Tax cut resistance?
By | May 27, 2008
Last week after preparing the press release on the Budget, I had a thought.
The budget obviously gave rise to tax cuts. But it did little to assist those who live at the margins of our society, and for example, don’t pay tax.
The focus upon getting people into work is a one sided view of reality which needs challenging and balancing. It fails many people.
What if we launched a campaign with other agencies which functioned a little like ‘tax resistance’ (those who resist government militarism by withholding the portion of their tax which would be spent on military activity, for instance). This would be “tax refund resistance”.
The campaign would encourage people to put a portion of their weekly tax reduction to use to assist directly with work for the ‘least of these’. They could do that through donating it to one of a number of constituent agencies and organisations which were part of the campaign, or direct to particular projects. We could run it through a website – either this one or another.
In a sense, it doesn’t much matter who or what is supported, so long as it’s able to make a real difference and allow people to respond positively to a viable alternative to them feeling as though they have to take a tax cut because the government is giving it to them.
I realise it’s fraught. People are more inclined to take the tax relief, especially in a context where prices are rising and so on. But perhaps that’s because they cannot imagine an alternative. I think this offers them that kind of alternative.
Tax cuts aren’t going to save people, not even governments. Nor are they going to reduce prices. The economy is radically changing, and the politicians on most sides of the house are grossly negligent in their economic visions.
As an act of resistance, this isn’t a bad place to stand. We talk a lot about ‘the government should have done this or that’ – but perhaps it’s time we took back power for ourselves and did what we know is right despite those in power. This would be a platform for combined counter-cultural action.
So, that’s the big picture. Is it something you want to get behind and be involved in? Is it something you would contribute to?
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Comments
Ana
May 27th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Mmm, this is a really interesting idea. What would the focus of the money given be? It’s funny that we often are more aware of poverty and injustice overseas than in our own backyards. Not that the huge problems of poverty and injustice abroad don’t matter, but perhaps giving a hand up to people struggling in our own context makes the problem uncomfortably close and challenges us to look at some of our own attitudes and wealth. And we really like to just think “It’s the government’s responsibility – I pay them taxes, how they spend them is something I have very little power over anyway”.
I don’t really need my tax cut and it would be great to see it go instead to fostering the kind of society we really want to see. When I think about it, any unhappiness I have is usually rooted not in any of my own problems, but in the inequality and injustice we see around us in our supposedly free and wealthy nation.
So I’d be up for it!
Simon
May 31st, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Many of us would like to be able to “buy” better social support for the least well off, and better education and health for all, through paying more taxes. But it doesn’t seem to work that way. So, it really is up to us. Isn’t that part of what the church is for?