Real Shared Sacrifice: It’s Time For Churches To Pay Taxes

Man, the firestorm over this will come at the perfect time, as we begin to see the impact of "the church" on the Presidential candidates that the right is running! Can we get the Supremes to rule on this? Now that would be the final irony! ;-)

I agree. Fuck 'em. Right wingers might say that many churches will have to shut down their many grade schools and community services. I say that if they produced anything but delusional (there's a magic man in the sky and you will burn in hell for being bad) kids, they could maintain their tax exempt status. As it is right now, they are exclusionary and doctrinaire.

The right wing hates public schools and claims they are failing which is of course a lie, built by starving them of funding.

What's more, religious institutions receive tax dollars. As beneficiaries of state welfare, they should be tested as rigorously as say, welfare recipients. How about means and drug testing priests and churches and other cults. Why not? After all, we allow right wingers to arbitrarily impose that kind of garbage on people who are on the edge of homelessness for no other reason than some fucknut right winger manufactured a story about someone who "makes money" from Welfare by having children.

How about Cap & Trade for religious lies? Every time you they say "life begins at conception," they pay. Every time you hear "Jesus is the son of God," they pay. Every time they tell a kid, "You'll go to hell if..." they pay. Every time a priest manipulates a child, they pay.

Think of all the money that could go to actually helping people instead of an institution. High schools have campuses that some colleges would envy. High schools. And of course, they're private and religious. How about the half a million that went to the football field gets cut in half so some kid whose parents are broke can have a meal instead? Poverty, Chastity and Obedience where have you gone?

Fine with me but it should apply to ALL nonprofit groups right?

religion is a business has anyone else noticed how many mom and pop places have opened.tax them all

Tax churches and Hospitals

Maybe they should be required to report the financial value of the community service and balance it to the taxes they would otherwise pay to the government.

If you send me five dollars I'll promise to save you from hell in the afterlife.
---a solemn message from The First Church of Ampersand....

IMO the fallout of revolking the churches tax exempt status would open all organizations for revocation. So what might start out as a crusade to get the churches to pay taxes might turn into the gutting of the exempt NGOs and you have to admit NGOs, and their founders, do some creative things with their money.

RELIGION IS TAX EXEMPT... JEDI IS A RELIGION

taking out the religious message of the church...they are still charitable organizations that help their communities a lot. Removing their non-profit status would take away funds that could otherwise be used for this.

And if you don't think churches help their communities at all, take a look at the wildfires that are currently happening in Texas: many churches there are serving as donation sites, helping to feed firefighters, and serving as shelters for evacuees, as well as recruiting volunteers. Without their help, the situation of the wildfires would be much worse.

While I am not a church attendee, my parents' church has done many missions volunteering at food banks, helping fix up people's houses that otherwise would not be able to afford the repairs, housing homeless people, and much more.

Therefore, while I disagree with the message of many churches, I do believe that, until there are enough charitable organizations to take their place, they serve a vital role as a non-profit in their communities.

The whole idea of "seperation of church and state" ends with the 501-C3 tax exempt status, and if you don't think that some of these mega churces aren't giving a cut to the government in some way, or aren't involved in some illegal activity of which the federal government turns a blind eye, you're just a fool.

The 501-C3 tax exempt status is to require that religious institutions follow certain federal guidelines, but I see that this is all lost on this article.

In other words, it's like a bribe from the government to make sure that churches aren't saying, teaching or doing anything that the federal government does not agree with, such as preaching unapproved religious doctrines or organizing an unapproved state militia.

One might even argue that the state (the Federal government) has a lot more to lose by RENEGING on their CONTRACT and forcing churches to pay taxes.

tough sell..especially now...economic downturns usually draw people back to the church imho.But still would be a good idea.

Great comments everyone.

Lets look at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints..from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finances_of_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-da...

When the LDS church takes in more donations than it pays out in period expenses, it uses the surplus to build a reserve for capital expenditures and for future years when period expenses may exceed donations

The LDS church has not publicly disclosed its financial statements in the United States since 1959.

In a June 2011 cover story, Newsweek magazine stated that the LDS church "resembles a sanctified multinational corporation—the General Electric of American religion, with global ambitions and an estimated net worth of $30 billion

The LDS church uses most of its financial resources to construct and maintain buildings and other facilities

That is just one of the mega churches.. These are not churches helping the little old lady down the street pay her light bill. This is a business. Period. They should be paying taxes.

it is worse than that. mega churches preach hatred and fear and people give their money to them by the ton, but if a preacher suddenly (like in Tulsa) starts to preach love...he loses his mega church. hypocrites all. they also get "faith based" funding for counseling, which has decimated mental health clinics and taken jobs from trained psychologists and social workers. did you know that the compound in texas built by Warren Jeffs (only one of many) was built because of "faith based" dollars and govornment contracts. freedom of religion is like free market, free to abuse and screw is all that means. they all do it. I have watched in disgust as at least three church groups with faith money have come to our town, gotten donations, used it for their own greed, and then left town owing rent and bills. grifters that is all. I have yet to see any church do any damn good whatsoever, there is always a price to pay for their presence and so called help. just like the military industrial complex waving a damn flag the church invokes jesus in answer to any criticism. then meld the two and sprinkle it with freidmanism and what have you got?? a monster devouring our planet and crushing all of us.

I agree that everyone should pay into the system. However, I don't think whining about how "it's not fair, I pay more than you" is going to help anything. It just makes us all look like children. The best way to get people to change is to lead by example. How you do that is up to you. I will continue to pay my own taxes and encourage others to do the same.

We have a tendency in this country to attack the symptoms rather than the problems itself. Taxing churches would violate the not only the letter of the law in the Constitution, but also the spirit of the law. Religious freedom is a founding principle of this country.

I agree, with the intent of the Shared Sacrifice theme here. Many of these mega-churches spend millions to build their luxurious church any of which also have video production facilities included, and the Catholic church is close to, if not the single largest landowner in the country. Many of these churches have missionary services that go all over the world.

So maybe the problem is not in taxing the church, but rather in how and where they are spending their money. Mega churches should have their books audited randomly every 3 years. The same would go for these pastors that set the churches up, especially when they are dressed in $1000 suits and wearing enough bling to make a rapper choke. After all of the sex scandals in the Catholic church, their books should be audited as well. Any preacher that makes comments from the pulpit that says anything other than you should vote on election day should be investigated, and they should loose their tax exempt status if it is found that they made multiple comments on politics.

If the state has to keep out of religion, religion must keep out of politics or loose their tax exempt status. The these preachers could say what they want.

This is an absolutely terrible idea. Separation between Church and State does not just mean the State is Independent of the Church. The activities of the Church SHOULD NOT be regulated by the STATE. 501(C)3's are tax-deductible--that includes churches. Should everything you donate be taxed?

The Catholic Church will fight this very hard, they are the number one landowner on the planet. The Evangelical's run a close second and are well known for their stinginess. Yes multimillion dollar churches are a blasphemy according to their own teachings. But I'm sure they all have developed many foolproof excuses for their greed and avarice. Golden candle sticks for the poor?

A million time YES!!! Religious institutions are always sticking their noses in politics anyway. When you look at the land they own and the money they take it is absolutely insane that they are not taxed. Growing up my neighbors ran a fundamentalist church. They had everything: a full playground (like at a public park) in their backyard, a giant satellite dish (this was the 80s), two new cars every year, a school bus for the church, they built several additions on to their house, and built a garage that was larger than most of the other houses on the block. They were total creeps, and they clearly were taking money from church donations and funding their lavish lifestyle, not paying taxes on it the whole time.

Several years later I worked at a bank and there was a church across the street from it that was one of the bank's customers. Every week someone from the church would show up with a sack full of money--thousands of dollars--so much that it would about 20 minuets to count it all. This happened every single week I worked there! It makes me sick that these "holy" people scam insecure people out of their money and don't have to pay a nickle in taxes.

YES!!! Absolutely! It is ridiculous that they are tax exempt.

Finally woke up have we. Some Churches are not worthy of their exempt status, Churches should pay taxes.

I think all churches should be turned to something more productive. crack and prostitution houses come mind.

Churches and fake "ministries" of all kinds are huge businesses.
Congressional investigations of blatant fraud and abuse by these Rolex-clad con men are purposefully dead-ended by the equally corrupt Congressmen who depend on the delivery of that block of brain-dead voters.
There is no reason in the modern world that exempts religious businesses from taxation.
If they can prove actual charitable works in a quantitative way, fine.
If not, tax the hell out of them.

Lord the squirrels are posting tonight lol

I believe the u.s should follow the canadian system and treat churches as charities which have to provide 90 percent of its income to charitable works, that would eliminate people getting into the religious business to get paid, eliminate most corruption within the institutions themselves surrounding money.

I think there should be reshaped guidelines for church businesses who sell special items like holy water and other special religious items on their broadcasts to allow the that stuff to be a taxed depending on cost/profit ratio, if they are offering items for little or nothing profit then their should be no tax.

I am against any government reaching to a church or a bloody buddhist monastery and saying "pay up" its just sleezy the donations the church recieves from its patrons are not just income, they are donations and expression of the people who are religious to express their devotion and freedom of religion through charity.

I believe that the minute the public system starts allocating church income for its own use that many of the arguement's held by certain atheists and agnostics about where they want their money to go and what it can and cannot be spent on goes out the window.

How do you successfully argue that its against the law to have public funds to be used to restore a religious monument when your tax system takes in millions from those institutions?

As for churches being political, i think as long as it is limited it is alright, people from those institutions have the right to help shape the society they live in and to maintain their religious freedoms and way of life.

(my unfinished poem comparing the church to the mob)
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Organized Religion & Organized Crime
they've both been around for quite a long time

You may not have noticed - but they're somewhat the same
commandments to follow - and hell to pay

The Godfather is the Pope - the Cardinal a Made Man
while the Priests and Enforcers spread their Gospel through the land

Weather it's the Ring on their Finger - or the Collar around their Neck,
it's the same message they are sending - a demand for respect
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after reading this post - i'll have to work in something about tax exempt status and how Al Copone was only busted on tax evasion & maybe suggest that organized religion could be charged with violating the RICO statute.
they clearly are running a Racket!

I'm for that. Anyone who says churches are not political is full of shit.

Ah yes, the often promoted Statist tactic of marginalizing religious entities under the guise of "fairness" through tax reform. Unfortunately, that essentially means handing the state the power to leverage authority over institutions that may be contrary to their agenda, all in the name of "progress." Fortunately, this has historically been shown to fail disastrously and ironically shown to be the "totalitarian" power grab that it is. Just another case of same shit, different era.

Wholeheartedly agree!!!

The Churches that promote Politic's instead of God!! I say tax them to the max. These are not Gods people anyway!!!!

I don't know about anyone else but have you ever heard about a church that is broke?
Look at the churches and see how much they have as the people donate to them like they are giving out candy for free.
If you want to be rich person then I suggest you start your own religion and have the followers build the church and pay you to run it cause government will not tax your church and they will give you a special tax rate.

Fine. Lets remove the C3 status from the ACLU, NAACP, SCLC, Media Matters etc. What's good for the goose........

Supposing there were a wall of separation between church and state (just humor me, okay). Does this mean my tax dollars would still have to subsidize the churches' tax-exempt status?