Hardline Muslim clerics urge tax cheating
By Richard Kerbaj
March 13, 2007 02:00am
HARDLINE Muslim clerics are encouraging their followers to cheat the tax system because they consider paying income tax contrary to Islamic law.
Muslim leaders have warned that fundamentalist imams who put sharia law ahead of Australian law are also condoning welfare fraud and the cash economy as tax-evasion methods.
Sydney-based Islamic leader Fadi Rahman told The Australian that the extremist clerics who were preaching messages against paying income taxes were also staunchly opposed to Western ideologies, including the Australian way of life.
He said he had heard hardline clerics at Friday sermons in Sydney highlight the importance of cheating the tax system.
"I mean, just like how you've got clerics (with) extreme views who are telling the Muslims in the Western world to declare war against the very country that they live in and the very country that is paying for their day-to-day life, you'll find that these are the clerics who are telling them to dodge the tax system," said Mr Rahman, a youth leader and the president of the Independent Centre for Research Australia.
"Tax, itself, is not allowed in Islam. So they (clerics) encourage them that if there's any way that you can dodge paying the tax, then you should do it."
It is understood that the clerics pushing for tax evasion espoused a fundamentalist form of Islam called Wahabbism.
While sharia law does not require Muslims to pay taxes, it does require them to pay zakat (alms) towards charitable causes.
Prominent Islamic cleric Khalil Shami, who said he had heard of imams encouraging tax evasion but had no direct knowledge of it happening, warned spiritual leaders to abide by Australian laws, saying tax evasion was a form of "theft" that would serve only to undermine the government help given to the Muslim and mainstream communities.
"They have to give the right advice to the people because we come to this country and we have to follow the law of this country," said the imam of Penshurst mosque, in Sydney's southwest.
"Everything that the Government do, we have to support it, we have to stand behind it ... to help the land and to help the law of the land."
The fundamentalist Ahlus Sunnah Wal-Jamaah Association, which is headed by Australia's most radical cleric, Mohammed Omran, hit back at suggestions that its imams - including Abdul Salam Mohammed Zoud, who heads the group's Sydney branch - were among those calling on their flock to cheat on their taxes.
"Of course we pay taxes and we go as far as to collecting money from our Muslim communities and donating it to organisations (such as the Royal Children's Hospital) to help," said the Wahabbi organisation's spokesman, Abu Yusuf. He said the authorities should deal with tax cheats "as they would with anyone else breaking the law".
Muslim community leader Keysar Trad, who worked at the tax office for 14 years, said he believed some Islamic fringe groups would include "cheating on taxes" as part of their teachings. "We know that some fringe groups within the community have some aberrant teachings," the president of the Islamic Friendship Association said.
"If one of those fringe groups was giving a message that did not serve society as a whole such as cheating on taxes, I would not be surprised."
Mr Trad said he was often told by "conservative" clerics to quit his former job at the tax office because they considered it contrary to sharia law.
Mr Rahman, who helps young Muslims turn away from radical Islam and steer clear of criminal activities, said hardline Muslim clerics were not fazed that their followers were "double-dipping" by working cash-in-hand to avoid paying tax and collecting social security benefits on the side. "While we work hard to pay our taxes, it's not fair on the rest of us," he said.
Hardline Muslim clerics urge tax cheating
Quote
Originally Posted by DonJuan
