National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee

Why I Do It

Neil Golder

Something sticks in my mind that probably has a lot to do with my decision to stop paying U.S. income taxes. The story goes that after a large anti-Vietnam War demonstration in D.C., Alexander Haig, Secretary of State at the time was heard to have said: “Let them march all they want, as long as they pay their taxes.” The story may not be true, but its essence is. The government needs our money to keep the military going, to prepare for and make war.

I don’t know when or why I came to the idea that killing is bad. Maybe from the Judeo-Christian tradition I was brought up in, or maybe the Buddhist practice I have taken on. It seems pretty natural, and a way to love the world and myself. The way I look at it now is that people who want not to kill, or not to support killing, or maybe even to try to prevent killing, have to make change in their thinking and acting. They also have to decide how far they are willing to go, or how far they are called by conscience to go.

We can’t be perfect. When we eat or walk or breathe or take medicine, beings get killed. But we can become aware of what we’re doing — the consequences — and make very definite efforts to reduce harm. Not eating animals is one good example.

The hard thing is, you might have to make decisions that aren’t easy to make and whose consequences put you in difficult places. For me, those consequences are a big part of the juiciness of my life. They’re hard and challenging, but oh so worth it, and have brought a richness I couldn’t have foreseen.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve reduced my income to below taxable level. I think this had to do with another comment that stayed with me “You can’t do tax resistance and live a middle class life.” This is a big thing to give up, but also a great thing to give up. I’m certainly still in the process, and lots of internalized messages remain. But the wonderful part is, 1 live more in connection and in community with others than I ever have. Circumstances have led to sharing of houses, cars, jobs, and all the difficulties and joys of living more frugally and more cooperatively. And these are the kinds of things I would have chosen anyway.

I once heard someone refer to the IRS as his spiritual guide. Meaning, for example, that if at a certain job he got his pay garnished, he’d take it as a sign to leave that job. A little strange I think. But my trip of living below taxable income is a little like letting the IRS determine my income or jobs. It still sounds bizarre as I write about it — not healthy — and I can remember many resentments. Why would anyone give the IRSIRS (or U.S. government) any spiritual authority?

I’ll suggest that to live a life of not harming means to think and act and live by a principle. Taking that principle Seriously means following it, questioning it, discussing it, meditating on it, letting it take you where it may. It’s a kind of spiritual guide. Of course, there’s always the trap of being too rigid, getting all self-righteous and actually harming self and others through over-adherence to a principle. But I think and hope that, for me, taking on that principle is a joyful challenge, like marriage. It’s. part of a larger commitment to justice and it will grow and change as I do.

Even in my most radical outlaw activities, I’m like everyone: we like to have things our way and in our time. That’s where I believe that putting ourselves out there in some shaky, scary, insecure places helps build courage and humility. Maybe that’s part of why I do it. Of course it has the obvious practical effect of removing funds used for killing from the government (and redirecting those funds for life-giving causes.) I can be happy about that and also, I hope, he happy in the riskiness and community that ensues. So, join up now, and start pushing your envelope. You won’t be bored.

Neil Golder is a longtime war tax resister living in Ithaca, N.Y.

From the June/July 2000 issue of More Than a Paycheck.