Talking with the Tax Man

I recently returned to our magazine office from a meeting downtown and was unexpectedly met at the front door by two men dressed in business suits. One cordially introduced himself as Mr. Bendery, an Internal Revenue Service agent. We had talked on the phone before, and I recognized his voice. We shook hands.

He turned to introduce me to his stern-faced companion, Mr. Lipsett. Before I could raise my arm to shake his hand, Mr. Lipsett stiffly reached inside his suit coat and pulled out and flashed his Treasury Department badge for my inspection. They had come as a final step in the IRS collection process before seizing our funds or taking more serious action.

This was not the first time I had talked with IRS agents about our tax resistance. Since our earliest days, the non-payment of war taxes has been a vital part of our witness at Sojourners. Both as individuals and as a non-profit corporation, we have resisted the payment of war taxes. This posture has given us many opportunities to dialog with the IRS.

We began publishing in 1971 during the height of the Vietnam War, a conflict we unequivocally opposed. It soon became clear that refusal of war tax payment was for us as morally necessary as our refusal of military induction. We could not oppose that war in every other way and then help pay for it. In those early days, we refused war tax payment by holding our earnings below the taxable income level and withholding the war tax portion of our phone bill.

With the burgeoning nuclear arms race and the expanding conflict in Central America, our stand on war tax resistance remains unchanged. As peacemakers and disciples of Jesus, we cannot with good conscience voluntarily provide our government—through our tax dollars—with the necessary means for nuclear preparedness and military intervention.

Our non-profit corporation provides a legal entity for our magazine as well as our peace, neighborhood, and Central America ministries. Everyone working in these ministries earns a subsistence income and incurs a modest tax liability.

Like all organizations, we are legally bound to withhold federal income taxes from the salaries of our employees and submit them to the government. Since we refuse to serve as a war tax-gathering agency, we decided years ago to withhold, but not submit, the war tax portion of our employees' wages. That amount, which is 35 percent of the federal tax, represents the portion of the federal budget that goes to the waging of current wars and the preparation for future wars.

In response, the IRS has threatened to remove our tax-exempt status, lock us out of our ministry buildings and auction off our equipment, and send our corporation officers to jail. So far it has settled for simply seizing funds from our bank account. We continue to withhold payment of our telephone tax and refuse to comply with the IRS request to garnish the wages of tax-resisting employees.

We are equally committed to war tax resistance as individuals. All members of Sojourners Community pool our various incomes together. Where that income is not subject to employer withholding, we have refused payment of war taxes. Some have had less tax withheld than was due and refused to pay the remainder. Those whose taxes are automatically withheld have used various methods in attempting to reduce their tax liability to the 65 percent level. Currently we give all withheld taxes to the World Peace Tax Fund, which invests them in peaceful and socially conscious efforts. The IRS has collected most of our withheld taxes through garnishing wages and funds from our bank account; however, a substantial sum remains uncollected.

As I explained the biblical and political reasons behind our tax resistance to Mr. Bendery and Mr. Lipsett, our conversation became warmer and more friendly. They were not pleased, of course, that I respectfully declined to give them the money they had come for or supply them with information about our assets (such as they are). But they did seem to feel more at ease. In fact Mr. Lipsett smiled and shook my hand when we ended our conversation.

As they left the building, Mr. Bendery turned to me and said, "We really do want to solve these matters peaceably." I smiled and nodded at his unintended double entendre and said in reply, "So do we, so do we."

Joe Roos was the publisher of Sojourners magazine when this article appeared.