What Does the Bible Say About Paying Your Fair Share of Taxes?
From an interview between Anderson Cooper and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on “60 Minutes,” January of 2019.
Cooper: “This would require though raising taxes.”
Ocasio-Cortez: “There’s an element where, yeah, people are going to have to start paying their fair share in taxes.”
Absolutely! Everyone should be paying their fair share of taxes. That’s in the Bible.
In Exodus 30, the Lord instituted the head or poll tax. Each person numbered in a census, from twenty years old and up, shall give half a shekel. “The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when you give the Lord’s offering to make atonement for your lives.” (Exodus 30:15). And who paid this tax? The men, the head of the household.
The Lord said to Moses, “When you take the census of the people of Israel, then each shall give a ransom for his life to the Lord when you shall number them, that there be no plague among them when you number them. Each one who is numbered in the census shall give this: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary, have a shekel as an offering to the Lord. Everyone who is numbered in the census, from 20-years-old and upward, shall give the Lord’s offering. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when you give the Lord’s offering to make atonement for your lives.” (Exodus 30:11-15)
In Deuteronomy 14, we find laws about tithing, giving a tenth of “all the yield of your seed that comes in from the field, year by year” (Deuteronomy 14:22). This rate was the same for everyone, whether they yielded much or little.
You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year. And before the Lord your God, in the place that He will choose, to make His name dwell there, you shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine, and of your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and flock, that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always. (Deuteronomy 14:22-23)
There was even a system of welfare in place, so the community provided for their poor, namely the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.
At the end of every three years you shall bring out all the tithe of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns. Ant he Levite, because he has no portion or inheritance with you, and the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, who are within your towns, shall come and eat and be filled, that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do. (Deuteronomy 14:28-29)
But the rate of exaction was still the same for everyone who gave. Those who wanted to contribute more could give more of their own will.
If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be… You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. (Deuteronomy 15:7-8, 10)
Jesus said to pay your taxes: “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17). We read in Romans 13:7, “Pay taxes to whom taxes are owed.” And if that amount is the same for everyone, then everyone is paying their fair share!
Cooper: “Do you have a specific on the tax rate?”
Ocasio-Cortez: “Sometimes you see tax rates as high as sixty or seventy percent. As you climb up this ladder, you should be contributing more.”
That’s not fair…
…When we understand the text!
(This video is by WWUTT. Discovered by Christian Podcast Central and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not Christian Podcast Central.)