Recently, someone posted the comment below on this blog which saddened me greatly. I will post my response in my next post (tomorrow).
Well I have a mess on my hands. A few years back my wife passed and at the funeral the preacher there spoke to me about my wife dying and being in hell since we were not Christians. It straightened me right up and I don’t want to suffer in hell like my wife so I let my life over to Christ and my kids too.
Round that same time my Grandpa who raised me, on account of my folks dying in a car wreck, passed too. He left me the farm and it comes to about 200 acres and a whole mess of farm equipment we use on our land and on lease to other farms. Seeing that I had a lot of responsibility now and I wanted to get right with God I thought about the back tithing the preacher told me I owed and had to pay to get right.
Preacher and I worked out the numbers and figured my life earning before I started paying in regular came to about $600,000 so I owed $60,000. I am not great with business & figures but I know how to work the farm so I set to make payments but figured in case I die,
I best be paid up all together for the back tithing I owed God. So I spoke to the bank who agreed to give me $60,000.
But then it turned out I owed another $6,000 on the $60,000 in tithing cause that was more money coming in and when preacher pointed it out I had to pay 10% on my incoming loan money. So I used my regular cash from the checking and settled up. Then I was good for a bit but with farming the cash don’t come in regular so I was tight on making payment on the $60,000 I borrowed.
So I figured it was a good idea to sell some land, about 20 acres that backs up to the water, which is nice for houses and people like it down there anyway. I could only sell 2 acres by rule of the county because it was part of preservation. So the church bought the two acres for $10,000 cash which was nice of them to help since I did not even have to advertise the land or go to the reel estate people. I cleared $9,000 and was able to make my payments OK, brought some corn in, leased out the equipment to my neighbors at harvest and was all set. Then I got my tax bill for the property. It was $38,541.91.
I was OK then though since I had found out I had an escrow built up for taxes, insurance, and the like my Grandpa set up so we could keep the farm free and clear. Then I was talking to Preacher and he said I owe the lord for 10% of what I was given from the farm, plus the portions of escrow. So I worked out the numbers and I have just about $92,000 in escrow after this tax year, and the land value on the land tax says the land is valued at $2,569,460.67 – don’t seem like it though. So I need to pay back $266,146.07 or just there about in tithing now to even up everything.
This is where I need help. The bank wont lend me the money against the land or nothing else since they say the farm only makes about $100,000 a year and after taxes, maintenance, seed in, and all with labor keeps about $35,000 for the farm or for myself. They say that aint enough to make payments even though I got no other bills – Bank knew my Grandpa and his business real good.
They say I should sell land and or some of the land or combines to make the cash but they say I shouldn’t sell nothing and just work the farm as is. The county folks say I can break away about 20 acres in the wooded section of the land to sell for housing. I talked to the real estate folks and they say since the city is getting out our way I could make maybe $400,000 from selling that land but I would have houses close by and that is less land to keep for my son and daughter and less land to hunt. The church says I cold give them the 20 acres for back tithe and count it as a final settle up on all back owed money.
They would just build up a new big church there with no neighbors and that if I sold I maybe could get $400,000 for the land but $40,000 goes to tithe from the gain, then the $266,000 for back tithe so all about I would just give up 20 acres of the wooded land for $100,000 and that don’t make no sense to give up all that and get neighbors too.
Is there some other way to manage the money? I don’t really like these choices since I know my Grandpa made his farm to business and wanted us to keep it. Plus the kids like the land and reminds us all of happier times.
The tithe is a way to support the community. You are already supporting the community through your property taxes and your tithing your income, and perhaps you needn’t concern yourself so precisely with the numbers involved. You are clearly, already, “giving back” a sizable share of your income.
If your land is really worth $2 million, you must have a lot more than 200 acres, or its value is not as farmland but as land that is ripe for development. Farmland seems to top out at $10,000 per acre, except maybe in the Napa Valley or a place like it.
Are you being taken advantage of by your community? Some of what you say leads me to wonder whether that might be the case.