A tax protester, not a tax denier...

[Demosthenes]

...who acted on his principles, not weasel-word semantics.

obituaries
Quaker physician spent time in jail for tax protest
Former Denverite Arthur Evans was known as a "lovely, caring man" who held firm to his views.

By Virginia Culver
The Denver Post

Posted: 03/24/2009 12:30:00 AM MDT

Arthur Evans, 89, a physician, Quaker, tax protester and follower of an India-born guru, died of cancer March 10.

Evans, who died in Santa Rosa, Calif., lived in Denver for many years. A memorial is planned at 4 p.m. April 5 at the Mountain View Friends Meeting House, 2280 S. Columbine St.

Linda Hurst of Seattle described him as a "lovely, generous, caring man."

"But he could be dogmatic about his views," said Hurst, a follower of Maharaj Ji, who formerly lived in Denver.

"He was very centered and calm, not impulsive," said Robert Griswold of Denver, a member of Mountain View.

People often went to him for personal and spiritual advice, Griswold said.

"He was a force of nature," said another Quaker friend, Dennis Barrett, an associate professor at the University of Denver. "He could be imposing and stern, but people had huge respect for him."

Evans "was above the fray," Barrett said, and was much more likely to think about spiritual things than "whether the meeting house needed repairs."

He wasn't above the fray when it came to armaments and wars. He protested, not only in marches, but also for 20 years by withholding the portion from his federal income tax that he believed went to war and weapons.

He was jailed by a U.S. District Court judge for 90 days in 1963 for failing to turn over financial records to the IRS.

After being released, he made official protests to what he considered bad treatment of inmates in the Jefferson County Jail in Golden.

He told The Denver Post later that complying with IRS rules would be a "crime against humanity."

Evans became a follower of Maharaj Ji in the early 1970s, saying he believed Maharaj Ji, who was then guru of the Divine Light Mission, was "an enlightened person" like Buddha or Jesus, said Evans' son Steve Evans of Port Townsend, Wash.

Arthur Evans was born in Philadelphia on Feb. 21, 1920, and earned his medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

He married Johanna des Plantes in 1949 and they had three children. They moved to Denver in 1955 and Evans specialized in treating patients with arthritis and rheumatism. He later gave up the practice and worked for a small salary at a clinic that treated low-income people, his son said.

After his divorce, he married Patricia Brackett and they later divorced.

Evans lived most of his life with a debilitating congenital circulatory disorder that hampered his movement and resulted in several surgeries. For many years he walked with two canes and later was in a wheelchair.

In addition to son Steve, he is survived by a daughter, Alida M. Evans of Madison, Wis., and another son, Caleb Evans of Red River, N.M.

Sometimes I think it's important to point out the differences between a TP and a TD.

[LPC]

Yep, that's a Quaker all right.

[Number Six]

Another war tax protestor. Wouldn't turn over records to the IRS because doing so would be "a crime against humanity". A crime is a "breach of one or more laws for which a governing authority may ultimately prescribe a punishment". So did this "good Quaker" believe that the law was unconstitutional, unjust, immoral? It was 1963 that law enforcement ultimately dealt with him by putting him in jail. The Cuban Missile Crisis had come and gone, there were no big wars then.

After all the arguments are made, who cares about moral imperatives and taxes? What matters is what works. The real question is whether taxation is for "social engineering", regulating society in beneficial ways, is it to catch bad men through law enforcement who usually have a lot of other authority issues? Or is it just about collecting fees for government services?

[Demosthenes]

After all the arguments are made, who cares about moral imperatives and taxes?

I care. The difference between a tax protester (taking a stand for moral reasons), a tax cheat (cheating because you don't think you'll be caught) and a tax denier (holding delusional beliefs in secret knowledge that makes you tax-free) is key to the forums here at Quatloos.

It's the delusional thinking that makes tax deniers interesting, not their arguments, their failures, or their rare successes.

[Number Six]

I believe the war-tax protestors are delusional. Their moral imperitives, in the case of taxes, are flawed, illogical, intellectually dishonest, and a waste of resources. And I believe they know it, from those I have probed on the issue. It's tragic, I was once under the same delusions. Giving pieces of paper back to the government that prints it through filing honest returns carries no ethical taint. In fact those who defy the tax code in a myriad of ways are preventing real political solutions by gumming up the works.

[LPC]

I believe the war-tax protestors are delusional. Their moral imperitives, in the case of taxes, are flawed, illogical, intellectually dishonest, and a waste of resources. And I believe they know it, from those I have probed on the issue. It's tragic, I was once under the same delusions.

I very much doubt that you were ever a war tax resister in the same way that Arthur Evans was.

(He's no relation to me, by the way.)

I am a convinced Quaker, and a member in (so far) good standing of a monthly meeting of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. And I have worked within my meeting to develop a policy with respect to war tax resisters within the meeting, so I have read and thought about the issue at some length.

I personally disagree with war tax resistance, which I believe to be unsound theology, misguided, and ineffectual. But I cannot deny the sincerity of most war tax resisters. They are not flawed, illogical, intellectually dishonest, or a waste of resources. Rather, they act out of a sincere and deeply-held revulsion to war and conflict, because they cannot consciously, conscientiously, or morally support war or armed conflict in any way.

They refuse to comply with the tax laws for the simple reason that they can see no other moral or spiritual choice.

But the very last thing that anyone can say is that they are "intellectually dishonest," because (unlike tax deniers) (a) they take pains to be sure that they do not profit from their tax resistance, giving away or setting aside the money that would otherwise be paid in taxes, and (b) they fully recognize the power and authority of the state to punish them, and they do not flinch from that punishment.

[RyanMcC]

I came across the following page which mentioned a number of court cases involving conscientious objection and tax resistance on religious grounds:

http://www.cpti.ws/resources/mfranz/content.html

They also promote the "Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act" (full text of bill linked). I was wondering if you have heard of it and what your thoughts on it were.

This site is dedicated to the bill:

http://www.peacetaxfund.org

--

Edit: You already addressed this issue on your blog, I hadn't noticed. I agree with the points you made.

[Number Six]

His argument was that complying with IRS rules would be "a crime against humanity".

The same complicity argument is made by patriots who believe that filing and signing a tax form makes the individual surety for the federal debt or for other injustices.

Thoreau made the "complicity" argument. It could be argued that the Transcendentalists and Abolitionists in general, by harboring and encouraging John Brown, were complicit with the events leading up to the Civil War. Many academics have posited this argument. I believe the complicity is on the side of those who violate the Social Contract by stating for various moral reasons they will not obey common sense laws.

The WTRs are more upfront than the patriots. Many of them file honest returns, and pay state and social security taxes but not regular federal taxes. I would like to see a special fund for conscientious objectors. I would participate if it were legal.

My own position was as follows: I saw what others were doing and arguments they were making to "come out" of the system. I walked down to the Social Security office to turn in my card and for around ten years did not file, and studied various theories of freedom from government. Eventually I saw my position as unworkable--and was convinced to change my relationship to government through what I read from David Cay Johnston, Dan Evans' Tax Protestor FAQ, Quatloos, Larry Becraft, Dan Pilla, Jr., the indictments, etc. of tax protestors, as well as practical reality.