"U.S. prosecutors sue Quaker
group
over pacifist's unpaid taxes"
by Maryclaire Dale (AP, July 23,
2003)
PHILADELPHIA -- Priscilla Adams doesn't mind paying taxes.
She just doesn't want her money going to the military.
Adams, 50, a longtime peace and justice organizer for her Quaker religion,
now
finds herself at the center of a second court battle with the Internal
Revenue
Service. She has refused to pay at least some of her federal taxes since
1974.
"They can do things like the checkoff for the presidential election
campaign; they could easily do an accommodation for a peace-tax
fund,"
Adams said Wednesday from her Willingboro, N.J., home.
The IRS, which says Adams owes more than $42,000 in back taxes, interest
and
fines, upped the ante in the ongoing dispute Tuesday when it sued her
employer
for allegedly refusing to garnish her wages. The IRS wants to lodge a 50
percent penalty _ of more than $21,000 _ against the Philadelphia Yearly
Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, a regional Quaker
organization.
"That would be a hefty price for what we believe is right," said
Gretchen Castle, who holds a leadership position with the group. "I
think
that there are other ways the government can do it that are more friendly,
more
supportive of our faith."
Adams earns about $32,000 a year for the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, a
coalition of over 100 local Quaker groups.
Under a prior arrangement, the Quakers withhold taxes from her paychecks
and
put them in an escrow account that the IRS can access. The Quakers say
they
don't want to help the IRS collect the back taxes and penalties by
garnishing
additional wages.
Nationally, an estimated 8,000 Americans avoid paying some or all of their
federal income taxes because of their political beliefs, often because
they
oppose military spending, according to the New York-based National War Tax
Resistance Coordinating Committee.
Adams is the only current employee of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting who
doesn't voluntarily pay income taxes, although a few take other actions,
such
as refusing to pay federal telephone taxes that go to the military, Castle
said.
"We are not against paying the taxes that support our life and our
living
and our communities. It's just that we need to have the option to truly
not
support the killing of people," Castle said.
Adams sued the government on religious freedom grounds in 1996, asking the
IRS
to set up a separate fund for conscientious objectors and to excuse her
accumulated tax fines and penalties on the grounds that her religious
beliefs
provided "reasonable cause" for nonpayment.
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard her appeal from U.S.
Tax
Court, rejected her arguments, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear
the
case.
"We acknowledge the sincerity of Adams's beliefs, but ... we can
easily
imagine a plethora of other sects that would also have an equally
legitimate
concern with the usage of tax dollars to fund activities antithetical to
their
religion," Judge Midge Rendell wrote in her 1999 opinion.
Gregory S. Hrebiniak, a Justice Department lawyer handling Adams' case,
referred calls to a department spokesman who did not immediately return a
telephone message Wednesday.
Peter Goldberger, who represented Adams and now represents her employer,
said
Quaker leaders hope to formulate a response to this week's lawsuit at
their
September meeting.
"They have to meet and pray and decide," said Goldberger, who
has
carved out a niche over the past 20 years representing Quakers and other
conscientious objectors in tax cases. He said he's never seen a criminal
prosecution, perhaps because of the bad publicity that might ensue.
"What we're seeing here is a fairly sharp escalation of penalties,
but
still in the realm of civil penalties," Goldberger said.
Adams, who is married and has two children at home, said she might quit
her job
if the Quakers lose the case, rather than see most of her income go to the
IRS'
general fund.
For now, she loans the amount in dispute to charitable causes she supports
such
as peace groups and refugee assistance programs. She won't demand
repayment
unless the IRS comes after her, she said.
"I don't get any benefit from the money I don't pay, except it
betters the
world, and that is a wonderful benefit," Adams said.
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