End the religious tax exemptions
Dear Editor,
Like many of our fantastic readership, I saw what I believe to be a horrifying video of prosperity gospel evangelical preacher Kenneth Copeland bragging about how many aircraft he owns, (thanks to the large and tax-free generosity of his flock), and he had the audacity to claim he needs his business class gulf stream jets to fly around the world to preach. This video is available on YouTube for your viewing pleasures.
According to an article in theGuardian.com, religious institutions in the United States generate a whopping $1.2 trillion annually! Tax free! To elucidate on this point, the annual U.S. military budget, as bloated as it is, accounts for $686.1 billion annually. NASA, the celebrated space and exploration agency that it is, has a paltry budget of $21.5 billion.
There is a sad and a very hard-to-ignore trend going on in religion in America today, ministers who are called according to their scriptures to be servants of God and the flock of the church are becoming laughably wealthy, and what is the product they sell or service they provide? Nothing, in fact it’s my personal belief based on my experiences, most of that wealth is generated by donations of well-meaning congregants.
The United States is facing some crossroads with regard to the budgets and how we collect and allocate money, with Social Security in jeopardy, Medicare and Medicaid and the ever-growing needs of the least among us, a concerned and informed American citizen must ask, how long are we going to allow religious institutions to continue the tax-exempt welfare they are on? How long will the Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, Peter Popoffs of the USA skate through and not have to pay for the services we all pay for that the government provides, and for what? Planes? Multi-location campuses? Hush money for the next scandal?
We owe it to ourselves, with the problems we face, to not only end handouts and tax breaks for corporations, but for the religious corporations, too. End the tax exemptions!
Tony Frantz
Parryville
Comments
The present American educational system (NEA) has left a generation of Americans largely ignorant of the moral, economic, political, and spiritual principles on which the greatness of our nation is founded. It has brainwashed a generation of Americans into accepting the illegal conversion of our Constitutional Republic into a tyrannical, inefficient socialist-welfare state. And they did it under a tax exempt status, and you idiots come against God's Church? You folks have collectively lost your minds, and all under the direction of tax exempt organizations like PSEA, NEA, and PSU Alumni, and you come against God?
Man you are a forward thinker Joe. Like this has never been considered? Go for it, it doesn't matter, but think about what I wrote.
It's not right, but the writer wants to focus on the church? Why? Why the church Tony?
Not sure what tax favor Tony is talking about, but I would be fine with my church giving up it's 501C status. That way the Righteous could interject truth in to the election. Still, I find it funny that folks like unions, alumni associations, social clubs (bars), Frats, and many others receive the same status, and the atheists only focus on God's Church... Why?
Perhaps it's the freedom of property tax the writer is against? I say go ahead and take that away too. Exempting churches from taxation upholds the separation of church and state embodied by the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution. The exemption actually restricts any fiscal relationship between church and state, and tends to complement and reinforce the desired separation insulating each from the other. That's the battle cry of the Atheist, so go for that too! Ha Ha Ha, be careful what you wish for.
Finally, the only constitutionally valid way of taxing churches (fairness), would be to tax all nonprofits, that would hurt some 960,000 public charities that aid and enrich US society.
Of all those charity organizations affected, not one atheist group would be affected, because there are none.
Oh, Tony, check those figures, they seem skewed... not that it matters.