Politician or Priest

[Pie]

What you choose believe or not believe is not my concern. Why your 'club' should be tax-exempt? That's a much harder question.

The services you provide are for your members only. Or are you bound by laws of public accommodation?

I thought not.

[SamIam]

Originally Posted by Pie

What you choose believe or not believe is not my concern. Why your 'club' should be tax-exempt? That's a much harder question.

Churches, schools, and charities, along with amateur sports leagues, labor unions, farm associations and active members of the US armed forces do not pay taxes. Big Oil also often gets tax breaks. Write your congressman and good luck.

It has always been my understanding that the tax exemption for churches is part of the seperation between church and state. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

The services you provide are for your members only. Or are you bound by laws of public accommodation?

I thought not.

Think some more. Battered women are given a place in our shelter and no one asks what if anything they believe in. People who show up at the soup kitchen do not have to be card carrying Methodists or anything else. We mainly ask that they do not be so drunk as to be disruptive.

It really is a shame that so many otherwise intelligent people are so mis-informed.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by SamIam

. . . and active members of the US armed forces do not pay taxes.

Partially correct. If you are serving in a theater of war, you're exempted on income earned in the time you were there. The rest of your military compensation you pay income taxes on, with some modifications on your state income tax picture per the Soldiers' and Sailors' Civil Relief Act of 1947.

Big Oil also often gets tax breaks.

This being a somewhat extreme but by no means unusual example of policy made in support of capitalism -- in roughly the same category as limited liability. Just cushier -- and lobbyists worked very hard to get it that way. The essential idea at the bottom is to facilitate prosperity, for with prosperity facilitated, things are better for simply everybody.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Especially Big Oil.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Especially Big Oil.

...but nowhere near as much as the big sugar oligopoly.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by SamIam

...and active members of the US armed forces do not pay taxes.

Bloody hell, we sure do pay taxes. Federal and state (depending on your state of record). Given that as you move around you can change your state of record and the first chance anyone has to get to a state that has no state taxes most change to that state. But federal taxes are paid on all income. And with the exception, as Congress grants the right, to have income which is earned in declared combat areas may have portions not subject to tax for defined periods of deployment.