A Classic Case of Conscience

On August 24, the U.S. government sent Bill Ramsey to jail for thirty days to
persuade him to pay the military portion of his taxes, which he has been
withholding each year for the past two decades.  His month of incarceration
had quite the opposite effect.

"It was the wrong place to send me if they wanted to convince me to pay my
war taxes," Ramsey told Sojourners in an interview from the Williamson County
jail on the eve of his release.  "Here I was, in the midst of young men who
were obviously all victimised by the arms race - these were the very people
in this country who have suffered because of the arms buildup.  Nothing I've
seen in these prisons has lessened my resolve to refuse to pay war taxes."

Ramsey, a 1973 graduate of Duke Divinity School, wasn't arrested for his war
tax resistance - criminal prosecution of tax protest is quite rare.  Rather,
he was arrested during a Holy Week vigil in 1992 in the waiting room of the
IRS office in St. Louis, convicted of handing out leaflets without a permit,
and sentenced to three years probation, with the proviso that he "pay any
taxes to be owed" as a condition of the probation.

At the time of his sentencing, Ramsey said, "If they are interested in
prosecuting me for refusing to pay my taxes, they should indict me for that. 
But what they are doing is using a misdemeanour conviction to enforce
something they are not willing to go to court about."

This spring, Ramsey again publicly refused to pay his war taxes and sent a
letter to Judge Gunn informing him of that fact.  Meanwhile, Ramsey's appeal
of the conviction and sentence was turned down by the 8th Circuit Court of
Appeals, and in July, Gunn ruled him in violation of probation and sentenced
him to jail and a year of 'supervised release', with the same provision: that
he pay his taxes.

Other tax resisters have raised the concern that Ramsey's case might be a
precedent for other judges.  "Bill was arrested for something many activists
do quite often without having to spend thirty days in jail - leafletting
isn't usually considered a crime", Karen Marysdaughter, coordinator of the
National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee, told Sojourners.  "The
IRS obviously had a lot to say in what happened after his arrest.  They saw
it as a way to collect from him."

Marysdaughter called Ramsey's situation "a classic case of conscience", and
lauded his "steadfastness in the face of imprisonment for a 'crime' he had no
idea would lead to this consequence.  We haven't had this kind of activity in
the war tax resistance movement for quite a while", she said.

Ramsey, who promised to continue his tax resistance, said he wasn't sure how
the legal battle would come out - "We'll cross those bridges when we come to
them" - but said there's been a "real victory" in the process.  "The primary
thing that's been good about it is the growth of the community", Ramsey said,
"not only just around me but in people really using this experience to deepen
their own commitments, whatever they are."

"For me this is not a matter of individual courage, sort of 'me against the
government', but it's a matter of taking collective courage from the
community - and I'm just grateful to God for the real transforming gifts that
have been the fruit of it."
Jim Rice
from Between The Lines