While U.S. tax returns are usually due on April 15, that was on Friday, so Uncle Sam gave us a respite till Monday. (I filed about a month ago, as I’m a good boy.) While most of us have a hefty tax bill, there are two exceptions. You probably know both, but yesterday Bill Maher discussed them on his show:
As a sign of the times, even Time magazine published an editorial last year calling for the taxing of churches. But even if you favor exempting religions from taxation because they’re essentially nonprofit organizations (which aren’t taxed), there’s no excuse for allowing ministers to get tax-free housing allowances, which can be quite substantial.
Non profits are not exempt from all taxes the way religion is. I play golf at a non-profit member-owned golf club. We pay property taxes and yes, my dues are not tax deductible. What should church members get a break from paying dues at their social club?
This is the best analogy. Social clubs are exempt from income tax on the dues they collect, but not from other taxes, like property taxes, and you don’t get a write-off for spending money on yourself. It seems reasonable to treat churches, which mostly function as social clubs, the same way.
Some churches do actually perform some concrete public service, operating a soup kitchen say. I’d even be so generous as to allow them exemption on the percentage of their activities that are legitimately aimed at the broader community. That wouldn’t include preacher expenses, music expenses, or anything done for the regular services, which are all club functions to serve members. But it would include soup kitchens, relief aid sent to disaster victims, etc. I bet a great side effect of making this tax distinction would be that churches would actually do more for their communities.
Gluon – yes, churches do a bit of service, but in general, they spend most of their budget on themselves. From the Holy Soup blog:
Comparatively, what do churches spend on personnel, buildings and administration expenses? Those items consume 82 percent of the average church’s budget, according a study from the Evangelical Christian Credit Union.
You could argue about comparing a church’s expenses to a public charity’s expenses. But the enormous disparity is striking, especially to the public. It’s made worse by looking at how churches allocate funds to direct ministries. According to the ECCU study, churches use 3 percent of their budget for children’s and youth programs, and 2 percent for adult programs. Local and national benevolence receives 1 percent of the typical church budget.
A church that uses only 1% of their budget on non-member services would be allowed to deduct only 1% of their valuation. It’d work like deducting expenses for your home office.
And, yes, of course… I know from personal experience that almost all of church funds go to providing services and/or entertainment to members, and so should not be viewed as charity at all. That’s my point.
Yes, and I was just agreeing.
I wish the comment section were a local pub where hearing someone talk would eliminate a lot of banal misunderstandings (though, after a bit alcohol might foster others… 😉
Amen – if I can use that term here 🙂
Our club has a separate foundation where we channel charitable deductions for the good of the community. Churches should be required to separate the organizational structure and accounting of those things done for the benefit of the members and true charity done for others.
Of course, takes the IRS…
This would probably be the best way to do it. Of course, you could get some mileage out of just having rules like those for exempting personal property as a business expense (i.e. a home office). There’d be more cheating with the latter scheme, but it’d be a lower barrier to starting.
Whatever the scheme, I think the mere acknowledgement of the distinction would have a positive effect on churches. Seeing that some local social club spends more on the non-member community than the church does would probably shame some churches into turning a little more of their activities into practical outward help.
This video really brightened up my day!
One reason why SCOTUS appointments are so crucial.
http://www.vid.me/fFKQ#1s
“Surgery’s … … stressful and tedious and sometimes I get just part – way through and be like … … meh.
Blue
“This is soooo bad.
We need a … … priest.”
Blue
In the US one of the conditions of a church being tax free is that they don’t electioneer – that they don’t tell their congregations who to vote for. But every year a number of them have a day protesting that law and deliberately and openly do that because Freedom of Speech. They always get away with it because the IRS is already hated and the backlash would be huge.
Those who deliberately break the law in this way would, I suspect, be the first to be disdainful towards anyone else protesting in a similar way.
If they are just protesting against that law then they are not, in fact, breaking it. (Unless their protest takes the form of telling people how to vote).
I totally disagree with them, but if they want to get involved in politics – well, Henry VIII had a good answer to that sort of thing 😉
cr
They protest the law by breaking it. Sorry I didn’t make that clear.
Oh, then I agree with your comment.
Though I think churches should stay out of politics whether they get a tax exemption or not.
cr
Christian churches involved in politics would probably be OK if they actually paid attention to the politics of Jesus. The late John Howard Yoder wrote a dense tome about the subject and nearly all US denominations would likely dismiss it as heresy.
Well, assuming we take most cognisance of Jesus’ more liberal moments and ignore his occasional spasms of authoritarianism, I agree.
But then, if Jesus started preaching in the streets today, he’d be dismissed as a Communist or a dangerous radical.
cr
Although this is small potatoes compared to the real estate holdings, church pastors can also claim a tax exemption on their housing. For most congregations, this means that the ordained ministers and other leaders can claim the exemption. However, in certain congregationalist churches such as the Churches of Christ, there is the concept of “the priesthood of believers” which means that any member of the church is a pastor and eligible for the exemption. This has been batted around in the courts but as far as I know it is still an an accepted practice. Although this article is four years old, it is a good discussion of the issue, especially the comments section. http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjreilly/2012/02/22/should-jeremy-lins-college-coach-get-a-tax-break-for-being-a-congregationalist/#5fb318b13ba2
Jesus died so Joel Osteen could live in a mansion.
How is that guy and all the others not in business to scam people?
Osteen may be a greedy scam artist, but his style of preaching is still better than Benny Hinn’s. 😛
And while we’re at it we should make sure the same is true for all of George Soros 527 tax exempt organizations acorn ,gamalio project funding Ferguson riots you know that kind of thing
You know while you’re at it churches are trying to save people from hell and Soros is trying to subjugate the United States of America
Hard to tell if you are my friend Joe playing Poe or my cousin Steve being serious.
Mr. Soros spend 200.000 euro’s on the “Yes” campaign in the recent Dutch referendum about the EU treaty with Ukraine. End result: 61% said “No.” I find it hard to believe George Soros can subjugate the U.S. when he can’t even influence a referendum in a small country bordering the North Sea.
My religious relatives try to make this kind of point, that churches are “saving souls” and that all of that preaching, singing, and other things that look like entertainment from the outside are therefore actually part of their charitable effort.
The problem is that, for any serious believer, some churches/religions are trying to save people from hell while others, the heretical churches/religions, are busy trying sending people to hell. So while your Christian church is trying to keep people out of Hell, the local Mosque, Synagogue, Hindu Temple, or Scientology center, and all of the heretical Christian sects, the ones preaching overtly false doctrines, are exerting effort that will cause people to go to Hell.
As I’m sure you know, narrow is the way that leads to life and few are they who find it, so that means that if we extend tax breaks to all churches/religions regardless of doctrine then the vast majority of those tax breaks will go towards sending people to hell, not keeping them from it. So if the premise is that we extend tax breaks to churches because part of the public service of churches is keeping people out of hell, then the government has to decide which churches are the true churches teaching doctrines that will keep you out of hell and which are the false churches that are speeding people’s path to hell.
How do you propose the government go about doing that?
Well put, gluonspring.
Something tells me this would not seem like a difficult problem to our interlocutor. His/her church, of course! It’s just obvious.
Sure, but it’s worth something to get them to say it.
It’s not extended because the 15th was Friday, it’s because it was some kind of holiday (for some, apparently).
Emancipation Day. A holiday in Washington DC.
Let us not forget that the tax exempt status of churches is only part of the privileging of religion in America. If individuals itemize their deductions (use Schedule A) on their federal income tax returns, they can deduct (with certain limitations) their contributions to their churches. I wonder how many billions are lost by this tax loophole for the faithful.
https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tools/tax-tips/Tax-Deductions-and-Credits/What-Percent-of-Church-Giving-Can-Be-Taken-Off-Federal-Taxes-/INF14329.html
And that housing allowance deduction that nearly all ministers get has to be huge.
Up to 50% of income? Who is crazier, the person who would do this or the politicians for allowing it. I should be able to deduct that yacht as a water medical device.
No properties, activities or individuals associated with religious organizations should be tax free.
The property, church and associated structures should not be tax free. Some “ministers” have multiple expensive homes that are tax free, and should not be. Some churches have multiple ministers (perhaps with multiple homes) whose homes are tax free, and should not be.
Since church charity is predominantly for the congregation, it should not be tax free. Since soup kitchens and similar “good works” not specifically for members of the church are primarily for proselytizing, they should not be tax free.
Any school, hospital, nursing home, retirement community, or any other business owned by a church in competition with non-church owned businesses, should not be tax free.
Taxing such would greatly benefit the national coffers and would, perhaps, do more good for more people disbursed from there.
No doubt causing Henry and Clare Boothe Luce to go tossing in their graves.
Ironic the Catholic Church gets to avoid millions in all kinds of taxes yet the Vatican Bank is one of the top tax havens in the world for the wealthy.
The reason not taxing churches is wrong is that they get benefits that are funded with tax money, such as various government services. And since they don’t pay for that, we do.
In other words, the law currently requires us to pay the church’s taxes for them.
Was just wondering if Don the Trump will ever release any income tax reports? Don’t think that he will because it would continue to show what a pig he is. I heard something on his claims of charity the other day but did not get all of it. Apparently he is always bragging how much he gives so someone did some checking on what his people finally provided. It was something less than two hundred thousand over a period of years and none of it was actual cash. Mostly free golf rounds to people or groups that he wanted favors from. Not even deductible.
Start with property tax. Make it simple and no exceptions.
For medium size local churches it eould mean a couple thousand dollars each year. For wavers ten thousand people that might be about 50-100 thousand or 5-10 dollars per person. Of course it is the 25% of the population that actually goes and gives at church. They will pay…how gratifying.
They should pay taxes the same as we mere Mortals- who aren’t talking to God every 5 mins-do,I would love to see those TV Frauds explain away their Private Jets as gifts from the Almighty, wonder what big G would do ? after all he gave them to em, would he instantly replace them? now that I would pay to see.
If churches are taxed, they’d have a right to get involved in politics. As long as they’re doing it illegally, we can take them to task, but if it becomes legal they won’t shut up.
If they are actually a charity, the same “protection” applies, at least here in Canada. (And this principle could generalize.)