To those of you well-situated enough that you actually pay taxes, congratulations! Good job working hard for your money, and sorry about what’s going to happen to you in April.
To those of us, however, who fall into the tax bracket known as “pitiful slobs,” this is the most wonderful time of year. It’s the time of year when daddies are allowed to buy socks that don’t have holes in them, and frugal moms splurge on extravagant items like car registrations and non-irregular ketchup. Yes yes, it’s tax return time!
Can o’ worms disclaimers:
1. Tithing is a fabulous and praiseworthy practice, and something to be striven for, but it is not possible for all families. Giving generously and significantly from what you have is required by the Church; giving ten percent is not. (See CCC #2043)
2. Taxes don’t count as charity, even if some of your tax money does go toward supporting some of those icky poor people (yes, I have heard otherwise sane Catholics argue this line). Taxes are for Caesar, charitable donations are for God, and Catholics are supposed to pay both.
3. Why, yes, America is being ruined by irresponsible people like us who go on and have forty-seven children that we can’t even afford to outfit in Brooks Brothers suits with a Rush Limbaugh logo embroidered on the lapel. We should pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, quit whining, and take the triple extra overtime shift in the coal mine so we will have something to leave to the Pat Buchanan Young Monsters Brigade in our will.
4. I’m still spending part of our tax return on beer, and you can’t stop me. Or even make me feel bad about it.
Okay, with that out of the way: what we have decided is that, if we can’t manage to tithe every month, we can at least tithe from windfalls—and the greatest of these is our annual tax refund.
We generally donate a medium amount to the local crisis pregnancy center, and a large amount to Save a Family Plan. This is our favorite charity because it has an extremely low overhead, with no monkey business, and it gets results. This is not heavy-handed, bureaucratic, temporary-shower-of-gold-style charity: it’s intensely local and very personal. And it’s run by nuns, so you’re not going to end up accidentally funding some hideous sterilization program, as you might with UNICEF or United Way.
Here’s how it works: in the Family Deveopment Program, your family helps a family in India with “immediate needs such as food, clothing, medicine or education”; and then the organization “encourages each family assisted to become self-reliant and productive within the context of their local economy.” From the website:
purpose of assistance
Provide basic human needs (food, medicine, shelter)
Cover some of the educational costs of children so they can attend school
Offer skills development opportunities for parents
Enhance employability through training
Provide means for these families to own livestock to have an improved diet and to give them an asset
Assist families in financing entrepreneurial initiatives such as small retail stores called petty shops, bicycle repair centres, teashops, fishing businesses, etc.how it helps poor families
Reduces their indebtedness
Improves their living conditions
Reduces the burden on single parents such as widows and widowers as well as abandoned women
Augments present income for an immediate improvement in their standard of living
Provides avenues for subsidies and bank loans that would not normally be available to the poor
Provides a built-in support system with their local Sangham
You commit to supporting the family for a certain number of years, and will receive a photo, and letters from the family if you wish (and you may write back, too). A $240 annual donation ($20 a month) will send a family on its way toward self-reliance within six years. Save a Family Plan has helped more than 50,000 to become self-sufficient!
Lent is coming! An excellent time of year to think about lightening that pesky load in your wallet. I heartily recommend Save a Family Plan, but there are other fine homes for your money, as well. So, what’s your favorite charity, and why?
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Heh. We’re another one of those icky families who gets huge refunds even though we never PAY taxes…. and to make matters worse, we live on five hundreths of an acre in a 1000 square foot house in town. Our PROPERTY TAX is only 18$ a month—because it went UP last year! I tell my husband that we might as well tatoo the word ‘Looter’ to our forehead and be done with it!
Anyway, we usually save our tithe on the tax refund for the Bishop’s appeal. Because our parish really, really, really wants everyone to participate. And we don’t want to gyp the parish to pay the bishop. So “windfall tithe” on the tax refund goes to…keeping the Bishop off the parish’s back! :)
Btw—congratulations on the new gig! Does this mean you’ll be doing a Simcha Fischer/ Archibold Brothers comedy hour on EWTN? ;)
I’m torn between loving this post to death and banging my head on the desk because…..a tax RETURN is the piece of paper you send to the IRS, and a tax REFUND is the money you get back from them, should you not have to pay. Around this time every year I listen to people use the terms interchangeably and it makes me want to yelp.
As for favorite charities….my husband is partial to the retirement fund for religious, and having worked for a hunger charity, I have a special place in my heart for peeps who feed the hungry :)
I’m one of those poor saps who has to pay in April, and doesn’t know where that money will come from. But that’s another story. I’m still better off than those folks in India.
Wow - what a great program! May I also suggest giving to missionaries - like the PIME Missionaries (whom I just happen to be employed by.) They have a foster parents program, and a medical relief program that helps people with leprosy, AIDS and malnutrition.
We tithe… and just the past few days I have really been expressing myself to God on this. We could really use the money; but yet isn’t it all God’s anyway? No, we don’t have to tithe 10%, but I feel like less is less faith (this is my internal dialogue with God—not judgmental or for anyone else to use) since He can bless us at all times. We don’t have to tithe any percent, but we can. I struggle with guilt and feel guilty if I give less than 10%—like God is going to punish me! How ridiculous is that. Anyway… on to another point:
we use the tithe from our refund for the Bishop’s Annual Appeal.
Julie said:
“a tax RETURN is the piece of paper you send to the IRS, and a tax REFUND is the money you get back from them, should you not have to pay. Around this time every year I listen to people use the terms interchangeably and it makes me want to yelp.”
Sorry! I can see how that would make you want to yelp. In my defense, there was no piece of paper to return—we filed electronically; and there was no “refund,” since most of what we got was just pure subsidy for being poor and having kids (so it’s not as if there were any philological clues to help me out). But I am all for using the rite word for the rite porpoise.
PIMEEDITOR—You are not a poor sap—you managed to avoid giving the government an interest-free loan for the past year! Technically, you are a winner! =)
One of the biggest spiritual problems I have comes—ironically—through donating to charity. As I try to have my giving become more and more pure, I continue to try NOT to profit from giving to charity.
Unfortunately the receipt-giver at Goodwill and other charities makes it easy to assume I should be claiming all gifts on my tax returns against my taxable income.
So what my family has decided to do is this: we account for all of the gifts we give to charities throughout the year, both money and tangible goods. Then using our tax program, we figure out how much tax liability we saved through our donations. Finally, once we receive our refund, we take the amount calculated and donate THAT back to charities.
It seems to have satisfied my problem with reconciling pure charity with financial prudence. Plus it makes me giddy knowing that I’m diverting some of my taxes away from the government and toward efficient charities.
One of the biggest spiritual problems I have comes—ironically—through donating to charity. As I try to have my giving become more and more pure, I continue to try NOT to profit from giving to charity.
Unfortunately the receipt-giver at Goodwill and other charities makes it easy to assume I should be claiming all gifts on my tax returns against my taxable income.
So what my family has decided to do is this: we account for all of the gifts we give to charities throughout the year, both money and tangible goods. Then using our tax program, we figure out how much tax liability we saved through our donations. Finally, once we receive our refund, we take the amount calculated and donate THAT back to charities.
It seems to have satisfied my problem with reconciling pure charity with financial prudence. Plus it makes me giddy knowing that I’m diverting some of my taxes away from the government and toward efficient charities.
Another good charity is Good Counsel Homes based in New Jersey. It’s a home for unwed mothers and I believe that they have locations in New York City as well. Of course, Birthright is a good organization if you want your money to go to someplace local. Children’s International is similar to the one that you describe, although you sponsor just one child. I believe my parents have sponsored a young girl for about 12 years now. They get letters from her faithfully, and she recently asked them why they never write to her.
The title of your post put a pit in my stomach. Tax Return (or Refund, apparently) Tithing?? Crap! We already got our money back and it’s already been designated to the appropriate areas… little bit of fun, and lots of saving. So, thanks for that little dose of guilt this morning. But, to make me feel better, I recalled that this past year, we almost doubled what we donated to church over the previous year, and my husband actually made several thousand less last year. So, I’m back to feeling virtuous again! : )
I love the family charity you mentioned, Simcha—our daughter (and soon our next daughter) was born in India, and I’ve always struggled with the reality that poverty made our adoptions possible and necessary. We will be signing on to help an Indian family be able to keep their children.
When we were younger our tax refunds went to the charity known as “paying off our credit card debt.”
We’ve been giving more to actual charities in recent years. However, when you’re giving only twice what you spend on satellite television in a year, you’re probably not giving enough.
OK, so I’m going to make a donation now. Thanks for the prompt.
Haitian Health Foundation has a similar program in Haiti.
Sorry you’re getting raked over the proverbial coals for the return/refund thing. I read your whole post, got your meaning, and didn’t realize the mistake until I read the comments. Who knew so many English teachers read your column.
St. Gerard’s Center for Life in Hartford.
And I second the “thanks for the shot of guilt”- since most of the tax *refund* (I learned something new!) money was earmarked to renovate the kitchen.
But, babies spared from the butcher are better than new butcher block in my kitchen.
as always, love you.
Also, I need to note, my husband and I both tried to take the triple extra overtime shift in the coal mine but it was already filled. Actually we’re wait listed.
Anyway, gonna suggest www.smiletrain.org which does nonprofit cleft repairs. My daughter was born with a cleft palate and it is incredibly hard to deal with even WITH insurance, great plastic surgeons, specialized feeders and therapists at the ready, and a community which is much more understanding (no one here believes your kid is cursed for example).
It is one of my very favorite charities, and as I am too strapped to give much money to my favorite cause, I can recommend it to others who may actually get a tax refund (we always owe each year). Consider it.
And again, Simcha love your writing.
Great post. I’m not sure if we have to pay taxes this year or if we’ll get a little back, but we don’t use our tax refunds for charitable giving, we just give when we have it and we never claim it on our tax return (although maybe we should just to keep it out of the hands of the government eugenists).
But I was reading about Jane Russell’s death and I was thinking of donating to her World Adoption International Fund (WAIF). She had an illegal abortion when she was young and it left her sterile and pro-life, and not to digress, but all of the news articles mentioned her illegal abortion and inability to have children, but none of them mentioned that she was pro-life. I won’t donate until I know for sure that it is on the up and up, but my greatest hope is to be able to adopt children myself or help others to adopt or both. Not to go into too much personal detail, but after all my nagging, my husband is now seriously considering it after meeting a little girl who filled her pockets with all the candy in his clinic because she had been starved so badly as a child that she compulsively hordes food now. Her adoptive mother explained to my husband in private what the situation was, but made her put it all back and apologize to him. He said he had to fight back tears because she wasn’t trying to steal it, she just couldn’t help it, and she was so scared when she apologized. We’ll have to see. We don’t have enough money right now, but we may in the future.
We like Christian Foundation for Children and Aging because we love us some old people. We began giving a few months ago and have received two letters from our lady in Guatemala. We have been able to write back and have a small relationship in that way. A worthwhile group!
http://www.cfcausa.org/
I am all for tithing from your refund, but consider this: if you are getting a large refund, it is probably because you are having too much withheld from your pay! A $1,000 refund just means that you loaned the government a thousand bucks over the year, and now it’s paying it back WITH NO INTEREST. Paycheckcity.com has a pretty good W-4 calculator. If it makes sense for you, increase the number of allowances on your W-4 - - you can submit one to your employer at any time. Less money in your refund, but more money in your paycheck!
Well maybe we aren’t forced to tithe 10 percent by the Church but it is a good thing to do. My mother told me when I was a boy that the reason all the Jewish millionaire in America were rich is because their mothers taught them to tithe their first dollar. It takes faith to tithe and trust in God but he has never let me down. Plus it is the one thing that God said you can test him on. No matter how poor I am I always try to tithe and when I am really poor I tithe more. Giving Charity is one of the best protections for your livelihood. Just a few days before Christmas I decided I needed to give my last 100 dollars to a priest who was spreading Perpetual Adoration- within a week 2000 dollars appeared in my bank account as salary owed to me that I had no idea was owed to me. Its a very Jewish thing to do so give it a go and watch the blessings flow.
Great ideas and charity suggestions. Our refund will probably be mostly used for dentist fees. We tithe the full pre-tax 10% every month, because it makes us stick with it. If we didn’t make ourselves do it every month I’m pretty sure it would be to easy for us to never tithe at all.
I just wanted to add that many devout Jews tithe 20 percent not 10. The richer you are the greater should be the percentage you tithe. Of course those who are at a high level of spirituality don’t tithe to get back from God but because they rejoice in the performance of the mitzvah (commandment/gooddeed) and that is reward enough. They encounter the Divine Presence in such an act and grow in deeper intimacy with God totally embracing his Divine Will. Paying your taxes is also a godly act-so do it with joy. I used to complain about taxes until I lived in a third world country where one paid very little tax- but I realised that we got alot of services for our taxes in the first world- so I try not to complain anymore.
Hooray for your plug for Save a Family Plan! We have been contributing there for a couple of decades now. Every penny goes to the poor! Truly! And they do great work. Check them out at http://www.safp.org/
I must take issue with point #1 which says it’s not possible for all families to tithe. Dolores and Athol bring up good points. Tithing involves a faith leap. I have found during the most difficult times that when I take that faith leap and continue to tithe, it comes back to me in the most unusual of ways. EVERY TIME. God who sees all knows our hearts and rewards us accordingly. “They will pour into your lap a good measure—pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.” Luke 6:37
Once you have tried this you will see it works. EVERY TIME.
I am so glad to see this, have been looking for more info on good charities. We give to Food for the Poor—but it has been years since I researched them. Also local pregnancy center, catholic schools, military archdiocese. I like this save a family plan, we will start that this lent. Thanks!
I say give what you can when you can. I don’t like the rigid rule for tithing because it sounds superstitious to me.
I’m loving the…charitable sarcasm (?) of your posts. Keep it up!
PS, I’m not a Hebrew Catholic, but my great, great grandmother was and I’ve always been proud of it. Rock the heritage.
Wow, the story about the little girl who hoards food because she had been starved so badly just cured me of the need to ever complain about anything again. Thanks for sharing that Julie. This post was great. I love the element that’s so important in all of it - God will be as generous with us as we are to others. It’s so easy to forget when you’re standing in the grocery store wondering what you can make for dinner this week if all you can afford is a bag of onions and half a head of lettuce . . .
Me too, Theresa. My husband has cried one time before that I’ve ever seen, but his eyes filled with tears while he was telling me the story. I would really like to find a way to channel the desire to stab her biological “mother” in the lungs into something useful for other kids who are abused.
Theresa have you seen the Israeli movie “Ushpizin”? It is delightful and at the beginning the Chasidic Jewish wife Malka looks in the fridge and all she has is one cabbage. It is a wonderful movie about faith and is in fact my favourite movie. It really encourages one to pray and have faith even when one has one trial after the other like Abraham did.
Ushpizin is a fantastic movie! Absolutely fantastic!
Love your writing Simcha - enjoy your windfall!
We’re also in the capitalist pig category. All told, we probably pay close to 50% of our earnings in taxes. Thanks to the AMT, charitable donations are barely a blip on the old tax return radar screen, so whether or not we report our donations is academic, but I lean heavily towards not giving the government one more red cent than we have to so I’d say to those of you concerned about getting some money back from your charitable donations - TAKE IT! If you feel bad, give it back to another charity (and make sure you deduct it again).
Another Julie - you probably could afford to adopt from foster care, which I know isn’t for everyone. Many counties reduce the costs for foster care adoptions. There is also a 13k dollar adoption tax credit (assuming your AGI <$185k), which would probably cover any costs you would incur in a foster to adopt situation. (13k would maybe cover half in an international adoption). Food hoarding, however, is one of the more benign behaviors of previously abused children.
Ooops. Forgot to mention our favorite charity - Lately it’s been a local Missionaries of Charity soup kitchen.
We love Heifer, International. It’s similar to Save a Family Plan, but deals exclusively with animal donations to families in impoverished communities. Their literature is very instructive in demonstrating the rippled impact that one animal can have on an entire village. This has been a Lent project for our family. It’s fun to save up to buy a Llama or a flock of chicks!
should I feel bad if i will spend part of mine on…tequila? No, not wine or beer. tequila
When we get our tax refund, it’s going right to our Catholic school to pay off some of the tuition we owe. I consider that tithing, period.
Depending on the size of our refund, it goes to several different places: pay off debt, seasonal needs (e.g., kids clothes) savings, visiting relatives and charity. We just bumped up parish donations because it is in real financial trouble, and now use parishpay.com (which is supposed to be less costly to the parish and smooth out parish inflow). We also like SafeHorizon because they were very, very helpful to people after September 11th in New York. (BTW, if anyone knows of any negative issues with parishpay or safehorizon, please post to let us know if we are sending money where it should not go.)
I work for the US Treasury (yes, the Internal Revenue Service) and like it or not I have to pay my taxes just to keep my job. People call in asking the status of the “return”, but what they really mean is their “refund”. Granted, some people really DO mean’ their “return”. It’s like comparing even oranges and tangerines. The fact that you submit electronically (ELF) makes no difference..if you file a return you file a return—-paper or by computer. That’s why we ask how and when you filed and for what tax year (not always 2010) are you calling about.
Oh, I don’t mind nor do I mind how MUCH the taxes are. What I do mind is that my taxes are going to pay for so-called “causes” like other people’s abortion that gets my goat.
I believe that charity begins at home. I also firmly believe in helping the economy-so for better or worse-I buy what I can and as much as I can…for myself and for local charities-as often as possible, budget be damned. Being a born shopper, I’d rather spend the 10% tithe and ship the goods to India then money that can be used for God knows what that could be against my moral values.
I am impressed with everyone’s generosity in tithing their tax refund. Our family tithes and we do so out of my gross salary. Because I’m already tithing on the money that gets withheld from my pay for tax purposes, I don’t tithe on it again when it gets returned to me? Does anyone else do this, it seems like everyone is tithing on their refund?
we tithe on the net income, otherwise I probably wouldn’t tithe on this. Although… maybe I would on the child tax credit money and the making work pay credit money.
CCC 2043 doesn’t say that we don’t have to give 10%. It just says to give according to our ability. it doesn’t give any amounts or limits. Why lower the bar? The more we give, the more God returns to us. It is the one thing he has told us we can test him on.
Anyway, I don’t have a particular charity that i like. I give to different ones at different times. I appreciate all the suggestions though.
I don’t consider paying Catholic school tuition as “tithing” b/c you are receiving a service for the money spent that significantly benefits you personally.
Shout out to Cari & St. Gerard’s!
Brandon - I used to think it was shameful to want a tax break for charitable giving. I changed my mind once I started to wonder what business the Fedgov could ever have taxing it to begin with. It just seems to fall into the “you’ve gotta be kidding me” category. As far as I’m concerned, once it passes out of our hands and to charity, they have no claim on it.
I love this whole thread of comments! I think you should mark this one out somewhere as one of those “most requested/recommended” posts. Sorry, Simcha, but this time your brilliance has been matched by your readers and fans. That’s all good in my book.
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It is such an honor to have you guys! I Like your Blog! Looking forward to your new Post!
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