From the Revd David Haslam
Sir, - Dr N. P. Hudd (Letters, 31
October) advances an arcane argument about the morality of tax,
in suggesting that corporations have no actual physical existence.
Does this, then, apply to all human groups or communities, where
people work together on a common purpose or enterprise? If so,
presumably churches have no existence either.
He suggests that he finds nothing in the teachings of Jesus
which relates to any morality in the way in which our economic
system is constructed. I would have thought that Jesus's
announcement at the beginning of his ministry in Luke 4, where he
quotes Isaiah as saying that he has come to announce good news to
the poor, release for prisoners, sight for the blind, and the year
of the Lord's favour - i.e. the Jubilee - suggests a very clear and
specific moral teaching.
It is based on justice, and justice requires that those who have
gained wealth from the labour of others or the produce of the earth
(the only ultimate sources of wealth) provide a fair distribution
of that wealth to the wider community. On top of that, as the US
theologian Ched Myers says, "Jubilee consciousness defined Jesus'
call to discipleship, lay at the heart of his teaching and stood at
the centre of his conflict with the Judean public order."
There is moral and theological justification for the campaign
for tax justice in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New
Testament. If people wish to know more, the Methodist Tax Justice
Network has published a small booklet, The Bible and Tax.
But do also read Christian Aid's report Tax for the Common
Good, as well as their FTSEecrecy: The culture of
concealment throughout the FTSE, which recounts how these
entities to whom Dr Judd thinks morality may not apply use tax
"havens" to create a culture in which the rich get ever richer and
the poor receive no good news whatever.
Churches as human communities do exist, we have moral and
theological guidance in our scriptures, and it is way past time we
vigorously addressed the transnational companies in which we invest
on the subject of the morality of their ubiquitous tax-dodging.
DAVID HASLAM
Convener, Methodist Tax Justice Network
59 Burford Road
Evesham WR11 3AG
From Mr Donald Wetherick
Sir, - Dr Hudd's argument that there is no moral dimension to
how corporate bodies spend post-tax profits or manage their affairs
to minimise tax cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.
His reasoning is circular: to establish that corporations do not
have the same moral obligations as individuals, he argues that a
corporation "has no actual physical existence [but] exists only in
the individuals who constitute it". Far from proving his point,
this invites the question: do individuals bear moral responsibility
for the corporate decisions and actions they make as
representatives of a company? Many would say that they do.
To be sure, a person's responsibilities as a corporate
representative are different from those that he or she has as an
individual, but are no less subject to moral scrutiny. The vital
discussion about what is right rather than merely legal, between
the letter and the spirit, cannot be not so easily
circumvented.
Dr Hudd is more cogent when he argues that corporate profits
should not be taxed at all, though I disagree with his conclusion.
Corporate profits are different from personal income, but the
difference is not clearly related to taxation, and may even favour
taxing profits. A company does not need profit in the same way as a
worker needs an income, which is why we have personal tax
allowances but not corporate ones. And, while modest profits are
necessary for stability and growth, excessive corporate profits,
like excessive personal incomes, are arguably an unreasonable drain
on the economy. Taxation discourages excessive profits, and ensures
that at least part of the profit is returned to the shared common
good.
Finally, to "comply with the spirit of a law" can often involve
going significantly beyond "doing just what it says". Much of
Jesus's teaching can be applied to this issue.
DONALD WETHERICK
20 Ellesmere Road London E3 5QX