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DStisme: You may believe this is purely semantics, but you use "a religion" and "religion" interchangeably, but they are different. The Founding Fathers were very religious; yes, Christians, but they did not want the Federal Government to favor a particular religion or persecute the free worship within any religion as long as it didn't violate the law. I don't believe the Founding Fathers would favor keeping government and religion totally separate, for they felt gratitude to God for their victory over the British Empire.
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Every US State is subject to the Constitutional Amendments, by default, it's not up to a State whence ratified. Like them or not.
The 1st amendment addresses the rights of free speech, expression, assembly, petition, religion, etc.
It's within this regard that taxation is considered a method of abridging such a right. Imagine being taxed for your "free" speech or petition of grievance, etc.
The first amendment keeps the States grubby little paws off the people's basic rights to think, feel and communicate/express themselves. Taxation being a burden would indeed effect the fundamental right.
There's no part of the first amendment that addresses favoritism as one might imagine, if most everyone was XYZ then being XYZ is their right. The amendment is about protecting a single classification of fundamental rights, nothing more. Simple.
Not being a religious person, I can still very much appreciate the safeguards and would be horrified to see these fundamental constructs compromised by State interference, it would be the undoing of everything, a double edge sword that would eventually nick everyone.
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quote:
Originally posted by jrw
In most cities the church and non profit own multi property and it is all tax free. I cant understand why. I think after one property ever thing else should be tax at full value.
I don't have a problem with nonprofit entities being tax-exempt (or at least having reduced taxes), or with churches being operated as nonprofits. The problem arises because churches are treated as tax-exempt simply by claiming to be a church. Any other nonprofit has to verify their status. Not only do churches not do that, some like the LDS church openly run for-profit entities that they claim as tax-exempt.
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quote:
Originally posted by Midnight Rambler
quote:
Originally posted by jrw
In most cities the church and non profit own multi property and it is all tax free. I cant understand why. I think after one property ever thing else should be tax at full value.
I don't have a problem with nonprofit entities being tax-exempt (or at least having reduced taxes), or with churches being operated as nonprofits. The problem arises because churches are treated as tax-exempt simply by claiming to be a church. Any other nonprofit has to verify their status. Not only do churches not do that, some like the LDS church openly run for-profit entities that they claim as tax-exempt.
Agreed, that isn't interfering with religious freedom. That's taxing commerce, as it should be.
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Most (if not all) religions are for-profit, it is their reason for being. Exhibit one: The Vatican.
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no offense to any mormons reading this board, but I hope they do tax them. The Mormons are the whitest whitey haole white whites ever, annnnd their whole thing....has so little to do with Hawai'i. Their very rules orientated, uptight, very white people culture does not connect at all with the island.
Aloha 
Aloha
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quote:
Originally posted by glassnumbers
no offense to any mormons reading this board, but I hope they do tax them. The Mormons are the whitest whitey haole white whites ever, annnnd their whole thing....has so little to do with Hawai'i. Their very rules orientated, uptight, very white people culture does not connect at all with the island.
Aloha
I am not a Mormon, but you may want to re-thing your post after you discover how much charitable work the Mormons quietly do in Hawaii, without asking for any recognition.
Glad to see them so rules oriented though. When is the last time you heard of a Mormon kid stealing, doing drugs, etc?
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The idea of not taxing churches dates back prior to the formation of this country. As George H.W. Bush called them, "The thousand points of light" made sure that the poor were fed and cared for. People lined up at the soup kitchens and in exchange for listening to the church's scripture, they got a free meal. It wasn't just churches that were exempt, it was hospitals, fire departments, and others who's expenditures performing vital services serving the community cost more than donations (or profits) earmarked for such services, exempting them from taxes made sense.
Fast forward to the future (enter the Nanny State): The government doesn't want it's population to see 43 million people lined up to get food, so they provide an invisible way to receive food so that nobody knows how bad things really are. Now the "thousand points of light" is also invisible and sometimes irrelevant. Maybe the tax-exempt status needs to follow suit where appropriate.
There are 323 million people in this country, and 43 million of them are on food stamps. Can you imagine 43 million people lining up at soup kitchens 2 or 3 times per day to get a meal? How long would those lines stretch? The food stamp program works because the money to finance it is borrowed into existence from other countries. Eventually China and others will lose faith in the dollar and decide to start feeding it's own people instead, and then those 1000 points of light will have lines and relevancy again. When that happens, restore their tax-exempt status.
If you want to give $10 worth of food to feed the hungry, give your money or food to organizations to feed the hungry. The government doesn't accept food to feed the hungry. Only taxes. If you "give" $10 in taxes to feed the hungry, $10 will disappear into the bureaucracy, $50 will be borrowed from China to fund an ethanol subsidy, another $25 (funded from your social security payroll tax) will disappear into studying why dairy cows are polluting the environment, and the hungry will get a program that encourages them to load their carts full of mac and cheese, diet coke, and other foods with negative nutritional value.
An interesting read: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/tehistory.pdf
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When is the last time you heard of a Mormon kid stealing, doing drugs, etc?
I wasn't sure if this was sarcastic or not, but there is a prescription drug epidemic in the mormon community. There are several documentaries about it. Just because someone is religious doesn't mean they won't break laws.
Anyway, the Mormon church is a financial power house with billions. Do you think it is fair to have tax free financial investment services? Tax free real estate developments? Tax free amusement parks? It's not limited to the Mormons, but they are definitely among the biggest groups enjoying their tax free status. The origin of the law was meant for small, religion focused churches, not world wide investment empires. Those are recent inventions.
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I lived in Salt lake City for 31 years.
There was a Valium epidemic.It was laughingly referred to as "Sandy Candy".
Sandy is a suburb where most of the growth was at one time.
Utah has long been a hub for meth.At one time there were hundreds of meth labs.Most of the users were young white women trying to deal with raising a family and working.
The Mexican cartels have taken over and now Utah is a distribution center.
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