War Tax Resistance: A Catholic Worker Tradition
As early as 1943, Dorothy Day was advocating withholding taxes in order to avoid complicity in military violence. War tax resistance has been a Catholic Worker tradition ever since, and interest in the practice has been growing in the wake of the U.S.-funded killing of thousands of civilians in Gaza.
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me’ with napalm, nerve gas, our hydrogen bomb… Should one pay tax which supports this gigantic program?”
–Dorothy Day (1954)
Franklin Roosevelt’s 1942 Revenue Act expanded the application of the federal income tax beyond the richest people to include 75% of all people in this nation. The following year, when Catholic Worker co-founder Dorothy Day was writing for The Catholic Worker newspaper about the evil of conscription, she added, “in these days it would be desirable to go even further, as did Thoreau, to refuse even the taxes, which were to be used to pay for the means to kill our fellow man.” With the growing proliferation of U.S. nuclear weapons in the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Dorothy’s calls for war tax resistance increased.
This article first appeared in the April 2024 issue of the Catholic Agitator. It is reprinted here with the permission of the author.
During the spring of 1972 at the New York Catholic Worker, one could sense the tension in the air. The IRS notified the New York house that it owed $296,359 in fines, penalties, and unpaid income tax for the prior six years. Part of the issue was the New York house, like many Catholic Workers, was not tax-exempt.
Despite concerns of how the situation might resolve, Dorothy used the publicity to highlight war tax resistance. After the situation had received national attention, the IRS wrote a two-sentence letter in July stating that the matter was being dropped and no action was required by the New York house.
Dorothy’s strong stance in favor of war tax resistance was likely influenced by anarchist Ammon Hennacy. Her articles in the 1950s often cite his example. Though Ammon did not move into the New York house until the early 1950s, he had first stopped by the New York Worker in 1938 and wrote several articles for the paper during the 1940s and 1950s.
Ammon had refused paying the federal income tax during World War II after the passage of Roosevelt’s Revenue Act. When it became clear that federal law would require his employer to begin withholding taxes from his wages, he switched to working agricultural jobs in the fields, which were not subject to federal tax withholding. All the while he never tried to evade the IRS’ notice. Quite the opposite, he would regularly picket the IRS and promote war tax resistance in his writings.
It is not hard to understand why some might advocate war tax resistance; the costs of war are devastating. Since the end of World War II, federal spending on past and current military expenses has stolen forty to fifty percent of the federal budget away from programs that would truly serve our communities.
More than three million people have been killed (and millions of families displaced) during the U.S. oil wars in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. And through the 1033 Program, the Defense Department has transferred $4.3 billion in military equipment to local agencies, whose militarized police serve more like an occupying army in their mostly Black, brown, and indigenous neighborhoods.
Since the invasion of Gaza last October, there has been a tremendous resurgence of interest in war tax resistance. We attribute this interest to the U.S. providing more than $3 billion each year in military aid to Israel, to whom the U.S. has provided more military aid to than any other country since World War II. With the tragedy in Gaza, people have seen their tax dollars at work. The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC) has been offering multiple war tax resistance workshops each month since the invasion, and interest remains strong as Tax Day nears. Even when interest waned during the 1990s, the practice remained strong among many Catholic Workers.
There is no one way to resist federal income taxes for war. For the most part, Catholic Workers have often earned under the taxable income limit ($14,600 for a single person; $29,200 for a married couple). Others in the war tax resistance movement make more than the standard deduction and refuse to pay some or all of their tax debt. Some refuse a small amount, such as $200, because the risk is low and they can include a letter with their tax forms explaining their resistance. Others resist fifty percent and others resist the entire amount since half of anything they pay will be used for militarism. Resisters redirect these funds to groups and organizations that are doing peace and justice work, but who are underfunded.
Oddly enough, the IRS is grossly underfunded, so the risks associated with war tax resistance are low. For those refusing to pay some or all of their tax debt, they will likely be bombarded with computer-generated IRS letters. Some may receive wage garnishments or bank levies, but even these are surprisingly rare. Criminal prosecution and prison time are possible according to the letter of the law, but the IRS has not criminally prosecuted any war tax resisters in the last twenty-five years who accurately filled out their tax forms. As a Catholic Worker and one of the folks shepherding NWTRCC in its work today, I see my war tax resistance as carrying on a long and rich history. To find out more about war tax resistance, go to nwtrcc.org.
