Seeking tax justice
In this guest post, Dr Justin Thacker asks why nosotros are and so reticent about tackling issues of structural economic justice and highlights i way we could exercise and so on Sunday half dozenthursday June – Revenue enhancement Justice Sunday
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords…who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the foreigners, providing them with food and clothing. (Deut ten:17,xviii)
In these words from Deuteronomy, the 2 sides to our moral responsibilities to the economically vulnerable are highlighted. On the one hand, we are called to provide those who are destitute with 'food and clothing'. At the same fourth dimension though, we are also required to implement God'southward missional concern for 'justice'. While I think nosotros have been relatively practiced in responding to the kickoff of these aspects, we have, I would suggest, been woefully inadequate at addressing the 2nd. Melba Maggay, a Filipino theologian perchance sum this up most finer when she says:
Evangelicals are unfortunately stuck in merely providing discrete services to the poor, without addressing the larger context of why people are poor. There is a reluctance to engage in advocacy, to create a public voice and insert the cause of the poor into political space.
There are of course many reasons for such reluctance including the sacred-secular divide, fearfulness of liberal and liberation theologies, an under-realized eschatology, fear of losing our privilege (or from an NGO'due south point of view, income), an individualistic gospel and lack of a fully worked out theology of advocacy, and finally an clan with communism (for a discussion of these meet Offut et al, Advocating for Justice). This concluding connexion is neatly summed upwardly in Dom Hélder Câmara reported statement:
When I give nutrient to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.
However, equally I want to argue none of these reasons should stop us from engaging in activeness which addresses the root causes of textile poverty. Not the to the lowest degree of the reasons for this is that it is a thoroughly biblical business organisation.
Throughout the One-time Testament, repeated reference is made to the compassion we should show towards the widow, the orphan, the stranger/foreigner and the poor. These categories occur in combination throughout (Exodus 22:22; Deuteronomy 10:18; 24:17; Job 24:3; Psalm 94:6; Isaiah ane:17; Jeremiah 7:6 and so on). In a chapter I am writing for a volume, I analysed every one of the OT references where at to the lowest degree two of these categories appear together. In that assay, I examined the relevant scripture equally to whether its injunction was that nosotros directly help the relevant groups—for instance by providing food or shelter—or whether nosotros should seek justice for the relevant groups by upholding their rights, pleading their crusade and so on. I accept classified the first of these responses equally that of 'clemency', and the second of these responses every bit that of 'justice', and the summary of what I found is that in 30% of the occurrences, the accent was on charity, and in lxx% the emphasis was on justice. To be clear, when I refer to 'clemency' and 'justice', I am not referring to whether the words hesed (loosely, charity) or mishpat / tsedeq (loosely, justice) appeared; I am referring to whether the concepts in terms of direct provision of support or advocating for their cause was the primary concern. Some examples of 'justice' are reproduced below:
Ah, yous who brand iniquitous decrees, who write oppressive statutes, to turn bated the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may exist your spoil, and that you lot may make the orphans your prey! (Isaiah ten:1,ii)
Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. (Isaiah 10:2)
The sense nosotros become in these verses (and others) is that while God does want us to answer to the state of affairs of those who are economically vulnerable by providing direct support in terms of food, habiliment and shelter, information technology is even more the case that we must not exploit them, that we must treat them fairly, that we must defend their crusade. In brusk, we must advocate for structural justice aslope our works of mercy.
Tax Justice Sun
A similar argument to this could be fabricated in respect of the New Testament, and theologically I take prepare out numerous arguments for why structural justice matters in my Global Poverty volume. However, I now want to plough to simply one issue that demonstrates the kind of advocacy for justice that I am referring to—namely, taxation justice.
We are all rightly concerned about the crushing levels of poverty experienced past the majority of people in the earth. In Africa, it remains the case that around a third of children suffer from chronic malnutrition, that every minute two of them die from malaria, and that over 300 million people in that continent lack access to clean drinking water. What makes these kind of statistics even more than condemning for those of u.s.a. who have access to textile wealth is the obscene inequalities in our world. Just 22 men concord the aforementioned wealth equally all the women in Africa, and while inequality has, of form, always existed, it has not existed on this kind of scale for a very long fourth dimension. In short, the world easily has enough resources for everyone to thrive if only it was shared more justly.
This brings us to the issue of revenue enhancement justice for i of the reasons why sub-saharan Africa is so poor is merely that we—as in the Westward—steal its wealth. We do this via debt servicing where many African countries continue to spend more on their debts than they exercise on their own health or education services—but I desire to focus on taxation injustice.
It is estimated that revenue enhancement dodging by large multinationals costs the global due south in total approximately $200 billion a yr, and sub-saharan Africa effectually $100 billion each yr. This is far more the continent receives in official aid each year. The important bespeak to remember well-nigh this revenue enhancement abuse is that this is money that is owed to the continent. In a recent report I wrote, I detailed one such example relating to Zambian copper mines where after many years of fighting the Zambian government has finally won a court battle to compensate some of those lost tax revenues. In that specific case, the money they were owed in Republic of zambia would have enabled them to double their spending on health or education if they had received information technology.
To put this more bluntly, coin that should exist paying a teacher or nurse'south salary in Africa is in fact helping fund the lavish lifestyle of some multi-millionaire in a taxation haven. Tax Justice is about trying to right that wrong.
Sun vith June has been designated Taxation Justice Sunday and if you are able we would love you to share a brusk video during your service that highlights this issue. Y'all can download it here.
Information technology uses data from a recent United nations report to demonstrate the difference that a fairer global revenue enhancement authorities could brand. That fairer system is within our grasp. The OECD is currently negotiating how to reform the global tax rules. The US president has set out ane style forward. At the moment, the current proposals are not peculiarly fair to lower income countries but there exist ready made proposals for how they could exist, and nosotros believe that public pressure on our own government could encourage them to seek a more than just solution.
The history of evangelicals and economic justice is 1 of which we tin be rightly proud. Evangelicals were at the forefront of campaigns to finish slavery, reform factories, end child labour, eradicate slum dwellings and introduce public health and didactics, but well-nigh of these initiatives were over a hundred years ago. We seem to have lost a bit of our mettle in this regard and tax justice could exist the result where we rediscover this calling.
PS The Revenue enhancement Justice Sun video can be shared at whatsoever time, not just on Dominicus vithursday June. For more than resources for Tax Justice Sun see hither.
Dr Justin Thacker is the national coordinator of Church Action for Taxation Justice. He was formerly the bookish dean and lecturer in public theology at Cliff College and continues to lecture on a freelance part-time basis at a number of theological colleges. His well-nigh recent book is Global Poverty: A Theological Guide (SCM Press)
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