Thursday, January 21, 2010

From TurboTax to TurboTithe – Letting God be Your Accountant

I’m one of those people who files their taxes as soon as all the paperwork is in (I know, big shock) and today was that day. Having been in charge of payroll – either directly or indirectly – for 20 years, I know exactly how to manage my deductions to get exactly the small refund I want (not too much, I don’t believe in giving my money to Uncle Sam interest free for a year, but I sure don’t want to pay at the end of the year either).

These last couple of years that’s been harder to do because my husband’s been out of work for almost two years now. The logic behind how they calculate the taxes on unemployment seems to elude me, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect today when I plugged everything in, but I was praying for a windfall.

Obviously, money’s been tight but we have faithfully tithed to our church and continued many (but not all) of our regular charitable donations having solid faith that God would provide and HE HAS – beyond what is mathematically possible.

Adding to the financial stress was my transition to a high deductable health plan on January 1st and a major surgery (i.e. very expensive surgery) on January 8th (nothing like getting that high deductible thingy out of the way, eh?).

So here’s the miracle of God’s blessing and faithfulness returned … When I clicked “Done” in TurboTax, my combined Federal & State return was almost EXACTLY the amount of my high deductable … plus $40.10 (hey, dinner!). God is so AMAZING. You will never be disappointed when you trust Him.

Tithing is one of my “soap box” issues – I’ve written have several blog posts about it. Back in 2007, Fair Oaks Church did a really creative promo for a tithing sermon that made fun of TurboTax and the PC/Mac commercials all in a minute and fifty seconds. It’s one of my favorites. Check it out:

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