Manfred Belheim
Moaner Lisa
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2009
- Messages
- 8,399
Okay, so it's really just about charitable status rather than constitutional issues then?
Instead if subsidizing churches one could subsidize educational and recreation spaces.If we removed this tax exemption in America, I think you'd see a lot of historic churches in urban areas get snapped up by property developers and turned into condos. Then vulnerable people are out a community space, and rich people get fancy apartments.
Agree. But that's a problem w society not supporting community endeavors. No reason religion should hold such privilege.Outside of public libraries, there are so, so few real community spaces in American cities...places where people can hold events, congregate, build relationships with each other,
If it's your church, if you want to rent space from a church for a book club or chess tournament you absolutely have to pay the church (unless you're chummy with its owners)WITHOUT HAVING TO SPEND MONEY.
They could be or they could just be taking advantage of the community.I'd argue that even if a church failed to run a school, or a food pantry or something, they are still providing an important community resource, just like a civic organization or fraternal organization might.
I'm not making any choices. Just wondering why a church should have special privileges.Neither you, nor the government, get to make that choice for anyone other than yourself.
How is a church not a business? They collect money and often even advertise.They aren't running a business though...
This may be a surprise for you but those rules are skirted all the time and not just by churches. Howard Hughes shielded all of his profits in a hospital, for example. And the IRS has been told by Trump to stand down enforcement of the rules.Activities deemed for-profit from churches are liable for taxation. I know it's long, but the IRS guidelines are pretty interesting.
How is a church not a business? They collect money and often even advertise.
Honestly, I'm less bothered by the private jets than this:Sure, some exceptions with the mega-churches, but the typical small church just aims to maintain the building and let the pastor/preacher have a livable wage.
Churches should be closed. Unless left as a museum of an archaic culture.
I voted “always exempt”, not because I literally think that, but because that’s close to what I think given some reasoning like this. Plus the points a few people have made about how many churches wouldn’t be viable without tax exemption, makes me think we should be very cautious about messing with their tax exemptions.There's a lot of angles to approach this from but I tend to take the "churches should be tax-exempt" position because I fail to see how you avoid the de facto "establishment of religion" if you start to tax churches. I think there is too much scope for various shenanigans if you open up the possibility of churches being taxed at all. There seems to be tremendous scope for discrimination and de facto "establishment of religion" in the way the rules for what activities are liable to taxation are constructed.
And yet people will say that taking away tax exemption would be favoring the establishment of religion somehow? It seems to me that it's the tax breaks which favor establishment and at best we can claim that at least it isn't overtly favoring one particular religion. I'm not quite sure that last bit is true either, I suspect Christian denominations here get outsized breaks (not just through taxes either) but I can't provie it.Plus the points a few people have made about how many churches wouldn’t be viable without tax exemption, makes me think we should be very cautious about messing with their tax exemptions.
I don't follow.There's a lot of angles to approach this from but I tend to take the "churches should be tax-exempt" position because I fail to see how you avoid the de facto "establishment of religion" if you start to tax churches. I think there is too much scope for various shenanigans if you open up the possibility of churches being taxed at all. There seems to be tremendous scope for discrimination and de facto "establishment of religion" in the way the rules for what activities are liable to taxation are constructed.
I don't follow.
Seems pretty simple, just tax all businessesOkay, let me put it this way: I don't trust GOP-controlled state legislatures not to tax mosques of out of existence. At the more local level I don't trust Mormons not to turn Utah into a de facto theocracy by taxing every other religion out of existence. I don't trust the voters of [insert some hypothetical county] to tax everything but their particular Christian denomination out of existence. And so on and so forth.
The possibilities just seem too fraught to me. The stuff hobbs posted about Mormon business empire doesn't sit well with me either but I don't know what can be done about it without opening up a Pandora's box of unintended consequences.
I'm not blind to power protecting itself. That's one of the reasons I'm against religion, despite its supposed anti-authoritian message it quite often aligns itself with power.I don't think you should allow your contempt for organized religion to blind you to these issues, either.
I think Utah would probably make an interesting case study about a lot of this stuff.That's probably a fair example.
But I'd bet without the LDS, the total amount of "support networks" in Utah and Idaho would just decrease. You can do what Narz said and try to increase funding for a bunch of roughly analogous secular things. But I don't think it works that way. Religions seem particularly good at creating communities and shared identities.
Well yeah, but so does almost any other charitable organization or non-profit. That doesn't make them businesses.How is a church not a business? They collect money and often even advertise.
There's a lot of angles to approach this from but I tend to take the "churches should be tax-exempt" position because I fail to see how you avoid the de facto "establishment of religion" if you start to tax churches. I think there is too much scope for various shenanigans if you open up the possibility of churches being taxed at all. There seems to be tremendous scope for discrimination and de facto "establishment of religion" in the way the rules for what activities are liable to taxation are constructed.
If a church-related investment vehicle or business runs as a for-profit entity, then IMO, it should be taxed.
Poor people are required to subsidize the Catholic Church
I don't see you or anyone else here crying about "subsidizing" poor people.