| Tax resistance |  | | Central topics A tax resister resists or refuses payment of a tax because of opposition to the institution collecting the tax, or to some of that institution’s policies. ...
Conscientious objection to military taxation
Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act
Tax resistance
Category:Tax resisters
The Cold War and the Income Tax: A Protest
A tax resister resists or refuses payment of a tax because of opposition to the institution collecting the tax, or to some of that institution’s policies. ...
Organizations
National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund
National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee
Northern California War Tax Resistance
Peacemakers
The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC - pronounced newt-rick) is an American activist group that promotes tax resistance as a way to protest against and/or disassociate from war and militarism. ...
Peace is generally defined as a state of quiet or tranquillity, as an absence of disturbance or agitation (Latin derivation Pax = Absentia Belli). ...
Related topics
Beit Sahour
Champaran and Kheda Satyagraha
Christian anarchism
Civil disobedience
Civil Disobedience (Thoreau)
Conscientious objection
Direct action
Divestment
Economic secession
Nonviolent resistance
Peace churches
Religious Society of Friends
Salt Satyagraha
Tax avoidance and tax evasion
Tax protesters
Underground economy
Beit Sahour is a town in the West Bank, situated to the east of Bethlehem. ...
The first Satyagraha revolutions inspired by Mahatma Gandhi in the Indian Independence Movement occurred in Kheda district of Gujarat and the Champaran district of Bihar between the years of 1918 and 1919. ...
Christian anarchism (also known as Christian libertarianism) is the belief that the only source of authority to which Christians are ultimately answerable is God, embodied in the teachings of Jesus. ...
It has been suggested that Civil and social disobedience be merged into this article or section. ...
Henry David Thoreau On the Duty of Civil Disobedience is an essay by noted philosopher Henry David Thoreau. ...
A conscientious objector is an individual whose personal beliefs are incompatible with military service, perhaps with any role in the armed forces or just with a particular war. ...
Direct action is a method and a theory of stopping objectionable practices or creating more favorable conditions using immediately available means. ...
In finance and economics, divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset, for either financial or social goals. ...
Economic secession is a term that John T. Kennedy introduced to refer to a libertarian/anarchist activist technique. ...
Nonviolent resistance (or nonviolent action) comprises the practice of applying power to achieve socio-political goals through symbolic protests, economic or political noncooperation, civil disobedience and other methods, without the use of physical violence. ...
Peace churches are Christian churches, groups or communities advocating pacifism. ...
The Religious Society of Friends (commonly known as Quakers or Friends) was founded in England in the 17th century by people who were dissatisfied with the existing denominations and sects of Christianity. ...
Scenes on the eve of the Salt Satyagraha, Gandhis famous 240 mile march on foot to the sea at Dandi. ...
This article discusses tax avoidance, tax evasion, tax mitigation, tax fraud, tax resistance and tax protest. ...
In United States tax law enforcement, a tax protester (or tax protestor) is an individual who resists or refuses payment of a tax for which the government has determined that person is liable. ...
The underground economy consists of all trade that occurs without detection by government so that commerce and income are not taxed. ...
| | Conscientious objection to military taxation (COMT) is a legal theory that attempts to extend the concessions to conscientious objectors that many governments allow in the case of conscription to the realm of taxation — thereby allowing conscientious objectors to insist that their tax payments not be spent on the military. A conscientious objector is an individual whose personal beliefs are incompatible with military service, or sometimes with any role in the armed forces. ...
Some tax resisters advocate legal recognition of a right to COMT, while others conscientiously resist taxes without concern for whether their stand has legal approval.
The theory behind conscientious objection to military taxation COMT is thought by its proponents to be a logical extension to conscientious objection to military service. A person with a religious or ethical scruple against taking part in killing people during war is likely to feel no less scruple about paying somebody else to do the killing or about purchasing the mechanism of killing. If a government can respect the right of a person not to participate directly in making war, can it also respect the right of the person to avoid this indirect participation?
Proponents of COMT and of "Peace Tax Fund"-style legislation say that it will have numerous benefits that go beyond accomodating individual conscientious objectors, for instance:[1]
- It will free people who currently are unwilling by reason of conscience to pay taxes or to engage in taxed activities to go ahead and pay taxes without fear of violating their consciences.
- It will promote freedom of religion and freedom of conscience and serve to educate people about their choices concerning warfare. As one advocate put it, "it will extend the legal recognition due to the absolute value of human life, and the freedom of the individual conscience to acknowledge it."[2]
- It will increase government funding by encouraging tax resisters to become tax payers.
- It will encourage other anti-militaristic legislation and reevaluation of bloated military spending.
A military budget of an entity, most often a nation or a state is the budget and financial resources dedicated to raising and maintaining armed forces for that entity. ...
Terminology In tax circles, to designate a tax payment or restrict a tax payment for a particular purpose is called "hypothecation." Hypothecation is a pledge of property as security for a debt without transfer of possession. ...
Legislative proposals In the 1960s, a Quaker group in the United States drafted a prototype law that would allow conscientious objectors to pay their taxes to UNICEF instead of to the U.S. Treasury.[3] The Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, or Friends, is a religious community founded in England in the 17th century. ...
UNICEF logo The United Nations International Childrens Emergency Fund (UNICEF) was established by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946. ...
In the United States, legislation establishing a "Peace Tax Fund" has been proposed in Congress since 1972.[4] The current proposal is called the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act. Congress in Joint Session. ...
1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1972 calendar). ...
Similar legislation is being considered in many other countries, and an international campaign to encourage such laws began in 1975 but currently no country formally recognizes a legal right for a taxpayer to direct his or her taxes for only non-military purposes. 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ...
Objections There are a number of common objections to COMT. Some people oppose legal recognition of conscientious objection even for military service and conscription, arguing that all citizens are obligated to serve in the military when the country requires it, and that nobody should be able to expect special treatment on conscientious grounds. This argument applies just as well or just as poorly against COMT.
Others argue that COMT would be too difficult to implement.
Another agument is that if COMT is allowed, people with other conscientious objections to government programs will also want their objections to be legally respected — for instance, objections to abortion, capital punishment, compulsory public education, and so forth. The end of this slippery-slope will be an anarchy in which people only pay for those government programs that they approve of. (Anarchists would respond to this with a parallel objection of their own: that to fund government at all is to fund violence, and so the only true pacifist conscientious tax objection is complete tax objection.) // Capital punishment, or the death penalty, is the governmental use of execution as punishment for a crime often called a capital offense or a capital crime. ...
Anarchists can refer to several things, among which: The movie Anarchists Supporters of the principles of anarchism The Anarchists (Les Anarchistes), a famous song from Léo Ferré A List of anarchists This is a disambiguation page—a list of articles associated with the same title. ...
Objections from conscientious tax resisters Some conscientious tax resisters have a different set of objections to COMT. They argue that the legislative proposals that have been proposed so far that would legalize COMT actually would have the paradoxical effect of encouraging more conscientious objectors to pay for more war than before.
They point out the ease with which the government can shift money from place to place in its budget, and borrow money when funds are not available. If a conscientious objector who previously was unwilling to pay taxes started to pay into a "peace tax fund," this would only mean more money for the government to spend, and the likely result of that is more money for the military. The Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund bill in the United States, for instance, would give the government more tax revenue and would not change how much or how high a percentage of this money was spent on the military.[5]
The analogy to conscientious objection is flawed, these critics say: A conscientious objector to military service does not take up arms and kill. Perhaps somebody else is drafted to do so instead, but the conscientious objector does not. A “peace tax fund” payer, on the other hand, pays just as much money as the ordinary taxpayer, but just cherishes the illusion that her dollars were peaceful ones. It would be as if the government told conscientious objectors that they had to take up arms and shoot at the enemy just like everybody else, but that they didn’t have to take credit for their kills if they didn’t want to.
Another objection is that to make COMT legal is to make it no longer a protest against or a confrontation with evil, but instead a compromise with it. One Christian tax resister wrote that "worldly priorities must be objected to in word and deed. If the objecting deeds are done legally, they register little if any protest. If consciously illegal, they register an unequivocal refusal to agree with the world's values. The latter gets the attention of the state, the former does not."[6]
Notes - ↑ Gross, David The Picket Line 25 August 2004[1]
- ↑ Heywood, Simon, quoted in The Picket Line 8 September 2004[2]
- ↑ Kaufman, Donald D. The Tax Dilemma: Praying for peace, paying for war Herald Press, 1978, p. 51
- ↑ War Tax Resistance War Resisters League (2003) p.125
- ↑ Gross, David The Picket Line 27 April 2005[3]
- ↑ Schenk, Phil "World Peace Tax Fund" The Mennonite 13 December 1977, p. 735
See also A tax resister resists or refuses payment of a tax because of opposition to the institution collecting the tax, or to some of that institution’s policies. ...
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