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Comment by ProllyInfamous | Hacker News Reader

Can we also start taxing churches, nationwide?!

Super unpopular opinion:

Most churches (with the obvious exception of megachurches amongst others) do more good than harm. I feel like they are good for local communities because its one of the few places that people interact face to face, and the downsides of religion "brainwashing" probably happens more on the internet than irl.

Im ok with letting churches be.

Have you ever seen religion in the deep Southern US, in the most religious areas? It's practically brainwashing even irl.

I personally live in the mid-sized Southern city with the distinction of "highest churches per capita >100k population" — state law only requires three founding church members, and all church property is tax-free. To speculate that "it should all be tax free" is absolute insanity, particularly property taxes.

Its not brainwashing. Preachers or leaders dont hold authority there. The stuff that gets said is simply local views that just get perpetuated in communities that have already been brainwashed by the internet.

Here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, freedom of religion is a Constitutionally guaranteed human right. That is to say, the government shall not make special accomodations or exceptions for any religion.

That means churches getting to avoid taxes, unlike other not-non-profit organizations, has always been one of those things that should be resolved but hasn't because the people like breaking that law.

It's the same reasoning why "under God" should be removed from the national oath and Ilhan Omar should not be allowed to wear a hijab in Congress: Special accomodations and exceptions for religion are plainly unconstitutional.

Obligatory IANAL.

> Here in the land of the free and the home of the brave, freedom of religion is a Constitutionally guaranteed human right. That is to say, the government shall not make special accomodations or exceptions for any religion.

> That means churches getting to avoid taxes, unlike other not-non-profit organizations, has always been one of those things that should be resolved but hasn't because the people like breaking that law.

No, that’s not what it means.

I was with you until the hijab bit. Why do you think that wearing a hijab is a special religious accommodation? And why would it not be protected as a freedom of expression regardless?

Because nobody is allowed to wear hats and other head coverings in Congress.

They made a special exception specifically for her on religious grounds, which is a violation of the government's Constitutional requirement to treat all religions equally as a part of guaranteeing freedom of religion.

If Congress had instead changed the rules so everyone can wear hats and head coverings that would have been fine, but that's not what they did.

You seem confused. The exception was not for her. It was generic exception for wearing it for religious reasons, this includes Islamic hijab as well as the Jewish kippah and Sikh dastar (potential others) [1]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Repre...

A lot of bookstores and restaurants do more good than harm, and we tax them.

Bookstores and restaurants are profit-seeking entities. If they were nonprofits then we wouldn't tax them.

>profit-seeking entities

As a child, this was how I always felt when the Catholic Collection Plate would circulate among the congregation.

>[doing good for community]

I also think that all hospitals should pay taxes — until there is some sort of single-payer universal healthcare institution.

> As a child, this was how I always felt when the Catholic Collection Plate would circulate among the congregation.

Profit in this context means filthy lucre that the business owners have every right to spend on strippers and cigarettes and private islands. Churches are more restricted in what they can do with it and moreover tend to lose their patronage if that's what they're spending the money on, as opposed to private businesses whose patrons give money in exchange for books or food and don't really care if the owners are using the profits to play blackjack in Vegas.

> I also think that all hospitals should pay taxes — until there is some sort of single-payer universal healthcare institution.

What does that have to do with anything? Business operating expenses are generally deductible and their "income taxes" are effectively taxes on profit. A non-profit doesn't have any owners to receive profits, so they either operate with with a neutral budget or put any net income into an endowment that allows them to survive if future years are leaner or provide more services or charge lower prices.

Taxing them would only cause them to have lower quality or higher prices or go bankrupt more often.

pity there's no tax exemption for nonprophets

There’s a pretty easy way to verify that churches are doing more good than harm: let them declare their good deeds on a tax form. Then all the landholding mega churches can put their money where their mouth is

I think it has become evident in the past decade that this is the case, especially in large urban environments.

Hey, be glad you don't live in various European countries - you could pay tax to the church instead (yes, you can avoid it in most cases AFAIK) !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_tax

No, for one thing churches exist off of donations even if we wanted to tax them (which we shouldn’t, they aren’t businesses)

They’re definitely businesses sometimes: the Mormon church holds billions in investment properties that they profit off.

An example of countless articles:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/mormon-church-temple-spending-s...

>They’re definitely businesses sometimes: the Mormon church holds billions in investment properties that they profit off.

And they pay taxes on any profits generated by their for profit subsidiaries:

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2022/04/17/lds-wealth-spurs-...

"Churches with unrelated business income pay taxes on that income, Brunson noted, as the LDS Church reportedly does on its for-profit businesses."

An LDS whistleblower disagrees: the LDS church created an elaborate complex of shell companies to disguise for profit investments for roughly two documented decades. The SEC penalized them a tiny fraction of what the whistleblower documented.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/mormon-church...

Which seems weird, if I'm not misunderstanding this.

So if you make profit and donate it to a charity, you can deduct it and they don't pay tax on it either. But if the charity makes a profit, effectively donating the money to itself, it does? What?

Any politician in support of that will see the end of their politic career.

My local US county is about to have a major shit-show when the local property tax assessor gets replaced with somebody half his age [1], and finally appraises his Silent Generation friends' properties at fair market value.

Now if we could just get them all to agree that funding a new minor league baseball stadium is ridiculous! Particularly with all the county funding in addition to tax rebates. <They already have a stadium that is suitable>

[1] Last local election cycle, of our 5 electable candidates THREE were decades younger than incumbent/predecesor.

The legal construct you are attacking here is the very thing preventing a tax on apostasy.

Any church that engages in for-profit activities is already taxed. The only "special" treatment churches get is they're assumed by default to be non-profits while other non-profits have to apply for the status.

Furthering religious beliefs is a bonafide charitable act here in NZ, not just the assumption of non profit status. They don’t to feed the hungry, clothe the poor or do anything beyond converting other people to their religion in order to pay 0 taxes.

That’s where I have an issue with it.

They also don't have file a form 990 or provide any information about their operations, and there is no requirement that they benefit their community or society in any way. Both of those are unique to churches.

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