PaulSpoerry.com

Social Media, technology, and geeky stuff for your brain.

You are here: Home / Google+ Posts / If atheists and religious people switched roles

Comments

  4. +duncan yourmate "Income received by ministers whether from the church itself or from other private employers or sources is not exempt from income tax."
    (Pomeroy v. Commissioner, 2003-2 USTC 50,568 (D. Nev. 2003))

    Otherwise, I suppose a church (or whatever exactly) would not be taxed for operating. So, what is going on, on that angle, isn't absurd. It's a separation of church and state.

  5. +Shaun Burks so you've had an atheist come to your door and ask to speak to you about….. ?

    +Christopher T. Calhoun income on ministers may be taxed, but churches do not pay property tax. For those ministers who live on church grounds are being exempt from property tax then too. There's also no oversight into churches bookkeeping. It's not a separation of church and state, it's the state supporting churches via backdoors in the tax code.

  7. LOL… true +Christopher T. Calhoun. IMO by providing a financial benefit (via tax exemptions) to religious institutions the government is in fact supporting religion (though not a specific one). As I said, the insanity is that while secular charities are compelled to report their income and financial structure to the IRS using Form 990 (Return of Organization Exempt From Income Tax) whereas churches are granted automatic exemption from federal income tax without having to file a tax return. This is why you have mega-churches, their pastors/ministers/etc living in extraordinarily lavish homes and with extremely expensive possessions. In fact, by giving all churches auto-exempt status I'm being forced to support "religion" as a taxpayer to make up for the taxes that would be collected if they were not given blanket exempt status. Their blanket exemption is a form of government subsidy given to religion that's not granted to regular citizens/organizations (not that you can't be tax exempt as a non-profit, etc but that requires a lot of paper work… not so for a church). 

    Also, churches hold huge political sway and despite laws being on the books banning political campaigning we clearly have religious leaders directing their massive congregations to back political candidates… clearly a breach of separation of church and state particularly in light of the fact they can do so tax free and unchecked; unlike a 501(c)(3) their books are not scrutinized.

  8. +Paul Spoerry +Christopher T. Calhoun while i tend to agree with you, I'll stop short of calling for taxation of churches or any other religious institution for the simple fact that there are countless religious charities that fill a gaping hole left by govt. Here in Texas, the border crisis has largely been managed by Catholic Charities when the state and federals were slow to respond with regards to humanitarian concerns. Now they're broke. This is one example of many.

  9. +Bailey Londagin That's clearly a humanitarian crisis and I'm glad someone stepped up… but in light of the following I would suggest they cry me a river: 

    "The Economist estimates that annual spending by the church and entities owned by the church was around $170 billion in 2010 (the church does not release such figures). We think 57% of this goes on health-care networks, followed by 28% on colleges, with parish and diocesan day-to-day operations accounting for just 6% and national charitable activities just 2.7%."   

  10. +Bailey Londagin Regardless of the charities they're involved in, churches/religious organizations should be taxed just like any other organization, secular or otherwise. By allowing religious organizations to be tax exempt, they've opened the door to cults/cons that use religion as a front to continue to operate and extort people for money.

    All in the name of religion.

    I would only accept that religious organizations be tax exempt if they made it illegal for religious organizations to ask for money/monetary donations in any shape, way or form. If the person wants to give money without first being prompted to do so, that's one thing. What I want to see is an end to emotionally blackmailing people into giving money. If a religious group wanted to do some charity then they would do so as a humanitarian group rather than a religious one.

    Scientology is an excellent example of a scam running under the guise of religion in order to extort money from people through emotional and psychological blackmail.

  11. +Sehra Farron It would be naive to think some institutions don't implicate payment for their services. I find your argument considerable. I, personally, would prefer to see such institutions install an integrity which could allow them to discuss openly their stance on such like your argument.

    Essentially, numerous institutions operate as fragmented guilds with no universal oversight, but implicate that they do, and that there is a shadow war. I've been to some churches, lately. I've been appalled by the messages of some, and had no issue with others.

    The lower levels of a guild are numerous and can be led against any perceived friction. That might be a tenant of Scientology (I don't know), but it is not one of Christianity. For instance, there was a political party that popped up that called themselves The Golden Dawn, and I find that very purposefully misleading in a certain sort of way that is massively offensive. Those that find themselves drawn to any sort of certain theological philosophy could feel the same about their own, but that relies on the intellectual basis for critical thinking, which many vaguely only think of as frightening, because it is.

    So, I mean, that's why the issue remains. It's very delicate for everybody, in many areas. There's a power that can be abused.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.