They get away with it because they take advantage of the same lack of enforcement that your church faces. Don’t you think it would be fair if all churches were regulated the same as other non religious 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organizations?
What specific lack of enforcement are you accusing my and other churches of? We have independent audits of our accounts, we have professionals prepare the forms the IRS requires, we require multiple signatures for every disbursement,etc.
I’d be all for them getting taxed. Assuming they turn a profit. If your chuch is badly bringing in enough money to pay a salary and the rest is donated to the poor does it really matter what your tax exempt status is?
Any internal audits your church may participate in may be all very well and good, but as has been already stated:
Churches are 501c3s automatically but do not have to file an annual return that is public.
I don’t know if they need to file at 990 at all, but I’m 100% sure that they do it is not publicly available like a school’s or an adoption agency’s would be. I have been on the board of one of each of these, and anyone can pull up the accounts of each of those organizations right off the web.
I’ll assume your church is a benevolent, transparent, organization that neither defrauds, nor intends to defraud anyone. But, the fact that the transparency of your organization is optional is what makes the regulation (or rather lack of regulation) of the religion industry problematic.
To answer your question, ‘yes’. I want your, and every single other church, to be taxed exactly like every other 501c3. This is to say, not at all, provided that they demonstrate that their operations are substantively and quantifiably non-profit. That they should ‘just be trusted’ to operate so, with no oversight AND no legal requirement that they do so is problematic.
So would you be satisfied if they did exactly the same paperwork as any other not-for-profit, or should they be taxed, period? It seems to me that those are two very different points of view.
I would be satisfied if they were required to follow the same regulations and file the same paperwork as any other not-for-profit, and if evidence for such was publicly available.
Under your scenario we should be satisfied if they made the claim, even if we have no way of actually finding out…which every two-bit “church” hustler would be more than happy to go along with.
You’re reading more into my scenario than I wrote.
Is what your church does in the name of transparency required by the IRS, or is it voluntary?
Are the records you gather available for perusal by outside agencies?
It is a church, so they are voluntary. Which is the entire problem. Bad actors can simply opt not to behave so benevolently.
[Moderating]
This thread has been drifting off track for a while-- I probably should have intervened sooner. But as a reminder, this is GeneralFactual Questions. The way things are is a valid topic. The way things should be is not.
Summary
Funny, most of us regular Joes are kind of in the same boat. You know, us guys who pay taxes.
ISTM that as best we can tell the answer to the OP Factual Question is “we don’t really know, and probably do not have enough of the data to conclude how much it would represent (especially without specifying what the basis-of-taxation would be); what we do know suggests the amounts may be nowhere close to that and the savings to individuals would no way be so huge”.
The way things are: secular tax-exempt nonprofits are subject to both IRS and state supervision and may have their status withdrawn, or even be threatened with dissolution, if the authorities detect they or their leadersgip are not playing by the rules. Religious institutions, OTOH ostensibly do not receive the same level of oversight, either explicitly or implicitly under color of SOCAS/Free Exercise protections. As stated by the Mod, whether this is good or what to do about it is not for FQ.
I’d be willing to bet if you put the property on the market you’d get legit offers for the land’s actual value.
It costs next to nothing to just send some mail to someone saying you’ll pay them some amount for the land that is well below its value. Send enough and you might get a bite on occasion.
Also (and I really do not know how this works) they may be considering that while the land has a high value they would need to demolish the church which is expensive. As you noted, no one wants a church building except another church. The people who want the land would have to pay to be rid of the church structure and that may figure into their offer (I would think).
It does sometimes happen that a non-church buys a church. There’s one around here that was bought and converted to a private art gallery. But yeah, it’s a very limited market.
I don’t know about the assumption that we could get a lot more if we actually put the property up for sale. I’m not saying you’re incorrect, only that we don’t really know. The property has a pretty steep grade running across it (too steep even for standard two-story or split foyer houses,) and the entire neighborhood is zoned single family residential, which lets out any commercial development Even more problematic, the church was built during the asbestos era, so unless it’s there forever, someone is going to have face some hefty cleanup costs. Of course all that would be equally true for a for-profit organization on the same land.
But in general, the market for mid-20th Century suburban church properties around here is pretty slow, unless they happen to be on a major street.
Most churches are old, and Historical commissions try to prevent them from being torn down. I don’t know if that was the situation here, but that consideration has to lower their value.
Most of the thread seems to be about federal taxation. Local property taxes are rarely paid by any non-profit. But churches are given automatic exemption, whereas other non-profits may be challenged in court based on complex rules varying between states.
Well, you said unsolicited offers were for less than half the land’s value.
I have no idea how that value was arrived at except what your county says it is (and who knows how they figured it out?).