Tax refusal
Tax refusal refers to a person's fundamental refusal to pay taxes to the state .
Differentiation from tax evasion
Tax refusal is not legally differentiated from tax evasion and is therefore punishable as such.
In contrast to ordinary tax evaders, tax evaders act ostensibly unselfishly and for reasons of conscience. They state that they reject certain state measures (e.g. war operations ), the political system or the state itself as immoral and therefore do not want to be compelled to provide financial support for this system or for actions that are considered immoral.
Tax refusal usually does not take place in secret. The tax refuser even seeks contact with the media and the public in order to explain his own motives and to encourage other people to also refuse to pay taxes for reasons of conscience. Tax denial can thus be defined as a form of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience .
Situation in Germany
Legal position
A conscientious objection to tax is not permitted in Germany. Tax denial lawsuits were dismissed because of "constitutional barriers". The Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) ruled in 1992: "By strictly separating tax collection and budgetary use decisions, the state gains legal distance and independence from the taxpayer who finances it and is therefore equally responsible to all citizens [...]." Confirmed in the rejection of a constitutional complaint the BVerfG made its decision again in 2003. In literature and case law, the right to refuse taxes is almost always rejected on the grounds that the tax refuser wants to take action on the use of taxes, or it is viewed as a violation of the prohibition of tax appropriation that applies to tax use , also called the principle of non-affectation .
The Federal Constitutional Court further stated: “On the basis of this separation between state tax financing and budgetary use decision, it is neither legally relevant nor clear for the individual taxpayer into which household his income tax payments ... flow and which specific purpose they serve within a certain household. The duty to pay taxes therefore does not affect the scope of protection of the fundamental right to freedom of conscience ( Article 4 (1) GG ).
If a taxpayer objects to the use of tax revenues to finance "armed conflicts as a means of overcoming interstate conflicts", this goal can only be achieved on the basis of a legal regulation "according to which the taxpayer - if necessary under certain conditions - is allowed to pay the tax amount owed by him into a peace fund that has yet to be created, the proceeds of which may only be used for certain purposes - to be specified in the relevant law. However, there is currently no such regulation that partially restricts Parliament's budget rights. ”In 2002, a tax court ruled in the case of a tax refuser. In rejecting her complaint, however, the court showed understanding for the plaintiff's position: “One may regret this - like the plaintiff. In any case, the introduction of such a special fund is not constitutionally required. "
Judgment criticism
The green legal politician and judge Paul Tiedemann attracted attention in 1991 with his thesis that the constitutionally enshrined freedom of conscience already includes de lege lata (under current law) the right to refuse tax on grounds of conscience. Above all, he referred to the fact that freedom of conscience in the Basic Law cannot be restricted by another law.
The legal scholar Harald Maihold considers it a "trick in the prevailing argumentation" that the legal attribution rule of parliamentary sovereignty becomes the content of conscience. He sees a subsumption error in the discussion of barriers, since non-restrictive fundamental rights should not be impaired by subordinate articles of the Basic Law either, if the legislature does not have to weigh between different fundamental rights in order to ensure both to the greatest possible extent.
As an alternative to tax refusal, so-called “peace funds” were discussed in order to be able to book taxes for a specific purpose. The moral theologian Eberhard Schockenhoff writes: “Where the state has alternatives, it must provide them.” The state's obligation to provide alternatives that are neutral in conscience is affirmed not only by moral theologians but also by some constitutional lawyers. Prominent supporters are Erhard Eppler , the lawyer Herta Däubler-Gmelin and the journalist Franz Alt .
Although the courts unanimously rejected all related complaints and thus decided that the citizen must not refuse the state to pay taxes on the basis of his personal conscience, there have been repeated attempts to enforce tax refusal by legal means.
Some activists asserted in court that because of the constitutional freedom of conscience, they did not want to finance military expenditure by paying taxes. In making this ethical claim , you are based, among other things, on a formulation by the Federal Constitutional Court from 1960 in connection with conscientious objection . The court defines: “ Decision of conscience” within the meaning of Article 4, Paragraph 3 of the Basic Law, any serious moral decision, that is, based on the categories of “good” and “bad”, which the individual in a certain situation is binding on himself and absolutely obligatory experiences inwardly, so that he could not act against them without serious conscience ”. The courts did not follow this line of argument and dismissed the claims.
Historical examples
History examples of tax denial and opposition to tax collection and collection:
- Tax strike in the Netherlands against the Spanish tax collection. It ended in 1581 under the leadership of Prince William of Nassau-Orange with the declaration of independence for the northern Netherlands.
- Tax strikes and tax boycotts by the American colonists against British taxes (1764 to 1776), especially against the stamp tax and the tea tax ( Boston Tea Party ), expanded into the freedom movement and led in 1776 to the declaration of independence , with the result of the American colonies breaking away from the motherland and the creation of the United States.
- The French Revolution began when on June 17, 1789, the extended third estate called a general tax strike as a protest against the nobility and clergy.
- On November 8, 1848, Friedrich Wilhelm IV disempowered the Prussian National Assembly and ordered its deportation from Berlin to Brandenburg an der Havel . When the deputies decided on a general tax refusal, the meeting was blown up by the military.
- After the dissolution of the 1st Reich Duma by Tsar Nicholas II in 1906, some members of the Vyborg Manifesto unsuccessfully called for refusal to pay taxes and military service.
- In 1928/29, as a protest against the politics of the Weimar Republic , a tax boycott and public burning of tax bills occurred within the rural people's movement in Schleswig-Holstein .
- An essential detail of the Indian struggle for independence was Gandhi's non-violent struggle against the British salt tax ( Salt March , 1930).
- In 2003 the Venezuelan opposition tried to withdraw funds from the government with a tax strike and to force President Hugo Chávez to resign.
See also
literature
- Jakob Venedey : John Hampden and the doctrine of legal resistance . Belle-Vue at Constanz, 1844 (2nd edition, EA 1943)
- Karl Marx : Speech at the Assize Negotiation on February 8, 1849 in Cologne. [see. MEW Vol. 6, p. 240]
- Henry David Thoreau : On the Duty to Disobey the State . (EA 1849, German 1967), Etext to the English edition, ISBN 3257064608
- Wolfgang Krauss (Ed.) What belongs to the emperor? The problem with the war taxes . Agape Verlag, Weisenheim am Berg 1984, 127 pp.
- Jan-Pieter Naujok: Freedom of conscience and tax liability . Publishing house for science and culture Dr. Stein, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3936749884
Individual evidence
- ↑ BVerfG, judgment of August 26, 1992 , Az. 2 BvR 478/92, brief information.
- ↑ a b BVerfG, decision of June 2, 2003 , Az. 2 BvR 1775/02, full text.
- ↑ Finanzgericht Baden-Württemberg , judgment of February 27, 2002 , Az. 3 K 73/99, full text.
- ↑ a b c Harald Maihold: Money, Law, Conscience . (PDF; 77 kB)
- ↑ Eberhard Schockenhoff: “How certain is your conscience? An ethical orientation. ”Herder Verlag, 2003, ISBN 978-3451276965 .
- ↑ Mensch ein (PDF; 15 kB).
- ↑ BVerfG, decision of December 20, 1960, Az. 1 BvL 21/60, BVerfGE 12, 45 - Conscientious objection I; similar to BVerwGE 7, 245 f.
