Our reading from the gospel of Luke today might strike a more responsive chord at another time of year. So imagine that it’s, say, the 10th of April. You’ve finally pushed yourself to sit down and get to work on your income tax return for the past year. (Or if you have someone else do your taxes, you’re trying to get together the material that that person says is needed.) We all know how enjoyable these jobs are!
But for all the moaning and complaining we do, we also realize that paying taxes is necessary. All the things that we get from various levels of government are not free. And we also know that the great majority of people who work for the Internal Revenue Service and other taxing agencies are honest and fair, and try to be as helpful as they can. Still --
- Tax laws and procedures are complicated and are sometimes hard to figure out.
- We worry about making mistakes and the possible time and trouble of an audit.
- We don’t like the fact that some people, whether legally or not, get out of paying their fair share.
- And of course no one really likes to pay taxes -- income tax, property tax, sales tax, all the rest.
So you pay your taxes as a civic duty, but you aren’t thrilled about it. And fair and honest as they may be, it’s hard to think of the peopl
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