uhcord

Whoohoo!

I hope they declare it unconstitutional.

Zippidy-do-da!

Edit: Lol, I said 'constitutional' at first.

[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: vonmeth ]</p>

Oresta

(8) Non-profits should not be restricted any more than for profits entities, from engaging in poliitical activities.

I agree with all other points you made, but I'm not sure what you mean here by political activity. If you mean political advocacy, as in campaigning for or against a referendum, I agree. That is already allowed, as I'm sure you know. But if, by "political activities", you mean direct political support for specific candidates, I disagree. For churches, in particular, this is a slippery slope.
Could you expand on this point and your rationale?

[ March 13, 2002: Message edited by: Oresta ]</p>

Grumpy

It gets even more confusing, now that a judge has ruled that the Texas Comptroller must grant a tax exemption to the Ethical Culture Society -- a non-theistic religious group. The lawsuit was <a href="http://www.aeu.org/texas.htm" target="_blank">originally filed</a> in 1998, and I heard a ruling came down just this week.

In the recent story, the comptroller was quoted as saying it would be chaos if she had to grant property tax exemptions to anyone claiming to be a religion -- even those who don't recognize a Supreme Being. She says "anyone who dresses up for Halloween" would qualify.

I got an easy answer: Eliminate tax exemptions altogether. Since the state can't show a preference for one religion over another by judging them worthy of a benefit, and since there would be no basis for setting a minimum qualification, then just chuck the whole thing.

You won't see me crying.

randman

You guys are missing the point here on the legal issue. You have it backward. Congress is not granting a tax exemption, despite it appearing that way in your tax forms.

Congress is forbidden from taxing churches and religious establishments. They cannot apply taxes to religious organizations because that would be passing a law concerning a religious establishment, restricting the free exercise of religion, and mixing church funds with state functions. This is expressly forbidden by the first amendment.

Therefore, any monies that go to a religious organization are tax exempt, and ordained ministers are viewed as part of the religious organization so certain aspects of their income are not subject to taxes. The housing allowance is one, and ministers can opt out of social security and medicare taxes if they feel it is objectionable, (for instance that it is mixing church and state).

Ministers must still pay personal income tax, but churches are not required to file anything at all to recieve tax exempt status. They are not charities, but automatically excluded from taxation, unless it is in an area not religiously oriented. For instance, they must pay payroll taxes for regular employees.

Toto

Sorry, you are the one missing the point. Congress is authorized to tax income from whatever source derived. If Congress does not tax religious income, that is an exemption from taxation. What part of English do you not understand?

Your next paragraph is confused. There is nothing in the First Amendment that prohibits government from requiring religious organizations to obey generally applicable laws. Minister's salaries are not tax exempt (although they have more loopholes than the rest of us.) School buses owned by religious schools still have to obey the traffic lights. Do you have a problem with this?

The Supreme Court upheld the exemption of religious property from taxation in Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York, in part to avoid the excessive entanglement of government and religion. If the First Amendment were so explicit, there would have been no need for that decision.

The rest of your rant is rather pointless given this.

randman

"If the First Amendment were so explicit, there would have been no need for that decision"

Gee, that makes sense. Can we apply that to free speech, voting rights, gun ownership, etc,..?

BY the way, excessive entanglement, think about why they consider direct taxation of religious organizations to be excessive entanglement.

Toto

If the First Amendment were explicit, there would be no need for a lawsuit to decide what it meant.

I don't know why you want us to think about why direct taxation of religious organizations is excessive entanglement. Is there some non-obvious meaning hidden in those words? Do you continue to be mystified by the English language?

In spite of the First Amendment, the IRS has foreclosed on church property for unpaid taxes. The IRS has put ministers in jail for tax violations. Even Pat Robertson's law firm hasn't challenged the right of the IRS to do this. So where does that leave you?

Toto

Here's another instance of the tension between the Eastablishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment:

<a href="http://www.theadvocate.com/news/story.asp?StoryID=28701" target="_blank">Federal Judge blocks sales tax immunity granted to religious groups</a>

[ March 25, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>

ohwilleke

I have no problem with churches and other non-profits using their own money to campaign for or against particular candidates in particular elections. I am simply not afraid of more speech skewing the political process. Heck, it might even make politicial decision making easier in many cases for both those in favor and against: "This guy has the endorsement of the 7th Day Baptists, I don't think I'll vote for him." Easier than reading the paper. Many churches would probably elect to take a neutral stance most of the time. But, some wouldn't and I don't think that a desire to endorse a particular candidate or make contributions to that candidate who probably shares a church's view on any particular issue is any more harmful than allowing a church to argue in favor of Jesus instead of Shiva. Churches do not exist to be netural, and candidates are an integral part of securing policies that groups think are just. (Needless to say, I'm not a great fan of campaign finance reform either).

Indeed, I think that there is probably something dangerous about allowing for profit corporations to lobby and support candidates, as we do now (or at least as we did until the most recent campaign finance act which faces court challenges passed), who have only their own selfish interests at heart, while keeping churches and other non-profits, that in practice care more about the total person than corporations do, out of the political process.

Moreover, there is great positive benefit for not empowering a government agency, such as the IRS, to see if a group is too political or not based on the content of its political speech. The current rules on tax exemptions is a poor compromise.

Note also, that under my proposal, a tax exemption would provide even less than the existing tax benefits for PACs.

ohwilleke

You are correct that churches must pay payroll taxes and social security taxes and medicare taxes. Churches must also pay taxes on unrelated business income. Indeed, generally speaking, the rule is that churches may be required to pay generally applicable taxes, but not taxes particular to churches.

The prohibition does not flow from the First Amendment. Even if there were concerns about this, it would not arise either from the establishment clause, since taxing a church has nothing with making a church an official religion, or with some problem about mixing church funds with state funds, which happens every time a church pays its payroll taxes.

Free exercise means freedom to exercise a religion, not freedom from being subject to generally applicable laws. And, even where social security exemptions are allowed, they are not quite in the same vein as income tax exemptions, because the handful of people who are exempt from paying social security taxes because their beliefs specifically are opposed to paying social security taxes (not because they are simply churches) are also forbidden from receiving social security benefits. It is a trade off.

[ March 25, 2002: Message edited by: ohwilleke ]</p>