Is America’s Tax Code Biblical?
Is America’s Tax Code Biblical?
By Brannon S. Howse
The following is an excerpt from Brannon’s new book, Put Your Beliefs To The Test, 82 Questions That Reveal Whether You Think Like A Christian or Modern-Day Liberal, which will be released October 29th. Order your personally signed copy now at: http://www.worldviewweekend.com/secure/store/product.php?ProductID=265
True or False: The most Biblically based tax system would be one built on a flat tax where everyone pays the same percentage of their income intaxes.
“The Humanist Manifestos call for punishing wealthy people by requiring them to pay a higher tax rate. Although the Bible teaches that we are not to covet, when the government takes from the rich through a punitive tax system, it is not only discouraging work but is coveting-and acquiring-money to which it has no ethically legitimate claim.
“Humanists generally want to redistribute wealth through some form of socialism, but their goal is not even possible. While money can be redistributed, redistribution can never provide enough money to make everyone wealthy. When the government attempts to take from the rich to give to the “poor,” they really are taking capital from businesspeople who then are unable to expand their companies, start new companies, and create additional jobs which energize the economy. They are also less able to consume products themselves.”
http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-times/article.php?articleid=1876
Publius Prime 
The author forgets what the tithe was for: the Levite, the widow, the poor, and the stranger among us. Another writer got it right – the 10% is a starting point. The tithe also only applied to those who made their living from the land. The poor were not required to tithe, but rather received a part of the tithe. Is the flat tax a fair tax? I would submit to you it is not. Consider the widow’s gift. Jesus said she gave more than they all because it was what she had to live on. I find it rather appalling that most preachers hold this up as an example of how to give without expecting others to impoverish themselves to the same level as the widow, but expect the poor to become even poorer by taxing them at the same rate as the wealthy. Our government is based on Biblical principles. In the 1960s and 1970s, homelessness was increasing. There was no safety net, and the churches were either unable or unwilling to help them. It seems to me that God made sure the Biblical pattern continued to be followed with the institution of our current tax law.
I’m with Ben-
“The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy… These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened.”
–Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations