Should churches be tax exempt?

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I will support churches being tax free when they begin to operate as charities, with all the accounting and balancing that requires.

Until then, they are a business and should be taxed as such.

Abacacus, I may be familar with different uses of the words "Accounting and Balancing". I'm not sure what you're trying to say in the above post.

Ya gotta wonder...

I think churches that involve themselves in politics certainly should lose their exemption, as should those that have grown wealthy as business ventures.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I do think they shouldn't be exempt. Think about the church as a random business(do you think that the church doesn't want its money?). We pay products with taxes, they pay their taxes beforehand. They are no different than other businesses when there's secularism behind it. It's quite fair that everyone could contribute when they can so why not? Locations where separation between church and state is not applied are a different matter that should be studied carefully and meticulously(the church contributing to the same church is not a very coherent idea, is it?).

A business sells a product for profit. Churches don't "make money" by providing goods and services. I don't have to pay a membership fee to get in the door, nor do I have to pay monthly or quarterly dues in order to attend. In fact, for a few years I never tithed or contributed any kind of offering and was just as accepted as anyone else who gave. And our doors are open to the homeless who have nothing to give just as much as they are for the wealthiest attendees who are able to voluntarily give more than the usual 10%. We don't ask for verification of income to make sure everyone pays their fair share. The only staff member who knows who gives what is our accountant, and our policy is that information is kept confidential. How much combined money comes in and where it goes from there is public knowledge. Anyone can attend the monthly meeting and pick up a copy of the financial report and budget. The only information that isn't made known to everyone are individual staff salaries, whereas the budget for personnel (combined salaries) is public knowledge. Individuals or committees can bring items of concern before the church for a vote if they disagree with how money is distributed.

I mean, it's property held in common. It's not there as an investment for profit. The church doesn't engage in profit-making activities. The money comes from individuals who are already taxed on their own income. Money held by the church often goes towards charitable activities and supporting the surrounding community. Most of the people who do work in church activities aren't even paid staff--they're volunteers. And those of us such as myself who are paid staff are taxed on the income we receive from the church. The taxes are getting paid, anyway. Putting taxes on churches is double-dipping.

It also means that a representative government is forced to recognize churches in it's policy-making functions. "No taxation without representation." So if you don't attend church or you're non- or anti-religious, are you willing to abide by church-based or church-influenced legislation? As it is, people vote as individuals based on religious convictions. Once you start taxing churches, you give them as institutions the same political power that corporations enjoy. Do you really want churches to have unrestricted political activity?

I agree for the most part. The problem with politics is that lawmakers, unwittingly or not, attack the church when they pass laws that would negatively impact the church. It's the government who makes the first move when they politicize moral issues. Abortion and birth control would be no-brainer, slam-dunk issues if they didn't trample on ideals that Christians hold most sacred. You can't expect us to keep silent on issues that affect us.

Interestingly enough, the slavery issue is another example of religious issues that became politicized on both sides of the debate. Christian abolitionists were the most vocal on the issue. The later civil rights issue gained its strongest ground in the churches. Why? Those things were political issues that strongly affected people of faith. Had people of faith NOT become involved, the problems of slavery and civil rights would have been much longer roads than they ended up being.

I think where we have to draw the line is outright support of political candidates. There have been a few instances of the IRS threatening predominantly white churches' exemption status. The trouble is that certain predominantly black churches have endorsed political candidates for decades. I suspect this is why the IRS issuing warnings to churches is largely symbolic with more people in government and in government jobs owing their careers to the churches that voted them in. Actual enforcement of that law would mean a loss of a free campaign base, and nobody in politics wants to lose that!

Let's remember, folks, businesses aren't taxed on their revenues, their taxed on their profits.

Churches, like many other not-for-profit corporations and organizations aren't created for the purpose of earning profits and are permitted to retain their surplusses without tax, provided that: 1) the surplusses are not returned to their members (i.e. no dividends), 2) the accumulated surplusses do not exceed a threshold (i.e. you have to plan for spending the money that you take in, rather than banking it forever), and 3) the accumulated surplusses are used to further the purposes for which the organization was originally created.

Churches are no different than community sport clubs, theatre companies, art galleries or any other organization that exists for purposes other than profit.

The thing is, a lot of these issues that you say "affect us" really do no such thing - they only affect you in-so-far as you don't like other people doing them - i.e. abortion or birth control or gay marriage. If the government legalizes abortion, no one is forcing any Christian people to have abortions - if their faith dictates that they don't have one, they're free to abide by their faith and not have one. Surely someone other than yourself or your partner having an abortion does not affect you. Ditto for birth control. You're still free to use it or not use it as your conscious and religion dictate. Same for gay marriage - if you don't want to do it for religious reasons, don't. If someone else wants to, you haven't done anything that violates your religion.

Now, I'll grant you that its much more of a grey area when a religious organization is forced to pay for a health plan that provides birth control or abortion coverage to its members, and I think that probably does cross a line, but I also don't think someone who works for a church who has different personal or religious belief's than the church's official position on these matters should be forced to not have the option of having a health plan that offers these things.

This.

I agree with this, they should be treated like any other non-profit or charitable organization. Although I do worry that this leaves room for abuse; even in a non-profit the people in charge can take a salary. Who gets all that Scientology money?

In most cases, people pay taxes on their salaries.

The thing is, though, that many for-profit corporations do not pay dividends. Granted, that's by their own choice, but as such, the line between them and charities is pretty blurred. Yes, a church cannot accumulate money without spending it, but that's not much of a distinction.

I don't know the particular laws involved, but I do know that my parents' church used to charge for the bibles and other publications that they distributed, but they had to switch to a donation-only basis to keep tax-exempt status. So there seem to be some rules in place as far as how they can take in money to keep them from resembling a corporation.

I'm not familiar with some of the other finer details of Church accounting (such as whether they generate surpluses and how'd you measure that), but they CERTAINLY should pay property taxes. Any way you cook the books, ministers like these should be taxed and religious charities shouldn't have an easier time come tax season than any other charity.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPuk2ojYC00[/youtube]

http://secular.org/content/tax-policy

For a tax-free charity up here in Canada, literally every cent on money spent and received must be accounted for, recorded with receipts, etc. By balancing, I'm talking about balancing the budget, spending as much as you can of what is received, more specifically spending it in a charitable way.