“This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:6-8).
It would be impossible for any government to survive on freewill offerings. I’m not about to say that all the taxes imposed by human governments are just and fair. The human race is so corrupt that it is impossible for humans to set up a fair and just tax system. The tax system that God set up through the Law of Moses is the only completely fair and just tax system that has ever existed on this earth. But even though the tax system set up by God was completely just and fair, it wasn’t long before the people learned how to cheat and Israel’s religious leaders learned how to manipulate this God ordained tax system for their own personal advantage, actually using it to enrich themselves.
It is said that the United States government was cheated out of over $90 billion last year by American corporations and tax payers. But it is also said that our government wastes close to $1 trillion dollars on pet projects and government mismanagement every year. Almost every human government that has ever existed self-destructed because of the corruption within the governments. One of the reasons the Roman government collapsed was because it turned into a welfare system where the people quit working (and quit paying taxes) and depended on government for their support. Much of the tax paid to the Roman government was actually used to support pagan temples that were used for prostitution (Sounds like our nightly world news of today). Many times the government of the United States pays for services or goods it never receives and pays too much for much for the work it hires people and corporations to do.
The first tax mentioned in the Bible is when Joseph told the pharaoh the dreams he was having was predicting seven good crop years followed by seven years of drought. So the Pharaoh told Joseph to collect a fifth of the grain in the seven good years and keep it for use in the seven droughty years. That is what Joseph did and it saved the Egyptian people from a time of hunger. Some years later this law became permanent in the Egyptian government (Genesis 47:26). From this we learn that God has allowed some sort of taxation to help the governments help the people.
The first God ordained tax system was given to the nation of Israel for the support of the government and its spiritual leaders (The spiritual leaders were also the rulers of the government of Israel—and they became corrupt). This tithe was used for the support of the priestly tribe of Levi (Numbers 18:21-24) because it had no land allocated to it and had no means of supporting itself.
A second tithe was the festival tithe, which was used for sacrifices and supporting the temple (Deuteronomy 12:10-19). A third tithe that was paid every third year was for supporting orphans and widows, it was 3.3 percent a year (Deuteronomy 14:27-29). A fourth tithe was used to support the temple, it was a half-shekel tax that was levied on every male Israelite that was twenty years old or older (Exodus 30:14-15). The total tithe actually came to about 24 percent. And then there was the law that told farmers to leave part of their crop in the fields for the poor people to harvest (Leviticus 19:10).
During the days of Samuel, because of the corruption within the ruling priests, the people begin to demand a king to rule them (cf. 1 Samuel 8:1-8). This upset Samuel but God said, “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected Me as their king” (1 Samuel 8:7).
God told Samuel to pick Saul as the king and he eventually became as corrupt as the spiritual leaders, as did most of the kings of Israel. Because of the sin nature that is within humanity, it is totally impossible for humans to rule over humans in a just, fair and impartial manner. Every human government that has ever existed, including the USA, is filled with corruption—but that does not give us an excuse not to pay our taxes.
When the tax collectors of Capernaum demanded that Jesus pay a temple tax, He didn’t argue with them. He told Peter to cast a line into the Sea of Galilee and catch a fish with a coin in its mouth. That coin was worth four Drachmas, the amount needed to pay the tax for Jesus and Peter (cf. Matthew 17:24-27). Even though Jesus, as the Son of God, was not obligated to pay the temple tax to support God’s own house of worship, as the Son of man He paid the tax to keep from causing problems with the civil authorities and also to set an example for His disciples. What is amazing about this is that Jesus knew that this money would go to into the pockets of the high priests and chief priests that would eventually have Him put to death.
When the Pharisees were making plans to trap Jesus in His words, they sent their followers and asked Jesus, “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” Jesus asked them to show Him a coin and He said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s (cf. Matthew 22:15-21). All citizens, Christian or not, owe their part in the funding the cost of operating the government. The taxes we pay build the roads we drive on. Our taxes support the national parks we enjoy. Our taxes pay for the military that keeps guard over our nation. A US citizen can avoid unnecessary taxes by taking every lawful deduction, but not paying our share of taxes is stealing from the government and that is just as sinful as stealing from our neighbor.