Giving As an Act of Trust

Give and it will be given to us today to talk about the Truth Network Podcast. Second, the Bible is obviously not silent on the topic of money. There are over 2,000 verses about it. So as believers, the question is whether we trust what God says regarding His promises and provision, and are we willing to surrender this area of our lives to Him?

That's a powerful idea, one we all need to consider. Well, as you know, we're going to dig into one of your chapters around giving. It's titled Giving as an Act of Trust, and you unpack God's promises about giving. So I want to go over those, the first of which is, God promises He will provide.

Yeah, let's look at Malachi 3.10. It says, Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, so there will be enough food in my temple. If you do, says the Lord of heaven's armies, I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won't have enough room to take it in. Try it.

Put me to the test. See, God doesn't tell us to give and then leaves us hanging. No, He ties a promise to our generosity. He promises to pour out an abundance of blessings on us, and He tells us to test Him in this, to give Him the opportunity to show that He will make good on His promise. Now, does this mean that giving generously to the church will finally get you that new red Lamborghini that you've always dreamed of?

Not necessarily. God's blessings can be financial and material, but they can also be spiritual. Maybe God gives you the contentment you have been chasing for years, the same contentment you once sought for money by becoming part of something far more significant than your own momentary life on earth. Yeah, that's a powerful invitation the Lord gives us. All right, this next promise that you unpack is that God promises He will multiply.

Yeah, right. In John 6, Jesus turns a small boy's five loaves and two fish into enough to feed five thousand with twelve baskets full left over. Many of us can relate to this boy. We look at our meager resources and wonder what God could ever do with them in the face of such great need. What difference can our generosity make? John 6 shows us that God is a God of multiplication. God will take whatever you give and multiply your resources to accomplish His purposes. That is a promise from God, but it takes trust. Yeah, that's exactly right.

All right, I think we have time for one more. I'd love for you to explain the promise that God will enrich. We all enjoy getting a good return on our investments, or ROI. You like a good ROI, I like a good ROI, and so does God. Therefore God promises to enrich those who give. In 2 Corinthians 9-11, Paul writes to those who trust God with their money, yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous.

You see, God wants a good ROI. He gives so that we can give. He blesses so that we can bless others. God is looking for conduits of generosity, channels through which His blessings can flow. He is looking for men and women whom He can enrich so that others may be blessed. Yeah, and that's our incredible opportunity as stewards of God's resources.

All right, so we've got just a few seconds left. Tie a bow on this for us, Art. Generosity is an act of trust. It shifts our hearts from reliance on ourselves and money to reliance on God. Generous giving visibly demonstrates our trust in God and His promises to provide. If you are a Christian, you already have trusted God with your soul.

It's time that you trust Him with your money. Wow, that's a powerful idea and a great place for us to finish today. Art, thanks for stopping by, my friend.

Thanks for having me. That's Faith by contributor Art Rayner. Pick up a copy of his new book, Money in the Light of Eternity. What the Bible says about your financial purpose. Back with your questions after this, stick around. The opinions offered during this program represent the personal or professional opinions of the participants given for informational purposes only.

Any information provided is not intended to replace advice from a financial, medical, legal, or other professional who understands your specific situation. Hey, it's great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. Well, for the next 45 minutes or so, maybe a little more, 52 minutes, we're going to unpack God's word and apply these principles we see in scripture related to money to your specific situation. So get your questions ready and then call 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. I'd love to know what's going on in your financial life and we'll see if we can solve your issues together. Let's dive in today.

We're going to begin in Pennsylvania. Hi, Ruth. Go right ahead. Yes. Thank you, Rob, for taking my call today.

Sure. I appreciate you. I'm learning so much from your radio show. Well, thank you. My pleasure.

You're welcome. My question is, does it ever affect your credit score negatively when you take advantage of the balance transfer offers that they send you? It is a great question that you're asking because we get those balance transfers.

They look so enticing and they are because they will temporarily reduce that interest to zero if you'll get it paid back within a certain period of time. Specifically to your question, and then we'll just talk about balance transfers in general, in some cases, a balance transfer could actually improve your credit score. It could also reduce the amount of interest that you have to pay.

However, if you do it repeatedly, it would typically lower your score. Also, if you don't close the account you pay off, you could run up a new balance there and double the amount of your debt, so you want to be really careful. If you want to do the balance transfer, do it only once and then close the old account and pay off the new balance as quickly as you can. Where it will cause a slight decline in your credit report, or credit score I should say, is by initiating that balance transfer. Normally, you're opening a new account and when you open a new account that means a new inquiry into your credit.

There's two types of inquiry. There's the soft inquiry, which is essentially where you pull your own credit score for your informational purposes. That doesn't affect your score. Then there's the hard inquiry, where a lender is pulling it specifically for the purpose of determining whether or not to extend you credit. So if you take advantage of their balance transfer offer and that involves you opening a new account, that means a hard inquiry on your credit.

That's going to temporarily decrease your score, usually between 20 and 40 points. Now, at the end of the day, if you're not out looking to take on more credit, you're not in the market to buy a house and need a mortgage, you're not in the market to buy a car and need a car loan, then it probably doesn't matter if you have a temporary decline. The key is, how do I get out of debt the quickest with the least amount of interest and stay out of debt with regard to credit cards? That's where a balance transfer can oftentimes, Ruth, take the pressure off because you know in the back of your mind, okay, I'm not paying any more interest, and you don't do the hard work to correct the problem that got you there in the first place, which is typically spending beyond your means, which is why my preferred approach is something entirely different. It's called debt management, and that's using our friends at ChristianCreditCounselors.org, getting the interest rates down, paying through Christian Credit Counselors, and they send it on to your creditors, and then typically you pay that off 80% faster because of the lower interest. Now, I realize we're not dropping the interest to zero, and that's likely what you're being offered through the balance transfer.

I just want to make sure you only do that once, and you do it alongside the hard work necessary to bring your spending in so you don't repeat the issue six months or a year down the road. But give me your questions on all that. Yes, I understood everything you said.

One question came to my mind. When you're offered that 0% balance transfer, it's usually, well, when I'm offered it with a credit card that I already have, so I'm not getting any new credit. It's a credit card that I already have, and I don't use them a lot sometimes, so I'm thinking they're trying to get me to, you know, it's competing for my business trying to get me to do this. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. They're hoping that you'll make the transfer and not pay it off in time, and then they can charge it 21% moving forward. Exactly. So, as long as I am not getting new credit, I just want to understand correctly, I'm using credit that I already have, does that transaction specifically, I'm taking into account everything you said.

My goal is to get out of debt the quickest with the lowest interest rates. Does that particular transaction have any negative effects on my credit rating? Yeah. Yeah. It could.

Yeah. So, if you request an increase in the limit, it will require the issuer to conduct a hard credit inquiry, which will pull your score down. If, however, the balance transfer is within the existing limit that's available to you and you're just not using, then no, that would not require a hard credit inquiry and it should have very little impact on your credit score. It does just move around, you know, using a number of factors, but it should be very minimal.

So, assuming you're making a balance transfer to a card that's already in place and it's within the current limit that's available to you that's been previously unused. Thank you very much. That is exactly what I wanted to know. Okay. Very good, Ruth. Hey, thank you for your call today. Call back anytime.

May the Lord bless you. 800-525-7000. We've got about four lines open today. We'd love to hear from you.

Let's go to Sarasota. Hi, Mary. Go ahead. Yes.

Thank you for taking my call. I just want to ask you a quick question. I would like to set up a will for my kids and I don't know which one is the best way. Could you please advise me if it's good, the will of trust or the Northern Republic? I don't know. Yes.

Very good. I think you absolutely need a will, Mary, so I think that's a good thing. There are any number of do-it-yourself legal sites that will enable you to create a document, a will. However, for something as important as a will, we really think it's worth it to have an estate attorney do this for you. That professional would be able to ask you a series of questions, help you make the necessary decisions, make sure that the will complies with the laws of your state. Also, at the same time, could help you address some other estate planning issues like a healthcare surrogate, naming somebody who could act on your behalf with regard to healthcare decisions if you're incapacitated and unable to do so.

Often that's called a healthcare directive. They could do similarly a durable power of attorney, allowing somebody to act on your behalf for legal and financial matters if you're incapacitated, even a living will that would allow you to make decisions related to end of life in advance. But I would have an attorney do that. If you don't have one, you could go to faithfi.com and connect with a certified kingdom advisor and ask for a referral to a godly estate attorney. You could also talk to the attorney about whether or not you need a trust. If your situation is fairly simple, you probably don't. Most folks who use a trust either have a lot of real estate or they want to stay out of probate.

They don't want the costs and the public record and the time involved in probate and they want everything to pass directly to their heirs and if you wanted that, it would involve a revocable trust and that would usually run you around $2,000, maybe a little bit more. Mary, I hope that helps you. Thanks for your call today. Folks, we're going to take a break, but back with much more, we're just getting started. Stay with us. Mary, are you struggling to stay on budget?

That's right, the spending plan is essential, especially now with inflation where it is. Maybe you've never been able to find a system that works for you. Well, perhaps it's because you've never tried the Faithfi app and I'd love for you to download it, check it out, set up your spending plan. By the way, while you're there, check out all the great content on biblical financial wisdom from authors like Randy Alcorn and Ron Blue and Howard Dayton and so many more. You can jump into the community, ask a question, give an answer, help others along on their stewardship journey or perhaps find some tips for yourself. It's all there in the Faithfi app and you can download it today when you visit your app store.

Just search for Faithfi or go to faithfi.com and click app. We'd love for you to check it out. All right, we're going to head back to the phones. Only one line open, 800-525-7000. Let's go to Fort Lauderdale, my hometown. Carol, go ahead.

Hi, Rob. My daughter has been informed by her husband that he's leaving her and does not want to reconcile a marriage. She doesn't want the divorce. She's in her 50s with two grown children.

They own a home but the house is in need of repair. They have two mortgages totaling about $230,000 and several credit cards with debt amounting to $60,000. Should she seek Trinity debt management or a certified kingdom advisor? My attorney advises that she should contact a divorce attorney for a one-time fee consultation to help her prepare for what to expect. She'd like to maintain civil communication with her husband but has considered divorce mediation in lieu of attorney litigation. I'm willing to pay for the fees for any of the consultations but I can't pay for a divorce attorney litigation.

I'd appreciate any advice you can give me. Carol, I'm so sorry to hear about this. I know it's heartbreaking and first let's just, as I'm sure you've already done countless times, let's just pray that the Lord would grab a hold of his heart and there would be reconciliation at some point here in the future, hopefully sooner rather than later. In the meantime, obviously given the situation he's left and has said he's not willing to attempt to reconcile and he's proceeding with divorce, she needs to have representation and I realize given her financial situation, which the court will take into account as they settle these matters if that's what it comes to, obviously she's going to need to hire an attorney and I understand you said you're not in a position to do that. So I think in terms of you being able to get her started with a consultation, that's great.

Oftentimes that would be at no cost. I think connecting her with a godly divorce attorney would be a very appropriate next step and perhaps her church could be helpful in that. Secondly, perhaps her church could help in this situation, just given where she's at, where she's at financially, the fact that this was unexpected and she's going through a difficult season here. This is an opportune time for the body of Christ to rally around her, not only spiritually and relationally, but financially. And so I think making the appropriate people, and I realize this is a difficult topic, but the appropriate people aware of what's going on here and the financial need, so often there is a fund for things like this where they might be able to help step in in a limited capacity. I know the church is in Fort Lauderdale well and there's some amazing churches down there and so hopefully she's at a church that would be able to assist. In terms of her debt, I would refer you not to a Certified Kingdom advisor, but to Christian Credit Counselors at christiancreditcounselors.org. They're wonderful folks that are godly, that could really walk alongside her, pray with her, help her understand her options, and hopefully get her on a repayment plan that involves much reduced interest rates and a payment that could fit into her monthly spending plan, and I realize that may be tight and there's a lot of things in flux right now, but that would be my preferred option moving forward to keep these current, get them going in the right direction, and then wait for the outcome of whatever will come after this. Is that all helpful? Yeah, so you suggest an attorney and Christian Credit Counselors?

Yes. Thank you. And you'll find them on the web at christiancreditcounselors.org. Carol, if one of our Certified Christian Financial Counselors could be helpful to you, not Christian Credit Counselors, which is the debt management program, but just a trained counselor that could bring godly advice and counsel help her set up that spending plan, just somebody to walk alongside her for a few sessions, especially right now while everything's foggy and probably more questions than answers, we'd be delighted to provide that at no cost to her, so if you stay on the line, we'll get your information, and if you think that would be helpful, we will get a Christian Financial Counselor in touch.

Again, that's not for the debt management, that would just be to help her answer whatever question she has and then work through her new spending plan just in light of the changes that have taken place. So you hold the line, we'll get your information, and man, I'm so sorry to hear about what she's going through. May the Lord bless you.

Let's go to Sioux City, Nebraska. Lori, go ahead. Hi, Lori, are you there? Hello? Yes, ma'am. Yeah, I'm here. Great. Hi. Thanks for having me. Sure. Yeah, I just had a pretty quick question. I have a 401k and a job I left maybe six months ago.

All right. I got a different job, and I started a new 401k with this new job, and I'm just wondering what to do with, what would be the best bet to do with the money that's in the old 401k? Like should I roll it over into the one I'm doing now or invest it somewhere?

Yeah, that's a good question. Are you... Go ahead. I'm single, and I want to make my money grow and make, because I'm 60, almost 62, so I want to do these next few years until I collect Social Security the best with my money that I can. Sure. No, I get it. Are you planning to participate in the new 401k? Yeah, I already am, yeah. Okay, great. Yeah, I would encourage you to consider rolling it over into the new 401k, simply because it just keeps everything in one place.

It's simpler. At some point, when you separate from that employer and let's say transition into a retirement season of life, you're probably going to want to roll it all out to a new IRA, which would give you unlimited investment options, and that would be the time to hire an advisor. But I think in the meantime, go ahead and put it in the 401k, keep it all invested in the same strategy, and if you need help with that, seek that from the plan administrator. They should have somebody that can advise you. But I would look to roll it all into that new 401k, and that just makes things a lot simpler.

Everything's under one roof. Lori, I hope that's helpful. Thanks for your call. We'll be right back. It's great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions. We've got some lines open today, 800-525-7000. You can call right now and you'll get right through. We've got three lines available, 800-525-7000. Let's go to Orlando, Florida. Hi, Brian.

How can I help? Hey, how are you today? Good. Thanks for calling. Great.

Hey, so I got a question. My wife and I, at the beginning of COVID, we went through some pretty hardcore financial difficulties, got into a bit of credit card debt, and unfortunately, we stopped filing our taxes. This past year has been very blessed. We began our tithing again and getting back on the right track.

My question to you is, we weren't as responsible in keeping all of our tax returns. We've got probably about four years of taxes that we need to file. What's your advice on how to begin that? I'm not even sure where to go about or how to start that process, having not filed in the last four years.

Yeah. I think this would be a great time for you to use a CPA, somebody to help you get this current. Listen, I understand what you've been through. I'm delighted to hear you're getting on top of things, and I think getting current and in compliance with the IRS is a great next step for you. The good news is, you can just go in and file those returns, and the IRS will take them. Actually, they consider you in good standing as long as you've filed within the last six years.

I think the key is for you to get on top of those as quickly as possible. Now, there are penalties and interests that is accruing, and so it's in your best interest to get that filed just as soon as you can. The other deadline, if you will, is three years. If you qualified for federal tax credits or refunds in the past, but didn't file returns, you are only going to get that going back three years from the tax returns original due date. Beyond three years, and it sounds like maybe only one of these years that you're describing, because I think you said you had four, you may have to forego then your refunds and tax credits, but you could even get those for the prior three years. So I think the key is just get all your information together and get those IRS tax returns filed for those back years as quickly as possible. If you find you owe an amount on any of them or all of them that you can't pay, well, that's then where you would begin to negotiate either an offer in compromise or a payment plan.

But I think the key is to go ahead and get filed as quickly as you can, because in some cases that will even stop some of the penalties by filing those back taxes, even if you're unable to pay. All right. And your recommendation as far as tackling the credit card debt versus, and I have a feeling we'll probably owe a bit to the IRS, tackle the IRS first and then go after the credit card debt?

Yeah, that's a good question. So what is the status of the credit card debt? Are you current on it?

No, we're not current on it. Okay. So what do you owe in credit cards?

Roughly about 20, 26, anywhere from 26 to 30,000 right now. All right. And how far past due are they?

About two years. Okay. And so have there been judgments against you?

Have they taken legal action? No. Okay.

So you're just getting lots of calls from collection agencies? Right. Exactly. Okay.

All right. And do you have the ability to start paying on those? Like for instance, if we were to typically, a credit counseling payment might be about 3% of the balance.

So would you have the ability to pay somewhere around 800 a month? If we stop tithing, yes, but it's important to us to do the tithing right now. Yeah. And I wouldn't put those two things against each other. I would kind of back up and say, let's start with our values and our priorities.

And you're alluding to this. I'm not saying this is in conflict with what you just said, but I think the starting point is to say, Lord, what's important to us and what are our values? And obviously what leaps off the page in Scripture is the ability to be generous with what God has given us. So a systematic gift, a tithe as a guideline, I think is a great starting point. So let's put that in and then we want to be able to build up an emergency fund and pay back our debt. Let's put that in and then let's try to order our finances to live on the rest. And it may mean that other things have to go.

Maybe we're not eating out for a season, any number of things. Maybe we're canceling subscriptions, but let's live within our means, but make sure we're doing those things that are really important to us. So I think what the next step might be would be to get with a counselor who could just look at your overall situation and help you develop a plan. Because with $26,000 in credit card debt, a judgment is a very real possibility where they could seek a legal judgment against you. And that's just going to create more expense, more cost and complexity to this thing. You also don't want to mess around with being delinquent with the IRS either. So we need to solve for all of it. But I realize you can't do it all at once. And so it's a matter of looking at the overall picture, doing the hard work with regard to your spending plan to absolutely eliminate any unnecessary spending. And I know that's not easy, but it's necessary so we can free up margin and then develop a game plan to say, OK, how do we get the tax returns filed even if we can't pay? And maybe we set up a payment plan there. And then how do we start getting on top of these credit cards? My preference would be to connect with Christian credit counselors dot org, let them kind of work you through the plan there. But it's all going to come down to you being able to, you know, really keep up a consistent payment going to both the IRS and the debts in order to begin to make some progress toward getting these, you know, back under control. So let's do this, Brian. I'm going to connect you with one of our certified Christian financial counselors. We'll cover the cost for it just for a few sessions to help someone get you some perspective, get all of this in one place so you know what your assets and liabilities are and somebody to help you work through that spending plan to create, hopefully, a reasonable plan that balances that allows us to begin making some progress either toward the IRS or the credit cards or ideally both. Does that make sense?

That does. And thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Hey, happy to do it, Brian. Listen, stay on the line. Get your information and get somebody in touch with you here very soon. You know, folks, we've got some great questions coming up, and we'll get to those in just a moment.

But we're up against a break here, and so I don't want to go to them quite yet. So let me mention, I've mentioned a couple of professionals that can walk alongside you in your journey. And part of our heart here at FaithFi is to make sure that we give you good, godly counsel on this broadcast and through our podcast and in our library there and the FaithFi app and online. We also want to connect you with godly counsel that can actually journey with you, somebody who's trained and skilled in your area of need who can walk alongside you to encourage you and pray with you and give you godly counsel and help you make a wise decision, not telling you what to do, but equipping you to make a wise decision. And for us, that's either a certified Christian financial counselor, which you'll find at faithfi.com slash cert CFC, or that's a certified kingdom advisor, which is a professional who's been trained and achieved the highest credential in the financial services industry around biblically wise, professional financial advice. You'll find a CKA at our website, faithfi.com. Just click, find a CKA.

Hopefully that helps. All right. A quick break and back with our final segment. Stay with us. Hey, great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West here in our final segment. We're taking your questions today. Let's go to Minnesota. Hi, Chris. Go ahead, sir.

Hi. I have a question regarding a retirement from a fire department. I'm 49 years old. I'll be 50 in September and I'll also have 20 years on my fire department on in September and be able to retire. The amount of that retirement is $100,000 based off of our benefits plan. And I have a regular other full-time job and I have a retirement through that that's well funded and a supplemental retirement through that.

My question is, being a paramedic of 25 years, a firefighter, seeing some other people reach retirement age and pass on and not be able to enjoy that, what would the ramifications be of taking that fire department retirement and basically spending it on myself and my family by buying a boat? Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you for your service. And I know it probably has been difficult along the way in seeing what you've seen. And yet I know it's been an amazing blessing to the families you served as well. And I can understand wanting to enjoy it.

And you know what? In 1st Timothy, that part of why God has given us this good gift of money, which is one of his creations, is to enjoy. And so we want you to enjoy it, but it needs to be done in the context of what are our values and our priorities. Now, clearly, as you've said just a moment ago, one of your values is my family.

I want to be able to build relationships and enjoy time with them. And money is a tool to accomplish that alongside the other goals and objectives you have that should also align with your values, like giving generously and living within your means and being able to provide for your family beyond your life. You know, if your Lord calls you home first and making sure your wife has enough to sustain her lifestyle.

So all of these things have to work in concert, and that's why we make plans to the best of our ability and we trust God for our provision. Now let's get to your specific question. You know, I think if this is a pre-tax retirement account and you're pulling it out at less than fifty nine and a half, and if you're not taking advantage of the rule of fifty five, which says that if you separate from your employer, quit, get fired, retire after age fifty five, then you can go ahead and start taking money out without the penalty. But prior to that, which it sounds like would be your situation, you would have a 10 percent penalty and then the whole thing would be taxable. So if you're going to spend seventy five thousand dollars, you'd have a seventy five hundred dollar penalty. And then on top of that, you'd add seventy five thousand dollars to your taxable income in that year. So that's pretty expensive money in terms of accessing that.

And then it's not available for your longer term plan. So you just need to factor that in in terms of looking at what are the assets that are going to be available in retirement to generate the income that I need alongside my other retirement assets and income and Social Security to make sure that I can pay the bills. Does all that make sense? Yes, it does.

OK, so I think that's the short answer is if it's a pre-tax retirement account, you're looking at a 10 percent penalty plus it's all taxable income and you just have to decide, is that worth it to me to pay that and then not have it available as a part of my overall retirement assets that are growing for the future. Sure. That makes sense.

That's that's what I was wondering, a little online search and you get a bunch of different information and you never know sure what's what. That's great. Well, Chris, thanks for your call today. We appreciate it. God bless you, sir. All right. Take care. Let's go to Paul in Republic, Washington.

How can I help? Thanks for taking my call. So this last year I set up to do charitable contributions from my IRA. First year I've done this. And so I got my 1099 from principal and it listed as a taxable withdrawal.

And so I guess that's the way it should be. So I made donations to a number of different organizations and I and all the receipts are really different. Some of them, they all say no tangible goods or services have been rendered for this gift. They all just say that they don't all say they're a 501 C and some of them say it was from a qualified distribution from my IRA. So I don't really know what the receipt is supposed to say.

I tried to do a little research and I couldn't find anything. Yeah. Yeah.

Very good. Well, the QCDS, as long as you did them properly, are reported along with other distributions from an IRA on that 1099 are. So that's not unexpected. They aggregate all of those together, both the QCDS and the taxable distributions. And then you would offset that by inputting the amount of the QCDS on the 1040.

And so there's a line for that. And then that's going to offset that portion because the QCDS is not taxable. You don't get a deduction, but it's excluded from being added to your adjusted gross income for the year. So that would be handled on the tax return itself. In terms of receipts, are you talking about the QCD receipt or just general donation receipts in terms of what should be on there?

No, just the general receipt that I received from everybody. Some of them clarified it is from a qualified distribution from my IRA and some of them don't. And some of them don't even say they're a 501 C. I know they are because I, you know, made sure they were before I put, you know, included them in my donations.

Yeah, yeah, very good. So I mean, what you would typically want on the receipt is the name of the organization, the date of the donation, a description of the article or articles and an estimated value. And then as long as there are not for profit 501 C 3 charity, then you're able to take that donation. And then additionally, if it's a qualified charitable distribution, that should be indicated as well.

And then you would provide all of that to your tax preparer and then you're he or she would file that appropriately on the 1040. Okay, so if I understand you right, it should say on the receipt that it came from a qualified distribution. That's correct.

They don't all say that. So I need to contact them and get a receipt. Now the only way the IRS is going to see these receipts is if I get audited, is that correct? Yes, that is correct. I mean, sometimes they will include that with the return.

But yeah, you just need to be able to defend that and back up whatever was on the tax return, which is why, you know, you're going to want to get that, you know, straightened out now. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Thanks for your call, Paul. We appreciate it. Let's go to Chris in Ohio.

Chris, go ahead. Hi, thank you for taking my call. I am, I'm over 70. I'm a widow when I filed for Social Security from my husband when I was 66 at full retirement age. Okay, I have not been retired yet, but I'm on something called OPERS.

And this is a windfall, a windfall elimination. Yes. I know when when I retire, two thirds of my income is quit of my retirement is going to be taken off the Social Security that I get from my husband. That's right. Then somebody told me, somebody told me because I'm over 70 that they thought something happened where that doesn't take effect anymore. Do you know anything about that?

Interesting. You know, I'm not familiar with the intricacies of that. So I think it'd be good for you to reach out to the Social Security Administration to find out. But what typically happens is your Social Security benefits are reduced by up to two thirds when you retire. So they're the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System. You know, if you're eligible for Social Security benefits and you're receiving a retirement benefit from OPERS under any of their OPERS retirement plan, then that's where typically your Social Security benefits are affected by that what's called government pension offset or windfall elimination.

So I think it's important for you to understand and whether or not, you know, your age will factor into how that's affected. I'm not certain on that. So have you reached out to the Social Security Administration to try to schedule a meeting in person or have a phone call? Yes, a long time ago, before I took my husband's Social Security, they told me the two thirds, you know, when I retire the two thirds thing. But the only reason I was asking is because somebody thought two people thought that they had changed that because of my age, because of your age. And I went on Social Security dot gov and I didn't see anything, any change there.

All I saw was the two thirds. I see. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm not familiar, Chris, with any change coming in at the age of 70. I'm not saying that's not the case. I'm just saying that I'm not familiar with that. So I think it would be it would be good for you to understand that because it could be that, you know, once you get to that point, it does change whether or not that windfall elimination is kicking in. And obviously that would be really helpful to you, given that that would involve you getting more money.

So I think reaching out to the Social Security Administration is your next best option at this point. Oh, OK. Thank you very much.

All right. You're welcome. Thanks for your call today. We appreciate it very much. Well, folks, we covered a lot of ground today. Always so appreciate your calls and questions and, you know, finances can get really challenging.

And often we can think that, you know, it's so complicated because there's just an unlimited number of decisions. And I found that we try to simplify our financial life and understand there's really only five things we can do with money. You know, there's money we live on. There's money we give. There's money we owe for debt and taxes.

There's actually two O's. And then there's the money we grow. And God's word speaks to all of those. Now, obviously, there's a host of questions and issues and intricacies in any one of those. But I think kind of keeping the big picture in mind is often helpful and trying to simplify things can boil it down to maybe something we can get our hands around and then seeking wise counsel.

You know, the Bible is really clear about the multitude of counselors and the benefits that comes from it. I hope we've been one of those multitude of counselors today for you. Thanks for being on the program, folks.

Faith in Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and FaithFi. Thank you for Lynn and Amy and Tahira and Jim. Couldn't do it without them. See you tomorrow. We'll be right back.