On 3 May 2004, David S Chesler wrote:
Carol Lee Smith <human@csd.uwm.edu> wrote in message news:<Pine.OSF.3.96.1040503091552.25099D-100000@alpha1.csd.uwm.edu>...
On Sun, 2 May 2004, Le Mod Pol wrote:
... Religious institutions pay for most public
services, such as water supply and sewerage, gas and
electricity and in some municipalities garbage as well.
Churches don't pay their fair share of taxes as do other businesses.
They aren't businesses. They are members of the classes "All properties",
and they are members of the class "All properties, except those which
are residences."
Religious institutions make money, have employees, properties, incomes,
etc. They share many aspects with businesses. I think they are more
business than anything else. Most importantly, they take advantage of the
benefits other institutions do pay for.
You apparently disagree with that.
How much is a fair share?
I am suggesting that the sum zero is not a fair share. Something is
better than nothing. I have yet to see a rational argument in support of
everyone else paying for them.
I'm more inclined to agree with you in principle than in practice.
In practice, most religious institutions serve their congregants
and their community. If people belong to on average one religious
institution, with a small standard deviation, it's pretty much a
wash if they pay somewhat higher taxes directly, and none through
the religious organization, or somewhat lower taxes directly
because the religious organizations are also putting something into
the pot, but they've still got the same money left in their bank
account, because their membership dues at the church is that much
higher.
http://www.taxchurches.com/links/
Of course it's not equal: the amount of property taxes that would
reasonably be paid on a shteebl and on the archbishop's official
residence are different. (So why is this coming up repeatedly in
a discussion about a shteebl?)
I don't know much about shteeblech.
Not only do churches not pay the same taxes that OTHER BUSINESSES pay,
Again, they're not businesses.
Is that the only reason they don't pay their fair share? Because they
don't want to be called businesses?
On the other hand, some 501(c)3 businesses are clearly businesses, but they
also don't pay some taxes and gifts to them are tax deductible as charity.
I understand the argument that if they get taxed other tax exempt orgs
will have to be taxed.
If orgs. use services, they should fund them.
donations given to religious institutions are exempt from taxation.
Monies I may give to a Unitarian Society or an Ethical Cultural Society
are tax deductible. If I give money to my local freethought society I get
no such tax deduction.
Why is that?
So is your objection that the society that you belong to isn't exempt
from taxes and that gifts to it aren't deductible as charity?
The society to which I belong is the secular society of American citizens.
My objection is that Religious Organizations do not pay yet avail
themselves of public services.
"Without faith we might relapse into scientific or rational thinking,
which leads by a slippery slope toward constitutional democracy."
-- Robert Anton Wilson
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