Do we need to pay tithing on tax refunds?

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Oliblish said:

Is Conservative indoctrination ok? 

It appears to be legal. Talk radio and Fox News are still around.

[Stargazer]

On 4/16/2019 at 8:51 AM, TweetyKim said:

I was baptized in 1977 and always heard 1) that your tithing contribution is between you and the Lord,  but 2) it should be on gross income for that is your total 'increase.' To me it stands to reason that if you tithe on gross then your refund is already money that has been tithed on, however if you tithe on net income then you should tithe on any refund. Social Security should be tithed on (in my humble opinion) because you are receiving more in benefit than you put in over the years. I receive SSD and I tithe on that. In the end though I revert to my original statement...it is between you and the Lord.

That's going back a ways to drag this thread out of dormancy!  And for your first post, too!  How did you happen to come across the board?

Anyway, before I retired I did not tithe my federal withholding, because I considered my income tax to not be my "increase", but I tithed any tax refund.  I also didn't tithe my Soc Sec "contributions" because I knew I would be getting that back, and after receiving back all my "contributions" I would eventually be getting money I hadn't ever "contributed."  So when I retired, I began to tithe my monthly SocSec income -- and I treated my employment pension the same way, which was not to tithe my contributions until I started getting them back after retirement.  

And you're right, it is between you and the Lord.

[Stargazer]

On 4/17/2019 at 12:58 AM, Bernard Gui said:

Seems like looking for ways to pay less tithing is not the wisest course, but that is just my opinion.

The only way to pay less tithing is to have less "increase".  Paying 9% is not tithing; it's just a donation.  I know the bishop puts it down as "part-tithe", but it really isn't.  It's like pregnancy: you're either pregnant or you're not; there is no semi-pregnant.  By the same token, if you're not paying 10% of your increase, then you're not tithing. 

On the other hand, do we get extra points for paying 11%?  

 

[Stargazer]

On 4/17/2019 at 1:37 AM, Hamba Tuhan said:

This is such a First World question. Many Saints live in nations that don't withhold taxes. People simply get paid, they tithe on their income, and then at some point they receive a tax bill. 

And your point is?

Sorry, not clear about why this is relevant.

[Bernard Gui]

8 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

The only way to pay less tithing is to have less "increase".  Paying 9% is not tithing; it's just a donation.  I know the bishop puts it down as "part-tithe", but it really isn't.  It's like pregnancy: you're either pregnant or you're not; there is no semi-pregnant.  By the same token, if you're not paying 10% of your increase, then you're not tithing. 

On the other hand, do we get extra points for paying 11%?  

 

Probably not, but we may be excused from the calling to be the Nursery leaders.

Edited April 20, 2019 by Bernard Gui

[Bernard Gui]

7 hours ago, The Nehor said:

It appears to be legal. Talk radio and Fox News are still around.

IMO indoctrination involves some degree of coercion, force, or exclusivity. There's always the tuning dial or the off switch.

[Stargazer]

On 4/17/2019 at 9:35 AM, Scott Lloyd said:

It really does bring a false sense of entitlement: not regarding as income what has been withheld for taxes, as though one doesn’t receive value in return in the form of myriad government services including law enforcement,  fire public safety, public education, national defense, roads and bridges, consumer protection, culinary water, sewers, public health, etc. 

That's actually a good way of looking at it.  I have no objection if someone wants to so regard it.  I look at it differently.

If a merchant receives $10 in an exchange for an item that he bought for $5, shouldn't he regard the original cost of the item in the same way your suggest for the tax?  If he hadn't spent the $5 then he would not have the benefit of being able to sell it and thus profit from it.  And all the items in his shop contribute towards his income in a synergistic fashion that would not have occurred if he hadn't first spent the money to buy them -- because if he hadn't spent that money for his stock in trade, nobody would be exchanging money with him for that stock.  So he should tithe on his gross, right, and ignore cost of goods sold, because his goods return value?  Even more to the point, if a businessman pays money to his service providers, such as telephone, electricity, water, insurance company, and stock broker, he is clearly receiving value for what he pays, and thus he should tithe the money he pays to those providers, right, and not deduct those expenses from his increase?

Another one: if a protection racket ring forces you to give them a "cut" of your receipts in exchange for not burning your business down, and incidentally prevents other criminals from victimizing you, should you pay tithing even on the money you pay to the ring, since they are providing a service?  

My answer to the matter of taxation is this: it is a cost of doing business, which, if you could, you would avoid paying.  In other words, if I am forced to pay it, it has nothing to do with my increase.  Likewise for the business, if I must pay for the goods or the services in order to stay in business, because it is the cost of doing business, then it is not part of my increase.

There was a time when there was no federal income tax.  Yet people still received value from the federal government.  Because the government financed itself in other ways.  Now they insist they must take money from me that they did not earn.  I don't care if they passed a law saying they could: they don't have a right to my labor.  I pay it of course, because the alternative is unpleasant.  Taxation is theft, I sincerely believe, and I pay it because I am forced to.  I'm sure you believe differently, and I have no beef with you about it. But to me, taxation is a cost of doing business, even for an individual working a job, because if I don't pay it I get to go to jail.

Edited April 20, 2019 by Stargazer

[MiserereNobis]

4 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

they don't have a right to my labor

Now you're sounding like a good Marxist! Proletariats of the world, Unite!  

 

[Jean-Luc Picard]

On 3/23/2016 at 8:21 AM, Scott Lloyd said:

It's my reasoning. After I've paid all my bills and bought everything I want, there's nothing else left. I don't think I'm the only one like that.

Again, .10 x 0 = 0

It's a sweet deal, I suppose, if you can talk yourself into believing it.

Me, I've found that if I get stingy with the Lord, things start going badly for me.

In what way do they go badly for you? 

This isn't directed straight at you, but I am wondering if others have felt a consequence of not paying tithing as the Lord instructed?

Is it more of a windows closing, or actual bad omen?

I have had some trying years, but certainly hard to pinpoint from a tithing perspective.

[Jean-Luc Picard]

On 3/23/2016 at 9:29 AM, ALarson said:

I think that Rock is no longer a member of the church (iirc, he's been excommunicated).  I haven't read much of what he's written, so I can't really comment on that.

You are right. He isn't a member.

I would still say Rock is Mormon, not a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Mormon, but a Mormon nonetheless.

[Jean-Luc Picard]

On 4/16/2019 at 5:53 PM, Bernard Gui said:

Oh yeah. I’m a retired school teacher....just rolling in dough!

One does not have to be rich to give.

One does not give in order to get a recommend or to be saved. 

One simply gives.

I like this a lot.

[Jean-Luc Picard]

On 4/16/2019 at 6:37 PM, Hamba Tuhan said:

This is such a First World question. Many Saints live in nations that don't withhold taxes. People simply get paid, they tithe on their income, and then at some point they receive a tax bill. 

And many cannot deduct it from their taxes, 10% on top of a 40% to $60 adjusted tax rate can be mighty trying. 

[Scott Lloyd]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

That's actually a good way of looking at it.  I have no objection if someone wants to so regard it.  I look at it differently.

If a merchant receives $10 in an exchange for an item that he bought for $5, shouldn't he regard the original cost of the item in the same way your suggest for the tax?  If he hadn't spent the $5 then he would not have the benefit of being able to sell it and thus profit from it.  And all the items in his shop contribute towards his income in a synergistic fashion that would not have occurred if he hadn't first spent the money to buy them -- because if he hadn't spent that money for his stock in trade, nobody would be exchanging money with him for that stock.  So he should tithe on his gross, right, and ignore cost of goods sold, because his goods return value?  Even more to the point, if a businessman pays money to his service providers, such as telephone, electricity, water, insurance company, and stock broker, he is clearly receiving value for what he pays, and thus he should tithe the money he pays to those providers, right, and not deduct those expenses from his increase?

Another one: if a protection racket ring forces you to give them a "cut" of your receipts in exchange for not burning your business down, and incidentally prevents other criminals from victimizing you, should you pay tithing even on the money you pay to the ring, since they are providing a service?  

My answer to the matter of taxation is this: it is a cost of doing business, which, if you could, you would avoid paying.  In other words, if I am forced to pay it, it has nothing to do with my increase.  Likewise for the business, if I must pay for the goods or the services in order to stay in business, because it is the cost of doing business, then it is not part of my increase.

There was a time when there was no federal income tax.  Yet people still received value from the federal government.  Because the government financed itself in other ways.  Now they insist they must take money from me that they did not earn.  I don't care if they passed a law saying they could: they don't have a right to my labor.  I pay it of course, because the alternative is unpleasant.  Taxation is theft, I sincerely believe, and I pay it because I am forced to.  I'm sure you believe differently, and I have no beef with you about it. But to me, taxation is a cost of doing business, even for an individual working a job, because if I don't pay it I get to go to jail.

I believe I addressed this three years ago when this thread was new. 

If I owned a business or a farm, I would allocate a generous but prudent amount for a livelihood for myself and my family as remuneration for operating the business and assuming the inherent risk of owning it. 

I wouldn’t tithe the remainder of the profits. I would plow them all back into the business to pay for overhead, employee payroll, expansion, etc. 

But I don’t see this “cost of doing business” as the functional equivalent of the taxes I pay as a citizen. I don’t pay them out of fear of consequences for not doing it. I pay them out of the expectation that I’ll receive value directly benefitting my life, health and well-being and that of my family. 

I pay them because it is the most efficient way I know of to fund the essentials that I need. That is to say, I cannot afford to operate my own private police force or fire department or to build and maintain my own streets and highways or on my own to protect myself and my family from foreign invaders. I don’t have the wherewithal to educate my own children as efficiently as can be done at the local public school or on my own to ensure that the food and other products I buy are safe and wholesome. If someone violates my God-given rights, I don’t have the capability on my own to track him down and administer justice fairly and efficiently. 

I cant do this stuff by myself. So I pool my resources with those of my fellow citizens, and, together, through economy of scale, we get it accomplished in a mutually beneficial way. It’s not a perfect system, but it works well enough from day to day. 

Paying taxes is the mechanism by which I participate in this pooling of resources to meet common needs. I receive value from this participation, so I willingly include the amount I spend for taxes as part of the personal increase I tithe when discharging my debt to the Lord. 

Edited April 20, 2019 by Scott Lloyd

[Stargazer]

5 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I believe I addressed this three years ago when this thread was new. 

I know we've hashed this around before, but it's a fun subject, so... 🙂  Besides, I'm interested in your thoughts, as you've always seemed to be a thoughtful person whose contributions here I enjoy.

5 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

If I owned a business or a farm, I would allocate a generous but prudent amount for a livelihood for myself and my family as remuneration for operating the business and assuming the inherent risk of owning it. 

I wouldn’t tithe the remainder of the profits. I would plow them all back into the business to pay for overhead, employee payroll, expansion, etc. 

Of course. This doesn't answer anything I raised, so is this to be understood as at least partial agreement to some of what I wrote?

5 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

But I don’t see this “cost of doing business” as the functional equivalent of the taxes I pay as a citizen. I don’t pay them out of fear of consequences for not doing it. I pay them out of the expectation that I’ll receive value directly benefitting my life, health and well-being and that of my family. 

That sounds very community-spirited, Scott.  But you either didn't read, or chose not to address the concepts I was proposing, because you don't answer them at all.  As for fear of consequences, please don't tell me that the potential consequences never enter your mind.  One has to be careful with taxation, because an innocent mistake or misunderstanding can land you in just as much hot water as intentional cheating.

You are aware that a business is permitted to deduct expenses such as light and heat in the calculation of taxes owed, right?  Yet the business cannot say that it hasn't received value for what it has paid, and these expenses directly benefit the life of the business.  Why then is the business permitted to deduct these expenses?  The business should be paying taxes on the gross, not the net, according to the logic you propose.

5 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

I pay them because it is the most efficient way I know of to fund the essentials that I need. That is to say, I cannot afford to operate my own private police force or fire department or to build and maintain my own streets and highways or on my own to protect myself and my family from foreign invaders. I don’t have the wherewithal to educate my own children as efficiently as can be done at the local public school or on my own to ensure that the food and other products I buy are safe and wholesome. If someone violates my God-given rights, I don’t have the capability on my own to track him down and administer justice fairly and efficiently. 

I cant do this stuff by myself. So I pool my resources with those of my fellow citizens, and, together, through economy of scale, we get it accomplished in a mutually beneficial way. It’s not a perfect system, but it works well enough from day to day. 

I don't disagree with you, as to the necessity of taxation -- even if I say that taxation is theft.  Some theft is perhaps necessary. Yet the pooling of resources with those of your fellow citizens is done as a community, and you have an effective voice in its administration at the local level.   And by the way, I happily tithe the property taxes I pay to support the schools and local government.  I actually approve of the federal government maintaining a standing military force to protect us from foreign enemies, and many other things that the federal government constitutionally does.  And the state and local governments, too.  We needn't discuss here the things those governments do which are extra-constitutional.

5 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Paying taxes is the mechanism by which I participate in this pooling of resources to meet common needs. I receive value from this participation, so I willingly include the amount I spend for taxes as part of the personal increase I tithe when discharging my debt to the Lord. 

My post that you were answering here actually pertained only to the federal income tax (and state income tax, if I were in a state that had it, which I'm not).  Your response has intermixed that with local taxes.  I'd really like to separate them, because to me they represent different classes of taxation.  I've explained above about why I agree with part of what you're saying here.

It's just the income tax I don't tithe on, because while I could sell my house and live in a tent on public land (such as the homeless tent city in my hometown) and thus avoid property taxes, I can't avoid income tax, except by not working.  That's why I consider the income tax a "cost of doing business."  In short, I CAN'T work unless I pay income tax -- at least I won't be able to keep it up for long, once the government has tracked me down.  This is why I believe that tithing can legitimately and honestly be calculated on the net after income tax.  If this were not so, then Saints who live in countries where the income tax rates go up to extremely high levels would actually be paying WAY over 10% of the income the government allows them to keep.  Granted that most high-tax countries reserve their highest rates for those earning tons of money, and thus they should be able to survive on what's left over -- the principle is the test, in my opinion.  What if the government decided that at your income level they could confiscate ALL of it -- unlikely, I know -- where would the tithing-on-the-gross be then?  You can't tithe on what you can't have.

I am pretty sure you will disagree with me.  But do you at least understand where I am coming from?

I do wonder about one thing.  Do you believe taxpayers should pay taxes on their gross income, rather than their adjusted gross income?  Or in other words, do you believe they should voluntarily eschew taking deductions?  If not, why not?  Wouldn't that better support our government and our community?  Just because the government allows you take those deductions, it doesn't require that you do so.  That's one of my gripes with the likes of Warren Buffet complaining that he's paying a smaller percentage of his income in income taxes than his employees are paying.  Instead of complaining about it, why doesn't he just pay more than he's required to by stopping taking the deductions allowed to him!  Why advocate the government take more from others when he himself appears to be unwilling to pay his self-assumed "fair share" voluntarily?  Of course, I don't know if he does after all voluntarily take fewer deductions than he's entitled to.  If he pays more in income tax than he's required to, that's fine, but he can jolly well stop advocating that others be taxed at higher rates.  Maybe he should start a voluntary movement advocating the super-rich to forgo taking deductions.  I'd support him in that.  As long as it was voluntary.

[Stargazer]

11 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

Now you're sounding like a good Marxist! Proletariats of the world, Unite!  

 

Well, that would be apt, except for the fact that under Marxism, as practiced, all property, including labor, belongs to the State.  I remember hearing the proverb under Communism in the Soviet Union: "They pretend to pay us; we pretend to work."

Marx was a lying fatherless piece of excrement.  If he isn't roasting in the fires of hell right this minute it's only because hell doesn't exist. His "philosophy" led to the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, by proxy. Mass murderers like Genghis Khan deserve more consideration -- at least they committed their murders while facing their victims.  

[Stargazer]

9 hours ago, Jean-Luc Picard said:

In what way do they go badly for you? 

This isn't directed straight at you, but I am wondering if others have felt a consequence of not paying tithing as the Lord instructed?

Is it more of a windows closing, or actual bad omen?

I have had some trying years, but certainly hard to pinpoint from a tithing perspective.

At times in my past I was lax in my obedience to the law of tithing.  I would not say that I suffered any misfortune as a result, but I did feel a consequence: feeling dishonest before the Lord and ungrateful.  I feel much better about myself and my relationship to the Lord when I am faithful in this respect.

[Jean-Luc Picard]

12 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

At times in my past I was lax in my obedience to the law of tithing.  I would not say that I suffered any misfortune as a result, but I did feel a consequence: feeling dishonest before the Lord and ungrateful.  I feel much better about myself and my relationship to the Lord when I am faithful in this respect.

I like that it is more about how you feel rather than how the Lord would feel.

[Stargazer]

5 minutes ago, Jean-Luc Picard said:

I like that it is more about how you feel rather than how the Lord would feel.

Well, that can be taken two different ways.  It might be more accurate to label my feelings on the matter to be my conscience, and my clear conscience leads me to believe that is what the Lord feels about it.  In any case, I don't think the Lord is up there counting every last minim; I believe he's up there weighing the heart.  On the other hand, it would be rather difficult to believe that the Lord felt that paying 5% was an honest tithe, on the other hand, regardless of what I felt about paying at that rate.

[Jean-Luc Picard]

8 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Well, that can be taken two different ways.  It might be more accurate to label my feelings on the matter to be my conscience, and my clear conscience leads me to believe that is what the Lord feels about it.  In any case, I don't think the Lord is up there counting every last minim; I believe he's up there weighing the heart.  On the other hand, it would be rather difficult to believe that the Lord felt that paying 5% was an honest tithe, on the other hand, regardless of what I felt about paying at that rate.

I think it does come to the heart. I doubt the Lord cares what the percentage is. Maybe he made it 10% because it is easier to do math. 8% was just too messy.

Maybe the 10% is more about obedience, he seems to really care about that.

[Stargazer]

22 minutes ago, Jean-Luc Picard said:

I think it does come to the heart. I doubt the Lord cares what the percentage is. Maybe he made it 10% because it is easier to do math. 8% was just too messy.

Maybe the 10% is more about obedience, he seems to really care about that.

Probably.  There's nothing magic about 10%, of course!

[Scott Lloyd]

On 4/19/2019 at 7:45 PM, Stargazer said:

And your point is?

Sorry, not clear about why this is relevant.

The relevance is quite clear to me. It is we who are in so-called “developed” nations and cultures who are apt to get nit picky about how much of our pay we are going to tithe. I think it is food for thought. 

[Stargazer]

4 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

The relevance is quite clear to me. It is we who are in so-called “developed” nations and cultures who are apt to get nit picky about how much of our pay we are going to tithe. I think it is food for thought. 

Whatever.