Church members must honour their tax obligations
Thirdly, the Apostle Paul commands the members of the Church in Rome to submit to the civil government and pay their taxes to the government. The Apostle Paul says:
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“Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God. So anyone who rebels against authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and they will be punished.” Romans 13:1,2 NLT
Then he adds,
“Pay your taxes, too, for these same reasons. For government workers need to be paid. They are serving God in what they do.
Give to everyone what you owe them: Pay your taxes and government fees to those who collect them, and give respect and honour to those who are in authority.” Romans 13:6-7
Do we want to be protected from invading armies? Do we want to have good urban roads and good feeder roads to the farming villages to cart food to the market centres?
Do we want the police and soldiers and other security agencies to protect us from evil people and to keep order? Do we want potable drinking water and rural electrification projects? Apostle Paul argues,
“This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honour, then honour.”
It requires money to run government operations, so we must pay tax if we want to have good governance!
We are to pay taxes to the civic government because it is a clear teaching of the Bible.
Revenue collection within the ports and centres where services are rendered to the public like hotels, restaurants, tyre repair centres and shops have their own challenges. At times the customer is asked, ‘Which receipt do you want? Ordinary or VAT receipt?’
The ‘ordinary receipt’ does not pay tax to the government. It is even worse when at times you are asked ‘how much do I write on the receipt?’ Of course you know how much I paid for the service or goods!! Church members need teaching on our responsibility as tax payers.
Today, we seem to have overdose teaching on how to pay tithes in church. What probably we have little or no teaching on in many churches is the Lord Jesus’ clear instruction to His followers to pay tax.
We must teach church members to pay the required taxes to the National Revenue Authority and to the Municipal and District Assemblies authorities.
Church members who trade and do business must in all sincerity and faithfulness pay the appropriate taxes in the process of doing their day-to-day business.
It is the civic and godly duty of all church members (Pastors, Priests, deaconesses and congregation members) to faithfully pay the required taxes and thereby contribute to good governance and economic development in our country.
It is a holy responsibility for church members to pay taxes properly.
(The author is a Leadership Development and Cross-cultural Ministries Consultant, an International conference speaker and formerly General Director / CEO of Scripture Union Ghana. Email: [email protected] / [email protected])