Caesar Gives Back

As Eric and I planned out our finances for the end of residency and our summer of traveling before our Kenya departure, we were banking on selling the house to meet our financial needs and pay for our expenses. Months have gone by without the house selling, which is another story, but we are learning some important lessons about how God will still meet our needs. God has been providing for us in some pretty astounding ways this summer, and we just wanted to take a minute to share one of the stories of His faithfulness with everyone.

I, Rachel, do our taxes every year using some online programs, which have always worked well for us. Imagine my surprise when a letter showed up this April from the IRS, stating that we owed the US Government $19,000 in taxes and fines. I just about had a heart attack right then and there. Turns out we had transferred some money from one mutual funds account to another in 2007, effectively selling one set of stock and purchasing another. I entered the amount of capitol gains that we made on the transaction, a small sum, and we paid taxes for that amount. But the IRS saw the amount of the stock sold, and thought that should be the amount to pay taxes on (obviously a larger amount). Thanks to a good friend of ours, who's an accountant, we fixed our snafu and mailed in the corrected form to the IRS.

Several weeks ago we got a reply from the IRS stating that they reviewed the situation and agree with the corrected form. Praise God! What was really amazing, though, was that the letter continued: they also decided that based on this new information that they owe us a refund of over $700. Our financial needs continue to be met in the most unexpected of ways, strengthening our faith in God and our reliance on Him. It reminded me of the passage in Matthew 22 which states "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." Every year on April 15th we render our taxes to "Caesar," and this year, through God's mighty provision, Caesar gave back.