Paying back the National Debt - A Modest Proposal.

[benburch]

Folks, various estimates place the amount of tax not captured due to the religious exemption at 100 billion to 500 billion per year, including both income not taxed and the tax deductions individuals take for donations to religious charities.

If we taxed all presently exempt religions, we would be able to pay off the National Debt.

[democrat_patriot]

1. TAX ALL CHURCHES!!!!!!!

Repeat ad nauseum.

[gordianot]

2. Those churches that receive federal funds should definitely be taxed.

Also eliminate exemptions and tax ministers salaries.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Uhh, this preacher's kid is going to inform you that

minister's salaries ARE taxed. They pay income tax just like regular folks.

I don't know who's spreading the bullshit rumor that clergy don't pay taxes on their salaries. But they're wrong.

[gordianot]

8. My apologies, I stand corrected.

Do they pay at the same rate?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Yes, the same rate as other people of their income, and

depending on the denomination, they may also pay quarterly estimated tax in lieu of FICA, just like self-employed people, in other words, the full %15.3.

[FogerRox]

3. NO--if churches cross into politics take away the tax exempt status

sure--

[benburch]

4. And why should churches have a different status than others?

I see no justification for that in the Constitution.

[FogerRox]

5. Separation of church and state

or do we let church's into politics. Thats been a slippery road over the last 1000 years. I was just reading about the 30 years war. a fictional story placed in 1633.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. And if the churches have to pay taxes, should other non-profits, too?

And if small, struggling churches shut down because they have to pay taxes, who is going to feed the people they've been feeding, who is going to provide free meeting space for community groups, who is going provide workplace clothes for people coming off welfare, who is going to assemble crews for Habitat for Humanity projects, who is going to sponsor refugees, who is going to host homeless shelters, who is going to provide respite care for Alzheimers patients?

Honestly, I get sick of people who are not themselves involved with religious groups, and therefore see only the loudmouths on the right, ignorantly--yes, ignorantly!-- declaring that ALL churches should be taxed, because that would mean taxing most churches (which have an average membership of 162 nationwide) out of existence. The sequined, blow-dried loudmouths you see on TV are not the face of mainstream American Christianity.

Maybe you deserve to have that happen. Then let's see the secular left rally to provide on a volunteer basis all the stuff the churches are providing on a volunteer basis. :grr:

Not only that. The people who are actually involved with churches will take rightfully take this as an attack by ornery atheists, and those who are on the political fence will hightail it to the Republicans.

Here's a less divisive way to raise money: cut back the Bush tax breaks and restore the tax brackets to what they were in the Kennedy era. And while you're at it, cut the Pentagon's budget to what the U.S. actually needs to defend itself--not what it needs to rule the world. Then there would be plenty for everybody.