If Churches and Religious organizations were not tax-exempt...

[WestCoastLib]

How much less impact would they have in our lives and our politics?

[H2O Man]

1. "If my aunt had balls,

why, she'd be my uncle!"

[WestCoastLib]

2. It happens

[H2O Man]

5. But taxing a church won't.

For better or for worse -- likely both -- it just isn't going to happen. Even when a church goes way beyond serving a religious purpose.

[hrmjustin]

3. Likely the same.

[TexasProgresive]

4. If not for the threat of the IRS to take away that exemption

they would be free to electioneer and lobby without care. And probably they could be eligible for some other tax exempt status.

[Chan790]

15. "eligible for some other tax exempt status"

It would be a simple reorganization to become an NPO. The only way to ever tax churches would be to repeal tax-exemption for charitable and social-service organizations entirely.

I am obviously opposed.

[pipoman]

6. it would certainly change the demand for government social programs

I have heard that religious groups carry around 80% of all non government aid for the poor and half of non government aid for disaster relief...

[pinto]

8. They fill a lot of gaps, totally within non-profit tax guidelines. I support maintaining that. +1

It's the activities that push the limits of tax guidelines that rankles me.

[pinto]

7. IRS oversight of 501 (c)3 standards is the key. Applying existing regulations is lax and ineffective

They've overlooked a lot.

[pipoman]

9. some if those regs are a little close to infringement of civil rights/liberties

Thus the reluctance to try heavy handed enforcement...imo

[pinto]

10. I'm missing your point.

[pipoman]

11. The political campaigning piece could be argued to infringe

On free speech....it happens on both sides and I'm not sure either side wants to be the side to prosecute it...

[unblock]

14. no one's infringing on free speech by taking away a tax benefit.

as long as the speech is political, it is not tax-exempt. the speech can still happen, it's just that the organization would be subject to tax just as any other organization that engaged in non-tax-exempt activities.

it's really only a free speech problem if enforcement is selective, based on the content; e.g., tax left churches but not right churches, or vice versa.

[pipoman]

16. or 501 (c)4...they can be politically active...

Again, I think it comes down to lack of will by both parties to step into this too deeply...

[unblock]

18. well, social welfare and labor unions, which can include advocating certain positions

but it can't include telling people to vote for this candidate or that candidate; or this party or that party.

that's the kind of thing that gets people the most upset when it comes to churches playing politics.

i don't think people have a real problem with churches advocating helping the homeless or opposing abortion (even if i might disagree with the latter position). it's when they say "you're going to go to hell if you vote for kerry because of his position on abortion" that gets people questioning the merit of their tax-exempt status.

[Dont call me Shirley]

12. Time to tax churches. They are referred, on the inside, as businesses.

[unblock]

13. the problem is not the tax exemption of religious organizations per se

they're no better or worse or really any different than social clubs, book clubs, fraternities, or any of the other categories of non-profit organizations.

the problem is when such organizations engage in non-tax-exempt activities, most notably, politics.

responsible organizations separate their non-profit activities from their for-profit or otherwise non-tax-exempt activities. churches can (and plenty do) exactly this. thus a church can legally and legitimately engage in political activity within a non-tax-exempt organization, but continue to encourage charitable activities through a related non-profit organization.

so really it's a matter of enforcement. the law already provides the means to punish churches that engage in political activity, it's just that there doesn't seem to be great enforcement of this. then again, i don't know, perhaps the ones that do engage in fairly overt political activity have exactly the kind of legal separation noted above.


on the other hand, how much could the government really do to prevent people from getting together and taking political direction from someone they respect in their community? as tempting as it sounds to use the tax code as a weapon, i don't think much would change even if enforcement were to become very strict. churches could just separate their activities between non-profit and political, and keep the bulk of the money in the non-profit, enabling them to continue to engage in political activity while paying nominal taxes.

the only thing it might, *maybe*, accomplish is to make it a bit more difficult to mega-preachers to become filthy rich. i say *maybe* because there's no reason why the non-profit can't pay the preacher an enormous salary and bonus.

[ieoeja]

17. They would have more.

Today they are not allowed to openly declare for, donate to, etc a specific candidate. To be fair, the right to openly participate in the electoral process would have to come with the requirement to pay taxes.

[dissentient]

19. Ain't going to happen. There are a bazillion religious folk in the United States

I think sometimes at Du we can forget that most people in the U.S. are either deeply religious, as in Christian, or they practice some other religion. The numbers just don't work for something like this to ever get passed by congress.