4 ms·

so should religions that make profits pay taxes, something tells me neither will happen

by ysofunny 3y ago

technothrasher 3y ago
> so should religions [...] pay taxes Oh, heck, let's not get into that argument here...
- ysofunny 3y ago
  my final answer is that any group organization should pay taxes AND no individual should have to pay taxes also, let's at least admit the resaon this is a heated argument is because religions are actually the 'legacy' and retired version of the government
CooCooCaCha 3y ago
Churches and other religious orgs should absolutely pay taxes.
iscrewyou 3y ago
There are religious organizations that own hospitals. I was flabbergasted when I found out about this recently. My first thought was how they’ve got a perfect system to avoid all taxes. Edit: it seems like the typical derailment is happening when it comes to religion. The topic is about taxes. I mentioned taxes. Not if religious organizations should own hospitals.
- nullindividual 3y ago
  What's worse is they enforce their religious worldview at these hospitals, denying legal medical treatments based off of the largest human hoax and political control mechanism ever invented by man.
  - rjzzleep 3y ago
    In Germany some of the best hospitals are Christian (catholic I believe, but may be wrong). The US is a really weird place.
    - wccrawford 3y ago
      There's a bunch of local hospitals that are all run by a religion, but so far as I know, it doesn't dictate what they will and won't do for patients. So while I'm sure there are some religious hospitals that deny treatment, it's not all of them. The US is a really, really big place. Our states are the size of many countries. I'm not surprised that there's incredibly diverse sets of circumstances here.
    - leipert 3y ago
      Ha. But it is weird as well in Germany, because the churches are not bound to the normal Labour law and can for example discriminate against gay folks without recourse. Which is even more ridiculous given that most of the funds for the catholic/protestant schools and hospitals are payed by the tax payer/health insurances.
    - nradov 3y ago
      The same is true in the US. Some of the best hospitals (and complete integrated health systems) are run by Christian churches. This is largely for historical reasons: decades ago, churches stepped in to deliver healthcare as part of their mission because governments and secular organizations weren't doing enough. Some of them do refuse to perform certain services, particularly certain women's reproductive services, on moral grounds. This can make it difficult for women in some areas to access care.
    - dumbo-octopus 3y ago
      Plenty of good Christian hospitals here too. I suspect the parent is referring specifically to abortions, there are other procedures that a Christian would be potentially unwilling to perform (sex change operations, for instance), but they tend to require an experienced surgeon specifically trained in that operation, which wouldn't be hired by the hospital due to not aligning with their mission (would you want the government to force you to hire a .NET developer when you're purely an embedded systems shop?). As for abortions in particular, if you are of the opinion that procedure would be murder, it would certainly be out of place for the government to force you to do it. How many folks who promote the government forcing doctors to do what they consider to be killing children would be okay with the government forcing them to kill another human in their day job?
- throw0101c 3y ago
  > There are religious organizations that own hospitals. I was flabbergasted when I found out about this recently. Why would you be surprised at this? In (e.g.) Christianity, caring for the poor and sick has been one of the central tenants since its inception, so why wouldn't formal institutions be organized doing so? Before the welfare state—which is a fairly recent invention—the largest organization would have been the Church (and its various religious orders: Dominicans, Franciscans, etc), which would have worked towards its three-fold mission of worshipping God, evangelizing, and serving the poor: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9m-pNsFPV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9m-pNsFPV0 It can reasonably be argued that the very idea of taking care of the poor, etc, only came into Western civilization because of Christianity. As someone who presumably lives with-in Western civilization and adheres to its (general) values, you take the idea for granted, without perhaps examining where it/they came from: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Holland_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Holland_book) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_Wor...
  - iscrewyou 3y ago
    Great points. But you missed the mark. The discussion is about taxes not if religions should own hospitals. The same poor people you mention have to pay taxes while the religious organizations get special cuts. If we are blind to how profitable and mutually beneficial relationships hospitals and insurance companies have, there is nothing else to discuss.
    - throw0101c 3y ago
      > The discussion is about taxes not if religions should own hospitals. This sub-thread is, as I was commenting on: > There are religious organizations that own hospitals. I was flabbergasted when I found out about this recently.
  - tialaramex 3y ago
    > It can reasonably be argued that the very idea of taking care of the poor, etc, only came into Western civilization because of Christianity. You can try that argument but it's not very convincing. I think you could do equally well arguing that slavery is the fault of Christianity, or warfare or various other things humans have sometimes done and sometimes not done... The ancient Greeks (so, significantly before Christianity and also influential for "Western civilization") have a whole bunch of goddesses representing the idea of specific kinds of being nice to others. Plutarch is like "Philanthropy is a good idea".
- spaer 3y ago
  Hospitals were invented by religious organizations. It’s not strictly going to be driven by tax avoidance
agumonkey 3y ago
It's rare when your life depends on going to a church, at least compared to the need to go to the ER or have surgery etc But I get what you mean
Mountain_Skies 3y ago
Every church and religious order I've done work with on commercial projects paid taxes like any other commercial entity. The factor that determines if they pay taxes seems to be if they're engaged in what the government sees as commerce or if they see it as charity/practice of religion. Church bookstores, at least the ones I've been involved with, had to pay taxes. Donations for the operating of the church and charity work was not taxed. Apparently the IRS has plenty of tests to determine which is which.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  That may also be a factor of states that implement recoverable taxes, where moreso than showing an exemption, the organization pays the tax, but gets to deduct that amount from tax owed.
zeroonetwothree 3y ago
It’s not practical to implement this because of the first amendment.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pona-a 3y ago
  > Congress shall make no law __respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof__; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. I'm not sure if I quite understand your point. I suppose profiting off of religion could be potentially considered a form of support, I believe that if anything, a tax exemption is a more meaningful form thereof. Granted, that does not change the fact of the matter, no such law could be instituted today because institutions/entities/people profiting from it are too big to fail. Remember what Scientology did to the IRS?
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  It has nothing to do with the first amendment. The government isn't restricting what churches say, it's just saying that they get an active benefit by not talking about political topics (which is widely ignored). They're free to talk about taxes all they like, but that just means they get treated like the rest of us.
curun1r 3y ago
Along with private university endowments. The endowments of the Ivy League schools are nearing a combined $200b and schools like Stanford and MIT not far behind. These “schools” have become investment funds with a side hustle educating students to maintain their tax status and solicit alumni donations. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t be taxed, especially with many of them charging upwards of $50k/yr in tuition, much of which gets paid with grants and loans guaranteed by the government.

so should religions that make profits pay taxes, something tells me neither will happen

technothrasher 3y ago

> so should religions [...] pay taxes Oh, heck, let's not get into that argument here...

ysofunny 3y ago
my final answer is that any group organization should pay taxes AND no individual should have to pay taxes also, let's at least admit the resaon this is a heated argument is because religions are actually the 'legacy' and retired version of the government

CooCooCaCha 3y ago

Churches and other religious orgs should absolutely pay taxes.

iscrewyou 3y ago

There are religious organizations that own hospitals. I was flabbergasted when I found out about this recently. My first thought was how they’ve got a perfect system to avoid all taxes. Edit: it seems like the typical derailment is happening when it comes to religion. The topic is about taxes. I mentioned taxes. Not if religious organizations should own hospitals.

nullindividual 3y ago
What's worse is they enforce their religious worldview at these hospitals, denying legal medical treatments based off of the largest human hoax and political control mechanism ever invented by man.
- rjzzleep 3y ago
  In Germany some of the best hospitals are Christian (catholic I believe, but may be wrong). The US is a really weird place.
  - wccrawford 3y ago
    There's a bunch of local hospitals that are all run by a religion, but so far as I know, it doesn't dictate what they will and won't do for patients. So while I'm sure there are some religious hospitals that deny treatment, it's not all of them. The US is a really, really big place. Our states are the size of many countries. I'm not surprised that there's incredibly diverse sets of circumstances here.
  - leipert 3y ago
    Ha. But it is weird as well in Germany, because the churches are not bound to the normal Labour law and can for example discriminate against gay folks without recourse. Which is even more ridiculous given that most of the funds for the catholic/protestant schools and hospitals are payed by the tax payer/health insurances.
  - nradov 3y ago
    The same is true in the US. Some of the best hospitals (and complete integrated health systems) are run by Christian churches. This is largely for historical reasons: decades ago, churches stepped in to deliver healthcare as part of their mission because governments and secular organizations weren't doing enough. Some of them do refuse to perform certain services, particularly certain women's reproductive services, on moral grounds. This can make it difficult for women in some areas to access care.
  - dumbo-octopus 3y ago
    Plenty of good Christian hospitals here too. I suspect the parent is referring specifically to abortions, there are other procedures that a Christian would be potentially unwilling to perform (sex change operations, for instance), but they tend to require an experienced surgeon specifically trained in that operation, which wouldn't be hired by the hospital due to not aligning with their mission (would you want the government to force you to hire a .NET developer when you're purely an embedded systems shop?). As for abortions in particular, if you are of the opinion that procedure would be murder, it would certainly be out of place for the government to force you to do it. How many folks who promote the government forcing doctors to do what they consider to be killing children would be okay with the government forcing them to kill another human in their day job?
throw0101c 3y ago
> There are religious organizations that own hospitals. I was flabbergasted when I found out about this recently. Why would you be surprised at this? In (e.g.) Christianity, caring for the poor and sick has been one of the central tenants since its inception, so why wouldn't formal institutions be organized doing so? Before the welfare state—which is a fairly recent invention—the largest organization would have been the Church (and its various religious orders: Dominicans, Franciscans, etc), which would have worked towards its three-fold mission of worshipping God, evangelizing, and serving the poor: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9m-pNsFPV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9m-pNsFPV0 It can reasonably be argued that the very idea of taking care of the poor, etc, only came into Western civilization because of Christianity. As someone who presumably lives with-in Western civilization and adheres to its (general) values, you take the idea for granted, without perhaps examining where it/they came from: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Holland_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_(Holland_book) * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_World https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WEIRDest_People_in_the_Wor...
- iscrewyou 3y ago
  Great points. But you missed the mark. The discussion is about taxes not if religions should own hospitals. The same poor people you mention have to pay taxes while the religious organizations get special cuts. If we are blind to how profitable and mutually beneficial relationships hospitals and insurance companies have, there is nothing else to discuss.
  - throw0101c 3y ago
    > The discussion is about taxes not if religions should own hospitals. This sub-thread is, as I was commenting on: > There are religious organizations that own hospitals. I was flabbergasted when I found out about this recently.
- tialaramex 3y ago
  > It can reasonably be argued that the very idea of taking care of the poor, etc, only came into Western civilization because of Christianity. You can try that argument but it's not very convincing. I think you could do equally well arguing that slavery is the fault of Christianity, or warfare or various other things humans have sometimes done and sometimes not done... The ancient Greeks (so, significantly before Christianity and also influential for "Western civilization") have a whole bunch of goddesses representing the idea of specific kinds of being nice to others. Plutarch is like "Philanthropy is a good idea".
spaer 3y ago
Hospitals were invented by religious organizations. It’s not strictly going to be driven by tax avoidance

agumonkey 3y ago

It's rare when your life depends on going to a church, at least compared to the need to go to the ER or have surgery etc But I get what you mean

Mountain_Skies 3y ago

Every church and religious order I've done work with on commercial projects paid taxes like any other commercial entity. The factor that determines if they pay taxes seems to be if they're engaged in what the government sees as commerce or if they see it as charity/practice of religion. Church bookstores, at least the ones I've been involved with, had to pay taxes. Donations for the operating of the church and charity work was not taxed. Apparently the IRS has plenty of tests to determine which is which.

FireBeyond 3y ago
That may also be a factor of states that implement recoverable taxes, where moreso than showing an exemption, the organization pays the tax, but gets to deduct that amount from tax owed.

zeroonetwothree 3y ago

It’s not practical to implement this because of the first amendment.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pona-a 3y ago
> Congress shall make no law __respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof__; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. I'm not sure if I quite understand your point. I suppose profiting off of religion could be potentially considered a form of support, I believe that if anything, a tax exemption is a more meaningful form thereof. Granted, that does not change the fact of the matter, no such law could be instituted today because institutions/entities/people profiting from it are too big to fail. Remember what Scientology did to the IRS?
FireBeyond 3y ago
It has nothing to do with the first amendment. The government isn't restricting what churches say, it's just saying that they get an active benefit by not talking about political topics (which is widely ignored). They're free to talk about taxes all they like, but that just means they get treated like the rest of us.

curun1r 3y ago

Along with private university endowments. The endowments of the Ivy League schools are nearing a combined $200b and schools like Stanford and MIT not far behind. These “schools” have become investment funds with a side hustle educating students to maintain their tax status and solicit alumni donations. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t be taxed, especially with many of them charging upwards of $50k/yr in tuition, much of which gets paid with grants and loans guaranteed by the government.