Will the Pope Declare Google Evil? 622
theodp writes "In the next few days, Pope Benedict XVI plans to issue his second encyclical, in which he is expected to denounce the use of tax havens as socially unjust and immoral in that they cheat the greater well-being of society. He is also expected to argue that the globalized economic world needs to be regulated. Prime technology companies playing the offshore 'profit laundering' game include Dell, Google, Microsoft, and Sun, who set up subsidiaries in Ireland, where the corporate tax rate is a low 12.5% and no taxes are charged on royalties (e.g. from patents)."
Re:Says the man... (Score:2, Informative)
The Vatican perspective on money is interesting. Some background on what they were willing to do to get it while advancing their agenda. The background of the current Pope fits well with this:
http://www.shoahrose.com/vatican.html [shoahrose.com]
http://www.totse.com/en/politics/the_world_beyond
sizzerb.com/images/images/pavelic_degenerate.pdf
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/Yugoslavia/views/savi
Mixing up issues and non-issues (Score:3, Informative)
On one hand we have the way in which company profits can be moved around by changing the rates charged between subsidiaries in different countries. If your research division is in a high tax country and your manufacturing in a low tax country then you can shift profits to the manufacturing division by treating the research as a cost centre. If its the other way around then you can treat the research as a profit centre and charge manufacturing for all the valuable IPR they are using. This is a known bug in international company tax, and needs dealing with.
On the other hand there is generally low taxation on individual earnings and product sales within a country. The Alternet article gets into the politics of envy here by citing highly paid executives who also pay a relatively low rate of tax. But hey, they live and work in that country, so its an entirely local issue. Its up the the voters in a democracy to decide what taxes to charge and what they ought to get for that money. For instance the UK tax rates look much higher than in the US (35% GDP as opposed to around 26% of GDP) until you factor in the extra money paid by US companies for employee health plans. At that point the UK, with its tax-funded NHS, suddenly looks like a much cheaper place to do business.
Paul.
Re:Taxing ? What is 'divine' about taxing ? (Score:4, Informative)
I suspect you're not interested in knowing, but in fact the God of the Bible has a long history of taxation.
Citizens were required to pay a flat tax of 10% of all earnings.
Citizens were also assessed additional fixed taxes as civic needs arose, and were required to turn over some numbers of livestock on a regular schedule.
These taxes went to the religious state, whose responsibility it was to provide judicial, executive, and legislative services, as well as to provide for the common needs of society, including various primitive safety nets for those who had fallen on hard times.
Further on, according to the Bible, in Christian communities this developed into an entirely socialist system, where resources were jointly held and distributed by a central authority. Failure to comply was punishable by death.
Re:And Why Is He Such An Expert? (Score:4, Informative)
Attempting to stay on topic: since you agree that they've strayed from the Bible, you can't conclude that his statements today about taxation are biblical.
Straying further off topic: Once you've "gone quite a far way" from the Bible, it's not your basis anymore; you regard something else as foundational. Also, it was the early, and truly catholic, church which collected and distributed the New Testament and developed the Creeds. Note that the canon was not dogmatized by Rome until the Council of Trent, after the Reformation.
Re:Taxing ? What is 'divine' about taxing ? (Score:3, Informative)
The crucial detail here being that it was citizens of the ancient theocratic state of Israel. It is pretty clear from the New Testament that God's people are citizens of heaven, rather than of an earthly state and that they should follow the laws of the states they reside in, so long as those laws do not force them to go against the law of God.
Nothing about a central authority distributing possessions in the New Testament. Believers voluntarily shared possessions with those in need and people like Paul would go round from time to time making voluntary collections so that those who were well off could those in need.
You're either misinformed, or have completely misunderstood Ananias and Saphira. They were killed by God for lying about the money they were giving. In fact, the amount they were giving wasn't an issue at all. If they had been honest and said "We got x talents for our field and our giving y talents to the church" rather than "We got y and are giving y," with the subtext that they were great, then everything would have been fine. There were quite a few early Christians who were well off, but were never required to surrender ownership of their possessions to the community. Called to be good stewards and loving neighbours, yes, but never forced to give things up.
Re:I don't see anything "evil" about it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This not a matter of the church (Score:5, Informative)
Um, that's kind of the point. Tax evasion means you are not rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. I'm from Maryland, and it was recently discovered that large corporations have avoided paying around 500 million USD in taxes this year. This isn't just cheating the government - it's cheating society, taking away revenue that could be used to fight the numerous problems we face.
I somehow doubt though, that the pope's admonitions will have any effect on corporate financial policies.
Re:The pope sucks. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:And Why Is He Such An Expert? (Score:5, Informative)
Of course the Pope is concerned about money.
The Roman Catholic Church has been funding schools, hospitals, charitable institutions and enterprises of every sort for 2,000 years.
In 1952 Mother Teresa opened the first Home for the Dying in space made available by the City of Calcutta. With the help of Indian officials she converted an abandoned Hindu temple into the Kalighat Home for the Dying, a free hospice for the poor. She renamed it Kalighat, the Home of the Pure Heart (Nirmal Hriday). Those brought to the home received medical attention and were afforded the opportunity to die with dignity, according to the rituals of their faith; Muslims were read the Quran, Hindus received water from the Ganges, and Catholics received the Last Rites. "A beautiful death," she said, "is for people who lived like animals to die like angels -- loved and wanted." Mother Teresa soon opened a home for those suffering from Hansen's disease, commonly known as leprosy, and called the hospice Shanti Nagar (City of Peace). The Missionaries of Charity also established several leprosy outreach clinics throughout Calcutta, providing medication, bandages and food. Mother Teresa [wikipedia.org]
Re:Taxing ? What is 'divine' about taxing ? (Score:1, Informative)
Actually, it is more like twenty three percent. There were three tithes. http://www.biblestudy.org/bibleref/tithe-in-bible
10% pa for the levites, 10% pa for festivals, and 10% every three years for the poor.
> These taxes went to the religious state...
No. 10% pa was for the levites, but not all levites could be priests, only the descendants of Aaron. The real reason the levites got 10%pa was because they got no allocation of land when the twelve tribes settled in the promised land.
>...whose responsibility it was to provide judicial, executive, and legislative services
Are you sure you're not reading the American constitution into the OT?
> Further on, according to the Bible, in Christian communities this developed into an entirely socialist system, where resources were jointly held and distributed by a central authority. Failure to comply was punishable by death.
No. Failure to comply was not punishable by death. A husband and wife were punished by death when they voluntarily sold property, voluntarily handed a proportion of the proceeds over to the Apostles, but lied to them by saying they had given the whole proceeds. AFAIK there were no socialist systems in the NT. Socialism implies compulsion. There was no compulsion. Perhaps you mean they were like communes?
Re:The pope sucks. (Score:5, Informative)
Frankly, I've never seen any passage in the Bible describing the position or, or need for a pope.
Historically disputes between Bishops were resolved by Metropolitan Bishops, a term that I believe is still used by the Orthodox Churches. These are merely Bishops of large cities which were influential, but have no position of spiritual superiority. Rome was one of these, and was the only Metropolitan Bishopric to never fall to a Heresy. (FYI see http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07256b.htm [newadvent.org] for way too much information about Heresy.) Of course Matthew 13 shows Peter being elevated above the other Apostles when it comes to running the Church (You are Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.) Remember Peter==Rock, so it is a play on words.
The result is that the Bishop of Rome is just a "first among equals" who handles disputes. Mostly the Pope is juse the permanent tie-breaker if you will, and can only override the rulings of local Bishops in very rare circumstances. There are plenty of topics where US Bishops do things that Rome doesn't like, and there is nothing that the Pope can do about it. The whole infallibility thing only deals with specific points of doctrine, and almost never applies. It is certainly less useful than popular media makes it out to be. Remember that when the church does big shifts (Council of Trent, Vatican II), it is a coming together of large parts of the Church to form consensus, not the Pope making a decree.
And yes, this mechanism of Rome being the arbiter of disputes between Bishops is not Biblical. The Church is an artifact of Mankind, and as such is imperfect. Attempts are made to keep it working well, and somethings change over time. Remember that Bishops were installed due to popular decree (democratically, if you will) until corruption ended that process about a thousand years ago. Likewise the College of Cardinals is an attempt to shield the Papacy from local Roman politics. That hasn't been an issue for several centuries, but it is still the mechanism in use. A bit vestigial, somewhat like the US Electoral College.
Re:John 8:7 (Score:5, Informative)
Or are you just upset that Uncle Sam is willing to give the church 501(c)(3) status?
In general, countries tend to not-tax non-profits for the same reason they don't tax government subsidiaries... it would be stupid. Why would you tax what is already a public service to collect revenues to provide public services? What's next, are you going to charge me income tax on the estimated value of my labor when I go volunteer with Habitat for Humanity?
If you don't like it, whatever... I used to be quite against 501(c)(3) status (for anyone), and am only marginally in favor of it now. But hypocrisy? No, that's ridiculous.
Re:Poor people are responsible: they have lots of (Score:3, Informative)
In fact that is exactly what the Pope tells them to do. They are not allowed to have safe sex, birth control is prohibited. Recently there was a secession for married couples to use condoms if one of the partners had an STD. So clearly the church expects married people to be having regular sex, yet they forbid the use of contraception. The rhythm method doesn't really work so well. I'm pretty sure oral sex is rather frowned upon by the Pope as well.
Re:The pope sucks. (Score:3, Informative)
If you are accused of crime, say murder, you and the prosecution are dependent on witnesses. If there are say four witnesses whose testimony matches quite well, saying they saw you strangle the victim, and this testimony of ordinary people is generally BELIEVED by the jury, you get punished, as the law decrees. There is no absolute PROOF you did it, but the jury believed the witnesses. In court, it is assumed that witnesses are truthful. Peter, one of the 12 disciples, writes in 2Peter 1:16 that he and the other disciples are eyewitnesses, not some kind of hearsay.
Now if you come up with four witnesses that say the saw you far away from the scene of the crime, then the witnesses on both sides face cross examination. The object thereof is to determine the credibility of the witnesses and their testimony. Dr. Simon Greenleaf, one of the founders of the Harvard Law School, wrote THE book on the rules of evidence, as it relates to courts of law. Every law student must still study it today. You might want to read a little treatise about evidence he wrote called "Testimony of the Evangelists". It is in the public domain or you can buy it from Amazon. There is a summary of it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimony_of_the_Eva
His original goal for doing this was to try to discredit the Gospels and especially the Resurrection, by showing that the testimony of these four witnesses is not likely to hold up in court. He became convinced that the testimony of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John as given in a written deposition about Jesus and His claim to being God was truthful and sincere. He also found them to be of sound mind. As a result He too came to believe their testimony in the same way that a judge or jury might in a court of law.
So, if you are willing, and that's the key, willing, to examine the written evidence of God's human witnesses as any court of law accepts witnesses, you too may come to a different conclusion. As in any court, you must ONLY use the evidence presented, not what you may have heard elsewhere.
Re:The pope sucks. (Score:3, Informative)
The references section of this wikipedia article is a good starting point if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_and_evil [wikipedia.org]
Re:Local Sevices and Laws not paid by Foreign Taxe (Score:2, Informative)
That "champion of Christian morality"?
Insert Dermot Morgan's "C.J. Haughey" voice: "You Two? Four tuneless gobshites who couldn't hit a cow's arse with a guitar."