http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/22/you-give-religions-more-than-82-5-billion-a-year


<quote>
Matt Yglesias thinks we ought to start taxing churches. “Whichever faith you think is the one true faith, it’s undeniable that the majority of this church-spending is going to support false doctrines,” he notes. Even if you did direct the money toward the one true faith, it’d still be a bad idea, as “Upgrading a church’s physical plant doesn’t enhance the soul-saving capacity of its clergy.”
Regardless of whether you buy Yglesias’s logic, this raises an interesting question — exactly how much money are we talking about here? If, all of a sudden, churches, synagogues, mosques and the like lost their tax privileges, how much tax revenue would that generate?
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It would generate a HUGE amount of revenue!

gemini Wrote:
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> It would generate a HUGE amount of revenue!

Imagine what all money could do to fix our nation's schools, roads,etc!!

Even if you don't want to take the time to read the article, (link in the OP), take a look at the charts.

Wow, those charts say it all.

There is a comment about paying tithes in the readers comments.

Cragun is a former Mormon, grew up in Utah. He has done podcasts on a few of the big sites and is very educated on the subject.

He is a great reference on religion and money and also on how the LDS counts its' membership, two of my preferred issues to drive home the truth about the mission and operations of the LDS Chrch.

The better way to phrase it is that we should get rid of tax exempt organizations across the board. There is a strong argument that we should end corporate income taxation all together (retaining property tax) BUT tax ALL distributions. (In other words, if your company leases you a car, that is income.)

One problem with saying "let's tax churches" is that would probably fall afoul of the first ammendment. I believe that simply removing the law allowing for tax exemption would pass constitutional muster (though there are those who argue otherwise.)

It should begin with a clear definition of what is a church. I am surprised that Walmart has not declared themselves a church yet.

They all should be taxed.

In real numbers, and Obama Care aside, that is enough money to give every man, woman, and child in the US the same health care policy as members of congress have for a year.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2013 02:17PM by deco.

Walmart = The Church of Commerce of Latter-day Waltons.

From a fiscal point of view, $82.5 isn't a lot of money. We add $2 billion to our national debt every day. So getting an extra $82.5 billion a year would be spent in 40 days just to cover our current debt. But from a fairness standpoint, I don't understand why any group is tax exempt. The government uses tax breaks and tax penalties to manipulate the behavior of its citizens. What benefit does it do society for some guy to start a church and collect money from his followers as his way of making a living. Why is that guy's behavior worthy of tax breaks, but working for a company that creates products and sells them for a profit is not worthy of tax breaks?

Let's start by requiring all church finances to be made public. That includes for profit and non profit businesses.

There's plenty of taxes they could pay. Too many have become businesses.