8 ms·

>>Don't you only tax profits? If a church isn't making any, then there'd be nothing to tax? Land and buildings for one could be taxed. Churches bought or were

>>Don't you only tax profits? If a church isn't making any, then there'd be nothing to tax? Land and buildings for one could be taxed. Churches bought or were given land ages ago, before there was a Manhattan or Boston, as we today know it. Go ahead and pay property tax on land worth $250 Million when you barely make income to keep the lights on.

hrktb 6y ago
A solution to this is to give back the land to the local city and have it handled as cultural heritage, with an authorization to practice religious activities at specific times, but it’s governed by local administration overall. That’s how some cathedrals are managed in europe for instance.
- onetimemanytime 6y ago
  A better solution is to keep it as it is. It has survived millennia. It's their land and states can renege their promises.
  - madaxe_again 6y ago
    What has survived millennia “as it is”? The United States? It was founded scarcely three centuries ago. The Christian church? Ever hear of the reformation, of Calvin, of Protestantism? I.e. one of the main reasons the United States exists? It absolutely has not survived millennia. What you call your Christian church today would be unrecognisable to the faithful of a century ago, never mind two, or five, or ten, or twenty. Or are you acknowledging that Christianity is the cult of Mithras, and that it’s still a death cult?
    - iso947 6y ago
      In the UK our local church is physically about 850 years old, But there was a church on the site back in 1086 and presumably before, as it was mentioned in the domesday book. It’s Anglican now, before then it was catholic, maybe it used to be a pagan worship site, maybe in future it will be for the cult of Cummings. It has severe financial issues at the moment - maintaining the courtyard alone costs £1k a month. I’m waiting for more detailed finances on that. Maintaining finances for any organisation is a basic bread and butter protection against corruption. I don’t see what harm there is in taxing religious organisations the same way as any other charity.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    > It has survived millennia. By "millennia" you mean "at most 300 years, maybe"?
    - onetimemanytime 6y ago
      Here in USA. Oldest churches are from the 4th century elsewhere. For the record: I don't think that priests should be able to buy $50M jets or keep 40% of total land of x country tax free, but they should not be forced to sell buildings because property tax is too high.
      - ykevinator 6y ago
        Why? Taxes may be too high, but why do they deserve an exemption? We all gotta pay for the snow plow.
      - ikt 6y ago
        edit: got it wrong as per below comment
        nkrisc 6y ago
        I assume they meant "here in USA" with regard to the comment about 300 years, but are pointing out that outside the US there exist churches as old as 4th century.
      - dmitriid 6y ago
        Yes. My comment was about "here in the USA" because the grandparent comment talked about churches existing "before Boston". Churches are routinely handed over to the state or to commercial entities in order to preserve them because church membership is in rapid decline and its very expensive to take care of the church building especially if it has "survived millennia".
  - gscott 6y ago
    American Indians know that state and federal govt is honest to a fault!
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
  Cool, and all the people have to do this with any property held corporately? Or only groups of people who identify as Christians? The upkeep of a Cathedral is hella expensive, St.Paul's in London claims its building's upkeep cost is > £5.2M ('more than £10 per minute'). A building ownership tax seems sensible, but I'd be amazed if any Capitalist government considered it.
  - nulbyte 6y ago
    > A building ownership tax seems sensible, but I'd be amazed if any Capitalist government considered it. I'm not sure I understand your meaning. Are you referring to something different from property tax?
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  What a perfect way for the state to exercise control over religious organizations! You’d quickly end up with every such state sponsored “church” as disruptive to state interests as the Church of England, the Lutheran State Churches of Scandinavia or the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
  - hrktb 6y ago
    Religious orgs can still do what they want, they just don’t get to use historical buildings willy-nilly. Then if we’re talking about the UK, it feels weird to argue about religious buildings ownership in a kingdom, where the Queen has a religious role.
  - Barrin92 6y ago
    China aside given that it's an authoritarian state I much prefer the control the state has over the church here in Germany, because it eliminates virtually all religious sectarianism and has led to the church having adopted teaching and a curriculum that is largely in line with the basic constitutional law and secular values rather than existing outside of it. Same in the UK or Scandinavia. One of the reasons Islamic extremism is so hard to combat is because Islam exists largely outside of the control of the state, as backyard mosques can basically preach anything regardless how extremist it is, often deliberately recruiting people out of organizations that try to integrate with the state and society at large. I assume this is similar to radical Evangelicalism in the US. Parallel societies are bad, they're a breeding ground for extremism.
    - barry-cotter 6y ago
      I could not have hoped for a more perfect illustration of my point. We are in perfect agreement on the outcomes, we just disagree on whether the state being in charge of determining public morality is good or not. You, a product of a state indoctrination system, agree with its values. The same thing happens in other countries where the state has different values.
    - vowelless 6y ago
      The First Amendment strongly prevents something like this in the US. There is no way the state can control a religious organization here and that’s a good thing. Americans secularism >> European “secularism”. Islamic extremism in your country is not due to lack of state control of their mosques. It’s how you have treated generations of Islamic immigrants (Turks on work visas, no citizenships, open borders with lots of “refugees”, etc). Of course they will make parallel societies. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
- vowelless 6y ago
  Thankfully the First Amendment prevents America from doing that here. I prefer American secularism over the weird European theocratic states that you describe.
ownagefool 6y ago
Churches in the UK own property that they lease, such as expensive business high steet stores.
dungdongdang 6y ago
then they need to close down and move. if i buy a house for 20k and when I retire the property values are sky-high and the property taxes, which pay for things like roads and schools are too much for me to afford, i have to move. the people giving money to churches to attend that church, should pick up the cost of going to that church. which includes property taxes. if they are not willing to pay for that, it's their problem. excusing churches from these taxes puts the burden for the church not on its members, but on everyone. let me ask you - that mcdonalds down the street. are it's property taxes paid by you? do you think if they declared themselves the church of fat asses, their property tax should be paid by you, as a county resident? because it would be, like it is for churches. when a portion of land isn't getting tax collected, the cost for the county doesn't go away - they get it from the people paying the taxes.
- CodeShmode 6y ago
  Yeah, same with that useless ymca and that donated community garden.
  - dungdongdang 6y ago
    correct.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  > the people giving money to churches to attend that church, should pick up the cost of going to that church. which includes property taxes. if they are not willing to pay for that, it's their problem. excusing churches from these taxes puts the burden for the church not on its members, but on everyone. Your whole premise here is that property taxes should be considered part of the cost of attending church (your first and second sentences from the quoted section above), but that’s exactly what is up for debate. You need to support that premise if you want to say something more persuasive than “I think churches should pay taxes because I think churches should pay taxes”.
  - dungdongdang 6y ago
heavenlyblue 6y ago
Or you could just build a huge multi-apartment building instead having a church on the first floor (maybe several floors) and actually resolve some of the housing issues in the area at the same time.

hrktb 6y ago

A solution to this is to give back the land to the local city and have it handled as cultural heritage, with an authorization to practice religious activities at specific times, but it’s governed by local administration overall. That’s how some cathedrals are managed in europe for instance.

onetimemanytime 6y ago
A better solution is to keep it as it is. It has survived millennia. It's their land and states can renege their promises.
- madaxe_again 6y ago
  What has survived millennia “as it is”? The United States? It was founded scarcely three centuries ago. The Christian church? Ever hear of the reformation, of Calvin, of Protestantism? I.e. one of the main reasons the United States exists? It absolutely has not survived millennia. What you call your Christian church today would be unrecognisable to the faithful of a century ago, never mind two, or five, or ten, or twenty. Or are you acknowledging that Christianity is the cult of Mithras, and that it’s still a death cult?
  - iso947 6y ago
    In the UK our local church is physically about 850 years old, But there was a church on the site back in 1086 and presumably before, as it was mentioned in the domesday book. It’s Anglican now, before then it was catholic, maybe it used to be a pagan worship site, maybe in future it will be for the cult of Cummings. It has severe financial issues at the moment - maintaining the courtyard alone costs £1k a month. I’m waiting for more detailed finances on that. Maintaining finances for any organisation is a basic bread and butter protection against corruption. I don’t see what harm there is in taxing religious organisations the same way as any other charity.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- dmitriid 6y ago
  > It has survived millennia. By "millennia" you mean "at most 300 years, maybe"?
  - onetimemanytime 6y ago
    Here in USA. Oldest churches are from the 4th century elsewhere. For the record: I don't think that priests should be able to buy $50M jets or keep 40% of total land of x country tax free, but they should not be forced to sell buildings because property tax is too high.
    - ykevinator 6y ago
      Why? Taxes may be too high, but why do they deserve an exemption? We all gotta pay for the snow plow.
    - ikt 6y ago
      edit: got it wrong as per below comment
      - nkrisc 6y ago
        I assume they meant "here in USA" with regard to the comment about 300 years, but are pointing out that outside the US there exist churches as old as 4th century.
    - dmitriid 6y ago
      Yes. My comment was about "here in the USA" because the grandparent comment talked about churches existing "before Boston". Churches are routinely handed over to the state or to commercial entities in order to preserve them because church membership is in rapid decline and its very expensive to take care of the church building especially if it has "survived millennia".
- gscott 6y ago
  American Indians know that state and federal govt is honest to a fault!
pbhjpbhj 6y ago
Cool, and all the people have to do this with any property held corporately? Or only groups of people who identify as Christians? The upkeep of a Cathedral is hella expensive, St.Paul's in London claims its building's upkeep cost is > £5.2M ('more than £10 per minute'). A building ownership tax seems sensible, but I'd be amazed if any Capitalist government considered it.
- nulbyte 6y ago
  > A building ownership tax seems sensible, but I'd be amazed if any Capitalist government considered it. I'm not sure I understand your meaning. Are you referring to something different from property tax?
barry-cotter 6y ago
What a perfect way for the state to exercise control over religious organizations! You’d quickly end up with every such state sponsored “church” as disruptive to state interests as the Church of England, the Lutheran State Churches of Scandinavia or the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
- hrktb 6y ago
  Religious orgs can still do what they want, they just don’t get to use historical buildings willy-nilly. Then if we’re talking about the UK, it feels weird to argue about religious buildings ownership in a kingdom, where the Queen has a religious role.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  China aside given that it's an authoritarian state I much prefer the control the state has over the church here in Germany, because it eliminates virtually all religious sectarianism and has led to the church having adopted teaching and a curriculum that is largely in line with the basic constitutional law and secular values rather than existing outside of it. Same in the UK or Scandinavia. One of the reasons Islamic extremism is so hard to combat is because Islam exists largely outside of the control of the state, as backyard mosques can basically preach anything regardless how extremist it is, often deliberately recruiting people out of organizations that try to integrate with the state and society at large. I assume this is similar to radical Evangelicalism in the US. Parallel societies are bad, they're a breeding ground for extremism.
  - barry-cotter 6y ago
    I could not have hoped for a more perfect illustration of my point. We are in perfect agreement on the outcomes, we just disagree on whether the state being in charge of determining public morality is good or not. You, a product of a state indoctrination system, agree with its values. The same thing happens in other countries where the state has different values.
  - vowelless 6y ago
    The First Amendment strongly prevents something like this in the US. There is no way the state can control a religious organization here and that’s a good thing. Americans secularism >> European “secularism”. Islamic extremism in your country is not due to lack of state control of their mosques. It’s how you have treated generations of Islamic immigrants (Turks on work visas, no citizenships, open borders with lots of “refugees”, etc). Of course they will make parallel societies. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
vowelless 6y ago
Thankfully the First Amendment prevents America from doing that here. I prefer American secularism over the weird European theocratic states that you describe.

ownagefool 6y ago

Churches in the UK own property that they lease, such as expensive business high steet stores.

dungdongdang 6y ago

then they need to close down and move. if i buy a house for 20k and when I retire the property values are sky-high and the property taxes, which pay for things like roads and schools are too much for me to afford, i have to move. the people giving money to churches to attend that church, should pick up the cost of going to that church. which includes property taxes. if they are not willing to pay for that, it's their problem. excusing churches from these taxes puts the burden for the church not on its members, but on everyone. let me ask you - that mcdonalds down the street. are it's property taxes paid by you? do you think if they declared themselves the church of fat asses, their property tax should be paid by you, as a county resident? because it would be, like it is for churches. when a portion of land isn't getting tax collected, the cost for the county doesn't go away - they get it from the people paying the taxes.

CodeShmode 6y ago
Yeah, same with that useless ymca and that donated community garden.
- dungdongdang 6y ago
  correct.
throwaway894345 6y ago
> the people giving money to churches to attend that church, should pick up the cost of going to that church. which includes property taxes. if they are not willing to pay for that, it's their problem. excusing churches from these taxes puts the burden for the church not on its members, but on everyone. Your whole premise here is that property taxes should be considered part of the cost of attending church (your first and second sentences from the quoted section above), but that’s exactly what is up for debate. You need to support that premise if you want to say something more persuasive than “I think churches should pay taxes because I think churches should pay taxes”.
- dungdongdang 6y ago

heavenlyblue 6y ago

Or you could just build a huge multi-apartment building instead having a church on the first floor (maybe several floors) and actually resolve some of the housing issues in the area at the same time.