Article — Gury-Ballerini, Compendium of Moral Theology (8th ed., 1884)
Article I. On Taxes
- By the name of tax is understood the payment which subjects pay from their own goods to the Government or Prince for the common expenses of the Republic.
Some taxes are direct, which affect actual and determined goods of private persons; others indirect, which immediately regard certain wares, and only mediately the persons who transport, sell, buy them, etc., as in French are les droits réunis, les douanes, etc.
- Principles. - I. The imposition of a tax is an act of supreme dominion over the goods of subjects, and therefore for imposing them there is required supreme and legitimate authority. For it alone possesses the right of high dominion 1, because it alone presides over the whole community.
1 The right of high dominion, as it is commonly understood, pertains nothing to this point. The power of imposing taxes is attributed only to the supreme ruler of the republic for this reason, that to him alone pertains the care of directing the community to its end through suitable means. Nevertheless the faculty of exacting some tax is accustomed to be given also to the magistrates of municipalities, so that provision may be made for the special necessities of individual places.
II. - The Prince has the power of imposing taxes; for his power extends to all that which the common good requires; but the common good requires that subjects concur in bearing the burdens of the Republic. - St. Lig., n. 615, etc.
III. - It is necessary: 1. that taxes be exacted for the necessity or utility of the community; 2. that equality among subjects be preserved, account being taken of the faculties which they possess. - St. Lig., n. 615. - Lugo. - Billuart.
IV. - Laws which are concerned with taxes, considered generally, are not merely penal, but oblige in conscience. This is deduced: 1. from the words of Christ, Matt. 22:21: Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's. - Rom. 13:5: Be subject, not only because of wrath, but also because of conscience; for therefore you also pay taxes... - Render therefore to all their dues: tax to whom tax; custom to whom custom. - 2. It is plain also from reason; for the Prince is held to bearing the burdens of the Republic; therefore by parity subjects are held from justice 2 to furnish the means necessary for promoting the common good. - St. Lig., n. 615-616.
2 Understand legal justice, by which both the prince and subjects, each for his own part, are held to contribute the necessary supports for bearing the burdens of society.
- Questions. - Q. 1. Whether the obligation both of paying customs or indirect taxes, and of restoring pro rata of the fraud committed, must always be urged under penalty of sin and of absolution to be denied?
Resp. The solution of this question is not without difficulty; concerning the following things they agree sufficiently commonly.
I. The faithful are to be diligently exhorted to pay taxes diligently and to abstain from every defrauding of them. Nor, however, is it expedient that the Confessor ask penitents who are silent in confession about taxes whether they are guilty of some defrauding; lest perhaps he uselessly introduce bad faith into those who are in good faith.
II. But the following are to be condemned:
- Those who corrupt, by unjust means 3, those placed over exacting customs, so that they do not perform their office; for they sin at least by cooperating in the sin of these.
3 Namely by gifts, promises, fear, etc.
- Those who do not pay taxes already imposed from a long time, and which were paid by all, nor was any complaint ever heard concerning their injustice 4.
4 This resolution perhaps supposes that which is in question. Then how do I know that some tax, unless it is from those which cannot flee the eyes of those exacting, was always paid by all?
- Those who violently resist ministers exacting customs; for these sin: 1. against obedience: He who resists authority resists the ordinance of God. Rom. 13:2; - 2. against legal justice; for the law which regards taxes, even if at times it were held as merely penal, nevertheless gives to the governors a certain right to exact a fine 5, if subjects are caught in fraud.
5 Nevertheless a right to a fine does not found a debt of commutative justice; wherefore evasion of a fine is not measured with the obligation of restoring.
- Those who by right and wrong exercise fraud as a kind of trade, and wander day and night, even armed, with the mind of resisting; for men of this kind become rebellious citizens and most pernicious to society.
- Nor must indulgence be given to those who, although they never resist, nor have the mind of resisting, nevertheless bend every study and work toward the art of defrauding, and have it as it were as the profession of life; for these are at least not rarely exposed to dangers of soul 6.
6 Rather than dangers of soul, these men assuredly undergo an enormous danger of fortunes. For both the loss of wares and the superadded imposition of a fine, as often as they are caught in fraud, can bring them, and with them also their family, to extreme poverty.
- But how many and how great difficulties occur in the remaining cases escapes no one. Whether at times it is permitted to act more mildly with penitents, a twofold sentence is given, namely affirming and denying. St. Ligorius himself does not dare to settle the matter; having set forth the reasons of certain theologians inclining toward the more benign part (n. 616), he says: Whether, however, on account of these reasons, which in other respects do not seem to be contemptible, it, that is, the affirmative sentence, is sufficiently probable, I remit to wiser men than myself. And in Hom. apost., n. 18, he concludes: Nevertheless, this notwithstanding, I do not omit persuading the first, that is, the negative, sentence. - But the chief reason of those Doctors rests upon the universal custom of accepting and interpreting the law in such a way. Wherefore for us also it will be enough, if, after the sentences of some theologians outstanding in piety and doctrine have been set forth, we leave the choice to the pious reader. Thus therefore they:
- Bonacina, disp. 2, de Restitut., quaest. 9, punct. 4, prop. 2, as regards indirect taxes, says: Let it suffice for us to say that what we assert can probably be defended, lest we impose a burden too grave upon penitents after the fact, although before the fact this more benign sentence is not to be counseled, since the edicts of the Prince are not easily to be reprehended.
Vogler, n. 352. - Although the faithful are especially to be exhorted to pay taxes diligently, nevertheless if they now and then defraud somewhat, they do not seem to be obliged to restitution, because the most common practice has this, Princes connive, and in so great a multitude of taxes all the wisest persons doubt whether all are just 7.
7 Vogler, as is plain, heaps together reasons from each of the opposed sentences: from the first indeed, when on account of most common practice and the connivance of princes he exempts those defrauding from the obligation of paying; but from the second, when he supposes the obligation, but excuses those not paying by reason of some injustice in the taxes themselves. Nor otherwise De Lugo also, who is soon alleged by the Author, limping between each sentence, says according to one that counsel should rather be used, and according to the other excuses from restitution on account of some possible excess of taxes.
Lugo, D. 36, n. 43. - To me, he says, the counsel of P. Molina has always greatly pleased... before the fact, it must be counseled that taxes not be defrauded; after the fact, if the penitent certainly or probably persuades himself that in so great a multitude of taxes there is something unjust..., he is not to be compelled by the Confessor to restitution; nevertheless this doctrine must be used prudently, both lest they render the Sacrament of Penance too grave, and lest they close the way of salvation to many who, if they are obliged by the Confessor, will not restore and will incur eternal damnation.
- Scavini (Theologia moralis, ed. Novariae, 1845), de Restitut., c. 1, art. 1, after setting forth the negative sentence, which he acknowledges to be most common and more probable, says thus: The second sentence, which affirms, does not lack its own authority and probability... Whatever may be the case concerning the probability both of the first sentence and also of the second, which we remit to wiser men to define, for practice we warn one thing with the most learned Card. de Lugo: Generally speaking, the people are to be admonished and stirred up to paying taxes, but after the fact they are not to be compelled to restitution of a defrauded tax, if they probably persuade themselves that in so great a multitude of customs they paid something unjustly, or contributed competently to public necessities 8.
8 But Lugo (cited Disp. 36, n. 42) had warned that neither the obligation of contributing to public necessities, nor the greater burden of others because of the defect of others, compels one to deny the opposite sentence, which does not condemn him who perhaps could have exempted himself from paying.
- Rousselot (in notes to Saettler, Theolog. mor., de Leg., part 2, c. 2, art. 3), as regards taxes imposed upon wares, commerce in which is permitted to all under the condition of paying the tax, has these things: There is no obligation of paying certain taxes before they are asked, for example, taxes at the gate of the city, at the bridge, etc. For custom bears it thus, and laws do not oblige beyond custom. Moreover, with the author Saettler and many other outsiders, it can more probably be asserted that those taxes, for whose exacting guards and exactors have been constituted, are neither to be paid in conscience, nor are those defrauding them held to restitution.
These things having been duly weighed, one must not immediately nor easily pronounce the defrauding of indirect taxes to be sinful and to oblige to restitution. Nevertheless let these things not be preached upon the rooftops; but with St. Ligorius and Saettler, let Pastors and Confessors urge observance of the laws also in this matter, let them deter from transgressions as far as they can; but let them not immediately condemn transgressors of grave sin 9, nor drive them to restoring, especially if greater evils, for example, desertion of the Sacraments, are to be feared. Moreover good faith often intervenes, to which they are deservedly left.
9 Behold for yourself a man limping among uncertainties. First he seems to deny the obligation of spontaneously paying indirect taxes; then he adds that this is not immediately nor easily to be pronounced; afterward he constricts the matter to the question of grave sin; finally, as if he does not concede the use of the first doctrine except when graver evils are feared. Let others judge whether this method contributes more to loosening consciences from snares, or rather to entangling them.
Card. Gousset (Theolog. moral., t. 1, n. 999) urges generally the obligation of paying all taxes, of whatever kind they are, notwithstanding contrary custom, which he calls a common error 10. Nevertheless he diligently commends prudence to the Confessor, lest perhaps, with hope of fruit remote and the greatest danger of salvation acceding, he induce those defrauding from good faith into bad faith.
10 That a doctrine which so many supreme men, whom we deservedly are accustomed and ought to revere, either professed, or permitted as probable, or at least did not dare to disapprove, is intrepidly represented as a common error, is indeed difficult. Likewise, that nothing is to be deferred to contrary custom, where there is a question about the obligation and interpretation of some law, is also very difficult.
- Q. 2. To whom must restitution be made, if at some time it is to be made by reason of a defrauded tax 11?
11 Since the nearly unanimous sentence of the Doctors is that the faithful either cannot licitly be driven to restitution of a defrauded tax, inasmuch as fault is lacking, or at least that it is in no way expedient for this obligation to be urged, this question can seem useless. But it is useful at least if at some time in another way, for example by thefts, someone has brought damage upon the public matter.
Resp. A twofold sentence is given: according to the older Doctors, restitution must be made to the Prince, whose right has been violated. But according to many more recent men conspicuous for piety and doctrine, with Bouvier as witness, restitution is not to be made to the Prince, nor to the subjects; but the defrauded money ought to be expended for pious uses or upon the poor. 1. Not to the Prince, because there is not at hand a mode by which this can be done. Besides, Princes suffer no damage; for foreseeing frauds, they impose greater taxes. 2. Not to the injured subjects, because restitution cannot be made to individuals: therefore the sum ought to be expended upon the poor, or upon public utilities. Gousset, n. 999, agrees. - Recall what was said above, n. 712.
- Q. 3. Whether those importing prohibited wares sin and are held to restitution?
Resp. 1. As regards restitution, absolutely negatively, because they injure no strict right of anyone. For they do not violate the right of the Prince, because he has not reserved those wares to himself, nor imposed any tax upon them; nor the right of any private person, because there is no one who has the privilege of selling these wares 12. - Bouvier, Tract. de Restitutione, at the end, and others commonly.
12 Even if the prince had reserved this right to himself, or imposed a tax, or granted to someone the privilege of selling those wares, nevertheless the obligation of restoring is not more certain than the disputed matters above persuade.
Resp. 2. As regards sin, it is controverted: some affirm that those defrauding sin, and indeed of itself gravely, because they violate laws which truly oblige in conscience of themselves, and not only by accident. - Bouvier, ibid. But others deny, because those laws from custom are held as merely penal.
At least they are not to be condemned of sin who import prohibited wares in a small quantity and for their own use, especially if they are poor. But the rest can easily sin against charity toward themselves, by exposing themselves to very grave penalties.
- Q. 4. Whether those placed over taxes sin against justice as often as they do not exact the tax?
Resp. Affirmatively, of itself generally, and indeed gravely in grave matter. The reason is plain, since they have obligated themselves to watch rightly and to exact taxes diligently. Therefore, if they fail in their office, they are held to restitution toward the Prince or the Republic. - Thus commonly.
I said generally, because according to several, those placed over exacting customs are not always to be condemned when now and then they act more benignly in a light matter, especially with the poor, or even with those who otherwise pay diligently. - See Casus, n. 751 and following.