Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
Should the Church Evade the Issue of Tax Avoidance?
Should the Church Evade the Issue of Tax Avoidance?
Jul 4, 2024 12:56 PM

The issue of tax avoidance is plex, notes Philip Booth. Not all avoidance is illegal or immoral—some is even encouraged by the government. So how, Booth asks, do Catholics determine what is acceptable?

Evasion involves illegally not paying tax that is due. This includes not declaring £10 received for babysitting and multi-million pound schemes by professional criminals. Evasion is wrong and it is also wrong to aid and abet somebody else in evasion, for example by paying a tradesperson cash when we know that they are not declaring the e. Even if the state does some immoral things with our money, we cannot choose whether we pay tax that is legally due. If we did, the state could not provide those things that are necessary for mon good.

Avoidance involves taking action within the law to pay less tax. This can include saving in a pension fund or giving to charity. The government often deliberately provides these avoidance mechanisms as part of a conscious policy and it would be wholly unreasonable to suggest that it was immoral to use them. The es when individuals use quirks in Britain’s 11,000 page tax code – the longest in the world – to try to reduce their tax bill dramatically. That is precisely what has happened in recent high-profile cases such as that of edian Jimmy Carr. Is this more aggressive avoidance immoral?

Read more . . .

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
An Election Day prayer
Today is Election Day in the United States, and here’s a fitting prayer from the Book of Common Prayer: Almighty God, who hast created us in thine own image: Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice in munities and among the nations, to the glory of thy holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord,...
A Prayer for Governing Authorities
Following up on a prayer offered earlier today, in the spirit of our mandate to “pray continually,” I pass along the following from the NIV Stewardship Study Bible’s Exploring Stewardship feature, “Governing Authorities–Stewards of Public Life” on p. 1482 (Romans 13:1-4): ‎Lord God, ruler of all, I thank you for instituting authority and government, and I pray that good will be done and evil contained. I thank you for my country and praise you for the times when order is...
Oslington, Economics, and the Social Encyclicals
Dr. Paul Oslington, professor of economics at Australian Catholic University, has a piece up today that examines the scope of social encyclicals, beginning with Rerum Novarum in 1891 and focusing especially on the similarities and differences between John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus and Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate. Comparing this tradition with that of ecclesiastical statements from other church traditions, Oslington judges (and I think quite rightly), “On the whole, statements of the Roman Catholic Church since the landmark papal...
What Would Röpke Do?
As America and Europe continue to wrestle with the question of how best to address their respective economic crises, many are looking back to the lessons of history and how they might be applicable to today. Scholars, public intellectuals, and policy analysts are paying particular attention to the economic debates of the 1930s, during which much intellectual wrestling — not all of it pretty — occurred over the causes of the Great Depression and how to best alleviate its destructive...
Three Questions for Putting Politics in its Place
Last week Ray Nothstine and I hosted an Acton on Tap focused on the topic, “Putting Politics in its Place.” For those not able to join us at Derby Station here in Grand Rapids, I’m passing along this essay based on ments. You can find ments here. — — — — — — “Three Questions for Putting Politics in its Place” In my attempt to articulate a way to put politics in its proper place I want to pursue three...
Russian students get a new, shorter Gulag Archipelago. What about Americans?
Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, banned in the Soviet Union until 1989, has been published in a new shorter, Russian-language edition aimed at schools. The book was included in the list pulsory books in Russian schools only last year, according to a report in RIA Novosti. The widow of Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn presented on Thursday an abridged edition of The Gulag Archipelago that publishers hope will eventually be read by every Russian student. “It is necessary that people know...
The Audacity of Austerity
The title of this post borrows from a phrase I employ in the conclusion of tomorrow’s Acton Commentary on the prospects for austerity in America after today’s mid-term elections. (I can’t claim to have coined the term, since about 4,270 other instances of the phrase show up in a Google search, but I like it nonetheless.) Today I’ll simply highlight a few of the relevant stories that I’ve noted on this theme over recent weeks and months. pared to “chemotherapy”...
Vote Today
“Elections belong to the people. It is their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” — Abraham Lincoln (HT: PBS) ...
Acton Alumni: Changing the World
Over the last 20 years, Acton Institute has worked to discover, cultivate, and encourage current and future business leaders and cultural influencers. Last week’s 20th Anniversary Dinner gave testimony to two decades of great effort. It is often easy to recognize current leaders like Kate O’Beirne (MC for the evening) and Richard M. DeVos (recipient of the 2010 Faith and Freedom award) but the future leaders are often less obvious to the untrained eye. However, it was clear that the...
Audio: Acton People On The Air
Three tasty morsels of mentary goodness for you today: Last week Jordan Ballor joined Paul Edwards to discuss the recently concluded Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization and the broader ecumenical movement. They talked about the relationship between “mainline” and “evangelical” ecumenical groups and the role of these groups in articulating the public and social witness of Christians all over the world. Also be sure to check out his new book, Ecumenical Babel: Confusing Economic Ideology and the Church’s Social...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2024 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved