Page 8 RAIN January/February 1985 reasons or just to delay the IRS, you pay a $500 fine. It - costs you 15 % ($75) even to have your appeal heard, for which you have 30 days to prepare. The penalty specifically has no relationship to whether you paid your taxes in full or not, only that you took a "frivolous" position apparent on the face of the return. This would almost, if not always, apply only to religious or politicial dissidents. Most other cases, such as padding deductions or understating income, wbuld not be apparent on the face of the return, but only after an audit. There a_re penalties and procedures already in place for underpayment or failing t<;> file; what Sec. 6702 dqes is to radicalize war tax resisters who choose to . make statements by their return in a non-criminal way. Our case is currently being argued in federal district court on both constitutional and statutory grounds. All administrative appeals were exhausted to no avail, so legal action against the IRS to recover the penalty and argue against the standards for its application was the only recourse. Of course, we are spending many times the penalty on this effort. We contend that Sec. 6702 by its _very nature penalizes free speech, our freedom of religion, and our rfght to petition our government for redress of grievances-all First Amendment guarantees. A number of cases are now working their way through the federal court system challenging the application of Sec. 6702. In March of this year, one case prevailed (Jenney v. U.S.) in Northern California that has impor- , tant lessons for future action. The Jenneys claimed a large miscellaneous "conscience deduction" on Schedule A that reduced their total tax due by 44%. The judge ruled that they did not file a "frivolous income tax return" as penalized by the IRS because they included in their letter an analysis of how the deduction affected their return. They in essence stated what their total tax was both with and without the deduction, and acknowledged that the amount without the deduction as the "proper" calculation. The principle established in Jenney v. U.S. is that if you provide sufficient information for the IRS to judge the "substantial correctness" of your self-assessmentwhether on tl~e form on in a attached letter-Sec. 6702 does not apply. If in addition you underpaid, collection procedures of course still apply, but at least you will not have a "frivolous" penalty to pay in addition. We hope to demonstrate through our challenge in_ federal district court several statutory and constitutional errors in Sec._6702. We argue on statutory grounds that the penalty was misapplied in our case since we did provide enough information in our return and attached letter to judge its cO.rrectness. That is one benefit to,the "alternative payment" method of tax resistance: "self assessment" has already taken place (by the IRS' own definition) on the "Total Tax Due" line above this section; whereas a war tax deduction or credit affects the amount shown as due. · More important~ though, are our Constitutional challenges. We contend that Sec. 6702 by its very nature penalizes free speech, our freedom of religion, and our right to petition our government for redress of grievances-,..-all First Amendment guarantees. Due process is denied, we argue, in the requirement of prepayment in order to appeal. Lastly, we believe that the penalty is selectively enforced and that we were denied equal · protection under the law. An IRS regulation on administrative appeals specifically denies·this right in cases , where actions were taken on moral or religious grounds, which means that if we had filed our "frivolous" return from motives of greed we would have had many appeal options that were, in our case, denied. This has been a long, sometimes discouraging struggle, but we have received constant encouragement from our pastor, from Senator Mark Hatfield, and from tax resistance support groups in Portland and across the nation. We hope that our actions will contribute to the passage of a law (such as the World Peace Tax Fund) that would allow conscientious objectors who ethically cannot participate in destroying life not to be forced to ·pay others to do it for them. Our greatest hope, however, is that our stand on war taxes might bring our nation even an inch closer to halting and.reversing the madness of the nuclear arms race. q D Ann and Bruce Borquist were on the staff of RAIN in 19821983. Note: Just before we went to press we received the following notice in the mail. "The War Tax Resistance National Ad Campc,zign is collecting signatures for placing in newsprint media in 1985. For sign-up sheets or information on war tax . resistance/redirection and life-sharing funds contact: War Tax Resistance National Ad Campaign, 402 South Glendale, Ann ·Arbor; MI 48103." ·
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