{"id":46293,"date":"2007-03-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-03-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/phantom-exemptions-show-prevalence-of-cheating\/"},"modified":"2007-03-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-03-12T00:00:00","slug":"phantom-exemptions-show-prevalence-of-cheating","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/phantom-exemptions-show-prevalence-of-cheating\/","title":{"rendered":"Phantom Exemptions Show the Prevalence of Cheating"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t\t\t<em>Freakonomics<\/em> is a fascinating book by economist Steven Levitt that turns conventional wisdom on its head. On the subject of cheating, Levitt calls it &quot;a prominent feature in just about every human endeavor.&quot; Although he doesn&#39;t declare it part of human nature, Levitt notes the prevalence of cheating among ordinary schoolteachers, wait staff, and payroll managers. While evidence for cheating is often hard to uncover, at times it is overwhelming.<\/p>\n\n<p>Consider what happened one spring evening at midnight in 1987: seven million American children suddenly disappeared. The worst kidnapping wave in history? Hardly. It was the night of 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 to provide a Social Security number. Suddenly, seven million children&mdash;children who had existed only as phantom exemptions on the previous year&#39;s 1040 forms&mdash;vanished, representing about one in ten of all dependent children in the United States.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[310],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3559,3743,3800,3854,3889,4087,4164,4264,4341,4411,4500,4700,5121,5134,5200,5215,5226],"tax_ctp_topics":[386,392],"class_list":["post-46293","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-character","tax_ctp_tags-deceit","tax_ctp_tags-dishonesty","tax_ctp_tags-election-day","tax_ctp_tags-ethics","tax_ctp_tags-government","tax_ctp_tags-honesty","tax_ctp_tags-integrity","tax_ctp_tags-law","tax_ctp_tags-lying","tax_ctp_tags-motives","tax_ctp_tags-presidents-day","tax_ctp_tags-taxes","tax_ctp_tags-temptation","tax_ctp_tags-truthfulness","tax_ctp_tags-unjust-gain","tax_ctp_tags-values"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Phantom Exemptions Show the Prevalence of Cheating - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/phantom-exemptions-show-prevalence-of-cheating\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Phantom Exemptions Show the Prevalence of Cheating - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Freakonomics is a fascinating book by economist Steven Levitt that turns conventional wisdom on its head. On the subject of cheating, Levitt calls it &quot;a prominent feature in just about every human endeavor.&quot; Although he doesn&#039;t declare it part of human nature, Levitt notes the prevalence of cheating among ordinary schoolteachers, wait staff, and payroll Read more...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/phantom-exemptions-show-prevalence-of-cheating\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/12\/ogimage.png?resize=1200,628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@CTpastors\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/phantom-exemptions-show-prevalence-of-cheating\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/phantom-exemptions-show-prevalence-of-cheating\/\",\"name\":\"Phantom Exemptions Show the Prevalence of Cheating - CT Pastors\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2007-03-12T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2007-03-12T00:00:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/phantom-exemptions-show-prevalence-of-cheating\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/phantom-exemptions-show-prevalence-of-cheating\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/phantom-exemptions-show-prevalence-of-cheating\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Phantom Exemptions Show the Prevalence of Cheating\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"name\":\"CT Pastors\",\"description\":\"Timeless wisdom for pastors with forward-thinking solutions\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Christianity Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2025\/08\/logo_ctpastors_black.svg\",\"caption\":\"Christianity Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/CTPastors\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/CTpastors\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Phantom Exemptions Show the Prevalence of Cheating - CT Pastors","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/phantom-exemptions-show-prevalence-of-cheating\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Phantom Exemptions Show the Prevalence of Cheating - CT Pastors","og_description":"Freakonomics is a fascinating book by economist Steven Levitt that turns conventional wisdom on its head. 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