Yes, they do. Here all citizens is registered in their current municipality. Along with your name, marital status and current address you give your (self-identified) denomination. If this this is one that collects church taxes - basically the big two in Germany: Roman Catholics and Lutherans - those are collected with your other taxes. The state keeps a certain percentage for their expenses, but obviously this saves the churches a lot of money. They don’t need their own infrastructure and payment morality is perfect.
Of course you are not forced into any denomination. Whenever you feel like it, you can - and many do - go to your city hall and change your status to “no denomination”. You don’t have to pay anything any longer, but this is reported to your church. From their point of view, when you publicly renounce your faith, you are out (you may be invited to come back, but that’s a different story) and they treat you that way. e.g. It wasn’t easy to have me, son of one Catholic and one church-leaving heretic, baptized.
By this logic, should I calculate the cost of my benefits, and tithe 10% of that? Granted, I’m not SEEING that money, but it’s part of my compensation package, so I’m earning it. There are several different ways to break down what I “earn” at work – including my salary in which I pay taxes, what’s in my paycheck, as well as assorted benefits that have a monetary value. I’m still of the mind that scripture doesn’t speak directly in favor of any one of these interpretations over the others.
On the issue of what makes up the actual tithe, my parish (Roman Catholic), recommends half of the tithe to the church directly, and half to charitable causes. The preference would be for charitable causes related to the mission of the church.
Yes.
(LDS tithepayer here.)
This is one of the topics that comes up again and again in the newsgroup soc.religion.mormon (a moderated newsgroup) and alt.religion.mormon (an unmoderated newsgroup that was around for years before the moderated group was created).
First, no one has defined “gross” or “net”, but it appears most are talking about before and after taxes.
Abbie what do you say to the small businessman who has revenue of $500,000 per year, but only has $25,000 after expenses? Does he have to pay $50,000 in tithing and thus be in the hole for $25,000?
What about investments like a 401(k)? A reasonable thing is to not tithe when you pay in, but tithe on the whole thing when you take it out. Otherwise you’d tithe on your income, then pay into your 401(k), and then when you cash it out figure out your increase and then tithe that.
As soon as you get into any non-trivial paycheck, you run into issues like these. Personally, I feel that the Lord is more concerned with my honest offering than in my going through the headaches and hassle of getting the numbers correct to the penny.
I’ve put a lot of thought and prayer into this over the years, and have tried paying pre-tax vs. post-tax (including refunds), prayed about it etc. I’m comfortable with paying post-tax, and I think the Lord accepts my offering as complete. We LDS also have other funds managed by the church that we contribute to, including fast offerings (typically used to help the needy of the church or even non-members in local ares), humanitarian aid, etc.
A new fund we (dangermom & I) like a lot is the Perpetual Education Fund. It creates an endowment from which low-interest loans for education are given to church members around the world, with the intent that they can then raise their income levels and help their local areas. The idea was based on the Perpetual Immigration Fund back in pioneer days in which LDS would give money for people to migrate to Utah, expecting that new immigrants would then give the money back into the fund to help more people immigrate.
If you’re tithing on net income, yes – the tax refund is part of your final net income.
If you’re tithing on gross income, no – you’ve already tithed on the money that was being withheld from your paycheck, including the part that turned out to be an overpayment that is being refunded to you.
I thank my God that he/she/it has no need for money.
What happens if you don’t tithe? What happens if you aren’t happy with the way the church is spending your money?
Then you switch churches. If we’re expected to sow into good ground, and our church isn’t good ground, then it would follow that you should find a church that handles the tithes properly.
For instance, they are spending too much on remodeling the church instead of charitable acts towards the community?
I’m not sure that the tithes SHOULD be spent on the community.
The purpose of the tithe is to run the church and further the Gospel. If that’s running a soup kitchen or something like that, sure, I can see using the tithes for that.
My grandmother’s church, however, recently made a rather large donation to the annual Run for Life (cancer org, I think). This is a smallish church, not wealthy but not poor either. I’m sure the RFL is great and all, but since church tithes were used, I think she’s right in being pissed.
If members wanted to get together and make a special donation, that’s cool. But I can’t see giving tithes to charitable organizations that have no spiritual purpose whatsoever.
No, He doesn’t, but His church and His people do. Someone has to pay so we can worship and run the food shelf and the daycare center and so forth.
Nothing happens if you don’t tithe, at least in my church. I have served on the stewardship committee, and we make a strong effort not to know how much everyone gives. Only the treasurer (on whom may God rain down blessings for her patience) and the person who inputs the information into our database know, and this is considered very confidential.
At my church, if you don’t like how the money is spent, you can join a committee and get it changed, or bring it up at our congregational meeting.
Yes, and from other kinds of income as well. For instance, a relative recently died and I inherited some money from her. We tithed from that because we felt God was leading us to do so. As a result, some unexpected bills at our church got paid, and we were able to make payroll and keep the mortgage current. We didn’t know the bills were coming, but God did. 
In theory. I don’t, because it is too hard to calculate non-monetary benefits like this. I cover this with my donations of time.
“The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” I try not to get hung up in “tithing mint and dill and cumin”, because it tends to distract me from why I give.
YMM, as ever.
Regards,
Shodan
It’s my feeling that this concern about net versus gross, or even 10% versus another amount, misses the point of giving in the first place. We are talking about God here, not a beauracy. I believe God wants us to give with our hearts; if you have to run figures through a calculator to compute the amount that you are obligated to give, then you are not giving with your heart, now are you?
You are simply being taxed by your conscience.
A multi-billionaire could give a lot more than 10% of his income and still be comfortable. Even if he tithes gross, he’s still living extremely fat. If he sticks to giving 10% of the gross because that’s what is in the bible, is he demonstrating a offering that is truly of the heart?
Someone with financial burdens who gives less than the Biblically-mandated 10% should not be made to feel as if they are shirking their duty. If they are giving from their heart, then what is the problem?
All this focus on minimum tithing requirements is like focusing on the lowest score one can get on a test and still get a passing grade out of the class. Um, you’re supposed to learn from the class, not just pass it.
by Abbie Carmichael
I find it hard to believe that Jesus would object to tithes being spent on clothing and food for poor people who happen to be non-Christian and who happen to not want to be converted in exchange for help. I recently donated money to the Sudanese refugees and I consider that money as God’s money, just because it is intended to help others obtain the basic necessities of life as they desperately fight for survival in a way I can hardly fathom. Would a loving God have a problem with me spending “His” money on that?
Let’s get real!
Actually, there is scriptural support for tithes to be given to the community.
I definitely agree with you that too much of the discussion of tithing as a numbers game makes it seem like, well, a racket. But in defense of tithing, I’d like to mention that my parish makes many of the same points that you do when talking about the tithe. It’s not supposed to be about making people with less money feel badly, or scoring brownie points with God. These are things the members of my church are reminded of often.
I also once heard a priest talk about the 10% being a good guideline to keep people from giving too much more (granted, he added this wasn’t usually the problem), and pointed out the dangers of people feeling competitive about giving, or taking “giving 'til it hurts” to an extreme. You don’t want people giving so much that it jeopardizes their family finances. A church is a community, and you don’t want members of your community giving away so much of their income that their children are lacking warm clothes and good food. I realize this is an extreme example, but for some people, the giving (and the attention it garners if not done anonymously) can become like an addiction, and no decent church (IMHO) would want to benefit from such a situation.
Personally, I like it when someone gives me a number. Have you ever been in an unfamiliar situation where you didn’t know how much to tip? The first year I lived in an apartment building with a doorman, I knew one was supposed to tip him for Christmas, but no one would tell me how much! I asked about a million people, and it was very frustrating when they would say “oh, whatever you think is right.” Maddening! By getting an actual number, or in this case, a percentage, at least I know what the general community standard amount is, and can then figure out if my circumstances are so flush that I can afford to give a bit more, or, if things are rough, a little less. There is a Biblical allowance for famine and plague, I believe, which could cover things like unforeseen medical expenses or sudden loss of income.
(Just to be clear, I’m Roman Catholic. The OP addressed the LDS tithe in particular, but also welcomed views from other religions.)
by delphica
I think tipping a doorman or waitress is not comparable to giving to God. A guideline may take some of the stress out of tithing because you have a set percentage to go by, but it seems to me when it comes to matters of giving there shouldn’t be set values. Because when you start trying to make things formulaic, the purpose behind the giving is forgotten.
And what is the purpose for giving? I think my understanding of that is different than a lot of Christians, who see it as an investment for future blessings. I see it as a way to contribute to Good, which is what God wants. I’m not concerned about earning blessings. But everyone is different, right?
Did you actually READ what I said?
Feeding/clothing the poor, etc. is furthering the Gospel, which is exactly what I said in the quote that you conveniently edited.
Donating a chunk of money to a medical charity is not, which is what I was talking about in my post. People give their tithes thinking it will be used for either the church or church-related stuff. When I hit the ATM on Sunday morning before church, I am not taking out the money just so my church can turn around and give it to, say, the American Heart Association or the United Way.
Personally, I feel that the Lord is more concerned with my honest offering than in my going through the headaches and hassle of getting the numbers correct to the penny.
Oh, I agree. I’d rather see someone REGULARLY tithe off of the net, every time they get paid, then someone who tithes off of the gross just when they feel like it.
As far as the businessman question and the health benefits question, I don’t know. Technically everything we have comes from God, but I can see where it would be really hard to tithe an intangible.
Well, Acts 5 is a warning if you lie about your tithing… but other than that, I think my church does good things with the money, and even though I give only a tiny fraction of the budget, that’s still something that won’t get done because I didn’t give.
Also, I think it makes me mindful of how important money should be to me, it makes me a better steward of what has been given to me in all areas (not just money). But, no, I’m not worried about being struck by lightning.
Well, I’m protestant, so I’d change churches… but, other than that - try and change the way the church is spending money, or give the tithe to somewhere that I felt God’s work was being done.
Thanks for that, and let me just say :eek: :eek: :eek: then.
What about other denominations such as Methodist, Baptist etc? Are they frowned upon or simply ignored?
It depends on their legal status. A denomination has the right to collect “church taxes” if it is recognized as a so called “corporate body under public law” a status with several privileges. Unfortunately the exact criteria seem a little bit obscure. Besides the big two, those that I can remember right now are Judaism, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Baptists. These and several others have the right to have “church taxes” collected, but don’t neccessarily do so. A prominent example of a denomination that doesn’t have this status are Jehovah’s Witnesses.
I didn’t mention the other denomination because they are very small here. The biggest non-Lutheran protestant denomination are the Baptists with 85000 members (of 80 million Germans.)