And this, folks, is why we should tax religious organizations…. Like every other country I know of. (edit, apparently I knew less than I thought I did. I think what I did was conflate a ‘church tax’ with churches paying income tax. apparently that’s a thing where the state collects your tithe for you… if you attend or whatever.)
A long time ago, it was so that they could use the additional resources for helping the needy and less fortunate instead of the government. The idea being a Church was a community organization and would know better than the government what the community needed.
In order to get the tax credit, the church agreed to never get involved politically with anything.
Fast forward to now, and churches are violating that agreement in a big way
they can deduct actual charitable contributions, for things like running a soup kitchen, and stuff. but that’s subject to auditing, and not at all allowed to go into ‘charitable funds’ that dish out to the board members.
There is actually more history behind it. Back in the days when the local king would collect taxes from his subjects, churches wouldn’t have to pay. This was because taking money from the church was considered a sin. Whilst donating to the church was a way to absolve yourself from sins. The church would take care of your immortal soul, if you’d just continue to pay them. This lead to a well funded church and no taxes being paid by the church.
How anybody ever agreed to this I don’t know. We’ve invented something called an immortal soul, which is what you actually are instead of your body. We’ve also invented something called hell, which is endless suffering for your immortal soul. If you don’t follow the rules, which we’ve invented btw, your soul will end up in this hell. One of the rules is give us money.
But then people would just simply say, I’ve never followed your rules, guess I’m fucked, no point in following the rules now. But wait, we’ve got a special deal if you call within 30 minutes and give us money. We can fix your soul so it isn’t fucked and you can try again to follow the rules. We would also like you to tell us what you did wrong, so we can use it to blackmail you, I mean so we know what part of the soul to fix.
Historically, the church was the source of social safety nets in society. in the modern era, that’s changed to government-ran safety nets (well fare, social security, etc).
there was also some even older precedence of the church running some of the government, so that was payment for that.
It seems I made a mistake in that assertion, or missremembering the last time I looked into it. regardless i was wrong about other (western) countries not including religious orgs as tax exempt.
And this, folks, is why we should tax religious organizations….
Like every other country I know of.(edit, apparently I knew less than I thought I did. I think what I did was conflate a ‘church tax’ with churches paying income tax. apparently that’s a thing where the state collects your tithe for you… if you attend or whatever.)Why don’t they do it? There’s no logical explanation for it.
A long time ago, it was so that they could use the additional resources for helping the needy and less fortunate instead of the government. The idea being a Church was a community organization and would know better than the government what the community needed.
In order to get the tax credit, the church agreed to never get involved politically with anything.
Fast forward to now, and churches are violating that agreement in a big way
Now they deserve to be taxed.
Thanks, I forgot about the background completely. I agree, be it a mosque, synagogue, church, … tax them all.
If they make money, they should pay, like everyone else.
they can deduct actual charitable contributions, for things like running a soup kitchen, and stuff. but that’s subject to auditing, and not at all allowed to go into ‘charitable funds’ that dish out to the board members.
There is actually more history behind it. Back in the days when the local king would collect taxes from his subjects, churches wouldn’t have to pay. This was because taking money from the church was considered a sin. Whilst donating to the church was a way to absolve yourself from sins. The church would take care of your immortal soul, if you’d just continue to pay them. This lead to a well funded church and no taxes being paid by the church.
How anybody ever agreed to this I don’t know. We’ve invented something called an immortal soul, which is what you actually are instead of your body. We’ve also invented something called hell, which is endless suffering for your immortal soul. If you don’t follow the rules, which we’ve invented btw, your soul will end up in this hell. One of the rules is give us money.
But then people would just simply say, I’ve never followed your rules, guess I’m fucked, no point in following the rules now. But wait, we’ve got a special deal if you call within 30 minutes and give us money. We can fix your soul so it isn’t fucked and you can try again to follow the rules. We would also like you to tell us what you did wrong, so we can use it to blackmail you, I mean so we know what part of the soul to fix.
For the same reason we don’t tax the rich. Corruption.
Historically, the church was the source of social safety nets in society. in the modern era, that’s changed to government-ran safety nets (well fare, social security, etc).
there was also some even older precedence of the church running some of the government, so that was payment for that.
What are some countries that tax religious orgs? I honestly can’t think of any.
It seems I made a mistake in that assertion, or missremembering the last time I looked into it. regardless i was wrong about other (western) countries not including religious orgs as tax exempt.