LAW PROFESSOR TO PRESENT MORAL CASE FOR TAX REFORM

Tax reform is seldom among the moral issues raised in the political arena, but Susan Pace Hamill, a University of Alabama law professor, takes the position that tax law should be considered in a biblical light. Hamill made headlines last year when the Republican governor of Alabama adopted her scripture-based argument for shifting tax responsibility from the poor to the affluent. On Thursday, Nov. 4, at 7:30 p.m., Hamill will present her moral case for tax reform in Thomas Great Hall, Bryn Mawr College, 101 N. Merion Ave, Bryn Mawr.

Hamill, who specializes in federal tax law, has said that she spent seven years in Alabama without noticing how unfair the state's tax code is — because its inequity had little effect on her. She became interested in the issue of tax fairness in Alabama after she enrolled in a master's program in theological studies at Samford University's Beeson Divinity School, an evangelical seminary in Birmingham where she hoped to gain some insight into the ethics of business and taxation during a sabbatical from teaching. After reading a newspaper story that reported that Alabama taxed income on wages as low as $4,600 per year, she began to research the state's tax structure and found it "beyond awful." Her professors at Beeson agreed that she had "an ironclad case" for tax reform based on biblical ethics, and that argument ultimately became her master's thesis.

Both Old and New Testaments forbid the economic oppression of the poor, Hamill contends, and harshly condemn leaders who fail to "ensure that [the poor] enjoy at least a minimal opportunity to improve their economic circumstance." Since Hamill submitted her thesis, her argument has been adapted for publication as a law review article, a pamphlet, a sermon, numerous op-ed pieces and a book, The Least of These: Fair Taxes and the Moral Duty of Christians. She was mentioned in a New York Times article citing the inventions, breakthroughs and theories that made a difference in 2003.

Hamill's appearance is co-sponsored by the Bryn Mawr College Center for Ethnicities, Communities and Social Policy; the Jewish Community Relations Council; the League of Women Voters, Southeastern Pennsylvania; the American Association of University Women, Philadelphia Branch; St. John's Episcopal Church and Wayne Presbyterian Church, in partnership with the Episcopal Diocesan Interfaith Committee, the Jewish Social Policy Action Network, the Pennsylvania Southeast Conference of the United Church of Christ, the Main Line Unitarian Church, the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Villanova University Ethics Program.

For directions or information visit http://www.goodschoolspa.org or call 215-332-2700.

Click here to download Hamill's "An Argument for Tax Reform Based on Judeo-Christian Ethics" as a PDF.

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