Mennonite Central Committee

Tax time: a season to search our corporate souls

Titus Peachey
March 6, 1998

Income tax season is a disquieting time for many in the Mennonite and Brethren in Christ faith community. With peacemaking an integral part of our theology and experience as a people, we are often troubled by the use of our tax dollars to buy weapons of war.

When our government threatens a bombing campaign, many of us acknowledge the contradiction of praying for peace while paying taxes for war. Deep within, we find ourselves reaching for a way to say "yes" to peace with our tax dollars.

The thought of individually resisting the payment of taxes for war, however, may produce feelings of fear and isolation. Governments' automated tax collection procedures are intimidating. Support from church brothers and sisters is often uncertain.

Many of us wonder if the small, scattered efforts of individuals can ever have an impact on the systemic violence present in the military mission. Confronted with the 1040 forms due April 15, most of us pay our taxes, and live with an uneasy tension between our faith and our practice.

Institutions have tensions too

It is not surprising to find this tension among our institutions, which also exist within the stream of our peace theology and historical experience. For example, in December 1996, the Pennsylvania Mennonite Federal Credit Union decided to honor an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) levy to collect withheld war taxes from a member's account. The credit union wrote the member explaining:

"As you are well aware, this issue creates a tension for our directors because they want to be supportive of our members on faith issues and also carry out their fiduciary responsibilities as directors of the financial institution."

The credit union's decision to comply with the levy was influenced by the desire to operate legally, to shield board members from personal liability, and a belief that conflict with the IRS would be both time-consuming and futile. While the credit union's policy has now changed (see sidebar), these concerns are common to many of our church institutions.

My own experience helps me understand some of these tensions, while still longing for greater institutional courage and initiative. Each year at tax time my family begins a curious dance between a desire to live our peace theology creatively and courageously and a desire to protect our resources. We want to sound a strong, clear voice for peace by withholding war taxes, but we don't want to expose our bank account, car and house to IRS collection efforts. Back and forth this dance goes, the two impulses swaying us in different directions.

The systems protecting and multiplying our economic interests favor the powerful. Nationally, these systems are backed by massive military power. Peace theology, on the other hand, leads us to seek justice for the poor, and find ways to love even our enemies. After several IRS collections of war taxes from our bank account, we wonder if financial security and a life committed to justice and non-violence are compatible.

A common response to the war tax dilemma is to take only those actions for peace that will not jeopardize our "financial nest." While this still leaves much opportunity to do good, it places troubling limits around a prior call to faithfulness.

Examining core values

Peter Goldberger, an experienced attorney on war tax cases, urges institutions to focus first on core values and commitments. What are the values at the center of an institution's life? How do these values, and the principles guiding its program, help an institution respond to the issue of war taxes?

How, for example, might a church agency committed to sharing Christ's peace in our world respond to an employee who, in good conscience, cannot pay for war? These are "first-priority questions," which lead institutions to draw from their own inner strength and identity as God's servants in our world. Only when these values are placed "center stage" is the institution ready to consider the risks involved.

Institutions and individuals often focus on the legal and financial risks of resistance to payment of war taxes, to the exclusion of equally significant risks to our faith and values that accompany compliance.

Karen Marys daughter, of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, believes the risk posed by continuing to pay taxes for war is actually the greater risk, even if it is not quantifiable.

Indeed, taxes for war pay for the myth that superior violence will save us. Taxes for war pay for land mines and cluster bombs that maim and kill long after a conflict is past. Taxes for war create the obscenity of Christians, Muslims, Jews and Buddhists killing one another. Taxes for war daily destroy the respect for life, health and wholeness many of our institutions are formed to nurture.

When itemizing risks involved in war taxes, surely church institutions must consider the risks of compliance.

Say "yes" to Christ's peace

The 1990s began with a major U.S.-led war in the Persian Gulf, which relied primarily on sophisticated weaponry rather than on conscripted troops. With a second Gulf War only narrowly averted for the time being, it's clear militarism has not declined, and that conscripted tax dollars are crucial for its sustenance.

Should not the faithful peace church in these times actively nurture war tax resisters, and find courage for a strong institutional voice against taxes for war? Is this not the present-day task of a church that united against the mass conscription of its young men in World War II?

Let 1,000 new war tax resisters rise up to say "yes" to Christ's peace and "no" to war's drumbeat. Let our congregations, our mission agencies, credit unions, schools, conferences and health institutions adopt policies welcoming and supporting this expression of conscience. Ten institutions led by our deepest commitments and hopes could inspire us to a new and creative witness for peace. Let us understand, yet still embrace, the possible risks to our individual and corporate lives. Now is the time to practice courage. Now is the time to practice peace.

 

Some church agencies honor tax resisters' consciences

Titus Peachey

An informal survey of 17 Mennonite and Brethren in Christ institutions, carried out in February 1998, found that few have written policies related to war taxes. Most institutions surveyed had not fielded requests from employees not to withhold taxes, or IRS levies on employees' salaries, within the past 10 years.

A sampling of institutional policies and practices honoring the consciences of tax resisters in some way, follows:

• Mennonite Mutual Aid. A policy adopted in December 1997 reads: "That to the extent legally possible, MMA support its members who are protesting the payment of war taxes by initially requesting that IRS collection attempts or levies on MMA-controlled assets be lifted."
• Pennsylvania Mennonite Federal Credit Union. In a February 1998 board meeting, the PMFCU approved a policy of requesting the IRS to lift levies on members related to war taxes. The PMFCU request to the IRS would refer to the church's historic peace position and the credit union's support for the individual member. Should the IRS not withdraw the levy, the policy is to pay the levy from the member's account.
• Mennonite Central Committee. In a February 1998 letter responding to an IRS levy on an employee's wages, MCC wrote: "We do not want to do anything as an organization that would be an offense to the conscience and beliefs of such individuals, or that would suggest support for the world's arms race. ... We would therefore respectfully request that the levy ... be withdrawn."
• General Conference Mennonite Church. Adopted a policy in 1983 to honor the request of employees who do not wish to have their income taxes withheld. The policy has been implemented on a number of occasions and remains in effect today.
• Mennonite Church General Board. Agreed in April 1991 to "honor the request of an employee who for conscience sake requests that the military portion of his or her federal income tax not be withheld."

 

Titus Peachey works in peace education with MCC U.S.