Question:
Is money received from an annual US tax return subject to 10-20% tithing? Many thanks.
Answer:
If it is only a refund of what you actually paid then it is not part ma’aser. If however if it is money that the government grants its citizens who don’t make enough money, then it is considered like a present and it is included in what one should give ma’aser.
Best Wishes
This doesn’t make sense to me.
A tax refund is typically the result of deductions resulting in the tax deducted at source being higher than was appropriate, after the fact.
Assuming that the employee calculated his income for maaser purposes on the basis of his after-tax income (as many advise) then the refund is made up of income which was not yet included in maaser calculations (having been deducted as tax up to that point) and therefore liable for maaser.
What you are writing is correct. What I wrote was not based on the persons calculations before or after paying his taxes, but fundementally is a refund included in income or not. If the person calculated what he would pay for taxes in the future as a reduction in his maaser, then, as you wrote, the refund is unaccouted for income, and he would have to give maaser from it.
However if he didn’t yet make his earnings calculation to exclude the money he paid for taxes, then it isn’t as if he got any money from the government. He would then reduce the the total sum of what he paid for taxes from his income, regarding ma’aser.
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