Topics Ethics

Question Do I have a moral responsibility to submit accurate tax returns? The Bible says, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's" but it doesn't clarify what rightly belongs to Caesar. If Caesar is managing society for the benefit of a small elite or using tax money to invade smaller countries with lies as a pretext, surely some portion at least of my taxes does not rightly belong to him.

Accepted:
November 5, 2007

Comments

Most citizens, nearly all, disagree with some government expenditures. They think it's wrong to tax us for agricultural or opera subsidies, for drug rehabilitation, for foreign aid, for nuclear weapons, or a few thousand other things. Now we could all cheat on our taxes, each retaining from what we legally owe the proportion that corresponds to expenditures of which s/he disapproves (or disapproves on moral grounds). Or we could defer to governmental expenditure decisions reached through our democratic political process.

Once the issue is presented in this more general way, it is clear that there is moral reason to comply with majority decisions one disapproves of -- even morally disapproves of. In a democracy, if you find laws or policies morally objectionable, you ought to present your arguments to your fellow citizens and persuade them to change such laws and policies with you. To be sure, such efforts often fail. But the whole point of democracy is that we defer to majority decisions. Without such deference, there would be little point in voting in the first place.

This presumption in favor of deference becomes weaker the less democratic the relevant political system is. If it is formally democratic but so dominated by money that many citizens stand no chance of influencing decisions about policies or office holders, then the presumption of deference is weaker, at least in the case of these politically marginalized people. If some people -- women or blacks, say -- are disenfranchised, then the presumption may fail completely in their case (more clearly in the case of blacks as women may to some extent be virtually represented by their male relations). If the political system is dictatorial, then I see really no moral reason for deference on the part of the subjects -- though the Biblical dictum may still apply as a counsel of prudence.

Even when the presumption in favor of deference is at full strength, it can be overcome. Using tax money to invade a smaller country with lies as a pretext and a few 100,000 dead civilians is a case in point. A very good case can be made that, when Hitler attacked Poland in this fashion in 1939, German citizens were no longer morally required to pay the full taxes they legally owed. In fact, a good case can be made that they were no longer morally permitted to pay any taxes or give any other form of collaboration, such as enlisting in the armed forces. (Consider that, if you withhold 4% of your taxes on the ground that this is the percentage of Federal expenditure destined for Iraq, this revenue loss will in fact be spread over the entire government operation. You will have reduced your contribution to the Iraq war by a mere 4%.)

We can lastly consider the question how one may or should withhold one's taxes. One can do this sneakily, by submitting an inaccurate return. One can do it openly as an act of civil disobedience -- by filing an accurate return and then refusing to pay some or all of what one legally owes. Or one can do it openly and legally by reducing the taxes one legally owes -- for instance, by taking early retirement or by making tax-deductible charitable donations or by moving abroad. Such open, legal or illegal tax reductions have the advantage that they are not easily mistaken for selfish choices, and they also afford an opportunity to appeal to the moral conscience of one's fellow citizens. If one percent of a country's citizens stopped paying their taxes in open opposition to a grave injustice, they might well make this injustice much harder to sustain. And likewise if one percent left the country in open protest of its policies. By contrast, if one percent secretly cheat on their taxes, they just raise the level of tax evasion a bit with little political effect.