Friends join push for fair tax
‘Tax is a civic duty, a benefit, one of the ways we each play a part in creating the world we want.'
Quakers have welcomed a campaign launched by Church Action for Tax Justice to push for more fairness in taxation.
Paul Parker, recording clerk for Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), said the Fair Tax Now campaign will ‘help us all to talk about taxation as a justice issue, not just a negative thing’.
‘Tax is a civic duty, a benefit, one of the ways we each play a part in creating the world we want,’ he said.
‘We must remind people of the values we all want to see at work in the world, and help them recognise their duty to contribute. Fair taxation is right, necessary and desirable.’
The Quaker-founded campaign group Conscience: Taxes for Peace not War is also using the recent ratification of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which came into legal force on 22 January, to strengthen its case that UK taxpayers should not be forced to pay for nuclear weapons.
‘The entry into force of the Treaty provides Conscience with a new powerful argument: It provides added pressure to change the law so no-one is forced to pay through their taxes for nuclear weapons which are now illegal as well as immoral’, says the campaign group.
‘We also recognise that possession of nuclear weapons ties up resources that could be better used to tackle the problems that face the world, including the causes of war as well as the current Covid-19 pandemic and climate change.’
