CHEATING
ON EXEMPTIONS

Topics: Character; Deceit; Dishonesty; Ethics; Government; Honesty; Integrity; Lying; Motives; Taxes; Temptation; Truthfulness; Values

References: 2 Kings 17:4; Micah 6:10–11; Mark 12:17; Luke 20:25; Romans 13:6–7

Cheating is a prominent feature in just about every human endeavor. So says economist Steven Levitt in Freakonomics. Although he doesn’t declare cheating part of human nature, Levitt notes the prevalence of it among ordinary schoolteachers, wait staff, and payroll managers.

While evidence for cheating is often hard to uncover, at times it is overwhelming. Consider what happened one spring evening at midnight in 1987, when 7 million American children suddenly disappeared. It was April 15, and the Internal Revenue Service had just changed a rule. Instead of merely listing the name of each dependent child, tax filers were now required also to provide a Social Security number for each child. Suddenly 7 million children who had existed only as phantom exemptions on the previous year’s 1040 forms vanished, representing about one in ten of all dependent children in the United States.

—John Beukema, “Phantom Exemptions Show the Prevalence of Cheating,” PreachingToday.com