NationStates Jolt Archive

Recognized American religious organizations are tax exempt so long as they do not directly endorse political candidates or specific parties. This is not a new rule, this is not news to any religious organization, and the IRS is very clear about it.

Now, putting aside my personal reasons for thinking that any such tax exemptions are pure crap in the first place, what I really want to know now is WHAT THE CRAP IS THIS??

http://www.spiffarino.completelyfreehosting.com/images/wlos.wmv

A church in North Carolina has excommunicated all members who refused to support President Bush and the Republican party. Individuals who voted Democrat were first commanded to repent, and then simply kicked out of the church en mass while the remaining "Right-eous" congregation stood and applauded.

The pastor who initiated this interesting little romp insists that it was "not political." Is there any reason at all why the IRS should believe that? Is there a reason why these people should be regarded as anything more than a pathetic and twisted cult? If the KKK can't receive tax-exempt status, why can this group of bigots?

EDIT: The link above appears to be problematic for some people. Here's a link to a page that has several video clips and story links on this outbreak of the American Taliban... http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/5/5/211218/4946

And, just to be clear, I believe churches and religious organizations should have the right to say whatever they please...so long as they pay taxes. The second they are granted tax-exempt status, the government has the right to enforce rules of conduct. If churches want to be political that's fine, but they've got to play by the same rules as all other organizations.

maybe its just the shitty comp I'm on but the link keep disappearing.

Either way I'll check back on it when I get home.

maybe its just the shitty comp I'm on but the link keep disappearing.

Either way I'll check back on it when I get home.
I shall mend...

And, just to be clear, I believe churches and religious organizations should have the right to say whatever they please...so long as they pay taxes. The second they are granted tax-exempt status, the government has the right to enforce rules of conduct. If churches want to be political that's fine, but they've got to play by the same rules as all other organizations.
Agree Agree Agree.

From Deism.com: (I don't agree with their Politics, just their stance on Religion)

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT! As you read the below article keep this fact in mind. According to the tax appraiser's office for Pinellas County, Florida the dollar amount of exempt real estate held by religions in Pinellas county alone is:

$583,581,970.00!!!

That half a billion dollars plus could be added to the tax base and used to help the uninsured that the faith-healers can't heal, or to help clean up the environment, for education, etc., etc., etc. Instead it goes to promote superstition.

SHOULD THE CHURCHES BE TAXED?
by Leland W. Ruble

Should organized religion be taxed? And if not, why not? For most of the population, religion exists in a peculiar, rarefied atmosphere. It is for most people (even though they may have some doubts) the only source of hope they have for continuing their existence after the body has expired. Naturally they expect restitution in heaven, a sort of reward for countless prayers; a moral life; and obedience to God. Obviously, taxation of a faith based on a biblical God, would be a desecration of this image.

Religion therefore, has been able to develop, grow and prosper without the payment of taxes that are required from most other organizations that teach a certain philosophy or concept of existence. The majority do not think of religious mysticism as an ideology that is taxable. They feel, you cannot tax a church whose reverend is a representative of God. A person who has daily conversations and visions pertaining to a sometimes benevolent, sometimes revengeful Lord of all, the Almighty.

Presumably because religion is more concerned with the afterlife, Heaven, Hell, and a government presided over by an assembly of angels, saints, and evangelists, and considers sin as the main cause of discord on this planet, it has been exempted from taxation. It is a privilege that has granted religion an elite status that few other organizations, activities, and the productivity of human labor is immune from. The mystical exploitation of religion has created a hierarchy of sanctimonious pedagogues who prosper in an environment free of obligation to the society from which they profit immensely. There is no such thing as a non-profit religion. If there were non-profit religions, most established religions would not exist.

Why then, is religion exempt from taxation? There are those who assume that it is to prevent government influence into the activities of religion, and to prevent the same from interfering
in the affairs of government. It is also thought that taxation of religion would restrict its growth, thus constricting the freedom of worship and making it difficult for religious activity to flourish. This does not make sense. If a mystical organization cannot prosper or survive because of taxation, it must not have a message or purpose worth sustaining, nor the ability to communicate a concept that appeals to the public. If it requires exemption from taxation as the only way it can exist, then it is a religion based on a superficial concept of Biblical nonsense that eventually the public will ignore.

James Madison, the fourth President of the United States of America and a leading promoter and authority of the U.S. Constitution, had this to say in regard to the exemption of taxation for religious organizations: "Are the U.S. duly awake to the tendency of the precedents they are establishing, in the multiplied incorporations of religious congregations with the faculty of acquiring and holding property real as well as personal...? The people of the U.S. owe their independence and their Liberty to the wisdom of descrying in the minute of 3 pence on tea, the magnitude of the evil comprised in the precedent. Let them exert the same wisdom, in watching against every evil lurking under plausible disguises, and growing up from small beginnings."

Apparently not all future legislators or bureaucrats visualized the tenacity of religion to develop into huge corporations with vast properties, investments, and influence over legislation favorable to its prosperity. The present has proven Madison correct in his assumption. The scheming and manipulation of the frenzied, right wing religious fundamentalists with their army of enthusiasts, has proven that religion untaxed, is more dangerous to Liberty than taxation of the same. Why should an institution founded on fantasy and myth, the incredible and improbable, be exonerated from taxation while existing in a society that supports the infrastructure and services that make it possible for that religion to succeed? My freedom, yours, and every other individual that exists in this society, is threatened by the immense influence of organized religion in its massive appeal to legislate laws favorable to its establishment. We, unlike the religionists, do not as individuals, have the use of untaxed funds or Christianized Coalitions that exist to peddle, distribute and exercise leverage over politicians.

What is Democratic, what is justifiable in allowing the churches the extraordinary freedom to exist independently exempt from taxation??? Especially when the exempted religions pursue as their objective, the influence of legislation favorable to their continued material advancement. The survival of organized revealed religion is dependent on not only the generosity of its members, but also from a government that is sympathetic to the continued domination of mystical authority in the affairs of state and society. Witness George Bush receiving the blessing from his religious minister for the carpet bombing and resulting mass murder of Iraqi civilians during the Desert Storm exercise in ignorance.

The established religions have prospered in an environment that is maintained through the taxation of others for such simple things as street upkeep, courts of law, police and fire protection, or any of the many other services that the public pays for. It is we the people, who are assuring that religious associations can perform their functions, while they are exempted from the same obligation. They have been granted an exclusion, that is based on the erroneous concept, that religion is a non-profit enterprise. Anyone who believes religion is not profitable and exists solely as a distributor of myth and magic, has not looked recently at the vast resources and property that churches have acquired as non-profit organizations.

The religions of this nation do not contribute, in any way, to my freedom, your Liberty, or the future of civilization. Freed of taxation, indebted to the worship of an abstract biblical god, they exist exclusively as a hierarchy whose interest is the exploitation and propaganda of supernatural absurdity!

IS IT NOT TIME THAT WE THE PUBLIC DEMAND THAT THE RELIGIONS OF THIS NATION PAY FOR THEIR PARTICIPATION IN SOCIETY??? Is it not the proper time to cease characterizing religious institutions as a privileged ideology that is more important than other philosophies and concepts?

Why should the labor of a person working eight hours a day be taxed, while a preacher who labors in mystical fantasy be excluded from the same? Why should there be a tax for the general public, but not for those engaged in the production (or fabrication) of a religious ideology? Is the enterprise of corporate religion any better or more useful to society than an individual who thinks about existence from a philosophical and rational perspective? I think not. There is no such thing as an aristocracy of thought or complete agreement on any conception. Religion in all its many forms, does not have the exclusive answers to the complexity of existence. Its reliance on mystical incomprehension, the miraculous, the impossible, is based on a fictionalized perspective, rooted in the dreams and desires of primitive man.

Taxation of religion is based on fairness and justice. It is a notification to those who represent corporate religion that they are not a special institution or a favored aristocracy that can benefit from all the liberties of a democracy, but have no obligation to support that democratic society in the form of taxation. Particularly when, as the Christian Coalition is doing, they use the millions of dollars saved from taxes to pump into the campaigns of politicians who agreed to spread their brand of bigotry and superstition.

Maybe I should have chosen a more inflamatory title or something...I can't believe that so few people seem to care about this. Churches are BREAKING THE LAW, publicly, and are proud of it. Doesn't that bother any of the religous folk out there?

Very disturbing.

However, good on the 40 other members who left the church in protest.

I also think it's interesting how Pastor Chan Chandler said it wasn't "politically motivated."

Here's the church's address:

East Waynsville Baptist Church
175 Woodland Drive
Waynesville, NC
828-456-6841

Very disturbing.

However, good on the 40 other members who left the church in protest.
Indeed. I honestly can't believe an American church would do this in the first place, and the video of the expelled church members suggests that they were also shocked by it.

A church in North Carolina has excommunicated all members who refused to support President Bush and the Republican party. Individuals who voted Democrat were first commanded to repent, and then simply kicked out of the church en mass while the remaining "Right-eous" congregation stood and applauded.

The pastor who initiated this interesting little romp insists that it was "not political."
SIGH! I love my State, but sometimes ...! :(

And, just to be clear, I believe churches and religious organizations should have the right to say whatever they please...so long as they pay taxes. The second they are granted tax-exempt status, the government has the right to enforce rules of conduct. If churches want to be political that's fine, but they've got to play by the same rules as all other organizations.

The government is very loose on enforcing the tax-exempt status. Just look at peta.... they fund the defence of eco-terrorists and they still retain thier exempt status.

The government is very loose on enforcing the tax-exempt status. Just look at peta.... they fund the defence of eco-terrorists and they still retain thier exempt status.
I don't see any conflict there. Funding legal defense isn't prohibited anywhere in the tax-exempt statutes that I know of. I also don't see any reason why it should be a reason to deny tax-exempt status. Now, if PETA were funding terrorist activities themselves, THAT would be serious grounds for a smackdown.

Please note: I strongly dislike PETA, and have had personal dealings with them that make me want to go kick bunnies in my free time. So don't think I'm some sandal-wearing tree cuddler. ;)

I still see it as rather fucked up. Then again I do dispise peta and animal rights activists.

The government is very loose on enforcing the tax-exempt status. Just look at peta.... they fund the defence of eco-terrorists and they still retain thier exempt status.

Hardly. The government is very strict about tax-exemption. Funding the defence of an eco-terrorist is sizeably different than donating funds to the actual organization or person itself. When I worked for the American Cancer Society, we nearly lost our tax-exempt status because a field worker implied that a particular candidate up for local office might be more sympathetic to cancer legislation currently up for review and vote.

If you cross the line and the IRS finds out about it (and that's usually where the break down occurs), then they will go after you with knives drawn.

I take it one step further. Churches should all be taxed regardless. They can more than operate on the money they get from their followers. It's unfair and I believe violates the first amendment that I should be taxed to help churches that I don't believe in. Because my taxes and your taxes would probably go down if churches had to pay tax. Or at least public money might not be spread so thin. If you look at how much revenue is lost each year from churches not paying taxes, you'd be floored!

While we're at it let's tax World Vision, Samaritan's Purse, United Way, and all those other non-profit organizations.

Anyway, churches should not be endorsing candidates (and I'm a Protestant myself), and if there is a law like that they should be respecting it, and if they are endorsing a candidate that church should lose tax exempt status.

But taxing all churches is stupid. They're non-profit organizations that provide services to their members. Start taxing churches and you'll also have to start taxing other non-profit organizations. Other goups such as international aid groups, women's groups, food banks, enviromental organizations will have to be taxed as well to make it fair, and I'm sure those advocating taxing churches wouldn't like it if their non-profit group of choice was taxed.

I take it one step further. Churches should all be taxed regardless. They can more than operate on the money they get from their followers. It's unfair and I believe violates the first amendment that I should be taxed to help churches that I don't believe in. Because my taxes and your taxes would probably go down if churches had to pay tax. Or at least public money might not be spread so thin. If you look at how much revenue is lost each year from churches not paying taxes, you'd be floored!

Well, the converse is true, too. If you saw how much money corporation avoided paying each year in taxes, you'd also be staggered. A church, or any non-profit tax-exempt organization, in theory shouldn't pay taxes because the reason for their existance is community improvement. The money they save in taxes should go directly back into the community they serve, thereby reducing the load on the government in general and improving society as a whole. This has been the legal stance since 1861 and Perin v. Carey.

Well, the converse is true, too. If you saw how much money corporation avoided paying each year in taxes, you'd also be staggered. A church, or any non-profit tax-exempt organization, in theory shouldn't pay taxes because the reason for their existance is community improvement. The money they save in taxes should go directly back into the community they serve, thereby reducing the load on the government in general and improving society as a whole. This has been the legal stance since 1861 and Perin v. Carey.
Then they should prove it (where their money goes). I don't see how holding billions of dollars in otherwise tax-revenue-generating land is "serving the community". Ditto for (an egregious minority of) preachers who take home paltry "incomes" but live high on tax-free church perks. Or "mega-churches" which operate as a cash-flow business, or , or, or...

Churches have become corporatized. They should pay Corporate taxes.

Then they should prove it (where their money goes). I don't see how holding billions of dollars in otherwise tax-revenue-generating land is "serving the community". Ditto for (an egregious minority of) preachers who take home paltry "incomes" but live high on tax-free church perks. Or "mega-churches" which operate as a cash-flow business, or , or, or...

Churches have become corporatized. They should pay Corporate taxes.

True. They do have to prove it in a way with yearly audits that indicate exactly how they spent their generated funds over the course of the previous fiscal year. I also question the viability of "mega-churches" when it comes to their service to the community. There are plenty of cases on record where churches and other tax exempt organizations have had their status revoked because their policies either violated public policy or they were unable to substantiate their expenditures, with one of the biggest being the revoking of Bob Jones Universities tax-exempt status because of racial descrimination.

However, mega-churches are not the norm. To simply tax all churches because those few are rooking the system places an unfair burden on the multitude of smaller churches that are playing by the rules and truly doing good works with their donor dollars.

Agreed, the present system has far too many loopholes that let faith-barons profit rather than produce. The answer isn't to tax all churches, though.