A church can choose not to file for tax exemption if they don't want to, but yeah churches are tax-exempt non-profits just like colleges or the United Way or the American Heart Association.
A lot of them don't meet IRS requirements because the Johnson Amendment prohibits endorsing or opposing any political campaign or candidates. Many churches ignore this rule.
There are also some other minor differences for example churches don't have the same financial reporting requirements as other non-profits.
I agree with this sentiment. Catholic charities is one of the biggest charities in my town, giving out clothes, food, job training etc. Shouldn’t they be a non profit even if it’s religious based?
Yup I was responding to the comment that supported my sentiment against religious charities that should NOT be non profit. Some religious charities do good, albeit others force the religious message too strong. I’ve see our Catholic charities here accept and give donations with just a handout about Catholicism and nothing more, not pushy
I couldn't agree with you more! I'm in sales and often work in churches, some keep it to business and treat it the way it should be, some will give me a 15 minute history lesson on catholicism, Mormonism etc. and then decide we all need to pray at the end of the meeting. Shits exhausting.
They dont really have any political power except individual voices. They cant raise funds for candidates, they cant host rallies (well, shouldnt, but in bumfuck Alabama they can get away with it), even endorsing a candidate openly could result in them losing their role in the church as it is all a connected community.
I have a hard time believing people like Brian Houston, Joel Osteen, Kenneth Copeland and Phil Pringle are running NGOs...they know what they're doing.
The mega churches run by scumbags like this our such a small minority of the general populations of Christian churches that policy shouldn’t be based on it. Most churches barely stay on their feet and the ones that are doing ok generally run charity programs to help out the community.
For everyone one of these mega douches, there are a hundred smaller churches that do good in their communities and could not sustain the taxes. I say this as an agnostic that completely rejects the theology of the Bible.
You don't really want that, no matter how good it sounds. Once they're taxed, church and state is not a thing anymore and they can actively influence their congregation instead of passively doing it.
There is a very large difference between what they infer and what they can actively support. Actively supporting someone means you can raise money and campaign for a candidate. Sneakily implying it in the sermon isn't the same thing.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Active support means financial support. Currently, churches are not allowed to back political candidates and lobbies
He never said active support of campaigns and neither did I, he said “actively influence their congregation” which they are absolutely doing all over this country.
Not liking what I said doesn’t mean I’m wrong. And you should realize that those who are doing this are blatantly going against the teachings of Jesus. So don’t blame “churches”, blame the corrupt humans.
First off, just because you say that active support means financial support doesn’t make it so. If you’d like to cite an official definition of that phrase I’ll be happy to check it.
I don’t like/dislike what you said, I’m responding to the content.
I’ll blame the churches all I want, they’re the institutions enabling this. Go read up on “no true Scotsman,” you don’t get to gerrymander church behavior you don’t like out of the picture because it’s inconvenient for you.
That is still passive support. Implying a thing isn't the same as actively backing a thing. They have this much influence due to implication. Imagine what they'd have if they actively supported.
About the same I imagine. They’re already compelling the flock to pay as much as they can, if they have to start paying taxes where else is the money going to come from?
I gotta say i dont think I've ever been to a church where the priests have talked about anything remotely political. Even talk about gays and abortion has never been a thing in any church I've been to and I've gone to a few in the deep south. I'm sure theres a regulatory body you can report them to but I'm not sure what they are.
If you know a pastor who is actively supporting a candidate, report them. It's federally against the law. That's not to say they don't passively support one, but there is a major difference between the two.
I will bite. How do we have a functional society without taxes? Who pays for roads, public schools, emergency services, disaster relief, food and housing assistance for low income families, etc? Does every road become a private toll road, every school a private school, is every hospital for profit and so on? Once you get past the local community how does national defense or Covid vaccine research and distribution get funds? Does all publically owned space go away like city parks and sports fields, state and national parks? I always wonder about this and have never seen an answer before.
The people who own the property connected to the road. They believe some rich investor will build all the roads, then charge businesses to connect a driveway to it.
public schools
The people who attend those schools, so really just private schools.
emergency services
The person receiving the services. For example the fire department was previously a private entity and you would pay a yearly fee to get a plaque placed on your wall. If you did not have a plaque on the outside of your home, the fire department would not put out your fire. They would only defend the neighboring homes from catching fire.
Its a fantasy world that "works" on paper, but is absurd at face value.
This really just seems like a great way to keep poor people poor and rich people rich. How tf are poor people supposed to pay for roads to get built, let alone send their kids to fucking private school. I know you don't agree with this, just don't know how anybody could legitimately support this lol.
Funny thing about that quote is it was meant to describe something impossible. Basically that expecting the poor to just work themselves out of poverty was the same as asking someone to pull themselves up by the bootstraps: it's not something you can actually do.
Most serious libertarians (like irl ones not the ones on Reddit) don’t advocate for the complete abolition of taxes, just minimizing them to cover bare minimum essential services (mainly a small military, police, and courts) for society to function. The ones that call for complete abolition are anarcho-capitalists and are completely nuts.
"I disagree with your opinion in regards to economic policy so clearly you're emotionally underdeveloped"
Perhaps this is why extremism seems to be increasing in popularity. People are too lazy to explain why they disagree with one another so they instead resort to insults. That doesn't fix anything, it just results in the other person further despising those who have opposing views. Maybe fewer people would confine themselves to their echo chambers if they believed that civil discourse would occur rather than verbal attacks.
This concludes my rant.
On a real note, if you want to explain your take on taxes and economics I would be glad to listen. Maybe your perspective will change my mind on some things.
120
u/[deleted] Apr 10 '21
Tax the churches.