FreeThought
Open Forum Fridays: Churches shouldn’t pay taxes
With blatant plagiarism, I’m heading up this week’s Open Forum Friday.
The reason why
Our authors and readers are some of the best I’ve seen in local blogs for a long time. Despite differences in worldviews, religious views, and political views (in fact, because of those differences), we have great discussions and debates happening all the time.
The ground rules (if you can call it that)
- Anything goes, as long as you do not become verbally abusive, or start trolling. Getting off topic is one thing, but doing so to provoke an irrational or emotional response is another.
- We’ll provide a topic to begin with, but if you have something else to say, please say it. We’re all ears.
- Theists and Non-theists alike are welcome.
- If you’re trying to reply to someone start your comment with an “@” in front of their username. For example, to reply to me, say “@Skeptigator”. If you are addressing the general public, no need. (This is also the way Twitter works)
- This blog is not a democracy. I (and other FFW Admins) reserve the right to disemvowel and ban those who we deem are trolling. And as always, bribes are accepted.
This week’s kick-off topic is:
Do you think that churches should be subject to taxation? Or at a minimum have to undergo the same process other non-profits have to endure to receive favorable tax status.
Here are my thoughts on the matter otherwise have at it.
The most notable difference (and this comes down to local/state governments but…) is that churches do not pay Property Taxes and this is nearly universal at least in the U.S.. Granted non-church, not-for-profit organization can often generate some of the same tax benefits but often at great expense and time. Someone need only declare the building a church and poof! tax exemptions.
In addition to nearly instant and pain-free favorable tax status with regards to property, the vast majority of commercial endeavors undertaken by churches are tax-exempt as well. It seems like we are bending over backwards here.
Having said all that, FWIW, I happen to agree that we should not tax churches and for 2 very good reasons.
1) ”From the top-down”/Protection from the State: If you read the Constitution you’ll see that we go out of our way to avoid unnecessary entanglement between Church and State. Essentially telling the local, state and the federal government, “Hands off!” from the standpoint of taxation and ultimately political control we have provided additional protections for church organizations. Unless you do something criminal you are free to do what you do without having to open your financials or be assessed with special, because-you-are-a-dirty-mormon taxes.
2) “From the bottom-up”/Protection from the Church: If church organizations are forced to pay taxes they will at the same time acquire a political voice as an organization. Just to be clear, we all recognize that churches have enormous political power to direct their members but churches as an organization have no political power. This may be splitting hairs but its an important hair to split. If you tax a church as a Body, then that Body should then have representation (another pesky thing you’ll find in the Constitution) and therefore a direct voice in how government should be run.
It may not be a perfect solution but if you “keep your State out of my Church, I’ll keep my Church out of your State”.
Disclaimer: The views expressed by an individual contributor to this blog are not necessarily shared by all members of FreeThought Fort Wayne. That is what makes this organization so interesting. Commenters on the FreeThought Fort Wayne blog are expected to abide by our comment policy. About the author: Skeptigator is a mystery wrapped in an enigma and served on a bed of lettuce. Read more from this author
The Open Forum Fridays: Churches shouldn’t pay taxes by Skeptigator, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Tags: Discussion
13 comments for “Open Forum Fridays: Churches shouldn’t pay taxes”
Post a comment
Categories
Our Readers
If you read the Constitution you’ll see that we go out of our way to avoid unnecessary entanglement between Church and State. Essentially telling the local, state and the federal government, “Hands off!” from the standpoint of taxation and ultimately political control we have provided additional protections for church organizations.
Unless you do something criminal you are free to do what you do without having to open your financials or be assessed with special, because-you-are-a-dirty-mormon taxes.
I can’t make much sense out of this paragraph. It looks like you’re just reasserting the thing that you should be supporting.
2) “From the bottom-up”/Protection from the Church: If church organizations are forced to pay taxes they will at the same time acquire a political voice as an organization. Just to be clear, we all recognize that churches have enormous political power to direct their members but churches as an organization have no political power. This may be splitting hairs but its an important hair to split. If you tax a church as a Body, then that Body should then have representation (another pesky thing you’ll find in the Constitution) and therefore a direct voice in how government should be run.
I used to be convinced by this argument, but I no longer am. This extra bit of influence that they would supposedly get to wield from paying taxes is nebulous and ill-defined. What official representation in government do you think a corporation gets just by paying taxes? There’s no council of corporations that you get invited to send a delegate to just because you mail in an 1120.
Maybe there’s something just as consequential, though; I’d like to know if there is.
I work at a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, and I guess I’m not too familiar with what hoops (if any) a church has to go through for their tax-exempt status.
I’ll do some research and report back here. If churches are anything like ours, there are all sorts of things, including forming a board of directors, developing a mission, a detailed business plan, somewhere around $800, and about 9 months of federal gubmint scrutiny.
And although my org doesn’t pay property taxes (we rent our facilities), we don’t pay income tax. But we do have an incredibly long reporting form (the 990) to submit to the government, and we pay for an audit done by a third-party every year.
So with us, there are way more hoops to jump through to remain tax-exempt than to just pay the darned taxes. However, that status allows us to apply for all sorts of grants, so in that respect it is worth it.
Again, I will look up and see what churches have to do.
Yay for Open Forum Friday! Hopefully we’re not all going to go at each other like last time. (-:<
-Andy W.
@Butter
I suppose it’s not clear. What I’m attempting to say is
The way in which we have chosen to prevent unnecessary entanglement is to limit the governments ability to tax religious organizations, therefore removing a major “weapon” so-to-speak that the government could use to interfere with free exercise.
The last sentence is just to point out that government does however have the right to step in when certain activities reach a threshold, and that “free exercise” is not a blank check.
The soundness of the argument (from your point 1) rests on what exactly the threats to religion from the state are, and whether they justify the exemption from taxes.
The only threat to churches from the government that you’ve identified is disparate taxation, correct? In other words, Rep. Catholic and his friends might decide that they hate they hate them some Mormons, so they pass a tax that through some convoluted means only applies to Mormons. The threat of this is asserted to be so dire as to justify exempting any religious group from any income or property tax, ever.
This seems to (1) tacitly acknowledge that religious people can’t keep from acting like spoiled children and (2) reward them for this behavior by letting them keep all their money. Forgive me if I’m not friendly toward this line of reasoning.
@Butter
The primary power that governments have comes fundamentally down to its power of taxation. All things follow from taxes. It’s all about money.
There are so many examples of this in history that the reality of it actually happening is undeniable.
Even without taxation governments have been directed in religious fervor against a minority religion/sect, speaking of the Mormons. Simply read any Mormon history (official or otherwise) and watch them get kicked out of NY, IL and MO. To the point that they bailed on civilization in general and started their own gig in Utah. That religious persecution worked out well, now there is a whole state full of ‘em and the church has grown so big they can influence referendums in California. A bit of an oversimplification but the point is you see in America alone without having to look at European examples or The Troubles in the UK/Ireland.
Now imagine all of this religious bigotry embodied in the tax code. It’s naive to think it won’t happen.
Or as another example, in many taxing jurisdictions very large factories often account for a significant percentage of a county or municipality’s tax base. It would again be naive to think that that business does not have a certain amount of political clout when a new project (paid with a tax rate hike) would be paid for by that one or two large properties.
What if the large taxpayers in the community become churches because of their multi-million dollar facilities? The Harrison Square project doesn’t get contested on whether or not it’s good for downtown Fort Wayne, it becomes an affront to god, an Abomination, in fact, and no good [insert religious sect] would allow this to happen. Just read Leviticus [insert verse], you heathen
Again a bit of a ridiculous example to illustrate a point.
And to your points,
That’s exactly my point! The religious have consistently demonstrated an inability to wield political power.
Political Power + Religious Authority = FAIL.
I do however disagree with #2,
I guess you could say this is a reward. I would say more like the price to avoid unnecessary entanglement. Is it perfect, probably not. I was trying to think about what would be a perfect solution but I couldn’t think of one.
I see it as sort of like the idea behind regulating financial markets. Any amount of regulation is going to incur a cost to doing business in order to stay in compliance with financial regulations. But this is a necessary “inefficiency” to protect the many from the wrong-doing of the few. Plus with the added stability that a more transparent and inherently trustworthy (and verifiable) financials market comes greater investment theoretically offsetting the waste of government regulation.
Do we give up a chunk of tax dollars by automatically exempting churches? For sure. But the upside to religious freedom and human happiness is immeasurable.
Perhaps I should take my rose-colored glasses. I just think there is a danger inherent (with historical evidence to back it up) and that there is no perfect solution and this strikes a balance that we apparently have learned to live with.
Doh!
Perhaps I should take my rose-colored glasses off
I’ve been torn on this subject. I like the idea of keeping churches out of politics, but all it has done is allow tax-exempt shelters for crackpot ideologies to spread, and it still allows preachers to effectively communicate their political beliefs either covertly or directly. The more ridiculous churches are getting braver and more active in politics, and worse still, they believe they are infallibly right to do so as if it is somehow mandated by their god to never stop trying to control the government and convert everyone.
I say let them have them preach their
Republicanismpolitics in church and allow government to tax them and have oversight. At least we could start to control the churches and leaders that leach off of society instead of using their donations for their likely intentions. Regulate god’s people and start the avalanche of piety and politics and watch it all come crashing down; meaning, I believe the majority of churches are inefficient at best at “doing good works” and are fleecing their flocks at the worst. Expose these churches for what they are and allow these church/businesses to compete financially and in the arena of politics and ideals.Now, every time there’s an election, I’m tired of seeing signs out front of churches with the code “Pray for …(insert Christ candidate here)” which everyone knows means vote for so and so. Like it’s fooling anybody.
“Yay for Open Forum Friday! Hopefully we’re not all going to go at each other like last time. (-:<
-Andy W.”
If we all agreed on everything, this blog and our opinions would be unnecessary, and the universe would be perfect.
Besides, it’s engaging and interesting to get to know you guys and gals better. Perhaps we should try to leave FFW policy-making out of this whenever possible, but other than sometimes misinterpreting statements and emotions/tone, I don’t see a big downside here.
@Skeptigator,
Color me ignorant, but what’s the purpose of prepending an ‘@’ sign. Is this blog somehow hooked into Twitter?
I missed the open forum Friday. Oh well, I hope it is ok to post on Sat.
Having no property taxes is a huge advantage and it is ironic because churches are protected by Gov. services such as the fire and police departments.
I am surprised no one brought up the bigger issue of tax-deductible donations. The main advantage from the IRS to religion is the fact that one may give to his or her church and be able to pay the gov. less. That is huge in terms of operating and investment income for the churches. This compounds the right wingers love of the extreme free market (IE GOD) and they get to invest in their church which would indoctrinate and proselytize to the needy (and pay the gov. less) rather than offering secular help.
(I think Pres. Obama is pulling the rate down for the very wealthy on tax deductions for charities).
Of course, tax-deductible donations apply to all non-profits (501c3) and to groups we like such as CFI and Doctors Without Borders with the same political restrictions. This applies to the left leaning churches, too.
I looked into this tax stuff slightly while researching Ken Ham’s AIG and their 990 forms. I fundamentally think it is wrong and horribly inefficient for tax-deductible (Loss of federal tax revenue) money to fight against public science education of which is funded by our local and state taxes. It is a cycle of federally subsidized (loss of IRS revenue) creationism which then in turn the state pays for with tax money. What are we doing?
Is it legal? I am no tax attorney but I think so. Religious organizations are treated favorably in the tax code and are accounted for differently than local taxes. The two never appear in the same accounting system.
Overall, I don’t this is really a constitutional question. It is really IRS code, which may have been written that way due to the constitution but I don’t know.
At any time, a church can say just about anything politically they want. Free speech applies. It is the IRS code with all the tax advantages they would lose if they became an official lobbying political organization or just a regular business.
For example, The Secular Coalition for America cannot offer tax-deductible donations. Any religious group or political group can operate like this with full free speech with no tax advantages.
I think part of the tax code is the nature of the non-profits. I think it assumed in the tax code that churches are good for the community and hence the tax advantages but it is good the IRS has some safe guards in place.
-Andy
I dunno….I’m of 2 minds on this.
For one, I think that we would be hypocritical to say that they could not interfere with our government yet they have to pay to support it. That would be kind of like taxation without representation.
However, that being said, they *do* interfere in our government. Church leaders are all the time trying to influence the government, if by nothing else then convincing their congregations that one candidate is better then the other because he/she is a “good Christian” and will promote “Christian values”. Perhaps if they continue to influence the government, they should be held accountable for it.
Also, churches are not allowed in schools because of church/state separation. But salesmen aren’t allowed to preach to our kids at school either, and *they* have to pay taxes. And aren’t church officials a type of salesman?
Perhaps when the churches fully leave *all* aspects of our government alone, I could more safely say that they didn’t need to participate in it monetarily. At the very least, it needs careful consideration.
@Andy,
You said, “Having no property taxes is a huge advantage and it is ironic because churches are protected by Gov. services such as the fire and police departments.”
I hadn’t thought about it that way. Excellent point.
I say we don’t tax them and let them put out their own church fires!
For one, I think that we would be hypocritical to say that they could not interfere with our government yet they have to pay to support it. That would be kind of like taxation without representation.
FAIL. Individuals are entitled to representation, not corporations. And religious individuals in the United States already get to vote (shameful photo-ID issues aside—those nuns in South Bend, I think it was, got shafted, and that was a disgrace).
Also, churches are not allowed in schools because of church/state separation. But salesmen aren’t allowed to preach to our kids at school either, and *they* have to pay taxes. And aren’t church officials a type of salesman?
Never been hit up at school for a Josten’s class ring, trendy credit card, magazine subscription, class photo, chocolate/popcorn/cookie fundraiser (with products supplied by outside vendors), graduation cap and gown, or tour in the army, I take it? Salespersons are everywhere in public schools; it’s one the disgraces of our culture that we treat our youth as conduits to their parents’ wallets.
Not that it has any consequence for your argument, but it bore correction.
But the larger point is correct. Yes, church representatives are very much salespersons, complete with the trick of inventing the need for the product out of whole cloth. (Witness the troll on the Rise of the Godless thread, for example.) The fact that the social club they’re hawking carries historical baggage and widespread popularity should not exempt them from taxes.
I say we don’t tax them and let them put out their own church fires!
As someone who lives next to a church, I’m not particularly down with this idea.