Based upon court rulings on how tax exemptions for charitable groups work, we cannot be conclude that churches and religious organizations automatically deserve exemptions. Even if one believes that their religion and their church provide a necessary public service, it does not follow that all religions and churches necessarily provide a public service which merits support through tax exemptions.
Read Article: Do Churches Deserve Tax Exemptions?
Churches certainly deserve tax exemption, but they arent the only ones who do.
Everyone deserves total tax exemption. Taxation is theft.
I say that tax exemption should be expanded beyond merely the religious services sector.
I wholeheartedly agree. Taxation the stealing of money. Yes, religion is bulls@#T, bu that doesn’t qualify them to be forced to fork over their cash.
Everyone hates the tax-man. But I think people fail to make the distinction between tax and abuse of the tax system.
The principal of tax is to provide money for the government to provide basic and essential services to the population. Including but not limited to
Roads, sewage, water, education, international protection(military), health (hospitals etc), civil protection (police), a legal system and courts to enforce it, jails, and so forth.
The only people or groups who should be exempt from paying for these services are
a) those that don’t recieve any of those services.
b) organisations that do not generate profit and exist soley for the supply of these or other essential services to the population.
Every person or group that returns a profit and recieves the benefit of these services should pay into the system that provides and maintains them. To not do so is theft from those that do.
The separate issue of the tax system being abused by those who have the ability. This is something that is a judicial issue. However, groups or individuals NOT paying into a tax system to provide services they use is an abuse of this system.
Churches deserve tax exemptions only to the extent that they operate as charitible, non-profit organizations. They do not deserve blanket exemption. They should be held to the same standards in the tax code as any other business, and if they cannot show that they deserve a tax break by those standards, then they do not deserve a tax break.
If churches don’t pay taxes then they shouldn’t get free public services. Look reverand, i’ll use the fire departmant i pay for and you pray for rain —- Bill Maher.