[jeffkrol]

just some food for thought..
http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20121007/APC0101/310070318/State-group-s...text|FRONTPAGE

Baty has believed for about 30 years that housing allowances are unconstitutional. He once thought they should be allowed but changed his mind after the basketball coach at a Christian school in Oklahoma got a minister’s housing allowance.

He said a court has never ruled on whether the parsonage allowance, which dates back to the 1920s, is constitutional.

The implications of the parsonage allowance lawsuit could be far-reaching, said Edward A. Zelinsky, a law professor at Yeshiva University in New York City.

Zelinsky said that the government gives all kinds of exemptions to religious groups. Ministers are exempt from the Americans with Disabilities Act, for example, and the Amish are exempt from paying Social Security and won’t be penalized for not buying insurance under the health care reform law.

“If you don’t think the parsonage allowance is constitutional -- then I don’t see how you can say these other exemptions are legal, either,” he said.

He says the parsonage allowance is constitutional and disagrees with the claim that the housing allowance is a government subsidy of religion.

“There are no perfect choices here,” he said. “When Jefferson wrote about the separation of church and state, he was looking at a world of limited government and modest churches. Today we live in a world of sprawling governments and sprawling church institutions.”

The Freedom From Religion Foundation’s lawsuit isn’t the first challenge to the parsonage exemption.

[Tom S.]

I've never come to terms with religion being tax exempt in the first place. Most are nothing more than corporations based on beliefs. That's not to say they should be taxed the same as corporations, just that they shouldn't be tax exempt.

[boriscleto]

I've never come to terms with religion being tax exempt in the first place. Most are nothing more than corporations based on beliefs. That's not to say they should be taxed the same as corporations, just that they shouldn't be tax exempt.

Why shouldn't they be taxed at the corporate rate? The Church of Scientology became a "Church" explicitly to be tax free, while the Church of the Subgenius has been proudly paying its taxes for over 30 years.

[Tom S.]

Why shouldn't they be taxed at the corporate rate? The Church of Scientology became a "Church" explicitly to be tax free, while the Church of the Subgenius has been proudly paying its taxes for over 30 years.

Because too many corporations don't pay taxes.

[Ratmagiclady]

Why shouldn't they be taxed at the corporate rate? The Church of Scientology became a "Church" explicitly to be tax free, while the Church of the Subgenius has been proudly paying its taxes for over 30 years.

Well, the Church of the Subgenius is of course a for-prophet institution, the Saint of Sales, and hail "Bob."


I do consider religious tax exemptions to be less of a favoring of religion in particular, (especially since non-religious nonprofits can get similar exemptions,) but just something that's roundly-abused by wealthy and powerful churches that dip into the public till while advocating to reduce the public's ability to do for ourselves, too often.

Really, the exemptions are supposed to be part of the neutrality and separation of church and state, not tax breaks and subsidies for megachurches and lobbying organizations and the like. It's one thing that if you've ever had to be part of running things for small, not-moneyed religious groups, you'd really notice: if your big event for the year is budgeted in three figures, not five or six, taxes and fees as they are, (or the legal certifications to avoid those,) constitute a big chunk of the budget, whereas the churches operating on millions of dollars of budget and income both claim more loopholes, and indeed end up rather enriching themselves.

If they *were* run like corporations, they'd likely just pay the corporate lawyers to dodge the taxes just *like* corporations do, whereas the burden would be put on smaller/poorer groups, unless things were done with a little more sophistication than 'tax the churches.'

Taxation is also supposed to come with representation, and now 'ever more 'corporate personhood,' and all kinds of other things the big religions already have too much of out there. (And Scientology isn't *big,* but it's very, very, very rich and corporate/legally-savvy.)

Tax and zoning codes can be particularly difficult in some communities where the mere idea of a Pagan grove building so much as a gazebo on their own land meets a lot of obstruction, even sometimes hostility. And it's really hard to get *buried* as we'd prefer in a lot of places, especially if in the future, property tax bills go unpaid (Even as exemptions as they are are passed out, the system as is is stacked against smaller, less-munificent and often less-favored groups, but that's part of the way the system's abused/become other than intended.)

The *idea* of religious exemptions is to ensure freedom by keeping such governmental/money concerns *out* of the free exercise of religion, and also to avoid these notions where privileged and wealthy churches *act* like their "freedom/ free exercise of religion" involves religious and budgetary and policy power-plays.

I sympathize with the 'Tax the Churches!' hue and cry, but I also want to point out that the big-money-big-politics ones are already run too much like corporations for comfort as it is. It's analagous to how 'pro-business' legislation never ends up serving the interests of *small* business. The big churches can also make it worthwhile to have big lawyers, big accountants, big tax shelters and the like. Those *not* abusing the system are the ones that can't do that.

So, perspective, there.

[boriscleto]

Daily Kos: Catholic church to lose historic property tax exemption in Italy