 allowances and a war tax deduction on his income tax.
Similar convictions were obtained in U.S. v. Dugan in 1980 and U.S. v. Jackson in 1981. The latter two cases were clouded by other issues that seemed to impress upon the courts that the defendants were not "sincere." By the end of 1981, 19 members of the War Resisters League were being prosecuted by the IRS for giving out leaflets and talking to taxpayers who were waiting for advice on their returns in two rooms of the IRS offices in New York.
The feeling is growing that the IRS is stepping up its attack on those who are conscientiously opposed to military taxes and that criminal cases may increase in coming years. But the resistance movement has grown; IRS statistics indicate three times as many resisters in 1981 than in the past.
The IRS issued prosecution guidelines in July, 1980, which stated that a minimum amount of $2,500 of taxes would have to be at issue before a criminal prosecution would be considered. A relevant exception to these guidelines would be "where the case involves a 'scheme' known to be in frequent use by other taxpayers and its widespread use is believed to have an adverse effect on compliance." This could apply to conscientious war tax refusers, but the guidelines only apply to criminal cases and not to civil cases. The IRS will continue to go after civil cases without any minimum amount being involved. Further, the IRS has set up task forces and has made a long report to Congress asking for more authority to go after tax resisters as a separate and special category. This category subsumes under it the conscientious or religious war tax resisters and includes them along with tax revolters and people who believe that one does not have to pay taxes because paper money is not backed by gold, etc.
Recent years, however, have seen some legal "victories": 1) the IRS has been prevented by the Fifth Amendment from requiring a taxpayer to tell under oath on the stand where his or her money is and how much he or she has, U.S. v. Harper and U.S. v. Anthony; 2) the IRS has been stopped from winning damages in cases that the IRS has described as ones of "delay," Marx v. C.I.R. and Furry v. C.I.R., although in other cases the tax court judge has imposed an additional fine on people bringing their cases to the court a second or third time for the same general reasons. (Ruth and Bruce Graves, Michigan Quakers, were fined $500. After appearing in tax court to witness again to the injustice against conscience, Bruce was suspended from his position as a professor of college chemistry.); 3) the telephone companies have been prevented from discontinuing phone service of people who have refused to pay the telephone excise tax; 4) the IRS has been prevented from winning cases supposedly based on "fraud" where, in fact, no fraud existed, the Swihart and Summerfield cases.
1981 saw increasing numbers of religious leaders taking stands on war tax resistance and related issues. Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen made his now famous statement supporting war tax resistance and was joined before and after by other Roman Catholic bishops who were speaking out around the country. Bishop Michael Kenney of the diocese of Juneau became a pacifist. Bishop Leroy Matthiesen of Amarillo, Texas, who lives next door to Pantex, the nation's final assembly point for nuclear weapons, called upon his flock to give up their jobs making bombs; and Bishop Walter Sullivan of Richmond spoke out on national television. Rabbi Marc Gruber, while in the throes of his own war tax resistance case in the U.S. District Court and in the U.S. Tax Court, said, "One human life, to the Jew, is as important as an entire world because only the combining of all souls can bring together the world. I would never take a single life; I cannot pay to enable us to destroy the world."
There are relatively few criminal convictions for war tax resistance, but a western Maryland man who waged an 11-year battle with IRS will face 16 years in jail, $50,000 in fines, and $15,000 in back taxes. James Snyder, 45, of Oakland, California, has been convicted in Federal Court of two counts of tax evasion, three counts of failure to file a return, and one count of concealing assets. Snyder belongs to the pacifist, fundamentalist Dunkard Brethren Church and says he believes the tax laws violate the Bible. He says his fight with the IRS began in the 1950s and grew when he refused to list his business income on his tax form in 1970. After he failed to list the business expenses from his slaughter house and cabinet shop, 32 IRS agents armed with machine guns and M16 rifles invaded his property and "loaded up everything but the tractor," Snyder said.
In early December of 1981, the Center on Law and Pacifism was contacted by friends in Wisconsin pleading for help. Kenneth Pichler, a longtime war tax resister, found himself summoned to court. When he refused to tell where his money was or how much he had, and did not present any legal defense in his own behalf, the judge put him in jail indefinitely under contempt of court. In mid-January, Pichler came out of jail and reached an agreement with the IRS in which he would file his tax returns, and IRS would not require financial statements or compel him to provide information about the location of his taxable property.
For the most part the military tax refusal movement has seen setbacks, losses, inconveniences, and some suffering. The great temptation is always present, especially with so much at stake, to find ways to be politically effective, to make visible changes in government policies and priorities, to effect and actuate historical outcomes, in short, to win. Eugenia Durland of the Center on Law and Pacifism wrote recently: "There is nothing basically wrong with this hope and desire. The problem arises when we allow it to affect our choice of methods. We cannot afford ever to forget that God is the Lord of history and the ultimate responsibility for historical outcomes is His alone. It is true that in the mystery of His love and wisdom He has chosen.us as His instruments....[but] He can only use us if we are willing to use His methods."
William Durland was a lawyer and theologian and a founder of the Center on Law and Pacifism when this article appeared. At that time, the center provided information and advice to those considering military tax refusal and published a guide to war tax resistance, People Pay for Peace, and a news journal, Center Peace.
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