Originally posted by 667joe
Why should religious organizations be given tax exemptions? They use services. Why should they get them for free? Some religious organizations are extremely wealthy. They should pay their fair share. It could reduce our deficit. Churches and the ministry should not be given a free ride!
The reason is that churches are regarded as charities, and charities get tax breaks in many/most western societies.
The problem being that they are not in fact charities.
I personally think that they should get tax breaks on their charitable activities (which could in certain circumstances
include the upkeep of the church building) and not on anything else.
So if a church raises money for (for example) disaster aid for a famine in Africa, then they should get the tax relief on
that.
They shouldn't get tax relief on money that goes to pay the wages of the priests/vicars/ect who run and administer the
church. Or on things like buying religious equipment like bibles ect.
They should not be thought of as charities in their entirety. Just organisations that do on occasions do some charitable work.
I suspect however that while I agree completely that the churches should not get tax breaks for anything other than their
charity work (and I would put caveats on that as well)... Removing this exemption would do little to ease your countries deficit...
What might make a noticeable difference is stopping outspending the combined military budgets of Russia, China, UK, France,
Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Brazil, Italy, Korea, Australia, and Canada... As well as stop paying subsidies to oil
companies because of their lack of profit and all.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2013/01/defense_spending.gif
http://qz.com/41205/does-chuck-hagels-nomination-mean-obama-is-ready-to-take-on-americas-biggest-threat/