Whensday: Tax day

For many people in the US today is tax day. A frantic gathering of papers and numbers and hoping that you have everything correct and on time. Wondering if you will get any money back or have to pay even more. It doesn’t matter what country you live in, these feelings remain the same. Nobody likes paying taxes. 

Some people will expound on how good it is to have services - which are paid by our taxes. Others will point out that the services could be cheaper if we didn’t pay all the taxes. Still others point out the fraud going on which makes our taxes even higher. In any case, most nobody wants to pay taxes. Almost everyone wished they were paying fewer taxes. 

At the moment one of the bigger worries for many is the price of gasoline. For us that means diesel, since we drive a diesel car (you use less for more miles). Looking at the high prices we hear about in the US doesn’t give us much of a shock here. We are paying about $10 per gallon here. And most of that is tax. Which is how some countries are helping the pain at the gas station by lowering the taxes - temporarily. But someone will have to pay in the end. 

As mentioned earlier, we are working through our tax situation here in Belgium. But we are also working through our tax situation in the US. Since we live outside the US we do not have to worry about the April 15 deadline (ours is in June). But we do still have to make sure that everything is ready, correct and up-to-date. 

So for us we will simply enjoy this Spring day. The sun is shining at the minute, but that could change. It is after all, April. The Dutch say, “April does what she wants”. Nothing about flowers and showers, just uncertainty. The beauty is simply evident if you open your eyes.  

And just in case you missed it, these things all happened on April 15. The Titanic sank, Leonardo Da Vinci was born in 1452, Jackie Robinson became the first black baseball player in the MLB, Notre Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire in 2019, the first McDonald’s opened in 1955. Like I said, April does what she wants. 

The tax man cometh

The tax man cometh. April 15 is an important day in the US. In the Netherlands it is also in the Spring. In Belgium tax day is in June. Taxes are a certainty in any country or culture and it is no different here. In the Netherlands you even know when your post is from the tax office - it is a blue envelope.  

For us the whole situation is rather complicated. We file income tax in the United States and in Belgium since we come from the US but live in Belgium. In both countries we are considered self-employed for the tax law. We are required to pay social security in both countries as well. Thankfully we have help for our US taxes from brothers and sisters who have always been willing to help missionaries. 

I remember when E.B. Dotson was working for brother McCready. Brother McCready did the taxes of missionaries for free, taking away any worries and in this way supporting and encouraging them. E.B. and Jean were our good friends in church (as they are still) and it has been a true blessing to have this weight taken from our shoulders all these years. Tax law is difficult enough as it goes, but it gets even more complicated when someone lives overseas. 

In Belgium we do not have anyone doing our taxes for us, but things are fairly straight forward. We do not have to itemize. We list the value of our house, its measurements and such. For some years we get a digital printout of what the tax office already figured for us. Then we do even less. But the cares of wondering if everything is done correctly remain a concern. 

We always want to make sure that we are doing things as they should be done. As Christians we have a responsibility to make sure that we are an example to those around us. Jesus also told Peter (and Paul told the Christians in Rome) that taxes are not something to escape. So whether they are fun or not, we want to do what is right. 

As we now also are reaching a certain age, we have thought about what we would need to do for retirement. In Belgium retirement age is 67 - and moving higher each year, it seems. We have social security in both countries, but we are not quite sure how the two countries will work with one another. When one looks for answers, the “normal” answers on a FAQ never quite fit our situation. So we will start looking deeper at what needs to be done. 

In the meantime, and as always, we will trust that God is taking care of things. And we will thank our loving Father for brothers and sisters who are willing and able to help us with this kind of information.