Tax the Church

[Cow Poke]

If they tried to remove the tax exempt status from the Church, they would most likely have to remove it from all non-profit organizations too.

Unfortunately, many churches have acted like non-profit BUSINESSES, which gives good argument to those who want to do away with all tax-exempt status.

[Thoughtful Monk]

If they tried to remove the tax exempt status from the Church, they would most likely have to remove it from all non-profit organizations too.

I'm having trouble seeing how they could do just the church without other non-profits as well. At a minimum, they would have to strip it from all religious organizations.

I have seen a couple hints at non-profit reform. We may yet see this happen under that guise.

[Sparko]

If they tried to remove the tax exempt status from the Church, they would most likely have to remove it from all non-profit organizations too.

[Cow Poke]

My news feed popped up an article about should churches pay taxes. His trigger was apparently #TaxTheChurch has been trending on Twitter since mid July. He also seems biased for it to happen.

Few random thoughts:

I can't come up with a Bible passage that says a church shouldn't pay taxes if the government requires it.

This would certainly be hard one churches struggling to survive financially. It probably would cause a wave of closings. On the other hand, I think a lot of them would probably fail anyways.

I think under equal protection laws, you couldn't do this to just Christian churches. I think you would have to remove taxes on all religious groups.

If a church is viewed as a group people with a common purpose, how is that different from a group like Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, etc.? They might get swept into this. This could end up becoming a removal of all tax exemptions.

Frankly at this time, I don't see enough political will to start taxing churches.

Article here: https://theconversation.com/amid-cal...-taxman-164988

The fish that Jesus told Peter to catch (probably the only time in the bible Peter fished without a net) was to produce the coin to pay the taxes for Jesus and Peter.

Interesting passage, that! It wasn't the Roman tax, but the Temple tax, and it was only expected of men of military service age in the OT.

Makes you wonder if maybe the rest of the disciples were not yet military age.

(just throwing some stuff out there over which others can grapple)

[KingsGambit]

I can't come up with a Bible passage that says a church shouldn't pay taxes if the government requires it.

Any arguments that were marshalled in that manner could probably be used to argue that people in general shouldn't pay taxes, which the Bible is perfectly clear about but which a number of Christians (like Kent Hovind at one point) still seem to see as less than clear.

[Cow Poke]

The bigger prize is the ministerial housing allowance. There have been many attempts to eliminate the IRS provision that allows ministers to declare their housing costs as tax exempt income.

If a minister gets paid $80,000 salary from a church, for example, he can declare a housing exemption of, say, $30,000 (there are forumlas for determining the allowable amount), making his taxable income $50,000.

That's the main target.

[Thoughtful Monk]

My news feed popped up an article about should churches pay taxes. His trigger was apparently #TaxTheChurch has been trending on Twitter since mid July. He also seems biased for it to happen.

Few random thoughts:

I can't come up with a Bible passage that says a church shouldn't pay taxes if the government requires it.

This would certainly be hard one churches struggling to survive financially. It probably would cause a wave of closings. On the other hand, I think a lot of them would probably fail anyways.

I think under equal protection laws, you couldn't do this to just Christian churches. I think you would have to remove taxes on all religious groups.

If a church is viewed as a group people with a common purpose, how is that different from a group like Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, etc.? They might get swept into this. This could end up becoming a removal of all tax exemptions.

Frankly at this time, I don't see enough political will to start taxing churches.

Article here: https://theconversation.com/amid-cal...-taxman-164988