The church must pay taxes and conduct business honestly

Yep! And the church of Trump is being investigated now!!

 

What has paying tax got to do with the first mendment?

 

Good luck getting money out of the Vatican or a southern Baptist preacher

 

A lot of churches not all of them operate as charities. They operate food pantries, soup kitchens addiction counseling and various other things for often no cost for people.

This was purpose of a church from the beginning. To give people a community to love.

So that's why they're exempt. If you decided you wanted to do that kind of charity and there wouldn't be any need for the churches so put your money for your mouth is.

 

The Vatican is a state unto itself a bit of a communist state, with a socialist dictator that claims to speak for God. So yeah you aren't getting money from another country. And Baptists generally aren't very wealthy preachers.

I'd be okay with going after mega churches.

 

There are two different types of "tax free". Let's clarify that.
First there is the question of whether the organization should pay taxes on "profits" (if there even is anything that could be considered "profits") and then there is the question of whether donations to that organization should be considered tax deductible.

I'm mostly against the tax on corporate profits, by the way.
(explanation written here: Why should the corporate tax rate exist? )

The question isn't really "Why should churches not be taxed?", but "Why should churches be taxed?"
Remember, any time the money actually goes to an individual person as income (like paying the salary of a church employee) it will be taxed.

 

There is no church of Trump.

Yes, payments to church employees are reported to the IRS.

 

I tend to agree with you. I attended a Church that was very patriotic with 4th of July celebrations and political speakers. At the same time, I had a family member that attended a Church that was complicit in sending money to Hanoi during the Viet Nam War as many liberal churches did. If you want to take a way tax status from the former, be damn sure to do it from the latter!

 

They are exempt from constitutional law on employment, are given great deference on land use law, etc.

Churches are more or less exempt from financial examination without federal direction, so churches routinely break laws such as exclusion from politics.

 

When his followers post pictures like this well……


I think I just threw up in my mouth

 

People like you try to change the discussion because you have no debate.

 

Absolutely this.

 

That's not political. You can swap the person out for Obama or Hillary Clinton or John mansion or Ted Cruz and it won't matter.

Christ is universal.

 

No one's ever claimed of Trump what leg-humper Newsweek editor Evan Thomas claimed of Obama in 2009, "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world. He’s sort of God."

​

 

Yeah that's way worse than showing him with a picture of Jesus over him.

 

Yeah, nice try Poly/

 

Was I trying something?

 

As already pointed out, in every thread wherein some idiot makes some stupid claim or other about churches and taxes, all church employees who receive pay, including pastors, do indeed pay income taxes on that pay already.

As for preachers commenting on political issues, they have every right to do so, same as everybody else. If deviants wet themselves over that right, they should deport themselves to some country that suits them better, is all.

 

I don't think a thing that isn't owned by anyone, that nobody can collect the profits from, should pay taxes. I think the legal difficulties of trying to tax them, would be massive. But my core question is, why do you want them to be taxed? I'm a TRUE Atheist myself, so don't get the teams mixed up. But my opinion on taxes, is they are a necessary evil to fund the government, not a punishment for success. Why should PETA pay no taxes, but a church should? No wrong answer, I'm just curious on your view of the WHY factor.

 

Small double fact check. Separation of Church and state is found nowhere in the constitution. The phrase became popular when Thomas Jefferson used it, in a famous letter. But the problem is, he wasn't speaking to the Church tainting the government; he was speaking to the opposite. He was protecting churches with that idea, not the government. In his era, it was quite common for governments to tell churches what to say.

I think we have a pretty secular government, despite the wishes of the founding fathers. They said all along, that this freedom thing will only work with a moral and religious populace. I appreciate that they thought so much of us, but they clearly were mistaken about us. =D

I'm an Atheist myself, and sometimes people of faith frustrate me. But if I'm permitted to have my beliefs, that may or may not be true, then so can they. I fail to see the harm. Religion is organized, but all of us have views that would change how we voted as legislators, if those views were different.

 

How true!!! ergo, churches should definitely pay taxes. The Vatican is one of the richest entities on the planet.

 

Absolutely !!! The other point about reporting sexual abuse needs to be addressed too. They are given far too much latitude.

 

How can anyone who is responsible person ask that a child "report" these incidents........when they were porbably told by the figure of "religious authority" NOT TO TELL anyone.
The lengths that somewill go to protect their churches.... when in realty they are a business like any other. They cannot function without money. and rely on all the generous " donations" of the folks that attend.
In any other business , this would be a scam.
The exemption makes no logical sense.

 

Some Christians have used the church the way Tronald Dump uses his charitable foundations. Rather than buying a car for yourself using your own money, you have your church buy the car and you are just driving it. This limo service? Paid for by the church. This trip to Key Largo? It’s a convention for the church, we have to save the souls of the wait staff at the resort by ordering lots of margaritas. Well of course the church would pay for it. I don’t actually have an income of my own. I pay less income tax than an impoverished family of four. This artwork in the church’s house that I live in? Well it belongs to my church and one day when we sell it for twice what the church paid for it then we can use the money to buy everyone in the family everything they want, tax free.

 

I personally believe that modern churches should learn from Irving Fisher Ph. D. who did not have the internet to work with......
and yet he educated a sufficient number of Americans to alter the policies of FDR and his banker advisors so that FDR initiated The New Deal.

For the record.....
each person who earns a thousand Calgary Dollars in a year must claim them and pay the same amount of income tax on them as if they had earned a thousand Canadian dollars.
So in a way.... I think your ideas has a lot of potential.


http://www.politicalforum.com/index...ons-should-print-their-own-currencies.381946/