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Hows this idea:
Sit down at a computer with your children and let them donate a dollar or two to Jews from different circles….. explain to them that no matter what kind of Jew the other person is,,,, hes still Jewish and is considered our brother and we must help them…
In other words “put your money where your mouth is”,,,, it works every time.
try HELPTHISJEW.COM
aries2756: You’re very welcome.
SJSinNYC:
“mw13, when you don’t pay taxes, you are also stealing from Jews.”
Huh? How?
“You are also stealing by using services provided by your tax money and not paying for them.”
Seeing as these services are also available to people who do not pay any taxes (legally), I am unconvinced paying taxes is necessarily a prerequisite for receiving government services.
“Honestly, its this thought process that is DESTROYING our generation.”
What, looking at things with a clear, halcahic view? Then I’ll be more than happy to see our generation “DESTROYED” any day.
“Theft is ok huh?”
Of course not. I never said it was. All I said was that not paying taxes is not halachicly theft, a point which you have yet to come up with an argument against.
“For every dollar in taxes you aren’t paying, you are stealing a % of that money from millions and millions of people, many of whom are frum.”
Again, how is not giving my money to the government stealing from millions of people?
“I’m pointing out that people rail so hard against one toeva but neglect another. Because one seems so foriegn to them (homosexuality) and the other is “not so bad.” Vomit.”
Who ever said that stealing is “not so bad”? Stealing is most definitely assur. And cheating on taxes is also assur, as I explained in my last comment. But cheating on taxes still isn’t stealing.
I’m curious who you think the US government is. It is the representation of the entire US system. It is us! So every time you steal money from the tax base, you ARE stealing from the people.
The tax system has been set up that some people don’t have to pay or get credits as a form of charity since they cannot afford it otherwise.
And finally, according to my Rav, cheating on your taxes is theft.
Anyway, clearly everyone missed the initial point of my posting about that.
Theft
1.
the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny.
2.
an instance of this.
3.
Archaic . something stolen.
(from dictionary.com)
Therefore, how can not paying taxes be theft? How am I taking money that belongs to somebody else if it’s my own money I’m keeping?
You are entitled to follow your Rav, but so am I. And my Rav holds cheating on your taxes is sheker, but not geniavah.
Cheating on taxes is a complex subject (perhaps its complications lie in the negius of the people making arguments).
The side SJS is presenting is that by cheating on taxes, the government receives less money and must make up the money from other tax payers (since their spending is not a function of revenue collected but the converse). Either the current tax payers will pay more now or the missing amount adds to national debt and will be payed for by future taxpayers. The tax evader is thus stealing either from his own cohort of taxpayers or from future generations of taxpayers.
The other side of the debate seems to be the argument that it is not stealing because the government always collects the maximum amount of taxes it can safely demand at any time. No one is paying more as a result of your cheating because they are already paying as much as the government could get out of them anyway. I’m not aware of any other defenses, and this one sounds pretty flimsy and specious.
Of course, there are the anarchists who claim that taxes in and of themselves are theft and therefore it is not theft to avoid paying them (any more than it is theft to lie to a burglar and say there is no jewelry hidden in your home when there really is).
If there are any real anarchists among us I would be surprised (it is not a Torah concept, for one thing). As far as other arguments go, it always comes down to something that sounds like excuses. I’m with SJS all the way on this one. If you cheat on taxes, you are reducing the amount of money in the US coffers and adding to the national debt. That amounts to thievery in my books.
How am I taking money that belongs to somebody else if it’s my own money I’m keeping?
It’s a classic ethical dilemma. Consider this anecdote:
A older lady decided to make a change to her will. So she went down to Main Street and saw a storefront with the sign “Smith & Jones, Attorneys at Law, LLP”. She sits down with Mr. Jones and they review her changes, modify the document, sign and date it. The lady then asks “How much?” and Mr. Jones replies it will be $200. She opens her purse, takes out two crisp $100 bills, hands them to the lawyer, and leaves.
After the lady left, Mr. Jones observes that the bills are so new and crisp, the lady must have just gotten them from the bank across the street. In fact, they are so crisp that when he thumbs one of the bills, it starts to separate into TWO bills! The lady had inadvertantly paid $300 thinking it was $200 because she didn’t notice that that there were two bills stuck together. Mr. Jones walks to the door that his customer just walked out and sees her heading back towards her car. He is now clearly faced with an ethical dilemma.
The dilemma is: Must he tell his partner about the extra $100?
mw13: In case my above two posts aren’t clear, I will try to spell it out.
You asked, “How am I taking money that belongs to somebody else if it’s my own money I’m keeping?”
The answer is it is not your own money that you are keeping. Taxes are the price you must pay to live in this country and have the opportunity to work and earn a living. In essense, the tax man is a partner in every dollar you earn. So when you hold back money from the tax man, you are holding back money that is NOT just yours, but is both yours and ‘his’.
squeak:
First of all, thank you for your clear and intelligent comments. We may disagree, but it’s nice to know we can do so intelligently.
It is an inarguable fact that you owe taxes to the government: however, the money is still not yet theirs. And as I said before, halachicly, the only reason one is michuyav to pay up a debt owed to a goy is because it will be a chillul Hashem if you don’t. (which just goes to show that not making a chillul Hashem is a halacha, not just a nice thing to do) If the goy would forget that you owe him the money, you are not mechuyav to pay him back since no chillul Hashem will take place. This is the case here, since Uncle Sam has no idea you ever owed him anymore than you claim you do. Again, it is still assur because of sheker, but it’s just not geneiva. And btw, I didn’t make this up; I heard it in a halacha li’maseh siur from a prominent poissik.
As for the argument that not paying taxes causing others to pay more, I simply don’t think that is factually true. The government does not charge taxes based on how much money it does or does not have: if it did, we wouldn’t be stuck with a 13+ trillion dollar national debt now, would we?
Oh, and your analogy about the old lady and the lawyer is very fitting, perhaps more than you realize. You see, in a case where a goy hands you back extra change, you are not michuyav al pi halacha to return it. It may be a kiddush Hashem and a nice thing to do, but it’s not a chiyuv.
Oh, and one more thing:
“Cheating on taxes is a complex subject (perhaps its complications lie in the negius of the people making arguments).”
According to that logic:
How to treat those who have a tayvah for for toevah is also a complex subject: perhaps this too is because of the negius of those involved.
However, until we have grounds for these baseless accusations, we should probably just take all argument presented for their logic value alone, not judge them based on imagined motives.
Right…so I guess we’ve answered our original question. We can’t get along. MOs like gay people. And yeshivish people cheat on their taxes. And never the two shall meet.
Sigh…oh well. Nice to have a clear unaminous conclusion for once.
LOL Moq.
My point is that each “side” has things that aren’t great and until we realize and accept that (not the sins), we could try to get along.
I personally get along with plenty of people from non-Jews, non-religious Jews, MO, Yeshivish, Chassidim. I don’t know any Israeli Charedim so I don’t have anything to base it on yet.
“My point is that each “side” has things that aren’t great and until we realize and accept that (not the sins), we could try to get along.”
Couldn’t agree more. In order to get along, we need to stop looking at the things some of any group besides us does wrong, and start looking at the things they do right that we can learn from.
In that spirit, we can all learn from:
the fire of the Chassish davening
the intensity of the Yeshivish learning
the uncompromising standards of the Charaedim
the sensitivity towards others of the MO
Anybody have any more?
“As for the argument that not paying taxes causing others to pay more, I simply don’t think that is factually true. The government does not charge taxes based on how much money it does or does not have: if it did, we wouldn’t be stuck with a 13+ trillion dollar national debt now, would we?”
Not so, IMO. If sufficient revenue is not coming in from taxes, the government finds OTHER ways to hit the little guys with higher taxes on items they purchase, on phone usage, MTA increases, postal increases, etc.
How does taxes get to getting along with each other?
I think this has to do with the fact that every chasidus had to open there own school and yeshivos.
I guess there good reasons but when we went to Bais yaakov, many years ago, EVERYBODY went to neutral schools and we all respected each other as well as keeping our individual families traditions and lifestyles.
mw13, nice idea!
Satmar – Bikur Cholim!
oomis1105:
“If sufficient revenue is not coming in from taxes, the government finds OTHER ways to hit the little guys with higher taxes on items they purchase, on phone usage, MTA increases, postal increases, etc.”
I’m fairly certain that the only things that go up are state taxes, since the states (unlike the feds) actually make their budgets work each year. And if I’m not mistaken, the only state taxes are sales taxes, property taxes, and the like, which are rather hard to cheat on. Postal increases, on the other hand, are indeed federal: however, they go up to make up for the losses incurred by the postal service, regardless of how much is or is not collected in taxes.
SJSinNYC: Why thank you.
Continuing:
Chabad – dedication to kiruv
Breslov – always connecting to Hashem
Chassidim in general – Emunas Chachomim
Anybody think of anything else?
basically, we just need to look at a fellow Jew as a fellow Jew who is also special and important. We each make our own contribution in life and we are all needed to complete the puzzle so to speak. Someone might be different, but we can still be nice and respectful eventhough we have a different viewpoint, litvish, chassidish, sefardic.
And if the person is not religious, we should be friendly so maybe they will someday be inspired to learn and grow
that’s what i like about shabbat.com where hosts and guests are put together
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