The "Kosher tax" (or "Jewish tax") is the idea that food companies and unwitting consumers are forced to pay money to supportJudaism orZionist causes andIsrael through the costs ofkosher certification. The claim is aconspiracy theory,antisemitic canard, orurban legend.
Common refutations include that consumers who preferkosher foods include not onlyJews but alsoMuslims,Seventh-day Adventists, and others, food companies actively seek kosher certification to increase market share and profitability; the fees collected support the certifying organizations themselves and that extra business generated by the voluntarycertification process more than makes up for the cost of supervision and so the certification does not necessarily increase the price of products and may, in fact, result in per item cost savings.
The kosher tax conspiracy theory claims that thekosher certification of products (typically food) is an extra tax collected from unwitting consumers for the benefit of Jewish organizations. It is mainly spread byantisemitic,white supremacist, and otherextremist organizations, and is considered acanard orurban legend.[1] Similar claims are made that this "Kosher tax" (or "Jewish tax") is "extorted" from food companies wishing to avoid aboycott,[2][3] and used to supportZionist causes or the state ofIsrael.[4]University of Pittsburgh professor of sociologyKathleen M. Blee reported that someracist groups encourage consumers to avoid this "Jewish tax" by boycotting kosher products.[5]
The 2000 Annual Audit of Antisemitic Incidents by theB'nai Brith Canada reported citizens being encouraged to request a refund from the government on theirincome taxes.[6]
In 1997 theCanada Revenue Agency issued a news release noting the existence of flyers recommending that consumers claim a deduction on their taxes "because they supposedly contributed to a Jewish religious organization when they purchased these groceries." In itJane Stewart, thenMinister of National Revenue stated, "The intent and message in this literature is deeply offensive to the Jewish community and, indeed, to all Canadians. The so-called 'deduction' described in these flyers does not exist and I urge all taxpayers to ignore this misleading advice".[7]
During the2014 Quebec provincial election campaign,Parti Québécois (PQ) candidate and academic Louise Mailloux defended the PQ government's proposedQuebec Charter of Values by asserting that kosher andhalal certification was a religious tax used to fund religious wars and enrich religious leaders. TheCentre for Israel and Jewish Affairs called on the PQ to debunk the "urban legend of the kosher tax" but PQ leader andPremier of QuebecPauline Marois defended her candidate's comments saying of Mailloux, "Her writings are eloquent, I respect her point of view."[8]
Although companies may apply for kosher certification, the cost of the certification is typically minuscule,[4][9][10] and is more than offset by the advantages of being certified.[9] The cost per item for obtaining kosher certification was reported byThe New York Times in 1975 to be 6.5 millionths of a cent ($0.000000065) for aGeneral Foods frozen-food item.[11]
Certification leads to increased revenues by opening up additional markets toJews who keep kosher,Muslims who keephalal,Seventh-day Adventists,vegetarians, and thelactose intolerant who wish to avoid dairy products (products that are reliably certified aspareve meet this criterion).[12][13][14]
Quebec'sBouchard-Taylor Commission refuted what it described as the "most fanciful information is circulating among Quebeckers”[8] about the so-called kosher tax in its 2008 report and stated that there was no evidence of price inflation as a result of kosher certification and that rabbis made little money from granting certification.[8]
According toBerel Wein, "The cost of kashrut certification is always viewed as an advertising expense and not as a manufacturing expense."[10] Dispellers of the "kosher tax" legend argue that if it were not profitable to obtain such certification, then food producers would not engage in the certification process, and that the increased sales resulting from kosher certification actually lower the overall cost per item.[15][16]Avi Shafran adds that if "the kosher item in fact proves more expensive, [the consumer] can simply opt for one that hasn’t been supervised by a rabbi"[16]
Obtaining certification that an item is kosher is a voluntary business decision made by companies desiring additional sales from consumers (both Jewish and non-Jewish) who look for kosher certification when shopping.[13] According toSnopes, the fees charged for kosher certification are used to support the operation of the certifying bodies themselves, and not "some special Jewish fund used to advance Zionist causes".[4]
Media Bypass, for one, offered a story about a 'Kosher Nostra scam,' in which 'major food companies throughout America actually pay a Jewish Tax amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars per year in order to receive protection' against Jewish boycotts. These 'elaborate extortion schemes' are coordinated, alleges writer Ernesto Cienfuegos, by 'Rabbinical Councils that are set up, not just in the U.S. but in other western countries as well.'
Some antisemitic myths continued to proliferate through the year 2000. The Kosher Tax myth claims that the purchase of foods with a kosher symbol on it means that a portion of that money constitutes a tax which benefits the Jewish people. Individuals are advised to go to their cupboards and estimate the worth of all the foods which have those "hidden" symbols on them and claim the money back from the government in their tax returns. Many of the alerts that our offices received about the distribution of the "Kosher Tax" advisories were from accountants who received them as a mailing or were given them along with instructions from their clients to include the material in their taxes. According to these accountants, the people who wanted the refund were not antisemites per se but had received the letters and were ignorant to the meaning of the symbols on the groceries. However, it could be said that those fooled were all too ready to believe the message of the advisories that Jews are sneakily trying to extort money from an unsuspecting public.
Some [racist groups] urge their members to boycott products certified as kosher.(See also footnote 70: "For example, see 'Kosher Racket Revealed: Secret Jewish Tax on Gentiles' (pamphlet distributed by an anonymous racist group, ca. 1991)," p. 232.)
Anti-Semites have advanced 'the libel of the kosher tax' to claim consumers are paying an extra tax on products that carry kosher certification.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)…anti-Semitic propaganda has for years railed against what hate groups call "the kosher tax." This is the alleged increase in price that results when a food company pays for private kashrut supervision, so that its products can display a mark of certification… For those who don't buy Jewish-conspiracy theories, a more plausible explanation is that the companies have calculated that the extra business generated by kashrut certification more than makes up for the cost of supervision. (Hence no price increase is necessary.)
…due to the volume of goods produced, the cost of certification per unit is so small that it really does not figure in the cost of the product.Alt URL