[Avodah] taxes

[Eli Turkel]

<<Does dina d'malchuta give infinite power to government?>>

First a guarantee that no one in Italy ever paid, in practice, more than
100% taxes.

My problem with taxes is actually the opposite. First it is not clear
if dina demalchuta applied today in the strict sense when governments can
not
take away citizenship for not paying taxes. There are also limitations on
imposing
new taxes.

More problematic is the Rama on local community taxes. First it seems like
he is quoting a bunch of early authorities on the minhag and in their
community
and it is hard to make any coherent sense of it.
In particular there are rules like taxes are valid only if every tax paying
member is invited to voice his opinion. He explicitly says that the town
council
cannot impose taxes. That is reasonable for a small shtetl not for New York
city not to speak of national taxes. Taxes have to be of an old nature (how
did they ever
get started?). Increasing taxes for a new situation is extremely difficult.
The options for taxation is either a flat per person tax or according to
money
(the rules for per money are very detailed eg ones real estate holding dont
count)
but certainly not modern progressive tax rates.

In summary I would venture that it would be impossible to set up modern town
taxes and
real estate taxes according to the Rama

-- 
Eli Turkel
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