Hey Mr President! I represent evangelicals, televangelists and scientology like Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, David Miscavige, etc.
We collectively call you out as a raping pedophile piece of shit living specimen who wouldn’t dare come after our tax-free status. FUCK YOU!
Honestly, churches should have always stayed the fuck out of politics or lose their tax exempt status. Of course, that rule does not apply to the weepy Republicans, because the rules never do. They cry about “religious freedom”, but want their cake and eat it, too, of course: the most radically right wing churches can say whatever the hell they want regarding telling their people how to vote and we all get to fund it, effectively.
Having the cake and eating it too is not an option for liberal churches, though.
Churches should never have had tax exempt status.
honestly im not sure anything should have. You can deduct expenses so theoretically non for profits should not pay much anyway.
they’d still have to pay various payroll taxes and things, and they still buy things: tax exemption in australia for example means you neither have to charge GST (our version of VAT) to customers, and you get to claim it back from any purchases you make
yeah but im not sure that is a bad thing. They would also pay property tax. In the us sales and property tax mostly pay for real world community things that need to be done and are shared resources. Infrastructure and services basically. I don’t see why a non for profit should not pay into that the same as for profits. I don’t think charities will disapear if they have to deal with the same rules every individual has to and if they do they likely were scams or something.
i’m not a member of a church, i’m very atheist, but also i kinda put churches around the same place as sports clubs… they’re largely non-profit entities that exist for the benefit of members… kinda like a co-op too
i think given that - ie their mission isn’t based around making money, but providing free services - it’s fair to put them on the same level as other membership-based orgs
all of these orgs have a “not for me” crowd, but just because it’s not for you doesn’t mean that they don’t provide services to their members in the same way that sports clubs, maker spaces, car clubs, youth clubs, etc all provide things and shouldn’t be taxed in addition to the income tax that their members already pay
I might be missing your your point buy yeah as I said all not for profits so I indeed would like them all treated the same. regardless of church or club. I don’t see why a club shouldn’t pay taxes in addition to the tax their members pay when I pay tax in addition to my income tax for all the goods and services I use myself. I mean why can’t I be a club of one and get the benefits. Its all not for profit in the same way to me.
Unless they can show they are providing beneficial services to the entire community they should not get it. So a church that only serves their parishioners would be a no, but one that runs a food bank open to the community would be able to get it.
Any political advocacy along the lines of telling people who they should vote for should be a permanent revocation of nonprofit status.
I’m not opposed to that, but I don’t see any reason to bring the word “church” into it. I think they should be treated like any other club of people, and that may well include tax exemptions for community work.
Agreed. It’s not so much a matter of changing church tax code, but changing 501c3 tax codes in general and having enough IRS agents to properly keep up.
yall already have 501c7 which is membership organisations like sports clubs
well, it’s probably a similar thing to a 501c7: membership organisations like sports clubs