Originally published on Forbes.com July 23rd, 2013
Congressman John Lewis submitted the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act of 2013 on June 25, 2013. That’s starting to get a little stale for me, but since the bill’s introduction did not garner much coverage, I still consider it fair game. The purpose of the bill is :
To affirm the religious freedom of taxpayers who are conscientiously opposed to participation in war, to provide that the income, estate, or gift tax payments of such taxpayers be used for nonmilitary purposes, to create the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund to receive such tax payments, to improve revenue collection, and for other purposes.
The way the fund would work is outlined in Section 4 of the bill:
SEC. 4. RELIGIOUS FREEDOM PEACE TAX FUND.
(a) Establishment- The Secretary of the Treasury shall establish an account in the Treasury of the United States to be known as the `Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund’, for the deposit of income, gift, and estate taxes paid by or on behalf of taxpayers who are designated conscientious objectors. The method of deposit shall be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury in a manner that minimizes the cost to the Treasury and does not impose an undue burden on such taxpayers.
(b) Use of Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund- Monies deposited in the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund shall be allocated annually to any appropriation not for a military purpose.
(c) Report- The Secretary of the Treasury shall report to the Committees on Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the Senate each year on the total amount transferred into the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund during the preceding fiscal year and the purposes for which such amount was allocated in such preceding fiscal year. Such report shall be printed in the Congressional Record upon receipt by the Committees. The privacy of individuals using the Fund shall be protected.
(d) Sense of Congress- It is the sense of Congress that any increase in revenue to the Treasury resulting from the creation of the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund shall be allocated in a manner consistent with the purposes of the Fund.
Does This Really Do Anything ?
Since cash is fungible, one might argue that unless an awful lot of people made the designation, it would have no effect. According to the finding section of the bill, the Joint Committee has concluded that the creation of the fund would be a revenue gainer, so, in principle, if a flock of war tax resisters suddenly became compliant, that “Sense of Congress” piece would assure them that they were not fostering additional military spending.
War tax resistance is a movement that has been around for a long time and still has some adherents. There is a National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee. There have been a couple of cases about war tax resisters in the last couple of years. War tax resisters are different from tax protesters, who present theories that the income tax is unconstitutional or violates the paperwork reduction act or something like that. War tax resisters are willing to pay, but they do not want their payments to support military activity.
The Perfect Sponsor
I cannot imagine a better sponsor for the bill than Congressman Lewis.
While still a young man, John Lewis became a nationally recognized leader. By 1963, he was dubbed one of the Big Six leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. At the age of 23, he was an architect of and a keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963.
Despite more than 40 arrests, physical attacks and serious injuries, John Lewis remained a devoted advocate of the philosophy of nonviolence.
Nonviolence Can Work
Probably the most famous instance of war tax resistance in American history was Henry David Thoreau spending the night in a Concord jail. The generation of radicals born around 1800, people like William Lloyd Garrison and Adin Ballou, advocated a broad mix of reforms including the abolition of slavery, racial equality, women’s rights, economic reforms and pacifism, which they call non-resistance. Margaret Fuller born in 1810 refused to turn her Conversations for women over to abolitionism. The next generation became much more focused on the slavery issue and to a significant extent abandoned pacifism. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, born in 1823, supported John Brown and would command a regiment of liberated slaves in the Civil War.
That intellectual strain of non-resistance had to do some travelling before coming back to the United States. Gandhi relied on Thoreau’s work. He also cites Tolstoy, whose Kingdom of God is Within, discusses both William Lloyd Garrison and Adin Ballou. Ballou and Tolstoy corresponded towards the end of their lives. Gandhi changed nonresistance to non-violent resistance. And it worked for Indian Independence. It also worked when it came back to the United States under the leadership of Martin Luther King in the Civil Rights Movement. So when Congressman Lewis proposes this measure, he is doing it having had the experience of meeting violence with non-violence and winning.
Why Not Give Peace A Chance ?
As it turns out, this bill has been introduced in various forms numerous times. There is a 501(c)(4) organization dedicated to its passage. I asked Elizabeth Boardman, who currently has an appeal going in the Ninth Circuit on the issue of war tax resistance being “frivolous”, what she thinks about the bill:
First is that I am of course an active supporter of the peace tax fund campaign, with money and moral support. I mention the virtues of the potential tax fund in virtually every letter I send to the IRS and my legislators about war taxes.
However, the proposal has been offered up by John Lewis and others every years for some 25 years, and it never makes any progress. The small campaign “office” (one part-time person) has not been able to do anything dynamic to move the campaign forward for several years
Ruth Benn of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee indicated that war tax resisters have various opinions on the bill and pointed me to this discussion. Ruth Benn is not extremely enthusiastic about the bill, but believes it has some merit:
I think this bill is such a modest proposal that more Congress people should be willing to sign onto it and appreciate John Lewis’s long support. The similarity between conscientious objectors refusing to fight in the military and COs is one that I, of course, subscribe to, and think it should be more widely recognized.
I am also in favor of the bill, although I would not take advantage of it myself. Personally, I think that, on net, the Armed Forces of the United States of America are mainly occupied with convincing people that it is an extremely bad idea to organize folks to fly airplanes into our office buildings or things like that. Like an all volunteer military, though, I think the fund would put an important brake on the government’s ability to resort to force.
You can follow me on twitter @peterreillycpa.