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The Sacredness of Paying Taxes
By Irwin Kula
No one really likes tax time. It evokes such uncomfortable and
unpleasant emotions.. We feel anxious about getting our taxes just right,
worried about getting them in on time, and fearful we might be audited. We
obsess with finding every last loophole lest we pay a penny more than we
should and we resent that the government is taking our money, We even feel
tempted to cheat and then guilty about having been tempted. But all these
disturbing feelings actually invite us to know ourselves better – to do an
inner audit – the very essence of the spiritual search. When we are mindful
of what we feel during this period, we learn about our character, what we
value, how connected we feel to our fellow citizens, how much we trust or
mistrust our political leadership, and about our relationship to the
country.
There are at least three core spiritual questions that we can reflect on
during tax time that can turn this period into an occasion for greater
self-awareness.
●How honest and truthful am I? Paying taxes is where our desire to be honest
and our greed for money intersect. When we try and find loopholes, or are
tempted to cheat, inevitably there is a moment we ask ourselves: Can we get
away with it? Wherever the particular line that raises our inner red flag,
this stirring of conscience is a country-wide shared spiritual moment and is
a call to discover how honest we really are. What we ultimately choose to do
is either an expression of self-deception/rationalization, or of being
aligned with who we genuinely want to be. Whether we cheat and are caught is
actually irrelevant as our inner auditor, who is far tougher than any IRS
agent, knows the full truth.
●What does money mean to me? Paying taxes is one of those times when we get
to learn about out attitudes about money and just how important money is to
us. Filling out our tax forms and seeing how much we made evokes questions
about how successful we are and leads to feelings of insecurity. Money
issues are always a source of emotional turbulence, which makes tax time
opportune to ask fundamental spiritual questions: How much power does money
have over me? How much do I really need? How much does my net worth affect
my self-worth? Asking these questions keeps our legitimate need for money
and the necessary and real pleasures of material goods from crowding out
other needs and pleasures. We get to think about what we have sacrificed or
compromised for money, how much life we have given up for livelihood, and
reflect on one of the central choices we face – between feeling greedy and
needy, and feeling grateful and full. And we can learn the spiritual truth:
You can never get enough of what you don’t really need.
●How connected do I feel to others? Taxes are one of the most important ways
in which we express our responsibility for each other and recognize our
interdependence. They are the most pragmatic actions we take as citizens
that demonstrate our commitment to a common good. But inevitably, we feel
resentment about the money we have to pay. This evokes key life-balance
questions: How much am I responsible for my good fortune? Is my success
solely a product of my own efforts? Is there any dependence on the society
around me? As we go through the process of reviewing our financial records,
some basic spiritual and character concerns arise. How have I spent my money
this past year and does it reflect my values? It is amazing how much we can
learn about ourselves from looking at our check book and our credit card
bills. How much did we spend on ourselves and how much on others? How much
on entertainment and how much on self-development? How much have we wasted,
and how much was well spent?
At some point in preparing our taxes we all feel taken advantaged of, and
with a mixture of resentment and anger we ask ourselves what we are paying
for anyway. Thoughts creep in of whether we should have to pay for services
we do not directly benefit from, or to which we may be philosophically
opposed. Feelings arise of mistrust that our money is being spent wisely by
the government. These feelings are a call for a sort of connection audit: To
whom beyond my immediate family do I feel responsible? What is my connection
to people in my country or even the world? If I am angry about the way my
tax dollars are being spent, how engaged am I in trying to shape the
country’s priorities?
Tax time invites us to wrestle with core spiritual and ethical questions for
which there are never final answers. How do I balance my own well-being and
conscience with the real needs of others? What is the common good we are
building together as Americans? In theory, paying our taxes is a pooling of
our resources to pay for services none of us could provide for ourselves
(roads, schools, police, etc.). They demonstrate that we are interdependent.
And if they are an act of solidarity, it is healthy to ask: How solid do we
feel with each other?
Ultimately the “dreaded” process of paying our taxes will always feel
unnerving because it pushes buttons, pricks at our insecurities, and forces
feelings and questions about our character and connection to each other that
we don’t usually ask. But that is precisely why it is also an opportunity to
learn about ourselves and our connection to this great adventure of building
America. When we take the opportunity to do so, we grow, and that is worthy
of celebration.
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