This is, as far as I understand it, the argument used against taxing churches. As far as the law is concerned (due to the jurisprudential sentiment of the Seperation of Church and State and the founding principle of "No taxation without representation") a church cannot be taxed without being allowed representation.
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Churches as organizations cannot legally donate, contribute, or otherwise involve themselves in the political process of the US due to their tax exempt status. Can individuals themselves involve themselves in politics? Yes. The individual priest/preacher is taxed via income and sales taxes therefore they get to vote in the electoral process as they wish.
And churches do have to pay the Non-Ad Valorem tax. This is tax the helps pay for things like the police and fire departments and other local public things like sewage.
I was unaware of this but it does make sense that since the church and it's parishioners are using public roadways and/or services they should pay for them. My comment above was directed more in reference to federal taxes as opposed to municipal ones.
I mean i used to be a missionary for my church and i think its hard because most of the money the church used was humanitarian or maintaining church building. A ton of donations were our major income for the church (at least the money that i saw was used) so it seems kinda hard to tax money thats been donated because people get taxed so the government would just be taking more money from people they already taxed since its donated its like would you tax a charity? I feel like its the same thing idk though i mean thats my point of view i also served in the church so I'm prolly biased but idk just a thought to go along with it.
Imo local parishes and smaller church groups should remain exempt to most forms of taxation but these megachurches with pseudo gym membership type donations, that have concession stands, or sell merchandise should (again imo) be taxed. They're more business than church.
yeah i honestly think it should be a case by case thing most the time money is donated for a particular objective in mind if that money is used in a charitable form i would be a lot happier with that if you find churchs abusing donations and spending money at a rapid rate on stupid things i think there should be grounds for starting to tax but i mean i feel like it would be abused though either into taxing all churchs for small or stupid things or would end up just getting taken off. I just wished things were simpler you just kinda have to trust people.
*Story up ahead*
Large part of my mission was in these super country towns of kentucky a lot of devout catholics and baptist we got along pretty good with them did a lot of service stuff with them. Anyways the main person told us this story about a guy a couple years ago came down and he was a preacher really good at getting people to come in. He asked for donations to start building a new bigger church building. A lot of these people
(sorry 2 parter you can ignore the story lol didnt realize it was so long) donated even though most of them werent super wealthy (mostly corn fields so a lot of farmers) Well they end up getting a ton of money saved up and this dude one day just skipped town with all the money. It was devastating. A ton of people stopped going to church and didnt trust any religious people it was pretty sad.
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Churches as organizations cannot legally donate, contribute, or otherwise involve themselves in the political process of the US due to their tax exempt status. Can individuals themselves involve themselves in politics? Yes. The individual priest/preacher is taxed via income and sales taxes therefore they get to vote in the electoral process as they wish.
*Story up ahead*
Large part of my mission was in these super country towns of kentucky a lot of devout catholics and baptist we got along pretty good with them did a lot of service stuff with them. Anyways the main person told us this story about a guy a couple years ago came down and he was a preacher really good at getting people to come in. He asked for donations to start building a new bigger church building. A lot of these people