Cook County 9%, the Lord 10%

If you live in Cook County or nearby, you’re likely to have heard the uproar of business owners and taxpayers who are facing a sales tax increase in order to fill a massive county budget gap. On the county’s boundaries, electronic stores will face huge hits when everyone gets from the feds their $600 per person to jumpstart the struggling economy.

After the sales tax goes into effect, a married couple with $1200 to spend on a new washer, refrigerator, laptop, digital TV, DVD player or whatever will face a choice. They could spend that $1200 at a Cook County Best Buy, where they will pay $108.00 in sales tax. Or they can choose a Best Buy on the northside of Lake-Cook Road, and pay $93 in taxes.

Think it doesn’t matter? For that additional $15.00, they could pick up a DVD for their kids to watch on the new TV. Multiply that scenario by thousands, hundreds of thousands, and see if it doesn’t matter to Cook County Best Buys’ bottom lines.

And what about that struggling mom and pop appliance store in Cook County that can’t buy the same quantity as the big box Best Buys? They need to start out charging more for each item. Sure, customers think, I can trust what my neighbor Joe says about what I should buy, but gosh, he’s charging me $50 more than Best Buy and I’ll pay almost 10 percent in sales tax. The better deal, he’ll think, is to head again for the Lake County Best Buy.

Add the 9% Cook County sales tax to local property taxes, the state’s business fees, income taxes, and recently-hiked CTA sales taxes, possible federal tax increases, and yes, Illinois Senator Barack Obama’s proposed international Global Poverty tax, and well, there’s not much reason left for anyone to own a business in Cook County.

And if you think that’s bad, the City of Chicago’s sales tax – because of the Cook County 1 percent increase – now holds the dubious title of being the nation’s highest sales tax – 10.35 percent– more than what the Lord Himself requires – a tenth, a “tithe” of how He prospers us.

When Chicago hit that all time high last month, the tax rates dripped irony. In the Old Testament, God told His people to bring their tithes into the storehouse, and if they did, He would bless them. He actually challenged them to test Him, the Sovereign God, and He would be faithful to those who trusted Him with ten percent of their income.

Imagine that – the Almighty God, the Creator of the Universe, who sustains our being and gives us life and allows us to function on the Earth asks us to trust Him and prove Him with ten percent of our income.

Cook County President Todd Stroger takes a different approach. He strips away the option of voluntary donations by forcing store owners to confiscate taxes for him and requiring them to send in those dollars or face serious ramifications for not obeying Cook County business laws.

Those tax dollars, President Stroger tells us, are to help the needy, elderly, and ill who are unable to provide their own needs. What he doesn’t say is that they also provide jobs for friends and family of Cook County insiders – another way, supposedly, to prop up the sagging employment rate in Illinois.

But President Stroger bravely issues these edicts because he is buffered from direct accountability since Cook County residents have given up resisting elected officials who escape being ousted– compliments of a corrupt, incestuous, unchallenged political system.

Such a perverted system would not be allowed to exist in today’s local church settings. Corrupt pastors and church leaders are soon ousted by passionate, concerned church members who will not tolerate their tithes being used for unapproved expenditures. Not to mention the Master to whom those pastors and church leaders are ultimately accountable.

So where does that leave Christians who are compelled to voluntarily honor God with their firstfruits and required by law to obey the county tax laws?

Obviously, with a whole lot less with which to work. We’re now approaching 20 percent of our income going to God first, and Cook County President Stroger second. After we add in local property taxes, state income taxes and fees, federal taxes, we’re nearing having only half of what we earn left to our direction.

And where do families cut corners? Sadly, it’s often with that mere ten percent required by the Lord. The church, which provides health care for the spiritual lives of its congregants, emotional and emergency financial support for those in dire need, caring assistance to elderly church members needing rides and sometimes just a friend to visit, social networks for misguided and lonely teens, hope and direction for eternity, is shorted due to local rulers’ demands.

“Will a man rob God?” Old Testament Malachi asked. “Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings.”

The dilemma every Christian family faces only grows in intensity each time any government tax increases.

Should Christians be concerned about the Cook County tax increase? Without a doubt. It’s not that we’re not willing to contribute to the community, it’s that we deserve the right to say how what God has blessed us with is being spent. We’re accountable for its use.

God says if we trust Him with our ten percent, he will open the windows of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. He’s one trustworthy Sovereign Ruler who has never increased His rates nor abused what we give back.

Think about it on Sunday when the offering plate passes by.