EY MOM, of course it makes me pay more! The government has to pay for all of their expenses. Trash collection, lighting in the streets, paving roads, building parks, paying for police, running the municipal offices, the list continues. For every family that pays only 10% of their arnona property taxes, the rest of us has to pay the rest of their 90% plus our 100%!!! It’s simple mathematics & economics – exactly the subjects that the schools should be teaching in order to make us successful in earning a decent and honest living!
The problem is that people all justify to themselves why it’s OK for them to avoid paying taxes and living off of other people’s money. This is not an attack on chareidim – it’s an attack on everyone who works the system but then leaves the rest of us paying the bill. Even if you can work the system in a way that doesn’t get you arrested, it’s still wrong. Religious people are held to a higher standard than to say, “well everyone else is doing it and it’s not really illegal and the chilonim can do it too.” That’s a cop-out and not what halacha demands of us.