By Joanna Lawrence Shenk [Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared online at Anabaptist World on August 12, 2026. Used with permission.] This year my spouse and I practiced war tax resistance and redirection for the first time. We made this choice in large part due to the support from our congregation, First Mennonite Church of… Continue reading
The IRS was already struggling with a deficit in staff and funds before the pandemic, but the pandemic accentuated these problems. They slowly recovered with extra funding and staffing during the Biden administration… only to suffer devastating cuts to staff and funding shortly after Trump took office for the second time. The remaining IRS staff… Continue reading
For a limited time if you donate $100 or more, NWTRCC will send you the War Tax Resister’s Guidebook written by Ruth Benn and Ed Hedemann. The newest edition of the guidebook, published by the War Resisters League, has updated information on changes in IRS policies over the decades. The comprehensive Guidebook addresses many questions… Continue reading
NWTRCC’s May 2026 conference on Zoom attracted about 100 participants. Friday evening featured two half-hour sessions where participants could socialize in small groups based on themes offered during registration. We then separated into breakout rooms with themes suggested by participants during registration. One session was a bit more formalized and featured Socialist Washington State congressional… Continue reading
Ironically, it is often people who have served in the military and have experienced firsthand the banality and brutality of mindless obedience who come to question and then reject external authority over their own internal ethical decisions. (“Brian Willson and the Problem of Obedience” by Dana Visalli) Heading into the Memorial Day weekend it seems… Continue reading
By Betty Winkler I received a big surprise in early July of this year. A former professor of mine who followed my careers and with whom I maintained contact for fifty years, left me a modest “Inherited IRA” as one of several beneficiaries. She passed on suddenly, at age eighty-nine. I am honored by this… Continue reading
The recent NWTRCC Outreach meeting began with talking about peaches and how sweet they were this year in some parts of the country. Cathy Deppe was the first to arrive. When asked why she looked so aglow, she responded that it was because she got to meet with all of us on that day…. Continue reading
Activism against nuclear weapons got me my second arrest and pushed me further into war tax resistance. It was the late 70s into the 80s, the time of Reagan’s military build-up, nuclear threats, and No Nukes: The MUSE Concerts For a Non-Nuclear Future to inspire activism.* Over the years artists of all genres have used… Continue reading
By Tim Godshall When I first learned of WTR in my teenage years, I was smitten. Growing up in the Mennonite church, in which pacifism is a key part of church doctrine, I learned about our history of conscientious objectors who refused to fight in previous wars. Since the U.S. military draft ended a few… Continue reading
By Karl Meyer I see two alternative visions that I call War Tax Protest and Resistance and War Tax Refusal. I distinguish these two basic approaches by an analogy with the behavior of electrical energy. Copper is a material that allows, but resists, the passage of electric currents. The process of resistance generates heat and… Continue reading
In a recent Boston Globe column (“Resisting Trump: The Revival of Tax Protest,” April 10), Alex Beam points to a time-honored way of resisting violence and war: refusing to pay for it. He highlights the activism of the Pioneer Valley in western Massachusetts, and central to that activism were Juanita and Wally Nelson, two peace… Continue reading
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” One of the greatest opening lines. Are we there, 41 years later? In real life, 1984 was a year during Reagan’s presidency, and a lot of us thought we might be headed into the book’s vision of dystopia at that time. Or… Continue reading