Every year about this time we cannot help but recall a story from the week known to Christians as Holy Week. It’s not just that the Holy Week-Easter cycle is still fresh in our memories — just a couple of weeks back. No, it’s that the story seems to be particularly relevant for reasons that are just as secular as they are sacred.

In the story, Jesus is confronted by the religious leaders of his day who sought to trick him by asking whether they should pay taxes to Rome. When Jesus asked whose image was on the coin, they responded by saying it was Caesar’s.

“Then,” Jesus replied, “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and render unto God the things that are God’s.”

That story may come to mind on Wednesday — the deadline for filing state and federal taxes and therefore something of our modern equivalent for rendering our taxes to Caesar, the government. And it seems like we’re being asked to render more and more each year.

Consider: According to calculations by the Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan Tax Foundation, the Tax Freedom Day will not arrive until April 24, a day later than last year, nearly a week before it arrived in 2013 when it arrived on April 18, which was a day later than it arrived in 2012 (April 17) and several days later than it arrived in 2011 (April 12).

That means that the average American will have to work more than three and a half months — from Jan. 1 to April 23 — before he or she will have earned enough money to pay this year’s tax obligations at the federal, state and local levels.

Here in Minnesota, it’s even worse, the foundation says. Our Tax Freedom Day in Minnesota won’t arrive until April 30, making Minnesota the seventh latest Tax Freedom Day in the nation, just behind high-tax states like Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, California, Massachusetts and Maryland.

What’s more, Tax Freedom Day doesn’t take into consideration the federal budget deficit, even though that deficit will have to be paid eventually. According to the foundation, “If we include this annual federal borrowing, which represents future taxes owed, Tax Freedom Day would occur on May 8,” which is two weeks later than Tax Freedom Day for the nation as a whole.

And it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Indeed, over the past five years, Tax Freedom Day gets pushed back and back and back. To really see the difference, then compare Tax Freedom Day this century to what it was in the year 1900. According to the foundation, in that year “Americans paid only 5.9 percent of their income in taxes, meaning Tax Freedom Day came on Jan. 22.”

Those who govern us seem to have no problem spending money and placing the burden of paying for it squarely on the shoulders of taxpayers. But rendering unto Caesar seems disheartening when Caesar continues to spend so lavishly.

 

— Owatonna People’s Press, April 14