In his speech at the Knesset the other day, one of the criticisms lobbied by Yair Lapid at the Haredi community is that they do not pay taxes. He scoffed at the idea of a tax strike by the haredi community saying it would not be possible. His intention was fairly clear that it would not be possible because they do not pay taxes anyway.
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.
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