Question:
My wife and I are B'H starting to be more scrupulous in giving maser (bli neder of course). I was curious is it better to set aside the money as you go or just for example do it in one shot like after filing your taxes so you get a full view of your yearly situation?
Both views seem like they have benefits. I want to be able to give what I am supposed to, but I feel like if you give as you go, you may be in a position where you give tzedakah as you go then when it's time to file taxes you may have less money to pay if you're supposed to owe, since you were spending tzedakah the whole time.
Or maybe is it better to just open a separate account with the 10% money that you would be able to access the whole year, but you distribute it after taxes/necessary expenses?
Obviously, the abisher provides, I was just wondering best practices/methods.
Answer:
Hello,
It is wonderful that you are conscientious to give maaser in a responsible fashion. Essentially you can do whichever option you feel is best. There is however a spiritual benefit to separating maaser every so often, rather than once a year. The reason is that each time we separate maaser to give it to tzedakah, it is working on our yetzer hora. The Rambam says that it is better to give to a small amount to many people, than to give all the money in one shot to one person. The reason is because each time we stick our hand into our pocket, to give to another person, it polishes our neshoma, and works on our yetzer hora.
Another benefit to separating the money throughout the year, is that the money will be available to help the poor people throughout the year and not just starting from when you separate it, in one lump sum.
A third benefit is because separating 10% of the whole year’s earnings at the end of the year, will be quite a large sum, which might get spent, and harder to give.
Therefore, I think it would be best for you to separate a 10th of each month’s money into a separate tzedakah account, which can be distributed to the poor people as they need it, and you will have an accounting of how much money it is and where it went for taxes.
As a side point, the way to calculate your earnings, although you should give maaser before paying your yearly income tax, however your net profit for the year is what you are left with after paying taxes. For example, if you earned 100k, over the year and paid 16k for taxes, you would only separate maaser from 86k. If you see that after paying taxes, that you gave more than a tenth. Then you will have credit for the next year.
Hashem should send you a shefa of parnossa and all the wonderful brachos that are given to those who give maaser.
Thank you for the above detailed reply/bracha. I had one question of clarification. In the above example earnings were 100k taxes 16k. What if you had rent of 20k car payment of 10k.
Would your masser obligation be on the 84k originally or would it be on 54k after the other expenses?
You can take off business expenses, such as rent for an office for the business, or a car used for the business, but not for personal expenses, such as rent for your families home, or your families car.
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