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Caroline F. Urie

Released
Full name:Caroline Urie
Gender:Female
Race:White
Era:1950s
State:Ohio
Support
Anti-War
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Biography

Caroline F. Urie was an elderly Quaker who for years refused to pay the war portion of her federal income tax. She faced IRS enforcement over her war-tax resistance.

Caroline Foulke Urie, the widow of a Navy medical officer, spent years as a Quaker relief worker in Europe and was once expelled from Italy by the Mussolini government for anti-fascist statements. A founding member of the Peacemakers tax-refusal committee in 1948, she withheld 32.3 percent of her income tax that year — the military share — telling President Truman in an open letter that “the atomic bomb has reduced to a final criminal absurdity the whole war system,” and declaring herself ready to go to jail rather than pay for war.

Case

Charges: War-tax resistance.
Sentence: IRS enforcement against her. Charges as recorded: War-tax resistance — refusing to pay the war portion of her federal income tax.
Convicted: Civil war-tax resistance.