My point was that taxing churches is not legislating and regulating thoughts. People can still choose to believe in something while it pays taxes from the money it collects. Churches can tithe 10% of that money to the government to serve the public. Tell me that these aren’t corporations with a straight face:
Churches are the mechanism by which people organize and share beliefs. Countries that do not allow freedom of religion use taxes and regulations to shut down religious organizations that either don’t follow the state sanctioned religion or compete with the state sanctioned religion. It is indeed a form of thought control.
Political leaders of faith will seek out ways to favor their own churches and punish the ones they don’t like. The Supreme Court has already created two classes of religions by giving preferential status to their own faiths while denying the rights of faiths they don’t believe should exist. That’s happening already, and we have a constitution that specifically prohibits it.
I agree with you that certain church leaders abuse their status and dramatically cross the line when it comes to political activity. They aren’t really churches, and there really is plenty of proof of that. I think the people running those organizations belong in prison for fraud, but I don’t get to have everything I want. It should be very hard to take away tax exempt status, though, because you know politicians would abuse that worse than church leaders abuse the system now.
If you and me were in charge, we could probably sit down with a list and make some really reasonable decisions about which churches should be taxed. But neither of us has that power, so I’m glad nobody else has it, and I’ll even bet that a lot of other people are glad we don’t have that power.
Yes there is fraud and abuse and corruption of tax-exempt churches. This is the better alternative.
Churches are the mechanism by which people organize and share beliefs. Countries that do not allow freedom of religion use taxes and regulations to shut down religious organizations that either don’t follow the state sanctioned religion or compete with the state sanctioned religion. It is indeed a form of thought control.
First off churhces are NOT “THE” mechanism. they are- at best- A mechanism.
there’s a MTG card shop I go to play games and hang out with people. There’s at least as much organization and belief sharing happening there. I doubt anyone would seriously argue that shop deserves to be tax exempt.
or on a more serious note, journalists, authors, book publishers and sellers and all sorts of other sorts in that general vein.
Political leaders of faith will seek out ways to favor their own churches and punish the ones they don’t like. The Supreme Court has already created two classes of religions by giving preferential status to their own faiths while denying the rights of faiths they don’t believe should exist. That’s happening already, and we have a constitution that specifically prohibits it.
so how is that an argument that churches/faiths should not be collectively taxed?
Personally, if a church wants to spin off an actual charitable organization, they should do that. but if the primary purpose is religious instruction/indoctrination they should be treated like a 501c7 corp. Which is still tax exempt, but is allowed to make political endorsements, so long as that’s not the organization’s prmary (or even “substantial”) purpose. West Burough Baptist, for example would get yeeted from 501c7 status; but most churches would not.
one critical distinction is that most of it’s income must come from membership dues. (tithes?) and contributions are not tax deductible.
IMO charitable organizations should be solely for charity and not be used to proselytize a particular faith, which is exactly what churches (and most religious organizations,) do, if they do any actual charity at all.
I don’t understand your argument.
My point was that taxing churches is not legislating and regulating thoughts. People can still choose to believe in something while it pays taxes from the money it collects. Churches can tithe 10% of that money to the government to serve the public. Tell me that these aren’t corporations with a straight face:
https://religiondispatches.org/inevitable-megachurch-abuse-of-ppp-funds-is-coming-to-light-private-jet-included/
Churches are the mechanism by which people organize and share beliefs. Countries that do not allow freedom of religion use taxes and regulations to shut down religious organizations that either don’t follow the state sanctioned religion or compete with the state sanctioned religion. It is indeed a form of thought control.
Political leaders of faith will seek out ways to favor their own churches and punish the ones they don’t like. The Supreme Court has already created two classes of religions by giving preferential status to their own faiths while denying the rights of faiths they don’t believe should exist. That’s happening already, and we have a constitution that specifically prohibits it.
I agree with you that certain church leaders abuse their status and dramatically cross the line when it comes to political activity. They aren’t really churches, and there really is plenty of proof of that. I think the people running those organizations belong in prison for fraud, but I don’t get to have everything I want. It should be very hard to take away tax exempt status, though, because you know politicians would abuse that worse than church leaders abuse the system now.
If you and me were in charge, we could probably sit down with a list and make some really reasonable decisions about which churches should be taxed. But neither of us has that power, so I’m glad nobody else has it, and I’ll even bet that a lot of other people are glad we don’t have that power.
Yes there is fraud and abuse and corruption of tax-exempt churches. This is the better alternative.
First off churhces are NOT “THE” mechanism. they are- at best- A mechanism.
there’s a MTG card shop I go to play games and hang out with people. There’s at least as much organization and belief sharing happening there. I doubt anyone would seriously argue that shop deserves to be tax exempt.
or on a more serious note, journalists, authors, book publishers and sellers and all sorts of other sorts in that general vein.
so how is that an argument that churches/faiths should not be collectively taxed?
Personally, if a church wants to spin off an actual charitable organization, they should do that. but if the primary purpose is religious instruction/indoctrination they should be treated like a 501c7 corp. Which is still tax exempt, but is allowed to make political endorsements, so long as that’s not the organization’s prmary (or even “substantial”) purpose. West Burough Baptist, for example would get yeeted from 501c7 status; but most churches would not.
one critical distinction is that most of it’s income must come from membership dues. (tithes?) and contributions are not tax deductible.
IMO charitable organizations should be solely for charity and not be used to proselytize a particular faith, which is exactly what churches (and most religious organizations,) do, if they do any actual charity at all.