IV Taxation is Not Theft

1. Jesus Says to Pay Your Taxes 

For many years, from many different Christians, I have heard the phrase, “taxation is theft,” or other equivalent phrases. Like the rest of us, I have no great fondness for paying taxes. Nevertheless, although I cannot call it a pleasure, I must consider it my duty. When Jesus was asked whether it was lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, His answer went further than a simple yes. He turned it into a command while teaching an invaluable lesson besides. 

The narrative I speak of is found in the Gospel of Matthew 22:15-22.  At the beginning of this chapter, Jesus tells the parable of the wedding feast. The Pharisees correctly perceive that they are not the protagonists of the story. In retaliation, they plotted to entangle Him in His words. They first send some of their disciples along with some Herodians to pose the question, “Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” (verse 17b). They think they have Him in a catch-22. If He says yes, He will be unpopular with the people; if He says no, then the Herodians will accuse Him of treason. How does our Lord deal with this conundrum? As He so often does, He makes an object lesson perfectly suited for the occasion. In verse 19 He says, “Show me the coin for the tax,” so they bring it to Him. Next he asks them in verse 20, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They answer, “Caesar’s,” essentially giving the answer they were trying to make Him give. In the same verse, verse 21, Jesus concludes “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”  

Note the command and the lesson in this masterly wise statement. The command is implied by the word ‘render.’ If we deny that it is a command to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, then we must deny (which for a Christian, is undeniable) that we are commanded to render to God the things that are God’s. Although the main point I am bringing out in this story is the one directly related to the subject under discussion, i.e. the incontrovertible conclusion from this passage that we must pay our taxes, I must say something about the more important point that Jesus is making. Just as we are to render to man what his image is inscribed on, so we are to render to God our whole selves, for we are in the image of God (Various 1711). So, although we may think our taxes are too exacting, we must remember that God demands and deserves far more.

2. What About Private Property?

One argument I have heard from Christians in opposition to paying taxes is that it is a violation of private property. They assert that the idea of private property can be derived from biblical principles. I will not reproduce the arguments for this assertion because I readily grant the premise. However, I cannot grant the conclusion that taxation is unbiblical because private property is biblical, and taxes are a violation of private property.

In this kind of argument, there is at least one implied premise; here it is that taxation is a violation of private property. Is this the case though? Whenever you owe someone a sum of money, you may no longer consider that sum of money something you own. Likewise, when we owe our taxes, it is no longer our property. The question begging of course is “how do we ‘owe’ our taxes?” Paul explains this in Romans 13. In verses 3-5, he gives the purpose of government much along the same lines as I presented in section III above. In verse 6 he concludes, “For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing.” Then in verse 7 we read, “Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.” So, we see that taxation is not a violation of private property because we owe it. 

When Paul says “For because of this you also pay taxes…” the ‘this’ refers to the general tendency of government to restrain evil just as God intended when He instituted government in the aftermath of the flood. One of the evils that governments restrain is the violation of private property. Obviously, it is not able to eliminate violations, but it certainly restrains them. This truth is illustrated whenever the Rule of Law is temporally lost in the midst of crises. Immediately, looting commences and continues until the Rule of Law is established again. Therefore, even our own sense in addition to the inviolable Word of God tells us that it is altogether fitting that we should pay something for this protection.

John Locke, perhaps the single most influential political thinker to the Founding Fathers, essentially says the same in his seminal work entitled, The Second Treatise of Government. In Chapter 9, he explains why people would give up some elements of their freedom in his theoretic State of Nature by taking on a government and it is “… for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties, and estates, which I call by the general name, property.” (Locke 57). This idea is almost directly echoed in the Declaration of Independence in its famous formula “… Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness…” after which it says, “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men…” (Jefferson 7).So, we see, both by God’s infallible Word and our own feeble reason, that the consideration of property gives us all the more reason to pay our taxes rather than less. 

3. What if the Government Uses the Tax Revenue for Evil?

Admittedly, one of the stronger arguments I have heard for Christians avoiding paying taxes is if the tax money will be used to do evil. How can we, in good conscience, give money towards an institution that will use it for evil? Although this argument seems to make sense on the face of the matter, it also seems that it was not an argument that occurred to Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Knowing the context in which Paul wrote Romans reveals that Paul is telling the Roman Christians to pay taxes to the evil Roman government, which undoubtedly used the tax revenues for all sorts of evils. Believing as we do that the Word of God is infallible, there must be a reconciliation between not willingly participating in evil and still giving our money to those who will likely do evil with it. 

Perhaps an analogy would be of service to help us understand how these things can be reconciled. Imagine that you are a Christian employer and have an unbeliever as an employee. This employee does his job passingly well. However, you know that he often uses his earnings for immoral conduct – your imagination can fill in the blanks. Should you give him his paycheck? Of course you should! You are morally and legally bound to! Your responsibility is to pay him what you owe him; his responsibility is to use it for lawful purposes. You are not permitted to shirk your responsibility to force him to fulfill his.  

The grounds for this analogy hold even if the roles of the Christian and the unbeliever are reversed. A Christian owes good work even to an employer who may use the profit for ill. The bottom line is our responsibilities are uncoupled from other’s responsibilities. A great deal of good would come from this realization in connection with other relationships as well. Applying the principle of uncoupled responsibilities to our relation to government completely resolves our former dilemma. If the government is performing its God instituted job at least passingly well – and it is, if utter pandemonium does not prevail – then our responsibility is to pay them what we owe, which according to Paul, is our taxes.

Bibliography

Jefferson, Thomas. “The Declaration of Independance.” The Declaration of Independance and Other Great Documents of American History 1775-1865. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2000. 7.

Locke, John. The Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2002. 57.

Various. The Reformation Study Bible. Orlando: Reformation Trust, 2015. 1711.