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Ban the Bomb, Not the Babies

How to Resist Paying Taxes for War

By Christopher Zehnder

You are a war-tax resister?

This is a rare question, for resisting taxes on account of war is a rare act. There are people who try to avoid paying taxes; there are those who cheat on their taxes. Occasionally one runs across someone who thinks he has the constitutional right to refuse paying taxes. But how often does one find someone who resists paying taxes because of a conscientious objection to war?

"You are a war-tax resister?"

"I would say yes," replied Peter Stiehler of the San Bruno Catholic Worker. I had to do some calling around, until I found someone -- especially a Catholic -- who did not pay income or other taxes on account of war. Yet, though he resists paying taxes, Stiehler has little to fear from the IRS. Stiehler, who is married with two children, said his family's resistance "is that we keep our income below taxable level so that we don't pay income tax." Stiehler explained that "in the traditional Catholic Worker model, no one receives a salary -- you get room and board and a small stipend. We opened the San Bruno Catholic Worker about six and a half years ago and at a certain point my wife and I decided to receive a salary so it was more clear what was our money and what was Catholic Worker money. When we did that we said we don't want to pay war tax."

Stiehler said that he resists paying income tax because about 50 percent of the tax goes to war. "If you look at current military spending," said Stiehler, "it is less than 50 percent; but, if you factor in the deficit from war tax spending, or a portion of that deficit, then it is closer to 50 percent -- half of the budget. Of course you can get different numbers, but whether its 35 percent, 40 or 50 percent -- that's still a significant percentage of our taxes."

Stiehler said he has found living below the taxable limit a "very simple, practical way" of resisting war taxes. He could make above the taxable limit and then refuse to pay a portion of the tax; but, in the end, he said, "the IRS will get their money, and more." The IRS, he said, will, of course, not recognize the war tax deduction as valid, "so then they'll say that you owe this much, and if you don't pay it by X date, you will be penalized and there will be interest. There is always interest. It will accumulate and accumulate. Your wages will be garnished. If you own property, a lien will be put on it. So they'll eventually get their money. I know of some people who make above the taxable level, but they give away enough to charity that can be deducted so that they are not taxed."

Stiehler gave another reason to keep one's income low: "you will align yourself with the poor in our society," he said, "and sort of see what the effect of military spending is. We spend all this money on killing and that money could go into the education system, to federally-funded pre-schools and daycare -- whatever you think is a good thing. But, instead, that money goes toward killing."

Keeping their income below the taxable level is only one way people resist war taxes. According to Jim Haber of the War Resisters League in San Francisco, some war tax resisters refuse to pay a portion or all of their income tax. Among these, some file a return, others don't. Others pay their income tax, but refuse to pay their telephone tax -- a form of resistance, said Haber, that carries the lowest risk, since the telephone company cannot, by law, refuse service based on non-payment of tax. Too, the government rarely, if ever, goes after telephone tax resisters. Haber said the federal telephone excise tax was instituted in 1898 to help pay for the Spanish American War. The tax was instituted in every war, until Vietnam, when it reached its highest rate ever. After Vietnam, the government made the telephone tax permanent, but earmarked the monies for the general fund, not for war making in particular -- which means that 50 percent, not 100 percent, of the telephone tax goes to the military budget.

Some tax resisters, said Haber, "will openly inform the government of their protest, which enhances the moral and political impact of the war tax refusal." Others refuse to pay and keep quiet about it. These latter, said Haber, "think that the government is going to do what the government is going to do and they just don't want to participate in it. For other people, it's making the statement that's important."

How long does it take for the IRS to catch up with those who refuse to pay taxes? "I know people who did that a long time, but ultimately it did create a hardship," said Haber. "The IRS, though, doesn't get everyone, and beyond a certain amount of time (I'm not sure if it is seven years or ten years) they can't recoup [the losses]. They have to let it go. Some people used to file with lots of dependents but now that's harder to do. There were some who claimed three billion dependents for the population of the earth."

One resister the IRS did nab was Sara Sunstein of Santa Rosa. Sunstein said her tax resistance began in the years after the Gulf War. "The way I did it initially is that I refused to pay 50 percent of my taxes," said Sunstein. "When I realized that they're going to take 50 percent of whatever I give them [for war], I decided I was not going to pay anything! You can do it privately, but I did it publicly -- writing letters saying what I am doing and why. Sometimes they get published by newspapers or read by representatives in Congress."

Sunstein was self-employed during the four years she paid no taxes. "But then I got a job that had withholding, so they could find me very easily. The IRS came after me and wanted to garnish my wages. I was not in a position to live on 50 dollars a week (which is basically what they leave you with when they garnish your wages), so I stopped that whole process by saying, 'I will talk with you.' I did a negotiation/compromise thing. In doing that I had to say that I would cooperate for five years, that I would stay legal. I'm still in that five-year time frame."

Sunstein said that "so many people who are against war are really afraid of the IRS. I have found that there is not much to be afraid of. If you say, 'let's talk,' all the clocks stop and they say, 'pay up.' You say, 'well, I can't pay the whole amount.' And then they say, 'what can you pay? This is the formula you have to use.' They don't want to deal with having to put you in jail; they don't want to deal with taking your house. They just want some money. There are some people whose consciences have not allowed them to talk with the IRS, to negotiate. They say, no, I'm not going to cooperate at all. Those are the ones you read about, who do get their houses taken or whatever. But it's really very rare."

For those who are opposed to war but who cannot risk the ire of the IRS, Sunstein and members of the Sonoma County Taxpayers for Peace have come up with what they call "$10.40 resistance." Sunstein calls $10.40 resistance a "very low risk way" to do tax resistance. "If I don't pay $10.40," said Sunstein, "and do it real loudly, I can make a statement. I can kind of honor my conscience. And, maybe, if a whole lot of us do this, we'll get somewhere. And because the risk is so low, it's more inviting for a lot of people to do."

To get "a whole lot of us" to do this, Sunstein and others formed One Million Taxpayers for Peace last January. They hope to enlist one million people who will take the $10.40 they might otherwise owe the government in income tax and put it into a fund that will promote conflict resolution in schools. So far, the idea has not been a big seller. In the first nine months of its existence, One Million Taxpayers for Peace has enlisted only 55 members. "That's a lot less than one million," Sunstein admitted.

Robert Waldrop of the Oscar Romero Catholic Worker in Oklahoma City said that he himself is not a war tax resister because he works for the Church and has taxes deducted from his wages. So it is, he said, that he focuses, not on war tax resistance, but on "war spending resistance." "The big money interests, who have a lot of influence with our government, are not using that influence for peace," said Waldrop. "There are some of them who really profit from war. War spending resistance involves, as much as possible, shifting your expenditures from the large, national and transnational corporations to small, independent, locally owned businesses."

So, for example, when Waldrop wants a hamburger, "I don't go to McDonalds, I don't go to Burger King," he said, "I go to Jack's Hamburgers. Another example would be to buy more of your food directly from farmers. In the last four or five months, I've been able to shift 80 percent of my grocery dollars directly to farmers. That doesn't include what we buy to give away [at the Catholic Worker house], but my own eating and the eating of whoever happens to be living here at the time. We're only spending 20 percent at the grocery store than what we were spending five or six months ago."

A relatively easy way to practice war spending resistance, said Waldrop, "is learn to cook from basic ingredients. Most people have to get their heads around the concept of, instead of buying pancake mix, they make their own pancake mix. That's actually not a bad place to start, because that is very easily accessible. They can still keep shopping at the supermarket, but instead of buying pancake mix, they buy flour and baking powder. So they're eating lower on the agribusiness food chain." Waldrop also recommends reducing spending "on new stuff." (He has a website -- stopspendingstopwar.org -- which discusses war spending resistance.)

To Waldrop, opposition to war is an extension of his pro-life beliefs. "We're doing these vigils on Wednesdays at a busy intersection, waving, you know, honk against war type things and handing out a little pamphlet to people who are stopped at the stoplight," Waldrop said. "The first line of the pamphlet says that the people of Iraq have an unconditional, non-negotiable right to life. Period. I know that there are some people who are trying to make the case that there is a time when, perhaps, even military action is a Christian duty. That may, indeed, be true, but I certainly don't think it's been established in this present situation at all, not even anything approaching it."

Many orthodox Catholics will look askance on war tax resisters. But one orthodox Catholic, James Hanink, philosophy professor at Loyola-Marymount University in Los Angeles, said he supports war tax resisters "whole-heartedly." "The great moral issue of our time is showing respect for innocent human life," said Hanink, who is also associate editor of the Berkeley-based journal, New Oxford Review. "The plain fact is that modern warfare does not do this." But hasn't the United States government claimed that, as in the case of Afghanistan, it has specifically not targeted the innocent? Hanink is skeptical. "I think, given the horrific experience of the 20th century," he said, "the burden of proof is always on the government in such matters and I see no clear evidence that they have met the burden of proof."

Though many pro-life advocates reject the linkage of the issues of war and abortion, Hanink, a long-time pro-lifer, sees them as related. "War-making and baby killing," he said, are issues that "frequently overlap." He gave the example of Julie Loesch Wiley, a "pro-life advocate par excellence," who was first an anti-war protester. In her anti-war presentations, Wiley, said Hanink, "pointed out the effects of military strikes on, among other innocent people, unborn babies. It then dawned on her that abortion equally attacks unborn babies," and she entered the struggle for the rights of the unborn.

Wiley, said Hanink, "produced a wonderful bumper sticker:" it read, "Ban the Bomb, Not the Babies." "Nothing could be more appropriate," said Hanink, "especially on the eve of the deconstruction of Iraq, than to renew those sentiments and deepen that struggle."

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