Should faith-based organizations pay taxes?

i'd like to use "nonreasonable" since by the very definition you cannot use reason to justify things that are faith-based

kidding, of course... shall we let it fly?

"faith-based" is such a strange and sneaky term.

"Faith-based" is often used as a euphemism for "religious" in this context, in order to avoid the thorny issue of whether such funding is permissible under the Establishment Clause.

Ultimately, I think it still gets the job done.

mark, we can argue the details when it's approved. I'll have a bone to pick with your points - looking forward to it!

i'm going to revise... thoughts on the wording anyone?

Speaking as the son af a pastor of a Church of god, my personal take is that churches should only be taxed after a certain amount of income is reached because churches have more expenses than most people realize or give credit for. The number of meals for church and community members, not to mention flowers and a visitation every time a member or family member of someone goes in the hospital adds up incredibly. That doesn't take into account missionary work, or low cost/ free day care for children at certain churches, etc.....  Plus if the church doesn,t bring in the money, the pastor has to pay expenses out of his own pocket.

Great points from JZipp.  Nick's revision looks good.

very good... jzipp. how about

Should faith-based organizations pay taxes?

this includes other-than-churches and i think is better than religious institutions

Here's an article from About.com on the issue... it sheds some background:

It is thus arguable that all of this money represents an indirect contribution to all of those religious organizations. Because taxes which would go to pay for their share of maintaining society are made up for by the rest of us, they are free to use that money in other ways, for example promulgating their message to a wider audience. They certainly have a right to spread their ideas wherever they wish, but do they also have a right to public assistance in doing so? We have, then, two inter-related objections to religious tax exemptions: they represent a huge amount of money which must be made up by everyone else, and filling that gap may constitute indirect subsidies paid by the public to religious institutions in violation of the separation of church and state.

This is very specific to religious organizations because the tax exemptions don't necessarily require these groups to do charitable work (which is why other non-profits can apparently claim tax exemptions on a number of items)... religious organizations can use the money they save to futher promote their teachings / messages... which some view as a "charitable service" while others do not.

either they should or they shouldn't so if the debate's there..it's a good issue.

Why is this specific to churches though? Nick's awful assessment seems to imply that this should be more broad:

Should non-profits pay taxes

Good point JZipp. My comment went up before I saw that.

It's always nice to hear about clergy politicking from the pulpit down with their tax exempt status. Good issue...I'm shocked we have gone this long without it.

Anyone see potential problems with this one?

Isn't it "religious institutions" rather than just "churches"... even Scientology gets tax exemption on the religious basis... what about mosques and synagogues?

A perfectly good issue. There are many who have questioned the wisdom of their tax-exempt status.

I think it's a good issue.

Came up with Obama and his (former) church and whether he risked its tax-exempt status by politicking there (it was determined by the IRS that his speech was fine/ not too politicky, and the church maintained its tax-exempt status).

prompted by this

I read this somewhere else recently. There's really less of a reason for churches to not pay taxes than there is for baseball to have a monopoly. That's my personal belief, anyway... there's definitely a controversy here that people are starting to complain about.

Non-profit does not mean that the people involved do not enrich themselves. It means that something rather mundane - that the money left over after expenses are paid is not distributed to the owners. This is also true in most growth companies that don't pay dividends. This is a pretty awful assessment overall, but it's early and I'm tired....