5 ms·

Tax exemption should be a non-issue. Churches shouldn't be for-profit businesses, they should be associations with members contributing to a common, partly char

• reaperman 3y ago
  Due to separation of church and state, churches aren’t supposed to participate in political speech either but the largest ones pretty unanimously do every major election. Legally that’s supposed to trigger taxation but it’s political suicide for anyone to go after them for this.
  • fauxpause_ 3y ago
    Is that an accurate statement? I have never heard that included in the definition of separation of church and state. Sounds wrong.
    • deleted 3y ago
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    • jrumbut 3y ago
      It's kind of true? It's stated a little awkwardly but there is truth there. If you are funding a political campaign (not just any political speech, but an actual campaign) you have to be set up as a political campaign rather than a church. > 1954, Congress approved an amendment by Sen. Lyndon Johnson to prohibit 501(c)(3) organizations, which includes charities and churches, from engaging in any political campaign activity. To the extent Congress has revisited the ban over the years, it has in fact strengthened the ban. The most recent change came in 1987 when Congress amended the language to clarify that the prohibition also applies to statements opposing candidates https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/charities-churches-and-politics#:~:text=In%201954%2C%20Congress%20approved%20an,in%20any%20political%20campaign%20activity https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/charities-churches-and-politics.... In practice, churches are given quite a bit of leeway to engage in what any reasonable person would call political campaigning.
      • fauxpause_ 3y ago
        There’s a big gap between engaging in political speech and funding a campaign
    • Haga 3y ago
      [dead]
    • mikeryan 3y ago
      501.3.C non profits aren’t allowed to endorse candidates. It’s a blanket restriction across all of them which includes most churches. The statement is correct there but it’s not a constitutional thing it’s an IRS thing.
      • fauxpause_ 3y ago
        Interesting. Never heard that before
  • afiori 3y ago
    People should still report to the relevant authorities when churches do political speech. If nothing else it would keep them from actually saying "You must vote for X" and diplaying electoral posters. It could even happen that somebody high in a decision chain ends up claiming "we don't care they can do whatever they want" which could be a minor scalndal.
    • Timon3 3y ago
      What if the authorities don't mind the churches doing so? It seems like, especially leading up to elections, you see videos of this almost every day. How can someone actually make sure that some consequences happen?
      • kashunstva 3y ago
        > How can someone actually make sure that some consequences happen? You can’t, because the IRS steadfastly refuses to pursue these violations. I’m an active lifetime member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation; and through our organization these near-constant occurrences of political endorsement by churches have been reported numerous times. To no avail. To make matters worse, clergy in the U.S. often receive a large portion of their income as a housing allowance which is not taxable, as I understand it. But the majority of course still take their mortgage interest deduction. It’s a racket.
        • xupybd 3y ago
          I know several church ministers. They work hard and get paid very little. Maybe the tax payer should not be subsidizing them but to say it's a racket is not fair. Some celebrity church leaders live lives of luxury but the average needs the tax breaks just to survive.
          • reaperman 3y ago
            > the average needs the tax breaks just to survive. The question becomes: Are the umbrella organizations paying the ministers just the bare minimum to keep them on? So if the tax breaks are stopped, will the church organization cover the new difference, or lose the ministers? It might still be a racket where the ministers are also getting screwed. The benefit of the tax breaks may not go to the minister who receives the tax break, but instead benefit the archdiocese/convention/council/conference/synod/assembly/convocation/etc who pays
  • smitty1e 3y ago
    Two edged sword here. If the government confined itself to the Enumerated Powers, your argument would be strong. The government setting itself up as "god" and interfering with religious liberty is a bit of a Rubicon.
    • brazzy 3y ago
      How would taxing churches the same as everyone else interfere with religious liberty?
      • amanaplanacanal 3y ago
        I agree with you. The way things are setup now, religion gets all sorts of special dispensations. To do this, government has to determine what is a real religion and what is not, which sounds to me like it goes directly against the separation between church and state. Religion should be treated the same as any other belief structure. I realize this doesn’t apply directly to taxation but we defer to religion in multiple ways in the law.
      • smitty1e 3y ago
        "That the power to tax involves the power to destroy" https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=3816&context=mulr https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?re...
        • brazzy 3y ago
          That is not an answer to my question.
          • smitty1e 3y ago
            Such power will be abused, if recent history is any guide.
            • brazzy 3y ago
  • meragrin_ 3y ago
    > churches aren’t supposed to participate in political speech You either misunderstand or misstated. The entire reason they are protected is because of their political speech. They aren't supposed to be actively endorsing, funding, or participating in campaigning for a politician. Most everything else is fair game.
    • madmoose 3y ago
      No representation without taxation :)
  • arp242 3y ago
    Separation of church and state doesn't mean churches can't voice their opinion or run political campaigns, it just means they shouldn't be involved in actually running the state, and that the state shouldn't be involved in religion either. I believe there are some limitations on churches as a precondition to their tax-exempt status, but those don't really flow from separation of church and state. MLK was a Baptist minister.
    • nulbyte 3y ago
      > Separation of church and state doesn't mean churches can't voice their opinion or run political campaigns... You are mixing up three things as if they are the same. Opinions are fine. But no, churches cannot run political campaigns. They are exempt as a religious organization, and in the U.S., religious organizations, like charitable organizations, exempt from income tax cannot participate in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to a candidate for public office. Martin Luther King, Jr., was an American citizen capable of supporting any candidate he liked. His church was not. His church was, however, as all churches are today, able to lobby. Lobbying is not campaigning. Also, they were and are able to speak out for or against executive actions of the government. Doing so is neither lobbying nor campaigning; office holders are neither legislators nor campaigners; they are actually in office.
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • arp242 3y ago
        I meant "campaign" in the general sense, rather than the more specific "political campaign". As in "MLK's campaign for civil rights". I should have been clearer, sorry.
    • standardUser 3y ago
      Churches absolutely cannot run political campaigns for elected office, or endorse any candidate, or oppose any candidate.
      • 3y ago
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • donatj 3y ago
    Separation of church and state is a restriction on the state from being religious, not the church from being political. The bill of rights is a list of restrictions on the state by very definition.
    • mumblemumble 3y ago
      There's a double standard here, though. Tax-exempt charities are prohibited from using tax-exempt funds to engage in certain kinds of political speech. Those that do electioneer or conduct lobbying, for example, have separate non-tax-exempt branches that handle it, with their own funds and strict financial firewalls separating them from the rest of the organization. Churches, on the other hand, get to flout those rules all the time. And I do mean churches; other religions don't tend to enjoy quite the same latitude. And that selective enforcement by the government is a separation of church and state issue.
      • username3 3y ago
        Didn’t America have churches before tax exempt laws? Tax laws came later. Your problem is with taxes and government spending. Remove taxes churches are exempt from and raise sales tax.
        • mcv 3y ago
          Sales tax is very regressive. I'd rather see income tax raised. But honestly, property tax does make a lot of sense. I'd suggest a property tax exemption for all properties that are used for community gatherings, which includes open church services, but also other clubs and organisations that bring people together. I think that's justifiable, and it frees churches from their most unavoidable tax costs.
    • birdyrooster 3y ago
      I don’t see the difference. When a religious person is being political their activity is making the state religious. The state is not a football for religious games and it undermines people’s freedom to encourage this behavior. Religions use the state to beat up other religions by changing laws, rules, school resources, and public staff.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  • rayiner 3y ago
    “Separation of church and state” doesn’t require that at all. It’s required by churches’ non-profit status, the same as non-religious non-profits. But non-religious non-profits also get involved in political speech in every election.
    • skissane 3y ago
      This is the same thing as where people fail to distinguish the First Amendment from free speech as a principle. If we are talking about law, you are right - the US limits on religious groups getting involved in politics are in the tax code, not in the establishment clause. If they are willing to give up their taxation privileges, they are allowed to participate in politics as much as they like. And, since the tax code is just a statute, Congress could change it to allow them to meddle in politics without losing those tax privileges, and I doubt such a tax law change would be held to violate the establishment clause. However, “separation of church and state” is also an extralegal principle. And, maybe, too much involvement of religions in politics violates that extralegal principle even when it doesn’t violate the letter of the law.
  • explorer83 3y ago
    I'm not religious as an adult but I was raised so. I attended Catholic school and went to church twice a week during the school year. In addition, I attended several churches in the region for different events over the years growing up. Never once did the church become political while I was there and I had substantial time there. In addition, it was a major denomination. I can assure you just because someone goes to church does not mean they belong to one political party either.
    • refulgentis 3y ago
      Read the last sentence of your comment, then read your comment. (Edit: they edited out the last sentence, a line about not judging and reading carefully) Then read OPs comment. compare the general, nonuniversal statement they made about political advocacy vis a vis tax status laws in the United States, to the judgements you envisioned of religious people and yourself and your religion.
      • explorer83 3y ago
        I deleted it immediately because it did jump to a conclusion that wasn't there and I recognized it and corrected it. But regardless, the rest stands true. The most political it got during election was "please pray for our elected officials to guide us". Which is completely fair.
      • explorer83 3y ago
        Update 2: thanks for the reply actually. I went back through the entire thread and realized somehow my comment replied to the parent comment. I was not trying to respond this the parent comment. I was trying to respond to a sub comment on the parent comment that someone said the major denominations all engage in political activity during elections. I realize my comment looked extreme now because it was out of context. This was not my intent. Thanks for responding. And you were absolutely correct.
  • User23 3y ago
    Separation of Church and state isn’t even in the Constitution. The right to religious freedom is. And religious freedom absolutely includes moral teaching for adherents, including teaching that supporting this or that immoral policy by voting for a politician who supports it is sinful.
• stingraycharles 3y ago
  Dutch churches are exempt from most taxes, such as income/profit taxes and estate taxes. And they do own a lot of estate.
  • mcv 3y ago
    Some do. Some don't. Lots of churches rent their building.
• donatj 3y ago
  I think that’s a pretty limited view based on your view on religion. Don’t force your religion on others. I am not religious, but I think religion being free to take whatever form it sees fit is core to religious freedom.
• starkd 3y ago
  Exactly. Scientology is not a religion. Its barely a business dressed as a religion. The standard for tax exemption should be charitable non-profit.
• throwwwaway69 3y ago
  > Any church run as a business should not be considered a church at all. Virtually every nonprofit is run nearly the same way as a regular business. They still make profits, the only differences are restrictions around distributing income to owners and some mild accountability in how funds are spent.
  • nroets 3y ago
    There's often a crucial difference in the nature of "revenue": With nonprofits it's often a voluntary contribution ("donation"). Or non profits can rightly claim that the contribution is of a capital nature in which case it's equivalent to an equity raise for a business (share issue even though the shares will never pay dividends). Donations and equity raises are not taxable income.
    • s1artibartfast 3y ago
      You're probably thinking of one type of nonprofit but there are several. The church in this case is operate for any more like a non-profit Hospital or business. You can run Starbucks or Apple as a non-profit. As long as you don't return profit to the individual owners and keep it in the business, you can qualify
      • skissane 3y ago
        The Guardian newspaper in the UK is owned by a non-profit (Scott Trust). Its founder was concerned that his family would lose control of the newspaper after his death, being forced to sell a large chunk of it in order to pay estate taxes. So he set up a trust, more recently converted to a not-for-profit company, to control it. The company’s constitution says it cannot pay dividends, that its stock has no voting rights and cannot be transferred without the board’s consent, and that it cannot be acquired by any for-profit entity. The board is self-perpetuating, appointing its own future members. I believe the board members are issued stock upon joining the board, but are legally required to return it upon leaving. The actual media business is run by a 100% owned for-profit subsidiary. There’s no reason in principle why a business in any other industry could not adopt the same ownership model, although it does make it harder to raise capital.
• PragmaticPulp 3y ago
  > Tax exemption should be a non-issue. > Any church run as a business should not be considered a church at all. Churches are always businesses. It takes a lot of money to own and operate large buildings, pay people to work for the church, and operate events for churchgoers. Eventually they need to accumulate funds to expand and build new churches. It’s a business, like it or not. The issue is that some of these churches have taken the original intent of the business supporting the church and turned it into a questionable structure where it appears the church supports the business. Having millions of “customers” worldwide who are obligated to give you 10% of their income every year and to allocate years of their life to traveling the world and convincing other people to join is one lucrative business model. We can’t really go out and tell people what their religion can or cannot do (within the bounds of the law) but we can, and should, set some limits on the tax breaks we give to these religion-businesses. The easiest way is obviously to set some limits or thresholds. “Tax exempt up to $1 billion in funds” is hard to argue with and would easily solve this problem.
  • mcv 3y ago
    No, they're a mix of an association and a charity. But mostly association. They've got members, the members vote for leaders, they contribute funds to rent a building and hire someone to lead the service. There's nothing business about a normal church. For limits and thresholds, I'd suggest "No property tax for congregation/worship space up to $X per Y members, no payroll taxes for 1 person involved in services or charity work per Z members". Most churches don't have millions of members. Mine has about 200. It's part of a larger denomination, but membership is through the local congregation. I suppose religions should have some freedom in how to structure this sort of thing (not all have their leaders chosen by their members, for example, and some are more top-down organised), but I also think it's fair to have some restrictions on the more business-like organisations in order to prevent abuse. And if people really do want a big, monolithic, top-down business-like organisation, they can always just pay their taxes.
• skissane 3y ago
  Many churches are legally classified as non-profits-which is a broader category than charities-the local bridge club is likely to be a non-profit but not a charity. It depends on the country, but in many countries the majority of the tax exemptions religions get are just the general exemptions to which all non-profits are entitled. To deny those non-profit tax exemptions to a church, while allowing them to the local bridge club, would be a form of state discrimination against religion, which (in many countries) would be unconstitutional, and may even violate international human rights law