Taxes and the Laws of the Land

A person paying thirty-five per cent income tax also pays the two and a half per cent wealth tax. Absolutely — in fact more so: some of the scholars have said that if one is giving thirty-five per cent to the American government, which is using a lot of it for things that… — one should probably give another thirty-five per cent just as a counterbalance, and then pay zakāt on top of that. A lot of Muslims have a lot of cognitive dissonance about taxes in this country, a lot of them particularly immigrants, whose countries have a lot of problems going on; and they feel there is a lot of cognitive dissonance there, because such a huge portion of the taxes goes to the military. Something like fifty-four per cent is still allotted to defence and military budgets and things like that — and what is education, seventeen per cent? Is it even that? It is about seventeen per cent.

But again, if one is in a country, one has to follow the laws of the land. It is actually prohibited to do otherwise: by the Sharīʿah, if one comes into a country, even though the laws are against Islam, one either has to make hijrah or has to follow those laws. It would be prohibited, for instance, for a Muslim to cheat on the income tax, given that that is a law in this country. They would either have to leave or they would have to pay it, because among the conditions of coming into the country is that one will obey the laws of the land; and the Prophet (peace be upon him) said, and the Qurʾān says: fulfil the trust that you have given to its people. So when a person comes into this country with a visa or a green card, and it says that he is expected to obey the laws of the land, then he is expected to. It is actually a breach of Islam not to, and that is something which, unfortunately, some Muslims are not aware of.

Zakāt cannot be given within one's own family as a kind of trick — a man giving his wife his zakāt and she giving him hers. No: it goes to one's family if they are poor and worthy, and then they should be the first recipients. Now, the government does have the right, if there were a valid Islamic government — they do have the right to collect zakāt. That is a right of the government, and the government would distribute it. In the absence of a government gathering the zakāt, it is an individual responsibility on the Muslims.