Poll: Should Churches be Taxed Less than Businesses?

originally posted by: solomons path
Hey . . . goalposts . . . where did you go?

Oh stop it. You are nitpicking.

The money starts out as donation money. That they build upon the donation money by being smart investors is a good thing. It goes to support their churches and the outreaches .... like hospitals and schools and elderly care outreach, etc etc. Good for them!

Again ... the government shouldn't tax churches.
They should keep their hands off them.

a reply to: solomons path
ETA - for example among the MANY business ventures that the mega-sized evangelical complex down the street runs . . .
Every night they have adult education classes that are taught by unpaid volunteers. Everything from financial management to yoga. These classes are open to any person . . . who pays the fee to take the course. They own serveral of the houses in my community that they rent to anyone . . . that passes the credit check and pays the money.

Neither of those streams of revenue are related to furthering the exempt status or purpose of the organization (which is to minister the word of their lord and savior) . . . and they are businesses and on-going.

All large congregations work this way . . . that's how they get so big. Most congregations don't have multiple millionaire donors sitting in the aisles.

a reply to: solomons path

Yeah exactly. People in debt still giving 10% of what they don't even have.

originally posted by: FlyersFan

originally posted by: solomons path
Hey . . . goalposts . . . where did you go?

Oh stop it. You are nitpicking.

The money starts out as donation money. That they build upon the donation money by being smart investors is a good thing. It goes to support their churches and the outreaches .... like hospitals and schools and elderly care outreach, etc etc. Good for them!

Again ... the government shouldn't tax churches.
They should keep their hands off them.

Not nit-picking . . . just looking for some point of consistency that doesn't involve back-flips to rationalize the point.

Regardless of where the "start-up" capital comes once you start operating seperate business ventures they do not fall under the 501c status and once they start gaining on that capital it is not considered "part of the donation" . . . more over it is illegal for a 501c to use the tax exempt money to start a separate business venture.

So, again, no . . . that money does not come from donations.

What I see is you rationalizing illegal activity and calling it "smart" . . . I call it greedy deception and playing the victim when these organizations are called out on it.

a reply to: wayforward

It's a tough question. Some Churches deserve the tax treatment they get. Mega Churches and their pastors/founders and the like DO NOT deserve preferred tax treatment. They are not Non Profits, not at the salary and benefits those pastors get.

a reply to: wayforward

Thank you to everyone for all the detailed replies!

The question more or less requires the assumption that taxation is okay for anyone, which I actually don't believe is true and believe taxes should be zero for everyone. But, if I were to grant that taxation were okay, I'd prefer a progressive sales tax, focused on luxury items over other forms of taxation. Church members are attempting to give money towards the well-being of the community, not personal luxuries. While its true some churches do not end up helping the communities, that is none the less the stated goal of the givers. So, churches should not be taxed.

As I've said many times before, taxation is taking people's money without their permission and that is my definition of stealing. So, in a sense I think churches should be taxed equal to businesses at the level of zero each. So as other posters have said this is an over-simplified question. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some time to summarize the results although most of them are difficult to interpret without yes or no answers.

I think the large scale businesses need to be taxed more, small business taxed less, mega churches that are televised and crap need to be taxed into oblivion and as much as I'd like to say tax religious establishments (jewish, muslim, christian) to a point where they drown, again, everyone's free to believe whatever dumbass crap they want so no, they shouldn't be taxed. Damn that was a long sentence.