Tax vs Tithe – A Catalyst To Infrastructure Development Or A Cog In The Wheel of Development.

Tax vs Tithe – A catalyst to infrastructure development or a cog in the wheel of development.

Tax is a mandatory and compulsory financial contribution imposed by a government to raise revenue. This revenue is in turn spread across the provision of social amenities such as good schools, construction of roads and maintenance, hospitals, provision of electricity, security and pipe borne water for the people and the community.

Tax can either be levied on income, property or on goods and services. Taxpayers expect the government to do the needful with these tax collected by making their life comfortable as much as possible. In most societies, non-compliance in paying taxes usually results in punishment – there are enforcement agencies and laws in place to tackle non-payment or tax avoidance. In most cases, it is a jail-able offense to avoid paying taxes.

Tithe, on the other hand, is the one-tenth of your annual or monthly earning to support the Church and the clergy. This is a common practice in the Christian denomination. In the olden days, a tenth of the farm produce is the tithe expected of the people towards the Church.

Now let’s relate these two factors to the present day and their effect on the development of the people and the community – as an African myself, I will try to relate this to my immediate environment with Africans as my primary audience.

No doubt that it’s the responsibility of the government to provide social amenities and infrastructures but the people are also part of the governance, they have a major role to play in the success of the government.

No government can function without funds and no way can any government meet its needs and responsibilities without the people performing their civic duties, in which one of them is to be active taxpayers.

In an average African society – we see paying tax as a burden and we always source for means to short-change the government by either under declaring or completely avoiding tax, such act has been in practice for generations and it’s becoming a norm to the point that the new generation now see any institution or company charging them VAT as a scamming company out to dupe them because majority have no idea what that means or why they should pay it.

Here comes the twist, an average African on hearing the name of the Lord is scared and they won’t steal from God. An African man would rather pay tithe over paying his kids' school fees – yes, they are that religious. And the Church is not to be blamed when there is no electricity or the roads are not motorable.

The Church will go ahead to build schools and hospitals with the tithe collected but unfortunately, such schools and hospitals are in no way affordable for those that paid their tithe in the first place – they were not the target market!

The people are now busy blaming the government for lack of social amenities and infrastructures - the people refused to understand that for development to be visible, both the government and the people must be on the same page and perform their duties as expected. There is no harm in being religious and upholding your commitment but not at the expense of your civic duties. You can’t be paying to A and expecting services from B.

The Churches have been exempted from paying taxes including import duties and the government is hoping that the churches may act as a charity organisation and support the government but unfortunately what we are having are pure business centres with the leaders parading in state of the art cars and globe-trotting in private jets while the tithe payers are getting drowned in abject poverty.

To have that sewage system, sound healthcare system, good schools, water, good roads and security then it is unavoidable to pay taxes as at when due, all these are vital to a country’s economic development and prosperity.

Your tax is tied to infrastructure development and social amenities while your tithe is tied to your salvation – you always have a choice to make. Salvation is for after-life and as long as you are still alive with offspring then social amenities and infrastructures are a necessity.