4 ms·

I cannot fathom why churches are automatically tax exempt. Regular nonprofits have to jump through all kinds of hoops to prevent these kind of shenanigans. We a

by cultus 7y ago

I cannot fathom why churches are automatically tax exempt. Regular nonprofits have to jump through all kinds of hoops to prevent these kind of shenanigans. We are supposed to have a secular government. How is it that we single out this one class of institution for special treatment?

kingkawn 7y ago
A historical descendant of the compromises necessary to remove the Church and other such institutions from centrality to political power
zozbot234 7y ago
Religious orgs are a time-tested model for providing sustainable and widespread social cohesion, which is a huge positive externality and also protects the most vulnerable against marginalization and oppression. The tax exemption seems obviously warranted on that basis alone, even abstracting away from any of the more visible charity work or social support that these orgs usually provide.
- cultus 7y ago
  As a gay man, I can tell you that churches did not help protect me from oppression growing up. Quite the opposite. Your assertion about positive externalities seems highly suspect to me, and dependent on the institution. Charities also often have positive externalities, but they have far more regulation than churches. Again, why the special treatment? The social cohesion aspect of churches is gone at this point as well. That may have been true 50 years ago, but not today.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- dagmx 7y ago
  I'd definitely not agree with the "protects the most vulnerable against marginalization and oppression" Perhaps if you are a member of the church, but definitely not if you don't abide by the exact, often conservative , rules of a given church. Look at slavery, equal rights for lgbtq and people of color, abortion etc. Not only do people in power use the churches to hide their personal beliefs behind, many churches use their power to oppress others. I mean the crusades were a thing... I'll agree churches provide social cohesion but often at the cost of tribalism against people outside that given churches norms.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    Conservative churches are a subset of all religious organizations, and most of the time they're just a mirror of overall society, or a sizeable portion of it anyway. And that portion often draws some very real benefits even from an outwardly "conservative" or "fundamentalist" church. Not everyone starts out being radically open-minded and averse to tribalism, some people have to be eased into that kind of stance and churches can help provide good role-models. The crusades were a thing, but there's a reason why few or no religious organizations go on literal "crusades" nowadays.
    - dagmx 7y ago
      And I never said this applied to all churches but it does then go back to the central question of this thread: why do churches automatically receive tax exemptions? When it's not provable they're necessarily acting charitably? The crusades are no longer a thing, but lobbying has arguable replaced it with churches able to do much the same with the vast amounts of money that some of them have earned. Similarly missions and other forms of preying on vulnerable people is still a thing. Conversion therapy and forced compliance to church norms are still a thing. Just because it's not a literal war, doesn't mean it's not achieving the same things. Besides the point of mentioning the crusades was to point out that oppression powered by the churches is nothing new. It's been a staple of competing views since time eternal, whether in churches or not, but because churches get a free pass, they can greatly amplify oppression as much as they could mitigate it. It's just that you historically and today see much more in the form of oppression than fighting oppression. And that goes back to churches being able to amass unchecked power and financials by which they can fight anything they perceive as a threat to their model. Just like any other political entity.
  - tasogare 7y ago
    > Look at slavery, equal rights for lgbtq and people of color, abortion etc. What are your talking about? I know no church that possess any slaves. Also, most christians around the world aren't white... > I mean the crusades were a thing... Yes, a defence after centuries of aggressions from a people and religion that stole huge territories. The invader showed no pity against non-believers and this attitude persists until now with thousands of killing every year worldwide while crusades are long gone.
- germinalphrase 7y ago
  “ and also protects the most vulnerable against marginalization and oppression“ I hear this a great deal, but would love some actual numbers to back it up. My own experience supports that this is true in a limited way for members of the church going through a discrete crisis, but pales in comparison to the good done by, for instance, WIC and SNAP.
- sjwright 7y ago
  But then that disadvantages groups which might perform the same role outside of a religious context. Thus in practice it only serves to have Government favour a specific genre of cohesion. (Not to mention that your so-called “cohesion” also includes Scientology, Westboro Baptists and prosperity theology.)
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    Government does not perform "the same role" of building up social capital at a truly grassroots level, unfortunately. Not even close. And the jury is still out wrt. non-religious social organizations, though some do appear to help quite a bit along those same lines, viz. labor unions and perhaps similar "interest-focused" mass groups.
    - ak217 7y ago
      "The jury is still out"? On what, the Rotary club? Your underlying assumption that churches are unique as providers of social capital in modern society is... peculiar. The fact that churches are tax-exempt is a consequence of the dominant position of the Catholic church in the middle ages, and the compromises made in the subsequent struggle to remove the church bureaucracy from the government. I expect that as religiousness across the US population declines, churches will gradually be required to behave more like other non-profits. But that will probably take many decades.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  > Religious orgs are a time-tested model for providing sustainable and widespread social cohesion, which is a huge positive externality and also protects the most vulnerable against marginalization and oppression. See women’s rights, gay and other sexual orientation rights, minority rights, catholic pedophilia, Mormon multiple wife and underage nonsense, Scientology, etc. It provides a certain tribe a tax exemption, that may or may not do good deeds with it. No reason to provide any tax exemption (not that anyone should have one in the first place).
- mattigames 7y ago
  Any sources on that? The genocide of pagans in the dark ages and the persecution of Jews by Muslims among other events point me to believe the opposite.
- jacques_chester 7y ago
  > Religious orgs are a time-tested model for providing sustainable and widespread social cohesion I think we have read different history books.
shemnon42 7y ago
It's the first amendment and separation of church and state. The IRS is fairly certain that if they tried to tax the land chapels are on that the supreme court (even the liberal judges) would say it violates church and state separation. Shutting down a church for failure to pay taxes is the end game the courts won't allow, and so where we are basically falls out from that. Now if you run a for-profit child care center out of your chapel and don't pay taxes, that is something the IRS has seized a church for.
- jacques_chester 7y ago
  This is a slippery-slope argument, assuming judges are automatons who can be iteratively led to violate the separation of church and state. It turns out a lot of them are pretty smart and understand how to treat each case on its own details. Their profession is about picking out exact details to unpack exact consequences, not being swept along by generalities. The basis of the exemption of churchs is due to the historical development of trusts and revenue law, going back at least as far as the Charitable Uses Act in 1601 -- long before the US Constitution was drafted and adopted. Religious purposes were exempted because at the time genuine belief was common. Charitable purposes as a concept therefore has a shared origin across all of the common law countries, including the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and others. But common law is subordinate to new legislation, and so is historical legislation. The reason churches are given a free ride is that nobody wants to pay the incredible political capital it will require to fix this relic.
dang 7y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into generic religious flamewar. I realize the topic lends itself to that, but that's an additional reason not to step there. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

by cultus 7y ago

kingkawn 7y ago

A historical descendant of the compromises necessary to remove the Church and other such institutions from centrality to political power

zozbot234 7y ago

Religious orgs are a time-tested model for providing sustainable and widespread social cohesion, which is a huge positive externality and also protects the most vulnerable against marginalization and oppression. The tax exemption seems obviously warranted on that basis alone, even abstracting away from any of the more visible charity work or social support that these orgs usually provide.

cultus 7y ago
As a gay man, I can tell you that churches did not help protect me from oppression growing up. Quite the opposite. Your assertion about positive externalities seems highly suspect to me, and dependent on the institution. Charities also often have positive externalities, but they have far more regulation than churches. Again, why the special treatment? The social cohesion aspect of churches is gone at this point as well. That may have been true 50 years ago, but not today.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
dagmx 7y ago
I'd definitely not agree with the "protects the most vulnerable against marginalization and oppression" Perhaps if you are a member of the church, but definitely not if you don't abide by the exact, often conservative , rules of a given church. Look at slavery, equal rights for lgbtq and people of color, abortion etc. Not only do people in power use the churches to hide their personal beliefs behind, many churches use their power to oppress others. I mean the crusades were a thing... I'll agree churches provide social cohesion but often at the cost of tribalism against people outside that given churches norms.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  Conservative churches are a subset of all religious organizations, and most of the time they're just a mirror of overall society, or a sizeable portion of it anyway. And that portion often draws some very real benefits even from an outwardly "conservative" or "fundamentalist" church. Not everyone starts out being radically open-minded and averse to tribalism, some people have to be eased into that kind of stance and churches can help provide good role-models. The crusades were a thing, but there's a reason why few or no religious organizations go on literal "crusades" nowadays.
  - dagmx 7y ago
    And I never said this applied to all churches but it does then go back to the central question of this thread: why do churches automatically receive tax exemptions? When it's not provable they're necessarily acting charitably? The crusades are no longer a thing, but lobbying has arguable replaced it with churches able to do much the same with the vast amounts of money that some of them have earned. Similarly missions and other forms of preying on vulnerable people is still a thing. Conversion therapy and forced compliance to church norms are still a thing. Just because it's not a literal war, doesn't mean it's not achieving the same things. Besides the point of mentioning the crusades was to point out that oppression powered by the churches is nothing new. It's been a staple of competing views since time eternal, whether in churches or not, but because churches get a free pass, they can greatly amplify oppression as much as they could mitigate it. It's just that you historically and today see much more in the form of oppression than fighting oppression. And that goes back to churches being able to amass unchecked power and financials by which they can fight anything they perceive as a threat to their model. Just like any other political entity.
- tasogare 7y ago
  > Look at slavery, equal rights for lgbtq and people of color, abortion etc. What are your talking about? I know no church that possess any slaves. Also, most christians around the world aren't white... > I mean the crusades were a thing... Yes, a defence after centuries of aggressions from a people and religion that stole huge territories. The invader showed no pity against non-believers and this attitude persists until now with thousands of killing every year worldwide while crusades are long gone.
germinalphrase 7y ago
“ and also protects the most vulnerable against marginalization and oppression“ I hear this a great deal, but would love some actual numbers to back it up. My own experience supports that this is true in a limited way for members of the church going through a discrete crisis, but pales in comparison to the good done by, for instance, WIC and SNAP.
sjwright 7y ago
But then that disadvantages groups which might perform the same role outside of a religious context. Thus in practice it only serves to have Government favour a specific genre of cohesion. (Not to mention that your so-called “cohesion” also includes Scientology, Westboro Baptists and prosperity theology.)
- zozbot234 7y ago
  Government does not perform "the same role" of building up social capital at a truly grassroots level, unfortunately. Not even close. And the jury is still out wrt. non-religious social organizations, though some do appear to help quite a bit along those same lines, viz. labor unions and perhaps similar "interest-focused" mass groups.
  - ak217 7y ago
    "The jury is still out"? On what, the Rotary club? Your underlying assumption that churches are unique as providers of social capital in modern society is... peculiar. The fact that churches are tax-exempt is a consequence of the dominant position of the Catholic church in the middle ages, and the compromises made in the subsequent struggle to remove the church bureaucracy from the government. I expect that as religiousness across the US population declines, churches will gradually be required to behave more like other non-profits. But that will probably take many decades.
lotsofpulp 7y ago
> Religious orgs are a time-tested model for providing sustainable and widespread social cohesion, which is a huge positive externality and also protects the most vulnerable against marginalization and oppression. See women’s rights, gay and other sexual orientation rights, minority rights, catholic pedophilia, Mormon multiple wife and underage nonsense, Scientology, etc. It provides a certain tribe a tax exemption, that may or may not do good deeds with it. No reason to provide any tax exemption (not that anyone should have one in the first place).
mattigames 7y ago
Any sources on that? The genocide of pagans in the dark ages and the persecution of Jews by Muslims among other events point me to believe the opposite.
jacques_chester 7y ago
> Religious orgs are a time-tested model for providing sustainable and widespread social cohesion I think we have read different history books.

shemnon42 7y ago

It's the first amendment and separation of church and state. The IRS is fairly certain that if they tried to tax the land chapels are on that the supreme court (even the liberal judges) would say it violates church and state separation. Shutting down a church for failure to pay taxes is the end game the courts won't allow, and so where we are basically falls out from that. Now if you run a for-profit child care center out of your chapel and don't pay taxes, that is something the IRS has seized a church for.

jacques_chester 7y ago
This is a slippery-slope argument, assuming judges are automatons who can be iteratively led to violate the separation of church and state. It turns out a lot of them are pretty smart and understand how to treat each case on its own details. Their profession is about picking out exact details to unpack exact consequences, not being swept along by generalities. The basis of the exemption of churchs is due to the historical development of trusts and revenue law, going back at least as far as the Charitable Uses Act in 1601 -- long before the US Constitution was drafted and adopted. Religious purposes were exempted because at the time genuine belief was common. Charitable purposes as a concept therefore has a shared origin across all of the common law countries, including the UK, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and others. But common law is subordinate to new legislation, and so is historical legislation. The reason churches are given a free ride is that nobody wants to pay the incredible political capital it will require to fix this relic.

dang 7y ago

Please don't take HN threads further into generic religious flamewar. I realize the topic lends itself to that, but that's an additional reason not to step there. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html