Minnesota, home of America's most moral tax code

Minnesota's tax code just might be the holiest in the country.

That's the finding by Susan Pace Hamill, a University of Alabama law professor whose expertise comes in the field of taxation -- and divinity. She wrote a wrote a book about state tax policies and how closely those policies match the Judeo-Christian standards. As Certain As Death: A Fifty-State Survey of State and Local Tax Laws found that no state has lived up to biblical standards of taxation, and that the Southern states were the worst offenders in terms of taxing the poor in favor of the rich.

Despite conservatives who deride Minnesota's tax environment, our state has the holiest tax code of any state in the U.S. The New York Times wrote last week, "[J]ust one state, Minnesota, came within reach of the principles she identified, because its tax system is only slightly regressive and it spends heavily on helping the poor, especially through public education." Public education was a key indicator for Hamill's research.
Hamill looks to biblical principles for her research. In a paper published in the Virginia Tax Review, she outlined her theological interpretations of taxation. "While protecting all people regardless of their level of income, wealth, and power, Judeo-Christian standards of justice express special concern for those with little wealth and power, and require those at higher levels of income and wealth to endure real economic sacrifices beyond their voluntary efforts of beneficence and charity."

In other words, according to her findings, a progressive tax policy is the most Judeo-Christian, and flat taxes and tax cuts for the rich are immoral.

Hamill says that while the Bible finds the type of redistribution of wealth under socialist or communist immoral, the balance still tips toward progressive taxation. "Despite the very real limits that clearly distinguish faith-based ethics from liberal-leaning, intellectually-based secular ethics, these limits cannot be used to support an individualistically centered and exclusively free-market-oriented community and economy," Hamill writes. "In striking this balance, a community grounded in Judeo-Christian values ensures that adequate tax revenues guarantee everyone, not just those at high levels of income and wealth, a reasonable opportunity to reach their God-created potential."

And the money generated from taxes doesn't just go to basic services. "Tax policy guided by Judeo-Christian ethics raises a level of revenues that greatly exceeds the funding essential to cover the functions of the minimum state."

Minnesota has several Judeo-Christian organizations who follow tax policy, but instead of finding Minnesota to be in tune with biblical standards, they deride Minnesota's tax structure. The Minnesota Family Council, known for its opposition to rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Minnesotans as well as opposing reproductive choice, has taken a strong stance on the state's tax structure, often calling for tax cuts, opposing tax increases and criticizing government spending.

Minnesota Majority, another group opposed to LGBT rights and reproductive choice, takes an even stronger stand on taxes, a stand that Hamill would likely say is immoral. "Our nation's current progressive tax system effectively represents a version of the "taxation without representation" situation that our founders so vehemently opposed," says the group's website. "It is clearly unfair to provide the same power of the vote - and therefore the same voice in government - to all citizens while requiring some citizens to relinquish a higher percentage of their income than others."

Those same founding fathers who "would vehemently oppose" a progressive tax structure were also Christian men, according to Minnesota Majority. "Our nation's founders understood that our inalienable rights came from God," says one page of the website. "At the dawn of our nation, God was considered to be the source of moral values - that which was considered to be moral or immoral transcended personal or societal opinion," says another.

According to Hamill's research, if those founding fathers were men of God, then the only moral tax code they would support would be a progressive one, one that Minnesota's tax structure most closely resembles.

Missing from one Judeo-Christian website? A discussion of poverty and the poor. The word "poverty" occurs only once on the Minnesota Majority website, and the word "poor" happens only once in the context of people with little means (for comparison, the word "homosexual" occurs 118 times).

And while many social and fiscal conservatives argue that charitable giving is the solution to the problems facing society, Hamill argues that Judeo-Christian standards disagree. "The Bible commands that the law promote justice because human beings are not good enough to promote justice individually on their own," she told the Times. "To assume that voluntary charity will raise enough revenues to meet this standard is to deny the sin of greed."