346 – Render to Caesar

Pay your taxes.

Jesus was clear about the need to pay taxes, as is the rest of the New Testament and even the Old Testament. Governments—however immature and corrupt they often are—provide for overall peace and oversee basic functions of leadership. Even wicked and evil leaders will provide basic structures for society, such as Mussolini, who made the trains run on time. This is no moral endorsement, but structures need funding. Notwithstanding, whatever doesn’t pay taxes might not be ethical.

If taxes are too high, find a legal way around—give away your money if you must! Another way is to incorporate—a “corporation” is just a piece of paper, not some ginormous conglomerate as a child’s guess might suppose.

One big problem of our ever-smaller-after-all world is tax turf; nations can’t agree on who owes taxes where. When you visit a country more than 30 days, you probably owe high-rate income tax to the country you visited on your personal earnings, but your home country may also demand normal rates, effectively leaving you with only a quarter of your own hard-earned income. There is no need for this, one simple law solves it all: “When any of our citizens are present in another taxable territory and they thus owe personal income tax to that authority for that time beyond our borders, all income so taxed shall be exempt from taxes here.”

If childish countries play tug-o-war with your bread and butter, earn nothing to pay nothing. Ask your employer to suspend your salary, pay you early, late, quit, or find another way. Or, incorporate, restructure the papers so the governments like the pretty picture it makes on their desks, live below the poverty line, sleep in a box, and keep re-investing your “corporate” money like a good financial steward.

If you must find ways to survive, still find a way to pay taxes. Drop some deductions so you can “owe” income and keep government funded. Donate what you would normally pay if laws were actually normal.

Don’t live fat and lavish, paying slim or zero tax. Structure your accounts responsibly, but keep the roads and bridges funded. That’s also part of stewardship.

 

Numbers 31:25-31, Ezra 4:20, Matthew 17:24-27; 22:15-22