Tax justice
Barbara Forbes writes on tax havens, tax dodging and the seeds of war
‘May we look upon our treasure, the furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try to discover whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions.’ These words of John Woolman, written in about 1770, underline that our prophetic role as a peace church extends beyond war and weaponry. For many years I had considered work on development and financial issues to be intimately linked to peace concerns, and in autumn 2012 I took my concern that tax havens and tax dodging were also ‘seeds of war’ to Central England Quaker Peace Committee. With their support, I contacted the local Christian Aid office to see how we could take it further. This developed into a project where I was able to spend time using Christian Aid resources (access to documents, reports and stories from their work around the world) to prepare a presentation on tax justice that is currently being taken round Meetings in the West Midlands.
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