churches

[HemlockGrey]

By giving them tax exempt status even though they make a profit

I know of many, many churches that operate barely in the red.

That said, I would treat churches as non-profit organizations, unless of course they clearly make huge profits.

[Slartibartfast]

So I guess dirt poor individuals should be exempt from taxes.

Right?

Of course they should. What kind of horrible place would be that taxes people for what they don't have.

There should be a lower limit of income that goes un-taxed. Go beyond that threshold, and the taxes have to get higher, but not so high that a person making millions get 50% or 75% tax, only a slight increase, say 10% for normal people up to 15% for filthy rich people, independently if they're religious or not - but this would only apply to individual people's income. Business could get a tax exemption if near-bankrupt or under a certain (low) profit, but it could cause problems filling the economy with unproductive businesses.

Besides there are different kinds of taxes, I'm not sure what taxes are we talking about. The ones I know are property taxes (for what you own), income taxes (for what you earn) and sales taxes (for what you buy).

Right now I to pay something like 20% sales tax

But the church should be taxed like any regular business.

[Lagmonster]

So I guess dirt poor individuals should be exempt from taxes.

Right?

Of course they should. What kind of horrible place would be that taxes people for what they don't have. There should be a lower limit of income that goes un-taxed.

Huh? If they have no money, they pay no taxes. That's simple. If they have money, they pay a percentage just like everyone else. Those roads aren't going to build themselves! Frankly, I think it's silly that ANYONE should be exempt from contributing to the upkeep of their city/state/country.

[Slartibartfast]

Let's see. Since there's no welfare, the only way people are going to eat is by buying their own food. If you take even the meager cents these people make by begging or cleaning windows or houses or whatever, they don't eat. I don't find it very silly at all.

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot that you live in Happy Happy Land and everyone gets to eat. My bad

[LadyTevar]

No, I don't think they should be taxed.

Granted, there ARE churches that are runned like business and the people running them make out like bandits and they should be put up against a wall and quickly sent to their "reward," but taxing churches or synagogues or what have you would be more detrimental than good.

Ideally speaking there should be no motive for profit in a church when it is collecting donations. Those donations go towards the cost of maintaining a place of worship, charity works, missions and paying the church staff what should be a sufficient means of sustenance.

If you do start taxing the church (not only are you going to piss off a lot of people), but those donations would probably have to become mandatory in order to sustain operations and it would become a business rather than a religion. Pay to pray?! Remember, donations are VOLUNTARY.

Also, most churches are dirt poor and can barely pay their operating costs anyways.

So I guess dirt poor individuals should be exempt from taxes.

Right?

Would be nice for all of us Below Poverty Line people... but I get a big fat $800-$1000 tax return every year as well...

[Lagmonster]

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot that you live in Happy Happy Land and everyone gets to eat. My bad

This will sound VASTLY cruel and condescending, but here in Ottawa, I have yet to see a poorly-nourished homeless person.

The thing that gets me in this entire thread is that a SHITLOAD of people are claiming that if churches were taxed on their non-charity income, they'd go broke. My question remains: WHY is it the government's problem if someone goes teats up? If you, personally, don't patronize a place, they go under. If you don't give enough at church, they go under.

I still do not comprehend why 'churches operate in the red' is an argument against them being taxed. It's not the government's job to keep churches afloat.

[Mr Flibble]

PS. Churches almost never die, no matter how unpopular or shitty they are. This should tell you something about how they are unfairly propped up by the government while everything else around them is subject to the rules of the marketplace.

I don't know about Canada or the US, but here in Australia, more specifically in Adelaide churches do die, and often, the whole anglican church in Adelaide is on the verge of collapse because they have too few members. A number of parishers have merged, or even completely closed a lot more heading in that direction.

That said I think that churches should be taxed like everyone else, sure it will kill tyhe Anglican church in Adelaide, but quite frankly it deserves to die.

[Stravo]

No, I don't think they should be taxed.

Granted, there ARE churches that are runned like business and the people running them make out like bandits and they should be put up against a wall and quickly sent to their "reward," but taxing churches or synagogues or what have you would be more detrimental than good.

Ideally speaking there should be no motive for profit in a church when it is collecting donations. Those donations go towards the cost of maintaining a place of worship, charity works, missions and paying the church staff what should be a sufficient means of sustenance.

If you do start taxing the church (not only are you going to piss off a lot of people), but those donations would probably have to become mandatory in order to sustain operations and it would become a business rather than a religion. Pay to pray?! Remember, donations are VOLUNTARY.

Also, most churches are dirt poor and can barely pay their operating costs anyways.

So I guess dirt poor individuals should be exempt from taxes.

Right?

Dirt poor individuals DON'T pay taxes.

[Stravo]

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot that you live in Happy Happy Land and everyone gets to eat. My bad

This will sound VASTLY cruel and condescending, but here in Ottawa, I have yet to see a poorly-nourished homeless person.

The thing that gets me in this entire thread is that a SHITLOAD of people are claiming that if churches were taxed on their non-charity income, they'd go broke. My question remains: WHY is it the government's problem if someone goes teats up? If you, personally, don't patronize a place, they go under. If you don't give enough at church, they go under.

I still do not comprehend why 'churches operate in the red' is an argument against them being taxed. It's not the government's job to keep churches afloat.

Actually the legal argument that has been accepted by the courts is that there is a compelling state interest to foster the growth and support of churches, By not taxing churches and making charitable contributions tax exempt you are ENCOURAGING this activity. The government is allowed to encourage activity that they feel is vital or important to the community and churches fall in this category.

[LadyTevar]

Actually the legal argument that has been accepted by the courts is that there is a compelling state interest to foster the growth and support of churches, By not taxing churches and making charitable contributions tax exempt you are ENCOURAGING this activity. The government is allowed to encourage activity that they feel is vital or important to the community and churches fall in this category.

The funny thing? the SCA and other recreationist groups are also tax-exempt.

[jegs2]

should they be taxed?

Only if you want them to have a much larger role in government...

That 'separation of church and state' thing would take on whole new levels of meaning...

[Enforcer Talen]

how is that, jegs?

[StarshipTitanic]

Oops.

[jegs2]

how is that, jegs?

On the taxation of churches within these United States, one must first determine what allowed exemption from taxes for churches in the first place.

From this site:

When the United States was founded, the framers of the constitution wanted to protect churches from governmental influence [and vice versa].

The first amendment to the Constitution specifically states that, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This protected the churches from the intrusive hand of the state, [and vice versa].

But when Congress began to tax its citizens, a question arose. Could it tax churches? The answer then was very simple. The first two modern income-tax statutes were the Revenue Act of 1894 and the Revenue Act of 1913. In both the laws, only "net income" was to be taxed. Churches and all other non-profit organizations had no "net income," so they were not taxed. The author of the 1913 Act, Cordell Hull, even resisted the call for establishing explicit categories of exemptions. He argued that the law was designed to impose explicit categories of taxation, therefore, all organizations not listed would be exempt.

But that was not sufficient for many in the bureaucracy, and so, over time, the Internal Revenue Service began to define what a tax-exempt organization might be. In the IRS code, it is defined as a 501(c)(3) organization.

From the IRS's point of view, it made sense to define a church, because they began to see the rise of bogus churches with names like the "Church of the Marijuana" or the "Hot Tub Church." But from the Christian point of view it seems most unwise to have IRS agents define in legal language what the Bible provides in explicit detail. Sometimes there was a significant confrontation. Fortunately, Congress has passed a bill, which more clearly specifies the role the IRS can have in securing church records and determining whether a church qualifies under the IRS code.

Many critics of churches argue that they can unfairly compete in the marketplace because of their tax exemption. But most of that objection was answered years ago.
The Tax Reform Act of 1969 ended churches' tax exemption for income from profit-making enterprises. Before 1969, churches exempt under the IRS code did not have to pay corporate income tax on unrelated business income, but Congress closed that loophole.

Critics also argue that exemptions are given as a legislative grace in return for specified public services which government would have to provide. But the U.S. Supreme Court held in a 1970 case that traditional property-tax exemptions for churches are constitutional and rejected the notion that exemption is a legislative grace. The argument may have its merits in reference to colleges, hospitals, libraries, or parks. But it is not applicable to churches, since government could not constitutionally set up or operate a church to provide the religious services churches provide. Despite allegations to the contrary, churches are not "getting away with something." They do not pay taxes because they do not have net income. When they do make a profit in a business enterprise, they pay taxes on it. The rest of the time, they should be tax exempt.

From that, we can see that money-making gambits within a church are taxable, as those can demonstrate a net income. Therefore, there is no conflict and no need for change.

The only caveat I'll offer is that I believe the Federal income tax system to be a hopelessly-corrupt system in need of immediate abolishment in favor of either a flat-tax system that taxes all income, regardless of how, when, where, or from whom it was gained, or a national sales tax.