Or you could say they’re selling community involvement and fellowship, like many other non-profits. I don’t want the IRS or Congress deciding which churches are “good” and which are “bad”. If you don’t like a particular church, don’t donate to them.
Even a for-profit business doesn’t pay taxes on overhead.
Paying for tuition isn’t a tax deductible donation. You do understand that the vast majority of a non-profit’s tax exemption benefit is for the donor, not the organization itself, right?
tithes are asked, not required, and fund-raises are ubiquitous across non-profits. And it’s churches–not the gov’t–that feeds and houses the poor from their pocket
I believe that is incorrect. It is due to the 1st Amendment Establishment Clause.
No, it’s correct. If it was based on the First Amendment, they would have been excluded from the beginning.
I’d have to check that. In the beginning states had official state religions but the interpretation of the Establishment Clause has evolved over time. It can’t just be charity to justify it. What if a church doesn’t believe in charity? Are charity organizations also exempt from property taxes?
ETA: Yep, I was wrong and y’all were right but I do have a cite
Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York
As I’ve learned on the Dope, people have extremely different views of what they consider “charity”. I’d be curious what sort of church doesn’t engage is charitable purposes, but regardless, the IRS classifies all religious organizations under section 501c3, as long as they adhere to policy restrictions outlined under such (essentially not outright and explicitly endorsing political candidates).
Yes.
I agree.
Overall
He’s not going shut down the tax status overall because his base has a lot of religious evangelicals who would be very angry if he did so. So the only question is the exceptions.
Non-Christian Sects
I think that he will ignore these as well. They are relatively small potatoes and making exceptions for them in the tax code is a blatant violation of church and state separation. You might argue that with his new dictatorial powers he doesn’t have to worry about that. But if he’s got dictatorial powers then why is he bothering piddling around with the tax code. He can just declare them to be terrorists and go after them criminally.
Polituically Liberal Sects
Again the question is, is it worth it to make an exception to go after them. For the most part probably not. Figuring out which churches are “good” and which are “bad” will take a fair amount of effort, and if you start going after the bad ones wholesale, then other Christians even “good” ones who are known for their persecution complex might start getting upset. So as long as they keep their head down you might as well leave them alone. But if for some reason some individual church starts making headlines with its liberal stance or starts harboring refugees terrorists, then you come down on them hard.
In part. Property that’s used in their charitable purpose is not taxed. So Harvard, Yale, etc. pay property tax on non-school use property they own. I think some larger universities do make voluntary (I think). In some cases fire district taxes must be paid. I don’t know if churches must pay to a fire district. The state government also sometimes makes payments in lieu of taxes to local governments to make up for property taxes not collected.
Your timing is off.
And FTR, the organizations being attacked by Flynn and Musk are also sponsored by the conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, which comes pretty close if not completely fundamentalizst.
They also have to be the right KIND of Christian on top of it.
One wonders how they would handle Judaism.
Same as every other religion. As long as Jewish bodies and institutions display proper devotion to the Orange One,ostentatiously express enthusiastic support for the MAGA line and deny or at least refrain from noticing, e.g., Elon Musk’s obvious Nazi-adjacency, they’ll be fine.
can you give cite for LSMS “sponsoring” these organizations? AS ex-member of LCMS, they wouldn’t even allow ELCA to take communion
Here’s a whole raft of references direct from the LCMS website.
Texas just passed a bill to provide vouchers for private schools paid for by guess who.
Mexico?