The national Freedom From Religion Foundation, along with 21 of its California members, has filed a nationally-significant federal lawsuit in Sacramento, challenging tax benefits for “ministers of the gospel,” commonly known as “the parsonage exemption.”
Ministers, who are paid in tax-free dollars, also may deduct their mortgage interest and property tax payments. Under both Federal and California law, allowances paid to “ministers of the gospel” are not treated as taxable income, unlike the situation for other taxpayers. Only “ministers of the gospel” may claim these benefits, so the statutes convey a governmental message of endorsement, unconstitutionally favoring religious employees and institutions over all others, the Foundation maintains.
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It sure would be great if this court action produced a positive, anti-Jeebus industry result. But since the argument put forth by FFRF is completely rational I expect they will fail.
Ministers of the Gospel is pretty specific. It seems the legislation/regulation originally was intended to be exclusively for Christian clergy. Has it been allowed to Rabbis and Imams and others?
You probably don’t realize this, but your cutting your nose off to spite your face. If you think it will stop with religious tax exemptions and not carry over to non-religious like membership in the AA, you’re mistaken. I think all Americans should be exempt from any form of direct taxation. Rather than increase taxes on ministers, which is the way it will go, why can’t we fight for tax exemption for everyone on housing issues? The same issue can be argued on behalf of all tax payers instead of to the benefit of tax collectors.
Furthermore, ministers pay SE tax on those benefits. What is given on one line is taken back on another. The tax rate on ministers is actually higher than the average American employ because they pay all of their SS without sharing it with their employees. Self-employed and employed are different animals in the tax code. Granted they should be equally applicable in all non-profits and not just religious.
AFAIC, I consider ministers & priests to be parasitic layabouts who prey off of the fear of death & the promise of an afterlife that isn’t there.
So tax the frauds into the ground, & maybe they’ll get real jobs.
Krystal, there’s clearly no evidence of intelligent design in that answer. Since they have no job skills to survive in a capitalist society maybe they could go back to college, stay until they get a PHD, become a professor, get tenure, live the rest of their life on the teat, brainwashing free thinkers into believing in evolution and marxism. Their anthem could be:
First I was a tad pole, beginning to begin.
Then I was a frog with my tail tucked in.
Next I was a monkey swinging in a tree.
Now I’m a professor with a PHD.
Since that wasn’t an answer to any question but a statement of fact, missed (again).
A. I have no sympathy as they’re a bunch of blood-sucking conmen (whether they realize it or no),
B. since evolution is reality, no ‘brainwashing’ is necessary, &
C. I really doubt anybody here is a marxist, I doubt anybody’s ‘indoctrinating’ anyone in marxism anywhere (since it’s a long dead joke), & prattling on & on about marxism here is making you look the right idiot.
You’re a legend in your own mind Krystal. Remember ya said that in ten years.
10 Conditions For Transition To Communism (From the Communist Manifesto)
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.
According to the Communist Manifesto, all these were prior conditions for a transition from capitalism to communism, but Marx and Engels later expressed a desire to modernize this passage.
You’ll probably need someone to help you understand these, but if you think there’s no method to the madness in Washington, then just wait and see where we end up. Both Republicans and Democrats have systematically implemented most of the list over the years and W and O are no exceptions.
& yet strangely, the largest communist country has pretty much collapsed, & the other countries that were caught in the wave (or subsequently were taken over) are slowly becoming democratic. & how many countries became translated to communism peacefully?
Coming from the same dipwad who claimed that items that cost taxpayers money weren’t economic and political mechanisms, I’m sure I’m not the guy who needs help understanding how the real world works.
LMAO! Wow. So a lack of belief in the supernatural makes materialists socialist, is that the lame argument you’re still propounding here?
A quick trip to wiki kinda pokes holes into your strident yet stupid argument:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
Karl Marx never provided a detailed description as to how communism would function as an economic system, but it is understood that a communist economy would consist of common ownership of the means of production, culminating in the negation of the concept of private ownership of capital, which referred to the means of production in Marxian terminology.
You keep claiming you’re not republican, but you have all the hysteria-inducing ‘talking points’ that qualify you for membership:
1. Anti-intellectualism,
2. McCarthyist rhetoric,
3. conspiratorial craziness,
& other fucktardery too numerous to list.
Well,? Any more brain farts you want to share w/the class?
(Like unequivocally equating communism w/socialism?)
Maybe you’ll drag out Obama’s birth certificate too, while you’re at it.
When I was self-employed I paid double SS, plus my taxes. Why should the clergy be given favored treatment? Tax them the same as all others. Tax exemption for some makes every individual pay more taxes.
DW: As a capitalist, wouldn’t you rather lower taxes for everyone, instead of raise them for everyone? Since small and medium business owners provide over 90 million jobs in our economy, supply side economics would encourage reduction, not increases in taxes. Yes, the rules should be uniform, but not to the benefit of the government. As someone who was self-employed, surely you understand the strain taxes had on growing your business, thus slowing your growth and consequently economic growth for our overall economy.
Obviously exempting the churches from taxes is what DW’s talking about. Why you think that removing the tax exemption from churches would hike everybody else’s taxes is a mystery.
But you don’t seem especially bright to begin with.
Taxes on the individual citizen could be lowered if Churches were paying their fair share. Could be lowered… probably the government will just find new ways to waste more money. Without taxes would we not have a socialist government? Where would the government get money for it’s functions. If it just prints it, wouldn’t that devalue the currency? I think we are headed in that direction anyway.
OT
Wow. I assume it is the new twitter feed at the top of the blog that is making pages load at a glacial pace – yet one more reason not to spend time here anymore. See ya.
Madison, Jefferson, et al have already addressed a very similar issue and sent it to a crushing defeat:
“To the Honorable the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia
A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments
We the subscribers , citizens of the said Commonwealth, having taken into serious consideration, a Bill printed by order of the last Session of General Assembly, entitled “A Bill establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion,” and conceiving that the same if finally armed with the sanctions of a law, will be a dangerous abuse of power, are bound as faithful members of a free State to remonstrate against it, and to declare the reasons by which we are determined. We remonstrate against the said Bill,
Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, “that religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence.” The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also, because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considerd as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man’s right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance. True it is, that no other rule exists, by which any question which may divide a Society, can be ultimately determined, but the will of the majority; but it is also true that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority.
Because Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body. The latter are but the creatures and vicegerents of the former. Their jurisdiction is both derivative and limited: it is limited with regard to the co-ordinate departments, more necessarily is it limited with regard to the constituents. The preservation of a free Government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. The People who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves.
Because it is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of Citizens, and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entagled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much soon to forget it. Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever? ”
Who does not see that the same authority which can force a 21st century citizen to contribute three pennies only for the support of “Ministers of gospel” can force the same 21st century citizen to CONFORM to ANY other establishment in ALL cases whatsoever??!!??
Could the “read more” link be fixed? Please and advance thanks.
How much revenue is lost because of this.I ask this because pentagon says every gallon of gas sent to afghanistan costs 400 dollars and the marines there use 800,000 gals alone.
How much is lost to state coffers.
Just think about local property tax also because the cost of some mega church exemption is passed on to you makes you sick doesn’t it.
Fixed the link!
Thanks.
Our entire tax code is designed to create inequality. I agree in theory with the FFRF, but they are playing into the hands of the IRS and the federal government. This is just one of the myriad of write off policies in our tax code for different types of employees. This is like having a million little wholes in the Hoover Dam and choosing to stick your pinky in one and hold it there, while ignoring the serious infrastructural problem that caused them all.
The key question is the exemption Constitutional.At the rate we are spending soon we will be forced to choose, raise taxes or cut spending.
I agree with Tamara….Its annoying to read and post here due to the time it takes to load a page…..
Dave please speed up the page loading…..
For me, it’s only slow with Internet Explorer. There is something on the No God Blog web page that causes it to wait for several seconds.
Firefox does not have the same problem. You can get it here…
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ie.html?utm_id=Q208lnch&utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=ppc
Thanks for the tech support jeff….it wokred