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From: sappho@SRI-NIC.ARPA
Newsgroups: mod.politics
Subject: taxes
Message-ID: <12230588599.47.MCGREW@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Wed, 13-Aug-86 19:49:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: RED.12230588599.47.MCGREW
Posted: Wed Aug 13 19:49:45 1986
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More specifically, the way conscientious objection to taxes could work
would be as follows.  All taxes would be collected together.  The
government would send out with the tax forms some sort of chart of
where your taxes were going (or at least it would be available at
standard places along with the conscientious objection forms).  People
could refuse any category, and calculate the percentage of their taxes
that that would be.  Then they could enter that amount as a tax
credit.  The government could take people's word that they
conscientiously object, since it really is no judge of people's
consciences.  Alternatively, it could ask a certain randomly selected
group to justify their claim, as it now audits some returns.  That
puts the government in a position of judging people's consciences, but
it is better than the current system, where you can't object no matter
how objectionable any government expenditure is to you.  For the most
part, people would probably still pay their taxes, and the government
could make up the difference by increasing users' fees to cover some
services or by cutting back expenditures which nobody believed in.

Lynn Gazis
sappho@sri-nic
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