Exempting churches from taxes is simply illegal and unAmerican. Nearly everyone in this country is being pinched right now, and the government is in a deep deficit. How then, is it fair to say that a club, which serves NO PURPOSE to non-members, should not pay taxes because they believe in an invisible magic man in the sky?”Recruitment” and “outreach” are just other words for “Sales and marketing”, and very few synagogues, churches, or mosques do anything at all for their community. And yet, because they say they believe in a deity, they skip out on taxes.And remember, the federal, state, and local governments have a budget — a finite amount of income that must be met. So when that huge megachurch pays no taxes, the rest of us make up for it. In other words, the government is forcing every citizen to fund religion against their will. It’s not fair, and it should stop. If a church actually performs a good civil service, then that’s a different story. But it’s not my business, nor is it my intent, to fund religious buildings and services out of my tax dollars. If having to pay taxes means the church fails, this is not my problem, because it means the government was keeping the church alive by force all this time. Churches are the responsibility of the membership, not the whole community at-large.American Atheists, for example, is not a religious organization. We declare our income, file taxes, work (mostly) for free, and have an open public library that anyone can use. Moreover, we volunteer to help people understand the plight of the nonreligious people in this country. We are TRULY non-profit. THIS is community service. BUT, if we did none of that, and we called ourselves religious, we’d get MORE of a tax break. That’s wrong.So TAX THE CHURCH (and the synagogue, the mosque, and the Moonies and Scientologists), and give the money back to the rest of us. Church members can donate the savings back to their churches, and I can pay my bills.
Boise Jim, this is Boise NeoWolfe. You said,You don’t need to be rich to be happy.
Unfortunately, in an environment where big business is so huge they hold our ecomonic balls in their hands, we are right back where we were in the eighteen hundreds, when sweat shop owners dictatated the terms to those who wanted to bargain for the value of their work against the profits being made by the unscrupulous industrialal barons.
No stop, wait, posting on this site is so con f ucking fusing, that I believe that atheism
has just been as poorly represented as science. I wonder if this even be read? Can’t read what I wrote. Nice upgrade Dave, how exactly did wea all benefit?
NeoWolfe
I can read it fine Neo. What happened?
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Couldn’t this non-taxation be considered a backdoor way of making everyone support religions? I object to supporting religion, even if it means the loss of tax exemption to all non-profit organizations. If I want to support an organization, say American Atheists, I would be able to send a bigger contribution if my taxes weren’t so high because I have to pay for some holy rollers church.
Ya’ know, there should be an Atheist church – nothing on the agenda, really – maybe some movies, some snacks, video games, arguments, etc. All tax-free! That way WE can take advantage of this, and get some tax-free JUNK and become, well, JUNK havers…
Dave,
As I write my cursor disappears out of sight and I can not read my text for at least five spaces until your software returns my cursor to the text box. Obviously, I am learning to adjust. I close my eyes and carefully key each word until the text returns. But, somehow, that doesn’t seem like an upgrade. Then I go to preview. I find typos, but I cannot correct them in preview. I scroll down and for the moment it was like it was before with all the text in the box, but if I make one single letter correction, the box goes back to right quarter invisible. If I made several typos, I have to correct and re-preview several times. If I went tantrum, I’m sorry, but I always thought that upgrades were supposed to improve user friendliness. My comment text box has gone rogue. And I have found no means of adjusting it’s function.
NeoWolfe
I’m not understanding how ya’all think our tax dollars goes towards religious buildings/funds/etc.? I’ve attended four different churches and none of them receieved any money of any kind from the government. Any one employed by the church had to pay taxes on their income, any purchases made by the church were taxed (though from what I understand they can claim tax exempt for items purchased – which in my mind is bogus). The only thing not taxed is the money donated to the church by those attending the church. Why should donated money be taxed?
@Jamie: Our tax dollars go to religious buildings/funds/etc. because they are not being taxed. The money that would go to the federal government is instead going to those alternate uses, hence (always wanted to use that word) the federal government is giving them money by not taxing it like they would any other business.
@Xaivior13: That’s what I mean. While all of the other things listed as being tax-exempt are for the good of the community, for some reason just being a church is good enough. You could do absolutely nothing for the community except take in money and hoard it, never help the poor, never help anyone at all, not even the people that go to the church, yet it is tax-exempt for the sole reason of being a church.