Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Jerusalem has had powerful kings ruling over the whole of Trans-Euphrates, and taxes, tribute and duty were paid to them.

• Ezra 4:20

You are also to know that you have no authority to impose taxes, tribute or duty on any of the priests, Levites, musicians, gatekeepers, temple servants or other workers at this house of God.

• Ezra 7:24

As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.
While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

• Matthew 9:9-13

After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”
“Yes, he does,” he replied.
When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own children or from others?”
“From others,” Peter answered.
“Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him. “But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”

• Matthew 17:24-27

Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?”
He saw through their duplicity and said to them, “Show me a denarius. Whose image and inscription are on it?”
“Caesar’s,” they replied.
He said to them, “Then give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

• Luke 20:22-25

I have paid the federal and state governments zero taxes this year, and I owe none.  But unless I file, they will hunt me down like the “dog” that I am.

But for years, I have had people state that my pension was not taxable.  It is not taxable in the state of my residence, but it is taxable at the federal level.

Figuring that out took reading the instructions, which were absolutely no help, and then spending over two hours of good blog writing time searching the internet.  I even went to a site that said that they would answer one tax question for free, but after typing the question in and getting a tax consultant to state that they had my answer ready, they were about to charge my credit card five dollars.  I guess the question was free, but the answer would cost five dollars.  I closed the tab without giving them anything.

Countless online and brick and mortar tax consultants claimed they could help me if I bought their services.  Then, one of the brick and mortar places answered my question, easily, in plain English.  One sentence as if they knew I was asking the question in the form that the statement made.

The deal was that the printed instructions are set up the way companies do business these days.  No one offers pensions anymore.  They have investment plans that can be before taxes.  So, when the people who are working now get to retirement age, the present day written instructions will make sense.  How much of your “pension” was contributed by you, before or after taxes, and how much was contributed, possibly as matching funds by the company?  And after ten minutes of calculations, you have the portion that is taxable.  But if the company just gave you a pension, forget about it.  That is for old folks.  Yeah, old folks that are retired and collecting the pension, a taxable pension.

Now, the printed instructions were helpful in letting me know that my Social Security benefits were low enough, combined with my other income, so that they were not taxable.  So, the printed instructions helped a little.

So, I still do not owe any taxes.  In fact, I had distributions from my pension and the modern contributions before tax plus company matching money.  But those distributions would have to quadruple before I would have to worry about whether or not I might have to pay taxes.

But let’s look at the Scriptures.  Ezra is combatting the local neighbors who are telling King Cyrus that once the wall is built and the temple, the Jews will revolt and not pay taxes.  But once taxes are collected, certain taxes are not due from priests and others in support of the worship of God.

Then the three stories from Jesus are well known.  The call of Matthew is the call to all of us, to drop what we are doing, especially the sin in our lives, and follow Jesus.  The other two stories are traps that Jesus eludes.  The temple tax was established by Moses, Tabernacle Tax if you will.  The money at some point was gathered by a king, probably an evil one, for his own uses.  But then Joash wants to repair the temple of the Lord and he discovers that some of the taxes needed to go toward that.  Thus, the temple tax was reinstituted.  But Jesus tells Peter to go fishing and in the fish’s mouth will be enough to pay the tax for Jesus and for Peter.  Then in the final quoted Scripture, we see Jesus being tested about paying taxes to Caesar.  Jesus does not answer the question.  He tells them to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.

This was tongue in cheek, for everything is God’s yet we are to submit ourselves to the local authority.

Thus, I filed my taxes, knowing that I did not owe them anything.  God wants us to be good citizens while being faithful to God.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.