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Good morning. Six weeks on from the Mini-Budget, the country seems to be in a very different conversation about tax. In September the talk was of removing obstacles to growth. Now we’re told, ‘You can’t demand American levels of taxation while expecting European standards of public services.’ Winston Churchill said, ‘For a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.’ The trouble is, to function as a nation, you have to get your income from somewhere. In the words of George Washington, ‘To have revenue there must be taxes; and no taxes can be devised that are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.’ Clearly it’s hard to trust other people to spend our money. Establishing the appropriate level and method of tax is about balancing the dynamics of the economy, the demands of the electorate, and the delicacies of human nature. It’s a judgement between allowing people to keep as much of their own money as possible – in the hope they’ll generously spend some of it on the common good – so prioritising liberty; or requiring people to share their wealth – through tax – to make sure there’s enough to support that common good, thus prioritising equality. The trouble is, there’s almost no way to advance liberty without infringing equality. Yet there’s almost no way to affirm equality without limiting liberty. Both sides of the argument believe natural justice lies with them. When St Paul explained to the Philippians the heart of the Christian faith, he pointed out that, in being born as a human like us, Christ emptied himself. In other words, he accepted a temporary inhibition of his liberty in order to affirm equality with us. The ultimate constraint on Christ’s liberty was being bound on a cross. But after his resurrection and ascension, Christ’s liberty was fully restored. Paul describes this liberty as equality with God. Paying taxes is a concrete commitment to the state as a joint enterprise in which I and everyone else do several things. We give up a degree of liberty for an umbrella of security. We yield a level of freedom for the establishment of the rule of law. We surrender a measure of independence for the expectation of justice. We offer a percentage of income for the common good. These benefits aren’t a birthright: they’re bought at a price. The Christian faith is that Jesus put his full liberty on hold to embody God’s full solidarity with us. Perhaps one way to think of taxation in a national crisis is the temporary suspension of some of our liberty to affirm our solidarity with one another.