Tithing and Debtors

[_ajax18]

I'm curious if anyone has any doctrine or personal experience on the interpretation of this doctrine. Considering student debts, business investments, it's not unreasonable to think that some people aren't going to make a profit on their work for up to 5 or 6 years even after they start working.

Consider the amount it costs to go to dental school. Then consider the tools for the office. He may have pulled in 100k net his first year, but where did this go? He's probably spent up to 500k just to make the first 100k.

In the case of uneducated or unestablished working poor, the scenario becomes even more interesting. You're paid $9 or $10/hr. You're going to have to have a car to get to work. You'll have to pay insurance, gas, just to go play the game and if you're lucky have enough left to buy food and pay rent. One has to ask, "How much are these people really increasing? Have they increased at all? It seems like at the end of the year, he's still just an unskilled tenant farmer in our neofeudalistic culture. The only difference is that he's a year older. I could understand the concept of fasting or even giving up part of your groceries you get each month. But rent can only be so cheap and at that ponit you either have a place to live or you don't.

Then I consider the common situation of people in 30-50k of credit card debt. While one could say most often that they were living beyond their means, I have to question the payment of charitable contributions when they can't pay their creditors.

I also can't help but look at the idea of personal savings and the dream I have of owning a business. I see my uncle, a nonmember and and atehist. He probably saved and invested what my dad paid in tithing all those years. Now he doesn't take s*** from anyone. He doesn't have to go to a job and be blamed for problems that are going wrong with some other man's business. He still works, but the key is that he no longer has to take crap from other people. He can afford time off to look for another job if necessary. Other people is what makes work miserable, not the job. There is nothing worse than having to live month to month in fear of your job, knowing you'll either starve or be sold into interest slavery without that paycheck every month. What kind of a situation are we really creating for ourselves by paying tithing?

[_moksha]

The the money squandered on the Iraq war could have paid for many college educations.

[_truth dancer]

Hi Ajax...

Excellent post!

My father (who is not a member) purchased some rental property in Utah and more than half the renters would not pay their rent. (I'm talking for months and months at a time... then giving him a month's rent, then not paying for another five or six months). These were TRI holding members, some with high callings and yet they were cheating my father. Now, he is an amazing man and tried to help them... offered them reduced rent if they would help with the lawn, or paint or something. None of these renters would do anything. It was really bad and he ended up selling the property after losing quite a bit of money.

My personal opinion is... if someone is cheating another, they are being dishonest.

Paying tithing while cheating others out of their money is just plain wrong!

Also... I discovered, thanks to FAIR, that one is not required to pay tithing on anything except increase. If there is no increase one does not need to pay tithing. I'm thinking I totally overpaid for most of my life! :-(

If I told the church that I misunderstood and overpaid do you think I could get some of my money back? ;-)

~dancer~

[_no thanks]

If I told the church that I misunderstood and overpaid do you think I could get some of my money back? ;-)
~dancer~

Last I checked it wasn't snowing in hell.

[_Scottie]

You know, people that live beyond their means will do so no matter what.

If the prophet came out tomorrow and said that tithing was no longer necessary, the lines at the Best Buy credit department would be out the door with all these people that suddenly have 10% more a month to spend on a big screen.

[_ajax18]

I understand and respect the counsel from SLC to live frugally. Yet I sometimes wonder if men of the older generation understand how expensive it is just to be in the game these days. Take my dad for example. I doubt he'd ever pay for internet. That's about as backward as it gets in my view. I don't have cable TV but I really don't see how people could do without internet, a car, and a cell phone. Job searching would be pretty interesting. That's a lot of money right there.

I know most TBMs consider their increase to be on their net earnings. Many like myself view the 10% FICA tax as outright theft by the Federal Government. Yet on the other hand some TBMs pay on their gross earnings saying that they benefit from roads, military protection, etc. It almost seems like saying, "The military let you keep your right arm, so you'll have to give your index finger to the Church since you had a benefit from it."

Moshka I don't think I'll ever know the truth about the Iraq war. I know there is and was more to it than "setting up democracy" and WMD. The setting up democacy thing sounded downright foolish from the time Pres. Bush announced it. I doubt we'll ever know the real reasons. I consider it a nonissue because regardless of which party is in power, we will always be fighting a war somewhere else in the world. Nothing will change when the democrats take office.

[_ajax18]

Paying tithing while cheating others out of their money is just plain wrong!

So just to be clear. These people get behind in their rent for whatever reason. The Church still says, pay your tithing first and then make payments on your remaining rent?

Also... I discovered, thanks to FAIR, that one is not required to pay tithing on anything except increase. If there is no increase one does not need to pay tithing. I'm thinking I totally overpaid for most of my life! :-(

What exactly does that mean? Is 10% of your net pay, or can you deduct things you spent for basically no other purpose than to do your job. They sure don't make it very clear in Church. I remember when a seminary teacher told that tithing had to paid on the gross. The rest of the branch was in an uproar. Perhaps that's a small scale model of why the Church leaves things so vague.

Then I remember an EQ president telling us that we had to pay tithing on any scholarship money we received to go to a college. That's a very interesting increase. How about, I'll pay you when I actually get the job that this degree is supposed to get me?

If I told the church that I misunderstood and overpaid do you think I could get some of my money back? ;-)

I remember hearing stories of people wishing they could get their land back when they signed up for the "United Order."

~dancer~[/quote]

[_truth dancer]

Hi Ajax...

Well... I was always taught, 10% on gross. Plain and simple.

A while back someone shared a talk Oaks gave, taken from an earlier talk by a GA many years previously, basically changing it all over the place. The post contained both talks and the changes were pretty amazing.

Anyway... according to the folks on FAIR/MAD, increase can mean whatever you want it to mean. Increase after you pay your bills; or increase after you have purchased whatever you think you need. It sounded to me like some folks there were not paying much. I, stupid person that I am, always paid on gross, even when things were tough, even when my husband and I were both going to school with several little children, even when we got loans for grad school and were as poor as church mice.... like I said, we WAY overpaid!

:-(

In terms of the example I shared... the church doesn't seem to care who you are hurting, how in dept you are, how deceitful you are being (even though they ask the question about honesty... seems it doesn't count when it comes to money), so long as you answer yes to the tithing question you are good to go.

If you want a solution, you can pay whatever sum you feel is an increase to SLC directly and call it good, at least that is what I am told.

~dancer~

[_ajax18]

In terms of the example I shared... the church doesn't seem to care who you are hurting, how in dept you are, how deceitful you are being (even though they ask the question about honesty... seems it doesn't count when it comes to money), so long as you answer yes to the tithing question you are good to go.

Yes and that's a big reason I had so much trouble doing business in Utah myself. In my view people have only a certain amount of self control and suffering that they can exert. Hence UT and the Mormon people that end up there usually don't commit adultery but all is fair in dating, love, and war. Why? Because that's way in which the Church pressures people. You can get excommunicated for premarital sex, but if it's just lying to who you're involved with or breaking up another man's engagment, or refusing to give back the ring when you break an engagement. All those are fine in the eyes of the Church. I understand that it's hard to set a standard on these things but the result you get is a big part of why I absolutely hate living in UT.

Take business for example. Just as you said. You can default on your bills, bankrupt, overcharge those who you negotiate with, or underpay your employees. (It always amazed me that the same big shot SPs out there demanding that women not work outsided the home were the same hard nosed business men who wouldn't pay their male employees a wage that would make that possible.)

Basically what you get is people treating the Church good, but treating each other poorly.

If it makes you feel any better TD, my parents paid on the gross for years as well. I still believe people are blessed for their sacrifices regardless of how the steward handles them.

While it seems like we can't really find any gross misuse of money in SLC, one still has to wonder where all this money is going. Other Churchs seems to do fine without such a compulsory sacred taxation. Why do they need so much money that Pres. Hinckley says that everything would come a screeching hault in less than two to three years without the sacred taxation?