A Note on Tax Exemptions for Churches

[marylandblue]

77. You seem to be confused about how accounting works

Last edited Wed Sep 12, 2018, 03:28 AM - Edit history (1)

Your apartment costs your landlord money to provide. The cost includes mostly mortgage, maintenance and taxes. If he owns 100 apartments, he has 100 different costs, based on size, repairs needed etc. And even though he doesn't know exactly how many will be rented ,or how many repairs he will need to make, he probably knows that in an average year he will have, say, 90% occupancy and spend $1,000 per apartment in repairs. Meanwhile his mortgage stays the same and he can estimate his taxes based on last year's taxes. So he adds up all those costs and estimates including taxes, divides it by 90 occupied apartments, adds a little for profit and sets the rent for the year. All the other things you mentioned - promotional rate, a short term rental, etc. are all part of the cost of doing business. If he offers a promotional rate, he loses a month's rent from that one apartment, but he's already figured that into his rent calculation based on the 90% occupancy he needs to keep.

On the government side, it's even easier. They figure out what services they need to provide - police, fire, schools, road maintenance and that comes out to a number. These are PUBLIC services, that is, you can't say, "If you don't pay tax, you don't get the benefit." Since the services can't be witheld, the cost is based on the total population. But the tax revenue can only be collected from those who pay tax, which is property owners. If you rent, your landlord is paying taxes out of your rent money, and the government knows he is doing that. In fact, if you live in an apartment building, the government assesses the value of the property based on the rental income it can produce.

All other persons and entities - the homeless, visitors, children, nonprofits and churches are, in essence, freeloaders. But that's okay, the government knows there are freeloaders and already accounted for them. But the problem is that the cost still has to borne by the taxpayer. Some freeloaders are unavoidable - we can't stop people from visiting the community, so we just deal with it. Others are optional, like giving tax breaks to nonprofits and churches. For the optional freeloaders, the question is "are they worth the cost?" The government says yes, some people say no.