Do Taxes Count as Tzedakah?
Jewish law establishes ten percent of income as the minimum amount that one should give for tzedakah, and twenty percent as the maximum. An extremely wealthy person or a person on his or her deathbed may give away more than twenty percent, as there is no danger of this person ending up destitute as a result of his or her generosity (Shulhan Arukh Yoreh De’ah 249:1, Talmud Ketubot 67b). In theory, our entire gross salary might be considered income, and we might be able to count as tzedakah whatever percentage of our income tax goes to support social service programs. In reality, however, this calculation is a bit complex. In the United States, approximately eleven percent of our tax money goes into safety net programs, and about six percent goes to Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program), both of which provide health insurance to those who would not otherwise be able to afford it. We may therefore safely count at least seventeen percent of our tax money as tzedakah. One
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