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thetagal's Untitled Article Draft #1
Hi. I have a brillant solution. Take all tax exempt status from all Churches in the US. The will create huge revenue and help handle the deficit.
It won’t harm useful charities, churches or foundations as IRS could have a way for them to deduct donations to the poor, underpriviledged, scholarships and so on. They would only pay on their profits.
Churches who do little out-of-pocket expendures on helping others would have more profit to tax.
Consider that Churches are businesses. Any reason they should be given tax freebies just because they have good intentions? Most of us have good intentions, like supporting our families.
It would certainly help handle questionable religions and religious cults. If the Church of Scientology for example, had to pay taxes they’d have less money for real estate. Since they give very little to any other charity (even the flight to Haiti was John Travolta’s contribution, not money from the COS to the best of my knowledge) the tax bill would be enormous. And they would have to pay their staff wages.
On that subject of paying staff, I could understand how the Sea Org of Scientology under current law could be exempt from minimum wage as berthing and food is supplied, but what about all those Churches who do not supply berthing and food? Those people should be paid minimum wage at least, and they are not. Why doesn’t the government do something about that?
By the way, I have nothing against the Church of Scientology except the abuses where they occur. Scientology itself, less those who perpetuate the abuses, is a positive, uplifting religion. The management sucks.
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It won't work by scottb
Take all tax exempt status from all Churches in the US.
The tax exemption on churches doesn’t have anything to do with their religious nature—at least in principle.
It’s a common mistake, and one I used to guilty of making until I learned better. Churches are tax exempt for basically the same reason that the Red Cross is exempt: section 501(c)(3) of the tax code, which includes “charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals.” The only real difference for churches is that they don’t have to file the form.
Even you are willing to grant them the exemption based on “donations to the poor, underpriviledged, scholarships and so on”. Eliminating the “churches” from the list would still leave them getting tax exempt because they’re “charitable”, or “educational”. Hell—they might even be able to argue that their “Religious Technology Center” is some sort of “scientific” endeavor.
Technically, they’re a “non-profit charitable organization”, as far as the tax code goes. It’s nothing to do with religion.