Ending God's Tax Exempt Status

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Exactly. When churches pay the same as everybody else, they aren't being charged to exercise their religious freedom.

Yes they are. Saying "everybody else" is putting a church on the same footing with an individual. A Church is made up of individuals that have already been taxed, so you want to double tax them in order to exercise their religion. Fortunately, the founding fathers foresaw your desire to repress the churches and wrote that protection into the Constitution. That's why the churches aren't taxed and can't participate in politics.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Yes they are. Saying "everybody else" is putting a church on the same footing with an individual. A Church is made up of individuals that have already been taxed, so you want to double tax them in order to exercise their religion.

And a corporation is made up of individuals that have already been taxed...

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Fortunately, the founding fathers foresaw your desire to repress the churches and wrote that protection into the Constitution.

Is that a fact, or are you presenting your opinion as fact, again?

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

That's why the churches aren't taxed and can't participate in politics.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion

It looks like taxation after a religion has been "established" isn't protected, at least not by the founders. Those same, wonderful founders who didn't have the balls to make slavery unconstitutional.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Yes they are. Saying "everybody else" is putting a church on the same footing with any other organization.

After I fixed your typo, I agree.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

I agree.

Thank you.

[dar512]

Threads like these go on and on because no terms are defined and everyone is using similar words to mean different things.

From a quick google on the subject, a non-profit is defined as "an organization whose primary objective is to support an issue or matter of private interest or public concern for non-commercial purposes, without concern for monetary profit."

By that definition, my local Catholic church is a non-profit. It does not exist in order to create a profit and provides a number of valuable services to the community.

[lumberjim]

Originally Posted by dar512

Threads like these go on and on because no terms are defined and everyone is using similar words to mean different things.

From a quick google on the subject, a non-profit is defined as "an organization whose primary objective is to support an issue or matter of private interest or public concern for non-commercial purposes, without concern for monetary profit."

By that definition, my local Catholic church is a non-profit. It does not exist in order to create a profit and provides a number of valuable services to the community.

this is where you lose me.

[dar512]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

this is where you lose me.

I don't see why it should. Our budgeting process is fairly transparent. Once a year they explain what the expected expenses are for the upcoming period and ask for donations to meet that need. No extra money is asked for. Anything left over at the end of the year rolls over to the next year.

[dar512]

Originally Posted by dar512

... my local Catholic church is a non-profit.

My local Catholic church has nothing to do with LRon.