nbb@packet.UUCP (Nelson Bolyard) (11/09/83)
A few months ago, I was hired by a church in Lansing Michigan (I was living in Michigan at the time) to modify their payroll program. This church required its employees to be members, and required all members to tithe. They had bought a payroll package that could handle deductions which were a percentage (rather than an absolute amount) and discovered that it took out a percentage of the NET (after taxes) rather than the GROSS. They were looking to automatically deduct the tithes from their employees' paychecks, and wanted me to change the program to compute the tithe (10%) from the gross instead of net. Now I don't wish to enter into any discussions about whether it is right for churches to require members to tithe, or whether tithes should be off gross or net, or about the arrogance of automatically taking out the tithe - so send me no flames about any of those topics . My question is this: Do levites pay tithes? Wasn't the idea of the tithe to provide an income for the levites who were the priests and who had no other source of income? Does it make sense for a levite (read: church employee) to give back a portion of his income to the source of his income? Isn't he just tithing to himself? Please MAIL me your responses, and I will summarize them to the net if any MAILED responses request me to. I will not summarize responses posted on the net. THanx in advance for your responses.