Moderator Gets A Ticket To Ride The "Tax Bus "
Its not easy keeping up with all the things I want to write about as Moderator but also as italker. Yesterday was an interesting day for me. I was invited to attend the Christian Aid Tax Bus which it touring round the UK highlighting the need for greater fairness in the tax system especially in relation to the tax that many corporate companies pay.
The bus was in Edinburgh and this was a chance for the Moderator along with other church leaders to support the cause. What I liked about the visit was that we were all invited to take part in a " Contextualised Bible Study" I found it to be a stimulating hour. We were invited to study together the story in the bible centred around Naboth's Vineyard.
It was especially good to meet up again with John Riches, who was leading the Bible study. John was at Trinity College Glasgow when I was a student over 30 years ago. He taught New Testament, but it was his work with the Balmore Trust that first inspired me to see the possibility of a local community making a difference in the world. John was a real support at the beginning of our work with the Vine Trust. We bought quite a lot of goods from Balmore to sell in the Branches shop in Bo'ness. So it was good to hear about his rice project and hopefully we might get involved with this in the near future. However it was John's skills at leading bible Study, that was to be our inspiration yesterday.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoHe2SjXgxI[/youtube]Our discussion centred around the use and abuse of power. How easy it is for multinational companies spread the load of their tax burden by shifting profits from one country to the next in order to pay the least tax. Governments also offer attractive packages in order to attract jobs. All this sounds good but it often means that the governments concerned end up having less money to invest in the infrastructure of their countries. i was shocked to hear that our of the top 100 companies in the UK 98 of them us tax havens to hide their profits.
Today in the news there has been talk of the problems facing farmers in developing countries where the legal system can be easily manipulated to evict farmers from land that has been held in their family for centuries. This land grabbing has been justified as helping to develop the local economies. In many ways the story of Naboth's Vineyard is a great illustration of what happened in the past still happening today. The out come of our discussion was that we all have a responsibility to pay our taxes and we should be encouraging everyone who is connected with major business in the UK to ensure that the people we work for and also the people from whom we buy goods are operating a fair tax policy in their business.
