|
The Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act is legislation proposed in the United States Congress that would legalize a form of conscientious objection to military taxation. ==Description== This act would establish a “peace tax fund” that parallels the general fund which the government draws upon to pay its expenses. But the peace tax fund, unlike the general fund, could only be used for non-military spending. the term “military purpose” means any activity or program which any agency of the Government conducts, administers, or sponsors and which effects an augmentation of military forces or of defensive and offensive intelligence activities, or enhances the capability of any person or nation to wage war, including the appropriation of funds by the United States for 1) the Department of Defense; 2) the Central Intelligence Agency; 3) the National Security Council; 4) the Selective Service System; 5) activities of the Department of Energy that have a military purpose; 6) activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration that have a military purpose; 7) foreign military aid; and 8) the training, supplying, or maintaining of military personnel, or the manufacture, construction, maintenance, or development of military weapons, installations, or strategies.〔H.R. 2631 "Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act" (Introduced in House, 25 May 2005) 109th Congress, 1st Session ()〕 The peace tax fund would be funded by the “income, gift, and estate taxes paid by or on behalf” of designated conscientious objectors: the term “designated conscientious objector” means a taxpayer who is opposed to participation in war in any form based upon the taxpayer’s deeply held moral, ethical, or religious beliefs or training (within the meaning of the Military Selective Service Act (50 U.S.C. App. 450 et seq.)), and who has certified these beliefs in writing to the Secretary of the Treasury in such form and manner as the Secretary provides.〔 The relevant section of “50 U.S.C. App. 450 et seq.” defines a designated conscientious objector as one: …who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form. As used in this subsection, the term “religious training and belief” does not include essentially political, sociological, or philosophical views, or a merely personal moral code〔U.S. Code Title 50, Appendix Military Act, § 456. Deferments and exemptions from training and service ()〕 However, the U.S. Supreme Court, in ''Seeger v. U.S.'' (1965) and ''Welsh v. U.S.'' (1970), ruled that sincere and deep objections to war did not have to come from formal religious training or even from a belief that the conscientious objector himself considers to be “religious” in order to meet this test. Seeger, for instance, said that he had a “belief in and devotion to goodness and virtue for their own sakes, and a religious faith in a purely ethical creed,” and the Supreme Court said that this was sufficient. A non-religious conscientious objector can qualify, despite what the law says, as long as his opposition to war stem() from the registrant’s moral, ethical, or religious beliefs about what is right and wrong and that these beliefs () held with the strength of traditional religious convictions.〔(398 U.S. 333 ''Welsh v. U.S.'', 15 June 1970 )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|