Taxes

"Head it south, man." During my twenty-seven years of self-employment I heard that phrase or similar sentiments many times from private customers to whom I had offered a receipt for their cash payment. "Or what the government doesn't know won't hurt them." One anticipates this mindset from those who don't follow Christ. More troubling to me is to hear the same thing from those who do. No one rejoices over paying taxes. I could go on a long rant, about how vigorously I oppose the current tax code and structure, the reality that most of the money I pay in taxes goes to buy the votes of other people, the appalling waste, corruption, graft associated with it, and the unconstitutionality of much of it. It does infuriate me, naturally speaking, when I think of all the days spent working outside in broiling heat or freezing cold, the incessant stress, the daily struggle to make a living, to know that I had silent partners (Federal and state) confiscating so much of the value of my labor. However, as a redeemed, spiritual man, I understand through diligent study of the Word of God that He owns everything, He entrusts a little of that to me as a stewardship and that He says to pay the taxes I owe.
"For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed." (Romans 13:6-7 ESV)
At the date of that writing the deranged, evil Emperor Nero ruled the Roman Empire, a man who immolated Christians on poles to provide lighting for his nocturnal debauchery. Yet Peter writes, "Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme..." (1 Peter 2:13 ESV)

For those interested in an eye opening book on the structural causes of the current economic problems in this country, and what needs to change in order to correct it, may I recommend Thomas E. Woods' "Meltdown" published in 2009.