I am no fan of online petitions - I find them basically pointless, and only add my name under unique circumstances - but somebody in the Haredi community started a petition demanding that Yair Lapid, as Finance Minister, return all taxes paid by Haredim over the years, as they must clearly have been paid by mistake.
The petition reads (my translation):
In light of your words that according to them dossim (religious people) do not pay taxes, and therefore we do not have the ability to threaten with a tax revolution, I turn to you with a request to get my money back. For years I have been paying respectable percentages from my salary and from my profits as taxes to the State, in addition to taxes such as VAT, purchase taxes and others.
It turns out that as a haredi from birth, I have been unfairly discriminated against from everybody I know and from all my neighbors. And because I am confident that this was a simple mistake, with no intent to cause harm, i will be satisfied with just the return of the taxes I directly paid, and there will be no need to adjust the debt for inflation and interest.
To prove my being a haredi, I will be happy to attach a picture of me davening, and a picture of my wife at the kotel without a tallit.
With blessings.
P.S. In order to protect the privacy of those who signed, their details will not appear on the site.
I like the text of the petition. it is sharp, to the point, and witty. And in true form, people in the haredi community would only even sign such a statement under a guaranty of anonymity..
While the haredi media is talking about this petition as something taking off, as of this writing it only has 324 signatures out of the 1000 they are trying for.
------------------------------------------------------
Reach thousands of readers with your ad by advertising on Life in Israel
------------------------------------------------------
Hmmmm...let's see.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Lapid should call their bluff. Return all taxes paid by Charedim and charedim should return all kollel stipends, kitzvat yeladim, aronona discounts, etc. from over the last 65 years.
Lapid said that chareidim don't pay taxes, so the petition is aimed at adjusting the reality to match Lapid's claim.
DeleteLapid never claimed that chareidim didn't receive kollel stipends, kitzvat yeladim, aronona discounts, etc., so the a similar adjustment is not necessary.
Your suggestion lacks symmetry, and thus seems to be nothing more than an opportunistic attempt to bash a group of Jews.
notice that they only talk about VAT and purchase tax - not income tax.
ReplyDeletenot at all. the main body of the text is referring to income tax. he says the taxes that have been taken form his salary. the VAT and purchase tax are added as additions to the income tax...
DeleteAnd by and large he is right about income taxes. If the husband is in Kollel he pays no income taxes. The wife who works also pays no income taxes for a number of reasons:
Delete1. Her income is low
2. She gets deduction/exemption points from her children
Yes Charedim pay VAT. However, their VAT contribution is actually quite small for a number of reasons:
1. If your total income is 5500 shekel even if you spend it all every month you are only paying VAT a portion of 5500. The average chiloni family makes more then double that and spends it most of it.
2. Much of the money is going from 1 government pocket to another. If out of your 5500 shekel approximately half comes from government stipends (kollel + children) then basically you are just giving the government back the money they gave you.
"her income is low" is not a given. plenty of kollel wives make fabulous salaries as programmers or other professions (I know kollel wives who are lawyers, managers in hi-tech companies, or other well-paying professions). not everyone works as a teacher or for a haredi company (or Matrix)
Deletereported investigations from just the other day:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.haaretz.com/business/economy-finance/inspectors-find-tax-evasion-rife-in-ultra-orthodox-jerusalem-neighborhood.premium-1.517169
Inspectors find tax evasion rife in ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem neighborhood
Surprise raids on businesses in Mea She'arim, Ramle and Lod over the weekend reveal extent of tax evasion.
And while Lapid may have overstated the case through his insulting use of hyperbole, arguing that some harediim pay taxes because some make a good amount of money is like correcting grammer in a text, sort of pedantic in order to ignore the larger point, which is that by and large, the haredi community receives a significant amount of resources without contributing what those giving want in return.
ReplyDeletethere is plenty of tax evasion by the non-haredi public as well... There is even a malshinon so people can report them.and have been doing so surprisingly high numbers. don't tell me all that is haredi.....
ReplyDeleteI wasn't disputing the concept. I wanted to point out that that one fiction is just a fiction...
ReplyDelete