"Put Gays and Lesbians in Electrified Pen to Kill Them Off"

[Aimless]

The question is what portion of this church-money actually goes towards charity work. Something like 80% of Oxfam's income goes towards more-or-less direct charity work. In order to be classed as a "charity" in the US an organisation has to donate something like 5% annually.

Religious organisations are ostensibly exempted from income taxes because they're considered to be non-profit organisations. Unlike all other non-profit organisations with income, however, they are not even required to file tax forms, or account for what they're spending their money on. In most cases they're barely even required to comply with the criteria for their tax exemption, and participants of stunts like Pulpit Freedom Sunday get away with openly violating one of those rules.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwo...dom-and-taxes/

Not only are they exempted from paying taxes on income, they're also exempted from paying taxes on property, to the tune of tens/hundreds of billions:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-s...b_1002753.html
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/a...NrXY5q5OQlfNuO

How does that make sense, in a modern society?

The Church of Scientology doesn't have to pay taxes or file any tax forms or the like in the US. Do you imagine it's a non-profit organisation?

Megachurches in the US can earn millions for their more senior leaders, enough to buy rolls royces and private jets and mansions. What, that's not a result of profit?

What does the parsonage exemption have to do with charity, except as charity for the wealthier pastors?

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterjre...age-exemption/





When it comes to taxes churches receive special treatment because they're churches, not simply because they're like charities in some respects.

[RandBlade]

Again the first amendment prevents discriminating between religions. If you were to charge taxes on the Church of Scientology, you would have to charge taxes on every church.

[Aimless]

Again the first amendment prevents discriminating between religions. If you were to charge taxes on the Church of Scientology, you would have to charge taxes on every church.

Wow, you think? However the special treatment granted to churches and other religious organisations, in the US, is itself problematic from a constitutional standpoint. At least that's the impression I've gotten from more informed commentators. Moreover there is nothing in the US constitution that says that churches must be exempt from taxes. But more to the point churches aren't more like charities than they're like businesses; they're a whole different kind of beast.

[Khendraja'aro]

In Germany, Scientology is classed as a business and a sect. It's also under supervision of our Constitutional Watch agency. As such, it doesn't get recognition as a religion.

[Loki]

The US government is constitutionally barred from deciding what is and what is not a religion on the basis of doctrine.

[Khendraja'aro]

Oh, don't get me wrong, courts decided that single persons could indeed use the doctrines behind Scientology as a religion.

It's the organization they had a problem with - namely that the religious aspect was just one among many, the business aspect being a much more prominent one.

[Loki]

Is there any particular reason why a religion can't be a money-making venture?

[Aimless]

You mean other than for tax exemption purposes?

[RandBlade]

Is there any particular reason why a religion can't be a money-making venture?

I think its worth noting that many charities have associated profit-making ventures that are designed to raise revenues for the charity. In the UK at least the profit-making arm has to pay taxes, the charity arm does not.

I don't see why the same can't be done for religions.

[Loki]

You mean other than for tax exemption purposes?

No, for the purpose of being recognized as a religion (regarding Scientology's status in Germany).

[Khendraja'aro]

Is there any particular reason why a religion can't be a money-making venture?

Of course they can. They just have to pay their taxes like everyone else, then.

Scientology wanted the tax-free status and the money-making. Too bad for them.

[GGT]

The US government is constitutionally barred from deciding what is and what is not a religion on the basis of doctrine.

But it's also within the government's scope to decide when a group can claim religious status, and enjoy religious tax-exempt status.

[Flixy]

For what it's worth, I don't think tax exemption should be based on whether it is a religion or not. Over here, an institution can get tax exempt if their goal (as defined in their charters) is to 'general benefit the society' (sorry for the broken english there, not entirely sure how to translate it). There are a bunch of criteria you have to fit: 90% of the activities have to fit in the general benefit area, there is an 'integrity test' (leaders cannot recently be convicted of, for example, calling for violence, etc.), it cannot be a commercial enterprise (in taxation sense), and it cannot interfere with competition (e.g. you cannot use the tax exemption to gain an advantage over similar organizations, e.g. if your organizations activities form competition for activities of non-tax-exempt organizations), you have to be a non-profit, non of the leaders can be able to use the capital for themselves (or more practically, they cannot have a majority interest and they have to be independent from eachother), and they cannot personally gain more than expenses and reasonable reimbursements for their time and services, the organization cannot have more capital than they reasonably need to continue their operations, and when the organization is liquidated the remaining capital has to be donated to charities (there are more rules but these are the important ones). 'General benefit' is defined as welfare, culture, education, science, research, environment, healthcare, youth and elderly care, aid to developing nations, animal welfare, religion, spirituality, philosophy, or advancing the democratic order. It's fairly objective (the term 'reasonable' sounds subjective but is mostly based on precedence). Churches can use it, but so can cultural foundation (when I was treasurer of a cultural foundation we got tax exempt in this way).

Calling for gays to kill eachother off in an electrified pen might be a reason to discontinue the tax exemption, though (depending on who said it, how often, and if it's their official view), but not likely and definitely not easily. I'd like to add that the status is not taken away lightly, for example, rightwing politicians have complained about salafi muslim organizations with tax exemption because they are fundamentalist muslims, but the government response was that salafi-political views an sich are no reason to discontinue the tax exemption.

Deciding what is a religion and what is a sect will always be political and subjective, so I do prefer an objective as possible criterium for, say, tax exemption.

[LittleFuzzy]

How does that make sense, in a modern society?

You live in a country with an established state church, one that receives funding from state taxation, right? That makes even less sense to me.

[RandBlade]

You live in a country with an established state church, one that receives funding from state taxation, right? That makes even less sense to me.

I don't know if the CoE does get taxes come to think of it?

The Bishops do get a seat at the Lords though. Imagine bishops having their own reserved Senate seats. Voting on the laws in the legislature, even worse than tax exempt.

[Steely Glint]

I don't know if the CoE does get taxes come to think of it?

Nope.

The Bishops do get a seat at the Lords though. Imagine bishops having their own reserved Senate seats. Voting on the laws in the legislature, even worse than tax exempt.

The Lords is hardly equivalent in power to the Senate. And given that the entire chamber is unelected, I don't know how that having bishops is any worse than having landed gentry on the BFFs of current and past Prime Ministers. I mean, obviously it is worse because religion is a disease, but if you don't think that then bishops are no worse.

[wiggin]

I don't know if the CoE does get taxes come to think of it?

The Bishops do get a seat at the Lords though. Imagine bishops having their own reserved Senate seats. Voting on the laws in the legislature, even worse than tax exempt.

He was talking to Minx, and it does appear that the Swedish government collects taxes for the church. True, most of the taxes are a voluntary addition to tax returns for members of the Church of Sweden, but I would still find it an egregious violation of the separation of church and state - especially since it appears to be an opt-out rather than an opt-in. There also appears to be a mandatory funeral tax for everyone (not just members) which pays for church funerals.

I don't know about the CoE so I can't speak to that wrt taxes, but definitely your House of Lords is an affront to democracy. I've read the Economist pieces on proposed reforms to the HoL and to be honest this is one of the few times I actually agree with the Lib Dems.

[RandBlade]

He was talking to Minx, and it does appear that the Swedish government collects taxes for the church. True, most of the taxes are a voluntary addition to tax returns for members of the Church of Sweden, but I would still find it an egregious violation of the separation of church and state - especially since it appears to be an opt-out rather than an opt-in. There also appears to be a mandatory funeral tax for everyone (not just members) which pays for church funerals.

It appears from Google that there are no public payments to the CoE.

I don't know about the CoE so I can't speak to that wrt taxes, but definitely your House of Lords is an affront to democracy. I've read the Economist pieces on proposed reforms to the HoL and to be honest this is one of the few times I actually agree with the Lib Dems.

While I am in favour of reforms to the HoL, I do not like the proposed reforms to the HoL one jot:

1: People who get elected will hold 15 year terms - that is an absurdly long time.
2: It won't be a fully-elected Lords, Bishops will still retain seats in the revamped (and inevitably more powerful with a democratic mandate) Lords.

[wiggin]

1: People who get elected will hold 15 year terms - that is an absurdly long time.
2: It won't be a fully-elected Lords, Bishops will still retain seats in the revamped (and inevitably more powerful with a democratic mandate) Lords.

Agreed with these critiques. I don't think the Lib Dem plan is actually good, but I think anything is better than the HoL currently, and I find widespread political opposition in both Tory and Labor circles to be distasteful.

I understand the logic that a more democratic HoL that was actually responsible to voters might wish to exercise their powers a bit more, perhaps negating some of the influence in the Commons. Yet I find that a poor argument to keep the HoL around in its current state. Either they should eliminate it entirely or make it a deliberative body with an actual democratic mandate. Furthermore, if the Commons is concerned about their power, perhaps they should work on redefining the role of the HoL to make the delineation of duties and powers more concrete.

[RandBlade]

Actually the most common argument against reforming the current House isn't just that the relationship between Commons and Lords would change, it's also that oddly enough the current system works. No it's not democratic, but as a 'revising chamber' full of experts the bills often come back better from the Lords than they were when the party politicians had sent them through. The will of the elected politicians can't be blocked by the Lords if there's a clash. The Parliament Act means that the Commons can ignore a rejection by the Lords. However the Lords often send through amendments that the Commons accepts.

Despite this quite British fudge working, I'd still prefer an elected upper chamber; my concern is that the proposed system is very flawed. If it went to a referendum, I don't know how I'd vote.

[LittleFuzzy]

It appears from Google that there are no public payments to the CoE.

That's nice. I didn't say the CoE. Wiggin didn't say the CoE. No one has said the CoE. No one cares about the CoE but you because you can't seem to grasp that countries besides the UK also have established state churches.

[RandBlade]

That's nice. I didn't say the CoE. Wiggin didn't say the CoE. No one has said the CoE. No one cares about the CoE but you because you can't seem to grasp that countries besides the UK also have established state churches.

No.

I knew the CoE wasn't the Church being referred to all along. I do realise of course that minx isn't English. However The question made me curious, that is all.