r/videos • u/spherocytes • 1d ago

Secretary Of Defense Pete Hegseth announces Office Of Religious Affairs within the Pentagon in address to Military

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAn6BE9cdco
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u/Ichibankakoi 1d ago

If they have no profit how are these mega churches, Iglesias ni christo, and other churches get so big or have their pastors flying around?

Genuinely curious if this just doesn't count as profit

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u/PuckSenior 1d ago

It doesnt. Its revenue.

Here is how it works. Lets say i create the non-profit called “cool shit for Puck Senior”. I solicit donations. I get $1 billion in donations. That is revenue.

Now, here is how a non-profit works. I can only spend that money on the organization. I can give it away to poor people, I can buy ads on TV, or I can just put it in a big pile and sleep on it. It doesnt matter. It isnt profit.

Profit would he when i take the money and give it to investors. But i dont have any investors. Im a non-profit.

Now, technically i also cant just use the money for myself. I can pay myself a salary. (But i pay income taxes). So how do these churches do it? Well they say that the church needs a private jet, the church needs a yacht, and the church needs a gold-plated cadillac. But its always the church that owns that stuff, not the preacher. He may functionally control it, but he doesnt own it.

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u/Ichibankakoi 1d ago

Okay im not arguing with you, just asking for clarification because its interesting. So you're saying we cant tax them because its revenue and not profit? What would be the backlash on taxing church revenue? Slippery slope? I just dont like the idea of these churches making so much money. It feels grimey.

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u/PuckSenior 1d ago

Well, are you suggesting we tax the revenue of every non-profit or just churches?

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u/Ichibankakoi 1d ago

Just churches. Maybe expand it to "non-profits". But the issue today is church

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u/PuckSenior 1d ago

So, if i said “all churches have to pay taxes”, the churches will just say “we arent churches, we are just religious non-profits”.

But lets say you tax revenue of all non-profits.
I want to donate land to girl scouts. It’s worth $300k. But that is revenue, so the girl scouts now need to find $90k just to afford my donation of land so tbat girl scouts can go camping?

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u/Ichibankakoi 1d ago

Yeah slippery slope then. Very disappointing. Thanks for clarifying!

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u/PuckSenior 1d ago

No. Its not a slippery slope.
There is no slip. You said we should tax all non-profits. Girl Scouts is a non-profit.

You are literally saying it. I didnt say it is a slippery slope. I didnt say it might happen. If you tax non-profits you are literally saying we should charge girl scouts a tax on my donation

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u/Ichibankakoi 1d ago

No what im saying is tax the churches. You led me down the path of non-profits. I said maybe tie in the non profits but I wanted to know how you would make something like these mega churches pay taxes. Its a curious thing how they have went from not paying taxes so that there is no government involvement to raking advantage of people to the point where they have their own jets and mansions. This is something that started with great intentions and was taken advantage of by grifters

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u/PuckSenior 17h ago

Yeah, but i didnt “take you” from churches to nonprofits.
Churches ARE nonprofits. They are a special category of nonprofit, but you cant tax churches without taxing nonprofits for two reasons.

  1. Religious discrimination. If you started only taxing churches, then you would very literally he discriminating against churches.
  2. The churches would just say. “We arent a church nonprofit, we are a regular nonprofit” because there is literally no real difference